======guardian======

=====Planning can go up here, if you want=====


=====Guardian=====


[CW: needle]

All you have done is for the good of the Bastion, for the good of the community. You should feel no remorse. \\
\\
Your hands do not tremble as they hold back the shoulders of Devo, the monster, the man who lights his own fuse and smiles. One sharp needle point injected below the skin is the only thing keeping you from shifting your hands from his shoulder to his neck and smothering that dangerous spark; why did it take so long for you to realise the things poisoning this community go beyond just the Contagion? \\
\\
Ormina hesitates for a millisecond. Then she hands you the scope of her sniper. Her eyes speak: trust. That you’ll keep it safe. \\

“Keep an eye on it, and make sure it returns alive.” 

Clear instructions, orders that you agree with, orders that won’t preclude you from doing what you plan to do, what should have happened a long time ago: sending the dead to rest.   \\
\\
Two strains, Colby frantically told you and the others. Two microscopic differences that set you on two different, converging paths; whether mind or body that dies first. It explains the strange behaviour of caveman-like hordes, the humanity of city-dwelling raiders, the lack thereof of... the two former, and Lottie, suffered from a strain there was no evidence to substantiate except anecdotal evidence. Some of it Naomi's. Some of it yours. Both of you, of course, chose to ignore it. \\ 

As your footsteps land gently on soft moss, you turn over in your mind all those infected you put down. 

//"This doesn’t change anything,"// echoes in your ears as you grip your gun. Strains don't matter. Mind or body, whether first or second, everything you killed was always going to succumb entirely. The ones who turned outside-first just had to //wait and watch// as it happened. You //helped// them. You **helped.** \\

On the clear horizon, Devo stumbles towards his goal, grasping onto Nio like a wire snare around a squirrel; poor thing. Devo’s claws are so deep into her that she’ll even forgive it for the unhealed scar on her neck. Why? \\
\\
The trees tell a familiar story, a dense part of woodland, you and a gun, and Nio, and a monster that roams free… \\

You take your eye away from your sights for only a second, scanning the surroundings for the undead threat, and you spot **it**, 30 degrees off from Devo and Nio. You aim down your sight not to fire, just to confirm, you look right through where it was to the tree behind; you look again with bare eyes and suddenly the panopticon of the distance is empty, entirely empty.  \\

For three brief moments you are the only person in this world. Until three figures emerge from the ground like a shambling mass of limbs and flesh; a brawl with a hair’s breadth between opponents, but the only sounds of battle you hear is the low gargle of a mewl let out by the two-legged creature. No actual fighting. Nio is fine. For now. \\
\\
Following in their many footsteps, you come across a pit, stinking of decay; greyish meat, sloughed off muscle sit in the base of the pit accompanied by a half exposed human ribcage and several squirrels in grotesque states of being consumed. Maggots writhe and play in the mess, returning their nutrients to the soil, transforming the world. \\
\\
So this is the pit where monsters come from. \\
\\
\\ Limited in time, you push forward. Nio is easy to deceive, but they are at least smart enough to keep distance from the infected. She rushes round like a hare, keeping them both standing, always out of reach. Why did she even come? Surely they know the danger of both the beings she walks a silver thread between. //Why?// \\
\\
You edge closer with every step, inch by inch, gaining on your target, fixed clearly in eye but not in mind. Each time you blink the image switches: from a barely restrained animal lashing out covering ‘her husband’ in scratches and bites, with no reaction; to a happily married couple, walking side by side, taking a gentle forest stroll, like in days gone by. Together they seem almost human. **No**. Stop it. That’s thinking like Nio, that’s how you wind up with delusions that you are safe around infected, that’s how you destroy a community. \\
\\
With the destination seemingly reached you keep watch over the trio: Nio like a saint, Devo like a hawk; the invisible girl ties your target to a tree as one walking corpse holds another with obsessive tenderness. You know where you need to return once ‘family time’ is over. The only obstacle now is the wrath of the specimen, Devo. You advance on all three of them, ready to recall back to the Bastion; as you do, the thing bound in-arboreum locks eyes with you intentional and violent as lightning, staring at a stranger. What you feel is not fear. \\
\\

Before you can even consider which to aim at first, Nio is there, head almost inside the barrel of your gun. She glares at you defiantly.\\

“Move out the way, Nio.” Don't they see who it is they’re helping? “He’s dangerous.”\\

“You don’t have to do this.” \\

//“Move.”// \\
\\
Your command is obeyed, but not by the one you aimed it at. Perhaps she sensed what you were thinking, perhaps she did what any criminal sentenced to death would, or perhaps she is nothing but a lucky animal slipping a snare; either way the effect is the same: a slackening of the ropes and a split second where the only choice that could be made manifests as you shove Nio to the ground and hot searing pain shoots through your arm, fresh, clean blood mixed with mushy rotten teeth, soaking your sleeve. All other options eliminated by the checkmate of Devo’s survival. So this is how it finally happened. You have met your death: ebony haired, milky eyed, rosy lips covered in your blood. Devo drags his wife away, half-stumbling in desperation. \\

You think to recover your gun from the dirt and shoot anyway but before you can it is claimed by Nio, the same girl who was in the mud not moments ago, the one you just gave your life for. \\

"Are you alright?" you hear yourself ask her. "Nio, are you alright?" \\ 

She nods, mute. She hugs the gun like it's the only thing left in the world.

{[]}{{tag>writeup6 gm_tara complete}}