turnsheet_bureau:1:call_of_the_forest [Contagion]

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======Call of the Forest======


15:30.

You check your watch again; 15:34.

It isn’t like Raindrop to be late, though not exactly unexpected for Nio.

15:37. By now, Strangeness-in-the-Air is stood by you, fiddling with her weapon in a very indelicate manner, like a newborn learning to walk. You impatiently pick at the skin around your nails, running your fingers over your gun, checking your coat pockets.

Finally, over 10 minutes late, Nio and Raindrop eventually arrive. Observing them, Raindrop’s eyes seem unfocused, breath stifled; lacking the iron core of the person who taught you the correct way to look at your target so you never miss.  Nio’s hands tremble, more violently than usual, second only to their voice.

First, the fence passes you, then the stone-faced Eris, then the barbed wire; the trees make their approach, but these aren’t the trees you’re looking for. Other members of the patrol take formation, keeping a look out for threats, but your eye is solely trained on: Nio, head pinging back and forth, worried that if they look away for too long an infected might appear from thin air; Raindrop, rifle at the ready, honing in on her surroundings like an apex predator; Strangeness, looking out half as much for zombies as they are for beautiful leaves. Birdsong is heard somewhere in the distance. The ground is soft beneath your feet, moss and mycelium forming a vast interconnected system -- and, more importantly, dirtying your shoes slightly. Maybe you can get Nio to clean them when you get back. On the note of walking, you realise the path has veered off from where it is meant to be, and the group is now drifting closer to a very familiar, dense part of woodland.

Your muscles tense around the gun in your hand. 6 bullets in the chamber. You can do an awful lot with 6 bullets.  You surge forward to the front of the group, disregarding any notion of protocol or sense, and grab Raindrop's arm, noticing a small red spatter on her sleeve. Her flesh resists your grasp; before you can pull her away or examine in more detail, you hear a woman's voice echoing off the canopy…

The voice moves towards you as you begin sprinting in its direction, firing a shot into the ground as you take off. Perhaps a warning, perhaps just a flood of adrenaline, no one can know. There’s ringing in your ears as the blood rushes in, but the voice becomes more tangible. "Please,” the trees all look the same, “I’m sorry." Could it finally have happened? “May the light strike me down--will I burn to ash?"

You rush into a thicket, brambles scratching at your skin, and spot a figure low to the ground; the fight for control over your body between survival and ‘love’ finally swings in survival's favour as you draw your gun on the person that you realise is not decayed enough to be your wife. The praying woman stops and scrambles to his feet, turning to look, finding not an infected, but you, with trained eyes, watching. The eyes that return your gaze are familiar--Verity Lowell, lost in the woods.


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