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 Posted: Thu Dec 03, 2009 5:22 am
When Trace finally came-to, days later and with a throbbing headache, it was safe to say that he had no idea how he had gotten there. Something about a fire, an exploding television... James Dean? And oh, he was starving. He struggled to his feet, pushing away debris as he stood, and then nearly doubled over from the pain of it.
This made sense, of course. He had not eaten in, well, however many days he'd been unconscious under the rubble pile. Trace swallowed dryly and forced himself to stand. He needed to find food. Not just any food, though: He wanted meat. He tried to convince himself with images of a big, juicy steak, hotdogs, stacks grilled chicken piled high as the sky... and what he kept coming back to was the dream about devouring Sue.
Unlike the last time he'd thought about it, this time the image did not make Trace want to retch. In fact, it seemed quite appetizing.
He began to pick his way across the wreckage that had once been Barren Pines, looking for anything - someone who could explain to him what was going on, something to eat - maybe he'd even find Sue.
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Posted: Thu Dec 03, 2009 7:24 am
Giselle had resisted eating anyone so far.
She had even resisted when Elke was standing an inch in front of her, practically waiting for it, and through the sheer bloody-minded determination that she tackled all her problems with, she had managed to continue to abstain all this time. But the hunger got stronger the longer she put it off, and the more she went without food, the weaker her capability to function got. The power she felt at first simmered dangerously under the surface as she lost more and more of her remaining ability to control it. Vaguely, she wondered if this was how Robespierre felt in the Reign of Terror. It was terrifying to lose control.
She couldn't stay around other students too long, in fact, she wouldn't trust herself around, for lack of a better term, living students at all, even if they weren't attacking, for lack of a better term, undead students on sight. At the point she had reached in her degeneration, Giselle was beginning to realize that collecting living students' accounts of the fire was nothing more than a pipe dream unless they were shouting stories at her from the other side of a locked door. She could barely handle seeing the undead without the hunger pangs increasing, after all.
She smelled something in the air, and looked up to see a student she didn't quite recognize. He was undead at least, which was a relief, but at the sight of him, her stomach let out a demanding rumble. She winced, but came up to him anyway, attempting to collect herself and act in a way that was more like when she was, for lack of a better term, alive. Straightening up as best she could, she stuck out a clammy hand and said "Giselle Petrova," by way of introduction. If she couldn't collect living students' stories of the fire, she might as well keep on collecting dead ones'. Failure was not an option.
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Posted: Thu Dec 03, 2009 7:44 am
Giselle looked, for lack of a better description, greenish. Since the possibility of a student production of Wicked seemed pretty much out of the question, Trace was left confused. He wasn't clear on what was going on, or how he'd gotten here. All better logic said he ought to be dead right now, after all.
"Trace Cornelius," he answered, a bit cautious to return the handshake. Her hands were cold!
So were his, he realized. And it might not only have been because he'd been lying out exposed to the elements for several days. Chilling realization seemed to drip down his spine. "Are we..." He dropped his voice to a whisper. "...dead?"
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Posted: Thu Dec 03, 2009 9:38 am
"As far as I know, yes, Trace." Giselle said curtly. "I remember dying in the fire, and these symptoms are certainly suggestive." She pulled her hand away from his and wiped it off on her torn nightgown. "I am assuming that we are, for lack of a better term, undead at the moment. Whether there's a cure or not and how we got to be this way are a few things I'm trying to find out. Can you remember anything about the fire?"
With Sebastién she had helped kill her hunger by looking away. With Trace, she was going to have to watch him until she got an idea of whether or not he was hostile, and her stomach hated her for it, grumbling loudly.
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Posted: Thu Dec 03, 2009 6:54 pm
Trace thought about it, but beyond an exploding television he had very little to go by. "I don't remember much," he replied. "Not really."
Almost as if in reply to her stomach, his own grumbled loudly as well. Trace staggered backwards, his feet shifting awkwardly on a stack of loose bricks he was balanced on. "I'm starving," he confessed weakly, feeling self conscious. "Are you starving? I could really go for... I dunno. Liver. Or intestines. I'm not in a position to be picky."
The fact that this no longer made him want to retch was getting to be less and less strange by the minute.
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Posted: Fri Dec 04, 2009 8:08 am
Giselle didn't let her frustration show beyond a furrowing of the brow as Trace admitted to not remembering much. No one remembered much, it seemed. No one that had died, anyway. If she could just get to the students who hadn't...
No time for that now. She didn't even know where they were, let alone whether she could resist them. Surely someone whose skin wasn't green and cold would look far more tempting than one who was, and she wasn't sure that she could keep herself together if she tried to test that theory and turned out to be right. Even if she could, they would most likely attack her. The whole ordeal would be suicide.
If she still had something resembling a life to take from herself, that was.
At the words 'liver' and 'intestines' she let out a faint groan. It was not one of disgust. "A-as far as I know, there's no food on campus." she managed to say, but she looked him up and down as she said it.
It was like with Sebastién. He was starting to look incredibly appetizing.
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Posted: Fri Dec 04, 2009 2:01 pm
Trace swallowed and it tasted like bile and soot. He did not like the way she was looking at him. "We could go look," he suggested, and any other time he would have turned his back on her and expected her to follow, but right now he didn't trust her. Not if she was anywhere near as hungry as he was. Not if everyone one of the undead had just as few qualms about eating a classmate right now as he did.
He motioned with a sweep of his arm, as if to say, 'ladies first.' "After you," intoned Trace.
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Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 10:03 pm
Giselle took one step forward, surprised at this unexpected courtesy, and then one step later, she paused.
'After you' implied 'Let me walk behind you'.
"This is no time for chivalry." she informed Trace flatly. "If we walk at an even pace, we won't have to worry about," a pause, barely a beat in her dialogue, but certainly present, then she said, "losing each other."
She didn't know him, but she didn't trust him. She didn't trust him or his stomach, and he wasn't going to get the better of her by filling his mouth with false manners and polite pretensions. She was onto him. She could see inside this Trojan horse, and she was not going to let him out of her sight.
"Where do you suggest we search?"
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Posted: Sun Dec 06, 2009 2:03 pm
Trace nodded. It had not occurred to him that she might suspect him of trying to do the same thing he feared she would attempt. Now that she had refused, though, he understood, and nodded. "Alright," he said, falling into step beside her. "Do you think there is anyone left in... er..."
He gestured widely to the wreckage that surrounded them. "The building," he said flatly, although it was not much of a building anymore. If Giselle was dead and he was dead yet they were undead enough to have this conversation, they couldn't possibly be the only ones in their condition. Either there were survivors, or there were other... zombies?
He felt too intelligent to be a zombie.
"Have you seen Aggie?" he asked, as this was the natural progression of thoughts about other possible un-survivors.
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Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 2:54 pm
"Who?" Giselle demanded. She had barely known anyone at Barren Pines well enough to attach names to their faces, and perhaps if Trace had said 'That girl with really long pink pigtails', Giselle could have answered him better. As it was, he might as well have said 'Have you seen David Bowie' for all the good it did.
As for his other question, she nodded emphatically. "I've met a few others like us, so I feel it's safe to say that at least those who died in the fire are in our condition. And I've heard there are some survivors, but they appear to be openly hostile. The school itself is still partially intact, so I feel most are in there. I went in earlier, myself, with Sebastién."
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Posted: Wed Dec 09, 2009 5:51 am
"Sebastien's like this, too?" asked Trace. Although Aggie was still missing in action, it was... a relief? to know the fate of another friend. He cast his eyes in the direction of the still-standing section of the school and seemed to flinch away from it. Openly hostile, huh? Well, he knew better than to walk into that, even if he was already dead.
He was not sure he wanted to test out the logistics of this situation any further than he had to. It seemed - no, it was - impossible. His stomach rumbled loudly again.
"Let's find something to eat," Trace groaned.
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Posted: Wed Dec 09, 2009 10:26 am
"Yes. I think most of our classmates are." Giselle said offhandedly.
"Food, yes." Again her eyes slid over to Trace, but there was no way she could take him down. He was too big, and he looed stronger than her- Not that she should be thinking these thoughts anyway -her mind hastily interjected. She looked ahead. "Well, let's try the dining hall. Maybe there's something there."
Despite that it would have been wiser to avoid it, she headed over to the school.
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