ZOMBIE POD POP! (zompop?)

[cityship]

[ooc: Newbie Helpers List | Instructions: First, read *HERE*. Then, once you've read the overall plan, post your character into the main thread establishing them as being podpopped, and reacting to the oncoming zombie horde (since there is no Stacy replies to comment to, it will all be one thread, instead of individual threads). This can include fighting and/or fleeing if you want. Eventually, volunteers from Team Left Behind will rush in and save the day. Obviously, since there's no time for it while fighting for your lives against zombies, this podpop won't get the whole ||You have been Chosen|| speech from Stacy, so they'll have to get their answers (and pants) later.]


||Pod Release Protocols Initating|| Stacy's familiar voice sounds out to all the podmates through the ship.

In the Pod Caverns, there are the sounds of: Pop. Pop pop pop. Poppuhpoppoppop. KASCHUNKhiiiiiiiissssss.

There is condensation and mist spraying out from cracks in the pods, as the people inside slide out onto the floors, covered in slime.

--


There was nothing. You were going about your normal life, then there was a bright light, and then? Nothing.

Then the world lurches.

The chamber here is humid.

Actually, "chamber" isn't quite accurate. You're in a cavern, half-lit by an eerie greenish light, going on and on as far as the eye can see. The light is coming from what can only be described as pods, glistening, round greenish-yellow things, glowing with a pale inner light, outlining human -- and not quite human -- forms. Each is rooted to the floor, to the walls, with something black, twisted, and unidentifiable.

They line the walls of the cavern, go up in maddeningly high columns, curling and corkscrewing up into the darkness, until the light from them is like that of the stars, glowing pale and mournful in clusters in the darkness above. Twisted walkways and stairs crisscross, traverse the platforms in front of the pods, wending their way back and forth, up and down through the chamber.

You just came from one of those pods, broke free like a butterfly from a (slimy, nasty) chrysalis.

Now you stand alone but not quite alone, naked, not knowing how you got there, who took you, or why you were taken.

As your body heats up again, you realize the air is warm -- just a few degrees too warm to be comfortable -- and muggy; it smells acrid and organic, like freshly spilt blood and sweat. Your mouth tastes of salt.

The floors are pulsing under your feet, throbbing...

Wherever you are, this entire place...is alive.

Oh, and also you're naked and covered in alien snot.

And this is the point everything goes to hell.

You see, not too long ago, a psychopathic AI unleashed a horde of zombies on this ship, and now they were making their way to these very caverns, eager to eat the flesh off your bones.

Less than a minute after you've been plopped from out of your pod, you hear the sounds of the ravening undead horde making their way through the tunnels towards you, and it's pretty damn obvious what they're looking for.

Ready or not, here they come.

Comments

[demon-alessa.livejournal.com]

The sounds of the approaching horde was secondary in her mind. Right now, triumphant from bringing her vengance forth, she was now in an unfamiliar place. This was not her Silent Hill, this was not West Virginia. This place was alive somehow, and there was a new situation now: there were crawling things, maggots, attempting to pollute the space she was occupying.

This would not stand.

She rose from the pod, walking delicately. The slime was interesting, cold, clammy. It was actually a feature she liked. She ran a hand through her hair, looking disinterested. She stretched her neck a moment, and when the zombies came at the pod, Alessa was no longer sttaionary.

She had the vines entwined around her, and she rose in the air now, her face no longer dull but almost beaming with glee. One tendril came quick at the zombie and split it in two, and then tore apart another apart from the hip.

She saw no reason for words, but she decided she would make this pronouncement anyway.

You are in my space."

[thekohakuriver.livejournal.com]

Haku panted his panic, momentarily overwhelmed by the disorientation of finding himself asleep, and then awake. He was on his hands and knees on the slimy ground, simply lost in the sensation of breathing and panic, when he first heard the shuffling undead and looked up in dawning horror.

"What?" He gasped, then scrambled inelegantly to his feet. Even Yubaba wouldn't have inflicted this, not she of the damask, velvet and ropes of golden silk. He was used to terrifying or dangerous spirits, but these were unmistakably human, white human skulls peeking through flaccid, rotting human flesh.

Unnatural. A wrong thing.

Watching them approach with his hackles rising, the fact that Haku was nude no longer seemed of particular importance. He turned to Alessa as she spoke, ostensibly to demand an answer to any number of questions, but was struck dumb at the carnage. Instead he stupidly blurted, "A demon?"

[demon-alessa.livejournal.com]

Alessa came at them quicker now, acting out of instinct. She was thorough in her destruction and the zombies started coming faster to match. It was amusing: they wouldn't have a chance, not as long as all they were was walking corpses.

She'd made better than this, MUCH better. Once these other people in pods were out of the way, she would properly show these corpses what true terror was like.

She turned to the boy. "I have been called that."

[thekohakuriver.livejournal.com]

Instinctively, Haku snarled, hackles up and hair lifting as if in a breeze. A demon? She smelled almost human, even among the near-overpowering stink of the ship. Perhaps she had been human once, perhaps she had been a spirit.

He didn't care, because by now there was a dragon where the boy had stood, as tall as she at the shoulder and barking his challenge to the undead, the chamber around them, and the world in general. This wasn't right, this wasn't fair, and he wanted out. Alessa's attacks had shielded Haku's pod from the onslaught by the way it was positioned, but no more. He rose into the air and roared again.

[demon-alessa.livejournal.com]

Alessa looked over, and was actually, for about a full second, surprised. After that though, she settles, continuing her destruction. Dragons. This place threw rather odd curve balls their way, to use a human term.

Still, she didn't mind the change, and was more than happy to see the ferocity this human like child was able to channel.

"I'd love to know about this ability when we're done," she said, cleaving another zombie messily.

[thekohakuriver.livejournal.com]

A hiss was her only answer, and Haku surged forward, ripping through a pair of too-slow Zombies like wet paper sacks as he whipped across the cavern and away from Alessa. Ability? Hardly. He was born this way, and to look human was what took skill.

A river could not suffer such corrupted water lightly, nor without recourse.

[demon-alessa.livejournal.com]

Alessa didn't mind the abrupt answer. All around, people were scared and running: human reactions. Typical. It was why she had given credit to Rose and that police officer who braved her town, who faced off against Cristobella and practically died in the attempt. Human creatures surprised her sometimes. These did not, but some could.

An animal acting on instinct was promising, was strengthened by a human persona. Interesting. This place would certainly not disappoint her in amusement.

She rushed against another zombie, beheading cleanly. "how far are you willing to go, dragon boy?"