Path of the Vampire forum

More than Asteria would have liked, Aidan had taken to a roaming habit at night, alone. Even if what she wanted more than anything was to be around her and have her near her, there was this need to also be alone; to be away from everyone while she tried to deal with…everything and not lose herself in the process. Tonight was no different in that need, with the only difference being that she had headed off to a different place. The Quarantine zone, a place she had not been in, well, she could not honestly recall when the last time had been. Aidan avoided it mostly, ever since she had suffered that bullet wound that left her a literal zombie for over a week.

That T-shirt was hardly worth the time that I lost… she mused to herself, though at the memory of the shirt itself she smiled. Ok, yes it was completely worth it.

Celerity, such a handy trick, made the trip across the city seem like no time at all. With her hood to her hoodie up she strolled into the multiplex and contented herself in avoiding those less fortunate vampires. The feral and abominations alike, for it was not combat that she sought this night, but some peace for a bit of reflection. Old carpet, that had long since been worn down to virtually nothing in most spots gave way to an old wood and stone floor. It was riddled with cracks and splintered boards as it was, so that she had to watch her step to some degree. Especially, the further into the building she went. When she finally came to a stop she found a spot off in one of the abandoned theaters, a seat taken near the back seemed to be perfect for what she wanted. Earbuds were slipped into place, sketch pad pulled out from her hoodie pocket she set to work to enjoy some quiet time.

Unfortunately, the world had other plans.

It was the trembling that caught her attention even as there was the sound of the foundation as it cracked and broke. Headphones removed she managed to look up just in time to see a beam from the roof fall right where she sat. With a combination of celerity and superjump she found herself back down at the entrance to the theater, which she quickly left even as the ground now shook and rumbled violently.

EarthQuake. Just what this city needed.

A door frame became a place where she hunkered down at and waited for the ground to stop moving.

I’m so fucked when I get home.

He had warned others many times to avoid the Quarantine Zone, but here he was again... drawn back only two days after his return to Harper Rock. He had taken a hiatus of several months to go back to New York... even signed himself into an institution for a brief period of time. It was something of a sanity check: he could not justify the things that he had seen here with his understanding of how the world worked. The strain on his mind seemed too much at times. He returned nonetheless... there was no use denying the things he'd seen (much less the things he had done). He would stay in Harper Rock and stare into the abyss, and either become stronger or go mad.

Either way, it would have a profound effect on his artwork.

He told himself that that was the real reason he wandered through the sewers to reach the abandoned multiplex: inspiration. The monsters around him generally left him alone: he could outmaneuver most of them, and various artifacts he had acquired apparently rendered him less-noticeable and less-tasty. Moreover, there were so many louder, more enthusiastic psychopaths who used this place to work off their aggression. Gunfire at all hours of the day: he wore earplugs whenever he visited just to delay the tinnitus.

So, here he stood in silence... using his phone to take pictures for inspiration. He never took pictures of the monsters here: their attention would be undesirable, and no one would believe the photographs anyway. Instead, he looked for the despair... the signs that this had once been a vibrant place that was lost to... whatever things were lost to in Harper Rock. It was perhaps because he wore those earplugs while snapping a picture of an old movie poster surrounded by broken light bulbs that he didn't notice the sudden drop-off in the aforementioned gunfire.

It wasn't until the ground started shaking that he noticed what was happening, and the intensity grew so quickly that he was down on the floor before he knew what had happened. There was a stabbing pain in his hand from where he unintentionally landed, putting most of his weight into the screen of the device, which immediately gave way. The pain, however, was quickly suppressed by a surge of adrenaline, and he scrambled for the nearby box office desk, and hid under it.

Two days back in Harper Rock, and this. What had he thought coming back here would be like?

An accusatory clearing of the redhead’s throat came from the living room of her apartment, a harsh chorus of unspoken curses and not so gentle nudging layered just beneath the simple sound. Nine had a way with saying so much, without saying anything at all. Freyja sighed before pressing her lips together, evenly coating them with the gloss she had applied. Clear, with an accent of golden flakes of glitter made her lips sparkle as much as they would shimmer already. She liked to be flashy.

The gold tones of the short, form-fitting dress said the same. It was a spark of light in a bleak and dreary city where so many bland figures ambled along the streets, huddled into the darkness as they tried to skirt about one another unnoticed. Not Freyja. She enjoyed being the center of attention, and stood out because of it. She gave her best, flirty smile to the mirror, and fluttered her long lashes, glitter making the lids of her eyes shimmer as well. The application was subtle, and well spread. Just a hint of the substance dusted each of her features.

Another cough came from the large room and she pursed her lips. “Girl, if you do not shut up in there, so help me…” she grabbed her clutch from the sink and turned to the door, idly leaning against its frame as she lead her icy blue glare to the petite human draped along the couch, lounging lazily as she waited impatiently to have the apartment to herself. When the blonde nestled against the doorway, the girl bolted upright, suddenly much more attentive to the respect she had for her vampire master. The look on her face was almost reverent when she looked the woman over.

“Nothing to say, now? You could at least tell me how I look, Nine.” she straightened herself out and gave a slow turn, the Saint Laurent Tribute 105 sandals the only part of her ensemble that shined rather than sparkled, the brown leather polished to a sheen only matched by her smile. She paused, back turned to the human thrall, her golden hair tossed over her shoulder as she glanced back, locking her hip and resting her hand against it as she gave the girl a smirk. “Well?”

The girl was speechless, as was usual when she was asked to honestly appraise the blonde’s attire. It was a cruel sort of punishment, to dangle herself before the woman like she did, but she couldn’t help the way that she made her feel when she looked at her like she did now. Freyja felt like a goddess. A true modern deity, and Nine was her subject, her only worshipper. She shrugged, her bare back taut with the line of her frame as she turned again, and gave a quiet laugh. She wiggled her fingers to the redhead, and grabbed her gun from the entertainment center, neatly nestling it into her clutch. Without another word between the two of them, she left, closing the door behind her to the sound of the human finally sighing a breath, with the typical goddamn just barely audible above the sigh as the door clicked into place.

It gave her a sort of grim satisfaction, to know that Nine approved.

She wasn’t long for the Multiplex. It was a short walk from her zombie-infested lobby, a warzone that she had to daintily work her way through like a minefield of rotting flesh and oozing corpses, only barely able to make it out spotless, but spotless she always was. When she had finally made it to the sidewalk outside, she took a slow breath of the icy January air and smiled. It was going to be a good night. She had stashed a bottle of Pommery champagne in the refrigerator in the old break room and had managed to find several celluloids of some of the more popular American films he had never seen for herself, but had always heard about. The idea was to spend a surprise evening with her closest friend over a bottle of expensive wine and some movies.

What she hadn’t expected was what was going on outside. The wind howled, the sound of the air slicing through the quarantine zone and the scream that it made against the dilapidated brick buildings was enough to cause her to cover her ears in surprise. Lightning made the early morning seem like midday. The flash of light was so bright that the color washed away from everything illuminated by its brilliance, the world around her bleached white in its power before the sky above her seemed to explode just before everything went black once more.

The blonde’s thin legs trembled with the impact of thunder, the sound and flash so like an explosion she had feared for a moment that the plans to demolish the Quarantine Zone had gone ahead as promised by one of the candidates in the recent mayoral race, without any warning to the city at large. She feared that she had just left Nine to her death inside an apartment building she was certain was falling on top of her as she turned in fear, only to find Corvidae Flats standing as tall and somber as ever, a dark pillar in a sky lit by rolling flashes of light amid the black clouds that hid the sky. She frowned. She wanted to go back inside, to hide in her apartment. She didn’t like storms. But she couldn’t leave her friend in this. It was her fault Constance would be at that cinema.

Resolving to make it to shelter there, she gripped her clutch until her knuckles turned white with fear and she ran. The sandals on her feet were stronger than she was sure that their creator would have given them credit for. They were surely never designed for running, but their owner threw all thought of their design to the mad winds that dashed about her as she skidded to a halt in front of the door she had found forced open months prior, upon her first expedition about the isolated city block.

Back then, this place had been like an island of mystery in a sea of concrete. Tonight, it was a nightmare, and they were cut off from any sort of rescue. She pushed the door open with effort, and slammed it behind her as she felt the earth beneath her legs tremble again, only now, there was no sound of thunder that preceded it, and the quivering lasted longer and became violent. She could hear the sharp cracks of the building around her as it protested the violence, shouting its profanities as pieces of its very skeleton began to snap and break away. The poor thing was being tortured, and it screamed accordingly.

The snap of brick, the groan of wood as the very ceiling collapsed in several places filled her ears. The violence of the quake was lost in the building’s own collapse and her own violent shakes of fear. This was hell, if she had ever been there. She covered her face, and fell to her knees, curled against the wall of the lobby between two of the long-abandoned video games that often lined the lobbies of a theater. The tight space offered a small comfort as the blonde kept herself safe, the sudden stab of guilt piercing her like a hot knife. Constance.

She hadn’t found her friend. Slowly, she dragged herself into the lobby as the trembling began to slow, the quake lasting only moments before it began to subside. It had only taken seconds to create catastrophic damage. She could feel the despair as it formed a lump in her throat. So many faces filled her mind. So many names. She had so much to worry about, that she hadn’t noticed that most of the front of the lobby had collapsed, sealing the doors beneath piles of rubble. The only thing on her mind, above the chaotic churning of concern and worry, was finding her best friend.

It took only two steps, and she saw her. She had taken shelter in the lobby, just as she had thought to do, only she had been in the center of the floor, rather than against the walls. Freyja would scold her later on how dangerous that was, obviously, when she saw her predicament. Constance was pinned beneath a beam that had supported the ceiling and the floor of the office above them. A huge, broken slab of flooring from the room above had fallen with the beam, pinning her leg and weighing the huge structural support down against the woman’s chest.

That lump grew in her throat, until it felt like it closed entirely. She tried to speak, to say something in her panic, and all she could do was sob as she clutched the beam and pulled uselessly, just as had been her friend’s first reaction. She had dropped her clutch, its contents spilling into the floor beside her friend as she slowly started to take a grip on her panic. She stopped clutching at the beam and took a slow breath, appraising the situation. Her eyes met her friend’s, and she frowned.

She had played dumb for so long. Would she forgive her, if she knew how intelligent she really was?

She didn’t have a choice, now. Constance needed that intelligence. She sighed, and clutched her throat, fingers working it gently until she could breathe again before she whispered. “I’m sorry.” She turned, then, and disappeared around the corner of the lobby towards the women’s bathroom. She returned soon after, clutching a metal pipe that had belonged to the sprinkler system that had run along the bathroom’s ceiling. Her feet were bare, sandals resting next to her clutch where she dropped them.

She didn’t speak as she set to work, using the pipe as a simple machine. A simple lever that helped multiply her strength several times with its length, and pried the weight from her friend’s chest long enough that she could move the blonde aside before her arms gave out, the beam slamming to the floor with a thud loud enough to fill the whole lobby, the impact powerful enough to cause the foundation to shake again, dust and rubble falling around them. For now, at least, her friend wasn’t being crushed to death. She just needed to do something about the slab of concrete that had smashed her leg into the floor.

She panted lightly from what had felt like exertion. The exercise was pointless, really, but it made her feel better. She rubbed at her aching chest, the pain of her guilt and worry subsiding now that she knew that her friend was at least alive. She would be in top shape as soon as she could get her free, and she needed to do it soon, before they were discovered by whoever else might have sought shelter in the old building. The pipe was her only real tool, and where her leg was trapped, just beneath the edge of the concrete, she felt like she could maybe roll it away just an inch. It was all that she would need, and she would be free.

She set to the concrete just like she had the beam, the pipe set just beside her friend’s leg, careful not to stab her with the broken end of the steel pipe, and she pushed, her entire form trembling with effort as she put her body into lifting the much heavier slab of concrete. It proved much more a challenge than the beam had. She felt the weight slowly give, and the slab moved, just barely, before her knees collapsed and she hit the floor, the slab falling back into place. She closed her eyes, and glanced down at her friend. This was up to her. She took a breath, and made her way to her feet again, pushing against the lever with everything she had, the sharp crackling of the concrete as it fought to keep its resting place against the floor sounded like another round of thunder as it finally gave way, the single inch of clearance all that the blonde’s strength could offer, letting her friend free before she fell again, the slab rolling back into place.

She sighed relief, and dropped the pipe with a clatter before she fell into the harsh wall that the broken concrete that had captured Constance seconds before now offered her, and she breathed, exhausted. “Are you okay, Connie?” she asked in that hushed, guilty voice she got when she knew she was about to be rightfully blamed for something terrible.

The trembling stopped and Aidan took out her phone, instantly dialed it as she tried to get a hold of Asteria. The busy tone on the other end caused her to growl in frustration, though she, of course, tried once more before she hastily shoved the device into her pocket before she was tempted to throw it. She had to get out of there, had to get back to Asteria and make sure she was alright. Without another thought, she tried to use Celerity and only ended up at what was once an exit and was now just a wall of rubble and debris.

“****!” she swore and another expenditure of celerity resulted in the same effect. She was trapped in this abandoned and decayed building without a way to contact the outside. Panic, she felt it start to creep into the edges of her mind as she went back to those two weeks where she had been the prisoner of those who should have been her family; the ones who were supposed to protect her and love her, but instead only…hurt her. “No…no….no…,” she began to mumble over and over again to herself. “I’m not going to let that get to me. I’m not going to let my mind go back to that dark place,” she talked to herself, to try and reassure herself.

Voices. Faint echoed through the building and helped to snap her back into the present.

“HELLO!”

Aidan shouted out as loud as she could, not even a single thought given whether whoever was there was hostile or not.

“HELLO!”

She called again as she tried to find a way closer to where the voices had sounded like they came from.

When the initial shaking stopped, Neil found himself with his knees in his chest. He gripped his right wrist tightly, as if to pinch the throbbing pain off and keep it from traveling up his arm. There was no light by which to examine the extent of the injury... which of course magnified the pain. The mind always played tricks on oneself when panic and the unknown was involved. It was pitch black... his flashlight was missing, and his phone was broken. He tried to ease his breathing, even as images of worst case scenarios played out in his mind. If he lost the hand, he wouldn't even be able to sculpt!

No. He needed to stay calm. Emergency services wouldn't come to the Quarantine Zone... he was alone, and it was up to him to mastermind his own escape. Escaping would start with getting out from under the desk. Feeling around, there was a large piece of what felt like drywall laying against the desk... but it wouldn't bunch. Something must have been behind it. Instead, he was forced to crawl on hand and knees... his injured hand kept against his chest whenever possible.

He made plodding forward progress, but at the cost of smacking his head against random debris. As he came to a corner, he could see some light ahead, which afforded him enough to avoid further injuries to the head. Sliding into a bit of an open space, he surveyed the damage: it was bad. Much of the ceiling had collapsed. Had he not jumped under the desk, he would probably have been crushed. He took the opportunity to survey his hand, first with one hesitating eye.

It wasn't as bad as he had feared, but it was still bad. He would definitely need stitches along his hand, and part of his forearm. He removed a sock and wrapped the worst of it. It would help. His breathing eased a bit. Still, getting out from under the desk was only a first step... he didn't have a line of sight to any exits.

He did, however, hear other voices: people calling out for help. He hesitated... calling could draw zombies. He probably couldn't escape them if they came after him. On second thought, they would probably have a harder time navigating this mess than he.

"Uh... here..." he started timidly, before coughing. "I'm over here!"

Frowning at her friend’s initial reaction, Freyja rubbed her palms against her bare thighs as she rested back on her heels for a moment. She silently thanked the stars that she didn’t sweat anymore. The exertion of lifting something so heavy would have been impossible for her, before, but the very attempt would have left her hair damp, at the least. She remained there, seated on her heels as Constance tested herself, seeing what parts hurt and what didn’t, touching at the gash in her head. The taller blonde didn’t look at her. She would heal quickly, and it would be fine, but she couldn’t stand to see the woman wounded. She reached for her bag, collecting the scattered contents and found her phone. She checked hers about the same moment as Connie checked hers. No signal.

She had been afraid of that. Even without the gale-force winds outside, and the earthquake shattering buildings all around the city, she was sure, the electrical interference from the rolling lightning in the skies would have knocked out the signal. Her frown only deepened. Nine was alone in their apartment, and the power was likely out there as well. People were undoubtedly panicking, the vampires of Harper Falls included. She knew she was, now. She ran her palms across her thighs again once she’d dropped her phone back into her clutch. Nine was alone in that apartment, the Flats filled to the brim with vampires being the primary residents, most of them likely frightened, anxious, a lot of their inhibitions out the window… she bit her lip and glanced up at Connie. She gave a silent prayer, to anyone that might be listening, that Nine had the sense to stay inside, and to answer the door for no one.

Slowly, she made her way to her feet, joining Constance finally, as she had asked. “I hope they are alright.” she said quietly, pale, icy blue eyes scanning the room around them. It had changed so completely in the blink of an eye. It had been a little dusty before, sure. Now, it was littered with broken pieces of ceiling, bits of plaster, twisted, cracked beams of infrastructure. It made her worry for the integrity of what was left of the building. She lifted a hand, hooking a long, curly lock of golden hair behind her ear as she cocked her head, listening to the voices that were calling out somewhere in the theatre. She frowned.

“You’re right. Should we answer?” she asked quietly now, her eyes still scanning the room. She didn’t know the voices. She didn’t know what kind of people they might be trapped in the building with, and wasn’t entirely sure that she wanted to run the risk of finding out. She left it to the older, more experienced of the two of them to make that call. She would know better how to handle the situation if it went South. Freyja was entirely inexperienced in conflict with other vampires. At least, those beyond the capabilities of the Ferals that stalked the Quarantine Zone from time to time. Those she could handle. The others… not so much.

Suddenly quite aware of the situation, she reached for her gun, her fingers clutching the pistol’s grip as she held it in the clutch. She stepped closer to the shorter woman and pressed her tongue to the back of her teeth.

The ground trembled occasionally, but she ignored it for the most part. Instead, she was focused on finding someone else. Not the zombies that occasionally shambled at her, the ones that she decapitated without so much as a second glance. She wanted to find the others that were trapped in there like her, needed to find them if she would readily admit it to herself. Sure, when she had left this night the idea had been to get some peace and solitude. To escape her life for a few hours and return when she felt more at peace, at least that had been the plan. When the world decided to take a turn down shits creek she wanted the opposite now. She wanted that connection to another living being, or in the case of another vampire, near living.

Over rubble, through fallen debris she had started with just the voices to hone in on, then a scent all too familiar now in her current life caught her attention. A light growl left her lips as she came to what looked like an office, the door was slightly ajar so she could peer inside at a scene that made her glad she had been elsewhere when this all happened. A sigh left her lips and she ran her hand through her hair as she just stood there for a moment to try and figure out what to do now.

She could smell the blood and hear the heartbeat of what she figured was a human who had gotten trapped within this ****. Likely the one who had called out before that she had followed to this point.

“Hey!” she called into the room. “Um…hold tight. I’m gonna try to get to you, ok?”

Once there was a response she would pick her way through the debris as gingerly as possible, until she came to a spot where she would have to lift the debris to get closer to him. She grunted and braced against another section of the wall while she lifted the section of ceiling. Strength born from what she was, mingled with the near constant training she continued to do make the feat possible at all. The grunt turned into a slight growl as she shoved it out of the way, more of a path cleared though she knew it would not be the easy.

Aidan knelt at a space and looked through the gap, past another section of fallen wall at a man. “Hey,” she said with a smile and small, somewhat awkward wave. “If you can, step back a bit so that I can see about this last piece, k?” she requested before she yet again went through the same process, only this time, she lift the section and held it in place. “Go!” she said through grit teeth, “Crawl out!”

The section of wall she would hold until he managed to get himself clear, at that point she would let it drop back into place with a loud crash and possible dash toward the door to avoid any more fallen debris. That all said and done she would go through the polite procedure and introduce herself to him. It was nice to have found someone alive in this place.

The fact that he was human made the whole thing ironic to her in some way, though how that was she was not yet entirely sure.

One didn't encounter humans in the Quarantine Zone. From the moment the words left his mouth, he regretted responding: he should have tried to sneak himself out. Watching the woman-shaped creature across from him left the debris as it did... there was little question that it was unnatural. What it was, he wouldn't guess. A half dozen unnatural things walking around Harper Rock... all in the guise of real people. All of them wanting to either kill humans, make humans like them, or in the case of the biters... both.

Once he would have denied this reality and tried to rationalize his situation. Now he found himself contemplating his options in the face of them. If he crawled out, he'd be on the other side with it. Would he have an option of escape? Better than here, at least. Nothing was really preventing it from coming through. What if he shot it? Maybe the shot would cause a slip... trap it beneath the debris. Too risky. Even with an intact hand, he was a shitty shot.

Seconds of hesitation wouldn't help. Don't waste time. Just go. Play dumb. Try to escape at first opportunity. "Damnit..." he caught himself saying before scrambling forward. There was more than enough space for his head, but he had to squeeze his shoulders. Inches away from... whatever unnatural creature was holding up the rubble. Another few seconds of effort and he wriggled through. He leaped to his feet immediately and looked for an escape route. Through the nearest hole in the wall, however, he saw the storm.

With everything going on, he had completely missed the sounds of the storm outside. Now, his path to freedom was blocked by what appeared to be a white wall. It was, of course, not an actual wall, but the weather was such that it might as well have been. He wouldn't be able to find the manhole in this, and those things were heavy enough when they weren't buried. "Damnit," he repeated.

If only his phone was still working, he would take a picture of this situation: it would inspire the centerpiece of his project on despair. If he could channel half of the hopelessness of his situation in this moment into art, it would be breathtaking.

Turning back towards his unlikely rescuer, he weighed his options. He was definitely trapped in here with it. He had encountered many different creatures, but he had never been trapped by anything other than humans. Against everything else he faced, a pocketful of knockout bombs might as well be a pocketful of Tic-Tacs. Try to be friendly... hope for the best.

"I'm through!" he managed timidly. "Uh... thanks?"