Battlefield - Chapter 02 - 4989 words

[aionwatha]

Note: cranked out most of this in a day. is this my muse returning to me at last? you'll notice the characterisation is quite different from dav. it's an entirely other world after all. kurapica's not full of all that rage, haha.
Beta-reader: Gold
Chapter title: A Lonely Journey



Chapter 02
A Lonely Journey

Once upon a time, life on the road had been something that Kurapica had enjoyed. It had been so much simpler back then. Before he knew about the Plague, about the dead rising and haunting the living in a much more gruesome manner than spectres would. This was certainly not the sort of resurrection that people had been hoping for.

It wasn’t nearly as enjoyable now. There was him, alone with the wide world all around him, but the world had frightful teeth, now. He travelled, roaming the countryside, circling widely around larger cities, where the dead were sure to be out in droves. He couldn’t force himself to use his Scarlet Eyes constantly, as they tired him far too quickly, but he triggered them again and again, looking for signs of his brethren.

Days passed by, lonely, wretched days, where loss and anguish warred within his soul; loss for his home and anguish for his family and friends. Days turned into weeks turned, into months. He scavenged where he could, food and medicine. At one point, he’d managed to wire a car and drove it until it ran out of gas. Now he was on foot again. Having a goal helped him keep going, but it was hard to feel like he made any progress at all.

Late spring gave way to full summer, and the sweltering heat added to Kurapica’s woes. He didn’t dare get rid of his few warmer hoodies, as he was all too aware that after summer, the autumn cold would bite at his skin, but this meant that he had to find room in his duffel to carry them.

One scorching late afternoon found him on the back porch of an abandoned wood cabin he’d gone through to find food but had found already ransacked. It could have been July or August; he wasn’t entirely sure of the date. The sun was slowly setting in the west, but he knew that the heat wouldn’t abate regardless. He was wondering whether to stop for the night, or force himself to walk on for a few more hours, when he triggered his Scarlet Eyes-

He held his breath, nearly dropping his bag in his shock and surprise. He blinked a few times to make sure that he had not hallucinated, but each time he opened his eyes again, he could see it still. A thin, barely visible stream of translucent red.

A Kuruta had walked by this house before.

It had to have been quite some time, because the light, gossamer smudge of colour and movement had nearly disappeared. He didn’t recognize the tint, a sort of purplish red, and couldn’t get a specific sense of who had been here, but it was one of his people, for sure. Only they left these colour streams behind.

Kurapica quickly shouldered his bag and started walking resolutely, following the trail of colourful light. It didn’t take him long to realize that he was going in the wrong direction, as it soon vanished entirely. He turned on his heel and went in the opposite direction. He walked with renewed focus, not daring to return his eyes to normal, for fear that he would lose the trail, and after months of wandering around without a single clue to where his people had gone, he couldn’t afford let go of this one thread.

He walked in feverish anticipation for hours, knowing that it would probably be a long time before he caught on to whoever this was, but unable to slow down due to the fierce hope that had suddenly awoken within him. Woods gradually gave way to farmland.

He should have paid better attention to what was around him, and not just the trail he was following. He should have advanced cautiously, keeping an eye on the countryside around him. So taken was he with following the faint stream of colour, he did not see the ambler until it knocked him to the ground. He lost his focus, his eyes returning to their natural colour as they turned to what had once been a child, perhaps ten years old. It’s skin was sallow, his eyes sick-looking and filmed over, staring widely at him from under dark, lanky hair..

He shoved at it, then kicked and tried crawling backwards. The thing, unable to feel pain, scrambled after him, crooked fingers snatching at his clothes, a thin wail escaping his throat. Kurapica kicked up into its face, again and again, all of his weight on his left elbow as he desperately tried unsheathing one of his knives with his right hand.

The ambler let out another thin wail and came at him again. Its nails scratched at Kurapica’s legs, trying to find purchase, even as Kurapica kicked it. The Kuruta finally manage to free a knife and he thrust it at the thing’s face, catching it in the cheek. The blade hit the cheekbone and slid sideways. The ambler tried to catch his arm within its stiff fingers, nails scrambling over his skin.

Kurapica somehow managed to kick it in the throat hard enough that it fell backwards on its ass. The blond scrambled back quickly and got up into a crouch before it recovered. It crawled forward and looked up at him from under its filthy bangs. It tried to wail again, but all its ruined throat managed was a hiss like that of a snake.

This time, when it sprung at him, Kurapica was prepared. He leaped to his feet, kicked it down, flicked the knife to have a better grip and held the thing face-down into the ground as he thrust his knife into the back of its neck, severing the spine right at the base of its skull. The thing had a strangle, whole-body seizure that lasted three seconds, then it fell, unmoving.

Kurapica panted softly, wiping his sweaty forehead with the back of his arm. He swallowed. Gods, he was thirsty, suddenly. His heart was going a hundred fifty beats a minute and his hands were clammy. He wiped them on his pants, switching his knife from hand to hand. Looking down to the unmoving ambler child, he suddenly noticed the scratches on his forearms and froze. There were some welts, but in a few places, the thing’s nails had broken through his skin and blood was pearling on his pale skin.

“Shit!” he gasped, letting out some colourful language that he rarely ever used. “Fuck, shit, no, no no no, no no no no no!”

He looked around quickly and found an old barrel by a farmhouse, left outside to collect rainwater. He ran to it, still muttering curses under his breath. He let his knife fall at his feet, plunged one arm into the water and quickly wiped at it with his other hand, then switched. His hands were shaking by then, the terror of infection making his fingers clumsy. He washed as best he could, then picked up his knife and washed it too.

He was an idiot, an idiot! He shouldn’t have let himself get distracted like that, this was a dangerous world and now he was going to die and turn into one of those things and-

He took a deep breath in and slowly let it out. He clenched his fists and reeled himself back from the edge of a panic attack. So, he’d been scratched. He would wash this properly, would put antiseptics on it, and go on as if nothing were amiss. Either he would become an undead thing, or he wouldn’t. Panicking was not going to change the outcome. It would simply squander what little energy he had.

He slowly turned on himself, surveying the area, in case the thing had travelled with others. Amblers often travelled in pairs or groups. He strained his ears for the sound of something human sized walking around the tall corn stalks of the field a few paces to his left. He couldn’t hear or see anything, so he went through his bag and found his soap. This time, when he washed the scratches, he was far more thorough. He found his antiseptic ointment and covered each scratch, even those that hadn’t broken skin.

Then he repacked everything, triggered his Scarlet Eyes so he could find the red stream again. He walked, somewhat shakily, until he found the trail, then he followed it some way, wanting to get away from the thing that had once been a child but now lay like a broken doll in the mud. His hands gripped the strap of his duffle hard to keep them from shaking. He refused to think, refused to feel, focusing on his surroundings, on the steady tread of his runners on the ground. One step, then two, then three, all the way up to ten, then he started counting from one again.

When his eyes hurt and he started feeling weak, he started looking for somewhere to camp for the night. There was a line of trees separating two fields, a short distance to his right. He made his way to the sturdiest trees he could find and climbed one to fix one end of his hammock, then climbed another to attach the other end, before crawling on the thing. It was too warm for blankets, but he still took out his sleeping bag. He needed to wrap himself in, to feel safe, to feel like this day had never happened.

When he did sleep, his dreams were filled with dark, dead things, clawed hands grasping at his body, white, gleaming teeth sinking into his flesh. By sunrise, he was awake and shaking again. He tried eating a granola bar, but it stuck in his dry mouth and gagged when he tried to swallow. He carefully wrapped the rest of it and spit out what was in his mouth, then crawled tiredly onto a branch to untie one end of his makeshift bed. It took him a long time to climb down, and even longer to go up the other tree and collect his hammock. Once he was down on the ground again, he triggered his Scarlet Eyes just long enough to ascertain which direction the faint red stream was going, and then he followed it.

He proceeded this way throughout the day, regularly making sure that he was still following the smudgy trail of red. He was certainly more careful about his surroundings now. The previous day’s mistake may well cost him his life, and he wasn’t about to repeat it. His progress was slower like this, but he had to pick safety or speed. He could not have both.

He stopped and installed his hammock again just before nightfall. He managed to eat a little, but slept fitfully again, plagued by nightmares, waking up often. The morning sun found him awake, staring at the lightening sky above, wondering if he was infected, how long it would take to manifest if he was, and what would be the first signs, mentally. Would it be the hunger for human flesh, or perhaps aphasia? The thoughts whirling about his head were all terrible and paralyzing.

He forced himself to stop thinking and get up. This day passed in much the same way as the previous one, as did the ensuing week. The scenery slowly changed again, small towns surrounded by farms and the occasional small thicket of trees. With clear signs of abandoned human settlements, the danger of an unfortunate meeting was growing exponentially. He tried to stay clear of the more densely developed land, though he did break into a house, which was thankfully empty, so he could raid their cupboards for food.

He saw some amblers in the distance, here and there. Most of the humans who had gotten sick seemed to have evolved into the sort of slow moving, hungry sort of undead. He’d rarely encountered any other sort. He steered well away from them, even if it was sometimes difficult to find the red trail again afterwards. He hadn’t experienced any odd effect since the attack, but he wasn’t willing to gamble on his luck when his life was at stake.

The stream Kurapica been following grew more solid, more definite, encouraging him in the knowledge that he was on the right track. He felt heartened by this, and the horror of his possible contagion became more ephemeral, something of the past. Surely he would have developed symptoms by now if he had gotten infected. As his heart grew lighter day by day, his steps became more resolute, faster.

Until, just a few days after he’d broken into the house, he saw a city in the distance, with the stream of light clearly headed in that direction. He paused then, shifting uncomfortably. City meant a lot of people had probably been infected. It would be filled with the undead, crawling at any sound or smell, or whatever it was that alerted amblers that there was a living thing. Was he willing to risk his own security for a chance to find one of his brethren?

The answer was obvious, but it didn’t make this any easier.

It took him most of the day to walk to the edge of the city. As he checked that he was still on the right path, he noticed another stream, this one definitely more purple than red, then another, veering towards the orange spectrum of light. He didn’t recognize the signatures. Maybe they were only distantly related to the Kuruta and had not lived in the Lukso valley. Still, as he got closer and closer to the city, more and more streams converged with the one he’d been following, until he was in the middle of a strange spiderweb of differently coloured streams of gossamer light. Some of them went around and back and all over the place, so that he could tell that some people had gone back and forth quite a bit, making hope that perhaps they had actually established themselves in the city.

He came to an abrupt stop as sudden, crushing dread assailed him.

What if the Kuruta still emitted this signature once turned into one of the undead?

It didn’t bear thinking about. Still, Kurapica had to know. He didn’t dare go into the city in the dark, so he camped close to it, in a large beech tree that grew in someone’s yard. He left again soon after sunrise, and started exploring carefully through the narrowing streets. When he triggered his Scarlet Eyes, the neighbourhood was a cacophony of light streams going in every direction, so he couldn’t rely on one to guide him to wherever these Kuruta were living.

He found a large avenue and walked resolutely down the median strip, careful not to walk so fast as to attract unwarranted attention. He thought that perhaps, if he walked like one of the amblers, they would think him undead and not bother him. The median strip was narrow, with large trees growing at regular intervals. It was clearly a well-established city; one that had been settled a long time ago. When he used his Scarlet Eyes, he could see that a lot of the streams overlapped down this very road, and that reassuring.

Sometime around noon, he arrived in what seemed to be the city centre, and saw his way blocked by a tall palisade. His heart surged with hope. Here was a very clear sign that some survivors had been here at some point after the outbreak. There were chain link fence panels, corrugated steel sheets, barbed wire, sheets of pressed woods and other scavenged items, making a tall wall that crossed the large boulevard. He couldn’t see how big the camp was.

He gripped his duffle strap with both hands squeezing it tightly as he walked, unable to stop himself from going a little faster. There was a sudden, loud popping sound and he stopped dead in his track. A bit of grass and earth exploded at his feet. He was being shot at. Worried that the noise would attract every ambler in the city right to where he was standing, he raised both hands in a clear sign that he wasn’t attacking whoever was shooting at him.

On the other side of a few panels of chain link fence, a small figure appeared. Kurapica waited a few precious moments to make sure no one would shoot him dead, then he took a tentative step forward. When nothing happened, he took another step forward, then another. It seemed that the shot had been a warning shot just to ascertain that he wasn’t one of the undead, and now that whoever had determined that he was still very much human, they were done wasting ammunition.

He made his way to the chain link fence, heart hammering in his chest and constantly peeking around his shoulders to make sure that no ambler was coming his way. He reached the palisade without further incident and stood in front of a small person of indeterminate sex or age. They were wearing a floppy hat and hat prominent front teeth.

“Good afternoon,” they greeted in a melodious, feminine voice.

“Good afternoon,” Kurapica replied, nonplussed. He hadn’t expected politeness. Whoever they were looked much cleaner than he’d seen anything look in months, and he felt distinctly unwashed.

“Are you seeking shelter?” the person asked him. Their eyes were kind and warm.

“For a time, at least,” Kurapica agreed, not ready to go into the details of why exactly he was there.

“It is our rule that whoever seeks shelter here must be a participating member of the community,” the small person continued. “If a person is able to walk, as you are, we ask that they bring supplies to gain entry.”

Kurapica nodded, as this seemed absolutely reasonable. A fixed camp wouldn’t have as much of a chance to scavenge and someone roaming far and wide. He unzipped his bag with one hand, holding the other up to show his peaceful intentions.

“I have medication,” he said, and the small person’s eyes widened in obvious awe. He pulled a few bottles and read the labels. “Morphine, codeine, penicillin and other antibiotics.”

“Where on earth did you get that?” they asked in a breath.

“Can I come in?” Kurapica asked them instead of answering.

“Ah, yes, just one last question. Have you had an encounter with one of the ghouls recently?”

“Ghouls?” Kurapica asked, not a word he’d heard before, but then it clicked. He’d certainly had read the word in a few different books. “Well, I was attacked not quite two weeks ago,” he admitted.

“Two weeks?” they asked. At his nod, they continued, “Have you been bitten or touched in anyway?”

Kurapica bared both his arms. “Some scratches,” he said.

The small person before him nodded. “No fever? Feeling like you’re on fire? Headaches?”

“No,” the blond replied. “Nothing but nightmares.”

They had a sympathetic smile. “Most of us have nightmares,” they said. “Do you have a Spider tattoo?”

The question was so incongruous that Kurapica blinked at them a few times before shaking his head. “No tattoo at all.”

“If I let you in,” they said with a nod, “you’ll have to be put in quarantine because of the scratches, probably for a week or two, depending what they decide is safest. The medication would guarantee you shelter for as long as we can hold the fort, if you still want to come in.”

Kurapica nodded, his heart hammering in his chest. “Please,” he said.

They nodded to him, then to someone to their left, whom he couldn’t see because of a panel of corrugated steel. He heard a car door open, then a grunt, then a few people came and moved the fence so that he could slip through. They replaced it after him and he turned to see people pushing a car back, he assumed, to its original position, holding the chain link fence in place. Someone pulled the handbrake, then closed the car door.

“I’m Senritsu,” the small person he’d been talking with said. “It means melody in my tongue. I’m sorry for not shaking your hand, but we’re playing it safe for the safety of all our people.”

“Are there many of you here?” Kurapica wanted to know.

“Not quite two hundred,” they (she?) replied. “Follow me.”

Kurapica fell into step beside her, a little overwhelmed by the fact that he was surrounded by hundreds of living, breathing people. He hadn’t seen anyone in so, so very long. He clutched the strap of his bag, trying to keep himself grounded.

“You haven’t told me your name,” Senritsu chided him a moment later. “Even if not your actual name, it would be nice to have something to call you.”

“Oh,” the blond said, “it’s Kurapica.”

“Has a nice ring to it,” Senritsu said as she led him into a small alley between two buildings. She opened a large metal door. “In here,” she said, and preceded him inside, although she checked to make sure that he was following. They crossed a small room with a few lockers, then went out into a hall where there were a few offices and maintenance closets. They emerged into a small atrium, surrounded by a few small shops. It looked to be the ground floor of an apartment complex. There was a pharmacy, with empty shelves long since looted, a small corner shop in the corner, and a heavily barred shop with a sign that proclaimed it a pawn shop. Senritsu motioned towards it.

“We use the shop as a quarantine cell,” she said, “because the windows are so heavily barred. If someone ends up being infected and turns, they won’t be able to attack anyone.”

“Has it ever happened?” Kurapica asked.

Her grim silence and sad frown were his answer. “We always disinfect the cell after anyone’s been in it,” she said after a moment. “It gets the treatment of a hospital room.”

She slid a hand in a bag fastened to her belt and pulled out a set of keys. One had a cherry red plastic cap on the round end. She slid it into the lock and opened the door. Inside, whatever had been in the pawn shop had been cleared away. Instead, there were two single beds, a flimsy looking nightstand with a lantern on it, as well as a few candles. Heavy black draped covered every window. It was pretty spacious, all things considered, especially so sparsely furnished.

Kurapica walked inside and slowly turned on himself. Senritsu took a step inside and flicked the light switch. To Kurapica’s amazement, the lights flickered and hummed and came to life. Senritsu pointed to a part of the window that separated the shop from the atrium. “That pane is broken, but it allows you to talk with people outside if you want. No one can actually come in, because of the bars, so you are perfectly safe. You will be able to hear people out in the atrium, however. I’ll warn the residents to be quiet so as not to disturb you. You can open the drapes if you want, or leave them down at your convenience. You can also lock the door from the inside so I can’t get in even if I have a key.”

“This is-” Kurapica began, but didn’t know how to finish the sentence. For someone who’d been surviving as best he could and sleeping out in the open for months, this seemed like amazing luxury. Just to feel safe, for once.

Senritsu gave him a little smile like she knew. “There’s a bathroom through there,” she pointed to a door he’d assumed to be a broom closet. “No guarantee on the hot water, and there’s only a sink, but you should be able to clean yourself up a bit. I’ll bring you clean clothes and take yours to be disinfected and washed. After you leave quarantine, you’ll have to do your own laundry, though.”

She pulled some gloves on. “Do you mind giving me the medication you have now?” she asked, taking out a small plastic bag. “I’ll make sure to deliver it to the infirmary.”

Kurapica nodded and sat on one of the beds to go through his bag. He selected one bottle of each of the medication he had and gave them to the small woman. If she noticed that he was keeping some to himself, she didn’t comment. She closed the bag carefully.

“Thank you this should save some-”

“Senritsu!” A tall man with black hair gelled up in spikes appeared in the door. “Lucifer’s back!”

“Ah,” Senritsu turned to the man, “Leorio! Great timing. Kurapica’s just arrived. He brought morphine and penicillin!”

She shook the small bag lightly, making the pills rattle. The man-Leorio, apparently-went a little wide eyed. “Seriously?! Where the fuck did you get those?”

“The seal on the bottles should be intact,” Kurapica evaded the question again.

“Seriously?” the man exclaimed again.

Kurapica nodded slowly, eyeing him warily.

“Leorio here is our resident doctor,” Senritsu explained.

“Not quite,” he protested, “I was still a student when the outbreak reached the city. But I’m the only one with some medical training and I still got my books and everything. Leorio Paladiknight.” He took a step in, hand extended, thought better of it, probably realizing that he was in the quarantine quarters, and raked his fingers through his hair instead, undoing a lot of the spikes. “You’re a real lifesaver, you know that, Kurapica?”

Kurapica didn’t know if his input was actually necessary, so he said nothing.

Senritsu gave him a friendly smile. “We should let you get settled,” she said. “The electricity is a little unstable-we have solar panels and wind turbines but not enough generators for dark, windless days- so we’ve left some candles here. Will you be comfortable?”

Kurapica nodded, feeling perhaps even more overwhelmed now. “Thank you,” he added, somewhat belatedly.

“You’re very welcome,” she said with a smile.

She and Leorio left and closed the door, then Kurapica heard the key turn in the lock. As their steps retreated from his door, Kurapica heard the med student exclaim, “Morphine, for real?!” and Senritsu’s quiet melodic voice chiding him, “You should disinfect the bottles before touching them, just in case. Aren’t you our medic?” Then their voices grew too faint to hear.

Kurapica all but rushed to the bathroom. There were a few washrags and a towel hanging on a towel rack, and a bar of soap on the edge of the sink. He didn’t have clean clothes yet, but he could at least clean his face neck and ears, his armpits and neither regions It would have to do for the moment, but the rest of him felt even dirtier after he had clean parts to compare it to.

He didn’t want to lay in bed while still so dirty, so he sat on the floor and pulled out all of his clothes out of his bag and set them down by the door, then he sat with his one luxury: a book he’d pilfered from the house he’d broken into earlier that week.

He read quietly for some time, though he wasn’t sure how long as he’d left the drapes drawn and couldn’t judge from a sun he couldn’t see, but then he was interrupted by the sound of footsteps headed towards him, followed by a knock. It sounded too heavy for Senritsu so perhaps it was that Leorio guy.

Even as he thought that, he felt his hackles rise, though he wasn’t sure exactly why. He was filled with horror and revulsion and intense, paralyzing fear, for no reason that he could discern.

“Yeah,” he managed, horrified to find his voice come out strangled and breathless. There was a jangle of keys, then the lock turning and the door finally opened. Kurapica shielded himself by folding his knees tight against his chest. There was a man in the doorway, neither very tall nor very short, his black hair slicked back from his forehead and disquieting blank look on his face. All in all, not someone who should have triggered such an intensely visceral reaction from him, but Kurapica could barely breathe.

The man took a step in the room and looked down at him, then cocked his head to the side, the movement strangely other, not quite human. Kurapica shuddered.

“Senritsu informed me you’ve arrived today,” the man said, his voice deep and smooth. “You were scratched?”

Kurapica forced himself to take a deep breath and found his feet, unwilling to remain on the floor and have this man look down on him. He backed away enough to have breathing room, though this man’s eyes, dark and unreadable, seemed to be reaching into his very soul and shaking him to the core.

“That’s why I’m in quarantine,” Kurapica said, defiant despite his best attempt at being civil. Who even was this man? “Shouldn’t you stay away?”

The man made an oddly elegant wave with one hand. “I’ve no reason to be concerned,” he said, like it was no big deal. “I’m a Spider. The boss here, if you will.”

None of these words made sense when put together this way, and Kurapica blinked a few times. “Come again?”

“My name,” the man said slowly, “is Kuroro Lucifer. I am the head of the Spiders, and we lead and protect this camp. Your name is Kurapica?”

The blond nodded, overwhelmed with a sudden urge that made his eyes ache.

“So,” he said, slowly, “if you’re the boss here, does it mean you come to welcome new faces that come into your camp?”

“No,” Kuroro said, wide eyes blinking once, and he regarded Kurapica solemnly, “only those who were scratched, but did not become infected.”