The Heart of Decay (1x1)

[Valen]

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you -- Friedrich Nietzsche

Three years ago the world that we knew ended. Everything that was once familiar was destroyed in the blink of an eye. It began with what we came to refer to as "The Plague". People started getting sick, real sick. What we didn't know at the time was that as they lay on their sickbeds, they were rotting from the inside. The plague was virulent. It spread from host to host before they even knew they had it. Before we had chance to react, they died.

But they didn't stay dead.

The victims rose again as cannibalistic, feral creatures. They could not be stopped. All across the world, civilisation crumbled, and we degenerated into a society where only the strongest and fittest survived.

It is in this fractured world you try to eke out a living, however best you can. Wake. Eat. Sleep. Survive. This is the best you can hope for, here in the heart of decay.

Yet, little do you know that things are about to change.

You are the unwilling recipients of an object of vital importance. Tasked with a dangerous cross-country trek across hundreds of thousands of miles, your destination is a safehold filled with those last remaining members of an organised resistance. In exchange for the item you bring, the item you need, you are promised safety and refuge.....for a time at least. Yet, what other choice do you have?

Soon, you will find that the land harbours greater dangers than that of the rotting dead that have come to infest the world. You will come face to face with werewolves, witches.....vampires even, and soon you will learn that the greatest dangers are not necessarily those that you can see.

 

[Valen]

Starting to descend, Cain glances back and chuckles softly. "No. I know a few things about picking locks or hotwiring cars, however elevator fixing is a bit beyond my skillset...."

Skillset? What skillset? You were nothing but a parasite that leeched on the corners of existence before the world went to hell.

Continuing down slowly, hand reaching out to the metal railing on the side of the winding staircase, Cain pushed the intrusive thought back down inside of him.

I do not want to be afraid,
I do not want to die inside just to breathe in,
I'm tired of feeling so numb,
Relief exists I find it when,
I am cut,
I may seem crazy,
Or painfully shy,
And these scars wouldn't be so hidden,
If you would just look me in the eye,
I feel alone here and cold here,
Though I don't want to die,
But the only anesthetic that makes me feel anything kills inside.

Beneath him he continues to walk down the cold granite, concrete slabs of stone. Words echo through his mind, burning themselves across his consciousness....his very being. When Hendricks passes him, speaking with words laced in sarcasm, Cain looks up and flashes her a wry grin. His eyes are lifeless, as is the expression on his face.

"Careful Hendricks," he begins, "When you fall.....when any of us fall....its a long way down," Cain glances down the winding staircase. He was not talking about the fall down from the stairs. Walking down behind her as they continue to progress down the staircase, his soft voice pierces the velvet silence once more, "It should be me that leads Hendricks," Glancing to the numerous weapons that she carries on her person, he adds, "You are the strong one. You are the defender, the warrior. When the dead come, you will fight for us and defend us,"

He laughs bitterly, "I, on the other hand, am expendable. I am the one that they will feed on so the strong survive."

His last words are a whisper, "And in some ways I do not deserve to live as others die...."

Finally, he reaches the bottom of the staircase with the others. Somewhat surprised that they had not yet been attacked by the feral, mindless creatures that had claimed the world that had once been so familiar for themselves, Cain looks up, and he looks down. The stone corridor continues forwards, ending in a wooden door that led to the outside. On the stone floor, every so often there were long, crimson smears trailing up and down. These crimson stains were also splashed over the grey walls.

Fingers, scraping down the walls......

Closing his eyes, Cain imagines the screams of the dying.....those poor souls as they were pulled down this very corridor to their deaths. What must have that felt like? What were their final thoughts, right here at the end? It wasn't until the real scream that the dreadful thoughts that were beginning to consume him were banished, even if only temporarily..... Dark eyes look up in shock towards the source of the scream. It came from beyond the wooden doors, outside. Outside.....where the grasping fingers of death awaited them.

"Outside," he whispers unnecessarily.

Drawing the flimsy knife that he had on himself, Cain begins to walk slowly up to the door.....

 

[Maeriel]

Hendriks' sigh was more a rumble precluding a growl than a human noise. By the things Cain mentioned before - which were far from being all there was to the man's pain, she was sure - Violet could somewhat understand his need for numbing himself and his haunted look, but she had never been a woman for indecisiveness, if she wanted out, she'd off herself and that was that. Nah... she wanted to live. And his disregard for his own life was starting to chip at her already limited patience. So Hendriks just continued ahead of Cain, ax resting on her shoulder.

----------

"You're just making things harder for yourself..."

That was the 'good cop', Violet knew. The young blonde detective was dressed in jeans, a lilac dress shirt with a red tie with thin white diagonal stripes and a grey blazer. The latino in the wrinkled dark grey suit, white shirt and blue tie pulled slightly open after drilling her for information she wasn't willing to give was meaner, the 'bad cop'. And so much more her type. Vi leaned forward on the metal table in the interrogation room, opening and closing her fists, hands growing numb and wrists aching from the handcuffs anchored to the surface. The 'bad cop', Det. Vargas, slammed his fist on the table, making her half empty to-go cup of coffee bounce.

"God damn it, Hendriks! We have you and your father for grand-theft auto, the auto-stripping, fraud and a whole list of other crimes. We know that he laundered money for The Vipers, for crying out loud, you have their tattoo right there on your back! You both could sweeten your deals a lot if only you'd talk!"

But she wouldn't... she was no snitch, and Hendriks knew that a word came out from her or her father and both would be dead within days. A few years in jail, versus dying right now... heh... she knew which she'd prefer. "Any chance I'll get some of them donuts? I'm starvin'..."

----------

Vi was thanking whatever poor sod they had heard screaming from up in the apartment for his sacrifice, as it had cleared the corridors down here, when their luck shifted... or not, it was still to be determined. Another scream sounded from the outside and after dumb-foundedly stating the obvious, Cain drew a 'butter-knife' and started walking ahead. Hendriks grabbed the man by his shoulder and pinned him with her arm on his chest against the wall. Her brown eyes bore into his as she spoke, there was an almost disturbing feeling of a growl rumbling in the back of her throat, but her voice was hushed.

"Listen here, Richie... You were only half right back there. I will fight for you, but you better fuckin' fight for me too. Yeah, I am your damn protector, but I can't fuckin' do this alone. Out there, we're all meat. Strong weak, pain or not, they don't give a fuck. So you either got my back, or I'm dead and you're the biggest asshole of the two of us, and fuck if that's not sayin' a lot. Entertain your self-destruction when it doesn't mean the death of someone else. Got it?"

She shoved herself off of him with a lasting glare that spoke as much of anger as it did of fear and then she took the point, walking slowly to the wooden doorway, careful steps as silent as one could be, ax held down in one arm. Hendriks carefully pushed the door open just slightly to get a gander of the outside with wide, unblinking eyes. Oh hell, just die slow so we can get through... The thought only brought up a little shame.

 

[Valen]

As she shoves herself off him, there were no doubt many, many reactions she had pictured in her own mind. Perhaps though, the sight of Cain laughing was not one of them. As she glares at him, he laughs all the more. As he did so, the "butter knife" in his hand trembled slightly.

"No offense Hendricks," he begins, still chuckling softly as he gathers himself. "But you remind me of someone I once knew. They were as angry, as strong and as proud as you are." The laughter stops, and he shakes his head, "That pride did them no good when the fucking dead tore their fucking intestines out in front of them and devoured them in front of their eyes. We're all dead Hendricks, some of us just don't know it yet."

The screaming continues as Hendricks steps up to the door, opening it slightly to peek outside. Coming up to stand next to her, Cain catches her eye. He nods his head. "I'll stand with you."

It might not have sounded like much, but to Cain it was a great deal. It was a promise. The first one he had made since the death of his world. A promise -- freely given to another. I will not let you down. It was more than most could have hoped to get from the living dead man. I will not die. Not just yet.

Outside, the first rays of daylight had penetrated the horizon. The sun was creeping over the fractured skyline, casting the warm rays of sunlight over the world below. Outside, the broken street was lined on both sides with ruined homesteads and crumbling shopfronts, a sad picture of the world that came before it. On the cracked roads, small reddish brown stains cast its own legacy.

The source of the screaming soon became evident. A man, lying on his back, arms outstretched and twitching. Over him, hunched, was one of the rotting, feral creatures that had infested the world. It was even now tearing gobbets of flesh from his face and as it did so his screams grew ever weaker.

Next to Hendricks, Cain sneers and shakes his head, "He's allowed himself to be taken down by just one of them. Idiot."

Clutching his knife, he glances to Hendricks. "We can take it before it even notices ."

He waits for her lead.

 

[Maeriel]

Violet rolled her eyes and groaned, her response sounding almost patronising as she cut to the chase. "Yes, yes, people die, it's gory, I suck, blah blah blah... Let's just go."

Cain struck her more and more like someone who already resented the world before it turned out to complete shitty madness and she wondered just how much crap has to happen to someone to turn them like that and how the hell did he manage to still be alive when so many others more willing to live had failed at it. Maybe she was just too cold to get too damaged by this brutal new reality, every guy she had gotten with had accused her of that. Maybe she was better built for this world than the one that came before...

The world was grim outside, but part of her was always glad to see the open sky, feel the breeze on her face, even if heavy with the stench of rot. She had been deprived of it more than once and had often just driven somewhere remote, laying on the grass and watching the clouds go by or the stars twinkle, a beer or a joint in hand... Or a lover on top. Those were the days... Right now, however, there was a deader on top of a soon-to-be deader and she needed to get rid of it quickly. For once, she and Cain were in complete agreement.

Nodding to Cain and grabbing onto the weathered handle of her fire ax, Hendriks slowly shouldered the door open, her muscles rippled under her jacket, she could feel the tension of the beast inside, the pull of the hunt, of the kill, the power and the curse in her veins in those few steps to the feasting zombie. Knowing how acute their senses are, when she came close enough for a charge, she gathered near inhuman speed in her momentum and when it raised its head alerted, she swung that ax strongly enough to decapitate a normal person, but the dead were far from that. As such, her swing sunk with a crunch halfway into its brain cavity, about the height of the temple, breaking off that side of its rotten jaw, black blood and green grey matter splattering to the side.

Dislodging the ax from the creature's head, Violet swung it overhead again to bring it down and finish the ruin she had started on its head, a scowl on her face that spoke of no mercy and no doubt. She had the same reserved for the man agonising on the ground. The world was for the living...

 

[Valen]

As Hendricks shot out, axe in hand, Cain was somewhat slower off the mark. By the time he sauntered on over, the creature's head had been well and truly smashed into goo. Wandering up to her, knife in hand, Cain shrugs. "Thorough much?" he says as he sticks his knife into the already dead creature and removes it with a small squelching sound. "Touche," he mutters. "Next time leave some for me eh, Hendricks?"

Cain didn't like the fact that they were out in the open, with the sun continuing to rise. It felt so open....so exposed, and they could be jumped at any time. Using the tip of his boot, he pushes the body off the man underneath. It soon began apparent that the man wasn't long for this world. His face was smeared with blood and virtually unrecognisable, and there were numerous wounds. Even if nothing else, the man would have bled out from the injuries he had suffered regardless.

"Poor bastard," he mutters to himself.

The man seemed to be gesturing weakly towards something. Cain leaned forwards, curious, "What is it?"

The dying man spoke weakly, "You....need to.....take....it....my...hand"

Arcing his eyebrows, Cain leans down to the man's right hand. Prising his dying fingers free, Cain takes a small, steel capsule that was sealed at the top. Holding it in his hands, he turns it round to study it. "What is this?"

"Cure.....must......take......Boston."

Cain shakes his head. "Boston? That's halfway across the country. And take it to who?"

The man's breathing had stopped though and his eyes stared sightlessly ahead. Sighing, Cain kneels, closing the man's eyes gently as he whispers, "I hope you find a better world than this one."

Pocketing the cylinder, Cain was about to say something when the sound of something crashing echoes out of the shadows around them in the alleyways off to the side.

"Time to move Hendricks."

Reaching out, he grabs Hendricks arm, pulling her after him as he began to run. Behind the two of them, a sudden mass of hunchbacked shadows collapsed out into the open as the feral, rotting creatures spilled out en masse, chasing after them....

 

[Maeriel]

"Ya really want me to be sloppy on a kill and leave a deader to rise back up behind us? Ain't I the meat shield anyway? What are you complainin' about?"

Hendriks wiped off the gore staining her axe blade on the dead zombie's tattered clothes while Cain went to check on the mutilated dying man.

"Poor bastard," he mutters to himself.

The man seemed to be gesturing weakly towards something. Cain leaned forwards, curious, "What is it?"

Carefully checking both ways to see if more were coming, the smell of rot and fresh blood a little sickening to her sensitive nostrils, Violet grimaced and said.

"Ugh, just kill the unlucky bastard and make sure that he won't rise behind us, don't risk touching his blood..."

But instead, Cain leaned over to hear the dying man's last words. Even disinterested, Hendriks couldn't help but hear every word with her sharper senses. It was nonsense, of course, a dying man's delirium or a living one's delusion cut abruptly short. What were the odds of an addict and a convict to find the cure for the plague that ended the world? She almost had to laugh... Humanity's last hope. What a pair! You can suck it, world!

"Leave that shit and kill the man-"

Violet's head snapped to the rushing of wild steps and the moaning and growling sounds of the dead rushing their way. Cain was quicker, grabbing her by the arm and running. Her stomach lurched at the sheer amount of monsters after them and she ran, quickly catching up and nearly leaving him behind as fear gripped her heart. Unlike them, the dead never tired and Hendriks knew they could only outrun the creatures for so long.

"We need shelter or a car!" she shouted, the need for whispering long past.