Rapture

[Kestra15]

((It's is Mak's reaction to an abandoned hospital; nothing supernatural, but having walked around an empty hospital during night shifts I can tell you it is a little unnerving for all but the bravest of souls. -KM))

[Fangirl05]

Mind if I cut in?

Edited May 27, 2014 by Fangirl05

[Kestra15]

((Applications are open ))

[DragonSpirit009]

Emily kneeled down, stroking Nougat on her head. She tried to see what the matter with the dog was but it was clear that she wasn’t impressed by the hospital. Emily frowned and started to speak in her own tongue in a deep voice. She was just telling Nougat to pull herself together and get a move on. With that Emily stood up and started to follow Ari but it wasn’t made easy by the dog that didn’t want to come along.

 

“For some reason I’m fine. I guess my mind is somewhere else for me to even pay attention to what was going on.” Emily spoke now moving a bit better seeing that Nougat was working along with her now and then. “I think everything will be fine we just shouldn’t think too much of it thou this silentness is rather eerie but we shouldn’t let it get to us.” Emily spoke trying to sound a bit positive.

 

“The cafeteria is this way. Been here a couple of times now.” Emily spoke as she came to walk next to the girl. The two strode slowly down the hall keeping their eyes open for any other living thing. When they reached a room filled with a couple of tables and chairs Emily knew they had reached the cafeteria.

 

“Mmm... still no one.” She spoke looking around the small room. There wasn’t even someone behind the counter nor someone in the small kitchen behind it. “Um do you think we need to pay?” Emily spoke jokingly not even sure if they should or not.

 

 

[Kestra15]

Following the seemingly-braver Wisperlee, Mak gathered his own breath and thoughts and moved to walk beside her, pointed to a door set to the right of the concourse. It led them away from the rest of the group, and for a moment Mak was tempted to call the whole thing off - or ask they stayed as one team. However Emily, Air and Nougat were already on the move as well, and it seemed as if they had found the courage - or the facade - to move through the seemingly-abandoned hospital. While he wasn't given to bouts of machismo, a small part of him did point out that it was girls leading the way, not the one guy.

 

Swiping his card against the reader Mak held the service door open for Wisperlee, nodding down the short, cream-walled and well-light passageway. It was like every other service corridor in every other large building; a bit too bright, very plain and showing more wear-and-tear than the public walkways. A couple of hospital beds lined one side of the corridor, stripped of their mattresses with notices on them marking them for repair, leaving only enough room for the two to walk single-file down the corridor.

 

"Fourth door on the left," Mak said, keeping his voice even as he let the young lady through. Without shame he paused by the first bed and pulled the drip stand off, a long but hollow metal rod that really was not built to be a weapon. He wasn't quite sure how much use it - or he - would be, and what they would expect to fight, but it made him feel a little better.

[StarriAngel]

Ari agreed with Emily's statement about not letting the eerie feel of the hospital get to them. She walked with the other girl and watched for signs of life, while still trying to shake the cold feeling off. When they got to the cafeteria, she breathed a sigh of relief. The cafeteria in this hospital was smaller than the one she remembered.

 

Ari chuckled lightly in response to Emily's question about paying. "Well, if no one's here to tell us too, I guess it's not necessary. I mean I would do it anyway, but if we're the only ones here, does money really matter?" she said. She was trying to make light of the situation they were all in, hoping to calm her uneasy mind. She took a deep breath, and feeling the eerie feeling from before leaving her, walked into the room and looked at the different spots where the food was set up. She selected a salad and picked up a fork. Before she sat down though, she took three dollars from her purse and left them at the cash register. "What can I say," she said as she sat down, "I'm a goody two shoes. I can't just not pay for my food." She gestured to the rest of the stuff set up. "What do you want to eat? I'm a vegetarian myself, but the food looks really good. And is Nougat hungry?" she said with a smile. She was finally beginning to feel safe now that she was in a place that didn't feel like the hospital, but there was still that nagging in the back of her mind that she couldn't place.

[Mistress of Whispers]

Wisperlee saw Mak take the drip stand for a weapon, but did not comment. It made sense to her that he would want to be armed, and she was glad he was. She doubted that her picking one up would help in the slightest though, so she didn't.

 

Giving Mak time to catch up, she continued to the fourth door on the left and opened it. Behind it was a stairwell going both up and down. The traditional place for a server room (and other employees-only areas, for that matter) was in the basement, so that's where she went. Indeed, they soon came to a large, broad hallway with lanes marked for pedestrians or vehicles (Wisperlee saw a small cart parked haphazardly, but no sign of its operator). Down here, in the underhalls of the hospital, even Wisperlee was acutely aware of the overwhelming silence. Footsteps echoing hollowly along the corridor, she continued to where Mak said the server room was.

 

[Kestra15]

Mak hated the underground. Many hospitals seemed to have one - Addenbrooke's in Cambridge was notorious for it's extensive subterranean labyrinth - and he'd always been glad to only come down during daylight hours in the past. Even then it was sparsely populated, with a hundred-bed hospital not needing so many support workers, but at least there was normally noise. The linen room in particular was known for always having a radio on while the staff worked, giving the porters something to whistle to as they went about the often-thankless task of keeping the patients clothed, fed and transported, while secretaries sorted and filed page after page of near-illegible scrawlings.

 

The radio wasn't even on today; whatever happened, happened overnight when the majority of support staff were off-shift. The cool metal of the drip stand did little to reassure Mak, but he adjusted his grip on it anyway. Their footfalls echoed around the small underground, set out in the same square arrangement as the rest of the facility, and he led Wisperlee to the server room. He wanted to chat with her, something to break the feeling that they really were the last people on earth, but the words caught in his throat.

 

'This is ridiculous,' he thought. Afraid of shops and not wanting to talk to the young girl? He was turning into a true hermit at this rate.

 

It took only a couple of minutes from entering the hospital to the pair reaching the server room. Tapping his ID card to the reader, the door obligingly unlocked and Mak pushed it open for the more tech-savvy of the pair. He'd never even stepped into the server room before, but Wisperlee had probably built them she seemed so confident in her ability to utilise it. He gestured with another slight upturn of his lips for the woman to enter her domain.

[Fangirl05]

May 1, 2014, 0850 hours

 

Erin sat up and shot the offending sunbeam a dirty look; She wasn't ready to wake up yet. See, this was what she hated about summer: She loved to sleep, and she couldn't do it if there was even a little bit of light in the room. Noise was no problem, but light?

 

She flung her blanket off her legs, stretched until she thought she might dislocate something, and bounced out of bed.

 

The TV wasn't on in the living room. That was weird; even on vacation in England, with a perfectly good and uncluttered queen-sized bed available, her mother had held on to the annoying habit of falling asleep on the couch with the TV on. She raised an eyebrow and looked around. Well, her door was shut; maybe she was in bed for a change. She shrugged dismissively and went to fix herself some coffee in the kitchen.

 

She'd always felt like the black sheep of the family, what with being the only one with a coffee tooth. Anyway, mug in hand, she returned to the living room with the intent to watch some TV when it finally got through to her that something possibly bad was going on:

 

Lori's bedroom was empty.

 

Sure, back home she was a bit of a party animal, but she'd been sticking to their mother's side kind of religiously since they got here. She wouldn't even go out by herself during the day, let alone all night. Unnerved, she put her drink down on the coffee table.

 

"Lore?"

 

She searched every other room of the house, even the ones she'd been in a second ago, but no Lori. Having failed, she looked at her mother's door with new horror.

 

"Mom?"

 

Her room was open and un-slept-in when she opened the door.

 

Desperate, and half convinced she wouldn't get the answer she wanted, she went to the window overlooking the street and of course found their rental car. Okay, something had happened; those two did not walk.

 

Breathing through her nose to try and squash her panic, she finally noticed the smell of late-summer roses in the air. She cracked the window for confirmation and found that it was indeed coming from the house. Hadn't she heard somewhere that rose was the smell of God or angels or something?

 

Wait a minute, had she slept through the Rapture?

 

"Wait a second," she thought out loud, outraged and swinging her head toward Lori's room, "that pill-popping, atheist closet-case got into Heaven and I didn't?!" She sighed. "Well, there's my answer right there."

 

She turned her head toward her own room worryingly; how were her aunt and uncles holding up, she wondered? Who had been left behind? She fished her dated iPhone out of her jean pocket and scrolled through her contacts to her home number.

 

"Hi there, you've reached the-"

 

Okay, that wasn't good. She tried one of her uncles.

 

"Hey, sorry, I'm not-"

 

That was worse. She tried the other one.

 

"Hi, you've reached-"

 

She practically punched her thumb through the button for her aunt's number.

 

"Your call has been-"

 

Oh God.

 

She threw her phone somewhere and opened her laptop so hard she probably should have broken the monitor off its hinges. She hunted around Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, anything for her friends, but there was nothing to indicate that any of them knew what was going on. None of them had even updated anything since midnight Pacific time.

 

She nudged the computer off her lap, curled into a fetal position and sobbed in despair. This was a nightmare: Here she was, stranded on the wrong side of the Atlantic with all signs pointing to everyone she knew having been sucked off the face of the Earth.

 

Eventually she managed to get up and trudge into the living room. Even though they'd only been renting this house for a couple of weeks, there were obvious signs of her family in it. It even kind of smelled like them. She couldn't stay here.

 

She pulled her favorite outfit out of her suitcase and dumped the rest of her clothes on the floor. As she pocketed her contact lens case, she noticed her phone where it had fallen. While she knew she really had no use for it, she pocketed it anyway. It had her music on it.

 

Deciding that her suitcase would probably be the best option for a backpack, she stuffed it full of a comforter, throw pillow, gallon milk jug full of water - along with the bottles of soda and iced tea in the fridge - a box of matches and all the frozen vegetables and uncooked meat in the fridge, plus a tupperwear container of baked beans. She spent about an hour cooking and bagging the meat, namely a half-dozen chicken filets and hand-moulded hamburger patties and a London broil, which she sliced, probably improperly, with the bread knife from the block. Everything that would melt or spoil she left in the sink for the flies.

 

She slid the bread knife through one of her belt loops as a makeshift scabbard, hefted her backpack-suitcase over her shoulders and closed the door on her old life.

Edited June 2, 2014 by Fangirl05

[groundporkchops]

Hi, I am so sorry to be so quiet but I have bad news:

I have been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia and am currently undergoing treatment in hospital. I will be rp-ing fairly infrequently but will attempt.

Sorry about any inconveniences!

[DragonSpirit009]

((Oh my goodness. I'm so sorry to hear that groundporkchops. My prayers is with you. Do let us know how you are if you get a chance on a later stage. We're here if you need a bit of support of any kind!))

[Fangirl05]

Oh my God!

[Mistress of Whispers]

((Groundporkchops, I'm so sorry to hear that. I wish you strength and all the best. Don't worry about the rp and let us know if there's anything we can do.))

[StarriAngel]

((That's horrible. I'm so sorry to hear that. We'll all be here for you and let us know what we can do. You're in my prayers.))

[Mistress of Whispers]

Entering the room with an incline of her head to Mak, Wisperlee easily settled down in one of the chairs. The computer she got behind was still on; the person using it seemingly having disappeared in the middle of a game of patience. The hacker steadfastly ignored the creep factor of the unfinished game and got to work. She pulled a large keyring from her bag, with roughly a dozen USB sticks dangling from it. Taking a moment to select one, Wisperlee connected it to the main computer and began modifying the USB's contained program almost as soon as it opened.

 

The problem she was facing, wasn't the algorithms involved with tracking internet activity. That was, as things went, relatively easily. The problem was the computing power needed to actually run the algorithm. Even her own state of the art laptop would have taken days, so she was really hoping that the hospital's mainframe had more raw power. Fingers flying over the keyboard, she estimated it would take her half an hour or so to actually write the program she needed. After that, it was up to the mainframe...

[HgEmpire57]

Jexxal Bayton always awoke with the same thought in mind. A mantra realy that he told him self every day, God I hate mornings, like it was going to make them less painful. Still saying such, even to himself, let him face the grueling tasks ahead with a air of indifference maybe even superiority. This morning though was somewhat different then the others.

 

As he fought against the silky tendrils of sleep still trying to pull him back in to his own dreams, he found slowly trying to get out of bed. The sickening sensation of something tugging on his right arm stopped him mid movement. Then he remembered, he was in a hospital. Looking over to see the tubing of an iv connected to his forearm. He berated himself slightly, for forgetting that one minor detail. The day before he spent it vomiting in the back of a magistrates vehicle, another case of good food gone wrong. He was admitted into the hospital that afternoon, had a needle stuck in him and was sent to bed. Now here he was in a room he has never been in before, in a town whose name he couldn't even remember, it was times like this he wished he was back home in the states, not traveling the globe.

 

With a drawn out sigh, he pushed those thoughts away, he had time to self pity later. Right now he had to get out of this hospital and back on the road. he quickly took stock of his surrounds, the sterile white walls of the room, the creamy yellow of the borders, made the room seem to bright for his tastes. He quickly managed to spot the small television in the corner but with no remote in sight he dismissed his newborn fantasy of watching something while he waited for a nurse. Speaking of a nurse... He does a quick survey of his bed finding, with satisfaction, the call button. He quickly tapped it twice, better now then later to have a nurse come in to assist him.

 

he deemed it the best course of action was to just sit comfortably and wait, but seconds grew into minutes and with. A voice sounded in the back of his mind. No one is coming for you. He crushed the voice but its mark remained, a sense of unease and worry. He knew someone was coming, their just taking their sweet old time. But as the minutes started stacking up on each other he could no longer even hold to that belief. Again that voice sounded from the back of his mind. Soon though he was plagued with this sense of unease, scaring him to the core for those minutes had turned into hours and still no matter how many times he pressed that button no one was coming for him.

 

It was right when Jexxal was about to give in to his doubts, when faint footfalls could be heard. Those sounds came with a wave of relief and anger. Who would force him to wait that long, what were they doing, fighting an epidemic? This short lived anger boiled over into his words, making him sound harsher then he would have normally, "Yo!" he called out to the people outside his room, expecting them to be the nurses he had been calling all this time. "I could us some *Help* over here!"

(Would Magistrate be the correct term? I don't know much about England so if I got it wrong tell me! ^^)

Edited June 4, 2014 by HgEmpire57

[Fangirl05]

Several wrong turns later, Erin finally found herself in the supermarket. After trekking across almost the whole of Hawkingsthorne the dead silence of the place didn't come as much of a surprise, but it did make her wonder: Was she the only person left in the town? The thought was weird in that it was both frightening and slightly comforting. Still, she "unsheathed" her knife just to be safe.

 

She found her way to the bread isle and stuffed her suitcase with two boxes of Ritz crackers and a dozen fresh-baked six-inch Italian rolls for sandwiches; She'd opted to leave the hamburger buns back at the rental house. She'd never liked potato bread much.

 

As an afterthought, she liberated a couple of black trash bags and, after doing some quick and probably incorrect mental math, loaded one of them up with feminine products. No reason she had to fight through the Apocalypse covered in her own blood, right?

 

The second she filled with gossip magazines and fap material generously categorized as "Romance novels" to use for tinder. Not like they deserved any better.

 

At the end of the isle she chanced upon copies of the "Divergent" trilogy and considered taking some of them along for some reading for fun, but ultimately decided against it. What was the point? She didn't feel like she had either the time or the capacity to do things for fun right then.

 

As she was leaving the supermarket, it finally dawned on her:

 

The only way she stayed in contact with most of her friends was through Facebook.

 

The only numbers she really had in her phone were of her family and a couple of higher-ups from her job, maybe her friends just hadn't checked to see if the Internet was still working; they weren't exactly as quick as her, not that she'd ever let anybody but her say that.

 

They could still be out there, back home.

 

Her breathing quickened with joy, or maybe it was hope. She didn't care. She had a plan of action.

 

All she had to do was get to the West Coast of England, commandeer a ship or a jet ski or something, Hell, she'd take a damn rowboat if she had to, and she could go home!

 

She hitched her suitcase higher on her shoulders and marched off in what she thought was the right direction with a new spring in her step.

[loviebeest]

Lydia just looked on as all the others entered the hospital. In the end she was left alone with Nay. The hosptal had an eerie feeling about it, being abondoned and all. There was also no real comfort that she was left with practially a stranger. She pushed her fears momentarily aside and started walking to the ER entrance, turning only once to check if Nay was following. "Shall we go?" There was still a bit of comfort in the presence of a stranger.

 

Once inside Lydia looked around. It was empty wich was no suprise, it looked like everything was abondoned. Things were left half done, ready to picked up any moment. It was simply a worrysome sight, no nurse would leave a job half done, at least not so blatantly. Lydia turned away from the eerie sight and turned to a small office were the dossiers were. Once inside she saw that the computers were still on with some dossiers open. The hospital was slowly turning their management digital, that meant that all the paperwork would be gone and everything would be easier to find. Lydia sat down in front of one of the computers and layed her card down at the scanning deck. She filed in her password and turned to Nay, who had followed her, before she opened any dossiers or anything. "Nay promise me one thing even though it isn't really the time for that. Tell no one the names that you see in here. The curcumstances would say otherwise but I still have the duty to keep everything confidential. If you don't plan to keep it to yourself than you can better stay out of this office for the moment." With that she started browsing through everything.

 

Lydia had found out a few things. The last person to be admitted had been brought to the resus at 2:57 AM. The strange thing was that there had been no updates since 3:30 AM, a person like that should have been monitored. Now Lydia was on her way to the last indentified patient with Nay in tow. She had also grabbed one of the beebers out of habit, guessing that no one would really mind at the moment. At arrival she went inside and halted, turning around to Nay. "I think that you better can stay here." She hestitated a moment before she continued. "I... found a person, he just isn't a survivor." Her face had sadness written all over it but she didn't cry or show fear. She was used to one or two people dying, working in a hospital after all, but it was never an emotionless happening.

 

Refusing to go closer she went back in the office, to relax and breathe. After sitting down for a moment she logged in on one of the computers and updated the data. She didn't know the time or anything other than his dead. She would maybe bring him later to the mortuarium but that was it, she never had to handle the dead person herself. The beeber suddenly went off making Lydia almost jump out of her skin. She looked at the numbers on the beeber and on the room chart. It was someone named Jexxal Bayton, he had been admitted with food poisoning and should havee been moved to another ward. He was stable according to the dossier but he was not moved. Confusion and relief wasched over her as she was thinking that it maybe it was a suvivor as well. Quickly she stood up but didn't go yet. Maybe it was just a delayed signal and I will find another dead person. Or it is someone who needs my help. After thinking a minute she dragged Nay with her to the patient.

 

At arrival she heard the patient. "Yo! I could us some *Help* over here!" Clearly he didn't sound happy, but it was a voice. "Nay, you can stay outside the room if you want." Lydia turned off the calling signal after that and entered the room. "Mister Bayton, sorry for the delay. I'm Millers if you don't mind can I check your condition, I reckon you want to get out of this room." Out of habit Lydia disinfected her hands by using one of the many bottles hanging around. She also could act more familiar but she kept being professional since she was in the position of a nurse right now.

 

((I'm sorry for not anwsering for a long time, procastination is never a good idea. I also was kinda waiting on porky but with the news I just hope she gets better soon. For now I will just drag Nay around with Lydia if you don't mind, this way you can always jump in. Also I added some of the descriptions of the hospital where I was an intern. It made it more familiar for me and easier to describe. Hope you don't mind.))

[HgEmpire57]

The moment the nurse entered the room, Jexxal relaxed against the pillows of his bed. A smile plastered on his face like a mask, never reaching his eyes. Stormy they bored holes into the back of her skull. They softened slightly when she addressed him because everyone knows a little flattery goes a long way. Yet he still answered in his usual cold sarcastic fashion

 

"No No No, Miss Millers. I have been pressing this button for a couple hours now because I wanted to see your beautiful face." Stifling a groan as he forced his stiff limbs to action, He slipped into a sitting position, his legs dangling off the side of the bed with the Iv. "If you could just pull this needle out of my arm and find me my cloths I'll be happy sign myself out and go get some lunch. " He appraised her again before quickly adding. "If you have your break soon, Id more then happy to pay for two," punctuating the last word with a sly wink.

[loviebeest]

Lydia almost rolled her eyes at his words. Oh, so he is this kind of patient just great. At least he is someone who is alive, it doesn't matter how he is. She gave him a friendly smile instead of a real reaction to his sarcastic comments. "There were some problems with the beeber, I only got the call a few minutes ago. We can talk about lunch after I checked your condition, especially since you have been admitted for food poisoning." She just calmy grabbed his wrist and looked at her watch, sometimes glancing at him. After a minute she let him go and fiddled with the Iv. "Your heartrate is 84, perfectly normal just as your breathing. You are not queasy, are you? I don't think you are, since you want lunch so badly." She disconnected the Iv drip but left the needle in the arm. "I will leave the needle in so in case of emergency we can give you medicine if needed, you are still in observation. If you have a little more patience than I will find some clothes for you to wear." Lydia grabbed a package from a cabinet and put it down next to him. "If you want, you can clean yourself while I get the clothes. These are like wetwipes, you don't need water or soap to clean yourself." She gave him a friendly smile and turned to leave the room, a bit reluctant since she didn't want to really leave him alone without explaination.

[Fangirl05]

Okay, yeah, she'd probably been going the wrong way, but it didn't matter, not really. She'd wound up at the local hospital, if it could really be called that. It was more like a clinic than anything else, she thought. Even so, it was a lucky find; it was bound to have a pair of crutches or some ace bandages lying around, maybe even some of those self-freezing gel packs, and until she managed to find some other way to travel besides on foot, it was decidedly better to have some kind of backup in case she sprained something.

 

As Erin passed through the automatic front doors, which she found weirdly unsettling, she heard noises she could've sworn were human voices. She worked her knife out of her belt loop and shifted her weight onto the balls of her feet.

 

"Hello?" she called, thinking that she really needed to find a better scabbard. When she got silence as an answer, she lowered her weapon in favor of straightening her back. "Hey! Is anyone down there?"

Edited June 5, 2014 by Fangirl05

[DragonSpirit009]

Emily stepped closer and took a look around the small section of food displayed before them. She did see some pasta that would go well with her but nothing for their fury friend.

“She does seem a bit hungry.” Emily finally spoke as she kept looking for something to eat. “I’m not sure when they fed her the last time but I doubt these would be any good for her.” Emily pointed out at the different dishes before her. Maybe there might be something in the kitchen’s fridge or something.

 

“Can you hold on to Nougat for me? I’m going to see if there is something in the kitchen to raid.” She spoke handing over the leash to Ari. “Do you think we should gather something for the others as well?” Emily spoke already making her way to the kitchen.

 

((Sorry for the delay. Hard times for me. Also I didn’t kinda read what happened in the posts above me so if someone talked to my carrie just say so and I’ll check it out.))

 

[Fangirl05]

Erin's eyes narrowed; she was sure she was hearing people talking, and was too out of sorts to remember that her voice had never carried very far. She stalked more purposefully down the hallway, craning her neck around the doorways until she found the apparent source of the voices: a pair of girls she thought were a few years younger than her and their dog, rooting around in the fridge. She loosed a sharp whistle to attract their attention.

[Mistress of Whispers]

Wisperlee watched with satisfaction as her newly written tracer algorithm did its things. While she waited for the outcome, she opened her own laptop and began setting up social media accounts with names like "still_here" "anyone_out_there?" and "leave_a_message." She knew her way around all the majors sites and before her initial search was even finished, she'd set up some two dozen new accounts. If anyone was still checking sites like facebook, twitter or tumblr, they'd be sure to find her.

 

She considered hacking into the British Government website; a feat she normally wouldn't consider as the site was exceedingly well protected, but it didn't look like there was anyone left to catch her. Just then though, the first results of her search came in. Firstly, and most importantly, the internet was real. This wasn't a set-up or a hoax.

 

It looked like the internet had gone silent in a perfect line from East to West, starting in Japan and progressing across the globe almost uniformly. Whatever had happened, was dependent on time zone as she could almost pinpoint when each country had gone silent: somewhere between 3 and 3:30 in the night. She also noted that none of the major server farms in India, China, Russia were responding, though it was impossible to determine what had happened to them from this distance; status messages appeared normal until they suddenly went off line, indicating that it had happened quick and without warning.

 

"Mak," she called out to the hallway, "I found it!"

 

 

((Kestra, Wisperlee will show Mak what she found without hesitation, so he can go ahead and respond to that in your post.))

[Fangirl05]

Suddenly her phone sounded its Facebook chime. Her heart sped up at the possibility that someone she knew was out there, but bitter-sweetly it turned out to be a Friend request from three strangers: "still_here", "anyone_out_there?", and "leave_a_message". She accepted "anyone_out_there?", deleted the other two and typed in a quick message:

 

Who are you?

Edited June 10, 2014 by Fangirl05