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Futuristic The World After

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hostage

tree hugger
0088795E-9680-4B2E-868A-5600BB851989.jpeg

✧・゚: *✧・゚:*    *:・゚✧*:・゚✧​

A wrinkle in space was all it took for the carrier to escape. He dropped his load, three giant coffins, into the world, willing them to land together. He looked on as the coffins fell, then backed away. “I told you not to do this,” he said to himself. Then, a black fist grabbed him by the throat, dragging him into the abyss, back to where the Creator stood. Judgement was near, and the carrier would soon meet his end. But the three coffins went unnoticed, three specks of black as they hurtled towards Earth.​

Petr
He was falling. Down, down, down into the abyss of night. He felt a strange calmness, a feeling that was strange to someone who was moments away from dying. Suddenly, the ground rose up, jagged rocks glaring at the boy. He had just enough time to let out a yelp before smashing into one. He heard a snap as his collarbone broke. The injury wasn’t life threatening, but what came next was. As he rolled off of the first rock, gravity finished its job. The boy knew that this was the end. Another boulder came out of nowhere, and his head hit it straight on. And he was dead. Gone.

Petr woke up with a start. He jolted up, only to bang his shoulder and feel a streak of pain fly up his arm. Sweat dripped down his back, and his head whipped around, trying to gain his bearings. Suddenly, like a switch going off, his vision cleared. He took a long look around him.

He was in a room. A bare, unfurnished room. And, looking down, he seemed to be in some sort of container. Strips of wire were stuck to his arms and legs, but he had clothing on. Petr blinked and tried to stand up. His legs wobbled like a newborn fawn’s, and he collapsed.

Petr managed to drag himself out of where he lay, then sat on the floor of the room, which seemed to be covered in a thick layer of dust. He got his legs underneath him, and stood up. That was when he realized that he had not been in just any container. He had been in a coffin. Petr let out a yelp of surprise, and stumbled back, only to find that his foot landed on empty air. He went tumbling down a set of stairs, then thudding to the ground.

Petr lay there for what seemed like hours, his already weak body screaming out in pain. Finally, he rolled over and got on all fours. He coughed, the dryness of his throat now coming to his attention. His elbows were slick with blood, and there were various cuts and bruises that he could now see along his body, though the boy did not know whether they were from his fall or... before that.

He came to the realization that he was in a house. He stood, leaning against the wall for support, then took a few steps forward. The residence that he was in seemed to have been abandoned. Dust covered the floors, and the plastered walls were chipping away. By some miracle, Petr entered another space, which turned out to be a kitchen. His throat was already screaming, and he limped to the sink. Muttering a quick plea, he turned the wheel, and waited for water to come.

There was quite a but of shaking and groaning before water finally arrived. It poured out of the faucet, splashing into Petr’s face. He cared naught that it was a dirty brown, and quickly downed as much as he could. He filled his stomach, pressing a hand against his and licking his lips. Feeling a bit stronger, Petr made his way to what looked like the front door. With a bit of straining, he pushed it open. A muted light hit his face, and he blinked. Suddenly, he bent over and threw up. The water in his stomach splattered across the pavement, and he stumbled back inside, cursing in Czech. That was when he realized. The world was silent. No familiar shouting of children, nor the purr of car engines. Quiet. That gave him time to think. Was he in hell?




✧・゚: *✧・゚:*    *:・゚✧*:・゚✧​

 
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PHOEBE
A scream, raw and filled with pure fear, tore past her lips as the bullet collided with her skin. Tearing through her stomach lining, and ripping an exit hole in her lower back. Phoebe stumbled back, against a wall, as tears pricked her eyes. More screams fill the massive building, but everything starts to go fuzzy real quick. Soon enough, she starts to choke on the blood that's risen up to her throat and it's not long before the world goes black.

Phoebe's eyes flutter in the dark as she slowly wakes, then they snap open and her head shoots up, only for it to smack hard against the ceiling and drop back down with a thud. Or at least she thought it might have been the ceiling until she noticed that it was less than a foot above her face. She shoves at it with her hands and it lifts with a creek that sends a chill down her spine. 'What in the heck?' When she lifts herself from the box, she instantly collapses back down as her head goes cloudy and a ringing sounds in her ears. Once she recovers enough, she stands back up, slower this time, and takes a step out of the strangely ornate box and looks around. 'An... attic?' She guesses as she examines the dust-covered room filled with boxes and cobwebs. Then her eyes flit down to the box she stepped out of and she sucks in a sharp breath. It's a coffin. In a panic, she reaches out and slams the lid shut for good measure, though she knows that probably won't do anything at all. Still, the sight of the coffin had her freaked out, for a moment she had convinced herself it had been a dream. The gunshot, the screaming, the blood. But as she hesitantly lifts the bottom of her shirt she sees the bullet-shaped wound on her stomach and instantly feels faint once more and the ringing in her ears returns. Unsure of exactly what to do, she makes her way slowly down the stairs and towards a window on the floor of the house she found herself in. Nothing. It looks dull, really. Somehow, she knew that she wasn't in heaven, and she was sure that she was dead. But this place didn't look like the fire and brimstone afterlife she would imagine as hell. 'Where in the heck am I?'
 
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Max
A barrel of a gun. Yelling, distorted by the static of a speaker. She herself was talking, overconfident and prodding. A bang, low-quality and tinny. Then, another bang, but this one far louder and far closer, and her head snapped back—

Max woke up with a killer headache. She felt like there was an irony somewhere in that. She sat up, slowly, pushing her glasses up her nose. What—where—she wasn’t—

She felt as if she had somewhere to be. A sense of urgency flooded her, but it escaped through her limbs as quickly as it came. She tried to roll, but found her movement blocked. Her hands reached up and she traced the borders of the holding cell. Well, at least she wasn’t trapped. She sat up, only for the headache to resurge doubly and she winced, squeezing her eyes shut for several seconds, until the hammering pain dulled. She stood up, wobbly, and stepped out, before turning around to see where she’d laid. A coffin.

Okay, weird. How’d she get in there?

A wetness trickled down between her eyes, and she touched it. Her hands came away maroon, and she touched them to her tongue. Blood. Weirder.

She glanced around. An attic. An old one, judging by the dust. Also weird, but the least weird thing out of the three things that were currently in her weird category. It seemed familiar, too, but she brushed that off. The ceiling was only a few inches above her head.

Her hand went to her hip, fingers curling around—something—that wasn’t there. Huh. Max scanned the room, looking for an exit. (An exit was nice to have, but also not required.)

Fortunately, there was a square gap in the floorboards that looked as if there were stairs. Nice.

Max kept her right hand on the banister as she trotted downstairs, finding herself in a living room. Everything was deathly silent, save herself. Weird thing #4.

Considering the following evidence: last memory, the lack of memory, waking up in a coffin, blood between her eyes, absolute silence, she could confidently say she was dead (probably by being shot in the skull) and currently in some afterlife. She wasn’t that religious (or at least she didn’t think she was), but nothing was that painful but it also wasn’t exactly puppies and rainbows. It seemed pretty...neutral, actually. But there wasn’t enough proof for what kind of afterlife this was. Maybe she could ask around?

Tapping a pattern on her leg, she turned on her heel to face the door and walked to the outside.
 
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N O V A

A moment of lurching forward before gravity fully kicked in and sped her downwards as the only thing she could take in besides the wind whipping back her hair was the approaching blue of the sea below her. She flailed her limbs, without doing much to change her orientation, and fell onwards at an awkward angle that was still somewhat head-first. When she hit the surface after the longest seconds in her life, the instant of the impact didn't hurt, but then she was sinking, and with the air knocked from her lungs, panic kicked in as she realized she couldn't move. The pain then set on, but didn't reach farther than her shoulders, and still moving downwards from her momentum, she realized that this was it - nobody would pull her out of the water in time. Already, the blue-green murkiness faded to black, and-

Nova's eyes snapped open to darkness as she drew in a sharp breath, then reflexively started coughing as she expected more water to fill her lungs. When she didn't choke on whatever she had inhaled, she calmed enough to try and think her situation, through.

By all means, she must certainly be dead. No, it would be more correct to say she must certainly have died, because no matter what sort of afterlife you believed in, none was ever plain darkness and the throbbing ache in all of her bones she felt - to her knowledge, anyway. An idea came to her mind and she tentatively wiggled her toes and fingers, and to her surprise and relief, found them working. Her attempt to move around more was met with walls on either side of her, and for a moment her panic returned until she noticed the side above her gave way. Pushing it up farther, she sat up in a plain attic room whose furniture was covered in layers and layers of dust.

Her sudden movement left Nova dizzy and sick to her stomach, and only when the wave of nausea passed enough, she noticed her container had been a coffin. Oh shii- No wait, what the heck? she wondered briefly before her brain cobbled up some sort of explanation for her bizarre situation. Alright, so... I only looked dead, and some funeral company thinks it's funny to, I don't know, sell some of their dead bodies to weird people, and that's why I ended up in an abandoned house like this? Well, I'm not having that, guys; I'm out of this.

Trying to ignore the urge to double over and throw up whatever may have been left in her stomach, she slowly made her way downstairs and outside on unsteady legs, leaning on walls for support wherever possible. Finding the lower floor just as deserted as the upper one came as a slight relief, and then she was outside, shivering as the cool air met her still damp clothes and hair. I just need to find some people, and then I can get back to... wherever it is I come from, she filled in. Surely the blanks in her memory were just a reasonable result of hitting her head hard, right?
 
Petr
After Petr had emptied his stomach outside, he strode back to the kitchen. This time, he waited until the water was clear, then drank. After filling up what he had lost, he pressed his palms against the cool countertop, looking into the distance.

He was certain of one thing. Petr was dead. The memory, or vision, that he had had before he woke had to have been real. He knew how he had died. Falling off of a cliff. So that left the question, where was he?

Hell was as good of an answer as any. Though it wasn’t as...fiery as he would have imagined. It was more desolate and uninhabited. Going off of what he had seen earlier, it had a somewhat muted and purgatorial look. If this was hell, then heaven couldn’t be as amazing as he had also imagined.

Petr realized that he would probably be here for a long time. If he were to spend his nights thinking and pondering as he was, he would soon die of starvation (though could he even die again?).

He once again stepped outside, hopping over the mess he had made before the front door, then started down the sidewalk. It was bright enough for him to see, so he walked down the street to what he believed was the center of town. As he turned a corner, Petr stopped. Jackpot.
 
PHOEBE
Fighting off another wave of nausea, the blonde girl backed away from the window and gave the room she was in a once-over. It looked lived in, and something in the back of her mind recognized it, but somehow she couldn't put a finger on why she would. It's possible she could have lived here, but then again, with her vacant memory, its possible she could have lived at the bottom of the ocean. Looking down at herself, she takes note of the small cuts on her wrists that look like needle holes to go with her unhealed bullet wound in her stomach. 'Maybe I was a heroin addict?' she thinks as she examines the marks further, 'Or maybe a blood doner... That sounds better...' She drops her wrists, frustrated by her lack of memory to fill in the gaps as to how she got to this whacked out place, then continues searching the room until her eyes land on a door. She hurries toward it, at least as quickly as her fatigued body can carry her, and turns the nob that feels like ice under her hand. The street outside is cracked and old with faded yellow stripes down the center. Phoebe takes a few steps forwards, down the front porch steps, and out onto the dried up lawn, then turns to see the house she had been inside. It's small, maybe the size of a nice shed, with a peaked roof covering the attic she had waken up in. Once again she feels that familiar tugging in her mind like she's forgetting something, and probably a lot of somethings. Her eyebrows tug together in a mix of annoyance and confusion, but she turns away from the house and heads down a street, not sure exactly where she's going, but feeling the need to look around. Maybe she could find someone that can explain this whole messed up situation, though that seems unlikely seeing how there is no one in sight. No kids playing in their yards or even people driving their cars. None of the houses have lights on either. As she made her way down the uneven road she found the silence somehow unnerving and started tugging at the collar of her shirt, uncomfortable. Then, amidst her fidgeting, she goes around a bend and finds herself standing opposite of another human. A younger guy, who had just rounded a corner to stand in front of what looks like a more central part of this strange town. When he stops, she does as well, but quickly ducks back around the corner, suddenly worried. Worried that this guy won't be helpful, but could possibly be the reason she is here. What if he somehow had something to do with her ending up in a coffin in this freaky town? But then again, he could be just like her. He could have showed up here in some strange place with just as much memory as her. With that thought in mind, she peaks back around the corner hesitantly and steps out just enough to fully see him.
 
N O V A

Nova made it around two blocks before she had to admit to herself she wasn't exactly in a state to engage in ongoing physical activity. Her entire body still ached, and the more she moved, the worse the dizziness accompanying her since she had woken up became. Grudgingly, she eased herself down to sit on the pavement and leaned against the garden fence of the premise she had been passing.

While resting, there were several things she noticed.

One, there were some sort of wires attached to her arms and legs, though she couldn't think of any reasonable purpose for them. Absentmindedly, Nova plucked at the adhesive patches connecting the thin cables to her skin. Had someone been monitoring vital signs? But then, why hadn't she woken up in a hospital? It was no use trying to figure it out, though.

Two, the silence. The area seemed to be suburban, and so it wouldn't be surprising for it to be quiet, but Nova had been outside for several minutes now and had neither seen or heard any cars or children or dogs. It was almost eerie, but part of her still believed in the conclusion of a not quite morally sound burial service company and was thankful for not encountering anyone of their kind at least.

Staring down the street, the faintest hint of a memory, no more than a sense of déjà vu, ticked her mind. I know that view, Nova realized with a feeling of frustration that brought her back to her feet despite her exhaustion. "This-" a fit of coughing interrupted her, "this is silly! None of this makes sense!" she croaked, half to herself and half to the void around her.

A glass of water would be nice right about now, too. Trying to use her voice had made her aware of how dry and rough her throat felt. But this is stupid, too! I drowned, didn't I, and now I want more water.

Still, Nova didn't want retrace her steps back to the house. Obviously, no one was there, and her best chance of finding some other human being was still towards the city center. At this point, she didn't even particularly care whether they'd be friendly or hostile. Whether she was truly dead or not, she apparently had gone through dying already, so what was the worst that could happen? An idea struck her, and she tried to fight down another cough as she drew in a deep breath.

"Hellooo?" she called as loud as her rusty vocal cords would let her, taking a few more steps in her original direction. "Someone there? Anyone?
 
Max
Max plucked out the wires attatched to her wrists and legs as she walked down the empty street. She attributed her previous unawareness of them to her initial disorientation. The wires only increased the unsettling feeling.

She whistled off-key as she explored the sepia-tinted street, keeping her movements slow to keep the headache down. She was hyperaware of her dry throat and empty stomach, but doubted that there was any clean food or water in any of the homes. If her afterlife theory was correct, why was she hungry or thirsty at all?

“Hello? Someone there? Anyone?”

But before she could expand on the question, the silence was cut through, and Max stiffened, “Ye—“ Her voice cracked, and she broke off into a cough. “Yes!” she tried again. “Yes, I’m here, too!” She started to run toward the source, only for the world to lurch underneath her feet. She leaned heavily against an old porch railing, taking in ragged breaths. She stared at the ground, waiting for the dizziness to subside, spots dancing in front of her eyes. Not well enough to run yet, then.
 
Petr
His face broke out into a grin. A supermarket stood, barely a block away. If the food was edible, there would be almost a lifetime supply, considering he had no idea how long he would be here. He pushed those thoughts away, and broke into a slightly speedier walk, almost half jogging. His stomach, which he had now realized was quite empty, spurred him on.


When Petr arrived at the doors, he realized that there was one big problem. They were not open. Which meant...

The doors shattered upon impact. The brick he had thrown tumbled into the pile of shards, and Petr gingerly stepped in. His shoes crunched on the “glass”. With a bit of regret, he went through and began his job.

Aisle six was the beginning of the rows of food. He went through, methodically grabbing bags of pretzels and chips, as most people would. By the time Petr arrived at the canned foods section, he realized he had yet another problem. There was simply no space. He dropped the collected food, letting the bags tumble to the ground in favor of the more sustainable cans. After again realizing that there wasn’t much that he was able to carry, he stepped back.

It took a while longer to find a shopping cart, but he managed. He filled it with cans of beans, carrots, corn, soup, and fruit. Then, he collected the bags of chips that he had gotten first. Unfortunately, when Petr ripped one open, he realized that they were no good. The chips had somehow crumbled to dust.
 
PHOEBE
Phoebe watched curiously as the boy across the way moved towards a building just out of her line of sight, and once she could no longer see him, she took a step forward, but jumped in shock when she heard yelling from some distance away.
'Hello? Someone there? Anyone?' she heard first, then anouther voice only a moment later responded in a scratchy voice, 'Yes, I'm here too.' That's two others nearby. And the boy who had disappeared into that building. For a moment, Phoebe considered yelling too, but pursed her lip and continued forward towards the building that guy had entered instead. Shouting sounded like the last thing she wanted to do, with a throat as sore and dry as hers felt right now. She found herself regretting not looking around for something to drink back at that house and her stomach growled, which seemed a little strange considering she was sure that she was dead right now. Still, had followed the guy to what looked like some kind of supermarket and walked inside. The sight made her forget for a moment that she had been following someone mere seconds earlier. Food. Aisles and aisles of food.
"Hallelujah," slipped from her dry, cracked lips as she started towards a box of cereal on a shelf a few feet away. But when she tore it open, she found nothing but crumbs and colored powder. She dropped the box on the ground, a sense of dread washing over her, and tore open another, and another. They were all the same. She slammed her hand down on the shelf in frustration and a loud 'bang' echoed through the store. That's when she rounded another aisle and saw him again. The boy she had followed in here. She took a hesitant step towards him and raised her hand as if to wave.
"Um," she tried to clear her throat a little, "Hello?" she managed, then she saw the shopping cart full of food, "Any idea why all the food in this store is junk?"
 
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Petr
He jumped when he heard the voice, his instincts kicking in. Petr’s legs moved of their own accord, and he turned to run, only to find himself in front of the shopping cart. Now, a regular shopping cart would not have made much of a difference, but this shopping cart was loaded with cans. It made quite the difference.


Petr crashed to the ground, holding his arm and cursing loudly. “Ty vogo! Co to k sakru?” He scrambled to his feet, panting heavily before his mind registered what was happening. A girl stood before him. He gave no thought to her before shoving a finger in her direction. “Kdo jsi??
 
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PHOEBE
The blonde girl's eyes widened in shock as the man turned to run, but instead crashed into the cart of canned food. She took a step forward, hoping to help, as he stood up, clearly out of breath, and shouting in some language she couldn't even place. When he seemed to collect himself a bit, he raised a finger to point at her and shouted something else in the same language.
"Um, sorry. I only speak English, " Phoebe said nervously, for all she knew he could be threatening her or telling her to scream. Still, he was the first human he had seen in this empty old town. "Do you speak English by any chance?" she asked hopefully, taking a few small steps backwards just in case she was right about him threatening her or something.
 

N O V A

If she had been feeling better, Nova would have jumped in excitement at hearing another voice answer her so soon. Spurring herself on to walk faster - she didn't think she could handle running -, she reached the next junction and indeed, there was the person who had replied to her call, leaning on a porch railing for support. Nova raised her hand in greeting.

"Hello!" she repeated. "God, I'm so glad this place isn't completely deserted." She stopped to catch her breath for a moment. Speaking was still unpleasant, but knowing she wasn't the only person around for miles or more offset that to a fair degree. And while the woman in front of her didn't exactly look like she knew her way around here either, seeming as worn out as Nova herself, Nova had to at least try and ask. "You wouldn't happen to know why this place is so empty or where-"

She broke off when the sound of breaking glass, apparently only some distance away, rang out. "Whoa. Do you think we should go see what that was?" Nova changed her line of inquiry.
---
I N T E R A C T I O N S:
crescendi crescendi
 
Max
Max straightened up, releasing the railing. She focused on the woman. She was younger than herself, she guessed. Some knot that had wound itself up in Max’s chest started to fall apart at the sight at another. Hey, two heads were better than one—in most cases, at least. “I don’t know, but I do have some fraction of an idea,” she started to reply to the other’s inquiry, but she was cut off by the sound of shattering glass ringing out in the quiet town. Max’s interest was visibly caught; her eyes lit up and her body language shifted to one expected of a woman with a very different, much more positive, outlook.

“We should definitely check that out,” Max agreed, excitedness aparent, and had already taken a few steps towards the direction the noise had came from.

Felis Felis
 
N O V A

"Great, let's go," Nova confirmed with a nod and a smile that was both content and determined. The best way to deal with anything coming up was to just take a look what it was and then do whatever was in the range of possibility at that moment, after all. To find that her new acquaintance had a similar mindset was a pleasant surprise. That reminded her...

"I'm Nova, by the way," she introduced herself as she caught up with the other woman, then fell in beside her, gritting her teeth against the dizziness that had resurged when she had started moving again. "Nice to meet you - I mean it. This place makes you feel like the last human on earth."

The noise hadn't been from too far off, and surely enough, at the next junction, Nova spotted a supermarket a few houses to the right and across the street. One of the glass sliding doors was definitely smashed in, even though there was no visible trace of the one who had done so. "Probably inside," Nova guessed aloud to the mystery person's whereabouts, slowing down.
"I'd be up to go in, how about you?"
---
I N T E R A C T I O N S:
crescendi crescendi
 
Petr
Petr glared at the girl before him, his palms shaking slightly from shock and adrenaline. The situation was quite out of hand for him.


He realized that the girl had spoken English. The stream of Czech that had flowed from his mouth tapered off, and he lowered his hand. Furrowing his brow, he let his words stumble out again, this time in English.

“Who are you?” he asked. As he spoke, he studied the person. She looked just as confused as he was, and through that he inferred that they were in a similar situation. Though, Petr still kept his guard up, his other hand resting on the shopping cart of food protectively.

NivieApple NivieApple
 
PHOEBE
Pheobe breathed a sigh of relief when the man in front of her finally spoke, and in a language, she could understand too.
"Oh thank gosh," she mumbled to herself before responding. "My name is Phoebe," she continued, then eyed his protective stance and took another step away as if to say 'hey dude, I'm seriously not a threat,' and continued nervously, "And, I, well, I don't really know much else. You wanna tell me who you are?" She tried to sound confident but this dude was starting to seriously freak her out. "Or, you know, you could not tell me, whichever works best for you." she finished with some nervous laughter. Wow, she had to look like a total idiot, but all she could think was that she was in a strange place, with an equally strange guy, who seemed semi-hostile at the moment.


NivieApple NivieApple
 
Petr
He listened to her words, trying to gauge out her character as she spoke. The girl, no, Phoebe, did not sound like much of a threat. But Petr knew better. He could not trust many, especially not right away.

Fee-bee,” he said, sounding out the name slowly to lock it in his memory. “I am Petr. Are you... the same as me?” Petr drew a finger across his throat, indicating that he was asking if she was dead.

“How did you find me? Are more with you?” he also asked , letting himself relax as she responded.

NivieApple NivieApple
 
PHOEBE
The blonde girl looked at the guy in front of her curiously as he sounded out her name, noticing right away that he hadn't given her his own but not minding terribly, and then her face fell a little as he asked the same question she had been wondering about him. Though she hadn't had the guts to ask. She nodded slowly before responding.
"Yea, I think so," she mumbled just loud enough for him to hear. The thought of being dead wasn't a pleasant one exactly, but it was at least a little comforting to know that he was in the same boat as she was. His next question was a little bit easier. "I saw you, outside, and ,seeing as you were the first person I'd seen since waking up in a..." she paused a little, "a coffin, I decided to follow you inside. And no, I'm not with anyone, but just before I followed you in I heard people, two of them, somewhere nearby." She was a little less scared of the man now that he didn't look like he was getting ready to pounce and gut her, but the whole situation had left her a little uneasy and she fought to keep herself from stuttering.



NivieApple NivieApple
 
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Max
Max fell into step next to her. Humans were social creatures, although Max didn’t see the point in that. Why would evolution want them to be dependent on each other? Seemed kind of counterproductive re: survival of the fitness. Still, she was comforted by the presence of another.

“I’m Max.” Wow, did she not introduce herself? She felt as if someone would chide her for that, although she could not put a face or a name to them. “Yeah, it’s—really, really makes you feel the aloneness.”

Max did not stop or even slow down when she saw the supermarket. Instead, she stepped over the broken glass and headed right instead.

Felis Felis
 
Petr
“More people?” he asked, tipping his head. “Are they good?” he asked Phoebe. His senses were warning him to be wary, and he shifted his weight.

The sound of crinkling glass drew his attention to the front of the store. He narrowed his eyes, his mind racing. It was time to make the decision. Was Phoebe good or bad?

Petr leapt forward, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her into an aisle. At the same time, he held a finger to his lips, making a small shushing sound. “Jsou tady, they are here,” he whispered. “Quiet.” He crouched down, peeking around the corner.


NivieApple NivieApple
 
N O V A

Nova picked up her pace again and followed Max across the street to the entrance. She half raised an eyebrow when her newfound companion headed into the unlit store without the slightest pause, a bit surprised at how little Max needed to pay attention to the broken glass to not cut herself. Well, someone seems like she's done this before, Nova mused as she stepped through the smashed door more awkwardly.

She managed to avoid grazing herself on any of the sharp edges, but tread on some of the shards on the floor inside the building, which crunched and splintered under her shoe. She froze for a moment at the sound, then shook her head, puffing softly in frustration. "Well, I guess it's for the best not to actually stumble across someone in the darkness," Nova murmured apologetically. While Max's reply to her call made it seem like she wouldn't mind announcing her presence in general, they hadn't exactly made an agreement whether to take a stealthy or an open approach before, either.

In any case, she had already accidentally announced themselves, Nova decided she might as well do her thing again. "Hello! Someone there?" she called out tentatively, lower than last time, but loud enough for anyone who had heard the glass crack to hear this as well. While her throat still hurt, at least her voice seemed to come out in a more controlled manner by now; that was some progress, Nova found.
---
I N T E R A C T I O N S:
everyone, technically - crescendi crescendi , hostage hostage , NivieApple NivieApple
 
PHOEBE
Phoebe's eyes went impossibly wide as her wrist was snatched away by the guy she was with and he tugged her into another aisle. She barely opened her mouth to protest, but a single finger against her lips was enough to silence her, and add some color to her face, as he explained. The people she had heard. He must have heard them enter the store. She nodded in understanding at his telling her to stay quiet, but her eyes widened again as a voice rang out in the store. "Hello! Someone there?" The voice said. They didn't sound all that intimidating, but in the moment she decided to trust this stranger's judgement and stay silent. Still she sent him a curious look with her eyes, hoping he had some kind of plan.


NivieApple NivieApple
 
Petr
He flinched as a voice rang out, then stiffened again. His breaths panted out, as his weakened state couldn’t handle the excitement of the day. Petr looked around, his eyes darting from place to place as he made up a plan.


The pair was only about a hundred paces from the door he had shattered. The people who had entered, friendly or not, would have to be lured away. He quickly hefted a can of soup, rolling it in his palm. He turned around to face Phoebe, then explained his plan.

Phoebe, I will lure them back. When I tell you, run to entrance. I will follow,” he said in her ear.

Petr stood up, stepping out of the aisle. He cocked his arm, and chucked the can as far as he could. When he heard it clatter down a couple of aisles away, he ducked back down. He waited till he heard movement to tell Phoebe to go.

NivieApple NivieApple

 
Max
Max had stayed quiet when Nova called out. She felt as if it would be better for someone else to do the talking. As Nova's voice echoed, she watched the darkness carefully, waiting for movement. (Although, she could not definitively say if the shapes she saw briefly were figments of her still-hazy mind or not. Max told herself she shouldn't worry herself or Nova needlessly.)

A clatter broke through the quiet, and Max's head snapped toward where she thought it came from. Was it a person? Or something else? Max's muscles tensed involuntary, and she shifted her weight to the balls of her feet. "Sounded metallic," she told Nova in a harsh whisper. Was she stating the obvious? Maybe. But she didn't think they could be too careful in this place.

Felis Felis hostage hostage
 

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