Show pageBacklinksBack to top This page is read only. You can view the source, but not change it. Ask your administrator if you think this is wrong. ======Too Late====== //CW: electrocution of living beings// You gather for your task. The hush that's fallen over the Bastion crackles with fear, punctuated by the sounds of preparation: fences fortified, weapons drawn, loved ones held close. Raindrop asked for your help scouting out the incoming mass and laying traps. You agreed. Strangeness-in-the-air is with you, too. While you finish your preparations, gathering tools for traps you plan to set up, Strangeness keeps close to Raindrop's side, whispering to her in a tone that sounds far more like preaching than pleading. You can't make out the words, but you notice Raindrop's refusal to respond. You find Chris before you leave. 'Don't confiscate our weapons, soldier. Not at least until the Bastion is safe.' You're not blind to the irony of those words - it will never be safe. Safety died a long time ago. Chris, caught up in his own concerns, nods, but there's no mistaking the sharp look in his eyes. 'Not much I can do, anyway, is there? You want your gun, you keep it.' You move on, turning back to Raindrop and Strangeness, now ready to leave. You see Strangeness wince in pain and put her hand to the top of her back, as if feeling a fresh wound. The pain seems to pass quickly. You hope it won't get in the way of your work. If it does, then you're ready to eliminate distractions. ---- Few words are exchanged between the three of you on your travels. Raindrop takes the lead, eyes darting back and forth; you follow from behind. Your attention is soon rewarded when you hear the sound of crunching branches beneath unfamiliar feet. You nod to Raindrop, and follow her swiftly through the underbrush towards the noise. It doesn't sound like many - you imagine it's a straggler - but still, you're cautious, and Raindrop joins you in putting your shield in front of you. Raindrop's shield was given to you by Loosha, who made it from sheet leather and metal. It's unwieldy, but the protection is reassuring, and Loosha seemed grateful when Raindrop agreed to take it, so you didn't complain. Soon, you find the source of the noise. A single, lumbering zombie, skin covered in coarse and oozing lesions, a mess of red and green and blue with two beady, hungry eyes staring at you. Leaves have been strapped to its feet with twine - that explains why you couldn't hear the footsteps for so long. Raindrop is quick to hit it, hard, with the heft of the shield, knocking it over onto the ground where it writhes for a second then falls unconscious. Not dead, though. You wait for Raindrop to finish the job, but she doesn't. She just stands there, vacant, staring at this half-corpse. So you shoot it, instead. One bullet, straight to the forehead. Before Raindrop can react, everything gets very, very loud. Strangeness pushes through the trees, to rejoin you. You hadn't even noticed she had gone - she's not a particularly useful presence in these matters. Raindrop looks at her, confused and relieved and annoyed by her absence - she notices the body on the ground - and there's no time to talk about any of this because your heads snap in the direction of far-too-close, far-too-fast, far-too-many footsteps. 'Run.' You're not sure who says it, but they're right, so you do. Your footsteps are so much louder than the infected's, and turning a sharp corner, you see why: all their footsteps are cushioned by the same primitive shoes as the first. And even with this strange tool, they're fast, unimpeded by the pain of scratching brambles and sharp stones that delay your own pace. The Bastion's fence draws closer as your legs begin to burn. You don't look behind you, refusing to witness an infected's hungry grasping fingers inches away from your neck, so you focus on the barbed wire instead. You shout warnings once you're close enough to be heard, and the Bastion springs into action, a mass of frenetic bodies making their last stand. You slip through the fence seconds before it is alive with electricity. You cover your ears, which ache with the half-human screeches of pain and something that could be fear. Then, you cover your nose, overcome with the smell of burning bodies. ---- The wave has fallen. The Bastion is safe. Unchanged, as far as you can tell. This could have been worse. Much worse. You were too slow - your scouting was hardly that. All you had to offer was seconds of preparation. Not enough. You will change that. There's promise here, for someone who knows what to do with it. That someone is you, Saint. You close your-- //Dark. Everything's dark. The sun has gone missing. You look up to find it but you can't tell which way's up.// //No - there's something. Tiny sparks, little blades of light. You reach out to grab one and your entire arm explodes with pain. You wrench it back, stuck still in this dark dark void.// //You squeeze your eyes shut. Nothing changes in your vision, but part of you longs to hide from this, to wait it out.// //But another part begs to face this head-on, whatever it is, so you force them open.// You open your eyes back to that chain-link fence and a pile of corpses. {[]}{{tag>writeup3 gm_yona complete}} turnsheet_bureau/3/too_late.txt Last modified: 2026/03/23 23:38by gm_ben