[center][b]MALIK & KALI THORNTON[/b][/center]

Emory University. Kali knew that living and studying on this wreck of a campus had once been the destination of her brother's fragile dreams for the future; the ones that never came to fruition. There were relatively few corpses around the cafeteria – some moving, some not – when compared to the maze of streets and alleyways they had to take to get to the radio-designated rendezvous point, but those that were gathering on the fringes of her line of sight painted a gruesome picture of young hopes crushed brutally by an apocalyptic fist.

She liked that sentence. Very poetic.

Having noticed a group beginning to gather, she tucked her hair behind her ears and smiled shyly, showing off two rows of pearly-whites. Behind her, Malik stiffened as if he were about to move in front of her and hide her from view, and she didn't blame him for that; however, to stop him she reached behind her and put a hand on his arm in warning. The first two to arrive (other than the mysterious figure from before) were a man and a woman, both older than she and Malik were at her best guess. Kali observed them for a moment – mostly because they barely gave her a chance to speak with their supposedly reassuring banter – and decided that they weren't lovers. Maybe friends?

“My brother's much the same,” she said eventually, a brilliant (if slightly false) smile plastered across her face. Her dad always had said she'd make a good salesperson. Like the man – Aldous, she reckoned – Malik had moved away from the gathering group to stare stoically at a discoloured red patch on the ground. With a shudder, she realised it was a pile of scattered, chewed entrails. “I'm Kali, and that morbid stick over there is Malik. We think there's people in there but...” Kali ended with a shrug that could either mean 'they're now walking corpses' or 'they're assholes waiting for us to die'. 

Glacing warily at the group coming in from behind – two men – she realised they had a dog. A [i]large[/i] dog. Perhaps it was just their gender putting her off but she was glad Aldous and Grace had taken it upon themselves to talk to them. Kali carefully slipped over to her brother who was standing with his back against a wall marred by graffiti that proclaimed the end of days. “Dark, huh?” she asked, pointing it out. “Might not be crazy religious folk doing it either – I can't say I disagree with them.”

“I think after the first few 'Oh God's that went unanswered when some Thing was chewing on their insides made 'em reconsider piety,” he said humourlessly, nodding to the spray can lying over by the wall and spattered with blood. “Less competition for Med School, I guess.”

Kali made a noise in the back of her throat that was probably as close to a chuckle as she'd come in the past few days. “Well, [i]I[/i] can get the leading role in any show I want.” Malik's lips twitched, though the tense lines around his eyes didn't soften at all. His brow was still furrowed.

“Who are you even gonna act for? The Things?” He mused, throwing an arm around Kali's shoulders and tugging on her matted hair. She smiled as the subtly guided them back towards the group. “'What's for dinner? It is nor hand nor foot/Nor arm nor face, nor any other part/Belonging to a man.'”

“You totally butchered that, Mal,” Kali said, staring at him flatly. How did he even know it? He had never been the most cultured, and she had long since wished for a brother who actually appreciated art and drama rather than gory medical documentaries and self-pity at not becoming a doctor.

“Did not.”

“Did too.”

“Whatever.” He rolled his eyes, gesturing to the door cracking itself open. Kali was glad, too, because she was beginning to feel as if the Things were closing in on them, attracted by the noise. “After you, m'lady.”

Kali pushed forward with one last dirty look at Malik, leading them into the cafeteria. She spared only a half-glance at the woman who opened the doors – mostly in complete and somewhat inappropriate appreciation for her hairstyle – and wandered over to the nearest corner. She let the trashcan lid she brought in with her hit the floor with a metallic clatter and rested her head theatrically against the cool tiles on the wall. Social interaction was tough.