Carter Gray (gotluck) wrote in invol_rpg, @ 2012-11-12 20:29:00 |
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Supporting the now injured Anthony, Claudia managed to move them both further away from the action, the Goth Girl now being taken care of by someone else. “I’m so sorry,” she said to Anthony, eyes filled with worry as she helped him sit down on the field. Everyone had managed to survive this far without dying, she wasn’t going to be reunited with Anthony only to have him die on her. Using her scalpel she roughly cut off a segment of her kaftan, pressing it against his wound to try and soak up the blood, unsure what else to do to help him. There they were, the two healers, and neither of them could do anything about the injury. “It’ll be okay,” she said, for her own benefit as much as his, trying to prevent herself from panicking. All her attention on Anthony she’d almost forgotten about the other dangers surrounding them, until she looked up to see zombies approaching them. Her gaze returned to Anthony, then back to the zombies, a helpless look on her face as she tried to work out how to handle this situation. She couldn’t leave Anthony but the zombies were getting closer and closer. Carter’s mind was still set on one goal, and one goal alone: finding Daisy. He’d left Savannah only moments before (or, at least, it felt like mere moments, but who knew how time worked here?) after they’d searched in vain in the more remote corners of the fairgrounds. Sighing, he forged on, armed with nothing but a now bloodied, red-stained bat. As he sighted the zombies, he made to turn away -- there was no fucking way he was going to willingly head into that fight. But as he did, a flash of gold caught his eye. Was it Daisy? He took a step forward; it was enough to give him his answer. It wasn’t her...but it was someone -- two someones -- that Carter could not deny he cared for. Muttering a curse under his breath, he ran forward, knocking his bat wildly into the nearest undead corpse. “Stay back,” he yelled. Oh, thank god!! Claudia had never been happier to see Carter in her life, and it wasn’t like she was usually unhappy to see him either. She watched as his bat hit one of the zombies, wondering if she should offer to help. He had his luck, he’d said to stay back, she didn’t want to leave Anthony and it wasn’t like she’d be much use anyway but multiple zombies verse one Carter didn’t seem like a fair fight, even with his luck, and she couldn’t let another friend get hurt while trying to help her out. “Hold this tightly,” she directed Anthony, replacing her hand on his wound with his own, hoping he was still conscious enough to follow her instructions. She cast Anthony one last look, desperately hoping he would be alright for a minute, before turning her attention to Carter and his zombie fight. He was doing well and, if she was honest, she did not want to get too close to those things, maybe she should just stay back and watch. She was almost convinced this was the best idea when another zombie started towards Carter. How many could he handle on his own? She picked up her shoe that she’d dropped to the ground while attending to Anthony. It wasn’t heavy but a good hit should be enough to at least distract the zombie and give Carter some more time. She took aim carefully, glad for all the fitness and sports and training she had been doing since coming to IVI, sure that must have helped improve her arm, and threw the shoe towards the zombie. As predicted, it wasn’t enough to do any real damage but it did manage to divert some attention away from Carter. If there was one thing Carter had never thought his life in NYC would have prepared him for, it was this: battling a hoard of zombies. But there was no denying that it had; as he swung at one zombie and then another, downing them easily, he felt an odd sense of satisfaction. At the dull thud of shoe hitting zombie head behind him, Carter turned, just in time to catch sight of the undead corpse Claudia had sought to distract. “Fuck,” he muttered, hitting wildly at it with his bat. Three down, but how many left? He whirled around. Too fucking many. “Fall back,” he yelled, glancing back at his two fellow Swans. It was only then that he noticed that Anthony was injured, a bloody gash leaving him weakened and off his game. “What happened to him?” He looked at Claudia, then back at Anthony. “You okay, friend?” Anthony would never figure out how he was still able to move when he was in so much pain, but his adrenaline had pushed him. It hadn’t lasted long, though; unsurprisingly his movements had slowed down. He had wanted to tell Claudia that he wanted to stop and insist that she should move on and leave him, that he’d be fine, but fortunately, by the time she helped him sit down, he was phasing in and out of consciousness. Whatever it was that was happening around him, he wasn’t sure anymore. He was sure that he he heard Claudia and Carter’s voice; they were in front of him, even though they were blurry figures. He tried to hold on to their voices, to remind himself that he was still awake. Carter was asking him a question, but his mouth felt too heavy to answer. Every move that he attempted to make seemed to cause the wound to hurt even more. “Stabbed by a goth girl,” Claudia explained to Carter,. He was getting weaker from blood loss, not even able to answer Carter’s question himself. She moved closer to Anthony again, taking over the duty of keeping pressure on the wound again, worried that in his weakened state Anthony wasn’t doing a good enough job at trying to staunch the blood flow. “Are you okay?” she asked Carter, looking up from Anthony again. “Yeah, fine,” Carter muttered. He’d been injured, certainly, both from the wild clown earlier in the night (or was it last night?) and from various creatures throughout this maddening melee. But it was nothing, he thought as he looked at Anthony, compared to what his friend was experiencing. “Fuck.” He swung at the nearest zombie, which stumbled backwards. Lifting his leg, he kicked it even further, causing it to trip and fall and, serendipitiously, impale itself upon a broken shard of glass lying on the grass. Only three left, he thought, as he raised his bat yet again, but at least they were still several yards away. And zombies moved slowly. Taking a few steps backwards to join the others, he knelt down beside Anthony. The younger boy was pale, and Carter wasn’t even entirely sure whether he was conscious. “He got stabbed by who?” he said, as the words finally registered. He’d always found goths to be annoying, but never a really lethal danger. “A goth,” she repeated, relieved that, even if it was obvious that Carter wasn’t completely uninjured, he wasn’t seriously hurt. “You know, pale skin, black hair, dark make up, a knife,” because that was the most important part of it all. Who had done it didn’t really matter, either way he’d been stabbed. She removed her hand from the wound briefly, trying to assess the situation better, quickly replacing it as it became obvious the bleeding was yet to subside. She was much better at keeping her cool in a medical situation than in an actual fight but she was beginning to feel out of her depth, unsure what else to do to help Anthony. “Do you know much about first aid?” “No,” Carter murmured helplessly. First aid back home had consisted of a bag of frozen peas for a black eye, or a band of gauze for a bloodied bruise. Serious stabbings were something you avoided as best you could, because hospitals weren’t ever a feasible option. “You’ve gotta put pressure on it, right?” It was a pointless comment, since quite obviously, Claudia already had that covered. “It’s fucking bullshit that he can’t heal himself,” Carter burst out angrily, before standing up again. He couldn’t help Anthony heal, but he could help keep the monsters at bay. And while ordinarily, Carter might have left both Claudia and Anthony to fend for themselves (it’s what, he told himself, he would have done back home), he couldn’t find it in himself to do so. Just as he had not been able to leave Kody and Carmela at the hands of the evil clown, or Daisy with the evil frat dicks. “I’ll keep them away,” he said, raising his bat. “You -- I don’t know, do what you can, I guess.” His tone was uncertain; he didn’t know what else Claudia could do. Claudia hated seeing her friends angry, it wasn’t an emotion she was very good at dealing with, never sure the best way to try and calm someone down without angering them further. But she couldn’t help but agree with Carter’s sentiment, it seemed unfair that someone who spent so much of his life helping other people, who was not only always there for anyone at school who needed healing but who also wanted to be able to go out and help more patients recover, who felt guilty for not being able to help as many people as he did back home now that he was stuck in a forcefield in the middle of the outback, who did all this despite it sometimes hurting him, couldn’t even help himself when he needed it most. “Thank you,” she replied, more grateful than she could properly express for Carter’s help. There wasn’t much more that she could be but with Carter helping keep the zombies away she could at least keep Anthony company, keep him upright and keep watch on his condition. “Be careful.” “You too, sunshine.” Carter paused, turning towards Anthony. He wasn’t sure whether the boy could hear him, pale and wounded as he was, but all the same, “And you too, pal.” Daisy was still at the forefront of Carter’s mind, but he knew that he could not leave his fellow Swans, not when they were so obviously outnumbered. He would stay, he would fight, and he would hope against hope that somewhere, she was doing the same. |