Thread: WTF? A 2012 Halloween Event!

Users find themselves standing in the wreckage of a destroyed city. All the signs of chaos are around them - toppled cars, abandoned buildings, animals wandering freely through the street. It does not look like any other people are currently surviving here. Instead, quarantine signs appear on many doorways.

There are no zombies around, but you may loot the buildings and storefronts in order to find weapons, food, medical supplies, and any news sources (magazines, newspapers, photos) that have been left behind.

This world is dark, cold and seemingly barren. Do you have the skills and sense to survive?

A portal shoots open amongst a dirty, poorly lit road. Within seconds a body is spit out onto the ground, under a flickering street lamp. "Oof!" Her knees come crashing down against the damp concrete, hands reaching out to stop herself from smashing her face into the ground as well.

I feel sick. Grabbing her stomach, it was more than evident that being shot through that portal messed with her insides more than a night of burritos and nachos. After a few moments of trying to shake it off, the dark haired female known as Schiz got to her feet and brushed herself off.

It was quiet, too quiet. "Hello?" She called out optimistically down the long barren street. At least their seemed to be no trouble yet, but she knew that wouldn't last long... not if she were to go through this alone.

Hopping onto a nearby destroyed car, Veto scanned down the rest of the street for anything that would catch his eye. With a disappointed sigh, he hopped off of the car. Who would have thought a night of anime and a heavy sleep would make me end up in this place... He put his hand on his head, still dizzy from the portal's effects. However, I've played enough video games to know what I have to do.

He continued to make his way down the street, checking any car that looked like something could be in it, but nothing. Just when he thought his 'spawn' was a bad one, he heard someone call out from down the street. "Hello?"

That's.. another person? His hopes of figuring out where he was returned to him, maybe it wasn't so bad after all. He picked up the pace in following the voice that was calling out through the street.

Her voice rang out in what she thought was an empty street, but soon enough she saw a shadow moving in the distance. In a matter of seconds she realized that calling out into that intimidating darkness might have been a bad idea. What if she had just made her presence known to the evils of this world? Would doom soon follow?

In a panic, her eyes frantically searched around her, looking up and down for something she could possibly defend herself with. It was then she saw an old wooden baseball bat leaning up against a dumpster. "Good enough." Quickly, she reached for the dirty, splintered bat and held it in position - her eyes kept focused on the incoming form.

Her chest raised and fell, Schiz's breaths now shallow and scared - pale fingers wrapped tightly around the end of the bat, ready to swing at any time.

Veto was nearing what he thought was the area the voice came from. Odd, this is where it came from. That portal is giving me vi- His thoughts were cut off when he was hit in the face with the bat. The blunt weapon put him on his back, barely conscious. He slowly put a hand over his face. He had to have gotten a broken nose. It felt like he had tried to make out with the bumper of a moving semi-truck. Oh god, it hurts..

Whack!

Schiz's arms seemed to move without her control, the awful cracking sound of wood hitting skull made her eyes widen immediately after the act. It was after she had already swung that the words he had said seconds before proved that he wasn't a threat, but someone else arriving via the mysterious portal.

"Oh, crap! I am so sorry!" Dropping the bat she leaned down and looked at his bloodied nose. "Ah man... are you okay? Eh... how many fingers am I holding up?" Waving her hand in front of his face, she held out three fingers, peering into his eyes. "I might have given you a concussion or something..." Looking him over she was actually pretty relieved, considering the fact he wasn't unconscious.

It had taken him a moment to respond. Taking his mind off of the pain was pretty tough. "Six.." He muttered under his hand. A pretty good start to whatever situation he found himself in. He regained his senses and sat up, still holding his nose. He caught sight of the bat that hit him, and it only made the pain worse. He tried to not think about the incident. "You're lost too, aren't you?" He asked her.

"Good enough" Reaching her hand out she pulled him to his feet and held him steady a moment. "Yeah, I came from the portal. I'm Schiz." Reaching to her wrist, she untied the black bandanna that was wrapped around it and held it out to him. "Hold this over your nose for now... or at least... use it to get the blood off." Looking around she sighed, scratching her head. "Have you seen anybody else?"

Veto nodded in appreciation, and used the bandanna to clean the blood off. He had known from video games on how to stop the bleeding, though it didn't help in the case of a broken nose. "You can call me Veto." He muttered. Her question had only echoed what he wanted to ask. "Not really, i've been in this place for a while now and haven't found a single soul." He explained. The bleeding had not stopped, but was slowed down by what knowledge Veto had on treating wounds. "This place... Where are we exactly?" He asked, while looking around his surroundings.

Nodding, she thought back to the site. "I'm not sure... it's a city that's for sure, but not one I recognize." The police cars didn't give any clues either, making the world seem even more artificial. "Weird isn't it?" The dark haired female mused, slipping inside the car and digging around. "One minute we're safely behind a computer screen, and now we're stuck in some kind of... weird post apocalyptic world or something."

Suddenly she perked up when she found a handgun on the floor of the passenger side seat. "Oh, hey - look!" Holding it up she looked at Veto. "I've never shot a gun before."

Looking at the gun, it had to be the standard glock .45 that regular cops carry. It looked like it, anyway. He could tell because he saw it in just about every game he played. "I don't know if we'll need weapons where we are." Veto said. "But, if portals exist in this world, who knows what exists now and what doesn't?" His own statement make him uneasy about the place. This city had to have flourished with life, so what caused their extinction?

"Keep the gun, I have one already. We should keep heading down the street and see what clues we can find." He suggested to her.

"Are you kiddin' me?" She snapped back, laughing a little. "How safe do you feel in a foreign realm? I sure as hell want to be prepared for anything." Schiz really didn't know what to expect, and the fear of something she didn't understand was beginning to make her paranoid.

Lucky enough for her, Veto seemed pretty confident in his own regard. They began to wander down the street, Schiz still unsure of what to do with the gun. "I don't even know what a safety looks like, so I uh... gah, things are just easier in video games."

It was then that they came to a shattered store front, with words spray painted on the piece of window pane that wasn't broken.

THE DEAD SHALL RISE.

"Oh no, don't even tell me... this is..." A shiver was sent down her spine as the sudden realization hit her like a ton of bricks.

Seeing the writing on the glass gave Veto a rush. "Zombies, huh? Not too bad." He said in a cheerful voice. That is, until you're eaten. He disregarded the thought and turned to Schiz. "Hey, don't worry. Zombies are slow and stupid, plus, We haven't come across a single corpse, so there's no saying that they are still here." He tried to reassure her.

Her eyes and ears were more alert now - well, as alert as they could be. Naturally, she only had two keep senses, hearing a smell. Smell being a not so useful one, but hearing coming in handy many times. Thinking back on it, when she was little she heard the term "nark" a lot from her older brother and mother because she could hear them talking on the other side of the house.

"Alright, well let's uh... look at this logically." The way she spoke, it almost sounded like she was pretending to calm Veto down, when truthfully - she was just trying to calm herself down. "We need to gather some things... just in case." Pulling herself into the shattered window of the shop, she hopped inside, her boots crushing broken glass beneath her. "The essentials. We already have two guns, a baseball bat and uhh..." Schiz shuffled her hands in her pockets. "House keys. Okay, we don't need those." Stuffing her hand back into her coat pocket she hid her keys away. How upsetting would it be to loose the keys to your house in another realm. Well, that was if she would ever make it back home.

After Schiz went through the window, Veto followed. He could feel the panic in the air coming from her. "I've got a sword, too, but that's pretty much it..." He stated. Weapons were one thing, but he worried about survivablity. He looked around the shop for any kind of edible items laying around. All the while worrying about her mental state. I would like to cheer her up, but, I have no good proof that zombies aren't here.. He felt sorry for her, and in a way, was frightened too. That was the last thing he wanted to show her, though.

"Hey." She spoke out amongst the silence, turning her head toward Veto. "Thanks for sticking with me in this... it would suck if you were the 'lone wolf' type." Her gray-blue eyes locked with his momentarily, thinking about how little she really knew about this person, but how lucky she was that he was willing to help.

From the looks of things, they had ended up inside a sporting goods store - which was a lucky occurrence considering the usefulness of most of the equipment around them. "How about you look for some kind of... padding or protection we could wear as a type of armor.." Her thoughts were suddenly dashed when her stomach grumbled loudly, loud enough for even Veto to hear. "Eh heh... and maybe some food if we're lucky." It became abundantly clear that Schiz hadn't had a chance to grab a bite to eat today and it was going to wear on her fast.

Veto grinned. "No problem!" He said as he walked to the other side of the store to look for supplies. He saw a few pairs of golf clubs, basketballs, and other items. No luck.. He thought. He went over to the front desk and hopped over it. He walked over to the 'employee's only' door in hopes of having better luck with food finding.

After a little bit of scavenging, Schiz's eyes fell upon a rack holding up about a dozen different helmets. "Hm.. Zombies do like brains..." Reaching out she pulled a plain black helmet off the rack. If this was an average day shopping venture she would have more than likely plucked the bright orange one off the rack instead, but this wasn't the place where she wanted to stick out like a sore thumb.

Pulling it over her head, it was a little big - but comfortable. "Hey, Veto! Check it out!" Hopping over the counter to where he was standing, she smiled and knocked on the helmet sitting atop her head.

Within moments she found herself distracted by the fact he was turning the handle to open the employee's only door. Lucky enough, the door swung open casually to reveal a storage closet / break room. There was a small table in the corner with one chair beside it. On the table was an old battery operated radio next to what looked like a cup of coffee. On the floor beside it all was a green backpack that was slightly open - a granola bar sticking out the side.

"Food!" Another smile spread across her face, relief washing over her. But as her hand wrapped around the nutritional snack, the crackling sound of what seemed to be a news broadcaster came from the radio.

"We advise... bzzz... any survivors.... bzzz... evacuation point...bzz... hospital roof by midnight tonight..."

At that moment, her eyes met his once again. "Maybe this is the test? To see if we can get out of here in one piece by tonight?" Standing up, now slinging the backpack over her shoulder, she thought a moment. "You were here before me, any idea where the hospital is?"

Veto was relieved to see that they had better luck with food then equipment, though the helmet looked pretty useful for multiple things. He crossed his arms and stared out the room, back into the front of the store. "Not off the top of my head." He replied to her. "If we come across a working cellphone or something, we can check the GPS." He figured that their luck would continue to benefit them. That they'd have service. That's what he had hoped for.

Veto took the small radio and handed it over to Schiz. "Let's take this too, just in case we have to go somewhere else instead, yeah?"

Gathering up what they had found, Veto and Schiz made their way down the abandoned streets once more. Everything continued to remain quiet - and lucky for them, the only encounter they had was with a small orange cat. Schiz attempted to make nice with the kitty, but for obvious reasons was far too skiddish and ran off down an alley.

After what felt like at least an hour, the two happened upon an imposing building - the hospital. It was a shocking relief, but little did they know what was waiting for them behind those large wooden doors.