======The Dead and The Dying====== [CW: manifestations of extreme anxiety, descriptions of insects] \\ \\ How is it possible for someone to love an infected? Surely, they have to know, know that the thing before them is no longer the person they knew. The line between life and death, humanity and the other, is clear cut. Undeniable. Definite. That is the wall you build up in your mind as you braid wires into a wreath to place overtop the fresh, singular grave. “Eddy Currents – May She Now Rest” is what you might’ve carved on his headstone, but with neither strength nor skills to achieve it you hope the simple rock circle and wreath will suffice; you couldn’t let him be buried in the mass grave, faceless for eternity. \\ \\ The stones keep shifting positions, unsatisfied with themselves, every configuration is **wrong **. Your fingertips begin turning red and raw from the rough rock. What if they are right? Maybe individuals can live on in what we see as only husks -- //the rock in your hand falls as memories of the creature, of the woman, in the pit claw their way into your focus//. Devo has no doubt about it -- //running your fingers through your hair as you try to soothe yourself, it stings, and clumps of long black strands coat your hands like a spider’s nest// -- and if that’s true -- //the stones you place circle you menacingly, becoming distorted, growing in height until they blot out the sun, leaving a pinprick of light// -- how many people could have been saved? -- //the stone cracks and reveals the faces of the dead: Lottie, Eddy, the people from the caravan, every infected massacred in piles around the bastion//; how could you fail to see their soul, how could you deny them their existence. The tide does not see lines drawn in the sand. You have to fix this, you have to mend this broken world. \\ \\ You need to find that cure. \\ \\ At the Bastion you manically ask around about anyone leaving for the city whilst throwing together supplies, you pick up a gun then put it back down, then pick it up again, hands trembling. You manage to glean that the Relic Seeker and Naomi already left for Din Talin hours ago. \\ Undeterred by logic, you begin sprinting from the Bastion, in the direction of the city, maybe you can make it, if you just run fast enough and… \\ \\ You feel something grab you arm. \\ Like a wild hare you writhe and struggle to escape, until a voice cuts through the haze of fear. \\ \\ “Nio? What are you doing?” \\ \\ The puzzled face of Coerna stares at you. \\ Sitting down, you try to explain as best you can, but it all feels like sand cascading out your mouth. It’s unclear how much of it they really understand, but their act is convincing, they hold your hand, nodding as you speak, breathing deliberately, hoping the adrenaline dissipates. \\ ---- At Coerna’s request and with no desire to stay at the Bastion, you find yourself trailing along behind Raindrop as you muddy your boots on the way to the mountains: Dr. Chambers, Raindrop, Coerna, Alvydas, Grant and you. Kathleen does not treat the group kindly as the hours of the first day's march go on with no sign of water. Eventually, even she subsides and you make your way to the river, far enough now to be free of contamination. You follow the river upstream from there, but before long the familiar smell of decay meets your nose. You see a grey structure ahead, stark through the trees. It curves, from grey sand to grey sky, outlining what must be Peregrine’s power plant. You approach, half-expecting this to be Devo again, maybe an extension to his gruesome collection, until you see the first bones. Old, matted with yellow grass in a pile of bodies surrounding the structure. Mouldy blue intersperses the ivory: mushrooms which emanate a rancid smell worse than that of the bodies. This is what will come of it all, without a cure. This is your destination. Unless -- maybe, if you're lucky -- you help to stop it. Find a cure, a vaccine, anything to keep on living another day. You leave the site behind in the hands of the mushrooms. Whatever protection it once offered has faded, if it ever existed. The next day is quieter; the chatter of the party has all but been squelched into the ground. //At least you'll be making camp soon//, is one of a few hopeful thoughts flittering about your mind as the hours draw on. \\ You steal glances at Raindrop, unsure of how much she knows, how much she saw; but you’re too frightened of those eyes peering down at you to ask in words. \\ The worry of what she is thinking swallows you so you blurt out to her your excuses, the badges of loyalty you might show Devo: “I just saw black and fainted. I don't think I was hit though. Maybe it was just a bad reaction." -- but the truth scrapes away at the inside of your skull, begging to be let out -- "But if we go back out there… NOT now, but you know, in the um, future, we can see what it was?" -- till the river-like flood of anxiety makes you cover your tracks -- "When I woke up we were already back at the Bastion. Oh the sound you heard? I guess I cried out when I fainted. That's - not very helpful is it. But it's the truth. Please… just help me, later, when I ask. I can't say anything more.”\\ Her stony expression, hard to read, simply replies, "Alright." \\ ---- The fire embers are dim. Rain rustles the leaves and drowns out the sound of Dr Chambers' snoring. You offer some dried fruit to Coerna, your watch partner; she thanks you and sits down. \\ \\ “Do you really think a cure exists?” Their voice is hushed and genuine.\\ \\ “Um… I’m not sure… I think… I hope… it has to exist.” The determination falling, rolling, off of your tongue like a balloon lost to the wind. \\ \\ They look at you with an almost pitying expression. Despite being the same age as you, in this moment you can tell, they feel one breath older, one drop wiser. \\ “I think it’s a lie to try make tomorrow better than today. But the world that everyone is hoping for, the world without the Contagion... I’m not certain it will ever exist, if it even existed at all.” \\ \\ “I think you’re wrong,” gentle and resistive, is all you are able to say. \\ \\ The being beside you cracks a slight smile and they offer crackers to complement the fruit.\\ \\ Gold and purple hues of sunrise ring the bells for the start of another day. ---- Its arrival is spent in the rain along the riverbank, searching for a permanent site. Looking into the valley, you can see the clouds petering out towards the speck that is the Bastion, denying them reprieve for now. You look further, to where Naomi and the Relic Seeker hunt in Din Talin for some kind of salvation. A few hours earlier, and you could've been there with them, helping with something //important//, with something that could save it all.\\ \\ Your gaze turns back, now, to the peaks clambering above you, holding back the worst of the rain. At least, until-\\ \\ A sudden shift.\\ \\ A distant rumbling.\\ \\ It looks like dust settling from here, but the sound echoing betrays the weight of the landslide. It crashes down towards you, rolling closer and closer and closer-\\ \\ Until it stops. It feels close enough that you can see the pebbles. But it has stopped.\\ \\ And then comes the deluge.\\ \\ Almost snowy, in all its foam, roiling and rumbling with haughty disregard for the limits of the banks. You see, through the mist, a backdrop of red, a flood of crimson which tumbles like an ungainly ballet dancer plummeting towards the front row.\\ \\ There is just enough time for Grant to drag you all behind an outcrop before the thundering is all around you. It sweeps the ground clean of topsoil, taking your legs with it. The tumult carries you downriver but the river is gone, your vision replaced by a red mist. Your head dips under the seas incarnadine and the metallic tang of rust fills your mouth. The trees of green turn red around you, their branches snapping under your grasp.\\ \\ It might be minutes or seconds or hours, but eventually you feel the flow begin to lessen, your tired legs carrying some power through the current. And then your boot finds the soft squelch of mud. You drag yourself to ground that resembles a jacuzzi rather than a paddling pool.\\ \\ The others appear, one by one, as you scan the area, trying to find the lay of the land beneath watery pink.\\ \\ There is a familiar square a few miles away.\\ \\ The Bastion does not dismiss you so easily.\\ \\ Only one of you receives the grace of banishment. Grant S. Odys floats face down, the water stained redder around him.\\ \\ Leaving behind -- whether, on some distant cloud, he realises it or not -- the salvage of a world which might yet be.\\ {[]}{{tag>writeup4 gm_izzy complete}}