september 2020. welcome to the void.

[modblob]

Who: Everyone in Anchor.
What: Monthly Mingle
When: The Month of September 2020
Where: Around and outside the city.
Warnings: Please add any warnings in the subject lines.

Redshift: Welcome to the v͖͕̺̲̘̱̜͎o̴̦̣̠̦̘̹͞i̯̖d̛̪̬͈̱̦̝͍̕.

Click here to read what characters will experience when arriving in Anchor.

a. the shuffling.

It's dark.

No, like, really dark.

Not only have the lights of the suns been extinguished, but the lights of Anchor are fading as well. It seems the skies are shifting again, and taking Anchor's solar power with them, again. The lights don't fade entirely, leaving Anchor basked in a grayish glow with shadows painting unpleasant shapes along the walls. In parts of Anchor, the emergency lights have come on, illuminating the areas around them in red.

You could be forgiven for assuming the first shadow you see moving is your imagination. But the second or third? And what's that soft moaning noise coming from some of the vents? At first, there's no answer to that question. Then they start appearing.

Zombies. It seems that the cemetery outside was occupied after all. Though not brain-eating, fast-moving zombies, they move in packs, and they're smart. The more of them in one place, the more intelligent their hunting and planning seems to be. Get cornered, and you might find yourself in pieces, in need of new limbs or, y'know, a new life...

If they get a bite in, it's not as bad as your typical zombie apocalypse, but you're in for an unpleasant ride - hallucinations of people you hate will drive you to attack anyone and anything that comes near you. Either that, or visions of people you've failed or disappointed will haunt you. These hallucinations are invisible to everyone else, and last no less than a day.

b. somebody to love.

Maybe the worst part of the zombie invasion, though, is that these are people you recognize. Not all of them, many of the faces of the shambling dead will be completely unfamiliar, but a lot of them are people from home. Loved ones, mortal enemies, and everyone in between. If they get close to you, their almost-familiar voices will start calling your name. Are they still in there? Is it worth finding out?

It's not just faces from home, either. The man from the welcome video shows up in zombie form frequently enough that there has to be more than one, and there's even multiple versions of Creepy Joe limping around, body unmarred by tentacles. Every now and again, pink-haired woman with a familiar voice and a long white dress will shamble out of seemingly nowhere. Endless double-faces, a city's worth of doppelgangers. Some of them seem drawn to places that were significant to them. Others wander aimlessly, making low, sad moaning sounds.

c. home sweet home.

One of the zombies has done the residents of Anchor a favor, though. It walked straight into one of the power generators and shorted it out, releasing the locks on the doors to the fancy apartments down at the base of the city, near the park.

These are multi-level condos with windows that face toward the park and gardens. Each suite has a private bathroom including a tub and shower, a miniature kitchen, and two to three bedrooms. Each one is furnished in soothing pale colors with high-quality furniture.

They're all fit to inhabit, too - if you don't mind the occasional laser scoring on the wall, or that streak of perfectly preserved dried blood. It seems even this place wasn't immune to what happened in the rest of the colony. But there's no sign of anyone being locked in, either. No bodies, no rotting smells, not even dried husks. Just colonial luxury splashed with violence. And the occasional lost zombie.

d. the walking robo-dead.

Even the robots aren't immune to what's going on, it seems. Whenever one comes into contact with a zombie, it seems to short out, going offline until the offending monster has left the area. When it slowly comes back to life, it rolls about drunkenly, slamming into walls, people, and guard rails with equal lazy force. Sooner or later most of the bots in Anchor are affected, wandering aimlessly, trying to serve you sluggishly and usually doing it wrong, or - oh dear, that one's rolling to the edge of one of the upper walkways. You should probably stop it.

Unless you're Kabal or Starscream, then you can just watch it roll over the edge and smash into a million pieces at the bottom, you animal.

Navigation.

Comments

[fishermansweater]

"Just gotta keep them at a distance, then."

It's said with almost pure bravado. He doesn't want to get close to them again, doesn't want to risk seeing the face of sombody he cares about. Once was more than enough to leave him unhappy and uneasy, even before he'd been bitten and things had gone bad like a trackerjacker sting.

Keeping far enough away not to see their faces also means they won't be within biting range.

And if any of them come near his wife, then Finnick has his gun and Annie has the trident.

"You wanna take point, or let me and tell me where to go?"

[treadswater]

She's used to his bravado. Expects it, even. Finnick is who he is, and who he always has been: a cocky pain in the ass with a big heart under it. Honestly, she worries more when he acts serious about fights. So Annie smiles at him and-

And she pauses.

There isn't a quick answer to his question. She has to weigh it all up. Weigh up herself, weigh up Finnick, weigh up the whole fucked up situation. Then:

"I. I can take point. For now. I know where we have to go. It'll be quieter."

And she wants to see how much further her bravery can take them.

[fishermansweater]

She's not used to fighting. Not that Finnick ever really fought very much outside of practice and training, but he'd kept up his training and prepared for the Quell. He'd never suffered the same shocks to his confidence that Annie had. So though she's the one with the knowledge of the immediate situation, he still hadn't wanted to put the pressure on her to be the lead.

That's not how they work, Finnick and Annie. They protect each other, and since they got here, that's mostly meant Finnick on point when they go into any dangerous situation.

But he's not too proud to admit when it would be useful for Annie to lead.

"Ok," he says, sotly. "I've got you if you need me. Let's head out."

[treadswater]

Annie smiles at him, quickly, and leans up to kiss his jaw. "Course you got me."

She'll never doubt it. Not ever.

So they move out into red-lit Anchor, weapons at the ready and steps careful. Moving slow makes her uneasy, but that's something they practised at the Career Academy. Move slow when you have to. Don't give into the pressure to move fast, to run. It's a hard lesson, and she's done her share of panicked flight, but they are just moving. Just on their way to the new area. Nothing's chasing them.

Yet.

About half way there, Annie moves out from beyond a corner, pauses, and walks backward until she's back behind the wall. Careful steps. Quiet steps. No freezing out in the open.

"Hear anything?" she asks, voice pitched low.

[fishermansweater]

He follows after her, a few steps behind where he can watch her and her surroundings, and he lets Annie take the lead. She moves carefully, with the caution they'd been taught as children but haven't always stuck with.

When she pauses then backs up to the wall, he stays in the open for a few moments, scanning the area, then steps back towards his wife.

"I think I can hear something," he says, head tilted low towards her.

"Can't see anything though. Could be far enough away they don't notice if we're careful."

[treadswater]

"Sure," Annie replies, softly. She'd say 'okay', normally, but she wants to be as soft as possible. No harsh consonants. Maybe she's over-thinking it, but that's what she does. Over-thinks.

"I'll. Try."

A deep breath, trying to steady herself and keep her joints loose and moveable. Then she moves. Carefully, smoothly. Trying not to make herself a jerky, noticeable shadow. Or a target.

There are footsteps and she can't help it.

Annie freezes.

[fishermansweater]

He knows how to work with an ally. Finnick stays a few steps behind her, his senses alert -- as alert as they can be after what he'd been through in the last couple of days -- because he needs to watch out for her, and for where she can't see too. He's scanning around them, up past Annie, out to the sides, a glance over the shoulder.

Until he hears it. Unsteady, irregular footsteps.

He looks back around, expecting to see Annie raising the trident. But he doesn't. She's stopped on the spot, and with a lurch in his chest he realizes she's frozen.

"Annie."

He says it in a small, urgent voice, but he also steps closer until he's just behind her, looking past her to see if she's seen something.

"Annie."

[treadswater]

She's trying to move. She really is. But she can't. There are footsteps, multiple. Two attackers approaching? Yes. Two. Different sounds in the footsteps. She can still think, she can.

But she can't move.

She has a weapon. She does. It's a good one. She would just have to throw it, not even stab, though that would be useful. To stab. Lunge, hit a body, pull it back. She could throw and recall.

If she moved.

Finnick's there but she still can't move. Can't she? What if he's too focused on her? And then-

"Four o'clock. Two."

[fishermansweater]

In any other circumstance, he'd reach for her in reassurance, a hand on hers, brushing fingers against her arm, any touch just to ground her and remind her he's here.

But touching a victor when they're wound up like that is a bad idea, and Annie is just as prone to that as Finnick or any of the others.

Instead, he takes a few quick, almost skipping steps until he's between her and the sound of the footsteps. His instincts want to throw something, but Annie has the trident, and she needs it to potentially defend herself.

(He doesn't want to ignore the fact that she's frozen, needs to be brought back to the moment. But he's here to protect her.)

"Mutts?"

He can see them, but the question might help keep her grounded.

And he wants her opinion, too.

[treadswater]

He moves and she can see him now. Between her and the danger and it's stupid, so stupid, how that lessens the grip terror has on her joints, but it does. It helps.

Annie takes a deep breath. Too loud. She's quieter on the exhale, but it's something more than the shallow breathes she'd been doing until he moved.

"Yes. I thin- Um. It's the stumble."

Her thoughts can move and maybe, maybe she can, too.

Cautiously, she tries it. Moving. Tries to shift her weight to lift a foot off the ground, place it somewhere different. Her joints don't crack. The roof doesn't fall. She moves another foot.

[fishermansweater]

He agrees. He probably hadn't even needed to as for his own knowledge, but as a way of keeping Annie here, it seems to have helped, a little. She's breathing better, and he thinks he sees her move in his peripheral vision when he turns his head just slightly so he has both her and the shapes in view.

"Okay. I say we try to sneak past without them noticing. Hard to tell if they've got friends or not."

Tactics are one thing, but what she can actually do might be another. The mutts are still far enough away that Finnick can glance back to Annie for a moment.

"Think you can do it?" It's said with no judgment in it; he just needs to know how she's doing, because that changes what they can do.