Last of Us: A Story of Two Souls (BMD x EldritheWhisperwind)

[Blue Moon Dragon]

A man came to inside a room of a building. He scanned the room while still laying on the ground and realized he was still inside the hospital. Many of his comrades were fallen around him. He sat up and as he did he felt a sharp pain in his side. He felt the area and looked at it. There was no blood, but just bruising. He climbed to his feet, standing 5'10". This enabled him to get a better view of the area now. He could see the operating table. "The girl.." He spoke softly, obviously no one would hear him. Ellie was the girl who was supposed to help mankind. She held the key to the cure for the infection that was the Codrycep fungus, but Joel betrayed the Fireflies and took her away.. He walked the hallways of the hospital to see if there were any other survivors, none at all... Not even Marlene...

He stepped outside and looked over the horizon at the ensuing storm that was approaching.. "I swear to continue this path.. I will find her or anyone else that shows immunity to this evil.." That was Desmond Thompson's promise to himself and the world. He would cure the world and help it to start anew. But first, he would have to start over with the rebuilding process of the Fireflies. But why maintain the same organization? Surely word would spread that Marlene is no more and the Fireflies would cease to exist save a few stragglers. He began his journey to find a new city; his new starting point. All the while he had plenty of time to think about what to do.

A years time had passed when Desmond settled in what remained of Chicago. The now 26 year old had big plans for the city and quickly gained followers of his cause to save mankind. He was able to influence many of the people, including the mayor. Chicago was already the perfect setup because it had thick ten foot walls that surrounded the cities northern border connecting from the Chicago River to Lake Michigan along what use to be Chicago Ave. It also had the Chicago River circle about as the west and center border with the lake being on the east. The center of this city with a population of just over a thousand people, was where LaSalle St and Grand Ave used to be. Many of the bridges to cross the Chicago river were destroyed to limit the number of access points into this civilization and those that remained had checkpoints established in them. Before, the lake wasn't well known to be great drinking water, but over the years, engineers had found a way to un-taint the water that flowed through the Chicago River. The harbor that use to be Navy Pier allowed for perfect means to venture into the lake for fishing purposes and trading with areas across the way.

Desmond was allowed the privilege to re-purpose the university, now known as New Chicago University (NCU) on the northern area of the city by Mayor Maxwell to get scientists to study what information he had. Mayor Maxwell was formly Mayor Daley's secretary, but when the infection spread to Chicago, the mayor fled the city. Mayor Maxwell has been able to keep order in this city, not a very large city, but she had strict rules in place to make sure that nothing ever went wrong and that outbreaks were kept to a minimum.

Desmond's views on how to accomplish getting a cure intrigued the mayor. The two of them were the only ones to know of what needed to be done when a suspected immune person were to show. The same process that would have been done to Ellie. However, they knew that they had to keep it a secret. Des' new organization was nicknamed, the "Guardians" (placeholder in case I find a better name) since they considered themselves humanities' last chance at survival.

 

[Eldrithe Whisperwind]

Mariah Crawford was holed up in an old casino, forcing herself to remain silent. The warm night air carried with it the smell of decay and the sounds of the infected. Croaking from the stalkers one floor below kept her on edge, oh how much she hated those sounds; they became a constant reminder that death was always around the corner. She often found herself closing her eyes willing for them to just go away so that she could get some rest. “Everything is going to be ok Mariah, we can get through this.” She whispers to herself while rocking back and forth on the cold red tiled floor, thinking about the events that she had to endure recently.

Mariah is a drifter who had become accustomed to being alone, she felt that it was better that way; she repeatedly told herself ‘you can’t feel the burden of loss if you have nobody to care for’. Regardless of how she felt, deep down she secretly craved the ability to interact with another human and to become useful to whatever was left of humanity. Several days ago she stumbled upon a camp of survivors. Instead of interacting with the survivors she kept her distance, watching and listening. They looked like a good enough group, but one can never tell in a world where things were always uncertain. She hid her 5’4” frame behind a patch of tall grass and a large chunk of rubble that had sharp rusted metal rods protruding from it. Being careful as to not cut herself on the rusted objects, she peered around the left edge of the dull gray stone and tried her best to hear what they were saying. For the next two days she followed them, making sure to keep her distance. She learned that they were on their way to find a civilization in Chicago called the Guardians, rumors had spread that they were continuing the Fireflies goal of discovering a cure. On the third day she had decided that she wanted to reveal herself and join the group to find the Guardians, but her actions became short lived when a group of people riding in an armored jeep quickly surrounded the survivors and slaughtered every last one of them. Mariah couldn’t believe what she had just witnessed. How can people be so cruel? Is there any humanity left? What could possess someone to kill another living person when our numbers were so few? Lost in her thoughts she felt sick and disoriented. Pulling herself together she noticed that the group of murderers were spreading out to see if there were any surviving stragglers. She knew that she had to quickly get away and ran to the nearest building.

Back on the casino floor she could hear a man yell, “ALL CLEAR!” The stalkers and clickers that were in the building had also heard the yell and went into a frenzy of clicks and croaks. Mariah quickly covered her ears and shut her eyes tight. After what felt like hours, the frenzy finally died down. Mariah slowly removed her hands from her ears and found that opening her eyes was a challenge. Without realizing it, she nodded off into a nightmarish sleep where her dreams would continue to haunt her.

The next morning she was awaken by a stream of bright light hitting her emerald green eyes. Forcing herself to sit up, she felt every achy muscle and bone pop. Once she stretched out all the aches and pains she was able to look around the room for the first time and see all the fine detail of what was left of the casino. She saw rusted abandoned gambling machines and disheveled tables and chairs covered in black velvet. Mosaics stretched across from one wall to the other depicting images of men and women playing poker and partying. Mariah couldn’t believe that the world used to be that fun and carefree, when all she saw was death and destruction. She was only seven years-old when the mutated Cordyceps fungus started spreading and killing everybody she had ever known; so she remembered very little of the life that felt like a dream. Twenty years had passed since then. Now twenty-seven, she couldn’t help but envy the past and how she wished that she was one of those women in the mosaics.

Feeling silly, Mariah quickly packed up all of her things and made her way out of the casino; but not before visiting the hotel that was attached to the casino and grabbing a map. As she silently made her way to the skywalk that led to the hotel, she ran into a few stalkers and dispatched them as quietly as possible. Once reaching the main floor of the hotel she frantically searched for a map that wasn’t destroyed by the elements. After several minutes of searching she found the perfect map and emitted a small squeal of delight. As she calmed herself down she heard a noise behind her, she grabbed the crowbar that was nestled on her belt and whirled around. She was too slow. A runner had snuck up behind her during her noisy search and immediately attacked; it’s arms grabbing her in mid turn knocking her to the ground. In a panic Mariah screamed. As the runner was bending down to take a bite out of her left shoulder she jabbed the crowbar into its right eye, gelatinous white goo poured out of the now empty socket onto her cheek and messy hair. The runner died instantly and went limp on top of her body. Once Mariah realized that it was dead, she scrambled out from beneath the body as fast as she could. Gaining her bearings and checking for any injuries, she picked up her things and quickly left before any more infected could catch her.

Once on the road she looked at the map and found the fastest rout to Chicago, while avoiding all the places that she thought would be dangerous. 35 days later she was standing outside the main gates leading to the Guardians. She was shocked to see so many people standing in a line , slowly filtering through the checkpoint; rumors must have spread fast. As she approached the gates she realized that they were testing people for the infection before letting them in. Once it was her turn to be checked she pushed back a loose strand of red hair behind her ear in anticipation. A man dressed in black pressed a scanner on the back of her neck and waited for it to beep the results. It was clear. Once they revealed the results they ushered Mariah through the checkpoint where she would begin her new life.

 

[Blue Moon Dragon]

It was a sunny afternoon as Desmond was out patrolling the streets of the city. The air was warm, it had to be close to mid May. It had been raining quite frequently these last few weeks. He was patrolling with his group to watch over the people of this fine civilization that was growing rather quickly over the last few months. The news that Chicago hosted the Guardians spread rather quickly. Some of the people of the city revered Desmond as a Sheriff of the town while others saw him as the the next closest thing to the 2nd coming of Christ. In times like these, some people just need someone to be their light in this darkness.

He and his group were walking through the markets on their way to one of the checkpoints to make their rounds. He stopped at a fruit stand to pick up an apple, where the keeper of the stand was delighted to give him the apple for free in payment for all that he had done for this city. Desmond continued along with his other two walking mates. Not far from the fruit stand, there were sounds of shouting coming from two men. It started off as just meager yelling, but quickly escalated and became physical. Desmond and his men scrambled quickly to the scene.

The bigger man, who was still about the same build as Desmond, had the man by the neck and wrestled him to the ground, strangling him as hard as he could. The smaller man fought as intently as he could but you could tell from the look on his face that he was going out. Desmond was the first to the scene and grabbed at the man's arms to free the smaller man. The two soldiers behind him grabbed the man as well and finally managed to pull him off the smaller guy. The two soldiers continued to hold the man by each of his arms. Des helped the smaller man up and let him catch his breath, "What the Hell is going on over here?"

"This little punk was trying to rip me off!" The bigger guy quickly explained. "Check his pockets! He's got my stuff!" The man tried jerking his arms free from the soldiers. "Lemme go! I'm the innocent one here!" The soldiers kept a firm grip on the man.

Desmond looked to the man, "What's your name, kid?" The kid had to be barely 18. He dusted the dirt off of the young man, now getting a better look at him.

"Karl.. sir.." the young man replied, his eyes trying to not meet those of the Sheriff's. "I didn't take nothin'.." He tried defending himself, but it was clear in his face that he was a bad liar. His face was still a bit pale from having the life choked out of him.

"I wasn't even going to ask you what you took, but it's clear to me that you're being very defensive about it." Desmond had patted down the young lad's pockets of his jacket to find a small piece of bread. "This is it?" The man who know made himself look more like a boy didn't respond nor gesture to the food. Des placed the bread back in the boy's pocket, "Scram, and stay out of trouble." The boy had looked up at him with an awed look on his face. He took one last look at the bully and didn't hesitate to dash away. Des' attention focused now on this bully. "A piece of bread?"

The man looked away with a smug look on his face, "I ain't gotta explain nothin' to you!" He explained. His eyes peered back over to him from the corner of his sockets, "Now get your dogs off me!" Des raised his hand to have his men release him. The man dusted himself off, but Des glared at him with great intent. "What? You gonna pay for the bread he took from me?"

Des could now see that the man was a bit on the husky side although still being close to the same height. "You know that we're a community here, right? We all have to look out for one another. Obviously, that kid needed some food and you can stand to lose a few pounds." The man's smug look turned to one of discontent. Before he could even speak, Des struck him in the face and dropped him to his knees. "Let this be a lesson to you. Vic, get this man cleaned up and repay him for me if you would. 2 tickets should do." The soldier Des was referring to nodded and picked up the man and helped him away from the scene.

Des with his now only companion, Jared, continued their walk toward the gate that was only a few hundred feet away. He was going to get the latest report of any signs of infected people and hopefully a likely "angel". Angel being the nickname chosen to refer to people with immunity. They haven't been able to figure out how to detect someone with the immunity using their scanners at the gate, but they would contain the Cordrycep fungus infection in their blood if they were attacked and had immunity. He stood talking with the overseer of the southwestern gates which crossed the river.

 

[Eldrithe Whisperwind]

Six days have passed since Mariah first came to live with the Guardians. For the first time in her life, since the infected spores spread, Mariah felt safe. She felt that things could somehow revert back to normal as if there were no infected in the world. Through the past couple of days she had learned some of the rules and regulations that everybody had to abide by; #1- No killing of another human, #2- if you want to eat you work, nothing is free, #3- the more dangerous or important the job the more rewards, etc. Mariah had obviously skimmed over the rules and felt that she only needed to remember the ones that she felt was the most important. She also learned that they have a payment system that involves tickets instead of money. The tickets would be handed to the workers as payment and then you would take your tickets to a food or item vender and trade them in for goods, it seemed simple enough.

Mariah was at the mechanic garage trying to install a new engine for a M1161 Growler that was found abandoned at an abandoned military station. “Stupid machine!” she yells while slamming the monkey wrench down on the ground.

“HEY!” yells a man as he pulls himself out from underneath the Growler. “Ya better stop throwing shit. Ya coulda hurt someone. Jesus, didn’t yur parents teach ya any manners?”

“Oh hush up Laurence, it didn’t even go near you.” Mariah snaps while she bends down to pick up the red coated wrench.

“Uh-huh, says the woman that threw it. Ya do know that the sound reverberated down here right? The loud noise hurt ma delicate eardrums. “ Laurence grins as he slowly lifts himself up off the floor and stretched while wiping a hand across his forehead to get rid of the sweat drops that were on the verge of sliding down his face and ruffles his short black hair. Mariah snorts in amusement. “Why are ya laughen? Do I have something on ma face?”

Mariah folds her arms while still holding the monkey wrench, “You have shit all over your face.”

Laurence looks appalled, “Surely it isn’t any worse than yurs. Good thing yur not goin on a date, yeah? He might get the impression that ya have been wrestelin pigs.” he gives the widest of smiles to Mariah. Suddenly an alarm sounds inside the garage signaling that the workday is over for first shift. “Finally, it’s time to get out of this hell hole. Wanna meet up later this evening for a bite to eat?” he asks her.

“Sure, how does sunset sound at my place?”

“Sunset sounds perfect. I’ll see ya then.” Says Laurence as he leaves.

Mariah sets down the wrench and picks up a rag and tries her best to clean off the grime that she accumulated during the day, small grease smudges turn in big grease smudges. She gives up and runs to the bathroom and uses what little water they are allowed to clean herself up before doing her rounds. As Mariah leaves the garage she stops by the foreman’s office to pick up her tickets for the day. “Here you go Miss. Crawford. Spend your tickets wisely.”

“I will try my best sir.” Retorts Mariah as she closes the broken door behind her.

The sun felt particularly bright this afternoon and the warm breeze felt welcoming after being stuck inside a dank stuffy garage all day. Mariah decided that she wanted to go down to the food vending area and try and get some groceries as well as visit the clothing venders and buy herself some new trousers to replace her faded grease covered ones. As she made her way to the other side of the camp she couldn’t help but look at the sky and admire how blue and clear it was. Everything was perfect, but she felt that something was missing. Once she was at the market she set about finding the items she needed. She starts to head toward a lopsided booth that looks to be made out of old rotted wood and chunks of discolored din. “How much are your meats?”

“Ten tickets for the snake and squirrel, fifteen for the rabbit, and thirty for the deer.” Replies the meat vender.

“But, I can’t afford that! Those prices are outrageous. No one can afford that unless your one of the Guardians that goes outside the city looking for a cure or one of the hunters. This is highway robbery!” she says while clenching her hands together.

“I’m sorry Miss. But meat and game are scarce at the moment. It took the hunters three weeks to catch what all I have on the table.”

Mariah snorts and continues to contemplate on if she wanted to fork over the tickets to get the meat or pass it up. She had fifteen tickets on her, but those tickets were supposed to last her the week. “I’m sorry, I can’t afford it.” She says while frowning. As she turns to leave she hears two guys shouting at each other over a piece of bread. The shouting quickly turns into physical violence.

“Those hooligans should be taught a lesson. The Guardians should kick them our for misbehaving like that.” Retorts the meat vender as he takes out a knife and cleans his nails. Mariah looks back at him and rolls her eyes; she returns her attention back to the fight. After a short handful of seconds, the fight is interrupted by a group of guys. “You see that? They let the thief keep the bread at lease they reimbursed the man two tickets for the food that he worked and paid for. Us hard working folk will never catch a break.” He lets out a sigh and continues cleaning out his nails.

“Who are those guys?” asks Mariah.

“Who? Them?” the vender points at the group of men, “oh, those are the Guardians and that guy right there, the young one with the uniform, is the leader of this place. Whatever he says goes. Not even the Mayor would go against him. He’s not a bad guy by any means, but he is very well respected around here.”

Mariah looks at the group of men and gives a halfhearted smile, “I wish I could be a Guardian and help find a cure. It’s better than being a mechanic; hell, I was out there by myself for fifteen years or so and nobody knows how to survive out there more than me. Anyway, I best be off. Thanks again.” Mariah waves good bye to the vender and proceeds to visit the other food venders and purchases a couple of apples and cucumbers. She then heads over to the clothing merchants and purchases a pair of blue jeans that were worn out at the knees, a semi-white stained tank top and a homemade scrunchie to tie up her hair. “These should do me for a while. They may not be perfect but they are a lot better than what I have on me now.” She says to herself as she looks down at her dirt and greased covered jeans and ripped bloodstained shirt. She then shrugs and decides to head back home with her newly purchased belongings and get ready for her get-together with Laurence.

 

[Blue Moon Dragon]

"Any news to report?" Desmond quickly got to the point of why he came by the gate to check with the gate captain for any leads on a possible Angel. He stood calm as he looked over all the newcomers that were granted access to their civilization. His attention turned toward the gate captain waiting for his reply.

"Negative, sir. No signs of any infections on people thus far. You'll be the first to know when one shows up, sir." The gate captain tried to reassure his commander. He stood tall and saluted Desmond.

Desmond sighed, "We're not in the military you know." Yes, we wear these uniforms, but we need to look solidified as a unit to let these people know who we are and what we stand far." As he spoke, he had rested his hand on his shoulder for the man to relax. All the Guardian members wore a similar attire of black pants with any kind of shirt and a blue/black/white color combination camouflage vest with their Guardian symbol on the left side of the vest. The base Guardian symbol was a white lettered 'G' in the shape of a shield. Depending on what rank you were, you would have more attached to it. Since Desmond was the head figure of the Guardians, his symbol was the G-shield with 5 sets of wings extending from it with a halo above the 'G'. "But you should still take your job seriously." Des continued speaking to the young man. "You never know when-" Just then, screams were heard coming from the other side of the gate.

Innocents were shouting, 'Runners! Runners!' Desmond walked toward the gates entrance. "Hold them! Don't let a single one through!" Des commanded his gate troops to not let the civilians through without being tested and examined first. He grabbed a pair of binoculars to look down the road to see it was a small gathering of Runners that were headed for them. No more than six that he counted. "You, and you! With me now! No guns, we'll take them out before they get to the bridge." He instructed the two nearest soldiers to follow him out into the field passed the civilians. As they ran out, he turned toward the bird's nest where the sniper was aiming down his sights. "No shots unless they get passed us." The sniper in the tower nodded that he understood. Des turned to continue following behind the soldiers.

"This will be a piece of cake." One of the soldiers bragged as they all pulled out their knives for hand-to-hand combat with the Runners.

"Don't get cocky! They're still just as dangerous as a Bloater or Clicker." Des didn't take his eyes off the group as they continued toward them. "Spread!" The two soldiers moved to circle the group in order to try to divide them and make them easier targets. One runner had followed the younger lad while two more had followed the other soldier. This left 3 for Desmond to take on. He waited for them to get close enough before he made his move. When the time was right, he threw his foot forward, kicking the first one down to the ground to give him time to attack the other two. He quickly dodged to the side when the second lounged for him and trip it to the ground. He kept his focus on the third and gripped his knife hard as he thrust it into the face. The body almost going lifeless instantly.

He removed his blade and turned to the one that fell behind him and stabbed it in the face as well before it could recover from the ground. The initial infected that he initially kicked down to the ground was now about to be on top of him. A shriek was let out as it lounged for him, but only for a short second as a bullet had whizzed by his ear and hit the infected square in the temple, blowing out the back of its head. Des turned to watch the infected fall from the shot. He looked up at the other two to see that they were okay as well. "Bring this one," he motioned at the zombie he killed with his knife, "but burn the rest and make sure the flame goes out before sunset. We don't need to attract anymore attention to ourselves. The soldiers nodded as Desmond put away his knife to return to the city walls. He glared at the sniper as he walked through the gates. "What part of no guns do they not understand.." He said under his breath as he continued in.

The sniper jumped down from his post to apologize, "Sir, I'm sorry. He was right on top of you. I didn't-".

"Save it." Des cut him off while he continued walking. He stopped, closed his eyes and turned to the young sniper. "You did good, kid." He said as he patted his shoulders and continued on his way. He was going to report back to the headquarters. It was not what he really wanted to say to the kid, but he knew he had to go easy on him because he meant well. Although, it was still a stupid mistake that could cause them more problems in the future.

It wasn't long before he returned to the headquarters being the hospital. A council was held shortly there after with a group of people that he trusted, including the mayor. In addition to the mayor was his second in command, Travis Remly, his city captain, Sarah Broag, and Javale Drake who was nicknamed the Scout since he lead the patrols that left the city to find supplies. "This was the 5th attack in almost a week. Something isn't right." He said as he sat down at the table in the conference room.

It was silent, so Travis, decided to speak up, "What would you have us do, sir?" Travis had been in Chicago long before Desmond showed up and was the initial chief of police. Since Desmond came through, he was happy to step down and let someone else lead, not really being sure of himself in these dark times. He was often viewed as a brown haired middle-aged Caucasian who was too timid to lead anyway. Being the second in command, Travis' Guardian symbol was like Des' only without the halo.

"We need to send out a team and investigate the area." Desmond suggested.

"Are you mad?" The mayor spoke up. "We need our soldiers here! To protect us from these events!"

"Calm down, Julie. Here lately it has been just Runners that have shown up and one or two Stalkers at night, but this just doesn't add up." Desmond finished.

Travis interjected, "He's right. Runners aren't usually this aggressive. Nor do they have the eyesight to see very far even in daylight."

"With all due respect," Javale, interrupted. His voice definitely didn't match his build, being a small built African American. It almost sounded monotonous at times, but he was good at what he did. "My team and I leave the gates all the time for supplies."

"That's different. You and your team are a valuable asset to this city. You can't possibly be thinking of going. Who would we even send and how many is even safe to send?" Julie Maxwell commented on the subject. "We barely have enough people here to guard each of the gates and patrol the streets 24 hours a day. No offense, Sarah." Sarah didn't respond nor acknowledge her. Sarah knew that she could bite the Mayor's head off if she so chose to, but not in front of Desmond. Sarah was a middle-aged Caucasian who was known to many as the town "Bitch" because she didn't seem to care about many of the people in the city, but that could be because of her history of caring for people in the past and losing them. Both Sarah's and Javale's badges were a set of wings short from Travis.

"We'll keep it small. Larger numbers would only attract more attention. And although Javale is a qualified scout, he is better needed here for when we need supplies." Des clarified to the group. "I'll send Scott and three other soldiers of his picking. We'll send them off to be gone for 4 days top. They move out, investigate the southern regions of old Chicago where they seem to be coming from and then come back. We should be fine missing only 4 soldiers for 4 days, wouldn't you agree, Mayor?" He glared at her expecting her to not argue this decision. "Then it's done." He stood to his feet. "I'll prep them and send them on their way. Dismissed."

 

[Eldrithe Whisperwind]

Mariah walks with a brisk pace home in the mid afternoon heat. She needed to get home fast to change her clothes and clean up the place a little. It’s not like she wanted to impress Laurence or anything, he’s the only close friend she has ever had and she doesn’t want him sitting on a pile of junk. Once she was within eyeing distance of her new home she couldn’t help but stare at the semi-crumbled light gray building and it’s roughly tacked on corroded tin and wood roofing; the building used to be a Hilton hotel and It was in need of a good fix. Luckily she lived on the first floor and she didn’t have to deal with the roofing situation and the idea of having leaks every rainy day. But it was home to her, the first home she had lived in since the infected spores spread.

“Can you spare any tickets?” croaks a middle-aged man sitting at the base of the building as she approaches the door to go inside.

“Huh? Oh, I’m sorry sir. I can’t spare any.” She politely replies as she quickly launches herself through the main door. Mariah had a hard time grasping the man’s plight; if he actually put in some effort to work he wouldn’t have a problem getting tickets. He could easily get a job at his age. If the crippled woman with no left leg at the nearby pub can work, than so can he. She took the door to her left and walked down the hallway and took the 7th door on her right, room 14. She had a little trouble getting the key to work, but by jiggling the key furiously it seemed to do the job. She let herself in.

The room was a single suit, with one bed, bedside table and dresser. There is a small bathroom to her left, but with no running water it’s useless. She did however use the bathroom mirror quite a bit. There were some architectural damage to the walls with the wallpaper flaking off in big sheets and the curtain rod that hung over the dirty cracked window was falling down. But for the most part the place was in good condition. Mariah didn’t know how lucky she was to get the room since rooms like hers were highly sought out. She was randomly assigned a room after signing up for a job. One of the many perks of working. Mariah set to work on cleaning up any trash that was strewn on the floor and clearing off a spot on the bedside table to put food on. She then ran to the bathroom and quickly changed her clothes and brushed her hair as best as she could with a broken brush she had on her back when she was a drifter.

Hours later the sun starts to set and there is a knock on the door. Mariah leaps off the bed and yells, “COMING!” She hastily opens the door and finds Laurence Green standing outside smiling while holding a plastic container.

“Hello” Says Laurence.

“Hello to you too. Come in, come in.”

Laurence enters the room and whistles, “Nice place ya got here Crawford. Yur one lucky bastard.”

Mariah grins, “At least one of us is lucky. I know your last name is Green and all, but at your age you don’t need to be turning green.”

“Now why da hell would I turn green?” Retorts Laurence with a baffling expression. Mariah erupts into giggles. “I don get it.”

“Green, as in green with envy.” She says while gasping for air and trying to get a hold of herself. She then walks over to her bed and motions for Laurence to sit with her. Once they are both settled down Mariah grabs an apple she had stored in the bedside table and Laurence digs out a carrot that was hidden in one of his pant pockets. “What’s with the container?” asks Mariah as she takes a bite of her apple.

“A surprise for you.” He replies.

“Come on, show me!”

“Oh, alright.” He says while unlatching the top and pulls out a chipped faded purple glass plate with various sizes of cooked meat nestled on top.

Mariah gasps, “Laurence, where did you get that? How were you able to afford it? We work at the same job and get paid the same amount of tickets. I even went to shopping before coming home and I only have seven tickets left. That must have been expensive.”

“Fifteen tickets to be exact. I bought a full squirrel and half a snake.” Replies Laurence. “It’s a ‘welcome to the neighborhood’ meal. I had the tickets saved up for them anyway. But instead of eating them by myself I thought I would share.” He presents the plate to her and gesturing her to grab a piece.

“Thank you so much. I don’ know how… just, wow.” She stammers.

“Go on, take one. Don’t be shy.” He urges. Mariah smiles and delicately picks up one juicy looking morsel. Laurence smiles back and places the plate on the bed before picking out a piece of meat for himself and popping it into his mouth. For the next hour Mariah and Laurence gossip and one by one they eat their bounty of food when their mouths are not too busy talking. Mariah then got up and lights the candles she has scattered about the room to help alleviate the darkness that has set inside the quite building.

“I saw the leader of the Guardians today. The one with the uniform, looked like a G with wings” Says Mariah as she sits back down on the bed.

“Ya mean Desmond Thompson?”

“So that’s his name. I completely forgot to ask the guy at the meat stand. I was wondering, do you know what someone would have to do to become a Guardian?” Mariah starts flicking at the fingers on her right hand; a nervous tick that she had since she was young.

“I dunno. I have never inquired about it since I don want to die an all. I guess you would have to talk to mayor Maxwell or somethin. You could also try talking to Desmond if you see him again. But I wouldn’t suggest it. He is a real nice fella but he does have short temper at times. Did ya hear about the infected attack outside the gates this afternoon.”

“There was an attack? Was anybody hurt?”

“Nobody was hurt; I saw everything. But one of Des’s boys shot his gun after being told not to. Des was furious.”

“So, what happened?” inquired Mariah.

“To the boy? Oh, he’s fine. Des realized that the boy was only doin his job and apologized. He’s a real good leader.” Laurence bounced up off the bed and walked over to the window. He used a crusty rag that was in his pocket to clean a small portion of the window and looked out. “Welp, I best be goin. Don’t want it to get too dark before I get home. I don’t feel like stumbling around like an idiot on my way back.” He then proceeded to walk over to the door to let himself out.

“Thanks Laurence, for the coming over and for the plate of meat.” Mariah then looks down and notices that he forgot his plate and plastic container, “Don’t forget these.” She then gets up and walks over to him and hands over his things. “Be safe getting home. You’re the only friend I have and I don’t want to loose you just yet. God knows that I don’t need to loose anymore.”

Laurence smiles at her and says, “Thanks for having me over. Now that I know where ya live I can come stalk ya whenever I please.” Mariah gives him a look of horror and causes him to laugh, “Don worry, I’m just jokin. Your too young for me little missy.”

Mariah shakes her head, “your not that old.”

“Like hell I’m not. I’m twenty-five years older than you. I could almost be yur daddy.”

She opens the door and pushes Laurence out, “I’ll see you tomorrow for work. Good night Laurence.”

“Good night Mariah”

Mariah slowly shuts the door and extinguishes the candles before pulling off her clothes and crawling into bed. As she lays there alone in the dark, she starts devising up a plan of becoming a Guardian. Where can she find the mayor? What about Desmond, could she talk to him? What would they have her do if she did become a Guardian, would she go out on supply runs or would she go out and try and help find a cure? Thoughts of helping find a cure made her dreamily smile. Through the next sixteen minutes she would continue to contemplate until sleep took her.

 

[Blue Moon Dragon]

Early the next day about an hour before sunrise, Desmond met with Scott and the three soldiers of his choice outside the southern gates next to a military grade truck. The soldiers were well equipped as if they were ready to go fight a war with just the four of them. Des wanted this to be a covert mission to not stir up the civilians. "You have your orders. Come back no later than five days. I know this is asking a lot of the four of you, but due to the lack of people we have, we will not be able to send out a search party after you after the allotted time."

"Don't sweat it, capt." Scott had replied to him in his cocky way. "We'll be back before you know it. Right guys?" He motioned to his selected men, they agreed of course. There was a reason he picked them. They were all cocky asses. They had been looking for some type of challenge, which is why Desmond sought to send them. "Let's move on out." And with that they loaded up the truck and hopped in and slowly drove out of the city's southern gates.

Desmond watched as they drove off, over the bridge and out of view. Desmond didn't want to give them the vehicle at first, but he knew that it would benefit them more to cover more ground to look for anything strange that was going on out there. He turned his back to walk back into the city, the steel doors closing behind him. He made his way back to his residence.

Later that afternoon, he met with Julie Maxwell at the hospital headquarters. "Desmond, do we have any progress with finding an Angel?" Her demeanor had changed since yesterday. She was definitely more calm and relaxed.

"No, but we're getting more and more people coming to our city. Our chances are definitely increasing." The two of them were walking towards the stairwell to head to the basement. It was here that much of their work was being done to find a cure or Angel while up above is where the sick and injured were treated. Only select individuals were allowed clearance to the basement level. "I've been told that the research is coming along well for them to understand this infection more."

The two of them went through a set of double doors and that's where it was really busy. People talking, moving back and forth, running tests on vials of samples, and a few live samples of infected individuals. Screeching could be heard coming from their cages as they reached out and clawed at the air, but their screams and clicks went unnoticed. A scream was heard coming from a man strapped to a chair. "Why am I strapped here!? What is going on!? Hellllpppp! Why do you have infected people locked up!? What's going to happen to me!?" Upon closer inspection the man was identified to be the one that caused a scuffle over a piece of stolen bread.

"You know this is wrong.. Right?" Mayor Maxwell said as she looked at Desmond. "If this facility is found out by the public, we'd be done for." Her face was grimace. She knew that this was wrong, but it was the only way.

Desmond remained stout and composed despite the going ons of the busy room. "We are doing what is needed to save this world. That's why we have these scientists here to perform their work."

One of the scientists came over to Desmond to inform him, "The patient is ready, sir," the man said as he lead him toward the slightly overweight man from before. He had a trail of dry blood coming from his nose and down to on his shirt.

"But we're taking people off of our own streets. People who had lives to live." Julie consulted towards Desmond. The man in the chair thrashing about. He was hooked up to machines to monitor his vitals.

"But because of those lives, they may choose the wrong actions and thus, end up here." Desmond said with a disappointed look on his face.

"But-"

"No one is forcing anyone to stay here, Mayor Maxwell, but if they're going to stay here, they will abide by our rules. It is noted that if any rules are broken, extreme punishment would be served." His focus turned to the man, "This will be a trial to see if you deserve to live or not. If you live, you will likely be known to be the savior of mankind, but if you die... Well.. then you die a hopeless and pathetic man."

"What?! What trial? I don't want to die! Get me out of this chair! I'll leave this city right now! I won't say a damned thing about what I seen here! Please, man! You gotta let me-" The scientist next to the man stuff his mouth with a gauze to prevent him from talking.

"Shall we proceed, sir?" The scientist beckoned, almost eager to perform the test.

"Proceed you may. This is for the good of our city and mankind." The scientist grabbed a syringe that was marked with a code on it. The code had represented the Cordyceps fungus in liquid form, likely taken from one of the live infected captives. He injected the fluid into the bags that would feed it into his blood stream. "And now the waiting game begins. Keep me posted, Fallon." The scientist, Fallon, nodded and looked at the man.

Desmond looked at Julie, "We will need more soldiers. If something truly is going on out there, then we will need more people to protect this city and likely give more opportunity for an Angel to present itself." Julie Maxwell nodded her head.

"I will start making preparations for recruiting right away. I'll have a preliminary qualification survey set up as early as this afternoon and those that make it will proceed to the next step come tomorrow." Julie left the presence of this Hell on Earth, very much eager to do so. She knew exactly what the qualifications would be that they were looking for. Obviously someone who wasn't passed their prime nor no one that wasn't at least of age. They had to be physically able and pass standard health exams. The next day would be a test of physical and mental ability.

Desmond remained as he watched the man and everything else that was going on. His hands calmly clasped behind his back as he watched. "For the good of the world..." He said calmly to himself. He knew that come tomorrow, he would have to make an appearance to those who made it to the next stage of the recruiting process.

 

[Eldrithe Whisperwind]

Mariah was up before dawn the next morning. As she groggily forced herself to get up out of bed and get dressed for work she faintly heard a commotion carrying on outside. Quickly throwing on the dirty clothes she had on the day before, she rushes out the door. The commotion that she heard earlier in her room became louder as she reached the front door of the building. Opening the door she witnessed two men fighting and arguing. One of the men involved in the screaming match was the same man that was squatting outside the building and begging for tickets the day before and the other man was a fairly tall bald headed dark skinned young man that Mariah had never seen before. “Stop pestering me old man! I’m not giving you any of my tickets! Broke ass white guy, get a job!” Screams the young man.

“I aint taken that tone of voice from a black boy!” Screamed the middle-aged man.

Mariah couldn’t believe what she was hearing and seeing. Out of all the things that could survive in this destroyed world, racism was one of them. Angered by the screaming match she hastily runs down the stairs and pushes her way between the two angered men. “What the hell is going on here?!”

The young man looks at Mariah and replies, “That old man won’t stop pestering me for tickets. I barely make enough tickets to live off of and he’s crazy enough to think that I can spare a few. Why can’t he just get off his ass and get his own damn job…”

The middle-aged man interrupts him and retorts, “I aint doin nothing that ne…”

“Don’t you dare finish that word. I will not tolerate racism outside my residence!” Mariah takes a deep breath to calm herself down. “You two should be ashamed of yourselves. We are in a world that is dieing; we need to stick up for each other. Every human life is valuable. So suck it up and try to get along!” Both men look at her in utter shock and are rendered speechless for several seconds.

“Yes ma’am”

“Yes ma’am.”

Once the argument had been settled Mariah realized that she was about to be late for work and ran there as fast as she could. As she was running she noticed a group of people standing around a message board. “I wonder what they are looking at.” She whispers to herself as she enters the garage. Inside she was greeted with a big smile from Laurence. “Hey Laurence, do you know what’s going on outside?”

“I most certainly do. The guardians are looking for new recruits and they are doing a preliminary qualification survey. It’s going to be held at noon today.” Mariah squeals in delight. “I thought ya might like that little bit of news. They are having the survey set up at the mayor’s office; you should go on over there and sign up. I’ll cover yur shift till you get back.”

“Thanks Laurence, I owe you big time for this.” Squeals Mariah as she heads to the door skipping in excitement. Once Mariah reaches the mayors office she is astounded to see all the people waiting in line to take the survey; she hadn’t realized how many people wanted to become guardians. After three hours of waiting in line she was finally standing in front of the mayor and ready to take the survey.

Julie Maxwell examined the young lady that stood in front of her. The girl looked to be in good health and Julie was determined to find the perfect soldiers for Desmond. “Hello there, I am Mayor Maxwell and I’ll be surveying you. What is your name young lady?”

“My name is Mariah Crawford.” Confidently replies Mariah.

“How old are you Miss Crawford.” Asks the mayor as she jots down notes in her book.

“I’m twenty-seven ma’am.”

“How long have you been with us?”

“I have lived in this civilization for seven days.”

“Were you alone before you came to us? If so, how long?”

“I was alone for fifteen years before coming here.”

“Would you mind if we performed some test to make sure you are healthy?”

Mariah was puzzled by the question. “But, I’m fine. At least, I feel fine.”

“Oh, it’s just a physical check to make sure everything checks out.” Reassures the mayor.

Mariah smiles and reluctantly does as the mayor asks and is guided into a room where they have her disrobed. They looked over her physically, they checked her blood pressure and listened to her hear. After they had jotted down the results they let her dress and leave, but not before she gave them the address she was staying at so that they could get in contact with her once they picked out the candidates. Mariah couldn’t wait to hear the results.

 

[Blue Moon Dragon]

Desmond was in his office of the hospital, staring out the window over the tiny city. His hands were clasped behind his back. He took a deep breath and exhale and shortly there after one of his officers came knocking on his door. "Come in." Desmond didn't bother looking at the person who was knocking. He could clearly see who it was from the reflection in the window. "Do you have a report for me?"

The soldier was almost caught of guard that he was expecting her. "Yes, sir. I have a list of c-candidates for the new r-r-recruits." She said nervously. This seemed like her first time meeting Desmond and she couldn't help but feel nervous by his presence being such a high authority figure to her. She approached his desk and placed the documents on it. She stepped back quickly and awaited for his approval.

Desmond turned and picked up the documents. It was now that the soldier could see he was wearing glasses on this particular sunny afternoon. He slicked his hair back from the front of his face as his eyes scanned each page. "Just these? I was expecting more.. Damnit, Julie.." He said softly to himself. He knew that Julie must have been a hard critic on some of the lot because he had thought it would have been a bigger turn out. There were only 14 names on the list. He read some of them off softly to himself, "Jorge Donahue.. Mason Crosby.. Mariah Crawford.. Nice, we don't have a lot of women. Andy Coolings.."

"I'm sorry, s-sir?" The soldier tried to speak up wondering if Des was trying to speak to her on just to himself.

"Relax, miss. I'm no God. I'm only a person just like you. There's no need to be nervous." The soldier tried her best to keep herself composed. "These will do. Send out the notice for them to meet at the front of the barracks tomorrow morning at dawn. Those that are late will not make the cut. I do not wait for slackers. You know what drills they'll be performing." Des handed over the documents. The soldier nodded and escorted herself out of the room to go send the messages to all the candidates.

Des watched her leave. After, he turned toward the window, assuming his position before she left. Desmond recollected about the last training exercise. The drills consist of basic military grade drills including the obstacle course which would test a soldiers speed, strength and agility and also your mental focus. Des knew that he would arrive sometime after the exercises were done to see how they did and also let them perform one last test under his supervision. He left his office to make the necessary preparations.

 

[Eldrithe Whisperwind]

“You don’t reckon that they didn’t pick ya. Huh?” Laurence wisecracked. Mariah was suddenly depressed at the thought that she wasn’t chosen; she cupped her head in her hands and tried her best to hide her feelings. Laurence felt bad for picking on her, “Don be that way. I bet they just haven’t gotten to you yet.” He sits down next to her on the front steps leading up to the Hilton hotel and gently pants her on the shoulder.

It was late afternoon and the streets were busy with bustling people. Clouds of dust twisted and hazed around the ankles of the diligent herd as they went about their business. A coughing fit emitted from Laurence as he was hit with a face full of soot. Mariah lifts her head out of her hands and looks at Laurence with concern, “Are you alright? Do you need a drink of water? We can go inside if you want to.” Laurence tried his best to respond her to questions but found it hard as long as the dust clung to his eyes and throat; all he could do was grunt. Water trickled down his eyes cleansing them of the grime and after several attempts of clearing his throat he was able to talk.

“I… I would like… like some water…” hacked Laurence as he covered his face.

As Mariah pushed herself off the steps to go to her room and grab some water a fit looking man in a guardian’s uniform abruptly stopped at the bottom of the steps. “Are you Miss Crawford?” he loudly asked.

Mariah cringed at the volume of his voice, “You do know that I’m not deaf, right?”

The Man looked surprised by the question, “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say it that loud, I have been out all day doing this and I guess I’m just getting tired.” Mariah could see the guys cheeks turn slightly pink. The man clears his throat before asking the same question again, “Are you Miss Crawford?”

“Yes, yes I am. Is there something wrong?” Replies Mariah

“Oh no, nothing is wrong. I was sent here to inform the guardian candidates that passed the survey to meet at the front of the barracks tomorrow morning at dawn to. If you are late you will be automatically cut with no further chance to become a guardian in the future. Tomorrow will be a test of speed, strength, endurance, agility and mental focus. Hope to see you there and good luck, you will need it.” And with that, the man swiftly turns on his right heal and walks away.

“Did ya hear th…that? You were…were chosen!” Laurence says enthusiastically while forcing himself not to cough. Mariah’s eyes light up in excitement as she begins to jump up and down. Words couldn’t even begin to express how she felt in that moment. Laurence grins at her, “What are ya watin for? Get yur ass inside and let’s discuss about what you might be facing tomorrow and your plan of attack.” Mariah ceases in the middle of her jump and grabs a hold of Laurence’s hand before dashing to her room inside the grungy hotel in anticipation of the events that she will have to partake in an attempt to becoming an official guardian.

 

[Blue Moon Dragon]

It was still late that same evening before the trials of the new recruits. Desmond headed down to the basement. He was looking for his head research scientist from a few days ago. He found him sitting at a desk looking at what appeared to be test results. "Any news?" he said as he approached.

The scientist jumped at the sound of Des being behind him, his documents getting thrown this way and that. It was strangely calm in the office, so the sound of his voice disrupted that peace. He took a bit to collect himself and reform his papers to be neater. "Yes, your 'friend' that you brought by last time isn't doing so well." He said as he adjusted his glasses on his face. "He's currently asleep in that room over there." The scientist stood from his chair and walked Desmond over to the room to peer through the window. "Have a look, sir" he said as he motioned for his commander to look through the window.

Desmond looked through the thick glass as he watched the poor fellow. "Have you learned anything new from this new 'patient', Max?" He used the term 'patient; loosely since he wasn't sick from the beginning of course.

"Not anything yet I'm afraid."

"Well.. Keep me posted." He stepped inside the room and looked over the man. He can already start to see how the fungus was starting to spread piece by piece on his body. "Shame.. I had high hopes for you. Hopefully, you don't die in vain without giving our scientists more info.." He shook his head as he left the room. "I also came because I'll need something else." he directed his stated to Max. "I'll need 3 of the infected at the barracks. And make sure you keep them hidden from sight."

"New recruits again, sir?" Max had done this before, so he knows the drill. "They will be ready tomorrow."

"Thank you. With that then, I'll turn in for the night. Keep up the good work, Max." Desmond said as he made his way out of the basement and to his living quarters which was also within the hospital.

 

[Eldrithe Whisperwind]

“Wow, there are only twelve people here?” Mariah looks around at the small group of finalists. As she scouts her competition she sees someone familiar, it’s the young man she met yesterday morning. Besides the young man, she didn’t recognize the rest of the competitors. But one thing she realized was that everyone there was fairly young, no older than maybe thirty-five.

A loud clock chime resonated around the barracks, signaling that it was noon and that the second half of the Guardians test would start. A woman dressed in a basic guardians uniform and Julie Maxwell walk up and take their positions at the top of a small wooden podium that stood along a section of the barracks dark weathered gray wall. Julie then clears her throat, “Will the finalists please come up to the podium. Before we start, you need to sign in.” One by one, the group of people stated their name to the woman in the uniform as she checked the names off on her clipboard. Once everybody was signed in, the woman took the clipboard to the Mayor and stepped back.

“Looks like only twelve people bothered to be here on time. There were fourteen of you chosen, but it seems that they weren’t serious.” Says the Mayor, with a tinge of disappointment.

“Wait, I’m here! My name is Jerry Mason!” Yells a man as he runs toward the podium. Once he reaches the podium he is exhausted and places his hands on his knees to prop himself up while he catches his breath.

“Your late. Mr. Mason, were you aware that you were supposed to be here at noon? It’s exactly three after.” Julie sternly looked down at the man.

“I’m sorry ma’am.”

“Doesn’t matter if your sorry or not, you were still late.” She turns toward the woman standing behind her, “Lydia, please escort Mr. Mason off the barracks property and then escort the rest of the candidates to the training course.” While Lydia was busy forcing the man to leave, the mayor continued to address the twelve people standing in front of her. “Today, you will have to participate in a training course that will test your speed, strength, endurance, agility and mental focus. You will be paired up in teams of two, you both are responsible for each other and one can’t complete the training course without the other.”

The crowd of people broke into a soft chatter while they waited for Lydia to return. “I’m sorry madam mayor. He was very reluctant to leave.” The mayor nodded to Lydia before departing to take her position on top of the barracks for a better view of the training course. The finalists were quickly placed into groups of two and herded to the course.

Mariah was matched up with Andy Collings, the young man she recognized. “You ready for this?” she asks.

“I hope so. You ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be”

Andy slightly scrunches up his face, “Hey, uh, I’m sorry about the other day outside the hotel. That guy has been begging for tickets for weeks now, I couldn’t take it anymore and I lost it.”

“It’s water under the bridge. You can make it up to me by being a good partner.” She replies before taking her position at the starting line.

Once everybody was lined up and ready, Lydia yelled. “Alright, candidates, you can do this. Ready. Set. GO!” twelve unified bodies lunged forward into a sprint. Mariah seemed to be slightly faster than the rest of the bunch and made a selective decision of slowing down so that she didn’t leave her partner in the dust. The first obstacle was the car tire run hop, which Mariah and Andy completed with ease. Followed by the rope wall, the belly crawl under barbed wire, uneven three-tiered log jump, twenty bar pull-ups and ending with a two mile run. Mariah and her partner were the first to cross the finish line where they instantly collapsed from exhaustion. Once the remaining competitors had crossed the finish line and taken a ten-minute rest, they continue onto the second half of the course that involved teamwork. The obstacles ranged from helping each other get around an obstruction to climbing over tall walls and once again Mariah and Andy were the first ones to finish.

“I’m so glad you’re a girl and your light.” Remarked Andy as he took a big swig of water that was offered to them. Mariah nodded and grabbed a cup of water for herself.

Lydia cups her hand over her mouth and makes announcement, “All right everybody, you all have done fantastic. Get some rest. In just a few minutes the leader of the Guardians Desmond Thompson will be here to evaluate the test results.” Mariah makes sure to keep stretching and working her muscles incase there was more to come.

 

[Blue Moon Dragon]

"Have the preparations been made?" Desmond asked one of the soldiers who was at the barracks prepping the infected for the special training drill. The recruits were present for the unveiling of their secret training. The soldier had nodded his head as he unveiled a cage that had at least 10 Clickers in it. "That's not what I asked for!" Desmond shouted. "Get those out of here!" Just then Sarah and Javale showed up. Desmond noticed their presence. "What are you two doing here?" They stood looking at him in silence, not speaking a word. Before he knew it, they were on top of him and grabbed him by the arms. "What is the meaning of this!?" He said as he looked at the both of them and then looked back at the soldier that had been standing outside the cage of Clickers.

His appearance had changed. It appeared to be the man he had condemned because he injected him with the infected fungus. He was completely changed into a Runner now. All while looking at Desmond, the condemned man had reached for the lock to the cage and unhinged it free to open the door. "Wh-what are you doing!?" Des shouted. He struggled to get free from the two holding him. He looked at their faces to see that they too had changed to be infected Stalkers. The Clickers stalked, getting closer and closer to him, clicking loudly. "Noooo!" He screamed as they lunged on top of him to feed on him.

A gasp of air flew into Des as he awoke from the nightmare. His body was covered in cold sweats. His hands clenched his bedsheets. He struggled to collect his breath and calm himself. He checked his body for wounds. Finding none, he was able to collect himself. He threw the sheets off of himself and swung his legs over the side of his bed. He was only wearing his underwear to sleep. The sweats had just about covered his entire form. He reached over and grabbed a towel that had been draped over a chair near his bed. He wiped the sweat from his face. He let out a deep sigh, "Again.." Apparently that same style of nightmare has been haunting him for a while. He stood up from his bed and walked toward the window. He stared at over the city. He had his doubts that what he was doing to this city was wrong.

Hours later, he showed up at the Guardian's barracks. He met with Julie Maxwell to get the progress on the recruits. "How are they doing?"

"Majority of them are doing well. We did have a few stragglers that didn't arrive on time, so there are only 12 recruits."

A surprise to Desmond as he was expecting there to be some that didn't make it or decide to have a change of heart. "Who are our top recruits?"

"We have 3 teams of Andy Collings and Mariah Crawford; Leo Wong and Bradley King; and James Hurst and Damian Forrest."

"Great. I'll address them all now." Julie nodded to Desmond as she led him to where they were awaiting their next assignment. The group had still been outside of the barracks where the obstacle course was set up.

"Commander Desmond," Lydia said as she stood at attention. She turned towards the recruits, "Listen up! Commander will now speak to all of you!" She shouted out towards the group.

It wasn't long before the group became silent and all attention was on Desmond. "I want to start by saying 'Thank you', for volunteering to join the Guardians on our quest to not only protecting this city, but to also pave the way to finding an Angel." He paused for a moment to scan over the recruits. "For those of you who may not know, Angel is a term we use to describe a person who has immunity to the Cordryceps fungus. Of course... This person is hard to find as the only way you can find them is if they get bitten and survive. Taking on this job will be one of the most dangerous jobs that you can take up in this city. If any of you want to back out now.. we will not judge you." He waited to see if anyone would leave, which none of them budged.

"The majority of you will remain partners with the person you paired up with in this training, and you will be stationed here in the city. The following 6 people will join me in the barracks for a special training: Andy Collings, Mariah Crawford, Leo Wong, Bradley King, Damian Forrest and James Hurst. The rest of you will follow Ms. Lydia and she will get you set up for your stations inside the barracks. For the next week, you will all undergo basic combat training. The week after that, weapons training to find what is suited for you. Finally, congratulations to you all and welcome to the Guardians." With that being said, Desmond turned to Lydia and nodded to signify that he was finished.

"Alright! You heard the man! The few of you who's names were called will follow him into the barracks while the rest of you will follow me." Lydia announced to the group.

Chatter quickly spread through the group like wildfire. Desmond walked with Julie into the barracks with the special six following behind. They setup inside a room just outside the indoor stadium. He waited for them to all file in before speaking. "I would like to formally congratulate the six of you for excelling above the rest. Because you did so well, I have plans to put the six of you in the field, but before I can do that, I have to make sure that you are all mentally prepared for what you may find. You will keep your same partner and team-by-team, you will walk into the stadium for your final test. Are you all ready for what is to come?"

Desmond didn't want to give them any kind of hint as to what was to come once they walked into the stadium. Each team would enter on their own and take this special course one at a time. They will enter the stadium and Des will reveal that they will be facing an infected Runner. It doesn't take much to kill a Runner, but he wanted to make sure that they would have the mental toughness to be able to do it and to go out into the field if needed.

"The first group that will enter to take on this course will be: Leo and Bradley. If you're ready, please enter the stadium and we'll begin. The rest of you remain here and I'll have Julie come retrieve the next group." With that said, the two were pumped to go and joined Des into the stadium to take their test.

 

[Eldrithe Whisperwind]

Leo and Brad enthusiastically walked to the doors that lead to the special training course. They briefly nodded to each other before passing between the heavy metal double doors and into the unknown. The sound of a switch echoed through the room once the doors had shut behind them, they were locked in. The room was a maze of high walls made out of wood, brick and pieces of tin. Next to the door was a shelf full of weapons that they were allowed to choose from. Leo shrugged at Brad before selecting a weapon and motioning him to follow. After walking around the maze for several minutes Brad felt that something wasn’t right, “What was that noise?” breathed Brad as he swiveled his head quickly behind him.

“Relax, I didn’t hear anything. Your just nervous.”

“No, I swear I heard something. It sounded like someone was running.” Leo rolled his eyes and continued without Brad. Brad noticed that Leo had disappeared and began to quietly panic. Suddenly he heard the noise again, but this time much closer. As Brad turned to look behind him, something rushed toward him and bit down hard on his right shoulder. Blood curling screams filled the maze.

Thirty minutes have passed since Leo and Brad first started the special training. Mariah loathed waiting and couldn’t help but tap her right foot on the ground in annoyance. “I wish they would hurry up.” She seethed. Without warning the doors slowly opened, the squeal of the hinges announcing it was the next two competitors turn. Mariah and Andy nodded at each other and hurried through the doors. Once inside they noticed the rack of weapons.

“What are the weapons for? Are we fighting something?” questioned Andy as he selected a crowbar covered with barbed wire.

“Looks like it.” Replied Mariah, “So make sure to be on your toes, we don’t want to mess this up.” She then sifts through the pile of weapons and selects the shiv and readies it in her hand. They both give each other a stern look before entering the maze with caution. After several turns of the maze they stumble upon a pool of blood. Mariah throws out her had to stop Andy and motions for him to keep watch. She kneels down and drags two of her fingers through the blood; it’s warm. “It’s fresh.” She whispers while slowly rising; gripping her weapon in case they were jumped.

“I wonder who’s it is. You don’t think it’s from Leo or Brad do you?”

“Let’s hope not. Now come on, we need to keep moving.” Rounding the next corner they could hear the soft patter of running feet. Mariah is in the lead and abruptly stops, she motions for Andy to listen, “Do you hear that?”

“I do.” He whispers back.

Mariah slowly inches around the corner of the next turn and peers over; there’s nothing. Suddenly there is a metallic crash behind her. She twirls around and sees a runner straddling Andy; it’s frantically clawing at his face while biting the air around him. Mariah’s survival instincts kick in and she goes into warrior woman mode. ‘No, I can’t loose another partner, not again.’ She thinks while dashing towards the runner and ramming the shiv at the base of its head into the spinal cord, effectively severing it. She quickly rolled the dead runners body off of Andy; she immediately pulled him up off the ground and starts spinning him around to see if she could see any visible bite marks.

“I’m ok Mariah. Calm down, it didn’t bite me; it’s just a few scratches. Nothing I can’t handle.” He calms Mariah down but placing his hands on her shoulders and holding her still.

“Are you sure your alright?” she mumbles while looking down at the floor.

Andy chuckles, “I’m fine.”

A buzzer sounded and a man in a guardians uniform rounds the corner where Mariah was looking earlier before the attack. “Congratulations you two, you have passed the test. Now please follow me.”

“Not before you tell us where we are going.” Retorts Mariah.

“Yeah, we could have almost died. You should have warned us that we would be facing one of the infected.” Grumbles Andy

“Fine, if you don’t want to follow me you can try to find your own way out of the maze.” Smugly replies the man as he’s walking away. Mariah and Andy quickly fall in line like lost puppies and do as they are told. Once they are outside the maze room they see Leo sitting in a chair cupping his head in his hands. He looked miserable. The Guardian turns around and addresses the two that have been following him, “Please take a seat. Once all the groups have completed the test you will immediately be taken to Desmond.” And with that, he walks off.

Mariah walks over to Leo and sits down. “Hey Leo… are you ok? Where’s Brad?” Leo doesn’t respond. She then shakes his shoulder to try and arouse a response from him.

Leo slowly lifted his head up and notices he has company. “Huh? Oh hey, you two got out ok?”

“We are both fine. But where is Brad?” Says Andy as he takes a seat next to Mariah.

“Brad is dead, a runner snuck up on him. I, I left him behind. I didn’t know they were going to actually make us fight an infected. I just thought we had to hit cardboard cutouts or some stupid shit like that. It’s my fault he dead. I didn’t know. I didn’t know…” Leo laid his head on Mariah’s shoulder and wept for his partner.

 

[Blue Moon Dragon]

Desmond was watching from an office above the maze in the stadium. He had frowned when watching the first group run through the maze. He watched as Leo frantically ran once he saw his partner get killed by the Runner. So much for finding an Angel in him. After Leo made it out, the guards had entered the maze and removed the body from it. Now entered another team of Mariah and Andy. They seemed to be doing well. He tracked their movements as well as the Runner that was approaching quickly. He judged that it would sneak up on at least one of them, unfortunately, he was right and at that moment it was on top of Andy. It was good fortune that Andy didn't get bit. After Mariah saved him from a near perilous doom, the guards once again had removed the team from the maze.

Now was the last team's turn of James and Damian. He watched as they bickered over who would get which of the weapons and entered the maze. Now they actually looked like a team as they watched each others' backs and proceeded through the maze. At this rate, they would reach the end of the maze without even fighting the Runner, but then they took a wrong turn which led down the path to meet the Runner. Des watched in anticipation for what was going to happen, but it was they who got the drop on the Runner and took it out. The guards came to retrieve them as well and escorted them to the rest of the group. The team of James and Damian were like a bunch of kids, celebrating that they accomplished passing the test.

Des turned away from the window and made his way to the group to let them know the results of the test. He reached the group shortly after and waited for them to give him his attention. "Congrat-"

"WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL US WE WOULD BE FIGHTING AN INFECTED!?" Leo angrily shouted at Des, tears still streaming down his face. "Had we known, Brad would still be alive!"

"Brad would still be alive if the two of you were prepared for anything." Des calmly told him. Leo didn't say a word. He lowered his head. It seemed the image of Brad getting killed ran through his mind still. "As I was saying.. Congratulations for making it through the special test alive. It is unfortunate that we lost a man, but you were all told that you should expect what you might see outside these walls. Which is anything. I could have told you all that you were going to fight a Runner or wolves, but this test wouldn't be the same. You all had your chances to back away and you knew the risks involved from day one. With that said, Leo," Leo had looked up upon hearing his name. "You won't be joining the Guardians. We will have a psychologists examine you and get your head on straight. If you are cleared, you will be allowed to join, but only performing the minor tasks." He nodded to a soldier to escort him away back to his home.

Des' attention moved to the rest of the four. "As for the rest of you, it was still a little sloppy for you Andy to let your guard down and for the two of you to be bickering over a weapon. Nonetheless, we lack people qualified enough to go into the field, so with your acceptance, you will be trained for field work in addition to the standard means of training of hand-to-hand combat and weapons training with Mariah as your squad leader. This task may not come easy to you. Do you accept?"

With their acceptance, their training would commence with the other new recruits. Des already had in mind of who was going to be leading these trainings. Hand-to-hand combat and physical training was going to be led by Sarah while the weapons training was going to be led by Travis. The field training for the field team would be led by Javale.

 

[Eldrithe Whisperwind]

Mariah became nervous at the idea of being chosen as the squad leader. Would she have to be responsible for them? If they die is it her fault? What exactly does she do as a squad leader? Why did Desmond choose her? The group of four was told that they would continue the rest of their training with the other new recruits. Lydia led them down to the training area where they would learn Hand-to-hand combat and physical training with a Guardian named Sarah.

Andy was silent the entire walk and seemed almost lethargic. “Andy, are you alright?” Inquires Mariah.

He continues to look at the ground. “Desmond is right, I was sloppy and I let my guard down. I could have gotten myself killed in there.” he responds in a melancholy tone.

Mariah brushes at the loose strands of frizzy red hair tickling her face. Normally her hair is straight, but due to all the exercise and the heat it started frizzing out of control. As the group grew closer to the training area they could hear the shouts and grunts of their fellow recruits. To Mariah, it sounded intense. ‘I wonder what they are doing?’ she thinks to herself as they rounded the corner entering the training area. Mariah flinched as something was accidentally throne at her. “Hey, watch it!” she yells.

“Sorry!” Replies a male voice.

Grumbling to herself, Mariah walks over to where Lydia has taken her other three companions. An older dark skinned man is focusing on the training newbies while jotting notes down onto a plastic pink clipboard. “This is Leonard. He will tell you what you will be doing for the day. Tomorrow you will meet outside to start weapons training with Travis. Do not be late. Here you go Leonard, I am leaving these new recruits in your capable hands.” Lydia bows and brusquely walks away to attend other duties.

“All right lady and gentlemen.” Announces the man while folding the board behind his back. “If you haven’t already noticed, you will be participating with the other new recruits. First you will start over in the hand-to-hand combat area where you will be taught different fighting techniques. After two hours you will be paired up with the person you had in the first training course and you will apply what you learned and use it on each other. Two hours after that you will be taken over to the physical training course where you will learn to climb and use the environment to accomplish your goal. This will be timed since you will only have an hour and a half to complete it. Do you have any questions before you join the rest?” They all shook their heads no. “Alright then, Sara is waiting on you, so get your asses over there. You are already an hour behind so you will only have an hour of training before the team combat.” Leonard waves them off and returns his attention back to the clipboard.


The four companions quickly jog over to where Sarah is training the other new recruits. “Alright people, fighting hand-to-hand combat can be very dangerous. Always remember to check your surroundings before engaging an enemy. Now that you know how to defend yourself in a hand-to-hand combat situation, I’ll now be teaching you techniques you can use to attack an oncoming attacker or infected.” Sarah starts passing back and forth on the dirty green mat. “Firstly, you want to make sure that you kill your enemy. It’s either you or them. A technique you can use is the neck break…”

Mariah loudly yawns and ignores Sarah as she demonstrates different attacks. Sarah hears the yawn and zones in on Mariah. “Looks like someone here is bored. Care to explain why you are not paying attention Miss.?”

Startled, Mariah replies to Sarah. “Miss Crawford.”

“Ah. Miss Crawford. Please answer the question.” Demands Sarah.

Mariah felt uncomfortable at the thought of answering Sarah’s question. She knew that her answer would get her into trouble. But to hell with it, she wasn’t going to lie. “Well, honestly I don’t think I need to be here for the training. Not that I think it’s stupid or anything since it appears that some of the other recruits need it. But I have survived on my own for fifteen years. I have killed tons of infected and evil people who killed others for fun. I have seen and been places that many of you can’t even imagine. I have been hunted, abducted, and I managed to crawl through a room of a hundred plus clickers and bloaters without attracting a single one of them; I even killed a few of them with only one shiv. I’m not trying to offend you or any of the Guardians, it just feels a little demeaning being told how to fight.” Silence blanketed the room. Sarah’s face was covered in pure annoyance and seething rage. Uh oh. Mariah has done it now.

 

[Blue Moon Dragon]

Desmond had been around watching the new recruits train and seeing how their progress was moving along. He leaned against the outer walls of the barracks as he watched hoping that this group would prove to be useful to him in the defense of the city. Combat training was commencing on the training grounds with Sarah leading the way. Things seemed to be going smoothly when out of no where he heard what sounded like arguing coming from one of the recruits and Sarah. The look on her face gave said it all. Des strolled on over to see what was going on.

"You think you're hot shit because you survived out there on your own for so long?! So you taught yourself how to fight and kill. What are you? An animal?!" Sarah was getting more and more frustrated with the new recruit, Mariah. She approached Mariah to get in her face. "I'd like to see this 'animal' fighting style of yours!"

"That's enough!" Desmond shouted hearing the words clearly now. Sarah looked towards Desmond with a disgusted look on her face as if to say 'why are you interfering'. "There's no point in getting frustrated with a person who thinks so highly of her own skill. But..." His eyes dart towards Mariah, "if she believes her skills are well above our expectations, then maybe she should demonstrate." Sarah had a slight grin on her face, thinking she could see what was coming next. "Miss Crawford.. Would you care to demonstrate to your fellow class how you fight? Your opponent will be Sarah and I'll sanction the fight.. as a spar of course."

"You're in for it now, bitch." Sarah said as she backed away, pumping herself up more for the fight. Sarah was a woman in her mid 30's. She had definitely been around the block a few times and had her fair share of scars to prove it. She was trained previously in Jiu Jitsu and Kick Boxing. Her legs were more lethal than her arms, but they were still very effective. She stood in her initial fighting stance being a Kick Boxing stance with her left foot out in front, being right-handed and right-footed as well. Sarah didn't like to hold back, but with Desmond here, she knew she had to try.

Desmond stepped back as well, giving the rest of the class the signal to back away from the sparring match as well. "Should you accept, I will give the signal to start when ready. If you deny, then I will tell you to fall in line and pay attention and learn a thing or two. And if this is boring you, then you shouldn't just do this for yourself, but do it for your peers as well. Our team is only as strong as our weakest link, which is why we train everyone to be on the same page. Now, what will you do?"

 

[Eldrithe Whisperwind]

Being yelled at never bothered Mariah, it only informed her that Sarah was very emotional and cocky. Sarah’s reaction spoke volumes about her personality, revealing several weaknesses and flaws. Mariah remained abnormally quiet, back straight, muscles relaxed. She wasn’t about to show Sarah any of her weaknesses; she even resisted the urge to punch her.

Desmond must have seen the yelling fest that Sara was performing and had come down to personally investigate. Mariah didn’t know what to think about Des just yet, he seemed like a nice enough guy, but everyone’s riddled with flaws and secrets. Without moving, she listened and analyzed while Des spoke to Sarah; he’s thinks very highly of her, confidant in her skills. Mariah swiveled her head to focus her attention on the Guardian’s leader when he addressed her. “Miss Crawford.. Would you care to demonstrate to your fellow class how you fight? Your opponent will be Sarah and I'll sanction the fight.. as a spar of course.”

A fight? Mariah could tell that Sarah was a skilled melee combat fighter, evident by her toned muscles. But she doubted that the woman could really survive on her own since she obviously lacked restraint and intelligence. ‘Calling me an animal, yet here she was screaming at me like a banshee…’ “Should you accept, I will give the signal to start when ready. If you deny, then I will tell you to fall in line and pay attention and learn a thing or two. And if this is boring you, then you shouldn't just do this for yourself, but do it for your peers as well. Our team is only as strong as our weakest link, which is why we train everyone to be on the same page. Now, what will you do?” Asked Desmond, interrupting her thoughts.

‘There’s no time to back down, I have to prove myself.’ “I’ll do it, but I have one request. We should apply this fight into a real life situation, as if we were out in the world. Because, let’s face it, in the real world we won’t have time to ready ourselves for a fight. It will be spontaneous. It will not only challenge us physically but mentally as well. I suggest that you blindfold us and place us in separate areas of a section of the city that’s been cleared out but has sat abandoned. Make us hunt for each other. If she wins, I’ll admit that I was wrong and I’ll follow her strict training. I’ll let you choose the reward for if I win.” Replied Mariah revealing no emotion on her face or body language.

 

[Blue Moon Dragon]

The crowd of recruits were suddenly speaking amongst themselves at the request of Mariah. Sarah's state of mind boiled with more frustration after hearing the request. "You coward! You just don't want to face me head-on cause you're weak and you know you'll lose. You want to use the shad-"

"Enough!" Des stated, eyes glaring upon the form of Sarah. Instantly she kept her mouth shut. A slight grin appeared on Des' face and even a slight chuckle as he looked at Mariah. "You've got guts," throwing his statement toward Mariah, "and intelligence. You may not show it upon your face or body language, but maybe you think that you can't win against her, or you're afraid of getting humiliated in front of your peers.. or.. you're afraid of humiliating her," he gave a slight hand gesture towards Sarah, "in front of your peers." He let his hand and both his hands met behind his back, clasped together, "Considering you have lived on your own for the last 15 or so years, you would have had the time to master the environments so to say, which would give you a distinct advantage over Sarah, increasing your odds of winning."

Des paced back and forth in between Sarah and Mariah, and while he did so, he studied Mariah's face, still trying to understand her more. There was a reason, other than the stats, that he selected her as the squad leader for her group when needed to venture outside the walls, but would she be a good team player? All the time that she spent alone would have disconnected her from the world. Able to hide her true face and any emotions and not tie any bonds with anyone... Would she care enough for them to save their asses if necessary, or would she look out for only herself? Des thought hard on what he wanted to say next. He came to a stop, the grin from his face was removed. "I will accept your request, b-"

"What!? You can't possibly be seri-" Sarah caught the gaze of Des and again shut up. His eyes again looked toward Mariah.

"But! I have a counter request. I will make this a team contest. I will place you and Andy in one area, and James and Damien in a separate area of the south eastern side of the city, while Sarah and three Guardians of her choosing, excluding myself, Travis, and Javale of course, will all be in separate areas. The rule of the contest for your team will be to find 2 trophies that will be on display in two different areas of the building, retrieve them and meet back here before sunset. All four of you will have to be here and with the trophies in order to complete the mission. You may not use weapons of ANY kind. If you should encounter anyone from Sarah's team, you will have to knock them out, but NO killing. Sarah's team will be tasked with preventing you from retrieving the trophies and delaying your arrival to the barracks before sunset by any means. They too will not be able to use weapons.

"If your team succeeds, then you will not have to participate in the combat training. The rest of your team will have their choice if they want to participate or not. All of you will have a dinner meal on me as well. Should you lose, then the lot of you will participate in Sarah's combat training and, you will do double the amount of reps that everyone else has to do. If either of you fail to do so, you will not become Guardians. This is a take it, or leave it offer. Do you accept these terms, Miss Crawford?" Des knew that whether he chose to accept or disregard her request, it would be an unfair advantage to either of them. He knew that he would have to test her ability somehow, while also giving a fair advantage to both parties. This type of contest will not only display her ability, but her cooperation with leading a team to meet a common goal.

"Heh. Easy contest. I already have people in mind of who I'll need to be down these brats." Sarah never let up with being cocky when it sounded like a fair fight.

"Hey! Why are we being dragged into this?!" James interjected. More talking amongst the group of recruits began around Mariah. Desmond chose not to answer.

"Does that mean the rest of us have the rest of the night off?" Desmond overheard one recruit speaking to another.

Should Mariah choose to accept, the rest of the recruits would still be instructed to run the obstacle course, and the event would be staged right away being that it was near 3pm according to his watch. They would have approximately 2 hours to retrieve the trophies. Andy and James would each have a watch with a beeper that would signal when the start of the event would be. The building that would host the event was indeed huge office building with seven floors. The building was abandoned due to it's collapsed floors which would allow multiple ways to travel between different floors, rather than just taking the stairs. The stairs from the 6th to the 7th floor were destroyed which only left for one way to the top. The 1st trophy would be on the 7th floor while the 2nd trophy would be on the 3rd floor. Mariah and Andy would start on the 5th floor while James and Damian would start on the first. Desmond would allow Sarah and her 3 teammates to start anywhere they wanted so long as they didn't start in the same area.

 

[Eldrithe Whisperwind]

Mariah was a little taken back at Desmond’s counter request. She had expected him to accept her request with some alterations, but not like this. Turning her attention to Andy, James and Damien she searched the men’s faces before making her final decision. “I’ll do it. I’m confident in these capable men.” She replies while giving the group of men a small nod. She could see a smile spread across Sarah’s lips; she thinks she has already won.

“Alright bitch, it’s on.” Screeches Sarah, “The three companions I choose are going to be Leonard, Steven and Caitlyn.”

“Please follow me.” Says Lydia as she motions for Mariah, Andy, James and Damien to follow her.

“Where the hell did she come from?” asks Damien.

“I don’t know. She must have come down while we were too busy focusing on the pussycat match.” Grins James. He turns toward Mariah, “Meow.” Mariah rolls her eyes and walks over to Lydia. A needle is suddenly plunged into her neck, causing the world around her to blacken and fade away.

“Hey, Mariah, you ok? Wake up.” Says a deep voice arousing her from the darkness.

Mariah’s eye flutter open, “Where are we?” She croaks, the taste of cotton on her tongue.

“I don’t know, looks like they drugged us and dropped us off in this building. I guess this will be where we are doing this little game of yours and Desmond’s.” Grunts Andy as he pushes himself up off the floor and looks out the window. The building they were in was somewhat tilted, causing everything in the room to slide to the right. An abandoned wooden desk is tilted over on its side, the computer chair leaning up against the wall. Old pictures and painting hanging on the walls are all askew due to the angle of the building. The window Andy is looking out of is open, letting in a breeze of fresh air that tickled her nose. “It looks like we are maybe four or five floors up. I wonder what floor Damien and James are on.” Inquired Andy.

“I don’t know but we need to find them.” Replies Mariah as she wobbles her way over to the window next to Andy. She sticks her head out and looks up. “Looks like there are two floors above us. We should inspect those two floors before going down. I’m guessing that there is a trophy up there and that’s where we will go first.”

Andy looks confused; “I thought you just said that we should go look for the other two guys first.”

“They can take care of themselves. We need to check the two floors above us first. It will save us time.” Mariah starts walking to the closed door. “Andy, we need to stick together. I will be our eyes in front and you will be the eyes in back. You follow every step I make and follow every thing I tell you to do. Is that clear?”

“But…”

“No buts.” Interrupts Mariah. “We have to be a team and I trust you to follow what your told. Pretend this isn’t a game, but something serious.”

Andy sighs, “Alright, let’s go.” He looks down at the watch Desmond gave him. “We better get our asses in gear, we have already wasted ten minutes.”

Mariah drops into a crouch and silently opens the door. “Come on then.” She whispers.

“We don’t have to crouch just yet, they are not allowed to start on the same floor as us or as each other.” Smugly grins Andy.

“Just shut up and follow me.” Snaps Mariah. “Treat this like it’s real and not a test.” She stalks through the door, taking notice of her surroundings. It looked like they were in an office building from all of the scattered cubicles laid out before them. “We need to find the stairs.” She whispers. Mariah searches one cubicle after the other, looking for items they could use. She finds a big chunk of rubble that she picks up and hands over to Andy. “Here, take this, we might need it.” Andy takes the rubble and motions to the sign that points to the stairwell. “Nice eye.” She says while Andy smirks.

Mariah and Andy slowly crawl their way up the broken stairs, taking every precaution to remain quiet. They silently pass the door that opens up to the 6th floor, but their progress is abruptly interrupted when they realize that the stairwell leading to the 7th floor is collapsed. “Holy shit.” Whistles Andy, “There’s no way we are getting up there.”

“This is an old decaying building, there has to be a way up there. We just need to find it.” Says Mariah while she stealthy heads back down the stairs and to the 6th floor door with Andy trailing on her heels. The door makes a rusted metal click as Mariah pushes the door open; she’s relieved that the door wasn’t too loud. This floor looked exactly the same as the 5th floor. As Mariah and Andy quickly and quietly navigated the cubicle maze, they kept watch for any Guardian that they could potentially bump into.

Scuffling noise of paper being disturbed caused Mariah to stop in her tracks and place her back against one of the outer cubicle walls. She places her right index finger in front of her lips and forms them into soundless shush. She motions for Andy to peer around the left side of the broken cubicle while we peers around the right side. Once the coast is clear she rounds the corner and silently makes her way toward the inner row of gray dividers. Stopping to listen, Mariah tries to find out where the noise is coming from. Heavy boots pace back and forth uncertain. They sound close and the footsteps sounded light, most likely female. Listening closely she realized the footfalls are coming from her right. She crawled her way back over to Andy.

“Where the hell did you go?” he hisses once she crouches next to him on the floor.

“There’s someone walking down the middle isle to our right, sounds female. And she’s close. I don’t think its Sarah because the footsteps are pacing back and forth like the person is unsure or herself. Hand me the rock I gave you.” Andy hands over the gray rubble. “Let’s go down two more cubicles. I’ll throw this rock down the way we came to distract her. I’m expecting her to go quietly running down the hall to see what made the noise. We will sneak past her as fast and quietly as we can. We don’t want to catch her attention.” Andy gives Mariah an agreeing nod. “Ok, let’s go.”

Both teammates crouch and make their way past two cubicles. The footfalls are closer now. Mariah looks at Andy before readying the gray stone and chucking it as hard and as far as she could down toward the part of the hallway they started at. The footfalls stop. Stillness blankets the room in silence. Mariah holds her breath, five seconds pass and she hears the footsteps shuffle past the wall they were hiding behind. Once the person is several feet away she motions for Andy to follow her.

They quickly run to the other side while crouching, making sure to stay quiet and keep their heads down. Mariah sees a hole above them that was a result from a cave-in. That was their ticket to the 7th floor. Mariah ushered Andy over, she climbs up on Andy’s back and stands on his shoulders. Once standing she is able to hoist safely herself up to the 7th floor. Lying on her stomach, Mariah reaches out her hands for Andy to jump and grab onto. After Andy is safely on the same floor as her, they immediately crouch. The 7th floor looked different than the other two. It was a hallway that branched out into big office rooms that as more than likely meant for the important people working at the building.

Mariah pointed at Andy and the right wall that he was in charge of, and she took the left. Placing her back against the wall, she slithered down the hallway, quietly peaking into each room as they went. Andy suddenly stops and waves back towards Mariah. He found it. Mariah crawls over to him. “There’s a guy in there, it looks like Leonard. The trophy has to be in there with him. What should we do?” He whispers into her ear. She nods in agreement.

“I have an idea, follow me.” She replies. Mariah heads over one door down and enters the room that’s next to where Leonard is stationed. Once inside she stands up. “I’m going to crawl through this window and sneak into the other room. I noticed that the window in that room is wide open and as long as he’s facing away from me, I can get in and knock him out with no problem. I want you to keep guard. Help me find a mirror.” Mariah and Andy scatter the room looking for a mirror or any reflective item they could use. As she’s rooting through the desk draws she finds a dusty small broken compact. She walks over to Andy and hands it too him, “Here, take this. Use it to keep an eye on Leonard. If he starts to turn around while I’m crawling through the window distract him for me. I promise not to lave you behind. Do you trust me?”

Andy nods his head, “I trust you. Don’t fall and kill yourself.”

“I promise.” She replies smiling while hoisting her legs through the window. Outside, she uses the small ledge to shimmy across till she’s just outside the neighboring window whose room is currently occupied. She peeks around the corner to make sure that the big dark skinned man is facing away from her. He is. Carefully sneaking through the window she accidentally kicks over an empty can that was sitting next to the window on the floor. The sound of aluminum skittering across the floor caused Leonard to jump. ‘Oh no!’ Thought Mariah.

As he was turning around to investigate, Andy jumped out and yelled, “HEY, OVER HERE DUMBASS!” Leonard focuses in on Andy and starts running towards him, but he didn’t get far. Mariah locked her arm around his neck from behind, he fought her but she held strong. Before too long he was passed out on the floor.

“Thanks.” She breathed before patting him on the shoulder. Sitting on a table in the corner of the room sat a corroded golf trophy. One trophy down, one to go.

 

[Blue Moon Dragon]

After everything had all been set up. Des strolled back to the barracks from the broken down office building. He paused for a moment to take one last look at the building knowing that they would start soon. They were on time with getting everything set up, so by the time that they wake up, they should have just over 2 hours to complete the job.
It should be enough time for Mariah on her own, however, he wondered how the other 3 would fair. Would she be able to rally them together or would they slow her down and possibly become a casualty. If they weren't careful, one them could easily be taken as hostage to force the group to waste time to save the captive.

It took Des only about 30 minutes to walk back to the barracks having stopped to talk to a few civilians and build up his public appearance. He took a look at the sun as it was close to near an hour remaining. He took a seat near the obstacle course where the other recruits were still being drilled hard by Sarah's replacement. Within 10 minutes, they were done and sent to the showers.

"Only about an hour left now..." He said to himself as he leaned his chair against the wall of the barracks' building. There was a flag set up near where he sat marking the ending point of where they needed to be before the sun was completely gone from the horizon. As he watched the sunset, he couldn't help but think about the soldiers that he sent South. It was close to the end of day 3 of them being gone. He couldn't worry about them. Not yet. Hopefully, these new recruits can prove themselves to be a valued team to be able to go outside the gates if necessary.

 

[Eldrithe Whisperwind]

“We have an hour and three minutes left.” Informed Andy. “It took us almost an hour just to clear two floors and we still have four floors to check out. Plus we still need to find Damien and James.”

Mariah groaned in frustration, “I know, I know. We will find them. But we need to start from the first floor and work our way up because I’m guessing that they didn’t stick us close together.” Mariah sits down on one of the chairs that was lying in the room. Leonard was passed out on the floor so there wasn’t any rush to hurry up and high tail it out of there. Mariah scratched her head, “We could just take the stairs, but that would be to easy and more than likely they would be waiting for us to do that. We got lucky with Caitlyn and her nervousness.”

“We could climb down from outside.” Offers Andy.

“We could, but that’s way too dangerous. Plus it would take too long to reach the bottom safely and work our way back up from the inside.” Mariah starts spinning around in the chair, half impressed that the chair was still able to spin on its screeching hinges. “I wonder if there is an elevator in this building. We could just grapple onto the cables and slide our way down. It might not be completely safe but it would be easy and fast.”

Both team members left the room in search of the elevator. Further down the hall from where they started was where the elevator was located. Andy and Mariah found a metal rod that had fallen from the ceiling and used it to jar the rusted elevator doors open. The loud screeching noises echoed through the hall and elevator shaft. “Damn it, I hope they didn’t hear that.” Says Andy as he peaks his head into the shaft.

“Let’s hope they didn’t.” Replies Mariah as she sneaks a peak for herself. From shear luck, the elevator was somehow still in tact and hanging on the 5th floor.

Andy looks at Mariah, fear dancing on his face, “That doesn’t look too safe if you ask me.”

Mariah could see where he was coming from, but there really wasn’t any other faster way. “Everything will be ok. Look at it this way, if those cables can hold that heavy elevator up then it can hold us up with no problem.” Andy scrunches up his face and nods to her. “Ok, what we can do is take a running jump and grab a hold of one of the cables and slide ourselves down onto the elevator. I’ll go first. Are you ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.” He replies.

Backing up against the opposite wall, Mariah took a deep breath before propelling herself forward. Running as fast as she could, she launched herself off the platform in the elevator shaft and grabbed a hold of one of the thick cables. Sounds of multiple reverberating cable springs filled the shaft. Once she was able to wrap her legs around the cable, she slid herself down.

On top of the elevator she looks up toward Andy, “It’s your turn now. You can do it Andy!”

Seconds later she sees Andy jump and grab a hold of the same cable. But his momentum sent his body rocking too much and he started to loose control. Suddenly he was falling; at least he was able to use his grip on the cable to slow down his decent. He landed aggressively on top of the elevator causing it to teeter and clang against the wall. Andy abruptly stood up on shock-ridden legs. “Screw…you.” He stutters.

Mariah smiles at him and pats him on the shoulder. “Alright, now all we have…” the sound of ripping cables causes her to look up. “Oh no.” She whispers as the elevator starts stuttering.

“Grab onto something!” she yells. Mariah drops down on her stomach with Andy right next to her. The metal box beneath them is plummeting to the ground, air rushing past. Suddenly it jerks to a stop between the 2nd and 1st floor. Dizziness envelops the world around her, ‘I’m not dead?’ Shaking her head clear, she turns over on her back and closes her eyes, relieved that she’s still alive.

“Hey, come on. We have to go.” Groans Andy as she sits up and looks at the watch on his wrist. “We have 56 minutes left.”

Grinning, Mariah flutters her eyes open and pushes her self into a sitting position. “I told you it would be fast.” Andy shakes his head and starts climbing down the backside of the broken elevator, Mariah is quick on his heels. Thankfully they are close enough to the 1st floor and they are able to jump down to the ground without risk of any serious injury.

The sliding doors to the 1st floor were bent open, the hole big enough for both of them to fit through. “At least something is going our way.” Says Andy as he helps Mariah down. Both of them squeeze through and drop into crouches. The 1st floor is the receptionist hall with some office room’s catacomb behind the front desk. An ornate arched staircase centered in the middle of the room is collapsed, demolishing one of the offices, splinters of wood, glass and plaster litter the floor.

Overgrown vegetation covered the floor and hung from the ceiling, draping itself over the ground underneath it. Disturbed birds abandoned their hiding spots in the foliage. Blues, greens, reds, browns and whites blurred past the two stunned humans. It was beautiful. “Looks like nobody else is down here, but it won’t hurt to check anyway.” Informs Mariah.

Andy looks over at her, “How do you know?”

“The birds, we spooked them. If anybody else was here then the birds wouldn’t have been.” She answers. They both quickly search the floor and find nothing useful, only wasting five minutes. It was time to climb over the rubble and explore the second floor.

On the 2nd floor, the sounds of hushed voices caused Mariah to drop into a crawl. Andy didn’t hesitate to follow suite. The 2nd floor was another floor of the building that was laid out in disoriented gray cubicles. Mariah and Andy slowly crept their way around the room, using the cubicles to hide and slither around being careful to check each empty square as they passed. Half way through the maze they heard grunting, Mariah signals for Andy to stop as she checks around the corner into one of the gray squares. Inside hiding under a table squatted Damien and James who were whisper fighting over how cramped it was and who should leave.

“Damien you’re the biggest one, your fat ass should leave.” Grunts James.

“No, you leave.” says Damien.

“Why don’t you both just shut up and get both of your ass’s out of there.” Hisses Mariah, causing both of them to yell and almost jump out of their skins.

“Mariah, what the hell man, where did you come from?” asks Damien.

“Long story, have you guys found a trophy yet?”

“Not yet. We started out on the 1st floor, nothing there. So we came up here and found nothing, we then went up to the 3rd floor and we saw Sarah waiting there with a muscle monster.” Retorts James. “We booked it back down here to wait for you. There’s no way we were going to try and fight them by ourselves, they would crush us.”

“That must be Steven.” Explains Andy who had stood up and was standing behind Mariah. “What do we do now?”

“We have to get up there, they must be guarding the trophy.” Answers Mariah. “You three, follow me and stay close and for the love of god, keep your traps shut. We don’t want them to know we are coming.” She snaps. They all nod in agreement to her. “Good, now let’s get going. Since we know that there are no trophies down here there’s no need to keep looking. Did you guys find a way to the 3rd floor without using the stairs?”

“There’s a collapsed part of the ceiling over here, it makes a good ramp to the next floor.” Damien points to the right of them. “It’s in the bathroom.”

Andy scratches his chin, “What’s on the 3rd floor?”

James finally crawls out from under the desk, “It’s the cafeteria and recreation area. Sarah and… Steven? Are hiding out in the cafeteria. I think the trophy is in the kitchen.”

Mariah nods her head, “Alright then, let’s get going.” She grabs Andy’s wrist, “Looks like we have thirty three minutes left. So no pussy footing around, got it?”

The three men follow Mariah without any complaints, first they go to the bathroom and climb the caved in ceiling. On the 3rd floor they precede into a stealth walk while winding their way through the hallways to the cafeteria. James points to the door leading to their destination. Mariah nods in acknowledgement and slowly opens the door and crawling inside.

Inside was a large cafeteria; dusty circular wooden tables and chairs decorated the room. In the far back was the kitchen, red plastic trays were scattered around the floor. Standing in front of the kitchen stood Sarah and Steven. Both of their arms crossed, alert and ready for any sight of movement. There was no way they could sneak in there without some confrontation. “We are going to have to fight them, she breathed. James and Damien, I want you two to distract Steven. Andy, I want you to run straight into the kitchen and grab the trophy. I’ll handle Sarah.”

James and Damien nodded and acted like they were going to sneak up on Steven, they made it painfully obvious. Steven zoned in on the two guys and turned toward Sarah, “I’ll handle this. These mentally handicapped retards won’t be a problem.” James and Damien jump up and start running towards another door metal at the other end of the room.

Once both guys and Steven were out of sight, Mariah hands Andy the trophy that she attached to her belt and sneaks her way over to Sarah who’s back is turned away from her. She crawled up behind Sarah and wrapped her arm around Sarah’s neck. Sarah thrashed around managing to break herself free. “Finally you showed up.” She spat. Without hesitation, Sarah launched herself at Mariah knocking her to the floor. Once Mariah was lying on the ground, Sarah crawled on top of her and delivered a barrage of punches to her face. Mariah shielded her face with her right arm and using her left hand to grab a rock that was next to her. She smashed the rock over Sarah’s head as hard as she could, causing Sarah to grab her head in a painful scream. Mariah forcefully pushed the muscular woman off of her.

“You stupid bitch. That hurt!” Sarah screeched. “You’re going to pay for that!” This time Mariah was ready, she dodged the woman as she rushed toward her. Sarah may have had huge muscles but she was slow, that was her physical weakness. Andy, saw an opportune moment and made a dash for the kitchen doors. Sarah saw him coming and directed her attention on him, as he ran past she whirled around and slammed him into the ground. Andy erupted into a fit of grunts as Sarah beat down on him with a series of kicks; darkness crept into his vision.

During the struggle, Mariah could hear a loud clicking noise. “Uh, guys?” She stammers. Sarah is continuously kicking Andy while screaming. Fear glazes over Mariah’s vision; there is an infected nearby. She runs over and jumps on Sarah’s back in an attempt to stop her from beating on Andy. Sarah tries her best to buck her off but fails. Mariah punches Sarah in her left temple, causing her to collapse. She Pins the groaning woman and covers her mouth. “Shhhh…” Hushes Mariah. The sound of a Male scream bounces off the walls; Mariah was right, there were infected in the building.

 

[Blue Moon Dragon]

"The new recruits are done for the day, sir," reported one of the soldiers who had been taking over for Sarah since she was performing a little exercise with the new team. Desmond gave a short nod to the soldier, confirming he heard him. The soldier saluted and resumed going about his duties.

A sigh escaped Desmond's lips as the soldier was out of range to hear it. He really didn't like the idea of people treating their group as military, considering they were far from the real military that didn't dare step foot near the new Chicago. Mayor Maxwell was good at negotiating, hence why she became Mayor. The military were full of a bunch of prudes to Desmond. Some of their recruits actually came from the military. The deal was that their soldiers were never to near Chicago and once they found a cure, or develop the antibodies to grant immunity, they would be the first ones to know and use it. However, Desmond could care less for that deal and knew he had to do what needed to be done.

Desmond's train of thought was interrupted by another soldier who stepped to him, "Sir, I was told to have you come to the lab as soon as possible. There's been a new development." Desmond's curiosity peaked, wanting to know what this was.

"Let Max know I'll be there as soon as I can." He took a look at his watch and saw that there was about 20 minutes left now for the recruits to get back. The sun was near hitting the horizon. "30 minutes tops. I have business I must take care of here." The soldier nodded and returned to the base to inform Max of the news. Desmond watched him leave, but soon after, his eyes gazed in the direction of the office building. "I wonder if I allowed them enough time.. Oh well.. They knew what they were getting themselves involved in." He reached into his pocket and picked out a piece of hard candy that he got from one of the old vendors. It's amazing that there was still candy that was left over after many if not all the factories shut down. He continued to suck away at it as he waited.

 

[Eldrithe Whisperwind]

Mariah had Sarah pinned to the ground, covering her mouth. Sarah’s eyes were wide open in a panic. They had heard a male scream coming from the direction that Steven, Damien and James and ran off too. Mariah felt sick at the thought that they might be dead. “Sarah, listen. We have to cooperate and get out of here. This isn’t a game anymore and I didn’t sign up for someone dieing. Either one of the infected got in or you let it in. I need you to tell me which one it is.” Whispered Mariah as she slowly removed her hand from the woman’s mouth.

Sarah’s body and voice started shaking in fear, “We didn’t let anything in. If we had let an infected in, we would have armed ourselves don’t you think?” She retorts.

“Then we need to cooperate and save the others before it’s too late. Caitlyn is on the 6th floor and Leonard is on the 7th floor passed out, he could have woken up by now but I can’t be 100% sure. First we need to kill whatever infected are on this floor and see if the other three are still alive.” Informs Mariah as she lets go of Sarah and rises to her feet.

Andy shakes his head, “We better find them as soon as possible. I don’t particularly like James or Damien, but I don’t want them to die either.”

“We need to find them first. The three of us need to keep quiet and low, we don’t know how many infected are out there. All I heard was the one, but there could be more so we need to be careful.” She turns toward Sarah who’s still on the floor. “Sarah, you will guard the back of the line. Your strength will be needed incase we are ambushed.” She then faces Andy, “Andy, you will be the middle man. Your job is to scout in every direction and keep your ears open. If you hear anything out of the ordinary you let me know ASAP. I will take the lead since I’m better at stealth, it’s best to take them out as quietly as we can.”

Rising into a sitting position, Sarah scowls at Mariah. “He elected you leader? I know I sure as hell didn’t.”

“Do you have a better idea?” Inquires Andy.

“As a matter of fact I do. We should leave the building and go get Desmond as well as guns.”

“So you would leave your teammates to die?” Questions Mariah in a monotone voice.

“I would come back…”

“But you would be too late. They will be dead by then.” Mariah brushes her hair out of her face. “If you want to leave, then leave. I’m not going to stop you. But I’m going to save the others.”

“As am I.” Nods Andy

“Well, I’m not sticking around. You all can die if you want to.” Snaps Sarah. She bolts out of the cafeteria. Andy starts to run after her.

“Don’t.” Says Mariah as she grabs his arm. “We can’t make her do anything she doesn’t want too. Let’s get going, we need to find the other fast.”

Mariah sneaks over to the door the three men ran through. Slowly opening the door, she peaks out to see if it’s safe. All is clear. She slithers through and finds that she’s in the recreation area of the building. Rusted gym equipment fills the space. “Why is there a gym in an office building?” asks Mariah.

Andy shrugs, “how should I know.”

Rolling her eyes, she continues to sneak around looking for any sign of life. Outside of the locker room is a fresh trail of red blood leading inside. Mariah motions for Andy to stop, while she goes to investigate. The locker room was brightly lit due to half the outer wall missing, letting in the daylight. Mariah heard a violent bang from around the corner next to the broken lime green lockers. She places her back to the wall and sneaks a peak. The blood trail led to a bathroom door where a clicker was forcefully pounding on to get inside. “They are in there.” She whispers to herself. She could hear a male whimpering inside. Carefully pulling herself back around the corner, she searched the lockers for anything she could use as a weapon. Success. She found a thick rusted piece of metal that was hidden under a fallen locker shelf. Sneaking back over to where the clicker was occupied, she snuck up behind it and jabbed the metal into the base of its head.

Once the clicker had stopped moving, she knocked on the bathroom door. “Hey, is anybody in there? James? Damien?” She hears the clicking noise of the door being unlocked from the other side; the door slowly falls open. Inside, James and Damien are standing over Steven who appeared to be badly injured. Mariah sighs, “Was he bit?”

Damien shakes his head, “No, but it almost ripped his arm off.” He squats next to Steven, trying his best to stop the bleeding. “We need to get him out of here or he’ll die.”

“The clicker came out of no where. We were hiding out in here when we heard him scream. Damien managed to distract the thing while I dragged Steven to safety.” Groaned James as he leaned up against the wall, exhaustion covering his face. “Mariah, we have to get him out of here.”

Mariah looks at the man lying in a pool of his own blood. “Alright. We better get him out first. But we still need to get Caitlyn and Leonard, we are not leaving them behind.” Both men nod. “Both of you need to help Steven walk. One of you under each arm, got it?” They each take an arm and follow Mariah out of the bathroom.

“Jesus, was he bit?” Jumps Andy as he sees the half dead man being carried.

“No, but he won’t live much longer if we don’t get him some help.” Snaps Mariah as they jog through the cafeteria doors and out onto the staircase that leads to the first floor. As they are making their decent to the bottom floor they hear some rustling noises as well as a huge amount of clicking and croaking. Mariah whispers for them to stay back as she continues on alone. Once she’s down on the floor she sees a bloater guarding the entrance to the building, four clickers and runners occupy the 1st floor lobby. Mariah Sneaks around the back, trying to find a place to escape through. In an empty office at the back end of the floor, she could hear muffled cries from inside. It was Sarah; she was cradling her bitten arm.

“Oh my god, Sarah? What happened?” Mariah rushes to her side.

“I was careless. I didn’t think there would be more.” She croaks out a sob. “They are everywhere. Mariah, I don’t want to die.”

Mariah rubs her shoulder, “It’s alright, I’m going to get you out of here. I promise.” Mariah slithers back over to where the four men are waiting on her. She motions for them to climb down and to keep quiet. With some trouble they were able to get Steven down, but once they are all safely on the 1st floor they follow Mariah to where Sarah is holed up.

“Holy shit.” Breathes Andy as he notices Sarah, quivering in the corner. He looks at Mariah; she shakes her head and looks at the floor. Andy walks over to Sarah and sits down next to her.

“We have to get this window open, we need to tell them warn them about the infected before they swarm the city. Damien, come over here and help me.” Damien rushes over to Mariah and helps her jam the window open. Once it’s open, Andy, Sarah, Damien, James and Steven go through, Mariah decides to say. “You all go ahead. I’ll be fine.”

“But Mariah, it’s dangerous.” Urges James as he holds up Steven’s big frame.

“I’ll be ok. Run as fast as you can back to town and get Desmond.” She says while shutting the window.

 

[Blue Moon Dragon]

Desmond could see figures walking from the direction of the abandoned office building. He squinted his eyes to look for more detail in who they were. From the distance, it had looked like 3 people walking toward him. He looked toward the sun to see that it was near setting. Looking back at the group walking toward him, he could see more distinctly now that two of the people were holding up the person in the middle and one of them were frantically waving their arms around as if to grab his attention.

Quickly, he turned to a group of soldiers that were gathered around curious about the competition and motioned for them to follow. They sprinted toward the group. It was then that Des could see more figures. "What the Hell.." he said to himself as he was approaching. It was now that he could see their faces clearly. "What the Hell happened?!" He barked as he came to a halt.

"Infected! Infected are in the building and Mariah is still in there! She wanted to help the other two escape too!" Andy, faced with much concern over his partner, informed Desmond.

"That's.." His eyes then caught Sarah as she held her arm. "Oh no.. Sarah.." Sarah tried not to meet his gaze. Embarrassed she was, being the captain of the city guard and this was how she would go down. "You two, help them get Steven into the infirmary at the barracks to get medical attention." The two soldiers he was referring to immediately helped James and Damian get Steven to the barracks. Desmond reacted quickly to grab a banana from another soldier and tied it tightly around Sarah's arm above where she got bit.

After, he grabbed a machete and commanded Andy and the other two soldiers remaining to hold Sarah down on the ground with her arm stretched out. They promptly followed suite. One of the soldiers knew what was coming and took his bandage and had Sarah bite down on it. "I'm sorry.." Des said softly to himself as he raised the machete and slammed it down hard just below the bandana wrapped around her arm. It took two swings for her arm to come completely off. Sarah's scream was ear piercing as blood started oozing out of the wound. She thrashed about on the ground,as the men did their best to secure her. "Quickly! Get her too the infirmary and see if you can stop the bleeding."

Sarah had passed out from the pain. He didn't know for sure if that would help save her life or not, but it was worth a try. He couldn't stand to lose a person like her if he could avoid it. The three of them hurriedly carried her to the barracks as well. The forearm of Sarah still lied in the middle of the street. He grabbed his walkie talkie to radio, "Tower, this is the sheriff, we have infected at the old office building in the southeast corner of the city. I repeat, we have infected! I need men equipped to take on possible Clickers to meet me there. Over."

The radio was silent for a moment before a voice came back. "Sheriff, we received your orders and we have men in route now."

Desmond didn't waste anymore time to hurry to the scene and help Mariah and the others that remained in the building.