Fantasy Totum revolutum

[kevintheradioguy]

It didn't seem like Norah was too hurt buy the fall. She definitely cut her skin open, letting blood ooze from many capillaries, but it didn't seem very serious. It didn't seem that way, though with how Noah felt - groggy, weird, unwell, as if he was feverish at all times without actually burning down - he couldn't really ell. Everything he learned seemed to be fading away, him unable to bring some primitive facts from the depths of his mind - like something was pulling them down, almost like a large fish trying to escape the fisherman, and tugging the string of his rod deeper and deeper down the murky depths. Exhaustion did that to people.

At some point during war, Noah recollected standing guard at the field hospital. A doctor that was putting his whole into his work. Cutting, and treating, and stitching people one by one, as the nurses brought more and more of the wounded, seemingly infinite amounts of them. The man worked non-stop, for days, saving dozens of lives, and when he felt dire exhaustion, he just chugged some water, and worked some more, until he collapsed right into the open gut of the man he was operating on, dead. Working himself to death. If he was to sleep, people figured, and be absent for some four or so hours from work, two or three dozen people would die. But then, as the last medical professional was gone, two and a half hundred did, screaming, writhing, howling in the hospital, until they perished. At he remembered at some point seeing that doctor, and not seeing the man - rather, a machine that worked in an automated state, unable to think, or talk - just do its job, leaving it to the mechanical memory. He couldn't even string a sentence when talked to, and although Noah didn't get to the point of inability to speak or think for himself, he knew exactly how lack of food and sleep influenced people. He was getting there, he realised. He was getting to the point of automated responses instead of conscious ones. His whole body was sore, and felt almost swollen, some force preventing him from being as quick and as precise as before. He had a few days before sharing that doctor's fate, but he could find an excuse for his doubts in Norah's and everyone else's conditions, for why he thought her dead and she thought him dead. They were just starting to fail to recollect what to do to when one didn't have to give medicine, restrain delirious patients, and get bullets out of the wounds.

 

[Featherstone]

Even rationality plied at him to rest. Memories of another's mistakes should've been enough to teach him, yet an impossible, cloying stubbornness hung at the edges--how could he sleep while others died? But there was a closet full of bodies and an injured woman laying against the crate before him, who he had hurt. The thoughts clung at him as he cleaned the wound and wrapped a bandage around it, sparing with his supplies but fully aware of the fact that an exposed cut like that could mean the end of her from normal infection in the condition she was in, much less with a lethal plague encircling them like wolves held back by only by sputtering torches.

He lifted Norah up in his arms once the wound was dealt with, carrying her to the stairs and starting to ascend them, muscles trembling from the exertion. Once, he could've carried her as if she were a leaf, half-run up the staircase; now, with little nourishment and no rest, it felt like he was ascending a mountain with the weight of the sky upon his shoulders. He'd leave her in a room there, rather than right next to Murad where she might do harm in waking delirium.

If he died, then there would be nothing between the town and death. He was the only one with any real education, any contacts in the outside, and, seemingly, any hope. The fact he was being villainized for it was sobering: with Norah at his throat and the strange woman similarly accusing him of doing more harm than good, he began to question himself, too. Piled bodies and their bulging, glazed eyes and blue lips met his mind's eye again, the scent still clinging to the inside of his nostrils. That had been his doing. Murad and Norah were both asleep, now. He could rest after Murad rose. He'd gone this long--what more would a few hours do?--and until then, he'd do his best. Get her settled, find if there was anyone else to assist, and cross whatever bridge came next when he got there: this, Noah determined, would be his plan. The memory of Norah's rigid body still haunted his thoughts. He should've taken a pulse, should've checked, but there was something so viscerally wrong about it. He knew death so well, how could his eyes deceive him so, even in this state?

 

[kevintheradioguy]

When Noah get to the third floor, he had discovered a suspicious lack of the barbaric woman, as if she wasn't even here. She might've been hiding somewhere in the rooms, but he hasn't heard her get out of the window (if she even could, considering the tall ceilings of the house), and certainly not get out through the front door. The oddest thing was a small pile of red clay where she stood, circling the prints of her feet, but no trail led into any direction to signify where she went. It was as if she vanished as soon as Noah left the room.

That, however, wasn't the weirdest thing he saw then. He opened the door to the bedroom, barely able to use the handle as his helper lay unconscious in his arms, and was immediately met by two large black eyes - each the size of his fist - right into him. Noah was looking into the face of a giant bull, barely fitting the room with its luxurious horns and massive body. He snorted, and bucked its head, but seemed peaceful enough, watching the man with reserved curiosity, as if it was Noah who barged into the bull's room, and not the other way round. How he had gotten here was a mystery for no longer than a few seconds, before the man noticed a half-burned tree that crashed through the window, crumbling one of the walls, and forming a large pile of rubble on one side of the bedroom. The animal must have panicked seeing all the fire around, crashed the tree in, and ran up it before its white-peppered horns destroyed the wall, sealing it inside. It seemed quite contempt with its position however, snorting again - just like Noah heard back when he first regained consciousness. Still, however logical, the sight of a large bull inside a tiny room was absolutely surreal.

 

[Featherstone]

After having an assumed dead woman come back to life, finding a room full of corpses instead of patients, damn near hallucinating in his delirium, and encountering the cryptic barbarian, seeing a ball of clay and a missing person barely phased him. He paused, eyeing the strange occurrence and, when his mind failed at delivering an explanation aside from confusion and uncertainty, he ignored it and went on to the bedroom.

Unlike the clay, the bovine taking up the better part of the bedroom did incite a reaction from the man: he stumbled back, reflexively pulling Norah closer to him until his mind caught up to his body and eased him with the reminder of the fact that the creature was neither hostile nor aggressive. A bizarre coincidence to see such a thing so soon after the bull creeping into his delirium--but there were a lot of cattle here, so that was likely the reason for both things. His dark gaze met the liquid umber of the creature's irises in wide-eyed silence. This couldn't be a hallucination. Norah's apparent death was plausible if she was unconscious--although why she was unconscious on the floor of the upstairs chambers was still something of a mystery--but how could his mind twist anything into being a full-blown, living bull if it wasn't one?

Slowly, Noah backed away, stepping back out through the door and closing it. Okay. This was fine. There was a bull and a broken wall, but that was...fine. It wasn't doing anything. He could get it out later. Right? Back down the tree, or something. It wouldn't fit through doors or down the stairs, but if he cleared rubble, the tree would do, if it was even necessary. He forced himself to accept this answer as he turned to go through the door opposing the bedroom to seek out the childrens' room. He could leave Norah there for now. Then deal with the bovid. He didn't dare cast another glance at the red clay where the strange woman had been lest it break his thinning discipline--there wasn't time for weird things with nonsense answers, not when people were dying, not when he was half in a waking dream himself.

 

[kevintheradioguy]

Being docile and domesticated, the bull only followed Noah with its eyes, blinking slowly, dust falling down from its long, thick eyelashes. Seemingly understanding he wasn't here to feed the creature, neither give it a drink, nor lead it anywhere, its head slowly turned to the night stand where it started sniffing, seemingly looking for something to chew on. Unfortunately, asides for old linen blankets, there was nothing around it could try and bite in.

The U-shaped building led Noah in half-a-circle into the mirroring wing of the building. Or one would think it was mirroring the first half, but in reality, was very, very different. There was a long, but narrow kitchen on one side, and similarly long and narrow bathroom on the other, and two sets of doors into tiny rooms behind them: one leading to the pantry - long cleared out of any food or drink - and children's room. Among the chaos of looters that came way before Noah and his small team, broken shelves and scattered pieces of flower pots and bottles, there stood two old, crooked children's beds. Judging by the pinkish hue of torn blankets - girls' beds. Norah wasn't a girl any longer, but she was small enough. She would barely fir any of the beds, but this was far better than the floor Noah find her previously on.

 

[Featherstone]

He carefully set her down on one of the old mattresses in the kids' room, pulling the threadbare fabric over her and tucking it in against her sharp collarbone. He straightened back up, gazing down at the gaunt lines of her face. The odds of her survival to the end of this was incredibly low, a reality that came upon him with every passing moment, unbidden and cloying at the edges of his darkened thoughts. But what was he to do? He had no cure. He bit back a sigh--there wasn't any time for wallowing--and went outside again, starting to methodically go through each door to ensure that there was no one aside from Murad, Norah, the bodies, and the bull in this house.

 

[kevintheradioguy]

One by one some doors flung open, others, however, stayed locked. There must have been keys somewhere in this place for all the rooms, although, if the door was locked, maybe this was for a reason? They were fighting the infection, after all. The top floor was empty of any living soul - asides for his and Norah's. Second one held the gruesome scene, a few cleared out rooms, another kitchen, all covered in dirt, filth, and blood, old rags with traces of bodily fluids used days before to treat patients. At some point in going through the second floor, Noah stopped in front of the door with large chalk letters that just said "NO". He did not remember writing this, however, something told him that he did seal that one for some reason. He just couldn't remember what it was.

 

[Featherstone]

Noah came to a slow stop before the threshold, eyeing the pale, neat script slanted from hastiness and exhaustion. He reached for the memory of it, swatting blindly in the murk making up his mind and coming back with nothing but silt that fell away through his fingers. He stared at it for only a few minutes before turning away. Whatever his reasoning, he had to trust himself, although the memory of those bodies came to him again with another wave of roiling nausea. What if...?

No. That line of reasoning was surer to destroy him than any disease. No, if he questioned himself around every turn now, he could never build upon what he had made, yet even as he thought this he found himself hesitant to turn away. Perhaps...

Noah knelt, pressing his palms to the slats of the floor and resting the side of his head on the ground to peer beneath the door; maybe he could see something, anything, of use. Even just to remember.

 

[kevintheradioguy]

What Noah saw only added to the mystery at hand. There was this smooth tile of a floor, going further, and disappearing from sight inches further into the total darkness. There was a small draft under the door, blowing cold, but thick air into his face, and some distant sound, akin to howling or rumbling coming from the depths. It was almost like someone had left a door open to a giant meat warehouse filled with ice, and it was thawing, its cold seeping outside, and the ice cracking in an uneasily slow manner.

 

[Featherstone]

Curiosity was in Noah's nature--it had to be, for the work he did--but he snapped back against the temptation with vehemence. No, it would be utter foolishness, and there was no visible life. He was probably storing infected bodies there: it would make sense, what with the cold air. He shook his head, making up his mind and going on to search the rest of the building. Most likely, there was some sort of meat freezer in there for livestock carcasses, and that was all. Mystery shoved to the back of his mind, Noah rose, going on to explore the rest of the building.

 

[kevintheradioguy]

The result of the search was far from satisfactory. The second floor hosted two apartments - approximately like the third one did. He had found another door with the chalk writing of people being there, but as he opened it, once more, was met with a gruesome sight of a pile of bodies lying one very possible surface. It was hard to tell what the room was before: a living space, a bedroom, maybe an office, or perhaps a library? Ruined furniture looking like nothing in particular - just a shadow of its former self: roughly-made piles of wood, metal, and porcelain, covered with old blankets and just more or less clean rags. People in there looked withered and crumbling. Usually dead bodies bloated, but these looked like they were made out of sand - with thin, scabrous skin that clung to the bone. In this space, lit only by the light behind, air looked... different somehow. It looked like it moved like murky water with something thick and grainy in it. Almost as if the infection took form, and created a cloud of poisonous spores, waiting for their next victim. Or maybe it was all his imagination playing tricks on him, making him visualise the concentrated mess of the illness as a dirty cloud in the air. What he didn't imagine, was the blackened floor. I moved, bringing up the images of leech-infested swamp, almost like a living being - pulsing, and twitching, and shivering, as if covered with a living carpet of small ashen tentacles, ready to grab anything in its vicinity.

 

[Featherstone]

The first thing to strike Noah was the fact that the decomposition was bizarre, but this, as with every other inexplicably strange event that made him question whether all of this really was a waking dream, was overridden by the pulsating of the ground. As if it were a living creature that had crawled from the depth's of a novel's horrific pages. This was no dream, it was a reflection of demons, alien and viscerally unnerving. His most basal instincts recoiled at the sight, at the bodies--there were dead here and, therefore, it was dangerous. But Noah had never been one to run from danger. Not anymore.

He knelt, peering down at the churning carpet. They weren't maggots as he might've expected, leaving him puzzled and uncertain. A dangerous curiosity plied him to reach forward but he stopped himself and reached into his bag instead, withdrawing the worn, stained journal from its depths. His pencil swept quickly over the paper, haste taking precedence lest any interaction with the mass changed it. Margins were filled in with his spidery, tight cursive, blotting notes and unfinished, twenty-second sketches so he wouldn't forget the anomaly--and the strange mode of decomposition that could very well have been related to the disease. He would have a lot to log tonight. Each of the used pages were filled with tables and data or tired, dwindling words that recorded each day's events the best he could keep up with them. The lack of sleep or breaks had broken it up and the dates had long since fallen by the wayside, each entry separated from the next only by a line, but with the amount of strange things, he felt the need to remember them clearly. They were pieces, pieces that would eventually need to be put together. Carter had always told him to write things down and never hold records in his head alone: memory was a dangerous thing to rely upon, especially in times like this.

This done, he crept closer to the doorway, inspecting the strange texture more closely in an attempt to identify it. He couldn't spend too much time here, not when there might be other living souls, but just for the moment, taking down the information seemed to be the smartest decision. There was no telling what could prove to be useful.

 

[kevintheradioguy]

The moving layer was, indeed, not maggots... or not entirely so, come to think of it. Though they made the lack of decomposition - or at least its slower pace - a little clearer. The whole floor was covered in what looked like meat flies, slowly wriggling and twitching, with their black chitinous legs in the air, back down, belly up. Smelling fresh meat, they seemed to be flying near to lay eggs and feed, however, it seemed that this sickness killed them as well, as they fell into this poisonous trap, tasting infected blood and flesh, and falling victim to it as well. It was a horrifying thought: flied transmitting the disease, but seeing how fast it led them to their death, a calming one as well: at least they won't be able to dross the vast plains around town, and spread it elsewhere. Something larger, like a human, for example, could. The amount of flies was enormous, eerie, and did look like something out f a horrifying dream. In fact, everything felt that way with Noah's immense grogginess: not quite real, abstract, and feverish. It didn't make any sense at all, and at the same time felt like this makes too much sense.

 

[Featherstone]

Vectors. He etched that word into his mind, eyeing the bodies again. If it could go through flies, what other animals could carry it? Noah's mind went back to the bull. The only zoonotic diseases he could think of that were transmitted through bugs were ones like malaria or the Black Plague: they carried it, through blood, but the carriers didn't die from it. Which left another dreadful question--could the flies be carrying it from place to place, after gorging themselves on the dead? And, if they could pick it up and die from it, what were the odds that another mammal could--or anything else?

He rose, closing the door, resolving to see what more he could figure out about any non-human species that could be transferring the damn thing. Until they got it pinned down, avoiding contact with animals as much as possible would be optimal. He'd pass it on to Murad and Norah--if Norah ever came around again. He shook that thought off, grabbing the notebook again once the door was closed to jot down that single word--vectors--and then went on to see if there were any more living souls in the building at all. If nothing else was on this floor, he'd go to the next, and do so carefully after the barbarian woman's cryptic warning. It probably didn't mean anything, but on the off chance she was aware of something he wasn't--well. It never hurt to be careful.

 

[kevintheradioguy]

The mound of bodies in this place was more than it could fit, so it seemed. Most of the rooms were empty, ruined, or cluttered with what was left of supplies and anything they were carried in, some smelling of rot, and some - growing bloody, populous-looking lichen on the walls that looked almost alive with its red colour and glossy texture. The few rooms with the dead, however, were filled so much with bodies, that it looked like they were packed in there like matches in a box. Like some sort of macabre meat factory, stuffing humans into stone crates. From what Noah could remember, Murad had to bring here the living, but Noah only found the dead. Was it that quick, or was he asleep for so long? He really couldn't tell in these dimly-lit walls, filled with stale air and the smell of blood and rot. Bodies, so many bodies, they could've inhabited a small village these dead people stuffed in rooms like they were objects. But unfortunately, Noah couldn't save the dead. Not yet, anyway.

Navigating through a small maze of rooms of different shapes and sizes, he finally found himself at the starting point, still clutching his medical supply-filled bag of no use, not even needing to open it once in this labyrinth of a necropolis. There was no way down, however, none that he had noticed thus far anyway.

 

[Featherstone]

There was, Noah realized upon reaching his starting point, that there was only one door left. The door that had, under no uncertain terms, been labeled very clearly with a large "no." Indicating that the stairs were behind that very threshold--and that was what he was supposed to be avoiding. His mind went back to the strange woman's words of doom. He didn't know why he bothered even hearing those words, or what she had to say, given that she'd done nothing but prattle superstitious nonsense, but his wariness wasn't unfounded. Not when he'd so obviously scribbled the under-no-circumstances-difficult-to-understand message on the door.

This left him with two options: don't go through the door, and instead go back upstairs and...what? There were no patients. Norah and Murad were unconscious. He couldn't help anyone or make progress without people to work with, to save, to test medicines on. Murad would've had to go in and out that door to bring patients inside. Perhaps it simply said "no" to keep anyone from going outdoors in this mess. He pulled his notebook out, then, flipping back through it in the dim but admittedly waning hope that he'd written down some reason to his actions, but he doubted it. He'd been so busy and exhausted, keeping up with logging information on patients was difficult enough, much less managing anything useful in a moment like this. Even if he had left one, what choices did he have? What more could he do in these upper floors aside from chase his own tail?

 

[kevintheradioguy]

Even if he did write anything in regards to the mysterious door markings, Noah had hard time reading it. Not only his shaky hands haven't been the best at supporting consistent and straight lettering, but they also looked more like separate words, like tags, he quickly scribbled on the pages to think about later, rather than actual coherent sentences. As if he was sure he'd remember what he meant when three days ago he wrote a big GREY SHEETS on one of the pages, or POLLEN in the middle of antibiotics list. Be it as it may, his handwriting was getting progressively worse page after page, turning into real doctor's scribbling of nothing coherent - jut some twists and smudges, almost like a child pretending to write something. Why would he forbid himself or anyone else to go through the door that supposedly led to the stairs on the first floor was a mystery; and he could doubt there would've been an answer hidden within the pages, mostly used to document symptoms.

 

[Featherstone]

Noah wasn't surprised to come up with nothing and neither was he particularly pleased by such a turn of events. He shoved it away into his pocket, weighing the options, but his train of thought had gone as far as he thought it could. There was nowhere else to go. There could still be people down there, and he would have to go through it eventually. There was no other way in or out except for the wall the bull had shattered in its panic. He glanced back over the dilapidated space, then pushed away the anxieties and replaced it with the hardened, baseless courage that had let him come here in the first place as he turned and returned to the signed threshold, closed his hand around the knob, and pushed it open.

 

[kevintheradioguy]

Pushing the door didn't yield any results, and at first the tired and groggy man could've thought it was locked, before realising his mistake. If this lead to a narrow stairwell, he should've pulled it. It was a welcome second of humour in these dark times, although not entirely fitting when the entire town was dying. Dead, more like, given how little people survived, and how many of them didn't wake up every morning.

Pulling it open, on the other hand, worked. The handle turned with a couple of clicks, opening the way into the narrow, dark, spiral stairwell with busted lights and eerie cold draft going through it. The stairs coiled down a few times, leading to a floor below, where things smelled more of earth it was so close to. As the previous well, this had another door on the bottom that made the stairs their own room. Again, this one was closed shut, cold creeping from beneath it, and on once-polished wooden panel there was a chalk writing again: NO, in larger letters, each line and every semicircle drawn over and over again on top of the previous one to make the letters bolder, bigger, better noticeable, as if someone was scribbling this in panic, or being not that sound of mind.

 

[Featherstone]

Had he written on this door, too? The impossible-to-shake knowledge that he'd had a reason for this--something he couldn't quite identify but remembered with absolute clarity to be true--bled dark whispers into his thoughts. It might've been safer to go back. To find Murad and see if he knew anything or find something upstairs to keep himself busy. Yet, the longer he peered at the bold chalk, the more he began to question how valid that fear was: obviously it hadn't been etched when he was properly sane. This, however, could mean a lot of things. It could mean that there was something terrible behind the wood and he'd been panicked when scraping down the words, or that some nonexistent evil leaked into his head.

The cold brushed over his skin like the gentle touch of a corpse, ice water running over his back and raising his hackles against the collar of his shirt. He fleetingly contemplated the idea of going back upstairs and sliding his gun into the back of his belt alongside the retrieval of a jacket, but dismissed it--if he decided to go out, he would. Otherwise, the knife strapped to his calf underneath layers of fabric and boot would be enough. The most that would be here was people, and sick ones at that, but somehow, in the midst of all this deadly silence, he questioned even that much. The man knelt, pulling up the cuff of his pants and unbuckling the knife from its place. Most didn't know he carried it, and even if they did, getting to it in any swift manner would be a challenge: in uncertain times among survivors, he thought it stupid not to carry anything at all, as a tool or a weapon, but it would be an even greater folly to give access to it to delirious patients. Even if someone realized he had it, they'd have to get under his pants, through the top of the boot, and then undo the buckle that affixed the hilt to the sheathe--something that would be near impossible in the heat of the moment, and hard enough with premeditation.

Noah slid it into the back of his belt, carefully adjusting it so that it wouldn't cut him but he could draw it with ease if the need arose, then pulled--no, this one was pushed--the second door open with a cautious, wary deliberation, listening intently to every creak the wood made and gaze searching the widening crack for any hint of danger. He could only pray that if it was there, it was a detectable threat and not invisible disease clinging to the walls' near-rotting pores.

 

[kevintheradioguy]

The door opened with an ominous creak - the one they usually played in theatres when someone mysterious or dangerous came in to the room - usually with the sounds of thunder and a light flash on the background. However, none of such effects proceeded to play; though the growing draft did close the upper one shut with a dramatic SLAM of the wood and a quieter CLACK of the lock. He stood in the doorway, peering into the dark, seemingly empty room that lacked light so much, it looked like there was a thick, black cloth in front of it. It would take time for his eyes to adjust, he figured, until her realised... until he realised there was a thick black cloth hanging there for some reason. His eyes picked up something over him - maybe hook the curtain was being held up by, and as he looked up, Noah was met by two large, bright-yellow eyes of a giant, perching bird. Just like with the woman, the sudden realisation of someone being there washed over him with cold terror, forcing him back to trip over the stairs.

There was a giant, skull-like face of a large bird a few meters over him, and he saw it breathing, and cocking his head, like an ominous skeletal raven, ready to attack its small prey, before it hit him. The costume. One of those used in barbaric rituals he thought looked quite like plague doctors' outfits, and could've been traded from the tribes, and used in a similar manner. One of the characters were these freaky birdmen - a part of the local folklore; symbolising death no doubt. Their long robes were made out of thick black linen and black leather, covered in small bones on the back, and the skulls - of the skull of a bull with horns cut off, and beak made from carved spines, plated one on top of the other, small stilts giving them the enormous, over seven feet tall, height. The word 'executor' popped into Noah's mind. Was it how they called them? Or was it how he named them?

The thing stood, both hands leaning on the door frame, hunched over to see inside through the yellow lenses of giant eye sockets, cocking his head to the other side, and then speaking with surprising clarity for someone wearing cotton-filled beak-like mask. "This is it.", he or she spoke - there was no way to tell. The voice was low enough to be of a young man, but high enough to be of an adult woman. "You fought valiantly, but you've lost. A foe like me is no match for men, and you are no exception. So. Are you ready to die now?"

 

[Featherstone]

Noah should've gone back for the gun.

That was the first thought when his eyes met the eerily golden orbs peering down at him, the ones his intellect told him there was a human behind but his frayed instinct snapped back in fear of, the way a candle flame did when struck by an abrupt draft. He stumbled over the step and nearly fell--would've, certainly, had he not trained his body well--and his head flashed back to other looming shadows, other voices leaking acidic droplets into his ears in proclamations of his mortality and weakness and allegedly inevitable demise, voices saturated with the bitter liquid of despair or hate. Staring death in the face was a figure of speech that war and medicine alike had brought Noah rather close to but now, now as he stood before some twisted, costumed form of someone playing at being the reaper, all of that seemed to take on a different meaning. This face was a real one of ivory and bone, taking on the form of the birds of carrion that would flood out of doorways where they feasted upon flesh and stained their feet with maggot-filled viscera.

But behind this mask was a man, a woman; nothing more, nothing less, nothing in between, and as much as Noah's exhausted cognition reacted in startled, fleeting terror, the executor was every bit as mortal as any other adversary he'd faced. He drew his hand behind his back and brought the knife from his pocket, although he didn't initially raise it lest a hostile action trigger any sort of attack, and otherwise remained physically calm. He stepped back onto the stair to get himself onto higher ground and he stared up at the creature--the person--in stony, absolute control, quelling the swarm of emotion and stamping it out. There weren't any sick behind this door, he realized, not with this here. There was nothing back here. What had he hoped to achieve?

"No, nor will I be within the foreseeable future," he stated. There was no real fervor behind the words in spite of the force with which he uttered them: fervor would require passion, heart, and there wasn't any room for that when he bid discipline to overtake all else, even if he met the mask's eyes steadfast. "I've not lost until every soul here is dead, and they are not."

 

[kevintheradioguy]

There might have not been any survivors down on this floor - or there might have been - but what of importance was there, was the exit. Outside. To the streets, torn apart by the sickness. And this person was the leather-clad, bone-covered wall between them, and the last medicine man in town. unless, of course, Noah trips on the steep stairs and breaks his neck, of course. However, that was something more suiting for a man wearing stilts there, and not Noah. The man in a costume didn't seem impressed by the knife. Or scared. There was no face seen, but he emanated nothing but... cold. Cold, and maybe terror. Like he really was a giant bird with no regret towards well-being of its prey. But no malice as well. Just matter-of-factly laws of the universe, of living being devouring other living beings to survive. Of life feeding on life. "So you didn't understand anything. Stubborn man.", the bird shook its beaked head slowly, making one small step - half-a-step even - inside. Arms still outstretched under the thick blanket of dyed linen and leather, it soundlessly brushing along the walls. "You've done more than humanly possible. You have sealed the last safe part of town. But all in vain. I'm already here." In the darkness of this stairwell, the eyes almost looked like they glowed - this thick, muddy slab of polished amber, made into fisheye lenses. And this person's tone was so... confident. Though words would've been read as rehearsed, when he or she spoke they didn't sound theatrical at all. They were said in a tone in which someone would've been talking about their dinner, or a long trip they are ought to take. This person truly believed in what they were saying.

 

[Featherstone]

Stubborn, stubborn, stubborn--this person's words were so frustratingly similar to the one upstairs. He mirrored their movement by shuffling back slightly, maintaining the distance between them. They didn't seem outright hostile--yet, anyways--but Noah wasn't one to let his guard down in a situation like this. Not when they were pressing their way inside and the door behind him had been locked by the wind, rendering him trapped. What did this person think they could do? Would do? Why would they hurt the last survivors and what, exactly, did their presence supposedly mean? Noah's heel tapped against the step behind him. It wasn't the person's height or bizarre attire that was unnerving: it was the apathetic manner, with no aggression or compassion. It was empty, almost, and that made the cold seem that much more prominent as Noah stared up at them.

"What do you intend to do here, then?" he demanded, weight shifting forward again as he spoke. Although Noah's initial reaction was defensive and wary, his tone now adopted a much bolder quality, asserting himself towards the stilted bird-person "If my efforts are in vain then we will all die soon enough without your interference; if they are not, why would you stop me; you, who could just as easily succumb as the rest?" It struck him that the person spoke as if they were death, that their arrival announced some sort of irreversible doom. What sort of delusions did this person hold?

He shouldn't have opened the door. He should've listened to that no, ignored the possibility of more survivors, but that wasn't in his nature and he knew it good and fucking well. There were only two dying souls to protect here, and out there, there could be more. Could've been. He couldn't make any cure without the sick, the only salvation was through that dreaded threshold. He adjusted his grip on the blade and stabilized himself: he would retreat no further, not unless he had to.

 

[kevintheradioguy]

"You still don't get it, do you?", the question was asked after a low chuckle, as the beaked head cocked, and the person stepped in slowly into the stairwell, and straightened their back. They were... huge, to say the least. So tall and enormous they seemed to fill the room entirely - more than a human being on stilts could. They almost looked nine, maybe ten feet tall, the ivory mask almost touching the top of the stairs above them, menacing presence bringing dread, horror, though not panic. It was the sense of impending doom, like sitting in a moat with the last dozen people of your squadron, and hearing bombardier planes approaching, realising this was the end of it. There was no way out of this - you whether die in an explosion, or throw yourself into the enemy's bullets. How did Noah survive that time? He couldn't remember. "No one can die without my interference." They moved, silently, on the stairs, their steps not making a sound, dead amber eyes digging into Noah. They placed their foot on the metal - at least he thought they did - and no sound was heard; no squeaking of metal, no clacking of wood one would expect. Tattered and torn, the layered cloak fluttered in the draft - or, no, rather, it created it - clinging to the walls, like thick black tentacles of a giant octopus, and Noah felt some primal, unknown repulsion towards them. Somehow, he was absolutely sure that this wasn't the texture, or dirt, or grime on that cloak - these were billions upon billions of small organisms - an infection layer so enormously thick it formed this layer of sticky, writhing disease. "You've been studying death all your life, and yet, my nature still eludes you. You're like a child. You're squeezing your eyes shut to hide from the monster.", it called Noah a child in such a tone, as if this was a great insult. The draft brought a nice, sweet smell of pollen and honey, calming Noah down for a moment, before he realised it was nothing but the smell of rotting ichor and formaldehyde mixing together. The cloak fluttered around, clinging to the walls, devouring the stairwell, and dragging the monstrous skull with it, making it almost float towards Noah in a slow, determined manner, like a demon from some sort of unnerving nightmare.