The crawl of the sun's rays took roughly an hour to reach James' eyes.  He stirred on a ratty old couch as light filtered through the shemagh he had draped over his face.  His eyes groggily opened under the cloth, which he promptly removed with one hand and replaced with the other.  The building he had decided to take shelter in, while half destroyed, was also the only one within sight to have a couch, or really anything comfortable to sleep on, and although James wanted to make it to Russel City before nightfall tonight, he definitely didn't feel like moving for a while.

After some time, he eventually gave in to reason and removed his hand from his face, revealing to him a relatively clear sky, which is to say as clear as it can possibly get in Dust, which isn't saying much.  No matter how far The Gaens come in rebuilding the biosphere and restoring some of the lost graces of the old world, it'll probably take a long time before the skies were truly clear again.  James let out a grunt as he swung his legs over the side of the couch, his backpack and trusty AK sitting next to him, leaning against the arm of the couch.  He picked up the Russian workhorse, examining it for what must have been the thousandth time, at least.  To him, it was simply a beautiful machine.  It always worked, all the time, at least since he beefed it up.  It was something he took pride in, but even better was taking it apart and putting it back together.

Of course, that had lost it's fun about the tenth time he did it, simply because there was nothing more to learn about the rifle.  At this point, James knew practically every rivet, pin, and trunnion of the rifle.  Still, it was always satisfying to him the simplicity of the rifle, from the way it strips down to it's very design characteristics.  While it certainly wasn't any high-powered sniper rifle with state of the art optics and modifications, it was an extremely rugged design with very forgiving build tolerances, and even more importantly, it went bang every time.  That's not to say anything about the accuracy which, admittedly, isn't great, but for a rifle of it's type, it didn't need to reach too far.  This was the true everyman's rifle; at least, that's how James saw it.

He continued to muse over the characteristics of the rifle whilst nearly absentmindedly field stripping it again, only to put it back together the moment he was done.  The sound it made when he pushed the bolt carrier into battery was music to his ears, and just as he latched the dust cover back into place, he gave it a rack, generating a meaty [i]krrrrack-chack[/i] as he did so.  He gave the rifle another look before setting it on the couch next to him.  He opened his rucksack and began digging through it, searching for a bottle of water he'd had.  It was half-empty at this point, but he figured he could use a swig or two before packing up and getting back on the road.  He opened the bottle and brought it to his lips, draining it to roughly 1/4 capacity before placing it back in the bag.

Somewhere, quite far away, he heard a cacophony of gunshots.  Wherever they were, they were far enough away that they wouldn't be a problem for James.  He pulled his compass out from his pack and got his bearings, making a mental note of which direction he would be heading before putting his compass away and throwing his bags onto his shoulders.  He then picked up his AK by the sling and threw it over his left shoulder.  Russel City shouldn't have been more than five hours away at this point.  James figured if he didn't make any stops, he could be there by midday, easily.

[center]- - - - -[/center]

Somewhere along the way James began to contemplate his powers as an immortal.  [color=8dc73f]"Heh, 'immortal',"[/color] he said aloud, chuckling at the word.  [color=8dc73f]"What part of me makes me 'immortal'?  My powers are freaking lame compared to some of the others I've heard of.  Jeez, I seriously got the short end of the stick.  I mean yeah, I can dodge a pissed off bandit's punches all day, but I can't pick up a freaking car with my mind and throw it at someone."[/color]  He groaned at the thought.  [color=8dc73f]"Whatever, what can you do?"[/color]  His musings continued as he walked through the sands, which, while annoying to think about, helped him to pass the time.

His thoughts eventually drifted to the fact that travelling around Dust was a toss-up between getting cooked alive in your own clothes, or risking a wicked case of sunburn.  At the thought of that, he took a quick pause to get his jacket off and stow it in his rucksack.  It helped with the heat a little bit, but there was still a dark, long-sleeved shirt underneath, which he didn't take off for exactly the aforementioned reason.  [color=8dc73f]"Hooray for fresh-baked human,"[/color] he said, adjusting his goggles.  He didn't really care who saw him as an immortal, thus his goggles were simply a dark tint to help block out sunlight.  He figures, "the hell with stupid people who can't get it through their heads that we didn't ask for this.  If they don't like it, they can take a hike through Forsaken territory."

For the most part, James had been lucky in that regard so far.  His scavenging team back when he lived in Russel City before welcomed his powers of observation; it resulted in more valuable finds.  He was equally lucky in Aspin, The Gaens being as open minded and welcoming as they were.  Most of his fellow students at the university he went to were also pretty accepting, but of course there were those who didn't feel the same.  They never tried anything, but he would get looks, verbal abuse, and at one point, a threat in the form of a poorly written letter.  He never let it get to him though, but he also hasn't nearly seen the worst of the possible forms of discrimination against his kind either, so there was that too.

[color=8dc73f]"My kind,"[/color] he repeated out loud.  [color=8dc73f]"That sounds just like something they would say."[/color]  He'd heard rumors of The Wings' treatment of immortals.  Of course, not all of them were the same, but most of them seemed to be rather poorly predisposed towards immortals.  It was a mystery to him, how people could so blindly ignore critical details; blame the effect, not the cause.  James himself was hardly even a threat, his powers were almost purely defensive in nature.  Still, he had no doubt some would direct their attacks on him simply because he was a symptom of a disease.

Now wasn't that a thought.  He himself being a symptom of a disease.  In some ways, it wasn't even untrue.  In the grand scheme of things, The Sickness being what it was in the eyes of the people, he was exactly that; a symptom.  The Sickness seemed to act in strange ways, killing most, empowering the rest.  Still, James supposed it was better to be hated by some than, well, dead, and then a bloodthirsty monster.  He dwelled on the thought briefly before sidelining it, along with his other vaguely philosophical conceptions.

After roughly three hours of walking, James could finally see the outskirts of Russel City.  He picked up the pace slightly, ready to be out of this heat, and maybe settling into an inn or something.  He saw a truck out of the corner of his eye.  He found it odd that it wouldn't be on the road, or at least the vestigial semblance of a road, but stranger things have happened.  Like the fact that he saw it crash into... thin air?

[color=8dc73f]"The hell?"[/color]  He turned towards the commotion and noticed a figure standing in front of the truck, holding it's... her, arms out.  The distance was only just close enough for James' eyesight to pick up on details most would only see from 50 meters or less, which allowed him to identify gender from this distance, but not much else.  Another figure emerged from the truck, hitting the ground as... she fell out.  A third approached on... some sort of... hovercraft?

It didn't take long for him to put two and two together; those two were immortals.  Possibly they were about to rob this person.  [i]Dammit,[/i] Jason thought.  He knew if that were the case, there was no way he would get there in time to intervene.  Still, he could possibly help the person in the truck after the fact.  He decided to take a little detour, heading towards the truck.

After a couple of moments, James learned that not everything was as it seemed.  The girl in the truck, as it turned out, was also an immortal, as he learned when she began to unleash electrical arcs all around her.  He was about to make another sarcastic remark about his "shitty" powers when he noticed that this girl was out of control.  Something was very obviously wrong with her, the electricity sparking from her body arcing in haphazard patterns, seemingly without direction or intent.  The two who were there with her put up defenses against the barrage of lightning before restraining her and grounding her, thereby alleviating the problem somewhat.  Still, this girl was a live wire.  Even from this distance, James could see her rage, but also something else.  Fear?  Sadness?  The unbridled contempt was masking something, and her uncontrollable release of energy was the result of her cognitive dissonance.

Soon enough the situation went from potentially bad to definitely worse.  Shortly after the two others restrained the girl from the truck he saw her... transform.  Into some sort of creature.  He stopped in his tracks as his mind registered exactly what just happened. [color=8dc73f]"Did she...?  No fucking way,"[/color] he muttered in disbelief.  He took the AK off of his shoulder and accelerated his pace into nearly a sprint.  [i]That's a goddamn hollow.  But, how?  How did she transform that quickly?[/i] he thought.

He was still well over a kilometer off when the transformation finished and the black creature began it's rampage against the two who were there.  Blows were traded, on both sides, but of course the hollow brushed them off like they hardly ever happened.  [color=8dc73f]"Shit, shit, shit."[/color]  This was far from normal, even for immortals.  There was no way, in his mind, this should have happened.  No one turns into a hollow that damn quickly.  Immortals aren't supposed to become hollows at all... right?

The one who had come from Russel City got hit hard by the beast, and James was still several minutes away.  He swore under his breath, knowing that the two immortals were likely outmatched.  Wait, scratch that, one immortal.  [color=8dc73f]"Shit, it knocked her unconscious."[/color]  A normal hollow shouldn't have been an issue for those two, but this didn't seem like any ordinary hollow.  Whatever it was, the implications of such an event could only be worse, and all James could do was watch, still far too distant to do anything about it, not like he could do much if he were there anyways.  If that thing was as tough as it seemed, bullets wouldn't do nearly enough damage to bring it down.  Still, he had to do something.  He picked up the pace, putting a magazine into the assault rifle and giving the bolt a quick yank.  If nothing else, he could probably hold his own against this thing and distract it long enough for someone with a big enough gun to arrive.