Lone Survivor

𝐈.𝐍𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐃𝐔𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 ━━━━━━

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￣￣  :hearts:   :hearts:   :hearts:   :hearts:   :hearts:   ￣￣

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Bleh. Spooky story. :bangbang: Gore warning. :bangbang:

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━━━━━━ 𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏.𝐒𝐈𝐒 ━━━━━━

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Shino must accept the fact that, in this brutal post-apocalyptic world, her friends are probably dead. She must adjust to surviving alone.

➥ 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬:

              Shino Sosaki | Mandalay

              Ryuko Tsuchikawa | Pixie-Bob

➥ 𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: Thriller, Horror

➥ 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 2775

➥ 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 15826

"Yawara! Ryuko!"

Shino knew she shouldn't keep her finger on the trigger. Her entire body was convulsing in shivers, her breath hitched and uneven. "Guys, where the hell are you?" she shouted out, her voice cracking. "It's almost sundown!" The light shone behind her, silhouetting her toned frame. The ground looked striped, decorated with the shadows of the tall, thin trees. Mist covered the ground like a carpet, its subtle movement making Shino believe she was seeing things in her peripheral vision. A low growl to her right caused an instant reaction. The barrel of her shotgun veered toward a massive hound preparing to pounce. It had no skin, its muscles on full display. Its fangs were dripping with the blood of otherworldly monsters, mixtures of red, grey, and black. Shino blew its brains out.

The gunshot echoed throughout the mostly silent forest, If they hadn't heard that, she had no idea where they could be. Yawara and Ryuko had been with her mere moments before, but when she turned to whisper to them, had found them gone. She knew that their disappearance and lack of response most likely meant they were dead. It's always safe to assume that if you don't see somebody, they're dead. If they were alive, they'd be smart enough to head back to the cabin. Staying out overnight was suicide.

Shino's blood ran cold as she heard a distant, high-pitched scream. Her eyes gazed skyward as several hundred bats flew away from the noise. "Banshee," she whispered, turning around and sprinting back to the cabin. The grass gave way without sound, and there were several sinkholes she had to jump over. With two fewer people, preparing for the night would take longer. She needed to hurry if she didn't want to them in the afterlife.

In a small clearing in the woods once stood a small cottage and toolshed. Now, an entire wall of the cottage had caved in, and the toolshed was hardly faring much better. Shino ran toward the shed, kicking open the door to see a small generator. It was nearly empty, not enough to last the night. A couple of gas cans sat next to it. Picking one up revealed it to be empty, but she did her best to empty a few drops into the generator. She hadn't collected any gas today; Yawara had the gas on him when he disappeared. She threw the empty can to the side and picked up the other can. It had just enough, to last the night. She emptied it out, hearing another screech, closer this time.

Shino powered up the generator, jogging out of the shed. The sky was growing dark as the sun sank beneath the horizon. She entered the cabin through the collapsed wall, into what used to be a lounge. A broken couch lay in the center, dismantled for its wood. The TV lay on the ground, completely missing its screen, whose glass was redistributed to various melee weapons. The curtains were torn down to be used as fabric for clothing and Molotov cocktails. Simply put, just about everything had been farmed for resources.

Shino moved through a door into a large master bedroom. The mattress was shoved in the corner, stained and dilapidated. A small wall lamp flickered its light right above it, powered by the generator. Shino moved over to the window, tightening one of the planks covering it. Under the window, several guns were lined up. Shotguns, snipers, assault rifles, pistols. So many guns, not nearly enough ammo. She picked up a pistol, then turned toward the wall to the living room, which had a bookcase pushed up against it.

She dragged the bookcase to the side, revealing a small hole just big enough to shoot through. She stared through it as the sun finished setting, holding her breath. Maybe Yawara or Ryuko would stumble through. Their deaths wouldn't be heartbreaking; every day and night was a fight for survival, everybody would die eventually. What scared Shino is the fact she'd have to figure out how to survive alone. The three of them had a good system going to be as efficient as possible. How was Shino meant to sleep if she had to defend the room the entire night? She'd have to sleep during the day, which meant losing time to gather resources. She'd also have to return home early to set everything up for the night alone.

The several minutes of silence was spent thinking. Ryuko had mentioned seeing evidence of people up North. Traps in the woods, resources even scarcer than normal. They had never gone to investigate; their trio was perfect, and being in too big a group could be just as deadly as being in too small a group. Maybe she should move up there, see if they'll take her. But what if it's a Village? Those settlements kill any outsider as if they were just a variant of a monster. Or what if they refuse to help her, and she wastes an entire day on travel?

Her entire body convulsed in a violent flinch as a high-pitched screech filled her ears, paralyzing her for a few moments. She had forgotten to put in her earplugs. She threaded her foot through the handle of a nearby basket, pulling it closer to her while keeping her gun trained through the hole. She quickly stooped down and grabbed a couple of dirty earplugs, fixing them in her ears to be met with complete silence. Darkness invaded the room, the only light coming from the lamp.

There's movement in the doorway to the cabin. Shino took a sharp inhale, training her gun on the humanoid silhouette. Usually, she'd fire straight away, but she still held up a little hope of one of the other two returning. The figure stood still for a moment before taking a step into the small sliver of light running into the living room. The figure was humanoid, but its skin was gray and rotting. Cartledge hung off its arms, creating tattered wings that anatomically wouldn't allow flight. Greasy strands of black hair hung off its scalp, Shino's shoulders slumped in disappointment as she realized it was a banshee, not a friend. She planted a bullet between its eyes, but the bullet only seemed to upset it. It charged at the door, slamming against the weak wood. Shino adjusted her position, shooting two more bullets until it collapsed.

The banshee was the first of many. After its body fell, two more squeezed into the doorframe. Four more bullets to take another down, and three more entered the room. They threw their bodies into the door, held back by a lock and the bookshelf Shino had dragged in front of it. Grimacing, she holstered her pistol, leaning over and reaching for an assault rifle. She was away from the hole for less than three seconds, but when she aimed down her sights again, the room outside was alive. The floor was like a discarded piece of food being swarmed with ants; constantly moving as creatures crawled over one another. Not just banshees: spiders, human bodies merged one on top of the other, too large to contort through the door. Hounds, creatures resembling dogs but their head is replaced with a giant maw. "Fuck," Shino's shaky fingers pulled the trigger. Aiming wasn't a concern; anywhere she shot would hit something.

Even though she heard nothing, the place was filled with screeches, howls, and gunshots. No matter how many bullets left her gun, nothing ever seemed to stop moving. More swarmed into the room, some even reaching skeletal arms through the hole to try and grab at her. She backed up, cursing. She pulled the basket with her, grabbing a bottle from the top. She flipped her lighter open, caught the fabric on fire, and threw it through the hole. The entire room was illuminated as several creatures caught ablaze. Their scrambling helped spread the fire, and as Shino added more bullets to the list, she did recognize the bodies beginning to pile up.

A raspy voice whispered something unintelligible in Shino's ear. She turned on her heel, her finger on the trigger, but was met with nothing. Another whisper, ed by another. Soon enough, she heard an entire room whispering. "Shit...Not tonight," she mumbled, glancing at the hole, concerned, before grabbing the basket and moving over onto the mattress, directly underneath the lamp. She still shot through the whole, but accuracy was out the window. Once she shot everything off the wall opposite the hole, she couldn't do much.

Her vision became blocked by a ghoulish face. It stood on the outskirt of the light, his face stretched and contorted to resemble the old famous painting The Scream. The rest of its body was comprised of black and grey whisps. It had no limbs or appendages, and it flickered in and out of existence right next to her. Another rose from the floor at the foot of the mattress, hissing at Shino. "Fuck off, I'm standing in the light," she shouted at them. They didn't respond. Instead, the light flickered. "...shit."

She grabbed another Molotov from the basket, throwing it straight through the shadow, through the hole and into the living room. The light that shone through the hole back into the bedroom caused the shadow in front of her to dissipate, hissing in pain. Shino turned toward the other shadow, unsure what to do. She didn't want to throw a Molotov at it - catching the room on fire would force her to leave, and she doubted her lighter would do much compared to the lamp.

Another flicker, and the light grew dimmer, allowing the shadow to inch closer. One more flicker, and the light didn't come back on. Cold filled Shino's body. Was she actually cold, or just fearful. She flicked on her lighter, which illuminated her face, but she couldn't see anything not illuminated by the fire in the next room over. She backed further into the corner. What was she supposed to do? She held her lighter out to prevent the shadow from getting close, but she couldn't use a hand to hold the lighter the entire night. The monsters would break through the door. She was blind and deaf; for all she knew, the monsters had already broken through.

Shino slowly crawled along the wall, crouching down to feel around the floor. Her fingers brushed against something cold and metallic, and she dropped her rifle in favor of her pistol, something she's capable of wielding with one hand. She moved toward the dwindling light source coming from the hole, aimed the pistol out, and started shooting again. She was distracted, thinking of ways out of this situation. Why hadn't the generator held up longer? Even if she had misjudged the amount of gas she had put in, she shouldn't have been so inaccurate that it costs her almost the entire night.

She felt the floorboards beneath her tremble, and she knew the door had been destroyed. It took less than a second for a face to appear in the darkness, approaching too fast for her to react. A banshee's claw swiped at her face, its nails dragging just under her eyes. Shino quickly started shooting in front of her, knowing there were probably already a dozen monsters swarming her. She felt immense pain in her arm, and she instinctively dropped the lighter. The moment the flame extinguished, Shino felt nothing. Her body was overcome with numbness, her consciousness extinguishing just like the flame as the shadow invaded her body.

*            . • .     • .                 • .    • °. •.    •     . •    . • . ✦• . • .      • . • .               •.     . • . • .    •                  ★               . • . ★     . ° . •          . • .       • *.     •         *            . •★     . ° . •          . • .           .

Ryuko stumbled forward, using the wall of dirt to keep herself on her feet. All she could see was dirt. All she could feel was venom running through her veins. Hopefully not enough to be lethal. "Yawara..." she whispered, her gaze trained on the floor. They had been gathering resources with Shino, when the ground underneath them collapsed and quickly closed up above them. A sinkhole. An entity could potentially be anywhere, and liked to dump unsuspecting travellers into this terrible place. They had fallen several feet, too much to get back up without a lot of digging.

Not that digging was an option. Staying in any one place for too long was suicide. She tightened her grip on Yawara's hand. He hadn't listened to her. That's why the arm she held wasn't accompanied with a torso or anything else. The bugs had gotten him. Such small creatures, in swarms large enough to cover a continent. Even now, she could hear them down the tunnel, clicking and chattering and hissing. They would catch up with her soon.

Ryuko slowed as she blinked, confused. Her eyes hurt. She looked up to see a hole allowing light in. Was it...morning? Had she been down here all night? Had she been running all night? She stumbled toward it, covering her eyes in pain as they desperately tried to adjust to the bright light. The hole was just above her, right out of reach. She dropped Yarawa's severed arm, unholstering her assault rifle. She used the butt of the rifle to slam at the ground around the hole, knocking the dirt loose. It was like a domino effect, as one hit caused the dirt to cave in. It got in her eyes and mouth, causing her to splutter, as more sunlight flooded the tunnel.

The screeching behind her grew louder. Throwing a glance over her shoulder revealed a tidal wave of tiny predators ready to consume her flesh. She bent over, quickly digging through the dirt to find Yawara's arm. She threw it at the bugs, and they rushed toward it, racing each other to the meat. That would distract them for approximately five seconds once they reached it. She threw her gun to the side, knowing it was now useless, and used both her hands to climb up the small mound of dirt she had created.

She jumped up, grabbing the ledge of the hole with her hands and pulling herself up. She thousands of bugs biting into her ankles, chewing through her shoes. They tore her skin off bit by bit, but she was pulling herself out of the hole. Bugs don't surface, but she still had to deal with the ones who had hitched a ride with her. She looked down to find the entirety of her legs were crawling with carnivorous bugs. Only one thing came to mind. She didn't hesitate. She pulled out her lighter, and caught her pants on fire. The bugs quickly either roasted to death or fled back into the hole, leaving Ryuko rolling around in pain, trying to put herself out.

A few moments later, she lie on her back, staring up at the leaves of the trees. Would she be able to walk? She felt blood soaking her pants and shoes as it seeped from her removed skin. She had no weapon to defend herself against anything else she might come across. But she still pulled herself to her knees, grabbing a thin trunk to force herself to her feet. She immediately recognized a nearby log, and started stumbling toward the cabin. She moved from tree to tree, using the trunks as and hoping none of them were hostile.

Ryuko came across the cabin, and immediately noticed that the shed's door was left open, and was on fire. Something must have destroyed the generator. It was unclear whether Shino had made it back to the cabin, though. The place might have been ransacked in her absence. She stumbled through the collapsed wall, and that theory was debunked. The hole in the wall between the living room and bedroom was uncovered, and the door was busted in.

Ryuko didn't know whether she wanted to go in or not. She knew she needed to. There were guns, ammo, and resources in there. She took in a breath, and stepped through the doorway. Absolute carnage. There was a bit of gray and black ooze covering the walls - the blood of the monsters - but mostly red. It looked like something had split Shino open and intentionally painted the wall. Obviously, nothing had taken the time and effort, but it was horrifying.

Shino's corpse was only recognizable by the color of her blood. She was just a ribcage. Torn apart. Eviscerated. Disemboweled. Gutted. Mutilated. Dismembered. Butchered. Disfigured. Mangled. Ravaged. Distorted....

She stood there for hours, words running through her brain to describe the scene in an attempt to cope.

How was she supposed to survive alone?

𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑'𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐒 ━━━━━━

╰─────────────────╮

￣￣  :hearts:   :hearts:   :hearts:   :hearts:   :hearts:   ￣￣

________ ________ ________

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Bleh. Scary story.

#DystopianWeekend