i want you here (open)

[jemerite]

Characters: jemerite and You (open)
Date: July 17th
Summary: He can't do this to her.
Warnings: Zinc's world is vaguely offensive in its necrophilia? Her narrative can be kind of gory. She thinks about killing things, a lot.

She wakes up cold.

She's often cold, unless sitting in open sunlight, or curled up next to the heating unit that does a poor job of keeping Barbet's large studio warm in the wintertime. She hated the cold, really, it was a constant reminder of the stillness in her chest, but what she hated the most was waking up cold, like she'd been dead the whole night through. Barbet shouldn't have left her, she hates when he does and she usually wakes up as soon as he stirs because it's cold and it's lonely--(perhaps the loneliness is the worst. She... she hates that feeling, she wants to rip it out of her mind and ruin it forever.)

There is a moue of discontent on her lips already as she sits up, but it does not take her long to see things are very changed. And she knows exactly what's happened.

He's abandoned her. He'd drugged her and left her out here in the woods to die. The certainty of it rocks her, and causes a deep twisting sensation in her stomach. Hate. Hurt. Misery.

"Barbet?" She looks around herself, but all she sees is the cat approaching with the scroll in its mouth. Zinc hisses at it furiously, settled forward on her hands and knees like an angry little animal. The cat seems nonplussed, but it sits down, tail swishing. Zinc ignores it as she gets to her feet unsteadily, looking around again, sees only trees and she can't smell him anywhere. How is she meant to track him down and kill him if he's erased his scent?

"You can't!" She shouts, hands curling into fists, her well-kept nails biting into her palms with the fury of it. He would scold her for that. "You did this!"

She sees the path out of the clearing and begins to follow it, but what she sees only deepens her despair and that cat is following her. "I will eat you, if you do not get away from me," she snarls gutturally at the fluffy thing. Its eyes narrow at her, smug and nonreactive. She hisses, but carries on walking.

All she finds is forest and field. And, eventually, she drops down into the grass and simply begins to scream. Wordless, furious, keening. He can't do this to her. She can't even weep in this decaying body, and it's his fault that she has the desire to at all.


[ooc; I always write log openers in prose, but feel free to switch to action.]

Comments

[notvitiligo.livejournal.com]

"Holy shit, like all the time?!" She glances over with what appears to be mild surprise.

Wait... concern about possible disease, difficulty walking, strange skin...

"You have some kind of, um... condition?" She's not terribly concerned about the possibility of contagion- she assumes Zinc would've mentioned that- but kidnapping someone sick seems like a terrible idea to her.

[jemerite]

She's very contagious, but she's also very used to being surrounded by people who are inoculated. Everyone was, only the very poorest were deprived of the vaccination, and they remained the gangs' most favored targets. Zinc has assumed completely that Jessica would be up to date on her shots, and realizes that is a mistake, giving Jessica a guilty look.

However... if Jessica were going to turn, she would have done it by now. Perhaps her own affliction was counter to the virus, Zinc had no idea.

"I..." Is Jessica going to abandon her if she's honest? She's been abandoned once today, she doesn't want that. "I'm a Reanimate."

[notvitiligo.livejournal.com]

"A..."

THAT'S what it is! The fetal pig...

She blinks and glances over Zinc again. Zombies are not something she would've expected, but then neither were robots, angels, or... whatever Sephiroth was. (She avoids following that last bit farther.)

"That explains things, I guess. Never met a, um, reanimated before."

[jemerite]

"Most haven't," she agrees faintly. They were mostly urban, in cities with harbors, the zombies were most easily transported by water. They were kept to their sides of town, their corners, where the gangs could keep an eye on them, and an eye out for the feeders and the CDC. Most people stayed away, but the johns knew where to look.

She's watching Jessica curiously, maybe waiting for the reaction of disgust, but she hasn't pulled away from her yet.

[notvitiligo.livejournal.com]

Jessica's reaction is muted, mild interest. "I mean, I'm pretty sure they don't exist where I come from."

[jemerite]

That surprises her, she almost trips over her feet, but she just slows down a bit, regains her balance.

"No, it's everywhere."

[notvitiligo.livejournal.com]

"Whoa, careful!" Jessica is apparently decent at catching stumbling people.

"Not where I come from. Uh, I forgot to mention that, I guess: People here come from, uh... different worlds. And times and stuff."

[jemerite]

Zinc barely weighs anything, she's not too difficult to catch hold of. She used to be athletic, physically strong and capable. It all would have deteriorated anyway, but she is also deprived of the food she needs far too often.

"We vaccinate, everywhere, everyone, to keep it contained."

[notvitiligo.livejournal.com]

"And you just got unlucky?"

[jemerite]

She'd been very unlucky, she'd used up all her luck on other things and Isaac had had some to spare, he'd recouped it in prison after being beaten relentlessly. Rumor was he'd molested children, it wasn't true and that didn't matter.

"Murdered, yes. Barbet infected me, after."

[notvitiligo.livejournal.com]

Blink. She glances over, assessing Zinc's expression.

"That sucks."

This isn't the first murder victim she's met, but it's definitely the most intelligible one.

[jemerite]

She laughs, rasping. "Yes. It sucked."

She doesn't recommend being beaten and shot in the face by a double crossed 'friend' as an experience for people to try. She doesn't recommend the virus either.

"Stay in school." Her smile is narrow and dark, it's not precisely a friendly expression, but she certainly finds her joke to be funny.

[notvitiligo.livejournal.com]

"Well, that was the idea before I got kidnapped into Disney Princess Hell here. On the plus side, apparently everything's on pause back home or something. At least, that's what I hear from people who got to go back. (And then got taken back here again.)"

[jemerite]

That certainly gets her attention, she glances down at the girl. They must look ridiculous, a teenage girl helping along a shambling adult woman with gray skin.

"Paused?"

[notvitiligo.livejournal.com]

Jessica is so beyond worried about looking ridiculous when helping people. It's a routine thing.

"You go back, and everything's like you never left and no time passed. Don't ask me, it's all some kind of 'magic.'" For 'magic,' read 'bullshit.'

[jemerite]

She doesn't know how that could be possible, and that annoys her. It would have annoyed her previously because she was hardly a cosmologist.

"There is no such thing as magic," she protests with a frown.

[notvitiligo.livejournal.com]

"Here there is, unfortunately." So annoying, this magic business. "You get used to it. Kind of."

[jemerite]

Zinc gives a huff, brow furrowed. Magic? Ridiculous. Even the reanimation was a virus with clear medical side-effects and vaccines. Still, the idea of nothing changing while she is... wherever this is...

"Barbet will not know? That I've gone?"

[notvitiligo.livejournal.com]

"Probably not. Apparently, you might not even realise it, once you're back." Jessica is... not totally happy about that.

[jemerite]

Zinc, personally, is delighted and she smiles, this one much less ominous. She is still displeased to be here, but there was some small hope--(delusional, it's a delusional hope, magic isn't real, there's no way to disappear and go back like nothing has happened at all.)--that he would have no time at all to replace her.

[notvitiligo.livejournal.com]

"That's the library up ahead," she comments, pointing the building out between some trees.

"Y'know, there's gotta be an easier way for you to get around... I bet we could set up a chair for you or something."

[jemerite]

Her brows pinch, definitely doesn't like that idea at all. "I am not an invalid," she grumbles sullenly. She can walk, she will walk, even if it is a constant embarrassment to her that she's lost all the grace of her former days. She'd been beautiful then, tall and lean, in beautiful high-heeled shoes and a confident gait. Her frown deepens.

"It worsens, in stillness." The same way her speech did if she failed to talk for too long, if Barbet ignored her for too long. She has to badger him incessantly for him to practice her French with her.

[notvitiligo.livejournal.com]

"Okay then. Just a suggestion." She's slightly disappointed in herself at not being able to predict this reaction, but shrugs it off.

"You'll probably get a lot of opportunity to exercise here. Lots of walking."

[jemerite]

"It's all..." She motions disdainfully at the greenery as they enter the library. "Countryside?"

[notvitiligo.livejournal.com]

"Mostly, yeah. There's some ruins over in one place, and buildings all over, but... pretty much countryside. You don't have to worry about allergies, do you?"

She procures one of the brochures (http://notvitiligo.livejournal.com/2099.html) on the front desk and hands it over helpfully. "Should be pretty up-to-date."