WALK THROUGH THE DOORS AND I’M GOOD

[Kotorikun]

((Adam Lader continued from CHILL OR BE CHILLED: THE SNOWY SAGA CONTINUES))

The wind and the shadows brought him back to the church. They were getting a bit too familiar with each other. Though the words hung in the air between them, unspoken.

Oh. He was alone again.

As Adam stood in the somber stillness, in the middle of the pool of blood by the entrance, he questioned his own role in the tragedy. After discovering Amos’ and Aion’s bodies, he had sought shelter and warmth somewhere near the research station for part of the night. “Just a few minutes” had turned into sleep for who knows how long. He had forced himself to get a move on at some point when the sky was dim. Now it was later in the day.

"Hello?" He sounded energetic, his volume not louder than his usual tone of voice. The church walls absorbed his words, offering no answers for now but amplifying his sense of isolation. “Anything, hmm, fun happening in here?"

He pressed a hand to his face, stifling a cough. He then rubbed his eyes, clearing away the weariness that blurred his vision.

Tapping the khanda that he had been holding and keeping close ever since he had been generously gifted it against the floor, he reached down and touched the pool of blood, its warmth long faded. Then he smeared the small amount that was on his palm on the blade. Once Adam was satisfied, he took some steps forward and let himself fall back on the closest pew.

[Kotorikun]

One hour has passed. Two hours have passed.

Three of the pews were adorned with bloody handprints on the back.

As the day had worn on, Adam found himself driven by a mix of curiosity and a need to exert control over his surrounding. He slowly approached the pool of blood, again. It lay there, an omen of death and suffering and stark contrast against the faded grandeur of the church. Without much thinking, he extended his trembling hand, feeling the remains of the sticky fluid cling to his palm. To him, it was just a reminder of the fate that awaited those who faltered. Then he got to work; a print here, a print there, leaving gory imprints like an apprentice mage trying to summon a demon. That’s how they had gotten on the pews.

Time seemed to blur.

Adam was back sitting on a pew, the one that Aion and Amos had occupied before when they all stayed here the other day. Wrapped in his emergency blanket and waiting for more signs of life, he was going through his belongings with his bag beside him. He honestly wasn’t surprised about the silence (part of him regretted not staying at the research station after hearing noises) but then it kept snowing and snowing and snowing and wasn’t there enough snow already? Technically he wasn’t alone, but he didn’t know that. Said company just wasn’t breathing or moving anymore.

He wondered if Salem was having fun. How many times was it that he had heard his name by now? Kitty seemed busy too. Oh, what he would give to have Ellis walk in and cry his eyes out right in front of him—

It was the next day, to his surprise.

He stared at his dry hands, picked on his nails, and touched his hair, his cold face, wondering how dark his dark circles were. His nose hurt. Everything hurt, somehow. He took half an ibuprofen. It didn’t help.

The restlessness didn’t fade away and it never did and it was fucking annoying.

His head hung back over the backrest and it turned into a big stretch until he turned around and was now draped over it like a heavy rug.

[ViolentMedic]

((Russell 'Fitz' Fitzroy continued from I hope you will in your next life a cow on a trash farm.))

Fitz had walked by the church with Victor, but he hadn’t gone inside. Now he returned to examine the building.

He walked around the church once, eyeing the windows. He had seen the darkness of something pressed against some of the windows, giving away the fact that there were barricades. He now stood at the front entrance.

The amount of blood there was sizable. Footsteps led away.

“Hmmmmrrrrrmmm...” He let loose a low, thoughtful hum that dragged on and on as his eyes flickered between the blood, the footsteps and the glimpses of barricade.

Finally, he slid past the door to press his back against the wall beside it. He checked that his rifle was loaded. Then he reached out and knocked on the door five times. Shave-and-a-Haircut style, the tune so associated with light-heartedness that it sounded extra wrong amongst the blood and the stench of death.

Tap tap-tap-tap tap.

He returned his hand to the rifle and waited for the response, holding his breath. Grip tight on the rifle but keeping it low, an attempt to find the middle ground between non-threatening and ready to go if he had to.

[Kotorikun]

Adam flinched and slithered down to the ground like a snake before jumping back up, his eyes fixed on the entrance. The surge of adrenaline felt nice as it heightened his senses. His hand instinctively reached for his sword on the bench before he made his way over to the source of the knocking. Quite polite of the stranger, wasn’t it?

His arm touched the wall.

"...Say your full name," he demanded, then ran back to his bag and quickly grabbed his smart list of weapons. "And—" He rushed back with an audible jump in his voice and quickly followed with: "And the password for the door.

"Please." He added in a cutesy voice, his tone suggesting that he was smiling.

That would surely buy him some time. His eyes were already scanning the paper while he was the one waiting for a response now.

[ViolentMedic]

The gun moved down an inch further as Fitz shifted on his feet. Leaning a bit more into the wall, he could hear movement back and forth.

“Ahh, full name?” Fitz mumbled, grip tightening on the gun briefly before he sighed. “Well, since you said please… it’s Russell Fitzroy. Stick with Fitz. Only my parents and the terrorists call me Russell.”

As he spoke, he raised the gun again, then reconsidered and lowered it. Changing his mind as he rambled twice more before ultimately leaving it pointed away from the door.

“I’ll address the elephant – yeah, I killed twice. Not looking to do it again, I’ve got enough ghosts on my ass as it is. I’m just looking for a spear or something sharp. It’s not for murder. I thought a church might have one of those, uh, Jesus spears or whatever. I just want to look around… or you can roll something sharp under the door, if you’ve got a spare.”

He paused briefly, but no answer came. He let out an ‘oh’ and lightly smacked himself on the head.

“The password is ‘pretty please with sprinkles on top.’”

[Kotorikun]

Using the khanda like a pointer, Adam searched the laminated paper for Fitz's name, leaving small scratches as he moved along. He quickly found it, but his expression tightened when he saw the item listed next to it.

Walther WA 2000 sniper rifle

From one lunatic with a gun to the next one. Of course. Fitz was giving him much more information than Adam had asked for, which he didn’t mind at all. He thought his name sounded familiar but Adam did not remember the context in which he had appeared on the announcements, so he thanked him internally for the additional details.

"Alright, Russell—" he said, on purpose. "Fitz, I mean. Sorry. You can’t go wrong with sprinkles,” he continued, clicking his tongue loudly to mimic the sound of a lock unlocking. “Oh, wow, the door opened! Your password has been accepted. Come in and say hi to the ghosts you've mentioned, not sure if you'll find what you're looking for.”

Adam's eyes flicked to his bag before he held his list behind his back to have it out of Fitz’s sight if he decided to go right in. He wanted to put it back in there and moved away from the door. He wasn’t particularly keen on being greeted with a gun to his face.

[ViolentMedic]

Fitz stuck his head through quickly, the little pom-pom on his hat coated in frost at this point. He eyed Adam, then nodded.

“Hey, ghosts. Hey… ahh, Adam, right?”

Fitz’s eyes flickered to Adam’s vivid pink hair, then moved down to hands behind Adam’s back, keeping whatever he was holding out of view. Then he put the gun through the door, though he held it carefully with one hand, the barrel pointing straight down.

“I’m armed. Obviously. If you’re hiding a gun behind your back, you can bring it out into the open. I won’t try to take it from you, and I won’t point the barrel of this at you if you’re cool and agree not to aim anything at me, okay? If you’ve got no guns in hand, I’ll even unload it for double safety. Though if you do point a gun at me or try to grab it, I have to shoot you.”

He did shift through the door just a little bit more, though still more leaning in than having stepped inside. Though perhaps he’d forgotten that his jacket was still coated in the blood of Tully, Cedar, Tenshi, Mildred...

“Cool?”

[Kotorikun]

“Cool.”

Adam responded with a slight nod. He recognized him. Fitz's style had always been very distinct, which he believed was a good quality to have. However, beyond that, he didn't know or care much about him. Adam emphasized his hold on his sword by tightening his grip on the handle, the blunt tip grazing the ground. His hand was still in the back and he realized that was just going to make him look more suspicious than anything.

“You got me. I don’t have a gun on me.” He shrugged, wanting to appear calm when he held the paper up for a second before lowering his arm. “And yeah, it’s Adam. I like to take notes. It’s whatever, it’s not that important.”

While Fitz’s gun was lowered, he moved further to the right to his bag and put the list on top of it.

“Figures a killer would come to this place at one point in their career.”

[ViolentMedic]

Fitz eyed the sword, gaze lingering on where the blood had been smeared on it, then nodded. He lifted the gun, and very clearly took the clip out of it before placing it in his pocket.

“Notes are a good idea. Easy to forget stuff after a week. I've been making some, too.”

He stepped inside and closed the door after him. He walked in far enough after Adam, his eyes flickering very quickly to the piece of paper – laminated, and thus unsuited for note-taking, though there clearly was text on it – before he looked away and returned his gaze to scanning the walls.

“I’m not looking for salvation or anything like that. Not from God, anyway, unless he feels like being useful and smiting some terrorists.”

As Fitz spoke, he slid his bag off his shoulder and placed it near the pew where Adam’s stuff was. Though he kept his unloaded rifle in hand. He started poking around the church and walking towards the back. Looking at the strangely large amount of hand prints smeared around like a morbid children’s painting. There was a body on one of the pews. Donovan Lauer. Though the way he was rested suggested that the injuries inflicted on him had been done elsewhere.

“There’s a dead guy in housing… uh, Alex. I want to put his head on a pike. Fuck his ghost over. That’s all. Church was just close enough to check.”

He approached the back, opened the door. He saw the bodies – one covered, the other not – and quickly shut the door again. He stood there for a moment, head turned away from the door and eyes fixed on the ground.

“Lot of bodies in here for somewhere that needs a password. How long you been here?”

There was an element of forced casualness in his voice at that last line. Even so, he inhaled and opened the door again, and went inside the sacristy to investigate.

[DerArknight]

Meanwhile, two wanderers looking for some kind of salvation closed in on the ruin of faith.

((Dawn Montogomery continued from I Hail From Nowhere))

There probably wasn't a single spot they hadn't searched in the research station, so staying there would have been a waste of time. Both the listening station and the correctional facility were too exposed to the snowfall to work on the memorial. But the town promised more opportunities for both scavenging and building. The road between the two locations proved bothersome, but somehow Dawn and David carried the most important things with them. What was left behind could be picked up on a second round, if deemed necessary. The one thing Dawn regretted picking up was the sword. If they had left it stuck in the bar, it would now have been safely in a Danger Zone, never to be used again.

The mining town was oddly peaceful, the snow covering many signs of decay. Dawn easily could imagine people living humble but happy lives here, unimpressed from the frenzy of modern society. A little world of itself, in which the passing of time was just numbers going up. She remembered the Salem Mall, a place with similar old charm.

But then there were the cameras. And the trails of blood, sometimes leading into or out of houses. And the deafening silence, only sporadically broken by what sounded like gunshots in the distance. And the announcement.

Said announcement came with more dire news. More names of people who died and killed. Also the special information that over half of them were now dead. If Dawn had counted the exact number of dead classmates, she could have determined the exact number of living ones, but she hadn't, so she couldn't.

At this point, the names blended into one another whenever Dawn wasn't careful. Juanita Forsyth got two more kills. Maya Masina died in the cold. Kyle McOzanne gutted his brother Fred. Slowly, all tragedies became the same.

She shook her head to stop the whirlwind inside her. It worked, for the moment at least.

"The church should be right around the corner," Dawn told herself, informing her companion as a side-bonus. "We should find some stuff there that can't be found anywhere else. Maybe the pews are small enough that we can move them. I have some ideas for that."

While she spoke, the church indeed came into view. Just as the town, it was in decline and coated in a beautiful white. As she closed the distance, Dawn futilely tried to remember the last time she entered any church. It must have been when she helped out in a charity event last year. Another memory of better times.

Without further ado, Dawn grabbed the doorknob. The door looked like it might show some resistance, so she pressed her full weight against it.

With a surprising lack of complain, the door swung open.

[decoy73]

((David Worth continued from I Hail from Nowhere))

Derek ...

Derek's head shot back as his coins fell from his bat.

"And the thirteenth person eliminated from the Survivor: JEM and the sixth member of our jury ... Derek"

"Goddamit." Derek just smiled as he shook his head and gave his buff over to David. He'd never even watched the show prior, and was actually quite surprised at how far he made it.

"Derek, the tribe has spoken."

David had made it to the halfway point. It was times like this that he wished that he'd gotten the shits the day before the trip.

The pair had made it across the island to a church, which Dawn was opening. It was unlocked, which was ... okay. It was also occupied, which was less okay. Fitz and Adam were ... cool. They weren't bad, well, Fitz did have a couple kills, though he wasn't a Katelyn, though that was a low bar to clear.

David just cleared his throat.

"Hello."

[Kotorikun]

Adam quickly covered his bag with the emergency blanket that was still on the pew, but only half of the list was hidden. Despite noticing this, he didn’t want to give it too much attention and instead focused on Fitz and his words. Casting a cautious glance at Fitz's bag, Adam narrowed his eyes, but then his expression softened once more. However, his ease didn't last long, as Fitz soon discovered what was inside the sacristy.

“Bodies? Plural?”

A hot flash washed the back of his neck and dripped between his ribs, one that could take you out any second, but somehow you’re still standing. He hadn't been feeling his best since waking up, and before that, he had been hesitant to explore the rooms in the dark.

“Hold on,” he swallowed and waved his hand. “Can we talk about your plan though, like, what?” Adam wondered if Fitz held a grudge against said dead Alex or if he had simply lost his sanity. He started to close the distance between them once Fitz went inside the sacristy.

"I’ve only been here for a short time, it doesn’t matter. Just take their heads instead. What's one more funeral inside a church?" he remarked and stopped by the doorway. The huff of air that came out of Adam's mouth, it wasn’t quite a scoff or a laugh. That’s when he noticed the noises by the entrance.

His prayers for company had been generously answered, it seemed.

[ViolentMedic]

“One of them’s Angelo. I think.”

Fitz reached out, and carefully lifted a little bit of the vestiments over the other body. He caught a glimpse of what was underneath, unrecognisable between glimpses of infection and the blunt force trauma that had been the (several) finishing blows. He dropped the vestiment back over his face and quickly turned away, forcing the bile back down his throat.

“Jesus Christ, that’s horrible,” he muttered.

A quick glance around the sacristy. Fitz picked up a candlestick holder and stuck it in one of his pockets, where it jutted out awkwardly. He checked the wardrobes, then left in time for the doors to swing open.

Immediately, the rifle came halfway up despite being unloaded. But only for a moment before Fitz lowered it again.

“Oh. Hey, Dawn. David. You got any knives or spears?”

His eyes flickered briefly back to Adam before he started making his way back to the entrance, and by extension their bags. A little too quickly to be casual, though nor was it qualified as a run.

“And it’s not about funerals, Adam. I can’t cut off Angelo’s head. He took me to Wendy’s once. And the other body has suffered enough. It’s got to be Alex.” He gestured at Dawn. “She knows. Oh, she’s fine, by the way. Tenshi was a medical mishap.”

[DerArknight]

Inside the church, they found themselves confronted with two classmates.

Dawn didn't know much about Adam, which was as good as it was bad. Seeing Fitz on the other hand made her perk up. Somehow, she hadn't expected to run into him again.

Anyway, Dawn was glad to see both of them in good health. Albeit at this point, she would have been glad about seeing anyone in good health.

"Hi," she spoke while entering the house of god with David. Further greetings were shared. Lastly, Fitz vouched for her, compelling Dawn to do the same.

"I can attest that Fitz is fine as well," she said directed at the two non-Fitz-boys in the room. "His shooting of Tully was an accident. Alex attacked us and some others on the second day. As for Mildred, I wasn't there, but giving how the announcement blamed him for Tully and Mildred's... uh... temper, I think I have a guess what happened."

None of that was mentioning how Fitz left her and Cassie and Madeline behind after Tenshi died, but bringing that up didn't appear constructive at the moment.

"As for your question, we have a sword." Dawn let this revelation hang in the air for two seconds. "But what are you planning to do with it?"

She really wanted to trust Fitz. But while they were walking closer, he had said something Dawn had only heard the latter half of. Now they stood closer by each other. Dawn saw over her former companion, noticing how disshelved the boy was. Understandable, after over one week without a shower or change of clothes. She probably looked worse.

[decoy73]

So Dawn was vouching for Fitz and his big ass gun, and vice versa. Adam was, well, Adam. He was good in crowds, although the antics. Oh, Lord, the antics.

"Uh, yeah. I also have a gun. Not as big as yours, but I can still use it if we need it." God damn, Fitz had a huge gun, but with only three kills between the other three, it couldn't be that bad, right?