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  • Care will kill a cat (Llenne's journals)

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Tell your day-to-day stories here
 #5908  by Llenne
 
My first memory is of cold, of flexing my hands slowly for no other reason than because I still could. I didn't try to get up and run, I just sat there in the cold, back to a wall. Something wet ran down my pants; I didn't have to check to know that it was red.

There was no surge of panic like I would have expected, no fear or anger. Emotion drained out of me with my blood. Death's seductive chill loosened the knot in my throat and urged me to just...lean back and sleep, to let the cold take me and extinguish the fire licking my injuries.

And then, strength. Rage. The sudden urge to get up and fight, to do something. The incomprehensible urge that made me push myself upright with my rifle, balancing myself on my good leg.

Even still, I didn't have the fortitude to look down and investigate why my socks were soaked and why a squish was heard off when I leaned over.

Then, nothing. The playback ended and I woke up in a bed with too many blankets. I changed my bandages, made peace with the hunger that turned stomach once more and went back into the world.
 #5912  by Llenne
 
My memories of anything prior to the infection that created the Unconsecrated are alien; a life in which one does not have to rob, hide or kill seems incomprehensible now.

The world went dark, a few years ago.

It was all hysteria, bio weapons, Doomsayers and Internet theories aplenty. Government plots walking sideways like crabs. Deny all knowledge. Compliance is mandatory.

The radio broadcasts of December; "the government is working to bring this situation to a swift resolution..."

Remain calm. Remain isolated. "The spread of an unknown pathogen..."

And the world went quiet.
Last edited by Llenne on Wed Sep 07, 2016 12:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
 #5917  by Llenne
 
You wouldn't believe how quickly things fall apart until it happens.

Muzzle flashes and the rise of dust. Muffled gunfire in broad day and sharp knives and chloroform in the night.

A group of men clad in black holding you at gunpoint and inviting you to do work with them. For them. Three years into the Outbreak, I know better to refuse bands like that; I know I can bide my time, play along then split at the first sign of complacency. It wouldn't be the first time.

But for some reason, I feel compelled to stay against my better judgement so that I can chase the sound of gunfire and follow men with no past and no future to the brink and back again. They're killers, murderers, bandits and then some but I have no urge to turn tail and run.

At least I'm not alone in this situation. Livin is with me.

But I think he's going to get me killed.
Last edited by Llenne on Wed Sep 07, 2016 11:16 pm, edited 2 times in total.
 #5918  by Llenne
 
I must be stone cold, to still be going through with this. One day, I was communicating with the Marshals over comms as a person angry to have been robbed. Not much later, I was shooting at cars to actively sabotage other survivors.

The boys finally hounded me, cornered me and forced me to yield at gunpoint. The chat was brisk; there wasn't much to say. There wasn't anything said that I disagreed with.

A part of me wonders if my hands shook. Did my voice waver - my resolve, falter?

But I know it didn't. It never does. My hands never shake and I never spook. That's what I've learned about myself because of all this; I am never afraid. I'm always steady, unwavering. Willing to die but not willing to quit.

What does that say about me? Who will I be tomorrow?
 #5921  by Llenne
 
Who I am today is "Llenne" and I suppose that I'm a part of the crew, now. Though their names have the bark of call-signs and gang monikers, they've become familiar; Mongo, Kix, Butcher, Lawless, Toolio, Foog, Skull and some suspected former merc nick-named 'Hired'.

They offer everything my old friends couldn't provide: support, loyalty, status, protection... Some kind of reason to bother getting up in the morning for something other than hiding in the woods and waiting for it to all be over.

It's never going to be over. Why wait?

They jumped me in shortly after Livin ended his life because he lacked the mentality required to do this kind of work; it must be implicitly understood that we are already dead and that nothing can possibly hurt us now.

The past couple of weeks have been a mess of injuries and constant pain but I've pushed through. In spite of that, I can smile past the blood and fold my newly stained hands serenely.

Others don't seem to notice any of what's going on. Maybe one day, people will stop trying to convince me to join up with some other band. I guess that, even with the bruises, I still have an angel's face - why wouldn't they expect better of me?
 #5926  by Llenne
 
It's a curious thing, to watch post-cataclysm law enforcement at work. Much like it is with the rest of us, it's difficult to tell whether or not they're the good guys of the story that we're still writing.

What is it that drives them forward? What is their interest, their motive, the thing that guides their hand and rules their hearts? They could just leave things as they are; let Chernarus flood so all the shit can float out.

But they don't. They never do. They never will. The Marshals and their Deputies, in their infinite programming, insist on tackling every single problem whenever possible.

Perhaps is it that inaction simply frightens them, and so, they've relegated themselves to fighting in the judgement hall forever. Guardians and Gatekeepers or not, killing is killing; there's nothing you can say to a man that you're about to kill that will convince him that he deserved it.

Every story needs a hero and a villain. And when the Marshal and the Deputies roll around, looking very much like bandits themselves and raise their guns while barking orders - do they ever wonder which they are?
 #5932  by Llenne
 
My bad leg buckled and the ground rushed up to meet me. Before the black dots swarming my vision managed to shade my gaze completely, I lifted my eyes and looked to the Marshal for some kind of guidance. For some kind of answer. It seemed like the right thing to do; it seemed like he would know - was God watching?

Anger and a foolish desire for some kind of... petty vengeance urged me to drag myself forward and pull myself over to him so that I could whisper one more bit of sacrilege.

But then I stopped. I watched him but I couldn't tell if he returned my regard.

The situation was ugly; I could see it in the wildness of Butcher's eyes when I looked over. He wasn't laughing anymore, so concentrated was he on the slaughter. I couldn't blame him; even a sense of humor like his is bound to wane sooner or later. The rush of adrenaline made him blood-drunk, made him seem more threatening than his usual. The intensity in his eyes seemed hopeless.

In spite of the pain and the cold creeping up on me and beginning to settle in my limbs, my gaze drifted back to the Marshal. The comms had long since gone silent. It was just me and Butcher for a slice of forever. Somewhere outside, three of my squad-mates were out of commission - perhaps permanently.

Inside, it was Hell: muzzle blasts and bullet cracks sounded off all around because of the church's acoustics - an explosion of sound in bursts of threes. It was followed by a sudden dull, sack of potatoes thud.

I didn't need to check to know it was Butcher that had dropped.

My eyes unfocused as I reached out to the Marshal and choked out my question;

"Why were you here?"

I don't know if he answered or not. The ringing in my ears might have drowned him out. All I know is that he wore a smile.
 #5944  by Llenne
 
Butcher's laughter yawns as wide as Sheol. I'm sure that if I followed it that I would be ferried from canto to canto and into the deep vestibule of Hell. From there, I would descend into the chasm of pain, just above the din of infinite grief and watch as light grows mute...

...when I waited for light, there came darkness...

Evil, cruelty and human form a symbiosis. We accept it with horrible grace - blasphemous ascension! - we'd live forever if we avoided the hunter's mark.
 #5964  by Llenne
 
It's eerie to stare down sights and finding yourself studying familiar ghosts.

Livin's clothes didn't change postmortem but I know that I buried him six feet deep. Weeks down the line, it seems that his grave never took. A bogeyman wearing his face and garbed in his attire wandered the wastes this week. There was no shamble in the creature's step. It was harsher and crueler than the man it was masquerading as; freed of humanity and spared of remorse. Hollow.

There was no recognition in its eyes when it interacted with others. An empty, inhuman creature that held all of Livin's knowledge.

It even knew fear. It knew exactly what to say when it spoke to Butcher, its voice ragged and worn as it tried to ask for help.

But that thing was not Livin. Upon iron shores, it fought a creature wearing Zohan's face. After a time, they both went into eternal quietude. No one saw it happen, only the bodies were found; two mutilated shades sleek, inhuman features wearing Zohan and Livin's clothes.

The creatures are evidence of monstrosities that were dragged across the divide. Do we even have enough cold iron and silver to prevent other creatures from coming here?
 #5999  by Llenne
 
The silence on the comm-line roared and filled my ears with white noise. That loud, accusatory quiet; "where were you when your friends were being killed? Why didn't you do more?"

Twice, the world went dark.

Momentary indecisiveness bogged me down. A brief indulgence in the fear of death. We were dead on arrival; I don't think that there's anything that we could have done. We were flanked from the second that we got here. Out-numbered, out-gunned, out-maneuvered.

In the distance; bag-pipes. One man's futile attempt at having himself traded in as a hostage in exchange for our squad-mate, perhaps.

A burst of three rang out and silenced the song, forever.

There was strength in our numbers. Power. All of that waned when I found myself alone. Angry, disoriented, desperate - I was surrounded. Staying would see me dropped by one (or both) of the men hiding on the hill. Moving would give away my position and see me killed.

So, I went. Better to die on my feet trying to survive than go quietly.

With a grenade in my hand, I thought such foolish, violent thoughts. I could kill them all and myself with them. I could kill their captive - my friend, and the Marshall. And whoever the fuck else was watching over him too.

But on the doorstep of the station, bloodied, bullet-ridden and out of breath, I found that I just couldn't do it. I couldn't unpin it and kill one of my squad-mates - my friend, my brother - and let him go like that, doom his lungs to be filled with shrapnel and blood.

Thankfully, the blessed black took me away before I could dwell on his fate.