trans_9 | Survivalist Plot: The Envy of Eden

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Survivalist Plot: The Envy of Eden

Day One

Stacy calls Cedric Diggory, Diana Ladris, Guru Clef, Howard Bassem, Karis Needleteeth, The Master and Maxine Hunkel to the deck.

Planet Designation: Eden Status: Terrestrial, H-class. Non-sentient life: Sparse levels of flora, no natural fauna Semi-Sentient Life: None Sentient Life: Small human colonies created to mine Eden's limited precious elements. As of last Eden 'year', population 300. Settlers do not typically make permanent stays. Water: 75.6% of the planet's surface. Climate: Dry and moderate during the day. At nights temperatures drop to below 30 degrees Fahrenheit. Infrequent rains, risks of flash floods. Landscape: Desert and sedimentary rock mountains. Most water is retrieved by wells or from cargo ships. Sparse vegetation. Air: Type I (breathable) Sky: Grey Warnings: Electrical storms may interfere with omnicomm function. Mission: Investigate source of distress signal picked up on Stacy's sensors.

For the most part the trip down to the atmosphere goes uneventfully, even if it is a little cramped in the shuttle, but as soon as they get within a few thousand feet of the ground things start to go wrong. Communication with Stacy cuts off; Stacy herself is cut off mid-sentence while warning the crew to use iodine in any tap water they find. The omnicomms go similarly blank. The shuttle lurches through the sky and tilts sideways. One of the engines blows. The automatic seatbelts unlock. A section of the shuttle's roof rips off, letting in thin, hardly-breathable air.

More terrifying still, the superpowered members of this crew may have time to notice that they no longer have their abilities.

About thirty feet above the ground the shuttle tips into a barrel roll, the autopilot fritzing out as it tries to right things, and the crew goes tumbling out and scatters amongst the town moments before the shuttle crashes into a far cliffside.

[OOC: Tag into your designated subthreads! In a little, once we've established what's going on a bit more, while I'll put up a thread for them all to reconvene. I will be NPCing monsters in these threads, so please drop me a line if you want the monsters to do anything specific or if I'm being slow on a tag.]

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Diana doesn't answer, instead she slowly backs away from the door, deeper into the room. There's no panic on her face, just calm preparation.

There's a quick glance up at the penetrated roof, but other than that she keeps a steady gaze on the door. With a quiet and cool voice she speaks to Howard. "You shouldn't be so close. It'll see you blocking the light."

Howard's about to shoot back at Diana that for all they know it's already smelled or heard them, but then he hears a scratching at the door. Not like a cat, but like a person. He jumps away from the door and scrambles backwards, placing himself between Diana and the back wall. Congratulations, you are now his meat shield.

And just in time, because the door explodes outwards, knocked off its hinges by a thing. The first thing Howard thinks is that it looks like a cross between an overgrown baby and Spider-Man's Venom. It's large, maybe eight feet tall on all fours, with glistening beige skin that looks like slabs of raw chicken skin. Its mouth is a wide maw with strips of gum hanging from it, and every tooth looks sharp and long. Its slender arms end in elongated hands with needle-like claws; its feet look like oversized human feet, except they're bent backwards and twisted so it's walking on the top of its feet.

Worst is the eyes, just dark grooves in its awful face with no discernible eyeball.

One of its hands gets the nails stuck in the tread of the carpet. It yanks it up, knocking over the bookshelf with the books, action figures, lamp and oversized magic 8 ball. It makes a shrieking sound and lunges for Cedric.

It's a horrifying feeling all around. Cedric swears he can feel his heart drop when it breaks through. It will kill them. They have no weapons. Just an omnicom, but it's not heavy enough to do real damage when thrown.

Cedric considers going for the hole, but there's no real path for him to get there. He meets the creature's eyes, vaguely notes the locations of Diana and Howard, and suddenly becomes aware of one thing.

He's dead.

The life-preserving instinct still kicks him, prompting him to desperately dodge to the side, but he still yells one word as his life appears to be rapidly reaching a close.

"Go!"

Diana didn't even need instruction.

She'd barely had time between scowling at Howard's actions and being fearful of what was about to come into the room when the door had burst.

It'd taken just a look at the mouth of the creature to decide she never wanted to be a room with it ever again.

So, before Cedric had even opened his mouth, Diana had already made a bolt for the hole in the floor.

Sorry, Cedric, Howard likes you but he's sure as heck not going to get eaten by that thing for you. He's taking Diana's lead and heading for the hole.

But as he goes he grabs the magic 8 ball off the floor and chucks it at the wall. It bounces off and hits the monster's shoulder.

And then he's down through the hole, landing with Diana feet-first on a dining room table.

The beast misses Cedric by mere millimeters, slowed only by its claw hands getting stuck in the carpet again. It's about to whip around and make another lunge for its prey - the biggest in the group of terrified fleshy meals - when it's struck in the shoulder by the ball. It turns to see where it came from, giving Cedric a split second of a chance to escape.

Down in the dining room, the table is possibly the only thing left standing. Splintered chairs litter the floor and a refrigerator has been toppled and gutted. Pieces of wiring are strewn everywhere. The tile floor is slick with patches of grease. The sliding glass door to the kitchen has been completely shattered in, leaving no question as to how the creature got in here.

That's all Cedric needs to buy his mission-mates some more time. He only hopes that the monster bites his head off first when the time comes. Prolonged agony wouldn't be very much fun.

He vaults back over the bookcase and hole in the floor, kicking up some dust and taking off in a blind run. He has to get as far away from the others as he can before he goes. He shoves his way through strewn objects, ramming one door to gain access to a promising-looking room. The faded walls were once bright green---and given his original death, quite an appropriate colour.

Even more appropriate for the scene are the mangled and rotting bodies underfoot. Cedric yelps, shoving past a grandfather clock, then---the motion disturbs a corpse that was leaning against the wall. Blood-brown messes that were once limbs wave in front of him, and he can't help but scream.

The next second, the bones and rotted flesh fall in front of him with an ominous thud. The monster's coming. Cedric holds his breath and charges at the window, hoping against hope that it opens.

The window does. Beyond is a yard with dried grass and a wooden fence, easy enough to vault over, and the rest of the small city. It's like a ghost town if everyone suddenly abandoned the surburban 80's. Cars, stop signs, even a small playground and an elementary school. All abandoned.

The monster follows Cedric back down the hole and into the room with the bodies. The bodies themselves appear to have once been a family of three. Their ribcages have been ripped open and insides eaten out. Slug-looking masses the size of a person's fist sit inside the chest cavities, growing and incubated. It sniffs the air again and tilts its head - with all the scent of decay here and poor eyesight, it's hard to locate Cedric, but once it's pinpointed him it lunges again.

A fraction of a second too late to get him before he escapes through the window, and it can't possibly hope to fit. It starts slamming through a door in hopes of following Cedric.

Cedric knows he needs to clear some distance before he can empty the contents of his stomach. He scrambles across rickety roof tiles throwing himself at a nearby tree. There's a nearby branch just in his reach, and with that start he can slide down until it's safe enough to jump and run.

He starts inching down, scraping his palms raw with bark. This is a horrible way to die. He's outside, alone, with no clue where his companions went. Apparently others have died before them---been murdered, it looks like. It's enough to make him sick.

Hopefully the monster won't get out right away. The field's largely barren, and there's not much to fight him with. More time, they need more time. He just doesn't know how fast it's ticking down.

Always the spare, huh? When he thinks of the people he's left, he feels guilty. Howard's just gotten through telling him to live, and what's the first thing he does? Sacrifice himself.

Well, maybe he can be a fighting sacrifice.

Out in the open, Cedric's scent is easier to follow. Once the monster has found its way back out the kitchen door, is starts to follow.

But more slowly this time. Its prey will be getting tired. There's no need for it to exert itself more and use up more of its precious energy. It shuffles across the dried up front yard and approaches the barren field. Pieces of grass stick to its greasy skin.

It will let Cedric run just long enough to think it's safe, then it'll get him. The beast drags itself towards Cedric; it's maybe a hundred meters away. As fast as it can move when lunging, it's slow when just walking, and seems almost pathetic. It has to drag itself on those spindly arms.

It stops and waits for Cedric to move again.

Damn. It's out here again. Cedric touches down nervously, taking off in the direction of Most Stuff. He can prolong this fight with something, can't he? A crowbar like the ones all the other powerless people were using against the robots? He breaks into a run, trying to keep the stench of death from distracting him too much. Surely there's something---anything. Maybe someone who knows how to fight them?

Along the way, he manages to bend down and scoop up a rusted bumper in his raw hands. "Yeah, that's right, kill the spare, come on," he curses under his breath. More noise could attract more of them.

Cedric will soon find himself in the middle of the little town's 'downtown' - a gas station, a restaurant, and some downed power lines. Better not step on those, Cedric; they're still sparking.

The monster follows him at a leisurely pace. Like a cat not bothering to kill its prey because there's no chance at escape. Occasionally it makes a hooting sound, like it's calling its brethren, but there's no response.

Finally, once it's gotten tired of watching Cedric drag the bumper around like an awkwardly-shaped sword, it rushes forward at him.

The whole town is unsettlingly quiet. Cedric moves past the bodies, not even thinking to raid for food and supplies like he should. It's too gruesome. There's got to be a solution waiting, a rescue...surely someone's realised everything is wrong.

No rescue in time. Death's rapidly approaching. Cedric yelps and leaps onto an old porch, preparing to jump. If he gets it....

He tries bringing the old bumper down hard on his opponent. If he lands on his feet, he'll run the other way. Another abandoned building? What if it was filled with more?

No time to worry.

The bumper hits the creature in the head, and then Cedric gets a stroke of luck. The part of the porch under the monster caves in under its feet, and its back half slides down into the hole. It's only about a three foot drop, but the creature can't seem to garner the arm strength to haul its heavy backend back up onto the porch.

It shrieks and howls at Cedric, clearly infuriated to be trapped so.

Wow. Cedric hesitates a second to be sure that he's safe, then drops the bumper and jogs off. He'll need something smaller to fight with. That remain of a mailbox post will do! He picks it up, twirling it in his hands, and begins his walk alone.

What's he going to do? He wasn't raised a Muggle. He can't drive a car, build a machine, fix a machine, or do much of anything useful. All he can do is try to find some water...Howard had said a running source, right? Was there any?

Against his better judgment, he peeks into the next house. Bodies everywhere, as before. He listens for monsters, creeping around every corner. It'll probably be a while before he finds anything, especially since he's still in a daze.

It's like he's sleepwalking through a nightmare. Who would want to wake up?

Out the kitchen door is a paved street that leads through the town. It looks like suburbia, taken back twenty-five years and completely desolate. Little cookie-cutter houses lead down the street, some of them with doors similarly knocked-out or ajar. In the distance is a radio tower, and cliffs. The tilted steeple of the church is visible.

Many of the cars have windows rolled down or doors open too. There's a body in the street next to a pickup truck, some adult man with his chest ripped open and larval monsters deposited inside.

Diana is jogging at a brisk pace down the street, not running, she'd sprinted until the original house was out of sight and then slowed, she wanted enough energy to dash when the next danger jumped at them. Because it would. Because there was always something else trying to get them.

Her arms were laden with the off food that'd been spilling out of the fridge, carrying them while being careful not to drop any was a pain, and her injured arm is starting to ache, but this was probably the only self-sacrifice she was ever going to be willing to make.

Diana tried to focus on Howard's back, hating the feeling of dread that took over her when she saw empty streets and 'host' bodies.

"Any plans, smart guy?"

Howard didn't stop for the food. Maybe he's been away from the FAYZ too long. Maybe he prioritizes running more. Who cares. He just ran.

Ran and tried to forget that yelp he heard from Cedric's direction that kept repeating itself in his head like an awful glitch in a tape.

Now he slows down a little, letting Diana catch up to him. Better than they not get separated. At least now if they need to rest one can stay on guard. It's better than being alone.

"Actually..." He breathes deep and wipes a hand across his face. Running and forgetting and crying, out of terror more than anything but losing Cedric hurts too. Maybe he can just pass it off as fear. He does have a tendency to burst into tears when confronted with flesh-eating monsters. "A bit of one."

He runs over to one of the bodies on the street and starts checking its pockets for car keys. Even just rifling through its clothes, his hands are covered in gore. He finally finds what he wants and pulls it out. He checks the detailing of the key.

"Ford." He wipes his hands on the edge of his jacket and points out the car it must work for. "Let's get the hell out of here."

Diana stops and waits, breathing a little ragged from the running. Fleeing for your life was certainly easier when you were well fed and rested.

Her eyes impulsively keep darting around her.

She was a little stunned by Howards tears, true, he'd never been the best emotional stronghold when faced with trauma, nor was anyone else really, but still. She guessed it must have something to do with the other boy, though why Howard would do something so unlike him as to care about someone else's safety Diana has trouble understanding.

But the two had known each other before arriving. And something in the back of Diana's mind flagged something up but she files it away for later.

Diana manages to bite her tongue on making a comment about Howards vulnerable state.

But she can't lie to herself, she just doesn't feel guilty about what happened to Cedric. There is some guilt but that's only because she doesn't feel anything about his death and she knows she should.

Tossing the food over her shoulder into the back seat, she pulls herself into the car and slumps against the backrest.

Howard climbs into the driver's seat. It's getting dark. He's not looking forward to wandering around this place at night. "Check the glove compartments. Might have a flashlight."

Or granola bars. He glances back at the food she dumped behind her. It smells, it's rotten, he can tell from here but they should be able to sort through the things that won't make them sick, might make them sick and will definitely make them sick later.

He doesn't even need to thank Diana for getting the food. Emotions like gratitude are for times when they aren't fighting for their lives.

He revs the engine and starts driving. "Think it's a good idea to risk breaking in someplace and finding water? Or should we keep looking for everyone else?"

Diana yanked open the compartment and dug under the receipts and other pieces of paper until she felt something smooth, about the size of her hand.

Pulling it out she saw the object with black casing had a black looped cord attached and large silver switch. Flicking it upwards with her thumb, a relatively bright beam of light burst from the three, perfectly intact, bulbs on the front.

Hardly believing their luck, she snapped the torch off to save battery and turned it over to inspect the back.

What she saw almost caused her to give an audible reaction. Tucked neatly into its placeholder, was a small handle.

Feeling like a hope filled fool for even attempting it, Diana pulled the handle out and turned it, almost dropping the device when it made a distinct whirring sound.

Getting over her disbelief, she gave the handle one full turn before folding it back into place.

A wind up torch. A working wind up torch. This was too lucky, and she knew it.

She quickly tied the cord through one of the belt loops on her jeans and answered his question. "Water first."

She didn't care how cold that may of sounded, Diana hasn't been away from the FAYZ long enough to fool herself into thinking concern for others is something she must prioritize.

Besides, what if they did find everyone else first but didn't find water? Howard should know just as well as she did that next to no resources amongst a group of people was nothing if not dangerous.

Afterall, the information given to them about the planet had said--

Diana suddenly began digging through the glove compartment again, wondering how much their luck really would hold out.

Howard reaches over and pushes her hand with the flashlight down. There's a reason he's driving with the headlights off. Any light they cast can be tracked to them, and so they should wait until it's entirely dark before they give away their presence visually. Even the hum of the car motor's set him on edge.

"I was thinking having softer people around for the monsters to eat when they attack us," he says. "That little kid, or the girl with the red hair or something. Safety in numbers and all."

But it's tricky, safety in numbers. Because while it may be useful against immediate threats, he knows as well as Diana does that a group without resources is a group that turns on itself. She's right. They should secure water first, at the very least.

It's strange. As terrified as he was, suddenly he's struck with a sense of calm. While survival mode was something he was stuck in back on Stacy, here it makes sense. This sort of situation is what he's adapted for. He's not crazy and neurotic and damaged here, he's just smart.

"Hey." He thinks he's got a good idea what she's looking for in the glove compartment. "Take my hand. Let's find out if magic and technology's the only thing that don't work here."

If she does, all she'll feel is his pulse along his skinny wrist.

Diana gave Howard a look when he touched her, not really understanding what had possessed him to do so, she'd already turned the torch off. And he had made it clear the last thing he wanted was physical contact with her. Or with anyone.

But, apparentlly, that wasn't true. Obviously, she'd hit her head when she'd fallen through that roof. Because she was sure she'd just heard Howard say 'take my hand'.

Diana looked up from inspecting the papers in the compartment and just raised an eyebrow at him for a moment.

"All right. But I have to tell you, this doesn't guarantee a second date." That's better, mocking, she must be alright again.

Sighing, she wraps her slender fingers around Howard's hand, their palms connecting. She looks at their joined hands for as long as she needs, then lets go. "Nothing."

"But what were you expecting? You're a no bar anyway, remember?"

"I'm heartbroken." He sounds sarcastic but his heart's not really in it. Partially because he is, at least, a little devastated about other things, but certainly not the idea of missing out on a date with Diana.

"You didn't know I'm a no-bar, though. So you don't feel anything on normal people? I always just assumed you at least sensed a nothing if there wasn't any power there." He pulls his hand away and shrugs. "So that's no good."

And he's back to being fine never touching Diana again.

He coasts at a little under twenty miles an hour down the road, occasionally veering around cars that were just left in the street. They don't see any monsters. Maybe the monsters don't come out at night after all.

The car's got a half a tank, which is good information for him to tuck away for later. He pulls over onto the sidewalk once they hit a stretch of road with no bodies anywhere. Better to deal with any territorial survivors than the monster again.

"Might as well search this house. I'll keep the motor running in case we have to book it out of there." Honestly, it might be smarter to take the keys with him, since he expects if they get chased Diana will leave without him without a second glance, but, well. He'd do the same to her, and he'd rather not wrestle with the engine as a beast descends on him.

The house is completely intact but also almost entirely empty. It's a little one-story flat with two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen and an office. The beds are left unmade, but there's no sign of struggle anywhere. There's a skylight they can use to get to the roof and get a good view of the city.

Unfortunately, the pantry's also been emptied, but they might find other useful items in the house: a vacuum cleaner, a space heater, tabs of iodine, signal flares, binoculars, sleeping bags, kitchen knives, and other odds and ends. The door to the house is still locked, as if someone was intending to return home and just never got to. No water is running through any of the taps.

They'll have to break in to enter, but they probably won't have any compunctions about that.

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[playing with the setting and getting creative to escape are welcome!]

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Cedric and the Monster

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Diana and Howard

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Feel free to find other things, just no food, water or current tech.