Scavengers (For Alex)

[Wormwood Taylor]

The edge of the city was dark at night, it was at that time that William (who now thought of himself more as Wormwood or Wormy for short) decided to scout out the apartment buildings right on the outskirts of the town. The world was a much scarier place these days, and he was counted among the number of scary things. He had died and awakened a few days later. Sure, there were a few problems, like his heart didn't beat any more and he had strange cravings for raw meat, but other than that....

"Life goes on." The boy muttered in a whiny nasal tone.

"It always goes on and on and on and on." He peered into the doorway of the first building he had come across. He didn't see any people. There were a few plagued like himself, but they kept to themselves and didn't bother you if you were like them. He just.... needed something to eat. The craving was getting bad, he wanted a raw steak so bad... These cravings were new and William still thought they were disgusting. But, when he was eating it was easy to forget that it was raw meat. William decided he'd probably have better luck on the upper floors, from what he could gather most of the Plagued were not very smart. He seemed to be an exception.

He knocked on the first door he came too. "Hello?" He called through the wood, no response. He tried the door.... Locked. He stepped back and ran into the door, shoulder first. He hit it hard, rebounded and bounced into the wall. "Goddamn that hurt!" He cried out, holding his shoulder. The door was unchanged. He decided to check the next one. It was unlocked. It didn't take him long to find the fridge in the apartment. There was some meat in the freezer, pushing past the point of being rancid.

"Better than nothing, beggars can't be choosers, now can they?" He drawled sarcastically. He shuddered but ripped off a good chunk with his teeth and ate it. It wasn't bad, it didn't taste the way he expected it too. Sweet, but tangy at the same time.

"Ugh, I can't believe...." He couldn't even finish his sentence and he was retching. He didn't throw up, thankfully and made his way into the bedroom and fell asleep. When he woke up, the sun was streaming into the apartment, and he could hear someone in the kitchen. They may have mistaken him for a corpse, under his eyes had gone dark violet and his lips were blue. Some of his pale flesh had started to go green. He pulled himself out of bed as quietly as he could, but his feet (which he couldn't feel as well as he used to) tangled in the sheets and he fell down, letting out a grunt. Well, they had to know he was there now.

[.:Aria.Rhea.Hawkings:.]

Scavengers

Aria had scouted many places this morning. The market was low on items and necessities. Which is understandable since everybody was low on supplies nowadays. So Aria was now scouting places to rob or apartments to raid. After her last attempt at stealing food in the city kind of ended badly, Aria had kept to the outskirt stores and rundown places. The less populated areas. Though it still wasn’t safe. Then again holding up in an abandon church with a werewolf wasn’t exactly safe either. It seems like a person needs to sleep with one eye open regardless of where they are at in the world. World was ending towards hell before this whole thing happened, now it was like you were walking in the seventh circle of hell. It really, really sucked.

Aria caught site of a semi-empty apartment. It smelled like rotting bodies from where she was standing, which was across the street. Plagues were probably occupying it all night. Some were probably still in there. Though there also might be some leftover food too. If anything there has to be blankets, clothes, or knick knacks she could use to trade later. The small girl adjusted her messenger bag before resting her hand on one of her pistols inside of it. She braced herself for the smell to overwhelm her. Overwhelm but not stop. She quickly and quietly entered the building, her grip on the gun tightening. After some searching, she managed to collect some small trinkets and was just about to exit when she decided to look around one more apartment.

She slowly opened the door and walked inside, quickly surveying the area. No sign of any immediate threat. She made her way through the living to find nothing. Next she moved onto the kitchen. With one hand she began to rummage through the drawers and cabinets. To Aria’s knowledge nobody was near the apartment room so she was being as loud as she wanted. That was until she heard a thump that was quickly followed by a grunt. She froze and felt her whole body completely tense. Within seconds her gun was out and pointed outwards at the empty apartment. Her eyes glanced swiftly around the areas she could. Everything seemed empty, until she realized that didn’t exactly check the bedroom like she should have. Holding her pistol at arms length in front of her, she slowly made her way to the bedroom.

Using her free hand, Aria slid the door open and looked inside. Her body, if at all possible, tensed even more. There was a corpse on the front. Or what someone would assume was a corpse. But Aria’s mind automatically jumped to it being a plague. She quickly cocked her gun and pointed it at the male body. “Don’t move,” she stated in a low voice. She inhaled a sharp breath. She wondered if he would actually listen to her. “I don’t want any trouble.”

[Wormwood Taylor]

He groaned, although the fall really didn't hurt him. Nothing really hurt anymore. Everything seemed to come from a hazy distance. He had cut his hands a few times, he didn't really bleed anymore, he oozed a little, but that was all. It was hard to feel even his feet in the sheets. He pulled at them feebly, ignoring the gun that was pointed at him. "I don't want any trouble either." He grumbled, pulling weakly at the sheets.

"Fan-fucking-tastic." He muttered to himself, managing to free his feet. He looked up at her. She was pretty, like most others he had encountered, but avoided. He kept his distance, far enough to not be spotted as a plagued. He, on the other hand, was in rougher shape.

His flesh was blue around his lips and under his eyes, the rest of the rest was starting to lose it's colour, a nice waxy whiteness with a layer of green under it. It was a little improved from the meat he had eaten. He had noticed a trend. Even live rat made a bigger difference than meat. Blood, it seemed, helped his body repair its self. He did not enjoy the implication of it. He scraped his dry tongue over his cracked lips, it made a sly sound like a snake over a sand dune.

William worked his other foot out. "Look, I'm going to stand up, because being down here isn't too comfortable. Please don't shoot me, eating rotting meat was bad enough today." He shot her a warning look and stood up slowly. He brushed his dark hair out of his face.

"How about we work out a deal. I don't eat you, and you don't shoot me." He put a hand on his hip and let out a bray of sharp, sarcastic laughter. It was a dark sound. "As if dying wasn't bad enough..." He muttered, putting a hand up to his forehead and smirking as he shook his head. "No, no, not only that, but now you get to be hated, feared... They rest of them... They're all idiots... Letting their lust for blood..." His lips pulled back from his teeth in a snarl of disapproval. "Rule their new lives... They aren't DOING anything!" He said, exasperated. He had always been prudish, so controlling impulses for him was easy.

"So, give me a break will you?" He asked, holding out a cold, purplish hand. "William Taylor..." He introduced. "But I've become quite fond of Wormwood."

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[.:Aria.Rhea.Hawkings:.]

Scavengers

Aria froze when the corpse talked. She did tell him no to move, talking on the other hand. That was not something she had covered when she approached the dead man. She gave him a quick once over before tightening her grip on her gun. Nothing she hasn’t seen or faced before. Granted when she did face a plague she generally shot at it and ran automatically. It was weird to hesitate. Maybe because this time she wasn’t looking for a fight. She just wanted to look around, try to find some things to use. Not get into a potentially dangerous situation with a being that was, in more ways than one, dead. The tiny girl, stood there silently, as he freed his feet from the tangled sheets. How did one manage to get that tangled? Maybe it was because she was a light sleeper and didn’t move much, but Aria rarely got THAT tangled in her covers. Then again, he was probably caught off guard by her. Like she was with him. Oh well, things happen. Just got to roll with the punches. Or however that saying went.

The survivor didn’t respond to his warning, or whatever it was. She just took a small step back, her gun still held out in front of her. No trouble, no problems, that’s the goal she was working to achieve at the moment. And shooting him would not help. But putting the gun down was not an option either. When stood up, Aria had to suppress the urge to shoot and run. Suppressing her basic instinct was hard at the moment. Especially since she wasn’t a real big fan of the plagues. Then again, what survivor was? Then his previous statement sank in. “Rotting meat?” she muttered. Other than survivors and awakened, Aria really didn’t know or want to know what the plagues fed on. But somehow him eating rotting meat did not surprise her. It just sounded really disgusting. Which was odd considering Aria was rarely disgusted by anything these days. It could be due to the fact that she was hungry and the thought of eating rotting meat in general disgusted. No matter what kind of thing you were.

Going into deep thought about food distracted the girl. So she barely caught that next thing this thing sad. But she clearly heard the dark laughter that came after it. She jumped a little and took another small step back. She gave him a confused look. Then suddenly and slightly surprisingly, the plague went on a small rant. This had to be the weirdest experience for Aria yet. She opened her mouth to say something but quickly closed it. For once in her life she was utterly speechless. Once he was done with whatever that was, Aria began to process everything he had said. “Please don’t tell me, you’re saying that somehow you are different from the rest of them. Because as much as I would like to believe that, I really can’t,” she finally said after composing herself. It seemed like that was the point of that same rant. So she was going to go with that. Aria was once again caught off guard when he introduced himself.

“I…you…”Aria stared at his hand as if it were some foreign object. Once again she was slightly speechless. Giving someone a stranger’s name was not a common thing nowadays. At least to her it seemed that way. Aria knew she would have to make a decision soon; otherwise she might come across as an idiot. If that wasn’t the case already. Thinking about her ‘no trouble goal’, she slowly put her gun away. Hesitantly, she grabbed his index finger and shook his hand once. “I would say it was nice to meet but…” her voice trailed off, as she shrugged. Her eyes scanned the room, to see if there was any other sign of danger. Something she probably should have done beforehand.