( 𝚜𝚎𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚍 𝚠𝚊𝚟𝚎. )> closed

[beeqlass]

xxxx𝘴𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘢𝘷𝘦

here we are, in a broken world. 2077. not too
long ago, about 5 years ago, the plants began
growing. they grew fast, nobody expected this.
they took over entire buildings, and released
a new, dangerous chemical into the air. this
chemical would slowly take over your body,
killing you slowly. the world went into a panic
as more and more people, countries - dropped.
five years after, and the world is isolated and
quiet. the chemical in the air disappeared as
quickly as it came. those who deceased became
infested with plants, rotting away, walking plants.
theres no human left with them, and they give
off that same chemical. theyre generally harmless,
otherwise.

theres few survivors, with only a couple million
left in the world, and you just happen to be one
of them.

forms.
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[beeqlass]

xxxx𝘴𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘢𝘷𝘦

i. follow all chickensoothie rules. ii. one chara
max. per person. iii. 250 word minimum. iv. real
faceclaims only. v. 48 hour reservations. dm to
reserve. vi. no overpowered characters. vii. no
huge plot events without talking to me first.
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[beeqlass]

xxxx𝘴𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘢𝘷𝘦

2 nb / 5 female / 3 male

eden may / 15 / nonbinary / beeqlass
kohi / 16 / male / honeyqlass
kaia franz / 20 / female / vampi
miller / 18 / male/ vampi
mavis duval / 20 / female / natrillie
avery lincolns / 21 / female / carpe noctem.
jack bishop / 22 / nonbinary / orion ;;
alaska bennet / 21 / female / baby blue
yuna / 26 / female / daices.
levy ryan dulac / 24 / male / pasdeplumas
voldemort / 45 / male / pasdeplumas
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[beeqlass]

xxxx𝘴𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘢𝘷𝘦

status ;;
— not accepting
— open to posting
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[orion ;;]

𝕛𝕒𝕔𝕜 𝕓𝕚𝕤𝕙𝕠𝕡
location: a rooftop ▪ tags: open
▪▪▪

Things have been peaceful for a while now. Jack leans back against the sun-kissed earth and smiles to himself, enjoying a brief respite from the day's walk. He hasn't seen anything new yet today, but there's still time yet in the afternoon for a discovery to rear its head. He's been in the area for long enough that most of the growth here is familiar to him, already making their home among the pages of his press-book. Nearby, something scurries through the underbrush. A bird chirps from some unseen nest. The wind runs gentle fingers through the leaves, cloaking buildings so thickly they look like ancient trees. It's peaceful here, despite being in the thick of a city. He found his way to the top of a short building earlier in the day and settled himself in the corner of its roof to eat lunch, figuring he'd keep an eye on the door and be able to hop the side should anyone try to corner him. There's still plenty of other buildings that rise around this one, blocking most of the view of the city, but still allowing for the midday sun to pour down over him.

Jack rummages around in his bag for a moment before pulling out the well-worn book he'd taken from the ruins of his family's farm. He'd found it in the wreckage two days after the fire, after he was sure enough the looters had gone. The long days he spent there, digging through rubble, feel foreign to him now, the desperation and fear but a shadow of a memory. He runs two fingers along the scorch mark marring the book's front, the only damage it'd sustained from its hiding place among the soil of a potted plant. It calls to him, the warm leather and pages of scrawling, spidery handwriting. "From soil we came, and so to soil we shall return," he whispers to the book, lifting two fingers to his lips before touching them to the scorch mark. He opens the book and begins to read, lips moving as he mouths the words to himself in silent prayer.

By the time the call deep in the base of his spirit has settled, the sun has gone back behind the buildings and evening is fast approaching. Jack replaces the book in his bag and stands up to get a good look around, wondering if he's better off just staying here for the night. It'd be easy enough to bar the door with something solid, and the growth is wild enough around the edges of the roof that he can build a makeshift shelter without hurting any of the plants. His outfit is decent enough camouflage, too, especially in the darkness of night. He hadn't been spotted on his way up to the roof to the best of his knowledge, so he should be safe. A prickling feeling of unease sets in as he goes about arranging vines and roots into a sort of cave. He misses the safety of the forest dearly, its solitude and near-perfect silence. The cities are most alive at night - vagabonds, looters, bounty hunters, and their ilk more often move in the cover of night. Jack understands the drive to hide from sight, but the sun's warmth on his face is just as necessary to him as to any plant.

With his makeshift shelter finished, Jack crawls inside it and pulls the tangle of roots and vines close to him, hoping that from the outside it looks like just another growth. He's careful to move slowly so as to not crush any plants, whispering his thanks to their leaves for providing him with safety and comfort for another night. The wind picks up briefly, ruffling the world as if in response to his words. He smiles and detaches the tightly-rolled blanket from the bottom of his pack, tucking it around himself and positioning his bag under his head as a pillow. The blanket's weight is comfortable to him, the familiarity of its hand-stitched intricate pattern of leaves and flowers a reminder of a home long gone. As he relaxes, Jack lets himself fall into the nostalgia, memories of the farm drifting over him soft as clouds. His mother, carefully sewing each petal into place beside a fire. His father, teaching him how to move a seedling from a pot to the ground without disturbing its roots. Afternoons in the stream that ran by their house, washing dirt from every inch of his skin. He's not sad that it's gone, really. The memories of home are comfort enough, and wishing for it back would be like trying to put fallen leaves back on the trees. Home will find him again, the way the trees always sprout new leaves in spring.

Comfortable in his leafy bed, Jack lets the fading twilight embrace him as he drifts from thoughts of his childhood into a deep, peaceful sleep.

▪▪▪

Shaken from sleep, there's a few seconds where all Jack can do is lay paralyzed and stunned inside his makeshift shelter, shaking off the lats bits of hazy sleep that cling to his mind. Then, his head clears, and he places the sound that woke him up: the rumbling boom of something exploding, its aftershocks making the leaves tremble. Holding his breath, he rolls his blanket and replaces it at the bottom of his bag before pushing his way out of the tangle of vines he shaped around himself for the night, trying to move as slowly as possible to not draw undue attention. Better to be safe than sorry. He crouches among the leaves and looks out at the street below, waiting for any of the vaguely human-esque dark shapes to move. After a few moments, the acrid smell of smoke catches his nose. The worry that someone is hurt overtakes his fear of being seen, so Jack takes a deep breath and swings himself over the side of the building, climbing down hand over hand. The vines are strong and hold his weight without any issue, some as thick as tree branches under his hands. He makes it down to the ground quickly, many years of heavy farmwork filling his upper body with enough muscle to climb quickly and without complaint. From there, he barely pauses to take stock of the street around him before he sets off at a run in the direction of the blast.

[natrillie]

───────── ᴍᴀᴠɪꜱ ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
[ gender: female ] [ 20 ] [ tagged: ⟼ none/open ] [ location: apartment complex ]

The city was uniquely beautiful at night time. The streetlights had stopped turning on at their usual seven pm, and now the only source of light afterhours was the moon and stars. Although it wasn’t much, it was enough to make out the other buildings surrounding the apartment complex, and the shadows of the thick plant growth that covered the entire city. Mavis let out a short sigh before swiveling around and away from the window. She stared, satisfied at her run-down bedroom. Back before the outbreak, just about everyone would turn down living in such conditions, but in these times, people would kill for just the twin-sized mattress. Not to mention the thin, tattered sheet that came with it.

It had been no less than a year since Mavis stumbled upon Levy while rummaging around an old gas station, not far from their complex. At first she was hesitant, considering that most people who’d survived this long had committed some dreadful acts in order to do so, but there was something comforting about him and the small boy who accompanied him at the time, that managing to convince the girl to join them. Little did she know that that would be one of the best decisions she’d make since choosing to move out of her childhood home and into a dorm with her best friend. Of course, that was only a good decision for a short period of time, considering that it would result in her never seeing her family again.

Mavis blinked rapidly, realizing that she had been standing in the middle of her room staring emptily at the floor. Careful not to wake the others with her footsteps on the hardwood floor -just about any sudden noise could be heard in the dead silence of night- she made her way over to the water-stained mattress and sat, releasing a huff of air as she did. There wasn’t much of a variety when it came to clothing, so Mavis grabbed the one other t-shirt she owned from the floor and switched with the one she wore throughout the day. Sadly, she hadn’t managed to find any salvageable sweatpants yet, so her torn up jeans would have to do. She pulled off her light brown, leathery, off-brand combat boots and slipped her legs under the tiny sheet with her socks still on. Her gaze shifted to the spotty ceiling, and although it had to be the middle of the night, Mavis felt wide-awake.

It took about another hour, but Mavis’s eyelids grew heavy enough, and sent her into a slight level of sleep. After years of living on edge, just about everyone learned to sleep with one eye open, literally. But what seemed like only minutes after she had begun to get some rest, an ear-splitting eruption of noise filled the silence of the entire city. Mavis shot up, holding her upper-body upright in the bed as she stared out of the window for any signs of an intruder or nearby fires. When nothing appeared, she swung her legs off the mattress and pulled her boots back on, not bothering to switch out of her sleep shirt. All sorts of thoughts filled her head. Was their building being attacked? Was the city being bombed? Anything that could possibly explain the void-filling noise, Mavis thought of. Her head spinning, she grabbed the axe she had propped up on the side of the wall just by the door, ready for emergencies like this one. Finally, she picked up the pistol tucked beneath a pile of garbage and wedged it between her hip and tight-fitting jeans.

Emerging from her room and onto the balcony that connected all the apartments, Mavis noticed smoke peeking out from the top of the complex. Whatever it was, it had to have been close. Quickly, she made her way to a room at the front of the building that had been assigned specifically for situations such as this. The rule was, if there was any sort of emergency, no scrambling room-to-room in order to grab others, but head straight there, and then carefully retrieve whoever didn’t arrive afterwards. Mavis was there in just a couple seconds and noticed that she was the first to arrive. She groaned loudly and decided to wait outside of the door, this surely had to have woken the others.

[baby blue]

─── [◈] ─── 𝚊𝚕𝚊𝚜𝚔𝚊 𝚋𝚎𝚗𝚗𝚎𝚝𝚝
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◈ twenty-one ◈ bisexual ◈ location: city outskirts ◈ tags: open ◈

the moon hung high against the cascade of the stars, highlighting small patches of the trees that alaska found herself navigating. the low hanging branches casting shadows on the path in front of her, grass flattened slightly by any traffic from one of the native creatures. ducking under one of the said low hanging branches, alaska found herself at the edge of the trees and overlooking a city from a slight incline. adjusting the backpack on her shoulders, she carefully began to slide one sneaker-clad foot down the incline, finding a suitable step so that she could begin to lower the next foot. now with her back facing the city, she began to pick her way carefully down the incline in the middle of the night. as she continued her descent, her exhaustion from her travels and from lack of sleep slowly began to set in, causing her fingers to slip slightly on her hold above her head. she dug her nails into the dirt, her mind becoming more alert as the thought of the possibility of an injury creeping through her mind.

finally at the bottom of the incline, alaska wiped her brow with the back of her wrist to dispel of the sweat that had collected. the small droplets that clung to the skin of her hand were shaken off as she inhaled deeply. the smell of pine assaulted her senses momentarily, revealing to her that there was pine trees somewhere to the east of her as that is where the wind was traveling from. slinging her pack from her shoulders, she knelt on one knee onto the damp grass. taking hold of the slider on the zipper, the pull tab had broken off long ago, she used her nails to slowly inch it along the teeth until it reached the bottom stop. reaching into the bag, she pulled out a sleepsack that she planned to set up underneath a nearby tree if she was unlucky, a big enough bush if she was lucky. like most nights, she was unlucky in her hopes to find a nice bush to camp under. she was left setting up her pack against a large tree and laying her sleepsack out. locking her hands behind her head, she leaned back on her bag and settled in for the night, eyelids taking mere seconds to close and for sleep to follow soon after.

─── [◈] ───

typically, alaska would expect to be woken up by the bright sun shining down, birps chirping and branches cracking. this morning was not typical in the slightest. first, a muffled boom assaulted her ears, causing her to jackknife into an upright position. the boom was quickly followed by the faintest of tremors that had her brow furrowing quizzically. using her hands to push herself into a standing position, alaska was quick to pack up her things while muttering expletives about how she should have trusted her gut that coming to a city was a bad idea. she had done perfectly fine on her own for the past five years, spare the few encounters she has had. she has no particular reason to continue traveling, other than she wants answers. it's not every day that plants overtake your home and kill your parents.

hefting her pack back on her shoulders, she grabbed the straps to tighten them and pulled hard. the bag was lifted higher on her back, relieving the tension it had been placing on her shoulders last night. inhaling sharply, she shook away any concerns she had about entering the city and took off. the explosion sounded serious and she just had a gut feeling that something was wrong. despite not being a social butterfly anymore, she still has a caring heart that urged her to make sure nobody was injured. the only issue? she had absolutely no idea what or if any dangers lay in her path to the smoke signaling the location she was headed. she would deal with them as they came, but for now she found herself picking her way through the ruins of the city, eyes cautiously scanning the surrounding area.

[pasdeplumas]

xxxx

in an over-grown city ; tags miller, mavis
__________________________________
xxxx

Juste une seconde. One second. Just one second left to hold his breath in before the world went to sleep. It was in this second between streams of consciousness that he often found himself, awake, unable to submit to the darkness, though the sun was more than willing to settle itself below the edge of the earth. It was beautiful, he admitted it; the muted purples and deep blues scattered diffusely across the horizon at twilight were his favorite colors. But his desire to see the light refractions in the sky were not what kept him awake. No, it was a much baser emotion than that. He was afraid.

He was afraid that, if he let himself sleep, he would be leaving the others unprotected. Though they were almost all in different rooms, they were not far apart. If something happened while he slept… no. It doesn’t bear thinking about it. He would never forgive himself. But he was only human, and he usually fell asleep around midnight, only to jerk awake again when the sun arose. That would probably be the case again tonight. He was exhausted, but he knew that sleeping at night would not bring him the rest he needed. His mind was quick to recall one of his father’s old mantras. You can sleep when you’re dead, Levy! These words were meant to be motivational, of course, but El could barely hold back a sigh, releasing the breath he forgot he’d been holding.

The sky had long since drawn its starry blanket over itself by the time he felt the need to get up and move around. El stood, wincing at the ache that smarted from his left hip up his lower back. Stretching his spine only seemed to make it worse, and soon he was silently cursing in French at the pain. Levy glanced across the room at the other bed in the corner, where he could hear Miller breathing softly in the shadows. He hadn’t needed to keep watch since the last member of his family died, and he’d been on his own, until he met the young man. Had it been a year since then? Levy couldn’t bother to recall the time frame, but one thing was certain: Miller had turned his life upside down. In a good way. He reminded Levy of his younger brother, with his obnoxious headstrong attitude, and although the boy was nearly as tall as him, he was thin as a sapling, and so young, barely eighteen, it broke his heart to see him on his own. El had been older than Miller was now, when everything fell apart. He couldn’t imagine what it must have been like growing up in this new world.

It had taken some convincing before Miller joined forces with him, but it seemed they were both glad for the company once they became accustomed to each other’s presence. The boy was sleeping peacefully now, but the same could not be said for the person in the room to the left of theirs, judging by the sound of the wooden floor creaking under someone’s weight. One of the girls. Obviously he knew which one it was. Mavis. Why she was still moving about in there, he couldn’t fathom, but he was grateful for it all the same. It reminded him that she was still here, and it gave him an excuse to think about her, shameful as he felt about it. The belle of the ball.

Heat rose to his cheeks at the thought, and he closed his eyes in an attempt to think of anything else, but all he could see was her face. He saw it, her eyes as sparkling and clear as they had been the day they met at a gas station along the periphery of the city. The sunlight had laid a halo atop her head, making her chocolate curls shine. She brought him a sense of relief in that moment, his memories telling him that they were okay. She was safe, as was Miller, and Kaia, and Avery, even though the word ‘safe’ had a different meaning than it once had before.

For however long they’d been in this city, it still made him nervous. It was something about the buildings jutting up from the ground like stalagmites, hiding danger in plain sight. He’d grown up with wide open spaces, and until about a year ago, he’d been inclined to travel on those long, open stretches of land, nothing in view but the line where the earth met the sky. Still, the air that funneled through the skyscrapers here was cool, and constantly carried the smell of fresh, dew-covered leaves. He could almost pretend it was a normal forest, but for the vines that wrapped around every piece of metal and concrete.

Some odd minutes later, El made his way to the bathroom to wash his face to keep himself alert. It wasn’t often he chose to look at himself in a mirror, and he wasn’t particularly impressed when he did this time. There were bags under his eyes, his cheeks looked sunken. He needed a haircut. He made a mental note to ask Avery tomorrow, or literally any of the girls, just as long as it wasn’t Miller. That boy had crazier hair, and Levy wasn’t about to trust him with a pair of scissors near his ears.

He made his way, feeling through the dark, back to his bed, sitting on the edge and going through his normal routine of checking his firearms. Muscle memory and years of practice guided his hands as he checked the magazine in his rifle, the chamber in his pistol, the safeties of both. Once he was sure everything was as it should be, he set the guns aside once more, and found his one hand drifting to his breast pocket. Out of habit, he took out the locket, opened it even though he couldn’t see the little portrait inside.

Leaning back against the wall, it was not long after that he started to doze off. He came to with a jolt, a thunderous echo ringing in his ears, but he knew the building they were in wouldn’t be quaking if it had been just a clap of thunder from a stormcloud. The explosion was too close for comfort, and he forgot to breathe for a second, listening for another to follow, but the silence returned completely, a fuzziness in his ears as if he’d just been hit upside the head.

Fabric rustled in the corner, and he knew Miller was awake now, too. Under any other circumstances, he would have instructed him to stay put, but the proximity of the blast could only mean something unsavory had happened, or was about to happen, and it would probably be safer for them all to gather together. They knew the drill to meet, in what was essentially the foyer, after a noise like that would have spooked them all.

“Get your things,” he said in a hushed voice, as he hooked his holster onto his belt and slung the straps of his rifle over his shoulder. “Will you grab my bag as well? I’m going to see what that was, tell ze others.”

Without waiting for confirmation from the other boy, El opened the door into the hallway, walking briskly to the main room. He tripped over the lip of the rug in the entranceway when he noticed Mavis in the door, and he couldn’t deny he was caught off-guard to see her there first. If his heart hadn’t already been racing from adrenaline, it would have skipped a beat or two, but as it were, he was too worried about the situation to try and make less of a fool of himself.

“Do you know what ‘appened?” He asked as he approached, peeking outside. Nothing in their immediate vicinity but plumes of smoke appearing over the roof of a building down the street. He turned toward her, overcome with the need to investigate the source of the explosion, but he couldn't rightfully leave her here with their other companions without her permission. She'll probably want to go, too. He couldn't have that, instinct urging him to keep her safe here, so he bit his lip, hoping she would be thinking the same way that he was, but anticipating the opposite, knowing they were rarely on the same page.

[daices.]

⚘ YUNA ⚘
〘 location ↠ city | feeling ↠ paranoid, frustrated | tagged ↠ n/a 〙
“ we can go wherever, let's do it now or never ”
- - - - - ⚘ - - - - - ⚘ - - - - - ⚘ - - - - - ⚘ - - - - - ⚘ - - - - - ⚘ - - - - - ⚘ - - - - -

Yuna hummed along to the music softly drifting from her speakers as she cruised along the rundown highway, one hand tapping out a beat near the rim of the side window. The other was carefully steering as she made her way through weeds that had overgrown and cracked the asphalt, as well as the slowly rusting husks of vehicles, most already choked over by foliage. She saw a few of those plant creatures here and there as well; some wandering aimlessly along the edges of the road, some in cars, a telltale colored fog clouding the windows of the car a sign that some unfortunate soul was trapped there. Yuna lamented that she couldn't speed along the highway as she could have Before, the maze of broken blacktop and ruined vehicles slowing her progress.

Other than watching for the occasional spray of glass that would spell death for her wheels, Yuna's eye remained trained on the horizon, the faintest suggestion of sunlight turning the city into a stark silhouette. But more specifically, Yuna was eyeing the faint cloud of smoke that hovered over the distant city skyline. Less a sign of pollution, and moreso a sign of life; a multitude of people burning charcoal, or whatever substances they had, to stay warm and alive. It was a testament to human will, really, when despite most of the world having been taken over by foliage, people still wanted to continue life as normal, operate under laws, the like.

Absolutely ridiculous.

When the world goes to hell, why would you want to stay enslaved to institutions, groups, rules? No- when the world goes to hell, you do everything on your bucket list until the apocalypse finally catches up to you. Yuna was sure that if a national census still existed, the regular human lifespan would probably be cut in half anyways. The candle that burns twice as bright, burns half as long, and all that. Yuna let out an unbidden huff of laughter; if Emily knew that she was quoting Lao Tzu and getting all philosophical, she'd be teased out of house and home.

The laugh quickly cut off, the metal ring resting against her chest searing into her skin like a brand. Yuna forced her eyes to remain on the road and not stray to the glovebox, where she knew a photo album was kept under lock and key; she had originally kept a photo hanging from her rearview in a moment of weakness, but a few too many run-ins with bandit clans had taught her not to leave anything sentimental out. Quickly reaching over and turned the radio on louder, she was grateful that WiFi had remained stable enough for her to download a veritable dictionary of songs, deep bass and high strings drowning out her thoughts. Yuna pressed harder into the pedal, the answering rumble from her trusty jeep soothing her- if only for a moment.

When Yuna was close enough to the city to see the shadows the ruined buildings cast, the sun had climbed enough to be considered morning, if barely. Her car slowed to a gentle meander, Yuna grateful that the exhaust silencer and muffler she had just implemented were working at low speeds and reducing her engine to a low, angry grumble. She made a mark on an old and torn map of the states -already riddled with small 'x's- before grabbing her gun from where it had been resting on the passenger seat. Keeping it in her lap with thumb on the safety and fingers on the trigger, Yuna kept her eyes peeled on her surroundings, nerves thrumming like a live wire. Most cities were wary but not unwelcoming to travelers, but it wasn't uncommon for some to be overrun by bandits or marauders thirsty for loot. A thin gauze patch on her neck was evidence of that fact, an encounter from a week ago gone awry.

The outskirts of the city were mercifully quiet; no sounds bit the faint chirp of birds and the wind whistling through the husks of buildings. Flora was snarled around more often than not, and Yuna found herself taking detour after detour as the greenery grew too dense to traverse in certain places. Sighing as she ran into another dead end, Yuna stared at the dead tree blocking her way down a relatively straight path forward. Just moving the trunk a little bit would let her make her way down quite a distance without needing to take another detour... Taking one last surveying glance around, Yuna quickly put her car into park before hopping out, slipping her gun into the holster on her waist before rolling up her sleeves.

Thankfully, the tree was well and truly dead, the sun-bleached wood relatively light compared to its size. Straining against the thick trunk, it took a good twenty minutes to clear a path wide enough for her jeep. Yuna would curse the size of her car, but thinking anything negative about her beloved truck was, well, unthinkable. Sitting on the accursed trunk for a second just to relax, Yuna closed her eyes and took a deep breath; she could almost trick herself into thinking she was on some vacation or something, if it wasn't for the smell of gas.

Yuna's eyes flew open. Gas? She whipped her head towards her jeep, nervously ambling closer. She had just done those mods; god, she prayed that her jeep was okay. Ducking to the ground so she could look for a spill, Yuna froze when she felt a faint tremor go through the ground. It would have been unnoticeable if she wasn't pressed to the ground at the moment- Yuna's mind whirled with possibilities. Gas and tremors... warnings from her engineering seminars slowly pieced together into a horrible premonition. The buildings around seemed like former apartments; which meant a multitude of gas lines, and gas pipes. If the tubing had been sitting there untouched for more than five years...

Another tremor, this one enough to rattle the loose gravel around her. Yuna quickly jumped into action, not even bothering to shut her driver side door as she lunged into her seat, shoving her car into gear as she scrambled to get her foot on the pedal. Not even her silencers could muffle the roar as her truck leapt forward. And not a moment too soon; she had barely made it past the felled tree before a monstrous explosion rocked the building behind her, concrete spraying in deadly boulders as steel frame shrieked in protest, a fireball erupting into the sky before choking the air with thick, foul black smoke. Yuna yelled a curse, the first word she had uttered in a week, as she felt something slam into the back left of her truck with enough force to lift it. Pain lancing up her arms as she tightened her grip to avoid getting thrown out of the open doorway while the door rushed towards her from the momentum of it all, she fought to get the vehicle under control, swerving for almost a hundred more meters before she thudded to a stop.

Yuna let out a breath, collapsing back into her seat, boneless from relief. Wincing at the soreness in the left side of her body as the adrenaline faded -she had definitely crashed into the door as it closed from the impact, and bitten her lip hard enough to break skin- she gave herself ten seconds to relax before she tumbled out of her car to assess damages. A haze of dust settled around her like a fog, nearly obscuring the offending building, but it was evident that the explosion was devastating enough to topple the complex, the structure leaning and forming an angle with the building across the street.

Yuna said a mental prayer; she still had a way back out, and it seemed that the projectile hadn't actually hit her car but her wheel hard enough to rupture it, the resulting release of compressed air doing most of the lifting. All that would require was a quick spare, which she kept multiple of. Yuna was in the middle of fixing the tire when the dust settled enough for her to see more than beige fog, and movement became visible through the din. She paused for only a moment before working faster; movement meant people, people in cities meant groups, and groups always meant bad news. And it seemed the city wasn't structurally safe anyways- best she get through it as fast as possible, populated or not. She had checked the 'x' anyways. Maybe the still settling dust would shield her from sight long enough to drive away.

[fun]

b