Kat Warbler (sharkswithguns) wrote in wariscoming, @ 2013-05-12 23:00:00 |
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Entry tags: | kat warbler |
Who: Kat! Real Kat!
What: Returning! Freaking out slightly! Or maybe a lot!
Where: Her apartment!
When: Tonight!
Rating: Highishish?
Kat had lost track of how many different waves of zombies there had been. Hell, she wasn’t even entirely sure how many days had gone by. It had just been a loop of chaos and panic, for the most part, with moments of brittle clarity as she’d dredge up some more willpower and try to do something, try to do anything at all.
The first of those moments had been when a decaying hand had grabbed her arm, and she’d found a gun in her hand and blown away the monster that had latched on to her, before it had a chance to bring her arm to it’s mouth. It had been a short moment, though, because the moment it was dead she had started shaking and fled, dropping the gun and clutching the bloody spot on her arm, frantically reaching for the part of her mind that let her teleport and failing.
The last moment she remembered clearly was watching Ethan being torn apart, being dragged away numbly by someone else in the group, and throwing up in the underbrush once they were ‘safe’, as if this place was safe anywhere. From there it was back into the fog until now, which...
...which she didn’t fully understand, because this looked like her apartment. This looked like Lawrence. She wasn’t in Lawrence, though. Was she? No, they’d said there were no cities, they’d said buildings were mostly burned down in them and the streets were flooded with monsters and, no. She wouldn’t have gone to Lawrence. She wouldn’t have found her old apartment, wouldn’t have gone inside. She wouldn’t have left the group. Would she?
Why was she here?
Was this even real?
Had any of that been real?
She ran a hand across her arm - there was still a gash, there, poorly stitched, healing. That had happened. That was real. This, though...
There was something off about her apartment. Things were moved, things were gone, new things were here. Kat wandered through it silently, feeling out of place - like she was drifting through, like a ghost. Maybe she was a ghost. There were guns on the counter. She didn’t think this was right. It couldn’t be real. Someone else must live here, now, because she’s a ghost and there are guns on the counter and she should apologize for intruding, but she doesn’t know if she can speak, if she’d remember how. The door isn’t locked, and she decides it won’t hurt to lock it, slides the chain across the door and backs away from it slowly, biting her lip, wrapping her arms around herself. It doesn’t feel any safer.
It’s another hour before she stops standing in the middle of the kitchen, fingertips tracing the tile patterns on the countertop, staring unseeingly at the gun nearest to her. She picks it up, checks the clip - it’s full, good - and slides it back in, carrying it with her to the bedroom, through to the bathroom. She’s filthy. There’s no one here, and the gun goes on the bathroom counter while she takes off her borrowed clothes, letting them fall on the floor because she doesn’t really know where they’re meant to go, right now, doesn’t know what to do if she’s not really here, she’ll deal with it later if later turns out to exist. The shower water is hot, at first, and then it’s cold, and she doesn’t remember much but she’s sitting on the floor, watching the water swirl away down the drain. She’s shivering, and the bottle of shampoo in front of her isn’t hers, smells like flowers if someone forgot what flowers actually smelled like. She doesn’t use it. It isn’t hers.
Her clothes are still here, some moved but here, and she stares at them for a while, dripping wet and shivering. She forgot a towel. There’s a trail of water from the bathroom, wet carpet, and she’ll apologize for it. Later. If she can.
She finds her phone on the nightstand, unlocks it and looks at the screen. Tries to figure out what to do with it, why it’s important, if she’ll even be able to say anything, what can she say? The contact she brings up is familiar, and it takes her a long moment to stop shaking enough to make words, just looking at the little screen, the picture there.
She isn’t a ghost for a moment, not distant or drifting through. She’s Kat, and she’s scared, and she must have broken something, trying to actually say anything, because now she can’t stop shaking and she can’t breathe right, curling up in her bed, clutching the phone, tears burning her eyes. She wants this to be real. She knows that was, that wasn’t in her head, but she doesn’t know if this is, she needs to know she hasn’t just lost her mind - all the way, this time. She makes another attempt, and once the words are out she waits, hopes they're real and someone will see them.