#zhstarts

[recurvekai-blog]

desperation ; kai & open

Kai had barely left the yard since the last supply run - only returning to the house when she had scheduled herself to eat or grab another ration of water. She spent most of her time since that day walking laps around the fence and practicing her shot on trees or whatever small animal seemed to make it’s way close enough to the house to give her more of a challenge. She had already tirelessly made herself enough of a back-stock of arrows from various branches she would stumble across on her rounds that she had enough to refill any entire quiver if she needed to. 

For the first time since she had joined up with the group, Kai felt helpless. They had lost two members in just the past few weeks. Zombies were cropping up more and more often around the farm and she could feel Henry’s restlessness about it even when she wasn’t around him. The safe, homey feeling that she got in the confines of the farm’s fence were beginning to slip and fade and Kai was starting to realize that she had been looking at things with a soft filter. Sure, she knew how harsh the world was - had held a woman’s head in her lap as she mercy killed her - but Kai had stupidly gotten comfortable.

Now the comfort was gone and she wasn’t ready to adapt to the stress and anxiety and unrest that came with living in a world where death waited around every corner. She was losing people around her, people she couldn’t afford to lose, and because of that she found herself unable to leave the yard - to stop making rounds in an attempt to keep everyone else as safe as she could possibly manage. 

At this point, she had been 36 hours without sleep. Her hips were killing her under the stress of how much walking she had done in the past day and a half, either constantly moving in circles around the perimeter of the house or getting into their usual stance she took when she was shooting, but still Kai wasn’t planning on stopping. This was all she could do right now. This was the best she could offer to the rest of them. At the break of dawn, she watched - only for a moment - as the early risers in the house made their way out for their daily duties and tasks. Her tired eyes, rimmed with exhausted circles dark enough that they looked like bruises, turned back to the tree line, and she wasn’t aware of the person walking up to her from behind (all of her attention was out there, where the only danger could come from) until they made their presence known.

[recurvekai-blog]

A series of knots || Kai & Open

When they had found November, prone and trapped by a nicely sized group of Zeds, Kai had sunk a good amount of arrows into the skulls of the undead. It was always a satisfying experience even amidst a high stress situation - notching an arrow, hearing it whistle through the air for a split second, and then listening for the hollow thunk as it split through the bone. Gathering the arrows would always prove to be trickier than lining up a fatal shot. Most times, the arrows came out clean, easily dropped back into her quiver as she moved on. Other times, the head wasn’t decayed to a workable point and the tip either broke off inside or the body of the arrow splintered to hell when she began to work it out. 

So, with a light heart and an almost excited demeanor, Kai used both hands to pick up the bundle of twigs and slender branches she had spent the afternoon collecting from the sparse expanse of trees inside the fence. Getting a bit of free time was rare, especially now with the upcoming supply run on their horizon, but Kai was more than excited at the thought of being able to work the wood in her hands into ammunition for her weapon, something that she had tirelessly  had to teach herself in the beginning of the end of the world. The scars on her fingertips, light but plentifully crisscrossing across the skin there, were proof of her trial and error at the task. 

Kai made her way to the front steps of the house - a place that she was very close to calling home due to the safety she felt while near it - and gently sat down on the bottom most step, placing her pile of branches to the side of her. Her eyes scanned the property just ahead of her for any threats, a habit instilled in her by Henry in her first weeks with the group back in April. Always check the perimeter, always be on guard. Once satisfied, Kai picked up one of the slender branches and checked it’s pliability in her hands before pulling out her knife and beginning the tedious process of making it straight.

It was only until she was working on her third arrow, the knife making fast cuts away from her and shaving off little curls of wood each time, that she heard the front door open and footsteps approaching behind her. Her thoughts had been far away, almost methodically lost in her own head with every scrape of the knife, and so the sound startled her. “Shit - ow.” She cursed as she dropped the stick in her hand and pressed her thumb, now cut and bleeding, against the side of her leg. 

[navigatoralex-blog]

Awareness || Alex & Open

Before all of this, cartography was an art, a form of relaxation for Alex. Now, it’s a matter of life and death - and she doesn’t even have the proper tools for it. Alex would probably kill for a roll of graph paper or a sextant right now. Sadly, those aren’t exactly the kind of things they’re going to find on a supply run, so she’s going to have to make do with her estimates and a few 8 1/2 x 11 sheets of paper.

While her current map of the surroundings is decent enough, it’s starting to get cramped; if she’s going to add any more detail to it, it’ll have to be scaled up to a larger size. Doing so is a little awkward and requires her to commandeer the entirety of the dining table, given that she’s drawing a single map on multiple sheets of paper, but she makes it work. Not like she has much choice in the matter, really. 

Alex manages to finish roughly half on it before the sound of footfalls alerts her to someone’s approach. Ugh. To be fair, she is working on the kitchen table - it was only a matter of time before someone else walked in. But still, it’s the principle of the thing.

“Do you need something?”

[countrygirlholden-blog]

After The Fire Burns || Jess & OPEN

Jess knows it’s at least the afternoon, and she doesn’t care. She’s not really angry anymore, just exhausted, mentally ad physically. She wants to leave. Wants to pack up and go. Leave all these people behind and go back to how things were before Henry found her in the woods. Before she started to get attached to these people. She hasn’t been needed at camp, her patrol is tonight and she’ll show up for it them but until now she’s got no interest in interacting with anyone.

Her hands are sore, one from the cut and the other from her fight. She doesn’t have any desire to fight Layne anymore but she’ll probably never go near the girl again. She’s kept an eye on her hand and it’s healing, she’d cleaned it the best she could with the water she’d had, and it still hurts like a bitch, lucky for her it isn’t deep enough to need stitches. She can see the house from where she sits, in the upper part of the barn and she watches a person or two mill around, going about their chores.

The need to run has turned to a dim pulsing in the back of her head and she doesn’t fight to ignore it, just lets it linger and fade as she sits in the quiet peace the barn gives her. Someone had been in here earlier, she’s didn’t pay attention to who, and she’s not sure if they saw her up in the corner where she sat.

Things went to hell the other night and Jess isn’t going to apologize for what part she played, at least not now. She hates that she snapped but it was unavoidable, it was bound to happen and Jess is angry that Layne just didn’t leave her be. She closes her hands in loose fists and closes her eyes, leaning her head back and listening to the whisper in her head.

[countrygirlholden-blog]

The Benefits of a Friend || Jess & Henry

The afternoon sun beats down on her and Jess can’t help but sigh, it’s not the hottest it could be but Jess has too much pent of energy to sit still. She goes in search of someone to drag along on a hunt or maybe another patrol with, something to get her energy out before she goes mad. She heads towards the house to see if she can find someone she wouldn’t mind spending a few hours trudging through the woods with.

Her options are more limited given that some are on patrol already and she wishes she’d offered to take someone’s place and stretch her legs more, hating the fact that she can’t simply go when she wants, knowing she’ll either worry people or get into a situation she can’t get out of, it bothers her that either situation can happen, more so it bothers her that she’ll actually worry someone.

She’s not about to ask city boy or the little godly man to go with her, either choice would simply be a bother, neither able to do much of any fighting, and she’s sure she wouldn’t have any fun at all with either of them around. Making it to the house Jess doesn’t waste any time. Hoping to find someone with a little more skill under their belt.

She takes the steps quickly and enters the house with a creak of the screen door, letting swing shut behind her. She searches around and finds Henry standing and looking as large as ever, she watches him for a moment, and waits to see if he’s noticed her arrival. He never does so Jess decides she’s going to get his attention, “hello Soldier Boy!”

[endofthelayne]

Can you breath loudly in a different room? Because you’re distracting me. 

[countrygirlholden-blog]

[ellie-rpg-blog]

Bed Time Story || Ellie&Open

The Georgia sun had long since disappeared from the sky and the days work at the farm house had come to a close. Still, despite it being well past an hour that most members of the group were in bed for the night, Ellie was nestled in a neat bundle on one of the beaten up, worn out benches of the front porch. The lantern directly beside her was turned low both because she wanted to draw as little attention from anyone still awake indoors as possible and because what she was doing required only so much light. 

With the blanket from her bed pulled tightly around her shoulders and held near up to her nose, Ellie’s eyes scanned the pages feverishly, an elvish smile lifting the edges of her lips in just the slightest and holding it in a tiny grin of enjoyment. Even then, stuck in a world of the actual living dead, Ellie found herself fixed on reading about the type of creatures that now surrounded them. It wasn’t any new reading material but a book she’d read a few years previous while in the hospital. There’d been a copy in the attic, and despite desperately craving some information to read on maybe the Z-4 virus, or the present day zombies, anything was better than nothing. 

It was during one of the more suspenseful moments of the book that the sound of the front door opening jump startled Ellie, and her eyes shot up, as round and terrified as a deer caught in headlights. The fear was short lived, replaced by an airy, half-hearted and brief laugh as her eyes fell back to the pages and her head gave a shake. "You know, despite what I’m sure were Max Brooks’ intentions, anyone who followed this “Zombie Survival Guide” is probably dead at this point.” Her heart still beat violently in her chest.