[hr][hr][center][h1][i][b][color=4682b4]Ash Holloway[/color][/b][/i][/h1][img]https://66.media.tumblr.com/c6f0f86d13839f8542e4b754c251da73/tumblr_ojog8uNf9k1qdhps7o1_r1_500.gif[/img][/center][hr][center][color=steelblue][b]Location:[/b][/color] Headland: House (E2)
[color=4682b4][b]Skills:[/b][/color] EMT Training [/center][hr][hr] 

	As was a passable trainer, of sorts. He was a generally adept man when passing information along, ordinarily in the form of direct orders or, a lifetime ago, through memo or Email correspondence. When Newnan was still above ground, the stoic Captain even made it a point to pen textbooks. Three of them. One detailed the ins and outs of the structural and civil engineering that went into the construction of their home; walls, improvised power grid, cisterns and all the rest of what made Newnan sustainable, even convenient. Another book was all bout his distillery work; fuel alcohol (as it was often said that Newnan ran on booze), drinking spirits, fermented/brewed goods, water distillation systems, even vinegars for cleaning and food preservation needs. The last was his own personal "How To" guide on the construction of his former pride and joy, his home away from home, the great, lifesaving roadbeast known as The Hordebuster. They were comprehensive and easy to understand. Regrettably, all three of them were lost when Newnan collapsed into itself. Maybe one day, decades or centuries from now, someone would dig down, into where the courthouse building used to be. Maybe they would open the safe in the main office, and maybe future generations would be able to learn from the writing therein, be it to rebuild or merely for a lesson in history. 

	Unfortunately, now was decidedly not an occasion where Ash's education and intellect were working together to provide a decent learning experience for those who could benefit from it. In fact, the gruff and exhausted Captain Holloway sounded a little too much like Tommy Lee Jones attempting to track down a fugitive, to the detriment of understandable direction. [color=4682b4]"Alright, what I need from either or both of you is a straight and clear, sanitized bullet removal on a subject that it already close to passing out. Step one (and pay attention) is to secure the patient (that's me) onto an even, nonporous surface - chair or kitchen table will suffice - followed by cleansing the area around the wound and the tools you intend to use. Directly following you will need to establish the location of the bullet and proximity to any major blood vessels (which shouldn't be an issue, we're pretty meaty in there) and careful extraction without gripping muscle or adipose tissue nearby. Gonna have to go by feel for that one and don't spare retraction if it's called for but not if it isn't. [i]Now[/i], at that time there's going to be some blood, not too much or you know something bad just happened and I'm probably a dead guy. Have something to catch the bullet after it comes out, and following that is simple wound dressing. Sound simple? Is simple. The part that isn't is communicating and finding the bullet over the sound of me screaming. We good? Good. I'll probably lapse into shock out halfway through. Best of luck to you."[/color] 

	It was a ramble at worst, rant at best. The part that was likely the most infuriating was that he was technically correct, but the possibility that he didn't effectively communicate loomed in the foreground, obvious to many but excluding himself. This was not his most distinguished teaching moment. Fatigue, pain, and blood loss; this was his excuse. 



[hr][hr][center][h1][b][i][color=dc143c]Thalia Carmichael[/color][/i][/b][/h1][img]https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/99b643e3-9dfc-433b-b45e-358442bd37c7.png[/img][hr][b][color=crimson]Location:[/color][/b] Quincy (in house, G6)
[b][color=dc143c]Skills:[/color][/b] N/A [hr][hr][/center]

	[i]Thalia sat alone in the middle of an oppressive darkness, aware of nothing but a gnawing hunger that permeated her soul and defined what she was to become. She rocked back and forth, shivering to almost the point of convulsing uncontrollably. This was not natural. Not in the least. The most minor of positive change that she could perceive was that she appeared to be whole once more, the familiar feel of two working arms ending with fully articulated fingers, as far as she could tell. The sickening discomfort of everything else gave way for a single, hot second of gratitude about this. Maybe it was the price she had to pay to be physically complete again. 

	Logically, Thalia knew that this could not be. She had lost a good part of her arm to save her life. Why it would be there now was a ludicrous idea. t was missing so the rest of her could survive, and that was what she did: Survive. But dear, sweet, merciful Muerte, was she hungry. As her shaking continued, Thalia could tell that she had lost most of the feeling in her newly found limb, and worse yet, it was creeping up the rest of her arm. A fast glance turned into rooted horror as she bore witness to her arm, dead and streaked with cold, black veins, began asserting itself on the rest of her body. The ...deadness... of it throbbed farther into her with every beat of her heart, and in that moment she knew what form her hunger took - Thalia required the flesh of the living.

	No longer in the pitch black of her isolation, the woman once called "Angel" by those who cared for her stalked in the richer darkness of night and shadow. She was a creature of instinct, yet still possessing cunning intelligence and the desire to devour the living. In her childhood home, the first one she ever knew, even before she knew of her father's people, she extended her now clawed hand from underneath her mother's bed, snatching apart the woman's leg at the ankle. Her screams felt exhilarating, a tangle of confusion, betrayal and pain as blonde hair and red blood tangled and flew while flesh was rent into pieces. The flesh of this woman's back was splayed open in crude, conscious vivisection, a state which was exploited by a pale skinned, black-webbed Thalia, popping apart ribs to get at the succulent meats within. 

	Trapped within her own mind, she screamed, beating against the impenetrable glass of her prison while she tried to come to grips with the act that she not only wanted this, she enjoyed it. Every piece of organ scrap was a delight, every slurp of blood from her dead fingers ecstasy. She needed more. Not even the carnal chewing of her mother's heart sated her. More and more and more. 

	Her father fell next, though he was able to put five bullets into her before she got close enough to tear his throat out and watch him as his lungs filled with his life's blood. But not for too long. No. She had to begin consuming the old man before the light fully left his eyes. He did always have kind but stern eyes, that one. She chewed them from their sockets first, savoring the tender squashing feel of them between her molars before cackling in a dry, inhuman voice. Wordless, shrill, decaying screams of enveloping laughter. She was not death. Death had the potential to be kind, warm, even loving. Death was the final arbiter of one's life. She was rot and malevolence. Thalia was infection and indiscriminate hurt. She was a parasite who enjoyed feeling the loss of others. Thalia was a monster. 

	She gave her cousin a chance to scream, and that was only because it gave her pleasures untold to do so. To allow a woman who she idolized in life, who always seemed so much stronger than herself, the opportunity to bless the moment of her demise with the sounds of her unneeded suffering. Thalia pulled skin from her flesh and consumed it in front of her, and when she could not scream any longer, the thing that used to love her pulled out handfuls of intestines and shoved them down her throat. It was bliss. It was a new kind of love, this special, extra attention she received. Thalia even lay next to her, holding her as a sister might comfort, but hissing and sputtering mirthful noises into her ear as she choked and bled away. Wetness, gore, corruption, heaven. 

	Somewhere in the middle of all this, as she picked away those she cared for in life, Thalia's sorrow and horror began to externalize. She wasn't sure at what point, but finally she was outside of the Beast. There was pain. Actual pain, and a cold heaviness where her arm used to be. The taste of blood was still on her tongue, but at least she no longer craved it. The thing that did was still there, though, looking at her with awful, mesmerizing curiosity. Thalia looked upon herself with pity and anger. It seemed to grow wiry, twitching tendrils of inky blackness from everywhere underneath its skin, smiling at her with jagged teeth and staring with black, hollow eyes. Her people had always served death in one form or another, be it conceptually or directly, and this creature was not part of that. Understanding did dawn that whatever this actually was, it was a part of her. As vital and honest as anything else about her, this thing was the worst of her. Every representation or incarnation of her soul would have this thing inside of it. This made her angry. Both of her. 

	The Beast leapt at her, swiping furrows of pain and blood across her face. She could no longer register one of her eyes but could feel a thick, warm liquid like egg whites pouring down her cheek. Another swipe ripped her from breast to navel, not quite enough to empty her guts onto the ground but more than plenty to drop her to her knees. She could hear the laughter, if it indeed was that, and feel cold, clammy hands wrap around her throat. When her remaining eye began to lose sight, a single word floated into her dying mind. 

	[color=dc143c]"No."[/color] 

	The Beast seemed perplexed by this. 

	[color=dc143c]"NO."[/color] Her remaining hand reached up and grasped a wrist of her attacker. Surprise followed when her other hand, still cold, still heavy, grabbed the other one. Defiance surged through Thalia like a lifegiving shot of adrenaline. She was able to relieve just enough pressure from her throat to audibly croak out the word, to bring her thoughts to the air. [color=dc143c]"NO!"[/color] Her voice was hoarse but strong. Thalia allowed her eye to move to the side, seeing how she was able to hold anything in a hand that was not there. But it was, a full arm clad in steel from fingers to shoulder, solid metal from the point it was lost and onward. It moved stiffly but powerfully, and when it clamped down it didn't let go. She rose to her feet, still grabbing the thing that was her, writhing in black and decay, evil and putrescence. [color=dc143c]"By Tyr or by Death, Odin or Jesus Christ, I don't fucking care anymore. You are a tool. I own you. And you're going back in the goddamn box!"[/color] 

	Her fist of iron, still clamped upon the creature's wrist, slammed into its face once, twice, three times. Thalia brought it down at a sharp angle, ripping the limb away just below the elbow, even as her true hand hardened its fingers and burrowed into the thing's black eyes. A blade, wide at the base but narrowing sharply until it terminated with a stiff point two feet down, slid and formed from the iron of her limb. It penetrated the creature's chest and impaled its heart with little difficulty. Thalia even got to hear it scream. Before it fell fully silent, she leaned in close to the thing. [color=dc143c]"You belong... to me."[/color] Her teeth, her own living teeth - sunk into the black veined flesh of its throat and ripped away a piece. After a hard swallow of the awful stuff, Thalia spoke in a manner that could freeze bone: [color=dc143c]"And I'm taking you back inside of me. Behave."[/color][/i]

[center]**********[/center]

	Thalia's eyes flew open, though she did not move. She was in a house in Quincy, Florida. The fire was still going, though with less illumination than she remembered. Time had passed. No one was in immediate danger, everything seemed quiet. Slowly, her eyes began to close again, but this time, a small smile formed on her lips. Oh, what interesting things the day might bring tomorrow. 




[hr][hr][center][h1][b][i][color=deb887]Hank Wright[/color][/i][/b][/h1][img]https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/25dc70d0-947b-4919-85bb-ee43b1508a14.gif[/img][hr][b][color=burlywood]Location:[/color][/b] Building Interior (D4)
[b][color=deb887]Skills:[/color][/b] Perception [hr][hr][/center]

	The moment that Erica got into a proper, rigid, "Lift Me" position, Hank took to his appointed role as heavy lifter with grace and gusto. Such was it that he was able to easily, even a little recklessly, hoist the younger lady up to such a point that he could brace his feet at perpendicular angles and form a mighty human platform from which she could inspect and/or climb into the attic with minimal effort. Perhaps the recent bit of exercise worked wonders for him, even as he was at the beginning of his declining years. Or perhaps being in the presence of younger people made him likewise feel more youthful and vital. Hank reminded himself that, at his age, any amount of unnecessary physical bravado might just land him with a slipped disk or the like, which could probably get him killed long before the injury subsided. But he did take the moment to appreciate that he was still a pretty damned strong guy, his age taken into consideration. 

	While the woman did whatever she was doing, Hank was surprised to find out that she was actually engaging in small talk. Seemed odd, but these little things probably took her mind off of the possibility of some nameless dead guy appearing right in her face the second she stuck it up there and gnawing her little nose off. That would require a lengthy series of events involving putting her out of her misery and somehow fishing the dead guy back out of the attic, destroying its brain, and figuring out who got to go through its pockets first. Somewhere in there, Hank would have hoped that Erica was polite enough to click off his light before, you know, she died horribly. So okay! Small talk! Hank was in. It's not like this information could be used against him or anything. 

	[color=deb887]"New Hampshire there, brown-eyes. Small township in Cheshire County. Used to be the Sheriff there, before, ah... stuff... Yeah, stuff. Damnit. You?"[/color] 

	He had briefly considered delving further into the thought, but the oddest, most out of place noise assailed his ears. It was as if someone were hitting a locked metal box with a blunt object at nighttime in an Dead Asshole Infested Swamp. He didn't say anything at first, but he did turn his head in the general direction of the sound, his face twisted into a clear "wuzzafuck?" expression. He stood slackjawed, wondering what piece of experience based advice (read: sarcastic comment followed by calling him a girl's name) he could offer just then, when something [i]even more unexpected[/i] happened. 

	[color=deb887]"Hey there. Does um, does anyone else smell SPAM? Like, recently opened SPAM? Anyone?"[/color]