Nightshift 42: North Street

[rocksthecourt]

[from here]

Being stuck in a small room with those monstrosities didn't seem the safest option. Being outside, with more space to see and move sounded far better. But when Klavier actually got outside, he suddenly thought maybe the small room didn't seem so bad.

THEY. WERE. EVERYWHERE. Crowded worse than LA during rush hour on even the worst of days. Rushing and moving like a writhing, anguished mass. So many. Where had they come from?! Stupid question. What were they?! Monsters, people... How could this-- AHHH!!!

He was frozen in place for a few moments before he realized staying in one spot wasn't the best idea. He frantically looked around. He needed to find somewhere safe! He needed to get out of here. Where was safe?! Somewhere high? Were all of the buildings infested? Maybe he could lock himself in somewhere and--

WAIT!! NO! What was he thinking?! What about everyone else? He couldn't just barricade himself somewhere safe and sit around while everyone else was ripped apart. And... KRISTOPH! Where was he?! Had he been swarmed, too?! He had to have been. But in this mess, he didn't even know where to begin looking for him. Or how long he would last searching. Maybe he would have to trust that his brother would find a safe place... No. He couldn't spend the entire night not even sure if he was safe or not. What if he needed help?

....Holy-- It looked like HE needed help!! "AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!"

Again he swung the lamp anytime any got too close, moving with his back toward the walls. Where to go?! Where to go?!

Comments

[windstwilight.livejournal.com]

[from here] (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/676013.html?thread=55831469#t55831469)

Senna burst out of the doorway, running a few steps around to the side of the building. After doing a quick check, she leaned forward, a hand on her knee, gasping. Man. That was not as easy as it should have been. But damn. That was almost fun. She should definitely spar with Falis more; this was good for Senna.

But that was for later. Right now, there was a whole mess of people to check up on, and they needed a safe spot to get them to. Unfortunately, Senna had no idea where one might be. She shook her head, then straightened, wiping a hand across her forehead with a sigh. "Damn..." And that about covered everything so far. To Meche, she directed, "How's your leg?" Then glanced around the group, eyes lingering on the kid. "And how's everybody else?"

[sheisthecause.livejournal.com]

She'd wanted to hang on until Phoenix and his friends were out. But he'd just--something about his voice, Meche guessed, once she was out in the street and catching her breath away from that crush of rotting bodies. She had to believe in him. If his friends trusted him enough to let him hold the line, she'd try too. So she'd fought the impulse to stay; she'd turned and run, right on Senna's heels.

There was that problem again, the one that just killed her even as it restored her faith in humanity. They all wanted to protect each other. Senna had already saved her life once that night; Meche would've jumped between Senna and one of those monsters without hesitation; she'd rushed into the store to try to help Phoenix; Phoenix was holding off the zombies to try to make sure she and Senna got out safely, and Meche had no doubt that Phoenix's companions would take a bullet for him too.

But in order for anyone to protect, someone else had to agree to be protected. To accept a sacrifice. And until she got tougher and could prove it, Meche knew that was going to keep on being her. She'd keep needing someone to rescue her. First Manny--no, first Domino, then Manny, Naoto, Senna, the other girls, Phoenix. She hadn't changed at all.

"What, the love bite?" she asked distractedly. "It's fine." Meche didn't need to look down to know her ankle was bleeding. Running had hurt like crazy, but she wasn't going to complain when Manny's roommate was fighting for his life in there. She stared at the doorway, waiting to see some sign, any sign of Phoenix. What was taking him so long? Shouldn't he be out by now?

[high-prosecutor.livejournal.com]

[running in from here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/676013.html?thread=55982509#t55982509)]

Edgeworth let go of the boy's arm once the two were outside, then stood silently, trying to catch a glimpse - any glimpse - of Phoenix. It was probably rude not to say anything, but anything he tried to say now would definitely come out as a strangled scream and not any actual words. In the end, he simply nodded to each of them, then continued to watch, nervous and shaking.

[pleading-ngri.livejournal.com]

Unexpectedly, the really difficult part was getting back out with the coat rack in hand, and Phoenix managed with far less finesse and more flailing than he would've liked to admit to. Everyone was looking in his direction when he finally cleared the crowd and came half-running, half-limping, panting harder than he thought he should've been. Action movie heroes made this look so easy. In an action movie he would have cleared a mountain of dead bodies and strolled right up to the group, delivered a witty one-liner about keeping them waiting, wiped a fashionable trickle of blood off of a shallow designer injury, and maybe exchanged some sort of terrible few vaguely-romantic asides with Miles. In reality, he wobbled to a stop, blowing hard and thinking in a disoriented way that he should figure out where all that gore on his clothing came from, and that he really hoped he wasn't about to puke because everyone was still staring and the last thing he needed tonight was complete humiliation. He straightened slowly, steadying himself on Edgeworth, clutching the sleeve of his coat a bit harder than he really needed to.

"We- might as well go," he managed breathlessly, looking first at girl-who-could-fight, then back at Miles, who was still looking at Phoenix's blood-damp jacket with some of that thinly-reined dread. He moved with the group, pulling the coat rack to his chest thoughtlessly, despite the way it sent needles down his arm. Fear had latched his fingers onto the makeshift weapon, and pain glued them in place now.

"The hotel seems like a good place to hole up - at least until sunrise," he explained, wincing through the words. There was a satisfying feeling in gritting his teeth that he didn't think much of; anything would've been a relief from the sharp pain stabbing down his arm from the deep, ragged bite wound. He clutched the coat rack tighter in reflex; the weight felt clumsy, dragging him off-balance, though that could have just as easily been the sharp throbbing radiating from his shin. He steadied his hand further up on Edgeworth's shoulder and found his mind wandering to the fact that the place where he'd grabbed had been broken such a short time ago, shortly slipping off the added unreality, and sliding back to the foot of Mount Who-Is-Sword-Girl-Anyway.

"-sorry. I'm Phoenix. Wright." The pain brought thoughts out slow, compartmentalized, but he managed to put them together into a basic introduction.

[windstwilight.livejournal.com]

[skipping Ken with permission.]

Okay. The nervous civilians were getting to her, in the way horses will rear when the rider is anxious. Too much standing and freaking and looking like the world was ending. So the dead were rising. So they wanted to eat you. So they reminded you of those little pieces you were missing and really didn't ever want to see again, and the creep factor was up the wall because they reached out in the same way and squeezed and held and--

Yeah, okay. Just her. But man, she wasn't going to stay here. Moving was a necessity. If she stayed in one place, she'd give into this. And it looked like Mister Gentleman Knight was in agreement. Senna glanced around quickly. Meche and him were the worst, from what she saw. Kid needed to be protected, no matter what he was or could do. And seriously--why the fuck kids? Were they seriously that hard up for torment? Another tightening of her chest, and she slid into decision easy as breathing. Needed to move. Gotta move now.

"Senna," she said in response, a bit more evenly than normal. "But I'm gonna have to say introductions are going to have to wait. Let's get somewhere safe first so we can check you guys over." Senna looked meaningfully at Meche. Love bite, her ass. The blood would argue that fact. She glanced back at the Knight-guy. Phoenix? Interesting. "I'll take point. Stay together. I won't rush ahead." After a glance around the group again, and another fricking tug in her chest, Senna slipped out of the alley, sword coming up to intersect an undead close-by. The dull blade would do nothing for lethal, and so Senna settled for bashing; again, heaving it like a bat into the zombie's side.

[sheisthecause.livejournal.com]

When Phoenix finally emerged, he looked exhausted and unsteady, but definitely alive. Good thing, too--she couldn't even recommend a travel agent. Her impulse was to say something, thank him, but the crowds of zombies weren't getting any thinner. And if there was anyone here entitled to make a fuss over Phoenix, Meche thought with a glance at the man who was supporting him, it certainly wasn't her. She could talk to him when they made it to safety; for now, they had better focus on getting there.

She'd meant to circle back to the park, but Senna was right: they should breathe first and check over their injuries. Wasn't zombie-ism contagious, or was that only when they ate your brain? Meche couldn't remember, and she didn't really want to.

"Right behind you," she said in assent to Senna's plan. When Meche actually ran, though, she was a few steps farther back than that. Her right ankle kept threatening to buckle under her, and she fell into an uneven gait that slowed her down without really doing much to ease the pain. She tried to keep an eye on their new companions, but it was tough to watch both them and Senna when zombies kept popping up like flowers out of a sproutella dart. Couldn't those things just go get a salad like everyone else?

Now that it was harder to outrun them, Meche really had to work to avoid getting bogged down in a mob of them again. If she just stopped long enough to get one good swing in with the duck and kept galloping, she could manage to keep Senna pretty clearly in her sights most of the time. She just had to keep it up for a couple of blocks.

[pleading-ngri.livejournal.com]

The crowds being thinner out here didn't mean much, other than that there was room to move and breathe, the latter helped by being clear of most of the heavy, oily smell of rotting bodies. Not being able to smell much was the one advantage to panting, Phoenix guessed, pausing long enough to knock back one of the lurching figures that had managed to get by Ken. The impact jarred the pincushioned knot lodged right in the middle of his arm and wrung a noise out of him that, between his teeth and the more urgent need to breathe (what was with that, anyway? he shouldn't still have been this winded) he managed to muffle down to a thin, startled grunt. Mercedes had fallen back again, and he paused long enough to be sure that she was actually catching up again - sure, they were both walking like old women with bad hips, but at least Phoenix had a shell-shocked but otherwise steady walker. She put on speed again, though, and there was an ebbing-back of the distress rising and falling in his chest in a strange, distant way, like the sound of the ocean from a distance. Everything seemed sort of fuzzy and unreal, really, like it does when you have a fever, but that didn't make any sense. He felt cold, if anything.

When the hotel loomed near the end of the block, he breathed a low, intent 'thank you,' to nothing more than the spot of not-quite-as-awful luck that had brought them there, and finally let go of Edgeworth long enough to make their way through the blasted doors and into the ruined lobby.