[center][color=#FF000C][b]C A R L O S   V A L E R O[/b][/color][/center][indent][sub][color=#FF000C][b]Location:[/b][/color] [i]Valero House[/i][/sub][sup][right][color=#FF000C][b]Timeframe[/b][/color] [i]Early morning[/i][/right][/sup][/indent][sub][hr][/sub][indent][sub][color=#FF000C][b]Interaction(s):[/b][/color] [i]None[/i][/sub][sup][right][color=#FF000C][b]Previously:[/b][/color] [i]N/A[/i][/right][/sup][/indent]
One of the many things the end of the world as they knew it changed for Carlos was the wake up alarm. More specifically, it gave it its second lease on life. After a decade of retirement and getting up whenever he felt like it, it was taking time to get used to the phone nagging at him as early as seven in the morning. But responsibilities waited and couldn’t be ignored by anyone of sound morals, as by now his guests-turned-companions had been going hungry for five and ten hours respectively.

Getting himself out of bed and dressed, he started making his way to the kitchen when he heard something fall in the garage. Freezing on the spot, he shifted his grip on his cane and faced the door. [color=#FF000C]”Carson?”[/color]
[color=#00FF72]”Yes, mr. Valero?”[/color] Came a slightly delayed reply from within.
[color=#FF000C]”Nevermind.”[/color] Carlos breathed a sigh of relief, [color=#FF000C]”Breakfast in half an hour.”[/color]
[color=#00FF72]”Okay, thank you.”[/color] The youngster had been spending a lot of time in the garage, having removed the alternator and some other components from Mr. Valero’s 2011 Sienna minivan to build a manual generator for when they’d eventually lose power, in two weeks at most in the young electrical engineer’s semi-qualified opinion.

Carlos entered his kingdom, the kitchen, and peered at the list of remaining supplies. Selecting a good mix of the freshest things available, keeping anything canned or otherwise long-lasting for later, he got to work, wondering how long until gas stopped working too and force them to cook outside over an open fire. He loved cooking outside, by choice in the warm summer months, but now the thought was not at all appealing to him.
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[center][color=#FF7F00][b]A L E N A   S O K O L O V Á[/b][/color][/center][indent][sub][color=#FF7F00][b]Location:[/b][/color] [i]Valero House[/i][/sub][sup][right][color=#FF7F00][b]Timeframe[/b][/color] [i]Early morning[/i][/right][/sup][/indent][sub][hr][/sub][indent][sub][color=#FF7F00][b]Interaction(s):[/b][/color] [i]None[/i][/sub][sup][right][color=#FF7F00][b]Previously:[/b][/color] [i]N/A[/i][/right][/sup][/indent]
The clock on her phone showed 06:41. At long last, another night, another watch was coming to an end. During the two o’clock changeover, Carson reported a loud noise coming from somewhere in the town, though sadly he’d been understandably too startled by the sudden sound to figure out a direction. [i][color=#00FF72]”Damn near pissed myself.”[/color][/i] She recalled his exact words with a chuckle as she stretched in her rooftop nest and snuggled up more tightly into the ‘watch coat’, a long coat that belonged to Mr. Valero, to keep the cold at bay. Summer couldn’t come soon enough.

The watchkeeping schedule was established the day after the undead first appeared in Huddeen, as neither of the three occupants of the blue house close to the edge of Mulberry street could sleep knowing what was outside. Mr. Valero had a shortened first watch on account of his age between six and eight, Carson took over until two, then it was her turn until seven. The night had at least been calm, save for the mysterious bang that wasn’t her problem as far as she was concerned.

With the clock striking 07:00, she unplugged her phone from the powerbank and made sure the solar panel she usually carried attached to her backpack on multi-day hunting trips was secured to the South-facing roof to recharge it during the day, grabbed her hunting crossbow and started making her way off the roof, driven by the vision of a breakfast.
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[center][color=#00FF72][b]C A R S O N   H A C K E T T[/b][/color][/center][indent][sub][color=#00FF72][b]Location:[/b][/color] [i]Valero House[/i][/sub][sup][right][color=#00FF72][b]Timeframe[/b][/color] [i]Early morning[/i][/right][/sup][/indent][sub][hr][/sub][indent][sub][color=#00FF72][b]Interaction(s):[/b][/color] [i]None[/i][/sub][sup][right][color=#00FF72][b]Previously:[/b][/color] [i]N/A[/i][/right][/sup][/indent]
Thirty minutes was more than enough time to finish everything he could do with what he had available to him. After days of labor, he’d hit a wall in the form of a lack of a soldering iron and some components. He should’ve seen that coming. Now, had they been in a civilized place, he’d just run to the closest home improvement store, but that was a few miles away. Having washed the grime off his hands, Carson made his way into the kitchen to ask Mr. Valero if he needed any help, getting the expected negative answer. The old man enjoyed his cooking, so Carson left him to it and took to setting the table. It looked like poached eggs with toast and tea today.

The door opened and a voice spoke in accented English, heralding the arrival of the third party member. [color=#FF7F00]”Good morning.”[/color] She greeted the room and sat down with her back against a radiator. Good to enjoy those while they lasted, though fortunately the house had a wood burning stove.
[color=#FF7F00]”So, any guesses as to what the crash was? Burst pipe, collapsing building…?”[/color] Alena asked.
[color=#00FF72]”No, nothing like that. Maybe someone drove out here, thinking there wouldn’t be that many zombies here and crashed?”[/color] Carson put forward his theory, having had time to think about it.
They were joined by Carlos, who passed their food around. After breakfast, they held their daily briefing, summarizing their watches with the fortunately usual ‘nothing to report’ report, with the exception of the crash and the resulting increased undead activity, but none had come close to the house. The food situation was a bit more pressing. They still had canned and pickled supplies, but they had worked through the meat and dairy supplies quickly, just in case Carson’s guesstimate of power cutout was wrong, and this breakfast was the last of their eggs and the start of their last loaf of bread. The situation, until now manageable, was thrown into disarray by the bang, as all three agreed that going out to hunt now would’ve been a bad idea, giving rise to a mostly solid plan of luring prey to them since they couldn’t go out to find it. Once again, like many times in the past two weeks, Alena had to kick herself for being too cheap to buy her own NODs instead of borrowing her father’s whenever going night hunting and too lazy to bother with all the paperwork required to bring her EDC gun onto the flight.