OPEN' i must be running out of luck

[strangerdanger]

WAKE UP, I'M POUNDING ON THE DOOR.

It started as a light drizzle in the early brushes of the morning, a mist over everything. From then on the day grew greyer and greyer, clouds moving in over parts of the city over the tops of decrepit buildings, threatening to get worse as each minute dragged by. There was no way of knowing if the storm would move on quickly or get worse any second. As Becky looked up at the clouds fast approaching where she stood in a secluded corner of the park, she was going to guess that the drizzle would be getting much worse before it got better. With that thought in mind, she made her way across to the more popular parts of what was left of the city. She moved around the direct routes, wary of raiders and bad people that lurked around those parts. Becky had seen people attacked and robbed in the streets and she did not want to join them.

Her hood did little to help against the rain as it started to fall harder, pattering against the leaves that she walked by swiftly. She bent down a bit out of habit to hide herself fro any prying eyes, though the rain obscured her vision as much as it would anyone else’s outside that day. Her boots crunched through the overgrown grass, leaving a trail behind her that she covered as much as she could by changing her direction every now and then, going past the more open spots where she could be spotted. Becky was always careful when she was outside in the open like that. She didn’t like to talk to people and she didn’t like to be seen when she could help it. Every once in a while she would run into another person in her position: alone, liking it that way. There were the groups that meshed together, finding more strength in numbers, but Becky didn’t let on her trust that easily and she was very cautious of strangers who could have merely been playing a role to catch prey.

Teeth chattering, Becky took long strides towards the first building that she saw that looked like it hadn’t been touched in the last few weeks. She got inside and immediately leaned back against the interior wall, sighing and resting her head against the wall. She closed her eyes and lowered her hood; drops of water rolled down her face and through her hair and she ran one hand through her oily hair, pushing the colorless locks away from her forehead. Her fingers were like shards of ice stuck to her hands and she clasped them together, pushing herself away from the wall and looking around to make sure that she was alone. The rain pounded audibly on the roof and against the shattered windows, streaming inside at some spots, making little rivers on the cracks in the floor.

She walked into the main part of the building, looking around with her arms tight around her stomach, retaining as much of her body’s warmth as she could. It was better than being outside in the rain but not much warmer. It was the library, she realized as she looked upon the rows and rows of books and bindings left to wither and mold on their shelves. A lot of the columns of shelves had been knocked over onto one another; pages were all over the floor, torn and tattered, taken as kindling for fires probably. Becky sifted through some of them with the toe of one of her heavy boots, drops of water falling and staining the pages darker. She had a lighter in her pocket with her cigarettes; if it came down to it, she could stay there until the storm was over and build a small fire in some secluded corner where it wouldn’t be noticed. There had to be at least a vending machine in a place that big but there was the chance that it was already cleaned out of everything. She could still check.

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[jeremy albion]

everyone will come to my funeral to make sure that i stay dead

The library was large and the reading content was vast. The grey light from the outside world shone in through the occasional window, only illuminating the building very slightly. The lights had long since blown out, and nobody would replace them, if anyone had even gone into the library anyway. Small blades of grass had crept in through the entrance, up through the cracks in the worn-away pavement outside the building and then expanding inwards. The library seemed to smell of dead people, Jeremy noticed - he decided to try and not explore the whole library fully, just go to sections he needed. Hiss hazel-brown hues flickered through the massive vault of knowledge before him - though dust clogged the air, the few libraries scattered around Leeds were his personal sanctuary outside of the laboratory, and a place of great knowledge. Balancing a small torch on his right ear, tucked in on the top next to his hair, his eyes searched through the words of one of the best fictional novels of the twentieth century - Nineteen eighty-four, by George Orwell.

He was wearing his usual attire - a black short with a Heavy Metal band name, simple black jeans, high boots, double pistols on his hips. His dark hair sagged to his right, as he hadn't showered yet that day. He was laying down on a row of four soft chairs, several tattered and foam poking through, probably from years ago when the raiding was much higher. As he read the book, he chewed on a small piece of white bread. He wasn't running low on supplies as he had raided a supermarket just the week before, but he liked the taste of plain bread.

He was just starting to re-read the book again - he hadn't found a legible copy in months. He quickly read the pages; to the untrained eye it would seem that he was skimming it, but he took in every word of the book. It was a skill he developed when he was just coming up to his teen years - how to read a book quickly but to still maximise pleasure and intake of knowledge. He had often surprised his teachers on how fast he had read a book they had given him to read.

Jeremy had left his house at sunrise - raiders were few and far between at this time. During the two years he had only ran into a handful of raiders, but each time it was a close shave. He had got into his car - he had long since forgot the make - and drove all the way to the library, before taking out the car battery and placing it in the boot. This took half an hour, as this was routine for Jeremy - better safe than sorry, you didn't want a raider driving off in your only mode of transport.

He sighed as he heard the hard pitter-patter of rain against the concrete ceiling; he had forgot to pack waterproof clothing. He stood up, yawning, before closing his book with a bookmark he had found lying on the floor. He threw it to the ground, with a loud sound that resonated throughout the library. Little did he know, someone else was in the library and probably heard him.

[strangerdanger]

WAKE UP, I'M POUNDING ON THE DOOR.

Silences followed her everywhere she went. There was nothing much to challenge it. There were cars sometimes, people driving them down cracked streets, avoiding the overturned cars and carts, rubbish left out on the sidewalks and on the roads. And of course there were all other the bodies and their parts that littered the streets like bits of paper. Becky was used to those now but she remembered the feeling she got when she saw them two years ago, when everything first started to fall apart. Leeds would never feel like home to her; she had only lived there for a few weeks before the virus started to spread and there was no going anywhere else. She didn’t know anywhere else that she could go. She didn’t have any family anywhere else, and she didn’t know anyone. Even if she could have left, if she knew a place to go that might have been even a little bit better than this, the journey could have her killed by raiders or men with guns and loose morals. She was as safe now in Leeds as she could ever be anywhere else.

The silence was sliced by the rhythm of the rain. It grew softer and louder while Becky walked, fascinated by the shelves upon shelves of old books. Her time as a student in high school and middle school wasn’t one that she thought very much of; Becky had never been smart like her dad expected her to be. She made average grades at the best and had only a few friends who she could talk to during classes. Outside of school, she was a bit more popular with guys a few years older than her. She found a place with them, where she could be just another of the guys as that was the way that she came across most of the time. It was her style of dress, ratty jeans and t-shirts, nothing that a girl would want to wear. All girls, no matter who they were or what they looked like, reminded her of her sister and all of her bitchy little friends; they were quick to taunt Becky and her boyish habits, her ugliness as they called it and flaunted it to make themselves smile.

Now that she was alone in a place like that where learning used to take place, Becky felt like she didn’t belong there. They might have only been ruins but they jeered at her in the silence. She knelt down and picked a thin book from under a few sheets of stained paper. It was a picture book, the colors faded with age and the dirt and she could only partially see what the story was in the dim light. Looking up to the nearest window, she walked over closer to where the light streamed in from the moon and held the pictures up. She thought that she recognized the pictures, the captions naming things in a room all in little rhymes. She found the words forming on her lips silently as she turned the page. It cracked quietly and she frowned at its fragility.

She blinked when she heard a thud somewhere in the building and she lowered the book to her side, closing it without a sound. She squinted into the darkness and placed the book on the nearest desk, reaching into her pocket and making sure that her large hunting knife was right there if she needed to get at it quickly. There was enough light streaming in for her to see, though she still squinted, just in case. Catching a shiver down her spine with a trickle of water against her cold skin, Becky clenched her teeth together to avoid them chattering.

Not knowing the building very well didn’t affect her search for whoever else was there and she was relieved to see that it was only one person, someone who looked about the same age as her, as far as she could see from where she was standing. She looked at him from around the corner of a bookshelf and considered how long it would take her to get out of the building without him following behind her. She didn’t want to go back out to the rain, and in the dark now, but she would if she had to.

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[jeremy albion]

four rusted horses, strangled by their own rope

Silence was one of the banes of Jeremy's life. At every possible point he would listen to loud music, or create noise, or something to help him concentrate wqithout the cold, deathly silence filling the room. Unfortunately, today, he had forgot to bring his music player. He didn't mind, because when reading books he would enter a trance like state - he would hear what was being said in the book like someone in the room was saying it. For some odd reason, he had always felt safe in Leeds - even when he was being attacked by Raiders. Indeed, he hated the constant silence, but he liked the fact that no-one was outside, so he could work on without much interruption - although he really did need an assistant or a team to help him.

He looked to his left, his torch shining through the air; he was looking at a map on how to get to the biology section. Although he was good at biology and virology, he was only nineteen; he would have just finished his schooling if the virus hadn't taken place. And although he had probably advanced further than he would have if he had other things to distract him, he still wouldn't be as good as a university graduate - yet. His brown orbs scanning the map, he raised his right brow. From what he was aware, the biology section was a minute's walk from this point - he needed to turn right. He checked his bag; he had left the test tubes and sample bags at the lab as to give him some more space for books. His light shined downwards to the wooden floor for a moment, and Jeremy noted the damp patches where water had trickled in through broken windows. If he came here more often he would, of course, fix these up - however, there was a library closer to his base. He had decided to test out this one just the same week.

However, as his torch shined upwards, he did notice a strange shadow fall across the ground - a human sized and human shaped shadow. Instantly his survival instincts came in. He placed his right hand on his adjacent hip, curling his fingers around the small handgun and lacing his forefinger around the trigger. He stood up, and sighing, walked towards the shadow. He popped his head around the corner, and saw a girl of around his age, illuminated by the light of his torch. He relaxed the grip on his gun and sighed, his eyes looking sternly at the girl. Although he had seen female raiders before, she didn't look the type; she just looked like someone who was sheltering from the cold storm outside.

"Uhm... Hey. You here for shelter or have you come to try and rob or kill me?" He asked, with a small smile, trying to make himself seem as un-intimidating as possible - if this girl was trying to harm him, she would be taken unaware by his brutality when it came to dealing with raiders, and if she were indeed kind he would try and befriend her. A small hope raised in his heart - human life was scarce around Leeds, and more were dying every day - that perhaps she had immunity to the virus too.

Or maybe she was just lucky.

[strangerdanger]

WAKE UP, I'M POUNDING ON THE DOOR.

Becky might have been signing her own death sentence by refusing to carry a gun with her at all times like the people that she saw around the city, but that didn’t stop her from doing it. She didn’t believe in guns and they would only make things worse before they got better. She knew that sometimes they were simply used for hunting purposes; she wasn’t ignorant enough not to believe that. But when it came down to it, those bits of metal were nothing short of tools used to scare people with. Becky didn’t need that to complicate her simple life free of violence, as long as she could prevent it. What she carried with her was for practical usages, her large sharp hunting knife in its sheath. Hunting was one thing that she was good at; Becky could catch and kill a rabbit or a deer with that one knife, cut it just right and keep as much of its meat to eat without a single problem. She used to camp a lot as a kid and two years of practice recently had made her rather good at it.

She didn’t know why she went looking for the other person who was with her in the library. She didn’t even know that it was another person. It could have been that the wind blowing in from one of the many shattered windows had knocked over one of the books or a chair and the sound had resonated in a loud echo. Or maybe it was a mouse scurrying through the corridors between the shelves. Well, a rat would have made a louder noise or another rodent of that sort. There were plenty of animals taking shelter in the abandoned buildings, if not more than the amount of people. Animals lasted much longer, didn’t they? They had survival skills already without relying on technology and modern advancements. Perhaps the mice and rats didn’t even notice much of a change compared to the vast different that she was having to deal with. It was a person though that she found and she knew after a brief moment of thought that she had gone to find that stranger because she would know then if they were a friend or a foe, if they needed help or were going to wreak havoc on the building. From there she could decide further what actions she would take.

Her body tensed as the stranger found her in the shadows and she felt her eyebrows tense as well, holding that expressionless look that she knew the feeling of very well. Becky didn’t show any fear on her face and with that came the inability to smile or to cry, to laugh. She didn’t even remember how those things felt. She wasn’t one to smile beforehand; any reasons now might as well have been lost too. Her knife was in her pocket and she was on her way to reaching for it just in case when the guy lowered his weapon a little and spoke to her. His smile went past her; she didn’t trust those looks from anyone. Smiles were deceiving and misleading.

Becky shook her head a little after a few seconds of silence, only interrupted by the rain and the shifting whisper of pages and rain water trickling in through the cracks. “I just came in to get out of the rain,” she said softly, her voice scratchy from lack of using it. She didn’t have a reason to talk when there was no one around for her to converse with. She didn’t talk to herself; more often she thought to herself, long conversations with the various sides that she lived with, telling her how to live, what to do, when to go hunting, when to get off the streets. She didn’t usually need anyone else and she didn’t want anyone else. Becky was used to being on her own.

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[jeremy albion]

mum and dad went to a show, dropped me off at grandpa joe's, I kicked and screamed, said, please, don't go

Jeremy really disliked guns; he wished upon the dying hope for Earth that they weren't necessary for survival in this harsh, degrading world in which the remaining humans lived. However, upon the realisation of what he had to do, he wouldn't allow himself to die - thus, he took it upon himself to carry a gun not because he liked the violence or the 'power' it gave him, but because the research he was conducting was far too precious for him to die before it was complete, no matter what the result of his experiments. He rarely had to use his guns, fortunately - and when he did, he aimed to maim, not to kill. A good shot or two would disable a hostile enemy. Jeremy found excitement welling to the surface as he heard the girl say she had just came in to find shelter from the outside storm. He hadn't met a non-hostile human in at least a year, yet alone talked to one. He rubbed his right hand into his forehead, and in the sudden silence the rain slamming against the windows sounded like hailstones. Every day, young Jeremy found a new corpse of another human succumbing to the virus, whether it be male, female, white, black, raider, innocent, god-fearing, athiest.

Humans are all equal in the way they die.

Unlike Rebecca, Jeremy found himself talking to himself often enough to help retain his sanity - though, some will beg to differ about this behaviour. He smiled at the young girl, thinking of what to say.

"I'll take your word for it that you're not going to kill me, then... the name's Albion, Jeremy Albion." He paused, before turning around and sitting back down on one of the chairs he had laid upon. "A pleasure to meet you, m'lady." He said, with a mock nod of the head. He ran his right hand through his hair again, ruffling it slightly as he wondered what to say.

"There is room enough for two in this place, but if you want me to I'll leave you be and go back to base once I've picked up a few books... your decision." He growled, before slightly regretting saying he'd leave. This was the first human contact he'd had in months, at least with someone who wasn't trying to kill him! And yet he still had to remain courteous and socially acceptable...

For he had not yet given up hope.

He sat back in his chair, for a moment. Hopefully he'd be able to befriend this girl - after all, he needed someone to help him, and she seemed the vulnerable type, at least to him anyway. He sighed and awaited her response.

[strangerdanger]

WAKE UP, I'M POUNDING ON THE DOOR.

Becky sometimes went out of her way to avoid people when she saw them on the street. There was no way of knowing whether they would be civilized, as civilized as anyone could be these days, or nervous of contact like Becky was. Raiders were everywhere, the dangerous kind that didn’t care who they hurt or stepped on in the path of getting what they wanted. There were radical people who wanted to form their own new forms of government in the wake of the death of all of civilization in the city. Murderers and thieves were everywhere, hidden and in the open; Becky was a thief as well but she stole only what she needed, with the exception of her CDs every now and again, to kill the silence that settled in during the night and on the outskirts of the city, right inside the quarantine zone.

A drop of water rolled down her forehead along her cheek and she wiped at it absently, pushing her hair back again. The strands were stringy and matted in some places. More than once Becky had considered chopping all of her hair off so that she wouldn’t have to worry as much about brushing it and keeping it clean. But she never did and she just trimmed it every once in a while with her knife, usually when she was bored. She picked at hr fingernails and the frayed edges of her jeans too with that knife, before the sun went down, sitting up in a tree at the park where she could see in every direction if there was someone coming towards her.

Becky stared at him until he sat down and then she let her gaze drop significantly. Her fingers were pretty frozen from the cold shower outside and she shoved her hands into her pockets, remembering that one of the reasons she had walked into the library had been for food. She looked around and found a hallway that looked like it might lead to a back room where the staff would have hung out during their breaks. What were the chances of there being a vending machine back there? How many people would have had the same idea? The library didn’t exactly scream ‘food source’.

She glanced at the guy as he introduced himself, but she said nothing back to him. What turned her off was his use of the word lady, which she did not associate with herself. She felt the silence grow a bit after he spoke and she said stiffly and softly, her voice echoing even at that volume, “I’m Becky.”

Shaking her head, she shrugged to his statement about leaving. He was right; the library was more than enough for both of them to stay in to wait out the storm and for him to get his books. Becky was a little curious about what he was reading about but her stomach twisted in hunger and she started walking back in the direction that she had been looking in before.

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