@selfsaving // cont.
“ GEOFF , I SWEAR TO GOD I TOLD YOU. YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED AT HOME. ” MAKING SPIKES ! that’s what geoff’s best at. keeping up defences & manning the house —— NOT storming a damn hotel. they arrive near nightfall , the PLAN to get up on the roof and wait it out until morning. THEY HAD NOT ANTICIPATED a hoarde already up there waiting , and plan falls apart instantly.
there’s no way back down —— makeshift ladder quickly turned to SPLINTERS and no other exit making itself obvious to them. they take down a few of the undead but there’s FAR TOO MANY. ryan can feel his sledgehammer fracturing with every hit and he knows geoff’s will be no better. with each passing second they CLOSE IN a tighter circle around the adventurous two // every moment one closer to the LETHAL bite. “ you see any way off here ?? ” words sound DESPERATE as hammer comes down on another corpse , splattering blood up the side of his leg. he looks about as if an escape will simply materialise out of thin air. ANOTHER BUILDING ? no , the closest is three stories lower —— a jump would be impossible. SOMEWHERE ELSE TO CLIMB TO , OR A TRAPDOOR DOWN ? no , the roof is empty. nothing up here but corpses and one enormous skylight with glass left only in JAGGED edges.
RYAN HAS A TERRIBLE IDEA ALL OF A SUDDEN. he wheels around towards the broken window ; tries to get a look down into it. they’re maybe five feet away but all he can see below what remains of the glass is BLACKNESS. COULD GO DOWN FOREVER. but it’s a pretty big window … probably goes over the stairs ( OR THE LOBBY ). but whichever it is … they’re out of options.
something claws at his arm and as ryan brings down his sledgehammer to cave in its SKULL , wood finally breaks and he’s left with nothing but a splintered handle. TIME’S UP. “ geoff , i’m SORRY about this —— ” and that’s all the warning he gives. a hand grabs onto geoff’s arm and DRAGS him with him. tries not to think about it as he pulls them towards the window.
and jumps.
it takes ryan a few disorientated moments in the dark to realise he didn’t DIE. sure , skin is stinging from the touch of broken glass and mouth tastes of blood and his head is RINGING from the impact , but he’s ALIVE. “ geoff ? ” name is groaned as he pushes himself onto his forearms. a hand goes to the back of his head automatically ( luckily comes away CLEAN // just bruised ). he glances around the area they’ve fallen into —— a square area of landing with doors on each side. faded carpet now a sea of glass shards and splintered wood. in the centre is NOTHING ; a drop of at least three floors where he can imagine stairs used to be , lined by CRUMBLING balconies. good job they didn’t fall just a little to the left , or ryan doesn’t thinks he’d be here to worry about it. looking up he can see what’s left of the window frame , maybe 25 feet above them ( drop seems a lot further now he can actually see it ).
“ GEOFF ? ” name is spoken again , louder as he regains his bearings a little better. blinks into the darkness , trying to make out any shapes. no zombies have followed them down but other concerns begin to gather in the silence ryan is met with. “ you with me ? ”
EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS IS BAD, AND GEOFF IS NOT GOOD AT DEALING WITH THINGS THAT ARE BAD. ryan’s right, so very right // he should’ve stayed home. spikes, oh how he wishes he had spikes right now. he’s got a much, much more intense appreciation for spikes than he’d ever had before. home is safe, home is protected, home is where he should be. he hasn’t seen this many up close in a long time, not without some level of protection. not since before he’d found the others, a time that was dark and terrifying and thankfully SHORT-LIVED.
he sees no way off, panic rising with each passing second. he’s making noises he hadn’t heard himself make before, noises that clearly convey no meaning aside from sheer horror and fear. he’s unprepared, and to an extent genuinely thinks he may not make it off this roof. he’s unsure, but he thinks that maybe - just maybe - if they jump off the side … NO, he knows better. jumping off the top of an apartment building is not something they’d survive. they’d definitely die. and yet he’s SERIOUSLY CONSIDERING IT. all he knows for sure is that he’d rather die by jumping off a building than be slowly torn apart by flesh eating monsters.
BUT THEN RYAN’S DRAGGING HIM SOMEWHERE. the noises of fear are slightly less loud than they once had been, but the noises of confusion make up for the volume that the previous sounds had lost. the man’s not great with words, that much is clear. “ sorry ?? why are you sorry ?!?!?! ” it’s yelled in confusion because he KNOWS something possibly bad is about to happen.
and then he’s falling.
eyes squeeze shut, screams grow even louder, fear far larger than it had been previously. he feels glass, feels cuts as he falls for what feels like forever. and then he lands. the blow sends his breath away, silence filling the air for the first time since they’d gotten onto the roof. all that can be heard is the sounds of moans and groans, and it’s only A MATTER OF TIME until at least one of the dead finds their way down the same drop that they’d just taken.
as geoff comes to terms with where he is and what just happened he finally opens his eyes, staring straight up at the hole in the roof they’d just fallen through. it looks like a far enough fall that it’d cause some damage, but thankfully he doesn’t feel too bad. a sprained ankle at worst, just a few cuts at best. he goes to roll on his side to stand up, but as he begins to roll he realizes that one arm and one leg are dangling over the side of the drop into nothingness, the rest of his body sitting against the edge just a few inches from falling to an UNDENIABLE DEATH.
and, once again, he starts to scream. it echos far more inside, bouncing off of the walls and back into the center of the room. he’s sure that the screaming isn’t something ryan wants to hear, but at least he’s making a noise that shows he’s alive. “ RYAN !!! ” it’s almost like a shriek, geoff quickly getting away from the edge before turning to ryan, clearly annoyed but not about to do anything about it. ryan did just save him after all. “ I COULD’VE DIED !! ”