Rapture

[DragonSpirit009]

Emily got a bit nervous when she saw the first guy approaching the hospital. He clearly was living in his own world with the way he spoke and spray painting the hospital. She looked at Ari and one would easily see her concern on her face from this encounter with this “interesting” guy. Her gaze returned to the other man who just got of his motorcycle and asked what was going on. So far he didn’t seem as “special” as his friend.

 

A couple more questions were asked and the pikachu guy came hurrying back. His words didn’t really make sense to her but it was clear this guy had issues. It also seemed like he didn’t liked to be controlled or disciplined which might cause a problem if they wanted to stop him setting things on fire. Emily tightened her grip on Nougat’s leash hoping that none of them will fall prey to one of his events.

 

[Fortune86]

James eyed Jaune warily. He wondered if the guy had always been like this, or if his mind had snapped when he had found everyone around him gone. James himself had panicked terribly at the time and it was only now the presence of other people that was possibly preventing him from following suit.

 

Since Jaune had occupied himself with the dominoes James turned his attention back to the new group.

 

"Okay, so part from the 'everyone has gone to Heaven' theory, what else do we know? I mean, was there some sort of newsbroadcast I missed?"

[Fangirl05]

Erin jolted at the accusation as if she'd been struck; this lunatic had the nerve to call them dangerous? "Look who's talkin'," she gestured at him, "you smell like a barbecue gone to hell!"

 

Her eyes almost bugged out of her head in rage at the biker's revelation. "Oh, you idiot!" she roared at the crazy man, "That food could've kept us alive for weeks!" She yanked her knife loose so quickly her belt loop snapped. "Somebody hold him down," she snarled, "I'm gonna kill him before he decides to kill all of us!"

 

((... Apparently Erin gets violent when she feels threatened.))

[Fortune86]

Jame took a step forward, his hand outstretched.

 

"Listen. It's pretty obvious he's not in his right mind. What he did was totally stupid, I agree, but you can't kill him for it. That wouldn't be right."

 

He didn't voice the opinion that his brothers would have agreed with her and killed Jaune the moment they met. James had always been considered the 'soft' one, but as crazy as Jaune was, James knew you couldn't kill someone just for that.

 

"There are other supermarkets" he added. "And with your help I should be able to stop him from causing any further trouble. I don't think I could handle him on my own."

Edited June 26, 2014 by Fortune86

[Marcus Pheonix]

Jaune looked up from his domino's at the crazy girl. He shook his head and sighed.

"You're clearly mistaken, I don't smell like a barbecue. I smell like the fresh sent of jasmine and coconuts... or thats what it says on the shampoo bottle," Jaune sniffed at his sleeve and grinned.

He pulled out his stanley knife and began carving one of the domino's to look like a bulbasaur.

"My comrade is right that was a lone super market in the area, there are several other districts in this pitiful little village and many of them contain multiple areas where we can obtain some further forms of nutrition," He said quietly. Jaune finished the domino and through it at the others knocking them over.

"Look Lucy, how they fall. As if they were soldiers being struck by arrows to their chest, their friends try to hold them up but as the attack continues they are brought down. Overburdened by their comrades eventually the entire force will collapse," Jaune said, as he slide onto his side watching as they fell in sequence. He then stood up quickly.

"Medical supplies! The doctor said that I had to continue with my treatment... I need a couch," Jaune pulled out a book from his onesie and began flicking through the pages, he stopped at an image of a psychiatrist sitting with a patient on the couch. He showed it to James.

"Do you know where we can get one of these? Hospitals have all kinds of doctors don't they, there'd be one in there?" He asked, the angry girl with the knife gone from his mind.

Edited June 26, 2014 by Marcus Pheonix

[Kestra15]

The deranged lunatic smelling of fire and DMEs had frankly startled Mak at first, but his return - completed with wielding make-shift flamethrowers in their faces - was enough to put him on automatic. Mak didn't consider himself much of a 'macho man' figure, and had been on the receiving end of vicious sparring matches from men and women alike, but a firestarter on a 'high' was enough to bring instinct to the forefront. He stepped forward, slightly in front of Wisperlee and Emily. Unarmed with an aggressive knife-wielder to one side, a can-wielding maniac in front, and the biker who simply exuded an air of confidence that was in a way more dangerous than the other two, Mak felt very unsafe indeed.

 

Quiet relief filled Mak as the man-child sat down, but the shock revelation that their pyromaniac friend was the reason for Hawkingsthorne's new bonfires was enough to push Erin to the brink. A detached part of his mind wondered whether every other post-apocalyptic story had simply been optimistic about the survival of Man after the fall; so far it looked like they would either be knifed, burnt or simply insane.

 

"Who started what doesn't matter now," Mak interjected, turning to glance at everyone. "With no-one around to put out those fires, pretty soon this town is either going to be a bonfire and if it's not the flames that get us, it's the smoke. I think it's time to gather supplies and leave - as a group, or individually."

[Fangirl05]

"Oy..." Erin pressed her first two fingers against her forehead. With the exception of the pretty biker boy, there was some kind of disconnect between the danger this guy posed and their frontal lobes.

 

"Okay," she crossed her arms and turned her head toward the others, "the majority of you don't strike me as particularly street-wise, so I'll spell it out for you:" She pointed at the guy in question oh he had a knife, "A grown-ass man spouting six flavors of nonsense and running around in hooded Pikachu footie pajamas miles from a convention center is not someone you want in your circle. The way I see it, one of us is gonna do something to piss off his pet praying mantis over there and he'll listen when it tells him to kill us, or he'll just do it for kicks. We're better off without him and he's way too dangerous to be left to his own devices." She clenched her first and jaw at part of his babbling. I will not admit to the wisdom in that. "So, since you all are clearly against me giving him a quick and fairly painless death, how about we tie him to a street lamp and wait for nature to take its course?"

 

Oh, God, that left a foul taste in her mouth. The idea of actually killing a man was bad enough, but leaving him tied up to starve and dehydrate to death? She half wanted to jump off a cliff herself, God knew what the rest of them had to be thinking. First chance she got, she was taking a shower, hot water or lackthereof be damned.

[Mistress of Whispers]

"Relax, Erin," Wisperlee interjected. "This has nothing to do with street smarts and everything to do with humanity. We are not going to kill - or abandon - someone just because he's mentally ill. Last I checked, the punishment for arson wasn't death either. So the biker and the mental guy are coming with us until they prove to be dangerous to us."

 

The hacker amazed herself more than anyone as she spoke. Mere moments ago, she'd been thinking the same thing: don't let the pyro join the group. But then Erin has quickly polarized everything and now it came down to sticking to humanity or abandoning it, and Wisperlee wasn't ready for the latter.

 

"We should leave through the back" she said. "The hospital's height might shield us from the smoke and we need to look for Lydia and Nay in patient care anyway." She sincerely hoped they'd find the pair soon - she didn't know if Lydia had any actual experience with mental health care, but the nurse were the closest thing they had to a psychologist and they definitely needed one.

 

With that she turned and began to make her way to the back exit, even as she pulled out her phone and began calling the number she'd found for Lydia in the employee records.

Edited June 26, 2014 by Mistress of Whispers

[Fangirl05]

((I thought Ari was with the main group and Nay was with Lydia ))

 

"Kay" Erin agreed. Suggesting that she kill a man had left her feeling hollowed out. Still, as a precaution, she fished her charger cable out of her pocket, yanked the Pikachu man to his feet and snapped it at him menacingly. "Behave yourself and I might untie you sometime" she growled at him. She turned her attention to the biker. "Him I don't care about, but what's your name, stranger?"

Edited June 26, 2014 by Fangirl05

[Mistress of Whispers]

((Oh I meant Nay, thanks for catching that! I edited it.

 

Sidenote: I'll let Marcus decide if he minds or not, but rp-etiquette wise it's best to indicate that Erin moves to tie up Jaune and then let Marcus decide if that works. He is Jaune's controlling player, after all.))

[Fangirl05]

On whatever honor Erin has, she'll untie him if Marcus asks.

[Marcus Pheonix]

((Did I mention Jaunes autistic? That means he doesn't like strange people touching him, currently the only person he likes is James))

 

"Why would Lucy want you dead? She couldn't eat you, you're too big" Jaune said quietly to himself. He was then startled as the crazy girl grabbed him from behind and threateningly showed a cable at him. Wide eyed with fright Jaune pushed back against her with all of his force, successfully separating them. He then fell down again, this time holding his head and breathing into his half mask. He pulled the hood down, hiding his face completely and breathed heavily, the mask causing the sound of his breathing to echo loudly.

"Don't....touch...me!" He screamed at the girl. He then crawled around behind James again. Jaune opened his backpack and pulled out one of the packets of crisps he'd taken from the supermarket. He opened it, his hands shaking, and began eating from it.

 

((Also why are you so worried about the fire, I assumed it was a reasonable distance away, especially the first one which would have died out by now. How could the smoke reach them?))

[Fangirl05]

((No, you did not. That does make his craziness a little easier to understand. Also, she's not worried about the fires so much as the idea of a guy who likes to put buildings to the torch for fun.))

 

Erin had expected struggling, but not shoving. She stumbled back a few steps and watched him have his little freakout, shriek at her not to touch him, skitter behind the biker dude's legs and start nibbling a bag of chips fearfully. Okay, so the guy was apparently touch-averse as well as crazy. This made him a little easier to curtail, at least in theory. Her lips stretched into a little smile. It made her feel a little better about having to drag him along to know that she had a relatively harmless way of shutting him down that came at no cost to herself.

 

((Man, Erin's a sadistic little fracker ))

Edited June 27, 2014 by Fangirl05

[DragonSpirit009]

“Erin back off!” Emily called out in annoyance. Nougat’s tail went slightly between her legs knowing well enough that tone of voice wasn’t a good one but the dog still stayed by the girls side. “Don’t go judge someone if you’re clearly willing to do more harm than him. So he burned one or two places and he is a bit...” Emily paused for a bit thinking. She was taught not to call people crazy directly but it was kind hard in this situation. “Umm... special of some sorts but it doesn’t give you the right to harm or kill anyone. Sure it’s all scary and stuff but we’ve got bigger problems now like what the hell happened in this town or maybe even to the world.”

Edited June 27, 2014 by DragonSpirit009

[Fortune86]

"That's enough!" protested James as the girl called Erin tried to manhandle Jaune. Her actions caused the crazy kid to freak out and run round James to hide. James shot Erin a filthy look and then turned to check on Jaune, who was apparently trying to calm himself by eating some crisps.

 

"It's okay" he said softly. "I won't let them hurt you."

 

He wondered if he could live up to that. Jaune might be...damaged...but he didn't have any confidence in Erin either. She seemed a little too eager to solve her problems through killing. Even Theo, who had once smashed a man's face in with a brick, would have been disgusted at her suggestion to tie someone up and leave them to starve to death. If you wanted someone dead, you killed them outright. No chickening out and trying to take the 'easy' way.

 

The girl with the dog seemed to be on his side. James wondered if she could be trusted, or if any of them could.

[Mistress of Whispers]

Wisperlee turned back around when people began to yell. Had Erin just attacked the crazy guy? She had missed the event so she couldn't be sure, but the girl had been hostile towards him from the get-go. For the first time since Erin's arrival, Wisperlee began to wonder if it was symbolic that Erin had showed up armed and ready to fight.

 

Walking back, she carefully knelt down a few paces from the pyromaniac who was now hiding behind the biker.

 

"Hi, I'm Wisperlee," she introduced herself. "You asked about a doctor when you showed us that picture of the sofa. Well, we have a nurse. Her name is Lydia and she might be able to help with your treatment, but we have to go find her first. Is that okay?" Then, realizing she didn't even know what to call him (other than 'giggles', 'crazy guy' or 'pyro' which were probably not proper forms of address), she added: "What's your name?'

 

"Come to think of it," she said as she waved towards the biker, too wary of pyro to take her eyes off him now that she was so close, "I don't know your name either."

Edited June 27, 2014 by Mistress of Whispers

[Fangirl05]

"Oh, for crying out loud" Erin muttered. She fixed her face into one of its harder expressions and swung her head toward Emily. "I wasn't going to hurt him, I was going to tie his hands together like this." She crossed her wrists over each other in demonstration. "Forgive me for thinking it was safer for all of us if he couldn't strike a match." She turned to the biker next, pointing for emphasis. "Quit giving me that dirty look, wheels-" she meant the next bit for the whole group, "Yes, I have a horrible temper, but I don't have any non-pixelated blood on my hands and I don't intend to start accumulating now." She softened her expression and craned her neck around what's-his-name's leg at the guy who had apparently gone from man-child to man-hamster. "Look, eh... Whatever your name is, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to freak you out quite that bad." Her head dropped a little; she was sure that hadn't come out sounding sincere, even though she'd meant every word of it.

 

((And that, boys and girls, is why strict loner-ness is bad for you.))

[Kestra15]

((Also why are you so worried about the fire, I assumed it was a reasonable distance away, especially the first one which would have died out by now. How could the smoke reach them?))

((Those fires won't just 'die out.' Juane has started a house fire in a row of houses, and a supermarket blaze barely a few hundred metres away - think about all the flammable objects to hand for those fires. Think about the number of gas cookers that are to hand or may still be running. You explicitly mentioned that in the supermarket Jaune placed butane gas cannisters to help the blaze. The supermarket will become a raging inferno of it's own accord, and the first blaze will slowly be eating through the north-west of the town, and with no-one around to arrest those fires and plenty of flammables to hand...

 

Consider that a 'simple' house fire can take twenty firefighters and four engines an hour to tackle (see here for examples), and that it can take a day or two to control a massive complex fire, there's no way that these two fires would simply have burned out in the 75-90min since Jaune started the first, and that supermarket blaze will only just be starting. Wait until it reaches the station forecourt...

 

Any cursory search for how fires develop, and the resources it takes to control them, will show just how devastating they are. That your chara has specifically made it so that high-pressure gas cannisters will systematically explode? It's safe to say Hawkingsthorne is going to be written off a lot earlier than I had planned ))

Edited June 27, 2014 by Kestra15

[Fortune86]

"I'm James" he told Whisperlee. "And this nurse of yours, you really think she can help him? I have no experience whatsoever with people in his...condition."

 

When Erin protested against their reactions he turned back to face her.

 

"Look, I get that you don't want him causing any further trouble, I agree with you there. What you can't do is tie him up like an animal. Yes I get these are some pretty unusal circumstances but that doesn't mean we can take it out on those who don't know any better. I've known this guy for less than an hour and even I can see how messed up he is. I'm just saying to give a guy a break. I don't even know if he was always like this. For all we know whatever happen to everyone had some kind of side effect on him."

 

He looked at Jaune. How would he react to Erin's more passive approach?

[Marcus Pheonix]

((Hmm well for the first one Jaune had moved pretty much all of the furniture into one place and the houses were distant enough apart for the neighbours to not go up in flames. Perhaps its still burning but I don't think it would spread to the other houses considering both the distance and the fact that the other houses are most likely made of non flammable materials. It's why Jaune lit the inside of the house, so it would burn away from the inside. Also seeing as the inside fire was very effective the structure would have likely collapsed which would cause a lot of dust which would suffocate the fire.

 

Of course I may be completely wrong in my assumptions... But the supermarket fire I know for certain is still blazing like crazy. I just probably misjudged where it was, I looked at the map and I figured it was a fair distance away from the hospital, within sight sure, but close enough to be a threat unlikely.

Assume what you will, I didn't think they were that dangerous... at least not the house fire.

 

Ill post proper later, time to display Jaunes intellectual genius! ))

[Salix]

Petra’s footfalls sounded unnaturally loud as she made her way through the unusually quite and deserted streets; occasionally she thought she heard the sound of a motorbike, but as yet she hadn’t passed by or even seen any other people ‘What is going on, has everyone left, has there been some kind of an evacuation for some reason? Her panicked imagination skittered from one worrying scenario to another, ‘Maybe Josh and Thomas were evacuated along with everyone else, and somehow I was missed?’

 

Glancing up she noticed a dark angry looking plume of smoke rising ominously up into the sky, further off in the distance there seemed to be another plume of smoke. Pausing and holding her breath she strained to hear if she could make out any sounds of sirens that should be coming from the emergency vehicles, but save for a few angrily twittering birds the oppressive silence remained unbroken.

 

‘Perhaps the fires are part of all this strangeness’ Unbidden thoughts of aliens, zombies and apocalyptic worlds end all raced thought Petra’s mind. Taking a big shaky breath she tried to calm herself, thinking along those lines would probably lead to madness, instead she made herself focus and think logically.

 

The angry looking smoke plume seemed to be near Morrison’s, if she made her way there then perhaps she could find out what was happening, but then she remembered that the hospital was not too far away from the supermarket, and although Hawkingsthorne’s hospital wasn’t terribly big it would probably become a focal point in the event of an emergency, also wasn’t too far away from Steve and Sally’s house.

 

Breaking into ground eating jog she navigated her way through the quiet streets until she arrive at the hospital car park, slowing to a walk and trying to catch her breath as she cautiously she made her way towards the hospital entrance, expecting to be greeted by throngs of people busily scurrying about, instead there was a motorbike and a small group of people, and a dog.

 

[StarriAngel]

Ari flinched as Erin yelled at the crazy man. She still wasn't sure how she felt about this girl but she knew for sure that she was frightened. She saw the man hide behind the biker guy and start eating some crisps. She hated to see people hurting, so she really wanted to help. Wisperlee told the men that they were going to find Lydia so that she could help the scared man. She then introduced herself. The biker guy said his name was James and that the crazy guy's name was Jaune. She thought about how she could make him feel better.

 

'I know,' she thought, 'I remember doing this with the kids in my class!'

 

She walked up and knelt down next to Wisperlee. "Hi Jaune," she said, "I'm Ari. I just wanted to say I like your art." She smiled at him as she gestured towards the colorful spray paint on the side of the hospital. "I always thought this place needed more color." She hoped that her gentle approach would be enough to calm him down. It worked on children, maybe it worked on people who were 'special' too.

[Fangirl05]

Erin let her gaze wander while Wisperlee bent down next to the nutcase. As she looked around the parking lot she noticed a career-woman-looking woman slow to a stop from a probable run. She wasn't sure if she could see it, but she smiled at the woman as she waved to her. She stopped waving and raised an eyebrow in Ari's general direction when she started in about the guy's -Juane's, apparently - spray painting, or art as she called it. "Yeah, that's it, encourage him" she thought, "It's not as if he's the only one with a gas mask around here."

Edited June 28, 2014 by Fangirl05

[HgEmpire57]

(sorry i was not around... all I'm going to say is that I am not ever trusting my phone again.)

 

Without another word to Lydia he was off, marching off in the direction Lydia and her friend had first came from. As he walked off, he tried to peice together the hazy memories from last night.

 

He had been at a restaurant, alone like usual, when he had suddenly collapsed. From there he can remember street lights, an EMT above him Checking his pulse, his pupils, making sure he wasn't dying. Bright lights of the hospital greeted him as he was wheeled in looking toward the vehicle he was wheeled out of the number 17 stuck with him... 17

 

he came to the intersection at the end of the hallway, the voices of others barly a whisper in one direction, but as the signs on the wall indicated, his destination was the other way. So he put those voices out of his mind, like most of the current situation, and headed off toward the motor pool. It took several minutes but he eventually arrived. A large garage the ambulances all lined up neatly in several rows along the walls, two wide garage doors ready to release them. Hand in his pocket, he stepped into the room, quietly looking around the room till finally, in the farthest most corner, was number 17. Its doors were still open, as if only just a moment ago someone walked away from their vehicle assured that they would return to it, never to be seen again. The thought made the eirie darkness of the room all the more unsettling, every few moments Jexxal would catch himself looking over his shoulder, every time he was both relieved and scared that nothing was there.

 

Jumping into the back of the ambulance, he rummaged around for several minutes, the engine of a motorbike sounding in the distance, in till he finally found his prize, his backpack. His throwing his hand out in a celebratory fist pump, he closed the back door of the ambulance as he changed. Changing into his spare clothing, a worn in pair of black skinnies and his favorite band T, an american band known as Sleeping With Sirens.

 

Exiting the vehicle feeling more relaxed then he has been since he had woken up. With his back pack were it should be, he was about to walk back into the hospital, when on second thought he grabbed the keys of the ambulance out of its ignition. With the keys in his pocket he walked back in, walking around in till he caught thee voices again, making his way to the front of the hospital. He stopped in front of the glass doors between him and the group of people before him.

 

a lot more then i thought...

 

It was a reassuring thought to think that in just one town, so many were still left, it gave him hope for the rest of the world. Maybe it wasn't as bad as Lydia made him believe. With that in his mind, he pushed the door open forcing a smile on his lips.

 

"Uh, Hi guys... Am I interrupting something?"

Edited June 28, 2014 by HgEmpire57

[Fangirl05]

Erin swung her head back toward the door, and a new voice. Its source was a guy that looked like an unfriendly but not dangerous hitchhiker. "Eh, hello" she flexed her hand in an awkward circular wave, then turned back to the others. "Is this guy one of yours?"