John Egbert (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
windyheir) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
backyardbbq2012-09-15 06:13 pm
windyheir) wrote in backyardbbq2012-09-15 06:13 pm
Entry tags:
[closed] zombiestuck
[April 13th, 2009. That was the day everything changed. Nobody expected the sudden invasion from the skies, and within a year the invading aliens had taken control of a good portion of the planet. These creatures with grey skin and orange horns were absolute terrors on the battlefield, and no human army could even compare to their destructive capability.
That was why the remains of the American government decided to make the virus. They knew no army on Earth stood a chance against such a fearsome army, so they decided to turn to chemical warfare instead. No matter how strong the alien army was, even they would fall to disease. By late 2011 they had designed a virus that only killed off trolls, while leaving humans unaffected. The world had its secret weapon.
November 11th, 2011. 11/11/11 day. It was meant to be the turning point in the war, where the American military would unleash their fearsome disease on trollkind, killing them all off within a matter of weeks. Indeed, it seemed to work at first, and trolls began dying off by the thousands. They were dying so quickly that the Condescension, the leader of all trolls, had to continuously send new waves of trolls to Earth to fill in the spots for the front line soldiers as they died. Still, the virus seemed to be working, and all of humanity bundled themselves in to try to wait for the trolls to give up and leave.
But then, as the bodies accumulated on the battlefield, something terrible happened. Nobody knew why it happened, but some of the dead trolls began to rise again. Their bodies were dead, their souls were gone, but somehow they were able to move and attack. And when they attacked, they didn't just kill humans. they devoured them. And they attacked and killed other trolls too, and those trolls who were killed by their own dead rose again as well. spreading this mutation of the sickness.
Zombie trolls proved to be much, much harder to fight than regular ones. While normal trolls stopped fighting if they were fatally wounded, zombie trolls would continue to fight until their bodies were either burned or blown to bits. At first the Condescension tried to fight the zombification, telling her best scientists to find a cure. But after years of trying, no cure could be found, so the Condescension pulled her forces out and left in 2014, a mere five years after her initial invasion.
She didn't take all of her trolls with her, though. Any troll who had ever been planet-side was left behind, and all of their space-traveling vehicles were destroyed. She would not risk any chance of the sickness going along with her when she left. As far as she was concerned, the displaced and zombified trolls were now the problems of Earth.
It is now 2019. Roughly thirty million humans and seventy million trolls remain alive on Earth. Those numbers continue to dwindle every day, as the hundred million survivors of Earth have to combat countless zombies, each more fearsome than the last. Some are fast. Some have telekinetic powers. Some can control the minds of animals, other trolls, and even humans. All of them want just one thing: the flesh of the living.
John Egbert had only been 13 when the invasion started. He had been far too young to play any kind of role in the war, and afterwards all he could do was survive. Most of his friends had fallen out of contact when the invasion had started. His one remaining relative, his loving father, had fallen to the zombies years ago. All alone in the world, John had continued to survive in what remained of Seattle, making a home in the small, walled-off area that held all of the survivors from the western coast of the United Stated. It used to be a suburb of Seattle, actually, and the mayor of the settlement had been the mayor of Seattle when civilization had fallen.
They couldn't hide behind the wall forever, though. They could grow food and sustain life inside the walls, but when anything special was needed someone had to go out into the remains of Seattle and hope to find what they were looking for.
That is why John Egbert is currently sneaking through the empty streets, his trusty hammer on his back and his two pistols in his belt. He is trying to recover a spare part for one of the generators, and he has to make it to one of the many hardware stores and back before the sun sets. Being midday, the zombies are all inside, hiding from the harsh rays of sunlight. One of the lucky breaks humanity had gotten was that trolls seemed to hate sunlight, so zombie trolls instinctively kept to the shadows. John is taking advantage of that, and he hopes to make it home before any zombies come out to bother him.
But is he truly alone?]
That was why the remains of the American government decided to make the virus. They knew no army on Earth stood a chance against such a fearsome army, so they decided to turn to chemical warfare instead. No matter how strong the alien army was, even they would fall to disease. By late 2011 they had designed a virus that only killed off trolls, while leaving humans unaffected. The world had its secret weapon.
November 11th, 2011. 11/11/11 day. It was meant to be the turning point in the war, where the American military would unleash their fearsome disease on trollkind, killing them all off within a matter of weeks. Indeed, it seemed to work at first, and trolls began dying off by the thousands. They were dying so quickly that the Condescension, the leader of all trolls, had to continuously send new waves of trolls to Earth to fill in the spots for the front line soldiers as they died. Still, the virus seemed to be working, and all of humanity bundled themselves in to try to wait for the trolls to give up and leave.
But then, as the bodies accumulated on the battlefield, something terrible happened. Nobody knew why it happened, but some of the dead trolls began to rise again. Their bodies were dead, their souls were gone, but somehow they were able to move and attack. And when they attacked, they didn't just kill humans. they devoured them. And they attacked and killed other trolls too, and those trolls who were killed by their own dead rose again as well. spreading this mutation of the sickness.
Zombie trolls proved to be much, much harder to fight than regular ones. While normal trolls stopped fighting if they were fatally wounded, zombie trolls would continue to fight until their bodies were either burned or blown to bits. At first the Condescension tried to fight the zombification, telling her best scientists to find a cure. But after years of trying, no cure could be found, so the Condescension pulled her forces out and left in 2014, a mere five years after her initial invasion.
She didn't take all of her trolls with her, though. Any troll who had ever been planet-side was left behind, and all of their space-traveling vehicles were destroyed. She would not risk any chance of the sickness going along with her when she left. As far as she was concerned, the displaced and zombified trolls were now the problems of Earth.
It is now 2019. Roughly thirty million humans and seventy million trolls remain alive on Earth. Those numbers continue to dwindle every day, as the hundred million survivors of Earth have to combat countless zombies, each more fearsome than the last. Some are fast. Some have telekinetic powers. Some can control the minds of animals, other trolls, and even humans. All of them want just one thing: the flesh of the living.
John Egbert had only been 13 when the invasion started. He had been far too young to play any kind of role in the war, and afterwards all he could do was survive. Most of his friends had fallen out of contact when the invasion had started. His one remaining relative, his loving father, had fallen to the zombies years ago. All alone in the world, John had continued to survive in what remained of Seattle, making a home in the small, walled-off area that held all of the survivors from the western coast of the United Stated. It used to be a suburb of Seattle, actually, and the mayor of the settlement had been the mayor of Seattle when civilization had fallen.
They couldn't hide behind the wall forever, though. They could grow food and sustain life inside the walls, but when anything special was needed someone had to go out into the remains of Seattle and hope to find what they were looking for.
That is why John Egbert is currently sneaking through the empty streets, his trusty hammer on his back and his two pistols in his belt. He is trying to recover a spare part for one of the generators, and he has to make it to one of the many hardware stores and back before the sun sets. Being midday, the zombies are all inside, hiding from the harsh rays of sunlight. One of the lucky breaks humanity had gotten was that trolls seemed to hate sunlight, so zombie trolls instinctively kept to the shadows. John is taking advantage of that, and he hopes to make it home before any zombies come out to bother him.
But is he truly alone?]
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[Once again he refused to accept John's help, making his way to the boat at his own damn horrible pace. He had to learn to swim sometime, and it wasn't hard. It's not like he was going to drown or anything.
Hopefully.]
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He glances up at the shore a few times while he waits, and he sees the zombies lingering near the water's edge. He always thought it was weird, how they wouldn't go in the water, but he's not complaining. It provides some semblance of safety.]
I'd say take your time, but those dead guys are making me nervous.
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[And he made it. Finally. It only took him a while. He began to climb up the ladder, looking back into the water as he did. If any of his blood had leaked, hopefully it was too dark to see.]
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C'mon, this place should be good. Old man Harrison was hanging out in here before he joined the group.
[Indeed, the boat looked like it had been built to survive the apocalypse. All of the doors and windows were reinforced with steel bars, and the hull itself looked strong enough to take on anything. The inside was a little cramped, but contained everything someone might need: a kitchen, a bedroom, a sitting area-ish part, a tiny bathroom, and a second bedroom that had been filled floor to ceiling with preserved food. If John or Karkat looked, they would have found some of it to be expired, but most of the stuff had been made during wartime, so it had been made to last. It would taste horrible, but they wouldn't go hungry for a while.]
Woah. No wonder he didn't want to come right away.
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[The troll sat down on the...couch, was it?...right away, sickle on the floor and arms wrapped around his stomach.]
Is it really a good idea to keep yourself locked up in here with me? I mean for tonight yeah I guess, but what if I suddenly pick up an appetite for disgusting human flesh?
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[John was too optimistic for his own good.
And despite being soaked through, he decided to sit down in one of the chairs opposite the shitty boat couch.]
Besides, it's just for a night. We need to find everyone else tomorrow.
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[He shrugged. He probably wouldn't mind, but he did think it was a terrible idea. Safer, maybe. Still terrible. It would get John off his case about visiting his human friends or whatever. Not that he believed they were still alive.]
There's still a chance I'd change by the way, even if the odds have dropped a bit.
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Still, John didn't really want to stay long. He wanted to find the other villagers, and hopefully find them alive.]
Well, if you stay here then I can visit you more often. There's that at least.
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[He slumped into the couch]
But because of our hierarchy, they're very likely to treat the lower caste like shit, even in a situation like this. It's less of a 'first come, first serve' and more of a 'higher rank, higher rations' deal. It's better to hunt alone in that regard.
[There were other reasons, but Karkat wasn't about to go blabbing about those.]
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So you're pretty low on the caste, then? I guess it makes sense then, why you would want to be alone. It's still sad though.
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Besides, I didn't leave my hive too often anyway.
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[Not that John can complain, he was the same too as a kid.]
But that's alright, you'll get some privacy here! For some reason all the trolls keep avoiding the water. Does it make you guys sick or something?
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Must be the landdwellers inherent dislike of the seadwellers.
For me I've just never been near the ocean.
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So if there's a seadweller zombie, it'll go right in the water and come over here?
[Welp. The boat isn't as safe as he thought.]
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Always a possibility though.
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[And he's at the door to the spare bedroom, looking through all the packaged food.]
Dehydrated peas..canned fruit...say, what do trolls even eat?
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[At least that's what he's gathered over the years trapped on Earth.]
Although some of the animals you have here are pretty weird.
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Really? What ones? Some animals are kinda weird, I guess. Like giraffes, that would be weird to see if you've never seen one before.
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I don't even know what that is.
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They're big and have really long legs and a really long neck. They never lived around here, except in zoos.
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Ah, the long-necked hoofbeasts. Never saw one in person but. Yeah.
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[And he's found a can opener now and is struggling with it to get the can open. The problem is that the can opener is old and not so sharp anymore.]
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