Deep down in the cellar where the spiders and to-be vintage booze sit dormant I beckoned a response calling out in a tone of voice which concealed none of the fear I was feeling at the time. It trembled as I met the midway of my words, "Is anyone down there?" and to no surprise of my own there was no response. Behind me I hear a whisper,

"Radley..."

I have to answer, my volume hardly audible.

"What, Jack, what? What is it?"

"There's no way in hell I'm going down there."

"Why the hell not?"

"Are you deaf?"

"Kind of...what did you hear?"

"There's something walking down there with slow, heavy steps."

 To that effect the universe synchronized itself with the information shared and to us it came to be true as we both heard some muffled growl down there and before long something with four legs went spinning over my head from the maw of the darkness onto Jack. All sorts of screaming and fussing as this thing's 'beak' as it were protruded out and made savage attempts to get humping his skull, digging these stilleto legs into his chest and back. The entire time I'm sitting there pulling a trigger and trying to pull a stuck shell from the receiver. By the time I get this done he's already broken one of its legs and setting the shotgun for a moment within its mouth I pulled the trigger and Jack falls to his knees screaming, holding his ears. Suddenly I feel some sort of remorse, then shrug it off and kick him on to his chest after ripping the first claw therefrom. Once prone I pulled the other two claws from his body and soon after he started seizing, at that point I didn't even know what to do so I just stood there watching him convulse. I didn't know Jack well, for that I was thankful.

 We'd come out here not long ago, committing sins against the Trinity of the Lord God Almighty, attempting in vain to summon the assistance of Hermes, to be closely followed by Tyr the Northern god of war. From them we would seek wisdom and assistance against our otherworldly foes but alas it wasn't meant to be. Our divination and initiations had been interrupted several times and at this point, ruining the ritual by ambushing our compound on the coast and bombing us with canisters, there was no contacting them. A bond likely to never been rebuilt. Had we stayed, perhaps then it'd be different. But we didn't.

  I stepped down the hall far from Jack and as he convulsed, choking on white bile, I took a shot at his head and sighed, morbidly grateful that I'd gotten away from the mess that comes with a shotgun shell to the head. I felt terrible, but I knew it was best to digress so I went my merry way back outside and got in the rusting 1990 Ford Escort that awaited me in the drive way, a helicopter's glide bellowed from the distance and wasting no time I burned off onto the road and I sang going along,

"At first I was afraid, I was petrified. Kept thinking I could never live without you --" pausing to swig from a flask, "--by my side. But then I spent so many nights, just thinkin' how ya done me wrong AND I GREW STRONG, I LEARNED HOW TO GET ALONG AND SO YOU'RE BACK" and the swaying of shoulders, the loosening neck sending my head left to right in recoils from a vehemently Caucasian dance, "FROM OUTER SPACE, I JUST WALKED IN HERE TO SEE YOU THERE WITHOUT THAT LOOK UPON YO FACE! I SHOULDA CHANGED THAT FUCKIN' LOCK, I SHOULDA MADE YOU LEAVE YO KEY IF I HAD KNOWN FOR JUST ONE SECOND YOU'D BE BACK TO BOTHER ME! OH NOW GO! WALK OUT THA DOOR! JUST TURN AROUND NOW, CUS YOU'RE NOT WELCOME ANYMORE!, WEREN'T YOU THE ONE WHO TRIED TO BREAK ME WITH DESIRE" and to this I shake my fist, palm facing me, an expression of angry conviction across my face, "DID YOU THINK I'D CRUMBLE, DID YOU THINK I'D LAY DOWN AND DIE?! OH NO, NOT I!" and then I realize I'm doing seventy at the turnpike of a cliff. "Oh shit this might be ironi--" and around this car I'm tossed upon impact, thrown about the interior to feel zero gravity before being knocked out by impact and killed by subsequent drowning.

Good evening vaginas and gentlefucks.

jesus christ no.

Prologue

The man could barely contain his need to wail to let his fear and pain escape, he wanted her to see, but he didn’t figure it wouldn’t matter either way. His legs burned, his throat became dry and felt cracked and his lungs were cold. The man just ran and the man who tells the story scruffs his chin, smiling at the rhyme. Over the clouds thunder and lightning flashed, it was like these clouds had within them a furious god who was going at them with Zeus and Thor to come and fuck everyone up.

“Dude” his partner said trying to keep pace, he panted hard between his words,

“you know that we’re fuckin’ dead.”

Our boy turned as he ran just enough to look at his acquaintance’s expression, it was subtle fear that Lucas could see. Luke just kept his eyes on the empty road, cars were in disarray all over the street collecting dust. Some had collisions, some were filled with decomposing bodies.

“Don’t make your prophecy.” Lucas said between gasps for thicker air. Their haste was only occasionally shortened by their forgetting their situation, quickly thereafter to be compensated with adrenaline and an instinctual motivation that was summed up in the words, Oh shit.

“What happens when we see the snow?”

“We have to get the fuck away from it. We need plastic, a tarp, nylon, something. We need a body suit. We need duct tape.”

They saw Williams Street and turned left into it where there were soldiers with gas masks, two people knelt before them with their hands behind their back, the first assumption was that it was a casual execution. “Fuck, follow me.” this he said with a heavy but soft tone. His fear, his adrenaline had reached the equivalent of a high better than cocaine. He took the sleeve of his arm across the grime covering his eyes as they ran into the yard of a boarded up house and hopped its fence. He waited for his partner but within short moments the sound of a rifle firing filled the air and escaped in all directions. Splinters from the fence flew out and a trickling of blood slid down where they once were. Lucas took a deep breathe and let it out as he turned and ran again to the next fence hopping it, his organs feeling as though they were made of stone and ready to fall through his ass; his palms became raw and ripped and blood began to surface where the layer of skin was coming off.

He saw two people pushing a car, a driver revving the engine and laying down on the gas. Coming up behind them, startling them in a way he had remorse for he did his best to console quickly: “It’s okay, keep going!” getting between them he pushed this car and they joined him. It was inching towards a running speed and the engine, struggling and ripping at its guts to combustion and popping and finally they heard it roar. “Get in!” the driver shouted. They all scurried into the seats, once inside they looked at Luke with heightening distrust. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Lucas, I lived down on Queensborough and Marx.”

The girl in the front seat looked to her mate driving, who was eying Lucas menacingly; “I met him at the party last week, he’s cool.”

He was calmer, he looked back a couple times and the man sitting next to him, a Hispanic was shifting eyes between the driver and Lucas, uneasy. He said nothing and the driver began to dodge the wrecked vehicles. The explosion was like an earthquake, Lucas could now remember, and cars outside the coffee shop skidded under the shaking ground and filled places that didn’t have walls but windows. Vehicles collided with people sitting by the windows of diners and the pool halls lost their balls all over the place.

The most serious of all this business were the soldiers. The soldiers from a different country. They didn’t carry flags, most wore black. Lucas thought hard on them and who they might be and as he thought a gray snow came down against the car. “Oh fuck.”

They all looked back to him, “What?”

“We’ve gotta hurry up, the fallout is starting in.”

“Oh my God it was a nuke?” the girl asked, her mate in the driver seat looked at her with incomprehensible rage. “No shit! No shit it was a fucking nuke! Did you see that mushroom cloud? No fucking shit, Alice! No shit!” she was startled and the eyes of the man beside Lucas began to shift again, left, right, left, right. She said nothing, Lucas just tried to sit back and relax. His mechanical augmentation in his legs would erode as the fallout snow and rain touched them, they would irradiate and he would be supremely fucked. His guts would cook from within and the seams of his skin and the steel that replaced his bones, the hydraulic fluids that replaced his limbs would all bubble and seep bringing with it rotten pieces. This is what he told himself.

“What was that gunshot we heard?”

“They’re moving into the residential areas, there’s no military base on this side of the coast.”

The Hispanic gave Lucas a small Scope bottle. “I don’t want this anymore.”

As it set down in Luke’s hand, his eyes shifted to the brown scared eyes of a drug dealer. “What is this? Wet?”

“No man, it’s acid.”

“So you don’t wanna get caught with it basically.”

“Basically.”

“I don’t think it makes much difference now.” but this wasn’t why the man was giving up his livelihood. He looked away and shook his head, “No man, I can’t sell that to anyone around here and feel right about it, not anymore, not with this shit going on. But I’ll need money, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life when someone goes crazy and starts cutting everyone up.”

Lucas looked at this bottle. A sign was up to the right of the road,

NOW LEAVING CORPUS CHRISTI

and then a tank was out in the distance, in a field by a ranch house where the tiny dark figures of bodies lie on the ground and trucks were slowly filled with soldiers. This tank started to turn its turret with the movements of this car. It was almost over for these people. “Oh my God…Dann—” and there was a deafening sound and for a second there was nothing but this ominous and foreboding sound. The car’s front end ripped right, the car spun and the windows shattered throwing the two in the front out. It stopped, Luke’s ears rang and he felt something wet all over his face, something was burning his eyes. The ringing grew so loud, so loud, louder and louder. As the sound grew he held his head and looking left he managed to crack an eye open, the Hispanic was hanging out of the passenger window in the front. Lucas managed to crack open his other and he realized that nobody else was wearing a seatbelt and that the engine compartment had been ripped off completely leaving the leg room in the front as new exits from the car. Lucas sat reclined there, his face was so wet. Why is it so wet.

Looking down he saw the Scope bottle empty on his lap, his button down shirt was wet at the collar and a great fear possessed him as he faded in and out of consciousness. He couldn’t sleep. He thought of a concussion and he couldn’t faint or pass out in shock. But he did anyways. He closed his eyes and for a moment, his last sane moment, he slept.

________________

His eyes didn’t open as he woke, he heard the throaty discussions of something hellish as it walked around the car, each footstep was loud with the cracking dry leaves, the grass underfoot. So loud. What they spoke of was indiscernible. He opened his eyes, this time with more ease. The sky was vivid with neon lights, like puddles of paint on the roof of the planet and as they were bright they moved like water.

“They were American.” the alien voice trembled against the car, Lucas shuddered and shut his eyes, he shut them tight. There was no darkness he saw a room with a stove and tile floor, when he shut his eyes someone was in front of him, it was her. He opened them and before him was his father and the air surrounding him rippled with the air. He was upside down, his eyes were white and dark veins led to the connection between his brain and the eye. In a split second, with seemingly no movement his mouth was open and from it was like the screaming of children and the sound metal makes when it scrapes against. Lucas wailed in fear, unbuckled the seatbelt. There was a manic fear now, he couldn’t gather his thoughts. The car lifted in the air, his father wasn’t behind him anymore. The grass he stood on wasn’t covered in snow, they had gotten away from the fallout just in time to be nailed by a platoon of unidentified soldiers.

He thought of the Scope bottle and screamed even louder. His screaming began to repeat and echo in his brain, he fell to his knees and held his ears and sobbing uncontrollably he heard laughter. He was in the closest thing he could understand as hell. Who was talking?

He looked around. No one was there. It was dusk but the only way he could tell was the darkness on the horizon. He figured it must actually be colorful as opposed to the sky in reality. In reality. In reality. In reality, in reality, in reality, in reality. “Reality?”

“What?” a voice.

“There you are.” he turned around and there was no one. A magpie flew from a dead tree and as he looked at it, it looked at him and grew fierce, larger. It morphed and change, altered in appearance, it became a hawk. Lucas looked at it, it’s a hawk, it’s a hawk. Relax it’s a hawk. The hawk grew larger as it flew into the wind, he turned away from it. He laid down facing down and rested his head on his crossed arms.

---

Post Auto-Merged: August 16, 2012, 06:20:53 PM

---

The Remains

His eyes opened and he was not lying down on his cot, he was awake, still in the air over the road. His body turned to face what was before him, the darkness and the silhouette of a city he vaguely recognized was barely standing, above it the eerie clouds were in a never-ending storm and lightning shot across the clouds. In the air he could hear the sound of jet engines and in the outer city a stadium erupted in flames, providing more light than the meager flashes of  thunder and lightning. It was the brightest thing Lucas had seen in a year. The wild, suffereing screams of people blared through the air  as though it was a scratched record on concert speakers and faintly amongst the screaming. He shrugged.

His bottom lightly arranged itself on the seat of the motorcycle as he descended, his feat in their correct place, his hands on the handles. The engine roared and started forward for him, and he agreed with the motorcycle and relieved it’s efforts, twisting the grip and driving it manually. This was why the motorcycle was his friend.

The light of the thunder only told him when to navigate through the abandoned cars when there was the least amount of time to dodge them, and he persevered not noticing the difficulty of the situation. He was guided, he had no voice in his head describing the scene, no voice challenging that voice and no wonder of whether or not he was making the voices talk; no he was guided by a smooth recklessness that he had convinced him was the everlasting will of God. His eyes kept him moving in the right direction as he used the activity as a means to any sort of meditation. Taking up any task Lucas found himself free from the persecution and horror of his thoughts.

Amongst the ruins bare bodies lay throughout the city, their eyes nearly completely white, the pupils facing directly upwards. Gunfire was constantly audible in the cities, the tribes of survivors constantly fighting for electricity for a charge and territory. As of lately, the buildings were collapsing; the center of the city marked by the rubble of the former tallest and largest building of the city, the Bio Corporation Headquarters. It had become the battleground of the city with the now useless graphene blast doors standing alone surrounded by the broken skeleton of the once great skyscraper. In the sky, where the Bio Corp. logo’s sign used to hang in full view to the rest of the city in a sickly dark green blaze, the luminescence of the signs remained free standing in the sky without explanation.

The motorcycle stopped itself, the tinted glass of the windows began rippling, the street disconnected from the ground and ascended to what appeared to be another road. The same one seemingly, only there were more bodies. The motorcycle started again and engaged the gas for him, he noticed the speed gauge was no longer on the motorcycle, and only the wind that was beginning to sting his face with the growing velocity remained. He only saw what was directly ahead of him, and in this he was at peace.

The mouth opened as he approached the dark tunnel and when he passed inside of it, absolutely and immediately the darkness ceased to remain dominant as a series of bright flashes of lightning erupted in the sky, revealing to him the silhouette of the city, and what above it what seemed to be an enormous studded and barbed beast gliding through the skyscrapers, strings of flesh that had ripped off of it’s wings flowing with the air. Only for a split second was it noticed and the third reality took over his mind. The flashes of thunder were no long white, but red and the beast was no longer gliding loftily, it was searching menacingly and his motorcycle began screaming.

He quickly jumped off of it and began stomping on it and as he did he heard it’s bones crack. It’s screams were no longer to gain the beast’s attention, they were out of pain. It’s mouth opened and bright, viscous orange fluid sprayed out of it violently until it slowly appeared to become red and finally but shortly, black. The beast had heard and the thunder’s image was synonymous with the flapping of the beast’s wings. This was not his mind anymore, this was it’s mind.

“If God is, then I am God, you are God, the chair I sit in is God. We are all God and until we realize self, we will never realize God. Thou that art, thou that I am.” was bellowed out of the pores and orifices of the beast. He ran in the opposite direction of it’s pursuit, he knew what it meant. His legs clanked as his exoskeleton began to grind against the rusted stress of his chassis. The doors of the abandoned cars swung open and hysterical laughter screamed out out of the speakers of their speakers. It wasn’t one’s laughter, it was the laughter many and not all of them seemed human.

He withdrew his pistol and began shooting bright blue tracers into each car he saw, sprinting. The meter of recharge was slowly decreasing as it fought to stay charged, but the charger was too weak and he was firing too fast. He withdrew his other pistol in his other hand and began shooting at them all, turning as he ran to shoot at the beast who was no longer there. By the time he had completed his twist the beast was sitting before him. It had stopped and it’s wings were spread open, denying him passage.

It’s mouth opened and it’s eyes turned a glowing orange, he heard it’s voice in his mind, but it spoke no language. He collapsed to the ground, paralyzed and the beast lifted into the air, and flew away.

The red light of the thunder remained after it’s shudder and softly illuminated the sky. The steady sound of ground shuddering humming started up from a small tremble to a quake. He knew if he tried to move, he would be able to, but he didn’t. He closed his eyes.

____    ____    ____    ____    ____    ____    ____    ____    ____    ____

“We need to spend some time apart.”

He knew why.

“Why?”

“We just need time.”

He ended the call and went through every gizmo he had her contact information on and deleted it all. The background of his cellular was the last trace of her existence, he replaced it with the insignia of his party.

She was calling back, he hesitated but answered the phone, “Yea?”

“Wake up, Lucas.”

His eyes opened and he breathed in heavily, he looked around and saw absolutely nothing. This was different, he normally could feel the wind. He felt nothing and saw nothing; all he could feel were his clothes on his body and the gas mask limiting his breathing.

The ground shifted and he could feel himself ascending, he looked directly up and far up he saw the dark red gloom of the planet’s sky. He lost his awareness of time for a moment and realized he was standing back on the road. The beast was gone, no trace of him. All of the car doors were as they were before they had flung open.

He started walking away from the city. In the opposite direction he noticed that there was no silhouette. It was a place of nothingness, an abyssal volume where sparsely spread remnants of the world slept. He had never been to any other place but what remained of the city but he had attempted walking somewhere else he remembered from before. This time he would go further than last time.

He stopped walking and engaged a full sprint and ceased to think in his mind. His augmentations allowed him to run at around twenty-four miles per hour. With every step closer the familiar humming and rhythmic wailing grew louder, as it grew darker the flying figures that spiraled about the road grew more and more visible. He ignored them, though he saw their eyes looking at them.

The deeper he went he would notice that very slowly they would gravitate towards him. Their figures were that of women in black shredded cloaks in flight, arms spread open. He ignored them, he kept running. This isn’t so bad, he thought and right after he did, the rhythmic wailing in the distance ceased and was replaced by the mad screaming of the flying figures. They densely packed around him in flight forming a sphere. The screaming would destroy the ears of an unmodified human.

He was on the ground curled up in a ball. He stopped screaming and when he did, they did. He quickly stood up and they quickly flew away into the darkness. He turned back around to the city, it was nearly unnoticeable, only a faint reflection on a few buildings was visible over the highways.

He turned back around and sprinted towards it.

The ground dropped and descended back down. When it stopped Nicolette was there, she had all visible symptoms but was alive, her pupils pointing completely upwards. The red of her veins were visible at the bottom of her white eyes.

“Why did you do it, Lucas?”

He fell down and scraped the ground backwards to the wall of the deep hole. She stepped forward closer to him as he tried to scurry away.

“You had to drink too, didn’t you Lucas?”

He felt tears coming but he defied them, he closed his eyes and tried to meditate. He couldn’t, she was screaming now. He never heard her scream, ever. It was the most revolting sound he had ever heard. He pulled out his pistol and fired at her, the tracer escaped the barrel and she disappeared. He blinked almost in disbelief. He sat there, still and unmoving trying hard to not think about her. He didn’t notice he was reascending.

____    ____    ____    ____    ____    ____    ____    ____    ____    ____

Showing up on the road where the beast had left two Secessionists strode up to him holding their WASR-10 rifles low. The folding stocks weren't pulled out and being a model of the AK variety drum barrels were snuggly fitted into them. "Captain, Sven's been hurt and everyone's pulled back to the sewers."

He looked at his best friend and lieutenant and tried to sum up something to say. "Well, what's wrong with him?"

"He's succumbing to radiation poisoning."

"Why?"

"Because Houston's water system is irradiated."

"We've been drinking out of it for years."

"It's been irradiated for years."

Lucas was quiet, he was right. He looked around and noticed he was sitting at a desk outside, his serving executive officer standing before him. "Where are we lieutenant?"

Lucas looked up to him and he observed his face becoming frightfully amused. He didn't say anything, looking down his nose at him, slowly building up a menacing grin.

Lucas wasn't afraid for a moment but then in a shocking wave of hysterical fear he started up out of his chair, moving backwards, tripping over it completely. He struggled to get up, pulling his pistol out noticing it was his regular pistol and not one that had just materialized as he pulled it out. It was a TT33 Tokarev, a smiley face etched into the slide. He aimed at the grinning man and anticipated his sudden disappearance, relieved and convinced of this he fired; the brain and contents of his Lieutenant's head flung through the air for a moment before splattering across a long stretch of  pavement leading from the place where the disfigured head and body collapsed with a splatter to the furthest shard of his skull.

For a moment he was in disbelief but after twenty seconds of looking at his best friend's body he knew he was just fucking with him and that he had as a result, been trolled although the remaining fact of the entire situation was his lieutenant was permanently banned from life.

"Why?" he asked.

He refused to break down in tears like he would be expected to. No. It wasn't necessarily intentional, he thought. He walked further down the street away from the desk and climbed into an uncovered manhole. Climbing down the ladder he heard only his steps as he descended into the sewers. Walking down the path to a door he twisted the handle and stepped through to the other side. A collection of saddening gas masks looked over to him, to his left and right hands came to relieve him of his burdens. Slipping his trench coat off he felt a wave of relaxation, of relief.

"Where's Doug?" one of them asked.

Lucas turned around and looked at him through the eyes of his gasmask for a good few moments before saying,

"I shot him."

There was a stillness about the spacious but filled room. Two dozen people slowly got quiet.

"It was an accident."

"That's it?" a girl asked.

"Yes."

"I loved him."

"So did I."

She was cracking up in tears. "How could you say that you apathetic bastard!"

He looked around the room and everyone looked at him confused, but with a sense of familiarity with this behavior. "I can't say anything else, I can't bring him back and I can't make anyone feel any better. We'll have to carry on without him."

"It's not that simple!" she screamed, turning as she allowed herself to fall to the ground.

"It is for me."

"Why?"

"I don't know, it just is."

He walked to his bunk and laid down on his back, locking his hands together with his fingers. He looked to his left, a girl was crying, a man was comforting her and one of the few people without gas masks had his off to swallow a second shot of gin. He laid his head back down, controlled his last exhale and closed his eyes.

Yes. Yes you're right it certainly has been strange since the Bomb.

"So." she put a cigarette in her mouth and lit it, looking up at him from the cigarette she winked, "Whatsup baby?"

He stood there, dress clothes, black trenchcoat and red beret donned he reached out to get a drag and she handed it to him with a subtle smile. "Where to?"

"I guess we're going to the coast."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yup."

"I can't believe..." she began but Lucas didn't listen, he observed the sparrow bathing in the ashtray. As it dipped it's head in the ever thick smoke as though it was water small whips of gases streamed out of the smog. It was very interesting to him and it fascinated him to a point of devoted attention.

"Are you okay?" he turned to her and blankly stared for a moment before realizing what he had done. "Sorry."

"No it's alright you do that sometimes, I don't think you can really help it."

He was quiet.

"I made dinner."

"Oh yeah?" he seemed to perk.

"Yes its in the oven, still a bit warm." and standing he walked over to the oven to open it; in this moment he thought of the Bomb. He recalled how thankful he was that he was staying in a Hotel stockpiled with food with his girlfriend, two best friends and their girlfriends. Opening the oven he saw a void, there was nothing there and it did not have a shadows mercy to the light; everything was black. He looked at Nicolette and saw she was watching him. She had a very big smile, bigger than the way it usually was and her eyes had appeared to become less noticeable. He after a few seconds found himself trying to perceive her eyes, knowing he could see them but failing ultimately. It confused him and he felt a surge of fear in his body. He looked back down to the void.

"Baby."

There was no answer.

"Baby!" he shouted somehow kindly, he turned to look at her and saw her an inch from his face. Startled he fell backwards and he tripped backwards over the oven door. Landing awkwardly and painfully he struggled to get up and pushed her.

"Are you on something?" she asked.

He looked around, he was in the living room. Grabbing a knife he pointed the blade to his neck, "Stay the fuck there."

Lucas' eyes opened, a deep breathe was brought in and a feeling of emptiness came over his chest.

He laid there in his misery and lethargy before standing up and washing his mind of excessive despair Lucas rose from his rest and grabbed his dufflebag from under the bunkbed. Leaving only two people looked at him out of the nine that were awake; he considered it to be something of a sign. He grabbed the keys to his Ford Ranger, a mannequin he had known of in a trunk near the tables of the common house he had just left; loading his tent, dufflebag, ammunition and bicycle he started the engine of his truck. The mannequin had acquired attire in his absence.

Pulling out he looked at the door,at the entrance an oddly familiar fetus was lying in the shadow of a doorway. He looked at the mannequin, "So what's your name."

He stared. He was full of fearful faith.

"Quincy."

"You're fucking with me."

The mannequin had a straight subtle smile as he spoke without words. "Look I know."

"What do you know?" Lucas said with an intense glare, "What are you supposed to fucking know? You're the by-product of oil and vain consumerism.

Quincy appeared to be offended. Looking away Lucas began to consider his words and turned to him, "I'm sorry,  I'm a very crass, eccentric and unserious person and I let that get in the-"

Quincy moved for the first time, the head snapping right, the eyes closing, the mouth opening and as it opened Quincy choked becoming more and more lifelike.

"You're getting a little too serious about this." said Lucas. Fingers were beginning to appear coming out of Quincy's mouth and he had came to appear as a regular man; with a first coming out of his throat. Lucas reached for his knife letting his next will guide him. The knife went into the head of Quincy and the forearm sticking out appeared to be very uncomfortable. Lucas parked the truck and looked at the forearm, it was a girl's. He examined it with a certain fear of the familiar, searching for the mark he found it. A freckle on what was probably the left hand. Remembering he nearly screamed out in tears. Before he could complete more than a sob he drew his pistol, his mind hummed with incomprehensible emotional and mental pain, severing him from his peace. He shot Quincy in the head, the resulting brain, bone and blood forming a smiley face. Lucas grinned wide and for a moment, looked left to right trying not to break out into hysterical laughter. He shot at the chin twice, the head was still quite regular looking spare the entrance wounds and slightly lopsided cranial structure (and of course the missing chunk of his head). He stopped to himself when he realized he was  doing this against a bullet proof car window. He was then very upset with himself. "Fuck, what's wrong with me?" angry at his wastefulness and hygiene he digressed and kept driving with her arm coming out of the mouth of Quincy.

-------------------

Time passed, the truck seized. Lucas slowed down, turning off the ignition and looking to his right. The arm of Nicolette was limp, still hanging out of Quincy's mouth. Lucas assumed he'd been sleeping because he hadn't said a word but now that he thought about it, he realized that he couldn't speak because her arm his mouth was full of his dead lover. So, shrugging off the pain and guilt of touching her he grabbed the wrist of the arm and pulled and with a second yank it gave spilling blood all over Quincy.

He coughed out words, inanimate but a semblance of life persisting in his features, "Took you -- ugh -- long enough! Why didn't you do that earlier I could've suffocated!"

"You don't have lungs, Quincy."

"It made it no less uncomfortable, if I had a stomach I would've thrown up all that blood."

"Shut the fuck up Quincy." and indeed, there was silence.

Lucas opened the door and stepping out the ground wasn't there but there was no fall. He panicked for a moment, but it subsided as he failed to feel the wind in his hair and his guts being thrown up into his chest. He slowly descended, as he did and as he went lower the floors and walls of Harris County Jail's building 701, tank 7F1. It was filled with blacks, as it was and usually had always been. They weren't aware of him as his feet reached the ground and he saw himself, sitting down at a table, eating old orange peels. He'd just shown up.

Behind his former self, the ground opened wherefrom a cloaked woman rose. She was petting his hair, she lurched a step closer and massaged his scalp intently, gazing down, her hands traveled to his ears where they stopped and once still she whispered. It was a disturbing sight, Lucas knew there was a purpose behind her whispers, a reason for her presence and a reason for his. He approached her and aware of him, startled she turned. The long ratty black hair was hiding a hideous, maggot-infested, mummified looking face; her screaming wasn't of fear but to intimidate. Lucas wasn't intimidated. He stepped forward towards her faster, his feet coming down against the ground heavier and heavier up until he was within reach. He grabbed it by the neck and slammed it against the table, his arm and her body setting through the form of his old self. Through the back and out the chest it was as though his form wasn't of matter, there was no friction, no touch. She was silent, but her silence, inviting questions and showing surrender wasn't satisfactory to Lucas. He went on to pummel the face, the maggots exploding under the sudden impacts and the rumbling growl of pain rumbling like the sound of an angry castrated boar.

“Alright so there’s this Chinese guy right?” Thad said looking over across the cup holders and hand brake of the nearly destroyed van.

Kyle, smiling returns his gaze, “Right”

“And he walks into this bar and a porch monkey is bartending, so as amused by this black man’s business as we would be the Chinese man walks up there and is all like ‘Hey nigger, get me a drink’.

“Now obviously, the nigger is offended and he expresses this by replying ‘Hey man, fuck you, what if I walked into your bar and said that to you?’ the Chinese man replies ‘I don’t know, lets find out’ so they switch places and the Chinese guy is bartending while the nigger wants a drink. The nigger walks up to the bar and says ‘Hey chink, get me a drink’ and the chink says ‘I’m sorry, we don’t serve niggers here’.”

Kyle started cracking up, being Chinese the joke tickled his tummy possibly more than it would have a white man’s. In the slums, there was only the occasional, irreparably retarded Civil Protection officer walking around otherwise they came in packs of threes and fours. One of the irreparably retarded CPs walked by the van, saw them sitting there and begged to question their seating arrangement.

“Citizens, what are you doing in this vehicle?”

Thaddeus, amused, looked over sliding his right hand down between the car seat and the console, “We’re going to get my grandmother from the nursing home, they’ve been beating her ruthlessly with barbed, tobasco-laden dildos.”

“What did you just say?”

“Cheese.”

“Cheese?”, Thaddeus squinted hard, spat with his lips together amused as could be, pulling a USP from between the console and the car seat, drawing the gun on the CP while he attempted desperately to draw his stunstick or anything that would help him. It was too late, as he touched his pistol Thad’s pistol barked four loud, short blasts and on his back he fell to accumulate blood and artificial fluids.

“Oh man. Did you see that? He actually said it.”

Kyle was in a state of panic, trying desperately to open the jammed door but he knew that it wouldn’t open because he climbed in through the driver door, allowing Thaddeus to sit there while he opted for the passenger seat. He wanted to escape what would probably be a terrible situation. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“YOU JUST SHOT A FUCKING OFFICER, DO YOU KNOW HOW FUCKED WE ARE IF WE GET CAUGHT!?”

“RELAX! Jesus Henry Christ, come on man, I never get caught.”

“You just got out of jail.”

“For pissing in public! Who gives a fuck?”

As Kyle started to climb out the window, Thaddeus’ smile disappeared and an expression of disappointment and ire swept his face. He lifted his legs from the gas and brake and started to kick him in the ass as he attempted desperately to escape as he shouted “Well get the fuck out then you chink pussyfooting bastard.”

Kyle was replying with some “Fuck yous” and “Fuck offs” and then the Judgment Waiver sounded off and broke some eardrums. Kyle was essentially pissing himself when he heard the sound. “OH MY FUCKING GOD THEY KNOW WHERE WE ARE, THEY’RE GONNA FUCKING KILL US!”

Thad, disappointed in the silliness and general pussyfootery of his new companion saw that his new companion was no longer worth keeping as a companion and if he was to die, Thad figured it’d be best if he did it himself because if the Civil Protection saw how much of a pitiful little yellow prick he was they’d torture him until fecal matter fell from his ass. So Thad, being the gentleman he was raised his pistol and fired a good shot into the head of his former companion. Looking down, sighing for his disappearance he heard the CPs heading his way. Leaving the van and jumping on a bicycle that lacked tires he wobbled to a start and started pushing as hard as he could down on the petals and with a few seconds passage the gunfire started as did he singing.

“HE’S GOING THE DISTANCE, HE’S GOING FOR SPEED, SHE’S ALL ALONE

“ALL ALONE”

“ALL ALONE IN HER TIME OF NEED; AND HES FIGHTING, BITING AND RIDING ON HIS HORSE MOTHERFUCKERS, THIS IS MY STEED!”

As he started to bob his head to wailing, awful sound of his own singing he did his best to ride in a straight line knowing if he were to turn he’d eat it. Turning a corner and taking a round through the earlobe he screamed. “FOR SPEE— AGHHGHHHHH FUCK YOU GOD DAMM—” and hitting the ground he was quiet for a moment before getting up and sprinting like a Kenyan trying to catch a genie that would make him white. Panting, huffing and breathing hard he jumped, gripped and pulled himself into a dumpster and did his best to shut up with all the noise and heavy breathing and as he waited he faintly heard the stomping boots of the officers. The sound grew louder and they passed, all spare one. One smart CP.

“Keep going, I’m going to check this dumpster.”

He couldn’t rustle too much, but either way this guy was gonna peak in. So he did what any great man would do, he farted and screamed “NO MEANS NO!” while wildly firing his pistol in the direction of the face peaking in. One shot hit the metal faceplate of the CP and he wailed, screeched and tried desperately to gain his composure as he aimed and fired at the dumpster. After nine shots Thaddeus popped up and over shooting once again into the CPs chest as the other came running back. Pulling a lighter from his pocket he grabbed a garbage bag filled with paper, ripped it open and set fire to it. As the boots grew louder once again he threw it out in the direction opposite of which he came and jump out, running again from whence he came.

“OH FUCK, OH FUCK, OH FUCK, OH FUCK, OH FUCK!” he shouted with enthusiasm and despair, turning a corner he again was struck by a pistol round in the lower lower left part of his torso and as he ran he felt blood pouring out and his cramp became something of otherworldly pain. Perturbed, angered and prepared to die he loaded his last magazine into his USP, turned and sprayed seven rounds into the quickly approaching opposition. Two of the three went down and the last one shouted, “I know who you are, citizen!”

“THEN YOU MUST KNOW THAT I AM ZEUS, MASTER OF THUNDER.” jumping from around the corner he met his pursuer face to face as he attempted to come around the corner to attack him. They bumped into each other, looked at each other for a moment before Thaddeus bull-tackled him through the abdomen, slamming the butt of his pistol into the neck piece of the CPs armor. The CP in response reached for his pistol that dropped upon being tackled, realizing this Thaddeus put the pistol to the chest of the CP and fired twice. Panting, allowing himself to drop and rest on the body of the fallen he realized someone was watching him. It was Kyle.

“YOU FUCKING SHOT MY SCALP HALF OFF YOU DIRTY PIECE OF —” and he fired again, killing Kyle, terrified.

“You must be Hercules. It’s too bad I had to kill my own son.”

On the Outlands server tomorrow in the early evening (6-9 [oh sex pun]) we'll be putting together the societal structure of the Castle migrants. To bring some form of civilized life to the Outlands we have to start simple and I feel that the agora was the simplest but most effective means available to reaching that end. Aside from that everyone worthwhile will be recruited into the bar's old security team to be molded into what will hopefully be the Resistance; which will be the beginning of 'training'. So hope to see you guys on.

The Castle has established itself as the only standing loosely organized place where regular, red-blooded human beings could go to embrace the way life used to be on Earth before the invasion. For weeks planning has been undergone, recruitment managed and unwritten laws instituted while insider suppliers have stockpiled food and untainted water in preparation to move the defiant and willing people outside of the city to rebuild human civilization in the beginning form of a village. Once the food and water has been placed in its proper place and worthwhile citizens gathered and prepared all these people will move through the canals to Ineu Pass to start work on a legitimate and worthwhile association of free men and women. To participate in this event you

A ) Can't be a loyalist, should go without saying
B ) Have to express your want to go to the Outlands and follow through while pledging allegiance to the cause
C ) You MUST be a decent roleplayer, capable and used to using good grammar. If it sounds elitist, tough titty. This kind of roleplay requires experienced roleplayers or people capable of critical thinking and decent roleplay.

It'll be going down sometime next week, the exact date is being withheld to prevent metagaming.

Full Name: Thaddeus Morrigan
Citizen identification(CID): 77173
Last Assigned Apartment Number: None
Total Loyalist Points: 1
Sex: Male
Age: 19

How long have you been in City45:
One Year IC, Two Months OOC

Why do you want to join the CWU?:
After having my CA character I made Thaddeus Morrigan to do what I couldn't in public. With that character gone I'm left wondering how I'll continue my projects without City Administrator funding so I'd very much like to work with the CWU on things that we have closely in common.

Have you ever been detained before?(If so why):
No.

Past experience with work/labor:
I started the Civil Affairs Bureau and the Universal Union Warehouse.

The CAB gathers information pertaining to temporary workers, their pay and news and events on the server. The Universal Union Warehouse started out buying paper and selling it to people who didn't have business licenses and providing the CAB with paper to continue collecting data.

Name 4 things the CWU Can possess, and 4 things we cant. Also state why.:
We can possess a Combine Request Device to alert Civil Protection of anti-civil activity. We can possess a handheld radio to stay in contact on matters pertaining to employing citizens and offering them stores and facilities from across the map. We can possess flashlights that are UU branded to see where we usually couldn't. We can possess foods that are UU branded.

We cannot possess foods that are not UU branded. We absolutely cannot possess any weapons, I think its obvious why. We cannot possess armbands that do not associate with the Civil Workers Union because it may represent anti-civil activity and damage our solidarity with the citizenry of the Union. We cannot possess stationary radios because they are not UU branded.

Tell us about what you can do.:
I can take a bunch of random idiots and make them into a team of people who can complete several simple tasks for the good of the Union. If I can find a way for businesses to sustain one another I can sit there for ten minutes and devise a way for them to do so and do so effectively. I'm knowledgeable enough to understand basic economics and how they work and I understand how the economy in the Union should work according to the kind of system and regime it represents.

I can obey orders, so long as they're not unreasonable or seditious in nature. Mind you, if I have a suggestion that I believe might bring us to the result we desire more effectively, I feel it'd be better for me to speak it than to idly carry on though if it would be denied once I won't question further.

All around, I have a great desire to provide passive roleplay opportunities that are interactive, immersive and still productive in character. I have a bleeding heart for the less popular and the newcomers.

If a citizen asks for help and is new to the city, what would you do?:
I would give him a Breen water and a UU branded potato and offer him either work or if I couldn't direct him to the Civil Housing block to be assigned and welcome him to my home in the event he needed to. I would also be very sure to tell him to not run under any circumstances.


Name: Roven
Timezone: Central
SteamID: STEAM_0:1:33096973
Roleplay Experience: 6 Years in Half Life 2 RP
Serious Roleplay Experience: 6 Years in Half Life 2 RP
Detail a regular day as a worker of the CWU?:
Establish a place of business and if possible offer small oddjobs if not temporary work to sensible people who asked or showed interest. I would keep an eye out for anti-civil activity and do my best to remind my fellow citizens of whats asked of us by the Union.

In the event someone came to me for help, I would help them and credit the Union for giving me the opportunity to do so. If possible I would expand to another business to further the ability of the average citizen to both roleplay and make a small bit of money for lack of frequent ration handouts.

Character Backstory:
Thaddeus Morrigan is from Texas born of Irish heritage. Before the war he ran a spray paint canning company that specialized in custom paints that provided better formulas that gave a glossier look or a matte-like look, whatever the customer required. When the 7 Hour War happened Thad armed himself with a crack open single shot shotgun and managed to kill a Vortigaunt but once he saw what he was fighting he abandoned the idea and quickly left town. Once he heard that cities were being walled and defended by the Combine he quickly arrived at City 18 but after its destruction was transferred to City 45 where he began working for the CWU on occasion before being introduced to Dr. Corbin Mitchell during one of his speeches. After meeting him, he saw a genuine concern for the citizens and was convinced that in some way the Union could certainly benefit humanity. This was his cause for aiding Dr. Corbin Mitchell outside the Nexus for all of his business projects, citing his business experience.

After the disappearance of the City Administrator Corbin Mitchell he had no funding to continue managing the projects and eventually decided to take a chance applying for membership in the Civil Workers Union, hoping that his experience and loyalty to the City Administration would be cause for his acceptance.

I'm aware we all like to:

A) Act like pretentious cocksuckers
B) Fuck
C) Do drugs

but I have to suggest that we come up with something more productive, more Half Lifey than that (other than pulling the stupidest of stupids and shooting at Overwatch units). Agricultural initiatives, people with weapons doing more than walking around with them and shooting smart asses, we should actually come together and act like humans trying to overcome the Universal Unions inter-dimensional regime. Maybe I've been gone a couple weeks but something tells me not too much progress has been made on that end and being that there's such a tiny fabric of super-serious roleplay (ma favorite) on Outlands I figured we should have a little thinktank thread on how to improve things.

I said Agricultural initiatives, armed groups acting towards the greater good of the population and I guess it'd be pretty badass if we had some sort of mildly republic-ish or democratic system for the village. A village council, something of that general, vaguely related nature. Just to bring something more to do other than jibber jabber about how badass we were before the war. Mind you, I am not down for nominating someone to a position of badassery or responsibility simply because they had the money to buy a rebel vest.

Okay, thinktanks blitzkrieg.