This is radio nowhere, is there anybody alive out there?

[notathreat]

WHO: Ellie + OPEN (Grab me if you want a custom starter, even if they haven't interacted yet!)
WHERE: Dreamscape!
WHEN: September 22-25 2512
WHAT: Ellie's managed to keep y'all out of her head until now, but everything's got a breaking point.
NOTES OR WARNINGS: Violence, death, torture, body horror (zombie-type), violence towards a teenager.

Radio Nowhere

Comments

[baum]

What

the hell is happening here.

Nothing about this makes sense. He wants to pull the mask off, but he's smart enough to know it's there for a reason. He's holding a rifle, and the fact of that settles him somewhat. He holds it like he knows how to use it, and scans the area on instinct.

Until the person ahead of him falls.

John curses, and surges forward. He jumps through after her, landing hard but in a crouch, and then flattens himself against the wall. He can hear someone approaching, and he lifts the gun, training the sight up ahead. He can't see properly with the damned mask, but he doesn't have to be from this world to know that the air's heavy with something unsafe.

A quick glance back at the girl - enough that his eyes dawn with recognition.

"Ellie? What's going on, what's coming?"

It's nothing human, but it still sounds alive.

[notathreat]

Ellie is crumpled on the ground, her visor of her gas mask is cracked in a spiderweb pattern across her face, likely obscuring at least some of her vision, but worse... letting in the spores.

She catches sight of John and freezes, letting out a low and guttural curse, and drags herself painfully to her feet as the screaming echoes down the distant tunnels. It sounds both animal and human, somehow, or human but wrong, like it isn't anymore.

"Infected." Ellie spits the word out and pulls out a pistol, reaching up to touch the side of her mask. She swears again, this time in recognition of something much worse.

"Whatever you do, you keep your fucking mask on. We're gonna have to get to the surface. If we stay here we're gonna be pinned down. Don't let them get you, don't let them bite you. Understand?"

[baum]

Infected?!

There is so much about this that John doesn't understand. Her orders, though, he does. At once his eyes go to the cracking on her mask. If whatever's in the air is about to infect her, he has to do more than shoot the enemy.

"Kill them, retreat, get back up. Yeah."

He jerks his head behind them. She needs to lead the way, not least because she knows this place, but also because she needs to get out of the spores faster than he does.

"Go, I've got this."

And then the first of them comes, and he fires at once, getting the first directly between the eyes. He covers the opening with a spray, and glances at her again.

"Go!"

[notathreat]

It's so ingrained in her, keeping the mask on. How many times has Joel hammered it into her head? What if they meet someone who doesn't know? Someone who doesn't understand? All it would take would be one mistake, wouldn't it?

And more than anything, she doesn't want John to get ideas about taking his mask off.

Ellie hesitates, then nods, making a break for it, gun out.

"Stay right on my ass-"

Otherwise, there's no way they'll make it out.

She doesn't know the way. Even if this is built from her memories, the way seems to twist and turn, and there are so many. Too many. There's no way they have enough bullets for them all.

"Keep going, head for the light!"

Look for a light, any light.

As they pass a dark corridor, something roars, huge and thunderous, and Ellie practically bodychecks John to get the both of them out of the immediate range. Something soars past them like a bomb, exploding near them. It's obviously organic, and the corrosive agent inside of it smacks into them like a physical thing, burning their skin, sizzling on their masks.

Ellie reaches into her pack, pulls something out as they run. He'll hear the click of a lighter.

"Go!"