The cover of night, if only it helped

[Abby Kramer]

[/color] she searched her mind for a better word, for she knew it would never be safe. Nothing would ever be okay until every single one of those things were dead, but safest... seemed to be as close as she would get. "I don't want to slow us down, I think I can make it," she strecthed her side a bit and tried to see how far she could bend without causing an excrutiating ammount of pain.

She wouldn't cost this man his life, now she had a purpose to be brave and to be strong. He was willing to try to take her home. She wouldn't think that home may no longer be around, because Aramil made her feel certain. Certainty was a positive emotion she welcomed back into her life. She tried to get herself to stand, she slid off the bed, and allowed her sneakers to touch the linoleum version of tiles. Okay, she thought, trying to hide her labored breathing, I can prove I'm okay.


word count: 340
ooc: You're post was very powerful - excellent playing MY emotions! xD
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[Sgt. Aramil Cassidy]

Aramil looked up from his nostalgic moment as she asked when it would be safest. The first thought that came to his mind to tell her was never. With those things being a endless horde of undead destruction. That couldnt be stopped for nothing no matter how many he put down two replaced the fallen one. There were over 7 billion people in the world. Eventually one of them would kill Aramil it was only a matter of time.

He took a second to figure a answer for her. He didn't want to scare the poor girl. "I don't know, I never really studied their habbits I just kill them" he said to her in a honest tone. It was true he was only concerned with how to kill them not how they ate or walked. It wasn't something that ever crossed his mind until that moment.

Aramil watched as she told him that she was ok and didn't want to slow them down. She tried to get up and Aramil put his helmet down on the cabinet and walked over to her placing a hand on her shoulder stopping her. "your not going to slow us down, you know your a tough chick. A normal person would be out cold with a wound like that. You have proven your tough and able you don't need to keep proving it. If your truly ready to go we will go but im not going to let you walk out of here until your certain." Aramil told her looking in her eyes. she really was tough and had that same fire his wife had in her. He couldn't help but smile at her when he looked at her.

He was close to her and close enough to see her beautiful eyes. It reminded him of his wife's beautiful eyes and the way they looked at him with love and caring. Her eyes were innocent while his were full of pain and death. He got lost in the moment of her beauty and then turned away quickly feeling awkward that he was getting feelings from this girl he had just met. But he hasn't seen anyone in a long time especially a woman. He figured it was just him being a man and would fade over time, half of him hoped it would half of him didn't. Only time would tell, he then turned back to her and put her arm over his and eased her off the bed helping her letting her put weight back on her feet at her pace. "take it slow, put your weight on me and slowly when your ready out weight on your feet if it hurts to much stop and ill put you back down on the bed" he explained.

[Abby Kramer]

[/color] she smiled and felt the confidence she was trying to communicate. If push came to shove at least she would have that boost of adrenaline, and worse case scenario, at least she had met someone decent in her final hours.

word count: 480

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[Sgt. Aramil Cassidy]

The pain he saw swelling up in her eyes pained him to the bone. It also brought back the time he got shot. In the time it took her to blink the swelling tears from her eyes Aramil relived that night some years ago. He was a rookie cop straight out of the academy a couple weeks ago. Aramil and his FTO got a call one morning about a possible domestic dispute gone wrong. So they responded and when they go there they found the couple fighting and throwing objects at one another threatening to kill one another. The FTO took ahold of the situation quickly separating the two of them. His FTO tasked Aramil with questioning the wife about the situation while the husband was dealt with by him.

Aramil took her to the other side of the street and began to question her. Taking everything she had said down on his notebook. It started out as a normal fight home from work, the wife feeling neglected and the husband wanting nothing to do with her. Rightly she suspected him of cheating and then things got out of hand. She admitted she said something’s that were never meant to be said to the one she loved but he began to hit her. He face was bruised and her eye was bleeding, Aramil called emergency services and while he was doing that the husband pulled a weapon out of his belt and shot his FTO twice. As the husband pointed the gun at the wife Aramil stepped in the way as two shots went off. One hit him in the shoulder the other in the middle of the chest. Aramil managed to get three shots off before he fell to the ground dying. The husband took three rounds to his chest and died instantly, still to this day he wished he never made those shots. Even though the husband shot him he wished he could take it back and the way his FTO died. He remembered the hospital vaguely he was in and out of surgery three or four times so he was told. The bullet was only a couple mm from his heart and was still inside him. They had to be careful or they would puncture his heart and he would die. Took him almost half a year before he semi recovered from that.

He looked at her once more this time with concern on his face, “You sure? You don’t have to suffer needlessly” He told her softly. The last thing he wanted was her to have to run from a horde and tear her wound or make it worse to where she couldn’t survive. He continued to hold on her to softly but firmly and ready to be there if she needed to put weight on him at a moment’s notice. He admired her courage and bravery he just hoped it didn’t get her killed. The first girl he had met in the dead world he would rather keep her alive then foolishly let her die. “Tell me Abby, Why did you choose Oregon? Out of all the states in the world and colleges, someone as smart as you surely had better choices then these colleges.” Aramil asked her.
He remembered his college days, wait he didn’t have any. His college days were spent studying on a base in between his deployments in the military. It was fully paid for though so he didn’t complain about free education that somewhat helped him when he got out of them military. He hoped one day that when this was over he could put his skills to good use or teach them to someone else so that the knowledge keeps going through the generations. If there was another generation, that was something that didn’t cross his mind. What if they were the last generation on earth to come? What if once everyone was dead, that was it? What then? Keeping his thoughts to himself he drew his pistol and showed it to Abby. “Can you use one of these?” Aramil asked her. He wanted her to be protected at all times and if she didn’t she was going to learn how to he couldn’t always be there with her, it would invade her privacy what little was left.

[Abby Kramer]

Abby resettled herself and composed the shot of pain, swallowing it down as she was going to have to get used to if she was going to have Aramil trust she was okay. She would not slow them down. She watched his kind eyes as he began to speak to her. She let her eyes drop down in intimidation. He was nice, but she was insecure, and couldn't keep someone's eye contact for very long. His words were taking her mind off the pain so she gave into the distraction. "I'll be okay," she nodded, pulling her bottom lip under the top one, and giving a small smile. She looked back anxiously at the door, and imagined the dark hallway and the piled up corpses, some weren't even pushed to the side.

She looked back at him when he inquired about her school choice; it seemed like a life time ago she had thought about that. Classes, scholarships, loans, all those old subjects of stress hadn't even crossed her him in three weeks. She was at a loss for words for a moment, almost needing to refresh herself on the subject. "I-, don't know," she cut her own self off, and tried to grasp the words of why, she remembered the drastic changes she under went when her grandmother died. Everyone suspected that was why she had chosen to leave.

But had it really been? She never expected to leave home, but when the time came she spread her wings and headed west for the fall. Why? Had to get far from the east to try to find some peace. Clearly she didn't find it. "It was time to move out from home, I sent out all those apps to different schools, all pretty far away, and UP was the first to respond." she smiled a little remembering bringing the letter into her room while her mother nervously trailed her. She popped down on her bed and eagerly tore opened the envelope. She looked up smiling at her mother stood in the door way, forcing a smile, when all the while Abby could see the pain in her eyes. She would hug Abby and then walk away trying to hide the fact she was crying. "It was nice to feel wanted," but you were wanted, your mom wanted you to go to NYU, they would drive you home for every weekend. She gave a weak smile and shrugged.

word count: 438

[Sgt. Aramil Cassidy]

Aramil listened to her story about how she picked her college and how she had said it was nice to be wanted. It brought something up for him that he felt the same way. It was nice to feel wanted by something that didn't want to make you a happy meal. The love he felt from his wife was gone now and he had let himself forget that. He had to.. to survive it was the only way. He lost a lot of himself when the earth all went to hell it was odd that just a small phrase from this girl brought back so much of himself.

"Well, I'm glad you choose this college. Otherwise we wouldn't have met and who knows what then." Aramil said to her. "Its always nice to feel wanted and I'm sure there will be a time when that comes again. I sure hope so, I miss those feelings too. I had almost forgotten about them just to survive in this hell hole. Well find a place to shelter and start over, even if it kills me." Aramil stated.

He held out his pistol and motioned for her to take it. "Have you used one? Were not going anywhere without you having a weapon, don't need you defenseless." Aramil told her.

It was easy to shoot a gun as much as people thought they were so dangerous. As long as you kept yourself safe and followed safety procedures you were perfectly fine and would find yourself a pretty good shot. But then again Aramil had years of training and instructors telling him how to use them, maybe for a civilian in college it wasn't so easy to pick up. But he knew nothing of this girls background, she could be a marksmen that he didn't know or better yet a psycho. He was putting trust into her that she wouldn't just shoot him in the back as soon as they stepped out the door and would protect him just as much as he would protect her.

"Ill take the lead, were going to have to keep moving once we go out that door, so one last time. Are you sure you can move?" Aramil asked.

He had a worried tone in his voice as he asked the question. He didn't want her to get hurt anymore then she already had been. They had plenty of food and supplies to stay low until she was fully healed. He half tempted to just sit her back down and say they were not leaving but he could see that wouldn't work with this girl. She was a tough one and she was determined to prove that as much as she could to him. He admired her for that, he just hoped it didn't get her killed one day.

Picking up his rifle he pulled back the bolt and checked that a round was chambered and pushed the bolt back in with a metallic thud. Picking up his helmet he placed it back on his head and strapped it down. He looked at her once more his eyes trained as he looked her over. She looked like hell but she was standing, that in itself was a miracle.

[Abby Kramer]

She had to crack a smile when he said he was glad she picked her so they could meet, it was nice of him to say that and it felt good to have another human be be happy with the presence of another. She knew she had been nothing but a nuisance, but she was determined to change that up and would push herself to assure him and herself that he would not regret accepting a stray. She listened to him talk, and felt hope in his promise, and hope in his words. They were two humans who were surviving and were going to continue doing so. Who knew how bright hope could shine in the ill lit hospital room in St Vincent's. A place she had never needed to go before all of this, and a place she never hoped to go. She was glad she continued this suicide mission that would have been, had Aramil not stepped in to help. ”I hope it never comes to that,” She said looking up to him as he said even dead. She knew if he was dead, than she would have been dead for weeks. That thought wasn’t something she was going to let settle in and disrupt this moment of looking forward to the future.

She shook her head as she took the gun he handed her and examined it with curious eyes, she had never held one, not even in all the chaos had she thought to pluck one off a corpse. She looked back to Aramil as he spoke, she would need all the help she could get in operating one. ”I don’t know how to use this,” she stopped with the admittance before going into sounding like a naive child who claimed that all there was to it was point and shoot. She had always been the kind to worry, and by worry she would think of every single thing that could go wrong with handling this and ask Aramil what to do in these scenarios. But she doubted there was time so she kept her sentence short and sweet.

She slipped off the bed and stood next to him as he took the lead to the door, the click of the dead bolt made her head swarm with fear, when he looked back at her, she nodded- eyes locking she gave a small smile and a shorter nod, she focused herself, each step counted, each moment mattered. She would not slow him down, when he turned back to push the door open, she took a few steps forward. It hurt, it burned, but it would dull and when the adrenaline kicked in, she would have to push through that. She hoped she could. She kept the gun low like she had seen them do in the movies. She didn’t want to panic and accidentally shoot in Aramil direction or waste his ammo by firing with out purpose.

word count: 502

[Sgt. Aramil Cassidy]

Aramil smiled when she said she didn't know how to use the gun. It was normal for Aramil to run into people that didn't know how to use a gun. He was a cop after all and used to be in the military. When your on the street it was only usually Thugs and druggies that had guns not civilians.

"Its easy just aim the barrel and pull the trigger. There isn't much recoil to worry about as its a handgun. Just wait for the kick before firing another shot." Aramil told her before moving to the door. He also made sure the safety was off so she could actually shoot the gun and not get caught without a hot weapon.

"When we move, keep your off hand not holding the gun on the middle of my back. You can feel my movements that way and can stay behind me for cover and ill know where your at, at all times so we dont get exasperated."

Aramil slid back the deadbolt on the door, which sounded super loud to Aramil. Only because they were trying to be super quiet so it sounded like they were waking up the whole world to their presence. Aramil paused for a moment to let the sound die out and waited for any sound of the undead walking about outside the door.

Nothing... Aramil slowly opened the door and looked down the left hallway first. Nothing he quickly brought his Scout to bear to the right of the hallway. Nothing down the hallway either. It was clear which to Aramil was a bad thing. That meant the undead where gathering and if they ran into any of them it wouldn't be just one or two, it would be a whole horde. The stairwell was only just down the hall. Slowly moving he guided them both down the hall to the door to the stairwell.

Placing a ear as close to the door as he could, he heard nothing behind it and slowly opened the door. He looked up the stairs first and saw nothing. Then looking down he saw nothing as well. So far so good.

"Looks clear for now, you doing ok?" Aramil said looking back at Abby. Making sure she was still able to keep going on. The stairs would be very difficult for her and that was just halfway. They still hand to get out of the building without running into anything. So many if's that could go wrong.


(So sorry for the super late post and disappearing!)

[Abby Kramer]

She nodded, trying to follow everything he was saying. Okay, don’t fire immediately after pulling the trigger, wait for a kick… kick? She knew, well hoped, she would know it when she felt it but she couldn’t help but think of all the scenarios where she would pull too soon, a jam, removing her hand from Aramil’s back, getting lost in the sea of the dead. The bodies all around her pulling her down to the floor to join them- wouldn’t even be enough of her left to turn. She would only be so lucky. Abby snapped back to reality as the deadbolt slid back and signaled their soon to be vulnerability. Her eyes widened as the darkness revealed itself, it made her appreciate the dull lit room they had been squatting in.

She place her hand on Aramil’s lower back, she’d usually be shy about a movement like this, she’d never even really touched the opposite sex before, with the exception of square dancing in elementary school, even then the girls out numbered the boys 2:1, she’d danced with her female classmates more than anything. She gripped the back of Aramil’s shirt and wadded it into her fist. Her nerves were on fire, as was her wound. It was itching. It was burning, and even if it wasn’t she thought it was bleeding.

She followed closely, stepping over extended limbs that were rigid with rigor mortis. Weeks had passed, she wondered when decay would set in, but had to stop, she envisioned herself in that position far too vividly. Aramil stopped before the door to the stair case. Her doe eyes were wide and searching through the darkness, they were adjusting, and they weren’t seeing movement. This was almost as concerning as it was relieving. It meant a few things, but there was no time to ponder, only to find out. She followed him through the door way, and they looked at the fleet of stairs that wrapped in angular spirals.

”I’m okay,” she assured him, loosening her grip on his back, ”You think someone may have left their keys in their ignition in all the panic? Maybe in the ER parking?” she whispered. Oh what joy it would be for them to make it out of this dark and dreadful place, find a car and be on their way. She knew they wouldn’t get out easy, but something had to happen in their favor. Hell, she thought, Aramil hearing me scream was my favor. Asking for anything more just seemed greedy. She decided if they escaped, easy or not. That would be enough. She looked to Aramil for direction, she took a deep breath and held it trying to keep her facial expressions from betraying the pain she felt.