After the End of the World [Solo & Virginia]

Virginia Greene · Oct 17, 2019

Two days ago, Anastasia had been to the worst party of her life. She had been invited to a gallery opening being thrown by a friend, flown up to attend, and been met with middling wine, boring company, art that looked like it belonged on a proud parent's fridge and not in a gallery, and oh yeah, it had been thrown into disarray by the apocalypse. While zombies had devoured attendees like those same guests had previously been going to town on the hors d'oeuvres, Anastasia and some man she'd never met had managed to make it out the back door and into the street. And, more importantly, to his car.

Which she had left unfixably slammed into a tree. Without the man who owned it, but that had been a whole other misadventure.

Her feet hurt. But of course they did, she'd left her high heels several miles back when she'd gotten one stuck in something while running. Her shimmering, low cut, baby blue dress was torn in several places and splattered with blood, and at this point the little brunette wasn't even sure if any of it was hers. She didn't feel like any of it was hers but she'd crashed her car a few hours ago and who could really tell at this point? She was definitely bruised all to hell and she'd gotten a little scraped up running through the woods, but this much blood on her clothing? Hopefully not hers. Probably not hers. Okay maybe a little bit of it was but only because trees and bushes were not her friends.

She had found a road again, which was nice. It was made of dirt and really barely better than walking across the forest floor, but roads had to go somewhere and she was pretty sure she’d lost the zombie that had been following her. It had been harder than it should have been - they weren't that fast, after all. Anastasia had been concerned briefly that they'd have 28 Days Later running zombies, but no. George Romero had been right, zombies were slow. The speed wasn't the problem, it was the fact that they didn't have to stop. They didn't tire, pain didn't bother them, there was no time when she could rest because they never would. They had no strategy to figure out, it was just staying ahead. Just making sure that she kept moving, kept going, never stopped. Eventually she found herself rounding a corner to see a small cabin with a stack of wood out front. And a truck. Her first thought was that it meant somebody was home and that was good. Years of exposure to a bloated and honestly sort of derivative genre of film, on the other hand, told her that approaching excitedly was a great way to get one's face ripped off, so instead she approached cautiously, ready to try and force herself to escape again if she had to.

The young woman didn't put much consideration into how she might seem to someone on the other side of the door. Dress splattered like a first day butcher's apprentice, hair wild and tangled with sticks, barefoot and scratched up, eyes dark and dull with an exhaustion that reached deep down into her bones. She'd been running on adrenaline until she'd.... run out of adrenaline. She was prey that had been chased until it was too tired to keep running, but knew that by no longer being able to use the only thing it had to it's advantage, it was only capable of waiting to see if the predator was going to find it.

Solo · Nov 11, 2019

It was going to storm.

Silas knew it, because the normal chittering of the birds or far-off noises of the odd, wayward camper or hiker that would venture into his part of the woods was absent, and that could only mean one thing: a storm was on the horizon. It hadn’t hit yet, nor had it even materialized, but just because the sky was blue then didn’t mean it would be the next minute, so he begrudgingly rose a bit earlier than he would have liked and skipped his normal routine of breakfast and a leisurely walk to get right to his chores; there would be time for him to settle in front of the fire with a bare-bones meal once the garden was tended. If he didn’t shelter the tomatoes, they were going to take a pounding from the rain, and he could kiss his favorite pasta sauce goodbye, which would really ruin his day. He’d made a special trip the week before for dried pasta from the store in town, and if he had wasted a whole day driving in for substandard general store noodles for nothing, well, that would just be his luck.

Stretching, he pulled on a pair of jeans over his boxer briefs, the sturdy fabric perfect for outdoor chores, before adding a plain t-shirt and a heavy flannel, guaranteed to be chucked off and tied around his waist by mid-day but good for protecting him from the mid-morning chill. He slid his feet into heavy work boots and tied his shoulder-length hair at the nape of his neck, a faded baseball cap from a team he didn’t even think was still playing topping it to protect his skin from the sun. Chugging the remnants of the glass of water he kept by his bed, he headed out to the garden to get started.

Once the plants were properly shielded from the rain that was sure to come, he allowed himself a quick rinse in the creek behind the cabin, the flannel over his shoulder after he redressed and headed back inside. A simple, light lunch would suit; he made himself a sandwich from some leftover ham he’d cured, eating it along with some slightly stale potato chips he’d splurged on last time he’d gone to town. He’d eaten while watching out his front window, waiting to see if the storm clouds would form, when a form emerged from the trees. Dropping the crust of his sandwich on the table near the door, his lunch forgotten, he swung open his front door to take a better look at the approaching form, squinting against the sun and furrowing his eyebrows as he studied her.

The young woman looked like she had been through hell, her sparkling dress torn and bloodied as she pushed on in shambling barefoot steps towards his cabin. Silas paused as he regarded her; it was obvious something terrible had befallen her, and he couldn’t rightly turn her away without help, but those looking to ambush someone had used young women as bait before, and he was nothing if not paranoid.

“You can stop right there, little lady,” he directed her as he shut his door behind him, resting one hand on the hatchet he kept by the door to chop wood in the winter. “What’s got you all the way out here lookin’ like you’ve been to the seventh circle of hell and back?”

Virginia Greene · Nov 16, 2019

Oh, there was a very tall man. Which was dangerous too. But it was early enough in the apocalypse that she felt like maybe that was the sort of thing to be worried about later in the apocalypse instead. Not enough time had passed for people to be bonkers evil, right? Good people had to still be alive at this point.

He put his hand on the hatchet and told her to stop, and listening to him sounded like a good idea because it was (probably) his cabin and some people could throw hatchets and even if he couldn't do that she was small and her legs hurt and he could probably break her in half with his bare hands or something. People who lived in cabins and chopped their own wood were strong. People who could murder the people who lived in cabins and chopped their own wood were also very strong., and more concerning.

"I..." Her brow furrowed, lips tugging down slightly. "Uh," she gestured off sort of vaguely towards the forest. "I got in a car crash. There wasn't anyone who could help." Technically true. "Do you get phone service? Or WiFi?" She dug into her bra until she could fish out her cracked phone, stored there because fancy dresses didn't have pockets and she wasn't about to try and run around with a clutch purse in the apocalypse, to see if she had even a sliver of reception. No. The question was for two reasons - she really did want to try and contact her parents to see if they were okay, but mostly she was trying to gauge whether or not this man actually knew what was going on. With no phone service, internet, or TV satellite that she could see, it was possible that he was oblivious to the fact that the world, or at least the state, was overrun with zombies. Which meant at least the North and South American continents were either at risk or already down.

There was the sound of movement in the woods behind her and Anastasia looked startled in a way very comparable to a deer - head up, body tense, eyes wide. The zombie that stumbled out behind her was almost normal - it had a wound ripped into it's arm from when it was human, the moment that had changed that man's life forever and sent him down the quick path to... this, but other than that the only things abnormal were the way it moved. Oh and the parts that honestly creeped out Anastasia the most - the nearly entirely milky white eyes like every one of them had severe cataracts, and the crusted blood that trailed from the eyes like dried tears. "Also there's these." She sort of wished she could say it calmly and really make a point, but she definitely wasn't there yet. So she sort of half squeaked it as she darted across the grass. She stumbled a little but managed to put some good distance between herself and the thing. The man had a weapon, and one slender hand darted out to tug it out from under him because somebody needed to put this thing down and it might as well be her.

"It is rude to follow a lady after she has expressed disinterest," she informed it, clutching the hatchet with both hands as she moved towards the thing that was approaching at a shambling pace. Was she confident in this? No. Her whole body ached, but somebody needed to do this and she at least knew what the hell was going on.

Solo · Nov 18, 2019

The puzzled look he gave her at the mention of phone service or WiFi likely would have answered her questions, but he opened his mouth to respond in case she couldn’t get the hint and promptly allowed his jaw to slam shut when she redirected his attention towards… something coming out of the woods. It looked like a person, sort of, until it shambled closer; even someone as isolated as Silas could tell that something wasn’t quite right, though what that was, he didn’t know. Before he could ask her what the hell was going on, the petite woman had dashed forward and yanked his hatchet out from underneath him.

If he wasn’t so focused on making sure he didn’t fall face first, he’d be both amazed by her reflexes and furious with himself for not seeing it coming.

Limbs flailing gracelessly, he tripped over his own feet as one hand shot out to the door frame, hand digging in once, then losing his grip, and regaining it with a second grab, his knees making direct contact with the hard ground. He winced as he felt multiple splinters enter his flesh, but at least he didn’t end up sprawled in the dirt. Rising and shaking his hand, he stepped forward to follow her, catching up to her in two strides and deftly yanking the weapon back from her. As he approached, he could tell that something was certainly not right with the man gaining ground on them, grimacing as he studied it.

“Hey, stop right there,” he yelled out, though of course, the thing didn’t listen. It didn’t flinch, the words not registering in its rotted brain, staying on its now familiar way of dragging its feet as it slowly stepped towards them. Nothing seemed to deter it, so Silas hefted the hatchet into his hands, readying it in a defensive stance, not unlike the one he used to chop wood. “You’re not takin’ one step further,” he warned it, and when it didn’t respond a second time, this time only a few short paces from the duo, he drove the hatchet firmly into its skull, caving it in with one fell swoop. The creature fell to the ground, black tar-like blood pooling around its head, but it still attempted to crawl the remaining distance towards the two, so Silas yanked back on the hatchet and hit it again, stomping the thing’s head with his heavy boot for good measure until it stopped moving.

Breathing heavily, he stepped back and scuffed his boot on the ground, attempting to get the sticky blood off it. Words were beyond him, his expression dumbstruck as he stared down at the thing, the pool of blood stopping much before it should have if it had been a human; when it stopped bleeding and he could be sure it was finished twitching, he whirled to face her again.

“What in the fuck did you lead here, girl?” he demanded, his voice a mix between angry and weary; though he’d barely done anything, he felt like his physical energy was sapped, though his mind was going a million miles an hour.

Virginia Greene · Nov 20, 2019

She felt a little bit better having grabbed the hatchet, but it was plucked from her grasp with such ease that any comfort in having been able to disarm the long haired cabin man was immediately lost. A non-zero amount of her wanted to sprint into his cabin and lock the door but then he's almost definitely be a cabin murderer because he'd kill her once he got in. So not that plan. Also she couldn't have left someone out here anyway, not when there was no way of knowing who or what was lurking out in the woods.

No use in trying to fight for the weapon back, so she just sort of stayed in one spot, a little bit concerned because he clearly didn't have any idea what was going on or even what a zombie was, given that he'd just yelled at it. "You have to-" oh, he wasn't messing around. Hopefully that was because he recognized that something was really wrong, and not because he was perfectly fine just kinda hitting someone in the head with a hatchet. But hey, at least he went straight for a head-shot, even if the first one wasn't enough. "You have to really get in in the head," she advised, and then watched him just sort of... stomp the zombie to death. "That... that works too." It sure was one way to deal with the situation, and it was effective. If you were large and wearing boots.

And now they were back in the same position again - him armed, her not. But he wasn't between her and the cabin anymore so she supposed if he tried to murder her she could feel more comfortable than she otherwise would have been in trying to put a door between the two of them. Provided she could run anymore, which.... nope. No, her body was telling her, there would be no more running today.

"That was zombie." The word didn't seem to mean anything to him, so Anastasia clarified. "If they bite you, you'll die and then... come back like that. They don't recognize who they were or the people they knew, they don't get tired or need sleep, they don't feel pain... they just wander around looking for food. And by food I mean live animals. Or people. They'll rip them to shreds, just... just shoving flesh and bone and guts into their mouths, and then the.... whatever's left comes back, if there's even enough left." Her knees buckled and the woman slipped to the ground, just sitting there in the grass. Christ, she was so tired. Now that there was no danger, everything she had just sort of gave up. She wasn't sure she could stand back up if she'd tried. "They won't stop unless you do enough damage to their head. Nothing else will kill them. Sever it from the body and you just get a real angry head, at least in some version of available lore." That sounded better than saying 'in some of the movies'. "Bright side is they're stupid and don't know if someone is there unless they can actually see or hear you." Was that a bright side? Not really, but it was important information.

"So that's what's got me all the way out here lookin’ like I've been to the seventh circle of hell and back." That was almost quippy. Would have been, if she'd had the energy to back it instead of just sounding tired and defeated. "I was in a city when it started, and there was just.... it was chaos." So much screaming. So much blood.

Solo · Nov 23, 2019

Not much managed to render him speechless – though he supposed that was mainly because he didn’t really speak much to begin with. Aside from his rare trips to town for supply runs, or the occasional wayward hiker who managed to make their way deep into the woods and come across his cabin (though the latter was much more nonverbal acknowledgement, with a vaguely threatening air if they came closer) he didn’t bother; after all, who would he talk to – himself? While he would often hum under his breath or speak things aloud to remember them better, he wasn’t yet at the level of having full-blown conversations with himself – at least, not out loud.

But the knowledge that there were reanimated humans running around gave him pause; it called back to his childhood, to tales of the apocalypse, with the gods coming down to judge human souls and deciding who would live through the rapture and who would die. It wasn’t often that he thought back to the trauma he sustained, raised in a cult-like environment with no contact with the outside world, but something about monstrous creatures rising from the grave would do that to a person, he supposed.

A sudden rush of pity hit him like a truck, and he found himself approaching the girl cautiously. She was clearly affected by what she had experienced, but there wasn’t much he could do about that; having encountered exactly zero situations where he’d had to comfort another human being, the concept was foreign to him. Exhaustion, though, that he knew – bodily functions were easily understood, and he knew exactly what to do about them, considering all of them had a set solution that worked for pretty much everyone.

“Look,” he started, his voice still gruff, but a bit less so. “I can’t tell if you’re crazy or if you’re tellin’ the truth, but you’ve clearly been through some shit, so nutjob or not, what you’ve gotta do is get yourself cleaned up and rested. Then, you can deal with… the rest of whatever’s goin’ on.” It wasn’t a definite answer, and didn’t promise anything, because if it were up to him and he didn’t have silly remnants of the social nature of humans like a conscience, he’d turn her around and send her back out in the woods, but looking down at the crumpled figure of the woman left him unable to do so. What kind of man would he be if he sent her back out into the world as run down as she was, especially if the stories she told were true? It wasn’t that he believed the stories he was told in childhood, of a rapture that would judge people if they were good or bad, but he’d certainly be dragged down where he said she looked like she came from if he left her on her own in a world gone to shit.

Offering her a hand, the other stayed propped on the hatchet, the bloody, sharp edge of it pointed down and slightly wedging into the dirt. “Got a creek out back that you can use to wash up. Ain’t nothin’ fancy, and it’s gonna be cold, but it’ll get the blood off you. I’ll leave some clothes at the back door, you put ‘em on and come inside when you’re done.”

Virginia Greene · Nov 30, 2019

He approached her and Anastasia watched him a little bit warily, not really feeling threatened at the moment but very aware of the fact that he could be dangerous if he wanted to be. "If you don't believe me that means you just straight up murdered a guy," she pointed out. Was he in denial? Hopefully that was it because otherwise she was on the doorstep of a dude who was completely fine with caving a person's skull in and that wasn't great for her. Or maybe it would be super great? No, there was no way he didn't know that shit was weird, he'd seen the way the zombie just kept coming, how.... not-right it was up close. But this guy didn't know what a zombie was, unless he was pulling some sort of weird trick that she couldn't understand the point of. Were there people who were that far removed from popular culture that they had never heard of what a zombie was? It seemed impossible, but she supposed that he did live in the middle of the woods and maybe she'd stumbled into some sort of weird forest hermit from another century. Except he had a truck so that wasn't right.

She reached for his hand when he offered it, having to rely a little bit more on his strength to pull herself up than she was proud of. For a moment she clung to him, slumped like she was still getting the hang of legs that were more spaghetti noodle than flesh and bone, before managing to get her feet under her properly and releasing him. Anastasia still felt wobbly and slow, but she was standing and could move.

Her meticulously sculpted eyebrows furrowed. "Do... do you not have a shower? Or is the plan to lock me out of the cabin weaponless and just leave me to die under the guise of it being giving me time to get clean? Because that's sure what it sounds like." That was a terrible plan. "Or letting me be bitten by zombies while naked, which has the same result but would make for a much stupider corpse? Give me the weapon or stay with me." Either option would work, she didn't care. At least, she was trying to present like she didn't care, but the small woman cared very much and would very much prefer to have him there with her while she washed up modesty be damned. "I didn't make it out of the city and survive both a car crash and getting lost in the woods to get a tit bit off by a zombie."

Maybe she should have had a little bit more empathy. The guy was just now finding out what was going on, she'd had like two and a half days to adjust to the fact that this was reality, and like 50 years worth of zombie movies and lore. Or something. Close to that? Anastasia didn't know. She'd never watched the original Romero stuff, it looked stupid. It was just hard to wait through someone having the revelation that the world was either ending or over when she had already accepted it and needing things to move along because there was Shit To Do and she really needed a nap. "How clear is the water? In the creek. And how deep?" She would see in a few seconds she supposed, but if it was going to seem like a dangerous place the little brunette wanted to get started on an argument against it ahead of time.

If he was still denying zombies, it would be harder to explain the danger of water where you couldn't see the bottom.

Solo · Dec 2, 2019

If he had any doubts about her exhaustion – he hadn’t, but if he had – they were gone the instant she used him as a prop to stand back up, wobbling as she clutched his hand and forearm for support before releasing his limb and taking a step back on her own. Rubbing the area of his arm that had been used as a crutch, he studied her carefully as she began to speak.

Okay, if he thought he was paranoid, this girl was giving him a run for his money. Did he really seem like the kind of person to toss her out in the metaphorical cold, especially given the fact he’d just caved someone’s skull in to keep them from threatening her? Well, he had been protecting himself, first and foremost, but her protection had been a byproduct of his actions, so that counted, right? Then again, he could somewhat see her perspective – standing so close to her, it was obvious that he had a fair bit of height (and mass) on her. He’d probably be a little intimidated, too, if the positions were reversed, but thankfully, standing over six-foot-tall and only seeing a handful of other people on a somewhat regular basis, he rarely had to deal with that problem.

Bringing a hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose, he took a deep, short breath – more like a huff – as he listened to her demand more of him. He pointedly ignored her question about the shower – would he really have offered the cold creek as an option if he had the luxury of hot water on demand? “Look, if I was gonna toss you out on your ass, I would have slammed the door on you by now. I don’t know about all this zombie shit, but somethin’ ain’t right, I’ll give you that, and I’m not gonna leave you out here to go through more of whatever did all that to you,” he stated plainly, motioning with his hand towards her disheveled appearance to further his point.

“’Bout six or seven feet at the deepest, I’d imagine. Not bottled spring water, that fancy Ee-vee-an shit that you’re probably used to, but I drink from it and it hasn’t killed me yet.” His description of the creek likely left something to be desired, but he wasn’t the type to censor himself before the apocalypse, and he surely wasn’t going to start then. “If it makes you feel any better, I’ll hold a hand up and block you out or somethin’. Won’t look. Scout’s honor.”

It likely wasn’t a very convincing offer, but what other choice did she have? Exhausted as she was, he didn’t know if the blood that covered her came from the reanimated corpses, though he supposed it would likely be darker if it was – but he couldn’t take that chance. If it was spread by blood, he wasn’t letting the remains of it get on his sheets, not after he’d taken the time to wash them in the creek the week before. “If you want it, it’s this way. I gotta go rinse off my boots, anyway,” he decided, slowly heading in the direction of the creek – and looking back, to see if she was following him.

Virginia Greene · Dec 15, 2019

Her lips pressed in a thin line at his words, and Anastasia nodded her head. "Okay, point taken." She didn't bother to argue that the blood on her dress was less because something had done a thing to her and more because someone else had something done to them and then she'd had to do something to them in response, but talking about that would have been a lot and she couldn't process it right now. Couldn't deal with that and explain it to someone else. "But people get all bonkers and irrational when scary stuff is happening and no offense but you're super intimidating and I'm at a disadvantage." And she had no idea what the hell he might try to do. "And I like, super don't want to die." Which seemed pretty reasonable to her.

What he was describing sounded manageable. She could keep an eye on that, wouldn't have to worry too bad about something popping up while she was washing. Not a lot of dangerous water animals in the cooler climate either, which was something to take off her plate because she could not manage that right now. "Well I don't wash with bottled water, so that's fine." She'd get to concerns over drinking it when she had the bandwidth to think about that.

His offer gave her pause, and she considered it for a moment before shrugging her shoulders. "I'd appreciate some discretion but some guy seeing my breasts is pretty low on my list of concerns since the top things are currently getting eaten by zombies or murdered." She didn't know what to make of this guy. He was... something. Didn't know what zombies were, maybe still didn't believe the apocalypse was happening even though he couldn't really deny that something was happening. She trailed after him, sticking decently close but not so close that they didn't both have plenty of personal space. When she saw the creek, the little brunette relaxed a bit. She was going to get clean, and that was a huge relief. Well, mostly clean. No soap, no shampoo, and no conditioner sort of clean, but that was better than being caked in sweat, mud, and blood.

The first step was to move to the water's edge and stretch up onto the tips of her toes, peering into the water as far as she could see in both directions. It seemed safe. The water was clear and there wasn't a single dead body floating or sunk that she could see. With that done, Anastasia reached back and carefully unzipped her dress, letting the dirty, torn, bloody fabric slide off her body. There was dried blood on her stomach - not hers, thankfully, but seeing it on her skin stressed her out in a way that having it on her clothing hadn't. When it was on the clothing it was a layer away and now here she was, actually covered in someone else's blood. So she tried to look past it, down to her slender legs, which were honestly just scratched to shit by her terrible forest adventure. She stared at the water and then back in Silas's direction and decided that whatever, she didn't really have the room to fuss about this right now. So she undid the hooks of her bra, making mental note to try and find something that would provide more support because party underclothes weren't the same as 'run for your life' underclothes. She knew she would want that and her underwear dry after this, so both got set on a clean part of her dress. Then, doing her best to pretend that Silas wasn't there and didn't even exist at all, she found a good stepping off point, and darted through the shallow water to the point where there was a bit of a jumping off point so she could drop from that to hip-deep, and splashed into the deeper water.

cold, cold, cold.

A sharp yelp slipped past her lips, and she immediately pressed a hand to her mouth and glanced around like that noise was going to make a horde appear out of the woods on the other side. "Holy shit."

Solo · Dec 25, 2019

Silas couldn’t help but roll his eyes at her dramatics. Of course, they were well justified, but not in his eyes; all he could see was a girl in a sparkly dress that probably cost more than all his belongings added together whining about things he still wasn’t one-hundred-percent convinced were happening, and that wasn’t what he had in mind when he’d thought ‘relaxing evening’. The adrenaline from slamming his ax into the… whatever it had been… was still coursing through his veins, though it was slowly beginning to subside, leaving exhaustion beginning to seep in much like he was sure it was for her. How had she kept herself going for so long? It made him consider regarding her a bit higher – but then she opened her mouth again and kept rambling, and that went out the window.

As they reached the water, he immediately stripped his feet of his socks and his boots, plunging the offending garments into the water as far downstream as he could stand without setting foot in the cold depths again, turning them over in his hands as he washed the tarry black substance from them. Crouching with his feet squelching into the mud at the Creekside, he wrung the socks out and balled them up, shoving them into the back pocket of his jeans. They dampened him slightly, but at least his hand wouldn’t freeze from having to carry them back, and he’d be able to focus a bit more closely on making sure all remnants of the zombified creature were washed from his favorite footwear.

Only looking up once he was sure his shoes were clean, his head snapped back down to the shoes, tying the laces together and slinging them over one broad shoulder, allowing one to hit against his front and the other against his back as he stood to his full height. Turning fully towards her, his eyes immediately slammed shut, causing him to stumble backward slightly and rock on his feet, thankfully finding grip in the mud instead of being sent tumbling to the ground. Now that would have been embarrassing. Holding a hand up, he blocked out the now-nude form frolicking in the stream, groaning just as she let out her slight yelp.

“Give a guy a warning, would you?” he grumbled, voice booming so it could be heard from where she was in the creek, though he tried to keep somewhat quiet in case the creatures were attracted by sound. He didn’t know a damned thing about how they operated, but that was only slightly less than he knew about the very real threat in front of him – a human that seemed to want to have more conversation with him than ‘hi’, ‘how are you’, and ‘what supplies do you need this time’ – so it wasn’t as though he was a fountain of knowledge to begin with.

Feeling his way backward, he didn’t take his eyes off her general area for a minute; even though he kept his hand constantly moving so that it blocked out her naked form, he kept his eyes scanning the creek and the surrounding woods, making sure that nothing would approach her. The bat rested in his free hand, used as something for him to lean on but gripped firmly in case he needed to spring into action; his hands twitched as he prepared himself for the possibility of another short battle. It wasn’t that he wanted them to come, but the heady rush that came from ending its non-life had been exhilarating, and after all, he’d be more suited to handle it than she would, especially in her current state.

“Hurry up, alright? I don’t wanna be out here any more than we have to be,” he demanded; his want to get inside was more than being nervous about the zombies. The last thing he wanted was for his hand to slip and have him be facing an eyeful of her again; it made him feel… strange, and he wasn’t prepared to deal with any more things that were out of place.

Virginia Greene · Dec 28, 2019

She missed his stumble, more focused on where there wasn’t someone she was willing to sort of trust and who would at least make some noise if zombies showed up. Instead all her focus was on the creek and the woods on the other side. And time he spoke and she looked in his direction, eyes narrowing.

"Warning of what? That I was going to take my clothes off to wash myself? I had-- there was--" her voice cracked, "I was covered in blood, what did you think I was going to do?" What did he expect was going to happen? She’d asked for a shower, it wasn’t because she wanted to stare at the water. What an idiot. Almost reluctantly she splashed cold water up over her arms and shoulders, deciding just would be best to clean her body of what she was sure was just an unreasonable amount of sweat. Should she dunk her hair? It was definitely dirty, but she wouldn’t have a way to really wash it, even though he had long hair there was basically a zero percent chance this weird tree man was going to have conditioner. So it would just make her cold. But on the other hand, soon it would probably start to itch and then she’d be miserable.

So, after taking a deep breath and steeling herself, Anastasia bent over and dunked her long brown hair into the chilly water, running her fingers through it and gently raking her fingers across her scalp like she would if she were shampooing. She desperately needed a hairbrush, at the very least a comb she could use to tame the tangles and make her feel less like someone in the middle of the apocalypse. Which she was, but she didn’t want to feel like it.

Hurry up? Christ could he just leave her be for five minutes? She rolled her eyes and let out a little "ugh", but moved out of the chilly water anyway, wrapping her arms around herself half because of the cold and half so that he couldn’t get as a good a look at her. Every step in the mud was followed by a small but obviously disgusted noise, and once she’d made it back to her dress she put her bra back on and then took almost a minute to wipe the mud off of her feet onto previously clean bits of her dress before she shimmied into her underwear and making a small jump from there onto the grass to try and keep her feet from getting too dirty again. She didn’t think the dress was exactly salvageable but Anastasia still leaned back and plucked it up, holding it with as few fingers as possible. “Have you got a trash bin? Or a fire.” Burning it would be good too. And she was very cold now, being wet and barely clothed wasn’t a great combination. “And can I borrow some clothes, forest dude?” At least a shirt.

The swap from torn and bloody dress and wobbly to shivering and wobbly and in her underwear was probably not one that made her look any less pathetic and lost, and Anastasia was very aware of her less protected state. Not that her dress had been much protection to begin with, but there was something in the simple having of clothing that made her feel more protected. Or perhaps it was that the lack of them did the opposite. Either way she was cold, she felt very exposed (to the dangers of the world, not necessarily the man in front of her) and she wanted walls and a locked door between her and everything else. She wanted to be wrapped up in a blanket like a child drinking tea.

She wanted to cry.

But also she didn’t want to cry right here with wet hair and in her underwear in front of a man she’d just met who did not appear to be particularly empathetic, so she just continued moving as quickly as her weak and exhausted muscles could carry her. Which was... not very quickly. Especially because there were a lot of things to step on and it felt like she was stepping on every damn one of them with her already sensitive and scratched up feet. What kind of weird caveman interior was she going to find in a cabin that she assumed didn't have running water. Probably just a firepit and some rocks as a bed.

Solo · Jan 2, 2020

Even though they’d briefly discussed it, he still hadn’t fully expected her to strip naked in front of a man she didn’t know in the slightest. He supposed the world really had gone to shit if a girl that looked like that with a dress like that was willing to strip down in front of a hermit just to get clean; she didn’t seem like the type to be attempting to seduce him, especially with the critical words that were tossed in his direction since she’d come up his driveway and unknowingly flipped his world upside down.

He’d been completely content in his lonesome life before that—well, as content as he told himself he was; there wasn’t room to dwell on what he didn’t have when he couldn’t change it, at least not without a heavy amount of work that he wasn’t willing to put in. Then, the little tart had come prancing through the forest, bringing with her the knowledge that the whole world had gone to shit, meaning—what? If he thought about it, it didn’t change his world that much; he already only went to town when necessary, and that was more for creature comforts than actual necessities. His whole life had revolved around giving up the few nice things he managed to scavenge. It wouldn’t kill him to do the same with his bi-weekly whiskey and chocolate runs. Still, there was no guarantee that the small town he made the journey to was even overrun with the creatures. Few people lived there year-round due to the unpredictable weather, and the things had come from people in the first place, so maybe it would be safe, he allowed himself to speculate. He could hole up in his cabin and live off the land like he did for most of his life, and he’d never be any the wiser besides having to kill off the very few creatures that managed to trickle up the hillside.

It was wishful thinking, he knew; as the tiny, dripping girl stood before him, he knew that he couldn’t just turn her out back into the world she’d come from. Whereas it wouldn’t affect him that much, it had surely disrupted her life much more, if the way she was dressed was any indication, and it wasn’t in him to be cold and shut someone out when they needed help. He’d helped boost dead cars and carry travelers’ supplies out of the general store for them, he’d shared his meager dinners when the people a few miles up the road hadn’t had a way into town; hell, he’d carried a hiker who sprained an ankle the three miles back to their cabin because he couldn’t live with himself if he left them there without any way to contact anyone. It wasn’t that he was above helping people. He just rarely got the opportunity, so it was an awkward and unpracticed process.

As she spoke, he realized he’d forgotten to gather supplies from the cabin; he’d thought she’d pull the sparkly dress back on, but as he gazed down at it, attempting to look anywhere but directly at her, he realized that had been a stupid assumption. Without a second thought, his hands quickly unbuttoned his flannel over-shirt, stripping it off and handing it to her, leaving him only in a rumpled, plain white T-shirt. “Here,” he grunted as he thrust the fabric out with a fully extended arm, looking away from her as the cloth left his hand. Turning his back to her, he looked up towards the cabin before looking back at her, thankfully finding her fully clothed, and opening his mouth again.

“We’ll burn it tonight, if that’s what you wanna do,” he offered. “Just… c’mon and get some sleep, I’ll keep watch. Figure out what to do in the morning.” Whether he meant he would figure out what he was going to do, she was going to do the same for herself, or if he was offering camaraderie, was not immediately clear—and he didn’t know if he wanted it to be. Without further discussion, he started to head back towards the cabin, axe hefted into one hand, ready to swing if necessary. Once they reached the small building, he pushed the door open, allowing her to enter before he did. There wasn’t much in the small space, only a bed just large enough for him to comfortably fit into, a small table with one chair crudely made from a tree stump, and a small set-up for indoor cooking, used when he couldn’t make a larger fire outside due to the weather. Storage boxes were littered throughout, containing his clothing, food supplies, and other various necessities, though there didn’t seem to be much rhyme or reason to their organization.

Sitting in the chair, he scooched it with his feet so that his back could rest against the wall, his large form facing the door with the axe settled across his bent knees.

Virginia Greene · Jan 12, 2020

Getting naked in front of a stranger was definitely not her first choice of action, but at the moment it seemed like the best one for getting clean so she had dismissed any potential concerns. And now she was clean and didn't itch and the only issues left were the cold, the aches in her muscles, and the fact that her legs stung a little.

And the grass on her toes was not charming or bringing back childish feelings of delight, she was kinda hating it right now.

Why was he taking off his shirt? It wasn't that far to the cabin, and except for the fact that she was shiveringly cold, she didn't have an issue with being in her underwear. Apparently he did though, and she accepted the flannel without complaint, pulling it on immediately. Chilled, slightly shaky fingers did up the buttons and she realized the shirt was slightly warm already. That probably shouldn't have been nice, but it kinda was and Anastasia wasn't going to bother to take the time to question the comfort of it. The fabric fell to her thighs and the sleeves covered her hands and she let out a tiny amused noise, giving one hand a casual little flap before starting to roll the sleeves up. "You're too big," she informed him as though his height was something that he had any control over. There wasn't any real complaint or aggression in her voice and she was definitely more entertained than embarrassed or frustrated by the ridiculousness of the clothing situation than anything else, at least for the moment. Pants were going to be a challenge that could not be solved without tools of some sort. More importantly though, they would be a challenge for later. "Getting fully dressed is going to be like a child playing dress-up." What was she going to do about shoes? Couldn't go out into the apocalypse again without some kind of foot protection, that would be stupid. Even if zombies didn't eat her toes she'd probably die of tetanus.

He left the choice to her, which wasn't what Anastasia had expected. “Yes,” she decided after a moment of consideration, “yes that is what I’d like to do.” It might make her feel a little better. Or she could at least pretend for now that it would make her feel better. "It's probably the safest choice anyway." No trash pickup - not that he probably got it out here anyway - and Ana was pretty sure it wasn't sanitary to leave blood-soaked things around, even if the blood was dried. "I'll leave it outside for now." Because what was the point of bringing it in?

Leaving things for tomorrow sounded like a great idea. She didn't have any room left to deal with problem solving, every problem that was immediately pressing had been solved. Except for zombies but they couldn't solve that.

Once inside she hovered anxiously until she’d seen Silas lock the door, and then moved swiftly around the small cabin inspecting things for a brief moment. She peered out the window critically, eyes darting over everything that she could see and trying her best to look past the trees. After a few seconds she wrinkled her nose and very carefully pulled what she was pretty sure were animal skin... curtains (could they even be called 'curtains'?) closed to block out the world outside. “If they can’t see or hear us, they won’t know we’re here.” It was only after that, and after Silas had taken a seat in his chair, that she moved towards the bed. For a moment the young woman hesitated, glancing over at him for a moment. She didn't ask him because it was pretty clearly his intention that she take the bed. Instead she set about pulling one of the blankets off, fumbled with folding it for a few seconds, and then carried it over to Silas, dropping it on the floor next to his chair before retreating back to the bed. This time she actually made it under the covers, pulling them up over her head and then slowly moving them until only her face was exposed. The sheets smelled the same as the shirt did, which was... not bad - she wasn't going to think about it - which made sense. She considered it in the same way she considered the smell of hotel sheets - something that wasn't home. Except she would never go home again. Never be in a bed that smelled familiar again.

That was a lot to deal with. She had known objectively, that things weren't going to go back to normal, but it kept hitting her in new, weird ways. If she dwelled on it she'd get stuck, so Anastasia chose to focus instead on the fact that she was in a bed at all, and that there were walls between her and any zombie that might stumble by. And she owed that to the man who was currently seated facing the door, keeping an eye out for both their sakes. "Thank you," she said softly. "For everything so far. I don't... know what I would have done if I hadn't run into you."

Solo · Feb 3, 2020

The cabin was tiny, and considering she closed the curtains as soon as she darted inside, the only thing to focus on as she busied herself with preparing his small house to her satisfactions was her. Whereas he looked brutish and out of place in the undersized, crude structure, she fit right in, though he could tell she wouldn’t have if she’d have been in prime state when she’d strolled up in the pretty, sparkly dress that sat outside his cabin door, little more than a glorified dish towel. It was obvious she was uncomfortable, but so was he; she was the first person he’d allowed in his space since he’d built it years ago, and not only was she taking refuge there, but she was buzzing about the room like she owned the place. It made him shift in his seat, only settling back into his relaxed position when she dropped a blanket next to him and dove under the blankets.

From there, she looked much less threatening than she had when she’d strolled up covered in blood with an undead in tow, and he let out a short, relieved huff as he bent to pick the blanket up from the floor, arranging it over his lower half. The cabin was insulated, well-protected from the elements, so he doubted it would get very cold that night—if it hadn’t set in already, it was unlikely to—but it would be easy enough to shift the thin fabric off him and stoke a fire in the stove if necessary. As she curled up in his bed—as if seeing her in his shirt hadn’t already done enough to disrupt him, that image intensified his discomfort tenfold—he hoped he wouldn’t need to, as the noise would surely alarm her. It would be best for them both if she slept through the night.

It wasn’t the most uncomfortable position he’d ever slept in, though he didn’t intend to get much sleeping done that night. His job that evening was to make sure she caught up on her sleep, something he could tell she hadn’t done in far longer than he had, and if it meant spending the night with his back to the wall and his ass growing numb from the hard seat beneath him, well, he’d done worse—and probably would do much worse, if the world was in the state she’d briefly described.

Still, nothing knocked him more off-guard than her voice, small and soft like he hadn’t heard it yet, coming from his bed, thanking him. He paused for a few moments, unsure of how to respond, before finally settling on a few words. “S’what anyone else would have done, I reckon,” he mused, downplaying the utter disruption she’d brought to his routine-structured life. Now wasn’t the time to make her feel bad about anything. “Now get some sleep.”

The night settled in in earnest, and as the cabin darkened to the point of being unable to see anything, Silas struck a match and lit a candle on the table near him, using the slow dripping of the wax into the dish below to gauge how much time had passed. When her breathing slowed and he was sure she was asleep, he allowed himself to let the blanket fall gently to the floor, his bare feet padding silently on the wooden floor as he moved towards the windows. She had said if the creatures couldn’t see or hear them, they wouldn’t know the two of them were there, but how could he be sure? If something was going to sneak up on them, he’d rather know about it—being left to the elements of surprise was not something that he felt comfortable with, especially since he had more than his own skin to save if something tried to break the window or bust down the door. Just because the things were stupid didn’t mean they weren’t strong, and though he hadn’t seen an outright display of strength from them yet didn’t mean he never would. Slowly, slowly, he pulled aside the bottom of the shade, squinting out into the darkness to attempt to scan the landscape.

Virginia Greene · Mar 3, 2020

He said anyone else would have helped, and Anastasia didn't feel like arguing it, so she just let out a quiet "yeah, maybe". He had to know that not everyone in the world was friendly and helpful, presumably he lived out here to avoid people and not because he loved socializing. She could assume the man wasn't a huge people-person just based on their interactions so far. Not that he was unreasonable or particularly unkind or anything, it just seemed like maybe he hadn't seen another human being since he'd been born. Or maybe he was cursed to be here like some kind of Beauty and the Beast thing except since he was already in human form it was a reverse situation and he was actually a bear.

But she trusted him. For no real reason beyond gut instinct and the fact that he'd been fine to her so far, and she recognized that it wasn’t much. It was enough though, and that was what allowed her to fall asleep.

Not that it was a particularly restful sleep. The thudding of hands on glass mingled with the thump of a body rolling off the front of a car and a body in the passenger seat that had never been there. And the smell of blood. Always the smell of blood. It had clung to her clothing and now it crept into her dreams. As restless as mind was, physically she was still - curled up and barely visible under the blankets. She seemed calm and settled... at least until she woke up.

When her eyes flew open, Anastasia thought it was someone - something - on the outside looking in. Silas has been in the chair when she'd fallen asleep so her waking brain assumed he was still there in the dark, which meant that the figure was something new. In a second she had scrambled into the corner of the bed, back pressed against the wall, blankets half tangled around her legs as she tried to escape to a spot where it would be completely impossible to see her from the window even though most of it was still covered. Her breathing was short, sharp, and terrified, and while she did settle a tiny bit upon realizing that it was Silas and he was inside the cabin, it wasn't enough because she had already been set off.

"Close it!" Her voice cracked. "Please. I can't--" she trailed off, "when the find someone in an enclosed space they just... they start banging, and it won't stop. It never stops, until--" until they got in or until someone on the outside made themselves seem like a better treat. "I can't do that." Not again. And definitely not at night.

She had made herself as small as possible and it didn't seem like she was going to unfold herself until the curtain (if it could be called that, honestly) was closed and they were plunged back into proper darkness. Which honestly Anastasia didn't care for much either but that seemed to be the option available at the moment and so she'd take it. This was all quite distressing, and while the cabin and the company were both a great comfort compared to being out on her own or even in a parked car, she really wished she were in something a little bit more protected. There might not be anything more protected and she knew it, the forest should have been a comfort because the chances of large amounts of zombies showing up was incredibly low at this point.

But it wasn't a comfort. Not at all.

Solo · Mar 18, 2020

Emotions were messy. For a man who got most of his social companionship from the animals in the forest around him, most of them were luxuries and intricacies entirely lost on him. But fear, fear he understood. Fear was universal.

The motion from behind him made him swivel and look at her, but the panic in her voice as soon as she spoke made him drop the curtain entirely. In his haste to obey her plea, he reached behind him to attempt to adjust the flap to cover the entire window while keeping his eyes fixed on her, something he realized was in vain after the third time he moved it and still felt glass under his fingertips when he reached out. Reluctantly, he tore his eyes from her and fixed the curtain, standing and letting the blanket fall to the floor to ensure it was covered from all angles.

Something told him it wasn’t just fear of the unknown that made her react like that.

He didn’t know what would make it better, so in the darkness, he narrated his actions aloud. Knowing what was coming would have to make it scare her less, right? Besides, if he did that and he was about to do something she wouldn’t like, she would have time to stop him before he did it. “Okay,” he agreed gruffly, then coughed to do his best to make his voice sound a little… nicer. It was a foreign concept, and he wasn’t sure he’d succeeded, but his second “okay” was much quieter and a bit softer, at least. “It’s closed. I’m gonna light a match, okay? It won’t show outside. I’ve almost caught this place on fire trying to cook and chop wood at the same time ‘cause I can’t see the stovetop from outside.” It was a shit attempt at a joke—and couldn’t really be classified as an attempt at a joke, considering he didn’t do jokes—but he hoped it would at least provide some reassurance. He had to say something so she’d stop sounding like that.

When he wasn’t met with immediate protest, he moved slowly, feeling out with his hands so he wouldn’t knock anything over and scare her even worse. His hands found the matchbook and one of the candles on the table, and he struck a match to light it, casting a minimal amount of candlelight through the small room. Lighting two more, he pinched the match so the flame would extinguish quickly, bringing his slightly-stung fingers to his mouth to soothe them. “I’m… sorry,” he apologized, his voice gruff again, but the words sounded foreign on his tongue; he knew he was probably supposed to say them, if his limited social interactions were any cue, but he didn’t know what he was apologizing for. If anything, he hoped the words would offer her some placation—he hadn’t known it would set her off like that, and he wouldn’t have done it if he did. Probably.

“I, uh… I don’t know much about—what’s goin’ on out there.” Understatement of the year, captain fucking obvious. “Maybe you do. I don’t think you’re goin’ back to sleep anytime soon, so maybe you fill me in so I know—not to do that again.”

@Virginia Greene

Virginia Greene · Mar 24, 2020

"Yeah. Okay." It was almost mousy. "I think that will help. As long as you don't burn the cabin down." He'd started it with what Anastasia hoped was a joke even though it had been delivered with as much humor as everything else he'd said so far, so she tossed it back with as much humor as she could manage at the moment. There was no reason not to trust that the candlelight wouldn't be visible from outside with the curtains closed, and being able to see provided a comfort to some very deep part of her that was mostly instinct.

Was... he just going to stand there and loom? Ugh. The dainty brunette made herself smaller again as though there wasn't already more than enough room and gestured for him to sit down. "I definitely already told you at least most of the immediately important pieces." But none of the personal story. And given that she had just had a definite moment, she could at least let him know where it had come from.

"I was with someone before. We had to stop at a gas station for gas and to see if there was any water or food to stock up ahead of time. He went inside and some of them just... appeared. I got back in the car but it was too late. They ended up outside the car just growling and slamming their hands against the windows and the door, trying to break the glass to get in. Smearing blood on the glass. It felt like hours, but it was probably only five minutes." She rubbed one bare foot over the other under the blanket, fingers plucking at a loose thread for a moment. "Until the person I had been travelling with came back out of the shop purposely made himself seem more available than I was." She'd arrived without a companion, so there were only a few ways to assume that story ended. "They're not very smart, but once they know you're there they don't stop. Not unless something better comes by. So it's really easy to get trapped in a little space, and I'm sure there's ways around it if there's not very many." Logically noises could be made against one wall opposite the door until all the zombies were on one side of the cabin and then they went out the door, but being able to think logically for solutions wasn't much good when you woke up at god knew what time of night and thought there was a zombie looking in at that very moment.

"I don't know how it started, we probably never will. Since it seems to pass with a bite there had to be something though I figure, not just a fever that mutated. Doesn't really matter though, I guess. It spreads through the bite. Probably also if you get their blood in your mouth or eyes or an open wound." But she hadn't seen anybody without a bite die yet, so technically the The Walking Dead method of zombification was possible. "I mean, it might also be the sort where no matter what happens if you die you turn, but that infection spread theory makes less sense to me. For.... for reasons I can talk about later." He didn't need her rambling explanation of the different modes of infection in zombie movies. "Um. They're slow. Can't run, not very coordinated, can't do things like open a door or climb a ladder. But they're strong. I guess as strong as we could all be if we weren't worried about getting hurt? And they don't need to sleep or rest. They just... eat. Swarm around bodies and tear into them, with their teeth or their fingers, whatever gets the... the insides to the outside fastest. I saw it," she paused, struggled for a moment, and then tried again, "I saw it so much, out the car window."

Were there rules she could give him? Maybe that would help. Exact directions or steps of some sort to follow. Write them up and hang them on the wall like in a classroom or something. "What do you want to know?" Maybe that would be easier? Instead of just throwing paragraphs of information at him, she could fill him in on the things he thought were important and then go on from there. It was weird that he hadn't brought up any of the movies and video games that zombies were a part of, but if he didn't have electricity then maybe he was so removed from things that seemed like a staple of modern culture now that he really had no idea.

Maybe he'd moved into the cabin after he stopped fitting into the den of the wolf pack who'd probably raised him.

Solo · Apr 11, 2020

It was difficult to tell what made him more uncomfortable—the possibility of the creatures looming outside, or the innocent and gentle gesture from the impossibly small woman cocooned in his blankets. Earlier in the day, even when he'd faced down the zombie shambling towards them, he would have easily said she scared him more, and that might have been doubly true when she wasn't snapping at him and was, instead, demurely requesting he come nearer.

Yep. Definitely her. He was definitely more afraid of her.

Still, for some unknown reason, he felt compelled to do as he requested, and nearly as soon as she'd spoken, he found himself moving in her direction. It was a slow few steps from the table with the flickering candles to his bed, and he approached it much like he would approach a nervous animal, purposeful steps and a gentle sinking into the mattress, though he still stayed as far away from her as possible. It was obvious she was frightened, and he doubted he was doing much to ease that. Feet firmly planted on the floor, he leaned forward and hunched in on himself, his elbows resting on his knees with his hands folded in the middle, in a futile effort to make himself look smaller. There was only so much a man of over six feet could do, and having never had to consider anyone else's feelings, it wasn't something he did consciously; rather, his body was reacting and trying to do anything to make her more comfortable. As far away as possible, though—he didn't want to risk any part of them touching and sending her into more panic than she was already in, not to mention what it might do to his own mental wellbeing.

Silas wasn't good at talking. That much was obvious. He was good at listening, though, and while most of his experience came from listening to animal calls to track them or environmental cues to know what weather was on its way, he could adapt and apply it to listening to her, too, he supposed. When she wasn't yelling at him or insulting him, her voice was pleasant, though he found on an instinctual level that he did not enjoy how distraught she became as she continued to recall her experiences. As she continued talking, the gravity of the situation began to fully set in. While it hadn't affected him as much when he'd been staring into the milky, vacant eyes of the creature that had followed her, nor when he watched her wash the dirt and blood from her skin, it was beginning to affect him the more he heard her speak—and the more emotion she showed.

He nodded appropriately along with her story if only to show that he was listening; he didn't want to interrupt when she could be providing necessary information to their continued survival. The fact that he already thought of it as theirs was striking; he'd never willingly included others in his plans and he hadn't intended to start when the woman had approached his cabin, but could he really turn her out now? The thought of sending her back out to face the darkness alone made his stomach twist in a way he didn't understand. When she turned the conversation to question him, he shrugged, though he soon figured that he owed her more of a response than that.

"Not much else to say, I guess," he mused. "Not much that'll help us deal with it, that is. If all they do is eat, then we make sure we don't give 'em anything to chomp on." It wasn't an eloquent response, but if she had wanted eloquent, she had deposited herself on the wrong doorstep. "If they can't open doors they can't think enough to smash a covered window, so we're safe for the night. Anything else, I guess we figure out when the sun rises." The fact that he had begun to use we not only in his thoughts but out loud made him grimace; he had outright assumed she'd want to stick around. "'Less you wanna leave when it gets light out again. Wouldn't fault ya'."

Virginia Greene · May 7, 2020

Even if she hadn't been watching him - where else was there to look in this glorified shed? - Anastasia would have known immediately when he sat because she could feel the way the bed sunk under him. Big man and his small bed. And his whole Small World-ass everything. Did he even fit in the bed? Maybe his feet stuck out the far end like a cartoon character.

He probably slept with his shoes on.

He was all hunched over, and she couldn't figure out why. Was it to take up less space? The weight of the situation? Displeasure at sitting near her? Probably not that one because he could have just not moved closer, she assumed he wasn't the sort who did things he didn't want to. "No matter how much you hunch over you can't take up any less space, you brooding mountain," she informed him, because she couldn't solve the fact that everything was hell and life would never be normal again but she could solve him maybe not wanting to take up too much space. Anyway, maybe she wanted him to take up some space. There was some comfort in having another person around, particularly one who was giant and capable of killing zombies even if he might be dumb as rocks. He listened to her, which meant stupid wasn't the worst thing in the world.

Though she barely knew this weird forest hermit, a shrug seemed about right as a response from him Anastasia thought, and a small smile slipped onto her lips at his words ."Yeah. Have to make sure of that." There was comfort in the simplicity of the statement. It was that simple right now, wasn't it? It was too early to have to worry about food and water, even if it wasn't too early to start planning for when it would become a concern. "As long as they don't hear or see us inside, there's no problem. Might smash a window on accident if they know there's someone inside." He was handling this well. Or seemed like he was. But she supposed that she was too, given how few days had passed. She squinted at him in the dim light, trying to decide for a moment what she should say to his comment about her possibly leaving. "Facing the apocalypse alone and pantsless is pretty low on my list of things to do," she finally quipped. "So unless you're the kind of man who kicks a woman out into the end of the world in her underwear, I think I'm sticking around."

She was not someone meant to survive alone. The little woman knew this instinctively, and while she wasn't sure if she would put up with someone who was worse than what this giant man seemed to be, her line was apparently on the other side of whatever the hell his personality was. Hopefully she'd never have to find out where exactly, because she would either stick with him or find someone or some group better.

Carefully she stretched out, slipping back down into the bed from her curled up position. She didn't lay down all the way, but she was at least no longer wedged into the corner like she'd been before. One foot bumped his leg from it's spot under the blankets and she pulled it back a little adjusted her position. "But we'll figure it out tomorrow," she agreed. Whatever 'it' was. Anastasia was pretty sure she knew a lot of what needed to get done, or at least she could guess. She slid down the rest of the way a few seconds later, sharing at the curtain. "It's weird that you don't have questions though, just so you know."

Solo · May 20, 2020

Was he the kind of man to kick her out? Instinctively, he supposed he wasn’t, but it wasn’t like he’d ever been faced with a situation anything like the one he found himself in that night. All things considered, he was doing better than he’d expected—not that he’d ever expected to be suddenly forced into socializing by way of zombie apocalypse, of course, but it wasn’t that far off from the crazy things he’d considered possible during his long days of solitude.

So, living alone in the woods might have made him a little crazy. It could happen to anyone, and possibly would with the world going to shit. Maybe his way of doing things would become the new normal. The thought of anything about his life being normal was almost enough to make him break into a chuckle—almost. Of course, he bit it back; he didn’t need her thinking he was any more derisive than she already did.

If he forgot, he was sure she’d be happy to remind him.

Even if she thought he was weird, his presence seemed to be comforting her for some reason. At the very least, she looked less terrified, unfolding from the protective curl-up and stretching out on his bed. His shirt, his bed—they were such simple things, things that surely, normal people would see as so insignificant that they wouldn’t even notice them, but to him, allowing her not only close to his space but all over it was more significant than either of them understood.

“What good will asking questions do?” he asked bluntly, his trademark shrug making another appearance. The way he saw it, they had two options—they could go about the end of the world together, or she could leave in the morning and he could return to his solitary existence none the wiser—and neither would be helped along by additional conversation. At least, not in his eyes. He’d already said more words that day than he had in the past few weeks. “Seems like we know all we can at this point. No use sitting here and wondering about what could happen. We’ll find out eventually.”

With that, he’d said all he had to say and then some—if it were up to him, he’d communicate by not communicating, but he had the feeling not much was solely up to him anymore—so he followed her lead, slightly relaxing his body even as her foot knocked against him. It was gone as soon as it touched him, pulled up on the mattress, to the point where he had enough room to scoot back and lean against the wall of the cabin, his legs still extending off the side of the bed, but at least the mattress was more comfortable to sit on than the chair. He could still see the cabin around them, but already the pain in his back and his tailbone eased slightly, and though he kept his arms crossed over his chest, he didn’t look as uncomfortable. “Now, c’mon, go back to bed. We can’t do anything else in the dark.”

Virginia Greene · Jun 26, 2020

Had this been any other time, Anastasia would probably have found his bluntness hard to deal with and annoying. But here, it was helpful. Things were simple to him, apparently. And while that was stupid, it was also nice because his apparent lack of need to think about things meant she wasn't having to either. "Well--" she hesitated and then frowned, looking a little perplexed in the dark. "Nothing... I guess?" A long pause and then "just feels like you should be asking me a lot of questions." He could have asked about all her experiences and tried to gain knowledge from the things she'd already gone through, that's what she probably would have done. But she'd told him how to kill zombies and how not to let them kill him, and now he seemed good. Which was... better? It meant she didn't have to talk about things that she was still processing or avoiding thinking about. But it felt like he should want to hear about it.

"I mean there's things we could, if you were either more or less weird." She slid the rest of the way down into the bed again, turning onto her side and curling her legs up to her so that Silas would still have his room on the bed. "You can stay there, if you want." Would she like that? It didn't take much introspection to get to the answer, which was a solid 'yes'. She barely knew him but she would like it if he would stay on the bed with her, keep an eye out from there. "Wake me up if anything happens." Like she wouldn't wake up if he so much as moved too noticeably.

It was impressive that she managed to sleep, and the fact she could was a combination of sheer exhaustion and the fact that despite all of her complaints and insults, Silas's presence was a comfort.

Usually, Anastasia enjoyed sleeping in. She rarely had anything to do that required her immediate attention in the morning, by choice. She'd roll out of bed, make a smoothie, go on a jog, and then shower and then do whatever it was she needed to do. But things were very different now and if she never had to run again that'd still be too soon, and sleeping in late was going to be a thing of the past no matter how much rest she needed. So she woke up five or so hours later and but held still, listening before she allowed herself to move. No screaming, no shouting, no groaning. Then she allowed herself to open her eyes and stretched out comfortably when it became clear that the cabin was still as safe as it had been when she'd gone to sleep. "G'morning." She wanted to brush her hair. She needed to brush her teeth. Her mouth tasted awful. "Time for a day plan, I suppose?" It was the right thing to say, but she wasn't actually getting out of bed. She just sort of curled back up, because her muscles were sore and had started up a protest she found very convincing the moment she'd stretched. Ugh.

"Do we have to go catch breakfast with our bare hands, or have you heard of cereal?" She should probably eat something with protein, but she wanted cereal. That sugary cereal she'd eaten in college in her apartment like somehow her parents would know if she ate it in public at the school cafeteria and call her to chide her about her food habits.

Solo · Jul 28, 2020

The tiny, formidable woman was a stark contrast in appearance to how she was in personality; where she had been curled against the wall, wide eyes visible even in the dim light of the cabin, with fear only moments before, now she seemed comfortable enough to go back to her preferred course of action, which seemed to be… sarcastically insulting him. It didn’t faze him; in fact, he let out a gruff chuckle at her words, shaking his head slowly. At least the crisis—the crisis of her being emotional, which he certainly didn’t know how to handle—had been averted, for now.

Once his heart had stopped pounding—both at the prospect of him doing something that may have attracted the undead to their location, and at him having to stay up and fill the tiny cabin with something other than watchful silence—he managed to settle in a bit more comfortably than he had on his perch near the door, back supported by the plush mattress, head resting on one bent arm that came dangerously close to skirting her covered legs. It took him a while—his legs were still splayed over the edge of the twin-sized bed, knees bent with his feet on the floor—but eventually, he followed her into unconsciousness.

Her stretching was what woke him, one foot nudging his face from the mattress, where it had fallen from his arm sometime during the night. Crinkling his nose and relaxing it a few times to abate the discomfort that came from falling face-first into his own mattress and then being awoken by a foot to the face, he slowly sat up, arms stretching over his head. His shirt rode up to his mid-stomach as the bones in his back and neck cracked almost rhythmically, his head rolling from side to side to rid himself of the kinks in his neck from sleeping so folded up.

He didn’t hurt as badly as he thought he would have, and he chalked that up as the first win of the day. It really was the simple things.

“No cereal,” he replied, his voice still scratchy and lower than usual from sleep, so he cleared his throat before continuing to speak. He’d never had to worry about the quality of his voice before, the only things to hear him being the trees and the occasional squirrel. “Milk doesn't keep long enough. I can whip something up, though. Just went to the store last week. Uh,” he stuttered, looking her over. “You’re not one of those people who doesn’t eat meat, are you? ‘Cause all I’ve got for you in that case is bread.”

Virginia Greene · Aug 15, 2020

She watched him shamelessly while he stretched - it wasn't like there was anywhere else to look, what was she going to do, stare at the closed closed curtains - though she was thinking more about how this sleeping set-up probably wasn't going to be a functional long-term solution. She couldn't make this mountain ogre sleep all folded up every night for forever, if he got all cramped up or something then he probably wouldn't be as helpful. Also y'know, maybe there was concern for this new companion who had let her into his home during a fucking apocalypse. Maybe they could get a camping mat or an inflatable mattress for him or something.

The idea that she might sleep on the floor absolutely did not occur to Anastasia, because that would be ridiculous.

"If you can't keep milk, how are you keeping meat?" She wrinkled her nose in disdain but didn't inquire further because right now she didn't care. There would be time for caring a whole lot later, after she had her first meal in almost twenty four hours. “I have a very strict diet that was completely thrown out the window about three days ago because I don’t want to starve to death. The apocalypse is probably the best long term weight loss plan in the world anyway, I’ll still look great.” She was going to have to talk to him about food eventually, in more depth than this. Once she’d put together a proper plan, and could explain it to a guy who probably didn’t know what a calorie was. Unless the zombies all collapsed of rot in a month or so or the military actually managed to contain this somehow and they found a border they could exit, it was going to be time to buckle up for the long term.

Sitting up, she swung her long bare legs off the bed and stood up, moving towards the window. She didn't open the curtains though, just stood by them. Logically she knew the chances of peeling the curtains back and seeing a hoard of zombies on his front lawn was basically zero, but she could feel the anxiety in her chest and weighting down her hands and making them almost tingle as she considered it. Instead when she lifted her hand she ended up straightening the borrowed shirt she was wearing instead, re-doing a button that had come undone while she was sleeping.

"We should get cereal. The sugary garbage kind, no milk needed for that. Have to make a food run eventually anyway so we can stock up. Plus I need pants and shoes, and--" Anastasia paused and frowned and then "I'll make a list. Unless you got some neighbors to check up on, if they’re alive we can maybe work out a deal where they give me pants." If they were dead, she could just take the pants, after killing the zombies. "What's the population of the closest town? If whatever's closest even counts as a town." What did one call something too small to be a proper town?

Depressing. That was it. Call it depressing.

Solo · Sep 20, 2020

God, this girl talked too much, yet somehow, she wasn’t saying anything. At least, that was what it seemed like to Silas, with all he knew about ‘diets’ and ‘weight loss plans’ and ‘speaking to others’, all foreign concepts to someone who ate only to survive and spent more time working outside than on leisure time.

Shooting her an odd look at her questioning, he shook his head slowly as he tried to process all her conversation, of which he managed only about a third of it – which was better than he thought he’d do when she started rapid-fire speaking. “Ever heard of salting?” he questioned, face scrunched up in confusion. “Keeps for a while. Got a chest freezer, but milk takes up too much room. Could pack a bunch of salt pork or bacon into that same space and get a lot further with it.” It was said like it was the simplest thing, and to him, it was, though someone like her had likely never had to worry about trivial things like fridge space. Judging by the dress she’d pranced up the driveway in, she probably hadn’t had to worry about anything.

“Nope. No need,” he quickly hurried to tack on. “This time of year, not many people around. They usually come in the summer, head out before the leaves turn. Might be a few year-rounders, but we, uh… we kind of keep to ourselves out here.” To say the least. He’d seen the closest neighbor less times than he could count on both hands, and he wouldn’t be able to remember his first name if a gun was held to his head. “Got a hell of a walk ahead of us. Gonna have to make do with my stuff ‘til we get to town.” Gesturing towards the chest near the foot of the bed, he motioned for her to ruffle through it, opening it himself and stripping himself of the shirt he’d slept in, replacing it in his hand with a nearly identical one and pulling it over his head.

Moving towards the door, he opened another chest, this time pulling out a shotgun and loading it with a few rounds, adding another box of ammo to the pocket of his jeans. “I’ll be outside. C’mon out when you’re ready. Don’t take too long, we wanna get going before they do.” If they even slept? That was another thing to add to the mental list of things to figure out… if he could remember the items of the list, that is.

Maybe he should trust her to do the list making.

He’d add that to the list, too.

Virginia Greene · Oct 18, 2020

Her nose wrinkled, and she shook her head. "I have-- had a low sodium diet," she informed him, "salting sounds like the opposite of that." But he had food preservation skills apparently, and that would come in immensely handy if this zombie apocalypse really became a full blown apocalypse. It was probably too much to hope that because everybody in the whole world, except for the man whose cabin she was in apparently, knew what the fuck a zombie was that the military and all those crazy redneck militia people would be able to get a handle on it. "Doesn't really matter anyway, we'd be eating cereal without milk anyway it's not going to be worth it and it'll all go bad in the stores as soon as the power goes out anyway." Oh, grocery stores were going to stink. She changed mental direction so as not to dwell on it and added "and I also need a toothbrush and a hairbrush and conditioner." A pause, and then a narrow eyed "you have a toothbrush, right?" He brushed his teeth, yes?

God what if he didn't, what if he really was some kind of psychopath.

While he explained the state of things - which she interpreted as 'this town is going to be five shacks and half a Walmart' -, she finally got up the proper courage to lift the curtain and peer outside. There was nothing but grass and trees and his garden, which was a relief immediately broken by his next words. "We have to walk?" She echoed in disbelief, "I spent hours trying to run for my life after a car crash yesterday and now you're saying it's a walk? How do you intend to bring back enough supplies?" He couldn't expect her to be carrying a week's worth of food or something, and depending on how bad it was they might need to plan for months. "Something closer would be so much more useful for the moment and probably so much safer than heading all the way to what I'm no longer is convinced is going to be a town at all." But he was probably going to make her walk all the way there and she'd have to be in charge of everything because this big idiot didn't seem to have put any amount of thought into this that mattered.

There was no attempt to correct what sounded like an assumption on his part that zombies might not be up and about all the time, the out-of-sorts socialite was already coming to terms with the fact that she was going to have to teach him everything and probably constantly stop him from doing dumbass things that would get them both killed. She was not going to die because some hot moron managed to fuck everything up the moment she looked in the other direction. He excused himself and she almost told him not to go but decided that if he wasn't going to put any consideration he could just wait outside, where objectively one hundred percent of the zombies where, for however long it took her to make an outfit work. The shirt was fine, and she spent some time managing to get a pair of his pants on, rolling them up until she finally got them to her ankles and then finally managing to wrangle a belt around her waist to keep them from falling down her hips. She used two pairs of socks and ended up sitting on the bed, duct taping an almost flip-flop shape to provide a more solid bottom, and then just wrapped the tape around the socks over her ankles too, pulled tight enough they wouldn't be able to slip off. She stood, took a few steps, rotated her feet to see how much movement she had, and decided that this would have to work. Hopefully it would at least keep her feet from getting cut up if she stepped on a sharp rock or a small shard of glass or something.

Once that was done she grabbed the axe that he'd brought in last night, and started hunting around for another handheld weapon. Finally she managed to locate a knife that seemed like it would be useful enough and grabbed it, heading to the door. She hesitated for a moment and then swung it open, drowning out the anxiety over the idea of heading off into the great unknown with her irritation over how her new companion seemed not to put thought into anything.

"If you hadn't just walked out the door without putting any thought into this, you might have realized that nothing you have was going to reasonably fit me and that I might need help finding things to solve that problem so I didn't have to just dig through all your shit," she said in an accusational tone, "you're lucky you're boring or I definitely would have found all the things you wouldn't want polite company to know about. Here, take this." She all but shoved the knife into his hands, frowning. "Guns are loud and zombies are attracted to noise so unless you're going to beat them all to death with it, it should be a last resort." She was keeping the axe. It was heavier and it would probably wear her out a little bit more quickly if she had to use it, but for the moment there was comfort in the weight.

After the End of the World [Solo & Virginia]

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