The Desolate

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Adam remained in the main area fighting, he couldn't count how many creatures he had killed since this all started. He knew he wouldn't be able to hold out though. He had fought, now it was time to fly. If he could find a path to the roof, maybe he could get the others out as well. He saw two of the girls climbing up onto shelves and he got an idea. He walked over to a shelf against the wall and made his way up. He hit a window with his gauntlet and watched the glass shatter. He used the blade to clear out the glass before moving up. He found there was a fire escape that lead to the roof and halfway to the ground. "Hey over here, I got a way out!" He yelled to the others pulling out his pistol to clear the way
 
Mishka heard Adam's voice and turned to his direction. Seeing no other escape, aside from the front--currently filled with those filth. She couldn't see any other option, she did promise to stay alive. She leaped from her shelf to the other quickly.

She wondered where the others were, they were being quite awfully silent. But she shook her head away from those thoughts. She needed to stay focused. She couldn't afford to get distracted in such a crucial moment. Mishka could mourn them later. Like she mourned her family's death.

She took a deep breath and took another careful leap. She was nearly there.

Mishka gave a grim smile as she took another leap and slipped. Grunting, she frowned. "Damn it!" she cursed at herself. As she tried to get up, she felt something grab her leg. She looked down and screamed. One of the d'yavol had a tight grip on her and was trying to pull her down.

Using her other leg, she tried kicking it away. "Get off me you stupid disgusting piece of--ARGH!" she yelled. "GET OFF!" she screamed. That thing was stronger than it looks and obviously determined.

"GET OFF ME!" Mishka screamed, slight fear entering her mind. She really didn't want to die like this.
 
Adam watched Mishka take off and start running toward him, but then she fell. He saw a puddle of blood which had probably caused her to slip. One of the creatures had a tight grip on her leg and was pulling her in. He took aim at the creature but it was moving so much that he couldn't get a clear shot. He could miss or worse, hit Mishka. He took careful aim and held his breath. He fired and watched the creature slump down
 
During the chaos, Slenderman finally broke through the roof of the building and cleared out a hole. He looked down "Hello down there!" He called with a light laugh as he unholstered his rifle and began popping zeds. "You guys look like you could use a hand" He called before catching the people heading towards the window "I wouldn't advise that route, you'll be no better there than you would be inside." He dropped another walker and pulled out of the hole, searching for his rope. Finding it, he dropped one end through the hole he'd made. "If y'all can make it this way, I'll pull you up. Got some guys on the outside trying to clear out the horde." He called.

On the outside of the mass, Wraith and Golem were picking zeds off one at a time as Requiem cleared lines with his pistols, until he ran out of bullets, then he dropped the handguns, switching for his machine pistols. They were a bit louder, but they worked pretty well for clearing zeds. Everyone in The Underground was trained for headshots only, and clearing a crowd with machine pistols was easy work. They'd easily dropped far more than a hundred walkers anopd the numbers on the outside were clearing out.

Above, Golem signaled he was heading back downstairs to help Requiem with the groundside cleanup and made his way to the base level of the building. Inside he found a handful of walkers had made their way into the building's lobby, likely drawn by the gunfire above. He slung his gun over his shoulder and lifted his weapon of choice, a sledgehammer. The satisfying sound of crushed skulls made the big man happy as he made his way outside, switching back out for his rifle. He immediately started dropping corpses as he approached. The zeds were now limited to the ones surging at the doors themselves, and the ones inside.
 
She had been having quite the time knocking heads in with the power of gravity. Maybe she should add gravity footnote into the guides. She didn't notice any arm waving, but she did notice movement gong up out of the corner of her eyes. A small smile crossed over her lips, even as a little bit of relief filled her. Of course, she wouldn't admit to such a thing, no , never. When the sound of gunfire erupted from outside, the redhead jumped, nearly a foot into the air. There are more of them? Hell, if I knew there was going to be a rescue operation I wouldn't have bothered! she grumbled the lie at herself in the safety of her own mind. Her attention was caught as an old nickname was called. "Red" It'd been awhile since anyone had called her that. She blinked, stopped what she was doing and turned around to answer on instinct before man popped out of the roof...like an upside down gopher.

The redhead tilted her head and looked up at him. Then she turned and looked over at the dark haired girl, that's all she could really make out from where she was, that the girl had long dark hair. She held her hands in an exaggerated shrug to answer the girl before she dove back into the crate for more tool boxes. She was the furthest away from upside down gopher man and his rope. She could also tell from here that she had longer legs than the dangling blonde.

"Time to make some noise." She mumbled to herself before causally opening the tool box and empting the metallic pieces onto the concrete floor below with several loud sounds of metallic clitter clattering. Hoping to draw the things away from the blondes area at least, if she was lucky she'd be able to make all of the infected in the store come in her general direction so that the other living folks would have a safer trip over to the rope.
 
Vye furrowed her brows.

So much was happening.
The echoes of gunfire—screaming—and general destruction pressed down on her like a ton of bricks.
It was all she could hear, just… noise. Shattering and shouting and shooting.
It was pretty fucking unbearable.

She watched as Mishka slipped and dangled from the edge of the shelf, but she had jumped several rows away by then and was at a terrible angle. Vye shouted in concern, before huffing a relieved breath as Adam managed to down the creature at her feet.

Suddenly, the group of corpses changed their direction, their discolored eyes bulging and mouths gaping, like a pack of dogs distracted with a toy. They hustled and bustled around on the ground below, turning in the direction of the redhead, bumping into each other with unintelligible grunts and bouncing off the display shelves, sending Vye rocking and rolling on her heels to regain her balance.
Frustrated and annoyed, Vye swung the shotgun around and extended her arm, bringing the muzzle right down to their foreheads. She blasted two rounds through their heads like melons.

Just then, the ceiling nearby crumbled and gave way, and Vye was much taken aback when a man popped his head inside.
"Holy CRAP!" she shouted, startled.
The rope was almost within grabbing distance, just one row over and down a little. But the bodies of the undead filed all along the walkway between them.

Vye crouched down and dug in her pocket, retrieving one of the boxes of batteries she had swiped on her way in the store. Unraveling the cloth she used as a glove off one hand, she held either end together to fashion a sort of sling. She placed a small handful of batteries in the little cradle, found the weight satisfactory, and began twirling it above her head to gain momentum before whipping it down.
The lash successfully ruptured the softened skull of one of the rotting corpses, and she repeated the process several times until the aisle was clear and she was scant of breath.

The man had said that more people were working on clearing the outside, but now at least the area immediately surrounding the rope was clear if the others made a go for it.
She leaped across the divide and stepped into the halo of light that shone through the hole in the ceiling. She gave the rope a tentative tug and shouted to the others, "Can you make it?!"
 
Adam watched Vye form what looked like some sort of hammering contraption. As unusual as it may be it seemed to be working for her. Adam looked up at the man shouting from the ceiling as he dropped a rope down, Vye and Mishka could make it, but he surely wouldn't be able to with the amount of bodies between him and the rope. "Go, I'll meet you guys on the roof!" He said as he went out onto the fire escape. There were two creatures moving in on him the moment he went out. He threw one over the edge and watched it crash into a bloody mess on the ground below. He put his pistol in the mouth of the other and pulled the trigger
 
It was difficult to keep track of the others with all of the chaos, but with the promise of outside reinforcements, Vye could only hope that they would be able to find a route outdoors. The supercenter, it seemed, had been taken—the undead masses wandered through the aisles and swarmed the entranceway, drawn in by all the ruckus, which undoubtedly echoed for miles throughout the city.

So much for her bright idea.

Vye gripped the rope just above her head and leaned back to peer up through the hole, using the tension to hoist herself a foot or so into the air. She flailed a bit before managing to flop the end of the rope over one ankle and secured it between her feet, continuing to inch up the lifeline by virtue of tugging the line taught then slackening and tugging again.

Her head and shoulders broke through the threshold of the ceiling, and she blinked against the brightness of the descending sun as she glanced around the rooftop.
 
Adam watched as the girl made her way up the rope and ontop of the roof. He would make sure the others got out as well before heading up himself. "Come one, everyone onto the roof now!" He called out as more of those creatures made their way into the center. It looked like the whole city was packed inside. He looked out and could see the others on the other side of the main area. He couldn't get to them, they would have to get up on their own. He began to climb his way up the fire escape, at one point the escape was caved in 'Great' he thought to himself as he turned to a window on the side of the building. He began scaling the side of the building almost at the top, he only hoped that the others were going to make it out. Once he made it to the top he saw the man that had been on the roof while they were inside, and the girl that had just climbed the rope. Two down, two to go
 
Slenderman had earned his name for a couple of reasons. Foremost being that he was tall. At a slouch he was 6'8" tall, and stood full height at 7' tall. In the underground he had to duck constantly to avoid banging his head. He was also quite thin. Add his preference for wearing formal clothing while in the Underground and his name was easy to understand. He smiled as the first one made her way up onto the roof "Well hello there Miss" He said politely, giving her a slight nod, as he shoved his rifle back down into the hole and began ripping holes in corpses "Alright down there, who's next?" He asked between bursts.

Requiem and Golem faced the doorway of the Supermarket and opened fire, corpses falling as the lead flew through the air. Wraith stayed above, keeping guard over the area, and sniping out any zeds that approached. Pushing forward, Requiem started being able to see inside. He signaled to Golem that he was going for his blades which he'd left embedded in a corpse nearby. Golem nodded back and Requiem broke fire, turning for his weapons. He quickly grabbed them and returned to his firing position. He doubted there were more than fifty or so corpses still inside alive.

Slenderman turned to the Woman "Do me a favour, would you miss?" He asked placing the rope in her hands "Don't drop this." That said, he dropped inside, leaving his rifle above. He landed on one of the shelves and looked down on the mass of corpses. Sure enough he could see the boss at the entrance and he pulled his side arm out and shot one of the zeds near the door. It was his way of saying come on inside. That out of the way, he set the pistol down and lifted his axe from his back. He dropped down while swinging. He was the most heavily armoured of the group, excluding Golem who was built like his namesake. That meant that he could handle being chomped on without too much risk as long as he remained standing.

Requiem, seeing that the tall man was on the ground inside gave the signal to ceasefire and enter melee. He dropped his machinepistols and entered the fray, decapitating the undead in his path. Golem marched on behind him swinging his magnificent heavy hammer, dispatching the zeds that approached. Corpses fell, and Requiem saw that it was good, and it was.
 
Mishka gave a sigh of relief as the pressure on her leg disappeared. She saw Adam and gave him a bright grin to portray her thanks and pulled herself up. She squeaked when the ceiling cave in. The pretty girl called out a question that she wasn't really able to hear. The blood was still pounding in her ears. She looked up and saw the rope hanging down.

She understood the question and turned back to Adam. He yelled out something and instantly understood that he wanted her to go up. Slowly and carefully, she walked herself back--jumping more carefully this time. She saw the pretty girl go up and another man came down.

Mishka gaped at the new person. He was TALL! Like, very, very, extremely tall! He was so much taller than papa! She literally had to crane her head back just to see his entire form. She saw other people entering the fray. She saw them expertly decapitate the rotting corpses and was amazed. She could never do that with so much ease. She hated her smaller form.

Tucking the machete closer to her self, she didn't want it to go missing. She reached the shelf with the hanging rope. Looking up, she turned to the pretty girl with the rope and called out, "Should I go up now?" Mishka didn't know whether the other could carry her weight and the rest of her bag. She didn't want to be a nuisance. But she also didn't want to die.

Clutching the rope, she trained her eyes to look the damage. With a nod, Mishka tugged the rope slightly and climbed. Oh! It was so much harder than expected but she managed. Managing to reach the end rope, she hoisted herself up.

She gave the pretty girl a beaming smile. "I didn't get myself killed!" she told the other, handing the machete back.
 
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Adam helped Mishka up and over onto the roof. Alright, they were still missing one he believed. He knew he couldn't protect everyone, but he wouldn't rest easily knowing he let someone die. He saw the extremely tall man drop down into the hole to help the others. Adam could faintly heat what sounded like metal tools hitting the ground. He looked back inside the store and saw the last girl smashing the heads of the creatures but he could see that she was hopelessly outnumbered.

Adam turned back to the girls that were on the roof with him. "Stay here, I'm going to get the last girl up" he didn't see them having too much of a choice but to stay there but he said it anyway. He slid back down the rope landing on one of the shelves, she was about founr shelves away from him. He pulled out his pistol and started shooting at the group of creatures the girl had gathered. "Quite the get together you've got going on her" he said as he reloaded his gun then started shooting again
 
As she pulled herself up over the lip of the hole, Vye had to squint against the brightness of the sky and peered up at the looming figure beside her. At an average 5'6", he towered well above her, and she was slightly surprised at the polite tone in his voice as he addressed her.
"Well hello there, Miss."
She had half expected him to mumble something about grinding her bones into bread.
She couldn't help but laugh, and the breath left her lips in with an airy hah!

The man handed her the rope, and Vye gave a slight perk of the brow as he slipped into the building.
It was sure turning out to be a weird kind of day.

"Should I go up now?"
Vye peeked down into the hole and gave Mishka a wave. Bracing one foot against a protruding airshaft, she looped the rope once around her forearm and held it taught, grunting a bit as the girl climbed her way up and over onto the roof. Mishka handed her the machete, and Vye smiled gently as she returned the shotgun, reaching out to softly ruffle the top of Mishka's hair.
"Good job, kid," she encouraged gently.

She gave Adam a nod as he also leapt back into the building, and sighed warily as she kept a weather eye on the horizon for any lingering threats. They were losing the light quickly, the sun moving steadily along in its descent.
Too much longer and it would be nightfall. And it was never a good idea to be that close to the city at night.

But she was, at least for the moment, content to be away from all the rabble inside. The roof was actually rather serene, the strange mob of men having cleared the outside area. Taking a moment to rummage in her pocket and retrieve a couple packs of crackers, Vye offered the least crumbled of the two to the young Russian girl.
They didn't exactly just have the most appetizing of experiences, but they had spent a wealth of energy and had to refuel however they could. She had a feeling it was going to be a long night.
 
Mihska made a sound of pleasant surprised and took the offered cracker. Remembering something, she let the cracker dangle in her mouth and rummage through rather large bag. She brought out the generator she manage to take in the middle of the commotion and dug in deeper.

"Aha!" she cheered and turned to the pretty girl. "Jerky?" she offered with a bright smile, handing the entire bag and a bottle of water. She didn't ever have much water, but still she felt the need to offer it over. Mishka knew she was a bother.

She looked over the horizon and made a hmmm noise. It was getting rather late. They should leave the city soon. The monsters liked the dark better, having better senses. She shivered slightly at the thought of being trapped here in the dark. No. Better not think along those lines.

Smiling brightly once again, she started to put her things back in her pack and paused. Looking at the pretty girl, she realized she didn't get her name. "What can I call you?" Mishka asked her shyly. She couldn't exactly call her pretty girl forever. Well, she could, but not out loud.

Before the other could answer, she took the slightly heavy portable generator and handed it over. "A Thank you gift!" she told the other with a bright smile. "It was spur of the moment snag." Mishka giggled at the other's expression and grinned. "Do you want it?"
 
Vye accepted the jerky graciously, plopping down to sit atop the airshaft like a bench. She took out a single piece and sandwiched it between her crackers. She pictured a steamy quarter pound burger with all the fixin's, big and juicy, and more than she ever would have allowed herself to eat before the world all went to shit.
Man, what she wouldn't give for the sweet glow of McDonald's arches right about now.

She popped the food into her mouth. It tasted like… stale crackers. And jerky. And not at all like a burger.
But she wolfed it down with just as much zeal.
Vye allowed herself a sip of water to wash it all down before handing back the provisions, but she almost spat it back out as Mishka presented the generator.

She hiccupped in surprise and gulped it down, the pallid features of her face brightening with a smile as she took the machine in her hands. It was small enough to be portable with relative ease, but hefty enough to offer a good amount of power.
Exactly what she had been looking for.

"You can call me Vye," she replied with a small laugh, setting the generator down at her feet and giving it a pat. "Thank you."

She mused over the happenings of the day, scrunching her lips up in thought and looking back out into the distance. The city skyline reached up towards the clouds, vacant and dark, the windows of the buildings like half-lidded pupils as they began to lose the reflection of the sun. They stared down onto the appliance center, as though watching the survivors huddled there, and Vye forced herself to turn away her gaze and peer once more down into the hole on the roof for any sight or word of the others.

"So—Mishka," she offered pleasantly, "Any big plans you have? Anywhere you're going?" She kept her voice light and conversational, hoping to disguise the impending realization that they may soon have a choice to make: either wait for the others to finish about their business inside, or carry on their way before darkness swallowed them up.
 
Mishka tilted her head as she carefully arranged her items in her pack. "Well..." she started and turned to Vye. "...not really" she told the other with a shrug. "I'm just...surviving one day at a time." she told the other with a smile. "I don't really have a destination in mind. I live off in the woods, it's mostly clean of monsters."

She frowned as if realizing what Vye was thinking off. "Are we going to run off without the others?" She asked staring into the other's icy blue eyes.
 
Ash had been watching the movements of the other people out of the corner of her green orbs. After the blonde girl had started to scale the rope, she had moved over to the next isle, in time to watch the tallest man she'd ever seen in her life drop down into the building. The red head had paused and watched him go all berserker on the corpses for a few moments before she'd picked up a couple of random things from around her and chucked it at a few of them helpfully. After all, it'd be a shame for tall guy genes to become depleted. Her eyes switched over towards another two guys who entered the fray. Her head tilted to the side as she watched them for a few moments. She wasn't in that big of a hurry anymore, the guys on the ground where doing an excellent job of dispatching the dead bodies. She bent down and picked up another hammer before chucking it at a corpse.

"Quite the get together you've got going on her" Ash turned to look at the guy who had apparently dropped back down into the building. She flashed a wry smile at him.

"I thought they were with ya'll." She chirped back at him before jumping to the next shelf. Now she was watching the three men, all of them not bad looking, on the ground below her. Should she stay and help them? They kind of looked like they had everything under control. But he redhead's hands found their way to her hips as she regarded the corpses and the three combatants. They moved with a practiced ease. The speed and skill they had used to clear the building was massively impressive. Chewing at her bottom lip, the redhead glanced around the shelf she was on. She spotted a couple chunks of pipe and that's what she threw down at a couple more of the corpses before she jumped to the next shelf. The guy who'd dropped back in was on the next shelf over now. Ashe tossed him a smirk, she could actually see his face now.

"Go ahead and go up the rope," She said, even as she made shooing motions with her hands. "I'll be right up momentarily." She added onto the end of her words, green eyes flickering back down to the men on the ground. She couldn't just leave them. She'd drop down and help them after the other guy was up the rope. Then afterwards, she'd decide if she was going to slip away or hang out for awhile. Ash pulled her packet watch out to check the time before dropping it back into her shirt where it belonged. Damn, it's gonna start getting dark here quick. The redhead tossed a smile at the guy who had came back into the building.

"Never mind, change of plans, there's a schedule to keep now." With that, she scaled back down the shelves. As soon as her boots touched the floor, she pulled out her hammer staff again before starting to bring it down on infected skulls like she was playing an amped up version of wack-a-mole.
 
"Everyone is on the roof, I came back to get you" he said as he watched her jump between shelves. He looked over and watched the two men dropping corpses like in was nothing more than a game. "I didn't come back down only to leave you here again, there are still hundreds of these things we all need to leave"

Adam watched her drop back down and continue to kill corpses. He couldn't figure why but it looked like she was excited, almostenjoying this. He had never enjoyed killing them, he was simply good at it. He remembered when this all started, he could hardly bring himself to kill one of them. Now he could kill hundreds and not feel a thing, he wasn't murdering; these aren't people anymore.

"Never mind, change of plans, there's a schedule to keep now." He heard the girl say. He took a quick glance out one of the windows and saw that the had limited sunlight left. "Alright we need to wrap this up." He said as he dropped down from the shelves. He engaged his bladed mechanism and pulled his knife, then he began slicing the heads of the corpses
 
"Are we going to run off without the others?"
Vye held Mishka's gaze steadily as the girl watched her, but she made no effort to answer. She merely smiled, a weary shaping of her lips as she let the silence settle around them.
It had been well over two months since Vye had shared any vicinity with other people, and she had grown well accustomed to living off her own whims without the need for considering others. The few people she had encountered in the year since the outbreak had proved to be unpredictable—either crazed and withdrawn, or violent and unruly. She had crossed paths with her fair share of bandits and thieves… and, truth be told, had probably done her own share of looting and intimidating.
Still, these people seemed normal enough… whatever that meant anymore.

Her shoulders heaved with a sigh and Vye propped her elbows up on her knees, glancing back down into the hole as flickers of movement dashed back and forth across the opening.
She wondered briefly how much ammo those men had burned through during their assault. It seemed the gunfire had ceased, and the distant sound of voices found their way up to the roof, mostly muffled from the chorus of schwack's and squoosh's of dismantled corpses as they tore through the horde with other means of weaponry.
They had been carrying on for some time. Certainly they had made some progress.

Vye shifted to crouch down near the edge of the hole, taking the rifle the tall man had left on the roof into her hands and using the sight to peer inside the building. Carnage was everywhere… bits of organ and bone littered the ground like confetti, rainbows of blood and pus and other indistinguishable fluids pooled around corners and splattered the shelves.
It gave Vye the willies, and once again she secured the fabric of her hood across her face like a mask.
It was more like a comfort blanket, than anything. But still—viruses mutated and evolved all the time.
I mean, just fucking look what the last evolutionary leap had done.

"How's it going down there?" Vye shouted above the roar of exploding body parts.
 
Mishka frowned when the other didn't respond to her question. She sighed as she hugged her knees to her chest. It was harder to be with other people than she realized. She was so unaccustomed to this. She let themselves be filled with silence, with the occassional sound of gunfire down below.

Finally, it stopped. Mishka watched as Vye leaned down to call out to those below. She wondered what she should do next. She could always follow who ever asked her to come with, or she could continue on back to the outskirts, following the growth of nature and run back into another town if she needed some more supplies.

Mishka looked back out to the sky and saw it becoming darker. She bit her lip in worry and did so hope they made a decision soon. She really, really did not want to be here in the dark. She'd rather be stuck up in a tree than on top of a roof.

She moved closer and popped herself beside the pretty girl --oops, Vye -- and grinned at those inside. "Hi!" she called out. "Are we ready to go now?" she asked cheerfully, disregarding the gruesome image down below. She did see her family being eaten by her mama. This was nothing. "Are we?" she repeated with the same bright smile.
 
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