I see a ship in the harbour

[Pippi]

((Kay Poultier continued from Bottom of the sea's the top of another world))

What was with her, and picking the most dangerous locations possible to hang out at?

Her legs dangled over the edge of the concrete, feet hanging just above the surface of the sea, perilously close to skimming over the ice and dipping into decades-old stagnant water. Yet another downside of having freakishly long legs, she supposed. She wasn’t particularly concerned about getting the soles of her boots damp or anything trivial like that; these were the shoes she wore out to sea on a near-daily basis, after all, that were weatherbeaten and toughened up through years of exposure to the elements. A diddy little drift through the water wouldn’t do much in the way of harm to them in the slightest.

No, the worry came from just how close to the water she was here, the tiny gap between her toes and the frozen surface a stark reminder of the danger she was willingly placing herself next to. Lose your balance or your focus, and you would topple forwards, down into the depths, and that would be that, no second chances available. Kay had swum in deeper waters before, she had set sail on darker nights. She was used to dipping into the icy cold ocean; there were many words she would use to describe the Welsh coastline, but ‘warm’ was certainly not one of them.

‘Piercing cold’ and ‘freezing cold’ had a universe of separation between them, however. She knew what the real danger of the water below her was, and wasn’t how deep it might be or what lurked below the surface. The human body falls into subzero water, it goes into shock. It stops moving, is unable to fight back, lets itself get dragged down. In waters like these, an olympic swimmer and a first-time beachgoer are one and the same.

Like she’d said. No second chances.

She was surrounded by rusted metal structures, unfinished projects and abandoned skeletons, creeping and crawling all up along the inside walls of this concrete tube. Scaffolding rising up high, metal toolboxes fused shut forever, winches and pulleys and hooks and chains, the failures of the past refusing to let go and insistent on remaining in the present. There were vague, nebulous shapes swimming below the surface, barely visible in this dank, dingy tube; it could have been nothing more than algae and seaweed. It could also have been sunk scrap metal, lurking below and waiting for even the most seasoned swimmer in full wetsuit and diving gear, ready to slice through their veins or wrap around their ankle. The miniscule amount of light left in the day cast spindly, twisted shadows across the walls, trapping Kay right in the center of the spiderweb.

And that light? Nothing more than the moon, peeking out beneath the lip of the tunnel, casting its inhabitants in silver. It was worse, honestly, than having no vision at all; at least in the perfect darkness, there were no shifting shadows that imitated creatures out of your deepest nightmares, no objects in the corner of your eye that you were certain would start moving all of a sudden. There was a measure of comfort within the pitch black. Caught in the moonlight, Kay could feel her fingernails digging into the wet concrete, body ready to jump up at a moment’s notice.

And yet.

Despite all that.

She almost felt at home again.

‘Almost’ was the operative word, here. Taking her words entirely literally, her home was not, of course, a graveyard of submarines and abandoned machinery. Obviously. Student accommodation wasn’t quite that bad just yet. But that wasn’t what she was referring to, and her room was not her home. To the untrained eye, the sea in front of her could have been any in the world. What made one ocean any different from the other, after all? What separated one coastline from another? They were all connected, after all; just one great big body of water spanning the entire planet.

Kay knew. Kay knew the difference. It was etched into her heart, her very being. Peek into her DNA, no doubt you would see traces of saltwater and sea spray intertwined with her genetic makeup. The difference between the Welsh coastline and the shores of Washington were night and day. She could spend hours rattling off all the distinctive traits of the sea she belonged to. Deep, jade-green water underneath piercing slate-grey sky. Shorelines that would oscillate from gentle lapping seafoam to towering, crashing waves, day by day. The distinctive cobalt of twisting, winding cliffs. The sounds, oh the sounds of the sea, of gulls and terns flying overhead and roosting on rocks, water bearing down upon the shore and crashing over boats and buoys alike, the wind in your hair, the voices from the shore a distant lingering memory. Seals poking their gentle heads above the surface in winter, confused jellyfish washing onto the sands in summer. Tiny islands off the mainland, shrouded in sea mist.

This wasn’t her ocean. Nowhere could be home but home. It was close enough, though. It would do.

She felt her mind cease to stir and reach a point of near relaxation, as the sound of the water lapping against the pen’s entrance echoed through the tunnel. She closed her eyes, let a familiar, welcome breeze wash over her. How many little jetties and docks had she sped past while piloting the boat, formed from concrete and steadily stained and chipped away, no matter how abandoned or how loved? It was familiar territory in here. Coils of rope, mooring bollards; all it needed was a pile of ratty looking crab traps, really.

There was still so much to consider. She still had to decide - out loud, absolutely dedicate herself to the idea - how she would achieve what she needed. There were so many forces outside of this hollow in the cliff face that she couldn’t, and wasn’t about to, ignore. At the slightest hint that her situation was about to change, she was ready to leap up, grab the nozzle nestled in her lap, reach for the handle of the rocket launcher behind and to her right.

But until that moment, she would remain in this simulacrum of home.

[Pippi]

As dawn broke, and light filtered into the tunnel, flattening out the shadows of scaffolding and twisted metal, turning them from towering demons into squat little harmless blobs on the ground, a short trail of quickly drying footprints could be seen on the concrete, leading away from the water's edge.

Follow them along, and you would find the shape of Kay Poultier, wedged in a stairwell, at a right angle to the sea to ensure she didn't roll and tumble down into the depths. Spare clothes and scraps of fabric lay over her as an impromptu blanket. Her bag served as a flat, awkward-looking pillow. Her only movement came from the gentle rise and fall of her chest as she slept. It could have even been peaceful, until you looked closer, and saw her hands tightly wrapped around the handles of the rocket launcher, and the flamethrower's nozzle.

Her eyes looked tightly closed, ready to withstand a hurricane in her slumber.

Looks could be deceiving.

[NoLife42069]

(Heath Redfield continued from The Life, The dead, the good, the bad. )

His plan had failed.

He took too long.

Now he was walking through what he guessed was most likely the Submarine pen, he shivered. The night was cold, and using a ditch as a makeshift shelter didn't really help.

He made no effort to hide his footsteps, he was much too tired and cold to give a fuck anymore.

He remained silent even as his PDA lit up and asked him the question yet again.

19/10/22 ANNOUNCEMENT AVAILABLE

PLAY RECORDING?

Y N

Just like before, he hit Y and the same voice spoke to him.

His scow deepened.

Yet the echo of his footsteps never faltered.

[Pippi]

Her eyes shot open, the second she heard that foul, familiar voice from the PDA.

They flicked up to her wrist, resting above her head, checking to make sure the announcement wasn’t echoing from her own numbered bracelet - had she accidentally pushed one of the buttons against the cold concrete during her fragile, restless sleep?

No - it remained unlit. The voice of their unseen captor bounced off of walls further down the tunnel. And, now that the veil of sleep had fully fallen, she could hear another sound, overlaid on top of those incessant words. Footsteps.

She was no longer alone.

Already, her body had started moving, shifting itself from its roughly-horizontal position until her back was pressed up against the side of the stairwell and she was in a seated position, her hair was roughly brushed out from in front of her eyes, her fingers had wrapped tightly around the handles of her heavy weaponry, fingers resting against the side of the triggers - of all the things for her mind to recall moments after waking up, gun discipline was an unexpected but certainly welcome one.

Now, the second most important thing to do right now was to not lose her cool and freak the fuck out. She had already made her statement to herself; no matter the levels of cowardice and pragmatism she sank to, it would never lead her to fire and forget, shoot first ask questions at an indeterminate point in the future. This submarine pen was not her home, she didn’t have exclusivity rights to it. Whoever it was wandering around down here, they could have stumbled upon it the same as she had; hell, maybe they were taking refuge after escaping from one of those monsters up above ground. Every chance they were here with good, or at least neutral, intentions.

But the most important thing, now and forever, was to keep herself alive.

If there was a chance they weren’t playing nice, she had to be ready for it. If you couldn’t naturally be the fittest, you had to grasp and cling to every boon that you found; weaponry, shelter, the element of surprise. She would hate herself if the worst case scenario came to pass, loathe herself for days, weeks, years to come. But she would do it. Time and time again. No matter where. No matter who.

Kay’s body ached with exhaustion as her seated position became a standing one, clothes silently falling from her body as she did so. Her legs strained desperately with the motion, still half-trapped in the depths of a restless sleep. Her mind, though, that was fully active, fully alert. She stood, pressed against the wall, her back facing the direction the footsteps were coming from, head tilted to the right.

Stay silent. Stay still. Maintain the slim advantages you have.

God, she hoped they couldn’t hear the hammering of her own heart.

[NoLife42069]

Heath continued to walk, many things ran through his mind.

Yet even he had to remind himself of the dangerous situation for such a reckless play. Who knew what things hid in the darkness? And the noise coming out of his PDA in of itself alerted any would-be attackers of his presence.

Yet he couldn't help but feel in this moment a tad bit... Suicidal. Too long he had spent alone left to stew and boil inside his own thoughts.

So even when he knew the smartest choice was to take out one of his weapons and at the very least prepare himself for the chance of combat. He just couldn't bring himself to do it.

Then the tag that sat on his wrist went silent once again. He realized he barely got any of the information.

Heath stopped and then began to read the announcement. He muttered as he read, "If you’re reading this, you’ve made it through the second day. Well done. We’ve noted many of you have made some valiant attempts at fighting the Prototypes. This has been exciting to watch. Yeah, asshole? well, we didn't die for your fucking amusement." It was how calmly the announcements spoke that pissed him off; people were dying in the snow yet the ones in charge sounded like finding out the coffee machine wasn't refilled was a far greater tragedy.

"P22 Maud Sparrow - Laceration, blood loss caused by X02-A Revenant. Fuck... I'm sorry Maud. P09 Misha Yeager - Eviscerated by X00 Chimera. P18 Dustin "Dusty" James - Decapitated by X00 Chimera. P08 Chevy Gallagher - Severe cranial trauma caused as a result of failed subsumption by X01 Vermiculus? What the hell does that mean? What the fuck even are these things? Worms?"

His questions were forgotten when he read further down. "X02 Revenant A - Operational - Injury sustained. Condition stable..." Heath chuckled, "Shooting the mother fucker in the chest only amounts to Condition stable huh?"

"Nature places limitations on us all. You'll need to exploit the limitations of your enemies, and accept your own, if you want to survive. Dr. Erin Finch..."

There was a silence for a moment before the footsteps continued, the sound of a lighter being hastily struck followed, and soon the smell of smoke followed the sound. Yet repeated curses did as well. "Fuck, fuck fuck shit fuck fuck shit shit!"

[Pippi]

She caught the scent of cigarette smoke, as the footsteps grew ever closer, and for what felt like the hundredth time in the span of just three days, that deep, feral need to follow suit grew stronger and stronger, burning ever brighter, deep inside of her. It was intoxicating; the scent of nicotine and salty air, mingling together, practically an aphrodisiac for Kay.

She’d made it this far without needing to break into her packet of cigs. It had not, of course, been a smooth journey, at any step of the way, and while she couldn’t entirely blame the rough voyage on her lack of tobacco, it sure as hell would have made things easier. Nothing would erase the sight burned into her retinas from that dank and dingy house, nothing would fully salve the knowledge that there were no morals she wouldn’t compromise to make it home alive, but for everything else?

God, she couldn’t count the number of times she’d been on the verge of tearing her bag open and ripping the pack of Benson & Hedges to shreds in that animal desire to get just one small soothing hit. Again, it had been the huge, fuck-off tank of petrol strapped onto her back which had been the sole thing preventing her from doing so. Crisp-packet wrists as she was, the chances of her sending herself into a massive plume of smoke was way too high to risk it. And there wasn’t a snowball’s chance that she’d leave her flame-spewer unoccupied when every shadowy corner concealed a potential threat.

So she’d have to just keep on waiting a little longer to see what this guy’s deal was, she guessed. She felt calm, at ease and prepared for the situation at hand, but she was pretty damn sure that the storm was set to land imminently. So, hey, maybe not too much longer, aye?

Right now, he was just cursing up a storm as he made his way along dockside. Black guy, slim looking, real tall as well - and, of course, not quite tall enough to prevent that sick feeling from bubbling up in her stomach. She’d taken in some of the announcement as well, before he’d unleashed his fuck-barrage. Names that made her feel even more nauseous at how little they actually affected her - a human being was a goddamn human being, after all, but when all you knew of that being was their name, they might as well have been red shirts and fodder. Almost all of the dead had fallen to the monsters prowling around - yet more evidence to suggest that those things were what she had to focus on, to prepare for, to fight if they came bearing down on her.

And even more evidence to prove that you can leave these creatures to do your dirty work for you.

Kay tried to shove that intrusive idea out of her head, but it was way too stubborn to shift all the way. She could push it to one side, and nothing more, leaving it remaining there, lingering just to the side of all her other thoughts, a filthy stain that refused to fade out.

“Hey there,” she said, finally making her presence known. She descended the steps towards the stranger, slow by necessity, heavy armaments weighing her down.

“Don’tcha know that um. Those things’ll kill you?”

[NoLife42069]

Heath's hand flew to his sheathed blade and began pulling. yet it quickly stopped, he calmed himself. They spoke to him first, and from what he could tell they could have killed him before he was even aware.

His hand only really left the handle when they spoke their next words.

“Don’tcha know that um. Those things’ll kill you?”

Heath was confused for a moment before he remembered the cancer stick between his lips. A small smirk appeared on his face as he spoke. "That's the intent." He said while taking it out his mouth.

Teeth showing, shit eating, Grimace from good ol' McDonalds, smile as he chuckled at his reference. Then another one popped in his head. "Damn! wait can we do that again? Just thought of another one!"

He was being dead serious.

[Pippi]

She blinked. She looked right at this guy, as if he was obscured behind one of those hidden eye nonsense things, and she couldn’t quite tell if she was looking at a person or a boat on the water. She opened her mouth to respond to him, nose slightly scrunched up, eyebrows slightly folded downwards.

“Uh. Whuh. Huh?”

And that about summed it all up nicely, she thought.

Cause this guy was being awful, awful calm about the situation he’d found himself in. Sure, he was also armed; Kay had seen the flash of steel pressed against his side, when she’d first stepped closer towards him. She didn’t exactly rate a sword or a blade in comparison to the artillery level firepower she was carrying, was all. Wasn’t much your cool-ass zweihander could do when it was busy melting into slag.

She was toting a flamethrower and a rocket launcher, for pete’s sake. Was he not even remotely scared of either of them? Maybe he just hadn’t realised what they were yet; it was still pretty dim and gloomy in the tunnel, the morning sun lingering just above the mouth of the pen, shadows long and grasping. But even so, surely you had to be a little wary of the bionic woman strolling up to you, right?

Maybe he just wasn’t concerned about the rocket launcher at this close range, which, bold assumption, boyo, really. Sure, firing it at this distance would be a guaranteed suicide shot, blowing them both to kingdom come, but if you were the kinda person to tote around multiple heavy weapons, then there probably was something more than a tad off kilter about you. No comment. And besides, that still didn’t explain away the flamethrower. Was it what she’d said? Had it come off as too casual, too jokey? Had it defused all the tension that had been lingering in the air previously? Did she want that? Did she want people to be terrified at her mere presence? Objectively, absolutely not, but at the same time…

Ach, her brain was taking her down that path again, the one of self-doubt, self-pity, self… uncertainty. There was no guarantee that this unnerving, out of place calm was thanks to her own actions. She didn’t know this guy. She certainly didn’t know what he’d been through. Everyone handled trauma in their own ways - Eurydice’s pack of smokes in her bag was just one of her own methods after all - and so maybe some scrawny Welsh bint carrying more firepower than a small nation was nothing compared to the batshit scenes he’d already witnessed.

She could believe that. She was more than willing to go with that answer. And if it was the case, then maybe humouring him on this part wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world.

“Um. So uh. Did um. Nobody ever tell you those things’ll kill. You?”

Her hands twitched briefly, before maintaining their previous position; weapons angled towards the boy. Just in case. Just to make sure he wasn’t planning on gutting her, the moment she dropped her guard.

[NoLife42069]

Heath paused at the reaction he got. Then it really dawned on him.

He had essentially, in a high-stress situation, a downright concerning level of calm. Even with the machete on his hip and revolver in his pocket, standing in front of a girl who clearly raided one of the bodies at the armory with the rocket launcher she had, he had put his attention on the wrong things.

Heath quickly turned his head to the side, then returned it once he realized how stupid that was. "Sorry...My bad, I tend to lose myself at times..." Heath's voice grew quieter as he spoke.

“Um. So uh. Did um. Nobody ever tell you those things’ll kill. You?”

Heath perked up at her words. A small smile sprouted on his face as he looked down at the ciggie again. "No...They did, just I don't think these will be what does me in... Maybe it will be those fucking worms..." The passion and humor were gone.

Heath returned the cig back to his mouth before he looked back at the girl. "I suppose introductions are in order...Or somethin. The name is Heath Redfield, yes like the game character, my friends and pals call me Field Field sometimes to fuck with me... Considering the circumstances I unfortunately doubt our relationship could ever progress to such a level." Heath took a long drag and turn his head to blow it out. "I would prefer if this encounter ended peacefully. So as a sign of good faith, or perhaps, the strangest form of suicidal ideation, I will unarm myself." Heath unsheathed his machete and leaned it against a nearby wall. "I already had to find a dead body and watch an ally being butchered alive, by those... Pale Things..." Heath scowled again as he took another drag on his cig.

[Pippi]

Ah, bollocks.

Kay’s guarded nature hadn’t quite dropped to the level that she was willing to, say, chuck her weapons into the water and open her arms out for a big friendly hug, but she was beginning to realise that this guy wasn’t anywhere close to being a threat to her health and wellbeing. From one extreme to the other; the giddy, almost-childlike glee in asking her to repeat her question, to, well, this. Like he’d just come down from some crazy high, and he realised that, yes, he was in fact standing in the middle of some nightmare ship graveyard, made manifest.

He’d clearly gone through some nasty shit, was what she was saying. That much was obvious even before he - Heath, if he wasn’t lying through his teath - got into the full gory details. It was impressive, and, more so, unnerving, just how haunted one person could start looking in the blink of an eye. She’d been avoiding looking straight down into the surface of the water for that exact same reason.

It wasn’t the kinda spooked vibes you got from a wild horse, ready to kick out at anyone who got close regardless of their intentions. Nor was it the sorta thousand-yard stare, unhinged and untethered air of someone who’d been through hell and no longer cared what happened to themselves or anyone around them. No, this was the look of someone who’d seen the depths, and didn’t want anything more to do with them for as long as he lived.

And that was finally enough for Kay to lower her weaponry.

Not enough to shut down that infuriatingly ever-present, ever-correct voice in the back of her skull, of course. That, she was unfortunately certain, would be a permanent fixture within herself, now. Always letting her know about that little selfish streak that ran through her core, always reminding herself that there was no such thing as a permanent allyship while she was still stranded. If she could just go five minutes without having to-

Hang about. She did have a way to grab that opportunity now.

“Well, um. First things first, Heath,” Kay started, and as she talked, she put her life on the line, turning her back on Mr. Two-Fields, trotting back over towards the stairwell that had served as her four-poster bed the previous night. She glanced backwards over her shoulder - or at least, as well as she could do with all the pipes and paraffin paraphernalia in her way.

“Think you might have been some kind of um. Blessing. In disguise.”

She let out a grunt of exertion as she bent down, finally releasing her grip on the rocket launcher’s handle, letting it rest against the wall to the right of the stairs. It took a few moments longer for the flamethrower to escape her grasp, requiring some serious fiddling and fumbling with straps and harnesses that weren’t anywhere close to being the sexy kind, but eventually that too slipped off her shoulders, mirroring the RPG and slouching sentinel on the other side of the stairwell. Finally, she was able to crouch down, unzip her bag, and grab the prize that had been eluding her for days now.

Not a goddamn moment too soon.

“Second things, um. Second.”

She walked back over to Heath, prizes clutched between her fingers, the shaking in her hands now as familiar as the black and gold cardboard, and the dented metal lighter. A cigarette was withdrawn, the box stuffed into the pocket of her jeans, the former raised to her lips before she remembered that she still had a sentence to finish.

“My name’s, um, Kay. Poultier. Studied Oceanography. From Wales, originally, hence the um. Voice. Stuff.”

Was she referring to the accent? The fact she apparently couldn’t go two words without stumbling over herself? Explaining why her voice was so much deeper than expected? She’d leave it up to him to decide. She wasn’t entirely certain herself. Maybe for the latter he’d just chalk it up to her obvious nicotine addiction. Wouldn’t that be nice.

She finally took a drag, the smoke filling her lungs and her mind in equal measure, the scent mingling with the salty sea air and catching in her hair and the fibres of her jacket. Visions of days gone by, in her erstwhile home, floated into view; huddled behind the delivery trucks alongside Rosa, out of sight of a world that both cared too much or not nearly enough about them both. Sharing thoughts and hopes and jokes and gossip, and nicotine sticks stained with dried flecks of lipstick lifted directly off the shelves a few feet away.

A measure of calm flowed through her. Again; about goddamn time. She needed it more than she needed air to breathe, not just in general, but to deal with everything Heath had just heaped upon her.

“Thirdly and finally…”

She took another deep drag. Blew out another long cloud of smoke. Almost singed her fingers. Bit her lip and looked right at Heath.

“What d’you mean, um, ‘pale things’? Whaddya mean, ‘worms’? I’ve, um. I saw the uh. Big. Polar bear thing. Real close, up at the village. You know, the um, the one from the video. They showed us. I figured all the fuckers were gonna be, uh, the same as that, you’re saying there’s other shit that’s just. Walking around? Or whatever?”

[NoLife42069]

she turned her back to him. The idea of pulling out his pistol and blowing her brains across the wall did appear in his mind, but just as quickly it disappeared. Heath didn't quite have any problems with killing someone, but doing it after all of that? Just didn't sit right with him.

Smoke still ever-present drifted from his mouth, or more accurately from the cigarette in his mouth. "No... I don't truly think I am. More like another lost smuck with a weapon, a fit bit, and a will to live."

The girl, woman... Human, he settled on for now, took off her armaments. The RPG he was planning on snagging and a fucking flamethrower. A quiet whistle was let out once she set it down.

Quickly though his attention returned to the human. Now holding her own cigarette and lighter. When she paused and then started talking Heath was actually reaching for his own lighter, to light hers. Turns out it didn't matter since she was already doing it.

"Kay Poultier..." Heath mumbled as he blew out the smoke to the side. "Well since we are adding in majors and birth locations might as well add mine. Studying... Well studied now, Psychology and education. I'm from Cleveland, Ohio. Yeah, the one with the dumb monster memes." Heath made a somber smile as he said that.

'Guess... There's a high chance the next time I'll see my family is in a body bag... Heh, That will scare the shit out of Mom... Damn, won't even get to pet-'

His thoughts were cut off by the human-Kay's words.

"Oh...You don't know?" The way Heath said it gave away his intent of sounding kind of smug, but the gravity of the situation just showed his dread.

"Well, the" Heath made air quotes as he said the name. "Revenant are the bastards I came across. With every announcement we get some more information on the fucked up shit they threw on the island with us. Anyway the pale fucker's look like humans, but are bald, Pale obviously, eat anything, and don't talk. Not to mention they are tough as hell. I shot the fucker twice and it wasn't even phased, add on that there are three of them, and... Well, frankly I would rather never see them again."

After a quick drag and puff, Heath moved on to the next thing. "The worms are Biomechanical worms things that travel like a fucking tumbleweed, and are Hijacking bodies. I count myself lucky that I haven't encountered them, but of all the things here with us the... What's it called..." Heath snapped his fingers as he remembered. "Vermiculus is the thing I want to encounter the least."

Heath shivered a bit, both from the cold and the thought of seeing those things. "Yeah, H-haven't you been listening to the announcements? Hell, it even tells us their last known location... Wait... You didn't go to the armory yesterday did you?!" Panic was clear in both his voice and eyes. "That polar bear thing made a nest of it!"

[Pippi]

The cigarette almost tumbled out of Kay’s mouth, her face falling as Heath described the island’s other inhabitants in loving detail, unable to mask her dismay at this new deluge of information. She didn’t consider herself to be a dreadful actor; she’d become pretty well versed in fudging the truth and making little white lies to obscure her myriad secrets, after all. Her body always let her down when it came to unexpected and unwanted information, was the thing. She could never stop the frown when she was told something disturbing, she could never prevent the wind from leaving her sails when she was disappointed.

“No, no, I’ve listened to them, I’ve, um. Been keeping tabs. Not just ignoring valuable info, mate,” Kay responded - there, see, the frustration in her voice, indelible and impossible to hide. “I just. Um. I dunno. I figured they were all the same kinda thing, like, big. Big, um, big bulky bastards. That hit like a fuzz-coated lorry. Just with different names so that Sycamore fuck didn’t have to call them. Like. Um. ‘Polar Bear 1’ and ‘Polar Bear 2’. Um.”

Christ alive, what had that psycho and his cronies been up to, anyway? The polar bear kaiju thing was bad enough, that was some mad, unethical science bullshit beyond most folks’ wildest fears - but at the same time, Kay kinda figured you could get a similar effect by pumping a regular-arse bear full of steroids and painkillers and a whole heaping of other illegal drugs. But… fuck. Fucking christ. Mechanical worms that could take control of your body? Unstoppable humanoids that ate whatever they saw? That was insane. That was stuff ripped from the darkest recesses of sci-fi horror. They were impossibilities, made awfully, undeniably real.

And that threw a particularly nasty spanner in Kay’s thin glint of hope, to boot. Because her plan, if she’d seen the chimera again, if she’d been backed into a corner with flight ruled out as an option, had been to let fly with everything she had; missiles, fire, a bloody rock off of the ground if she had to. But what if she was instead faced with a former friend, now hollowed out and controlled by the swarm? What if those pale creatures could take a rocket to the face and keep walking without a scratch?

“And um. No. I wasn’t near the armoury. More, um, by dumb luck than anything, though, I was just kinda, um. Wandering. Because. Um. Look, I had. Other things. That I was listening out for, on that first announcement.”

Not untrue, after all. But she felt as though she’d prised open the lid of a can of worms - ugh, no, couldn’t use that phrase anymore, ick - with that. She felt obliged to elaborate. With trembling fingers, she flicked ash onto the ground. A stub followed it, in an arc of flame and smoke. She dug around in her packet, pulling a fresh one to her lips.

Hm. Maybe there was opportunity inside of Pandora’s box as well.

“First day, I um. Met up with somebody. We decided to, um, stick together. Safety in numbers, and all that. Um. In the town, we were looking for supplies, and the. Um. Chimera. Thing. It attacked us, way too bloody quickly for us to, um, react properly.”

Embellish, embellish, lie through your teeth. Play up the woe-is-me act for all it was worth. Make sure that this guy knows that he can trust you.

“I fired a rocket at it, but it’s, um. Way faster than it looks. Managed to run right past it. Ran. Um. Ran right at my friend. Clawed his guts out ‘fore he could even scream. Managed to. Um. Grab whatever I could and scarpered. Now I’m. Um. Here.”

She let out a shuddering breath, and closed her eyes for a moment. No need to fake that one. Even if she had scuffed the details in the retelling, the event was permanently branded into her own mind. Wasn’t any amount of nicotine that could salve that.

“So. Um. I’ve had a close encounter with. Our big bear friend. You’ve been up close and personal with. The other two. Sounds like together we’ve, um. Got a good understanding of how everything works out here.”

Kay’s face was pointed towards the ground. Her eyes peered up over the rim of her glasses, studying Heath, surrounded by a veil of smoke.

“What’s, um. The next step then? Mr. Field? I mean, um, now that you’ve retreated in here. What was the plan after that?”

[NoLife42069]

She sounded annoyed and defensive. Heath raised his hands a bit. "Not calling ya stupid, friend. Sorry if it came out that way, just figured everyone had a clear idea of the shit we are dealin' with. Hell, the only reason I know the fuckers names are because of the documents on our Fitbits." Heath pointed to watch thing.

Then Kay explained why she was at the armory. "And what the hell would that be?" Heath muttered under his breath.

Then came the tale of woe. Heath didn't completely believe her story, he was certain there were elements of the truth in there but others were lies. His proof? The announcement stated that one of his... What should he even call them? Competitors? Fellow survivors? Whatever the case, the poor bastards stuck on the island, one of them managed to fuck up using an RPG. Blowback force fucked him, and while Heath didn't expect every single person on the island to his level of weapon knowledge, he did expect them to follow the most basic rule.

If ya don't know how to use a dangerous weapon, don't fucking use it! Yet, Kay here states she was the person who fired a rocket. Now was Heath going to leave this girl just because she may have lied to him? FUCK NO! Besides she was right, together the duo had experienced two of the three monsters and survived. The only thing that really changed was she wasn't about to find out about the pistol in his pocket. Heath finished his cig and put it out on the nearby wall then dropped it on the ground. "Wouldn't normally litter... But these times ain't normal."

Heath returned his full attention to Kay. He took a moment to evaluate her, the pros and cons of a relationship with her. Heath visibly shrugged after a solid minute. "Don't call me Mr. Field that was my father's name," Heath said with a slight grin and a chuckle. "No really, I planned to go out into the waste again. See one of my allies died at a cabin we stayed in on the first night. While I would hate to see her half or entirely-eaten corpse, I left her stuff in my hurry to get the fuck out of dodge. Was going to go grab that but the weather said no, so I ended up sleeping in a ditch." Heath paused as he realized he told way too much information.

"A-Anyway, my plan after that was the same as everyone else's wander and try not to die. If I get desperate enough or find a decent weapon maybe see about killing the fuckers that put us here." Heath said with a shrug. "What about you Ms. Poultier? Any game-breaking plans?"

[Pippi]

That had gone pretty well, she thought.

As far as Kay could tell, she’d kept herself tethered close enough to the truth to remain beneath suspicion. Heath didn’t seem to have smelled a rat, after all; he was still talking with her, still sticking close. Cracking jokes, no less - not very good ones, sure, but she couldn’t really get judgey if anyone’s sense of humour was a little skew-whiff right now. The story had gone down smooth. She had trust on her side, now. That was an even greater weapon than the rockets and the flames.

She guessed she hadn’t really been keeping tabs on the wider picture as well as she could’ve been, though, going back to his first set of comments. Still hadn’t properly listened to this morning’s news, had she? Listening to someone else’s radio while they were giving a running commentary over it didn’t exactly count as ‘paying attention’. Most of yesterday’s, too, was a blur. She’d had her own goals for both of them; how Austin’s death would be described for the latter, whether Heath was anything resembling a threat for the former. Some things never changed, she supposed, whether she was in her dorm room or fleeing for her life. Once she set her focus on something, regardless of whether it was the most important thing in her little corner of the world or not, everything else became background noise.

“Um. Much the same as you. I guess,” Kay mumbled, mouth still preoccupied with holding tight to her beloved stick of nicotine. She sniffed, rubbed her finger just above her upper lip, tried desperately to ignore the bristling feeling she felt against her fingertip.

“Mmm. Ergh. Ffff. Um. Sorry. Um. I didn’t really have any concrete plans, ‘sides from. Um. Making it here. To, um. The shoreline, I mean. I’m pretty keen to stay as close, um, to it. As I can. I understand the sea, y’know? Actually you, um. Probably don’t.”

Kay looked out across the water, staring wistfully over the horizon, the rising sun shimmering off of the gentle waves, its warmth reflecting in her glasses. A puff of smoke drifted from her mouth, and rose to meet the seaspray mist and low, fluffy clouds.

“The ocean’s as, um. Dangerous as all those creatures combined. Honestly. But um. You show it respect? It’ll show it back in kind. Maybe it’ll do things that um. Don’t seem logical. Every now and then. But isn’t that something just. Like. Um. Insanely human, as well?”

She turned back to Heath, a grim smile on her face now.

“I figure. Um. Think. That if you try and be patient with one of those. Um. Creature things. It’ll repay that kindness by. Um. Biting your face off.”

Her eyes drifted towards her weapons, ready and waiting against the wall for her to reclaim them, before returning to the boy standing next to her.

“So I was thinking. If I did find one of them. Um. The chimera, worm, pale arseholes, whatever. To show the gits that put us here exactly what, um. I think they wanna see. We’ve got heavy weapons. We’ve got nothing to lose. Maybe we should, um. Team up? For a bit. Grab your friends' stuff. Find a vantage place. Blow up a monster. You look like you, um, could use some more firepower, and. Um. I could do with an actual focal point.”

She stuck out a calloused, weather-worn hand, movements jerky and sudden, one that she knew might just be pressed against his back to push him into the abyss any hour from now.

“Whaddya say?”

[NoLife42069]

Kay seemed just as awkward and out of her depth as him. She talked about the sea, Heath couldn't say he really got it. He understood what she was trying to say, but he could help but think of the ocean more as an animal.

She gave a plan. Heath smirked. Kay stuck out a hand, and Heath looked at it. "I think you're confused about what they want to see." Heath corrected. "This is a... Field test of sorts. They want to see how those things react in a dangerous environment. They would rather us all die, than lose even one of those things." Heath turned to look at the sea now. It was cold, cool water hit by an even colder wind. He saw a drone buzz by before flying off.

"They would want me to kill you." Heath paused and turn back to Kay. "I... I've had a while to think about my mortality." Heath looked down at that hand again. It felt like a game where one choice would change his ending. But there was no saving and loading, no restarts. Everything could be a dead end. All the ways he could die, taking Kay's hand could be his death or his only way to live.

"I don't want to... Die... Like that... I don't want to play into their game. I probably sound out of my mind, but..." Heath took her hand. "If I'm doomed to die, then I want to go out taking one of those things with me." Heath could hear his heartbeat in his ears. It thumped so hard and fast that he was worried others can hear it. "I... I'm very strange. I might say or do some off-putting things but please bare with me... This frozen wasteland has..." Heath gave the hand a few shakes before letting go.

"No, I'm sure you know what this kind of situation does to people." Heath sighed a bit as he took out his lighter and looked at it. "Before we do anything else we have to... plan a bit. What are we going to do? What's the goal of our little duo? Apologies again, but the death and cold might have affected me more than I thought... Please, bear with me."

Heath put away the lighter and looked back at Kay. "You mentioned a focal point. What we need is a focal point, whatever that may be. Are we hunting down the monsters or are we going after the organizers? That kind of thing."