Action Horror Romance Scifi Slice of Life The World is Gone

[PlagueDoctor]

Arrow felt the world sink into her, she was cold, leaning against a pad that had gone hard long, long ago. The pod... her mind drifted in and out of focus, memories returning slowly as her body began to burn. Her father had put her into a Statis pod in his lab, sirens blaring outside as the promised end of the world rushed toward them.

Fumbling for the lever on the inside of the pod's door she used her body's weight to force it door and fell out as the door slid open. The new pain barely registered. She dragged herself across the floor slowly, gasping for air, instinct driving her forward. She actually screamed from pain as she pulled herself onto the bench of the Automated Medical Unit, or A.M.U. for short.

Thankfully it whirred to life and started working. A painkill was administed as soon as it determined that it was safe to do so. Finally able to relaxed she listened to the silence of the world beyond the A.M.U.

There was nothing, not even the coos of the cities pigeons. While an existential crisis sank in she looked at her Personal Console to check on the A.M.U.'s progess. She was suffering from accute stasis poisoning, luckily it was treatable and she would make a full recovery by the end of the day. She stared at the date on the Console, automatically updated by the A.M.U.

Almost two hundred years had passed. She was lost inside her head for a while, only the chiming of the A.M.U. brought her back to reality. She read through the results and promptly vomited over the side of the A.M.U.

Everything kept getting worse...

 

[MedusaKai]

Dyras eyes flew open as the hissing sound came to a high-pitched end. Her vision was still blurry and her memory hazy. She pressed her palm to the door and pushed to see how stuck it was, to her amazement the door swung open and she toppled over, crumpling to the floor. When she hit the ground she let out a small yelp because the concert floor instantly brushed her hip.

The hard landing distracted her briefly but when she was finally able to register the empty blood-painted room. Her eyes widened at the dark red almost black spots peppering the walls and floors. The room looked like it was ransacked and anything that could be carried away was. She slowly pulled herself up to her feet and winced. "Ow, hello?" She called out hoping no one violent responded. Just in case she bent over and grabbed a piece of metal pipe and slowly walked through the area. Her eyes were still blurry and everything felt like it was spinning.

She managed to stagger her way out of the room and down the hallway when she froze hearing another person scream out in pain. The doctor's side of her screamed for her to help but her dizzy scared side screamed to run the other way. She cleared her throat and yelled louder "Hello?" She said shuffling in the direction of the scream the best she could.

After about ten minutes of no other sounds, she reached a wide-open room with more pods in it. Down at the very back, she could see the blurry outline of someone lying down on... A bench? Maybe she couldn't tell for sure. She shuffled slowly toward the blurry blob praying it wasn't a hostile person. "D-do you know what's going on?" She asked wryly.

 

[PlagueDoctor]

Arrow took her time searching the lab and found no one else. Not an other living soul, her parents pods were empty outside of a few blood stains on the padding of her mothers. It was old and brown. Her brother's pod had a malfunction of some kind and he... he was dead.

This was a truly horrible day.

As she grieved she made herself move, collect supplies, and survive. Processing emotional things was never her strong suit, she pushed these things into the background, let them percalate while she dealt with the now. Avoiding it until her future nightmares dragged her through it.

Hopefully she could find her parents before then, at least one of them. There was too much to process so she just gave up on the whole thing. Didn't even realize she was crying until she passed by a reflective surface outside of the small office her father used.

"I need water." Her training took over. Her job used to be training to people to survive in the wilderness. Now those same skills meant to save a person lost in the woods were going to serve her well in whatever was outside of the lab. She needed to go home.

 

[MedusaKai]

Dyra groaned as her head throbbed when she flipped on the room lights. Only one or two flickered on fully the rest were either completely dead or flickering rapidly. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to push away the building migraine. She checked her pulse and took a few deep breaths, mapping out her condition. Judging by her previous sleeping location and symptoms she was suffering from stasis-clearing delay syndrome. She needed to make her way to the emergency department and take care of that or she was going to be sick for days.

As she stepped further into the room toward the person lying on a bench she realized that the person was covered in red. Blood dripped onto the floor. Shit... It was fresh the scream was someone being killed. She can't see and she is barely able to walk. Now she had something going around offing people. She started looking around the area as much as she could. She didn't want to have anything sneaking up on her. She bit her bottom lip in concentration trying to remember the way to ED.

She froze when she heard a low growl behind her. Then the sound of furniture creaking under the weight of something very large. She sniffed the air to see if she could use her other senses to pinpoint where this growl came from, except she was bombarded with smells of blood, dirt, and dust. Her eyes are still a blurry dark mess making I'm possible for her to fully see anything. Yet when she turned around she was met with a massive bear-like figure standing on something raised. She couldn't make out exactly what it was but its outline looked like a simple table. "Shit" she mumbled taking a step back very slowly. The bear shape snarled again but didn't seem to move. So she took another slow step back.

 

[PlagueDoctor]

Thankfully, Arrow's father had a supply of purified water she could drink from. It was technically meant for his experiments but that didn't matter anymore. She refilled her canteen, which was always in her backpack. She'd had it on her when her father shoved her into the Stasis Pod.

Her grandfather's Colt 1911 Advance in forty-five caliber was still in there too, she had questions as to the ammos viability. She'd test that soon. First she needed to eat something. Her granola bars were in surprisingly good condition. No one really knew how the Stasis worked, the few people who did know were very tight lipped about it. She hadn't expected it to effect anything to be stabilized outside of her body, seemed that wasn't the case.

Taking a moment to focus her mind she got geared up and stepped up to the large, heavy door that sealed the lab. She tried her keycard and the happy beep sounded. The door opened and cold, foul air flooded in.

 

[MedusaKai]

Dyra took another tentative step back, once again the beast outline in front of her snarled but did not move. She was surprised she could hear its growl above the sound of her heart thumping loudly in her ears. She looked around the room for an outline of a door or a hallway something to get her the hell out of there. Her eyes landed on the outline of a door to her left. She took a deep breath and ran for the door. Luckily it was unlocked she swung it open and ran down the hallway.

As she ran she could hear the footsteps of the beast right behind her. She could even feel the shaking of each bounding step. "I'm going to fucking die." She whimpered looking for anything to hide safely in. Thankfully she spotted another door. She flung it open and dove in. That's when it hit her. The putrid stench of decaying organic matter. She managed to dive into the morgue. She held her breath as she moved farther back into the room and tucked herself in a tiny storage closet. She had to stand sideways in the closet and the door was only crackable she clamped her hand over her mouth and waited.

The beast stalked through the room, sniffing and snorting. After about thirty minutes of the beast looking for her in the room, it stalked back out unable to find her. She assumed the strong smell in the room made it hard for it to sniff her out. After another ten minutes she stepped out the closet and sighed. "Alright if I'm here then the ER has to be right above me. And the stairs are..... shit locked behind a key card." She said trying to figure out how to get out of her alive.

 

[PlagueDoctor]

The outside world was hard, cold, and bright. It was March so the weather was constantly shifting and right now it was overcast and windy.

Arrow zipped her jacket up and got her bearings before heading in the direction of her home, the high end neighborhood her parents loved oh so much. Living with them simplified her life, and to be fair she spent more nights in the woods than at their house so it was more of an address than a home if she was honest.

The river that ran through the city had more plant life on and in it than she'd ever seen before. All the plant-life the area was over abundant and changed in numerous ways. Her father had educated her on the fallout and what to expect after a nuclear war. This wasn't what he had described.

She decided to take the free way as far as she needed before jumping off and headed into the suburbs from there.

 

[MedusaKai]

She walked down the hallways listening out for anything and everything. Luckily as a doctor in the hospital, she had the layout pretty memorized. It was just a massive hospital so it was taking her a while to get to the stairs. Luckily the door was broken open so she walked into the staircase cautiously looking up to see if she could make out if the door above her was propped open or not.

Unfortunately, she couldn't see anything her blurry vision was making it hard for her to see the stairs in front of her let alone up a flight. So she tentatively made her way up the stairs, praying that the door was broken open as well or at least propped. Luckily, it was ever so slightly cracked open. So she carefully pulled it open further wincing at the loud creak it gave. She peeked her head around the corner checking for the beast or another beast before tip-toeing down the hall toward the ER. She was going to be useless for at least a week if she didn't get some medicine in her to get rid of the stasis sickness.

She walked down the halls of the ER checking every medication dispenser she came across. Most of the opiates were gone and some of the antibiotics were as well. Leaving nothing but Tylenol and ibuprofen in them. She was starting to plan out a way to keep herself safe for a week while she recovered when she spotted an untouched dispenser.

It was hidden behind the nurse's desks. Unless you worked there you didn't know it existed. "Oh thank fuck." She mumbled stumble running toward the dispenser and swatting down in front of it. "Now to break it open without setting off the building alarm." She said to herself looking around the desk the best she could to find something. She spotted a letter opener and turned it in her fingers. "Maybe?" She said squatting back down in front of the dispenser and working on getting it open.

 

[PlagueDoctor]

Another loud roar echoed through the building followed shortly by an even louder gun shot. Silence rushed in and every now and then there were footsteps, possibly coming closer to where Dyra crouched behind the nurse's station.
The action of a large rifle opened.
"The bear creature is dead, you should be safe now." A voice, heavily distorted by something over the owners voice sounded very loud in the empty room.


Arrow moved with as much stealth as she could manage down the free way,she could see the massive hospital building in the distance. Maybe she should raid the pharmacy, she had time to think it over. Until then she kept low and listened for any sign of movement.

As the sun started to sink she stood up and surveyed her surroundings to see how he progress homeward was going. The answer was- decently. Given that night was falling she turned to head for the hospital, she could stay there over night. If it was safe that at any rate.