Post-Apocalyptic Shopping Trip
Jun. 19th, 2011 03:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kasihyaDiana went out with Reed once the Apocalypse had come and gone. Matt wanted to go until Diana pointed out, quite sensibly, that he was the expert on communication and transitioning to this world; if there were any aftershocks while they were out exploring, she was the more expendable of the two. Reed, by way of Matt, indicated that she, too, would like to explore.
The town was eerily silent. Diana was fairly certain that she could remember gigantic windstorms and hurricanes preceding their escape into Yggdrasil House; however, the town looked untouched. It was as though the inhabitants had been painlessly deleted from their background, instead of drowning, being crushed, or otherwise suffering horrific deaths. Cars stood parked in driveways, and flowerbeds remained well-groomed, albeit slightly wilted. There wasn’t even a puddle in sight.
Her companion took all of this in with narrow eyes. When she caught Diana watching her reaction, she crossed her arms and looked pensive.
‘I guess the grocery store is the best place to start …’ Diana said. From her pocket, she pulled out the map that Matt had drawn her of the town, so that they wouldn’t get lost. Reed leaned over her shoulder to look, in an uncomfortable invasion of personal space. Diana chalked it up to a cultural thing – she and the other two from Trezam all stood very close to each other – and lifted it up further. She tapped where they were currently, and traced her finger up the road to the crude box labeled ‘Grocers’, tapping that again.
Reed stepped back and nodded, striding off purposefully in that direction. Irritated by this woman taking control in a stranger’s world – all right, so she didn’t know this town any better than Reed, but dammit, it was still *her* world – Diana jogged up to keep pace with her.
In town, they encountered their first animals. A squirrel ran across the street. Reed jumped back and looked wildly at Diana. ‘Kyappi?’
‘I don’t know,’ Diana said, assuming that the woman had asked something along the lines of ‘how the hell did the squirrel avoid getting raptured?’
Reed tilted her head, appearing to think for a moment, then shrugged. ‘Lezzgo.’
‘Sure thing.’
They walked on in silence. The town was small; Diana wondered how the hell so many off-world people wound up in a town less than two miles wide, that they needed to build a house specially designated to hold them all. And of course, thoughts like that were just to distract her from the eerie, oppressive stillness of what should have been, if not a bustling metropolis, at least not a ghost town. The Apocalypse had apparently come on a slow traffic day here, but there were still a few cars, sitting empty in the streets. Most were filled with luggage and possessions, from people trying to cross over into New York before they were wiped off the face of this particular earth. When the first one came into view, Diana shuddered, looked over at Reed, to find that she had had an identical reaction. They smiled tentatively at one another. Reed went to one of the cars, a mini van with the keys still in the ignition, the battery dead and gas gone in the week that they had all been indoors. She poked her head in and inspected the contents for a moment before pulling her head out. Diana tilted her head to the side, by way of asking what had possessed her to do something so … invasive. Disrespectful of the former owners of that car. Reed momentarily covered both eyes with her hands, a gesture that Diana distantly remembered as being akin to making the cross gesture in Talosielism. Not feeling particular ties to her own religion one way or the other, Diana copied the gesture. Reed smiled.
If it hadn’t been for the intrinsic weirdness of being the only people in the entire grocery store, Diana thought she would have quite enjoyed the experience. They each took a shopping cart – to feed twelve people, most of them teenagers, required an enormous amount of food – and went around, stacking and loading up. Diana left Reed to explore the meat section, something that didn’t require label translating and some creative games of charades – to check the back room. As cute as the little town might have been, it would have been more convenient, she thought, to have met the apocalypse in the city. Or anywhere with a large department store, in fact. There was a sizeable amount of food in the store, but if they were going to survive for any length of time, they would need to venture forth into other parts of the world.
For the first time in her life, Diana was beginning to hate her own compulsive practicality. The further and further into the future she looked, the smaller their chances of survival got. Although she did suppose that from the looks of the Shanrien contingent, they might be able to get by hunting. *Hunting what, exactly?* her rational mind asked. Maybe they could become migratory. Maybe they could –
‘Diana?’ Reed called.
‘Yeah! My bad.’ She turned her back on the depressingly small back room (refrigerated, which was always good news) and wandered back out to find the bottom of her shopping cart piled high with plastic plates of meat. ‘Oh …’
Reed was going to kill someone if she didn't get out of Yggdrasil House, and away from Stephen and Neil. It was the grieving. They were both normally the vengeance type, but one can hardly wreak vengeance upon a supernatural event, so they'd taken to alternately moping and having sparring matches. The sparring only reminded them of Evangeline, who would have kicked both of their asses at the same time, and the cycle began again. So she wandered out of the master bedroom that they had commandeered as Camp Trezam and sat in the living room with Matt and Diana. They seemed nice enough kids — Matt especially had to be feeling the strain of keeping everything running as well as it was, and he was *young*. Diana, a bit full of herself, but she was willing to give the girl the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps she really had been a powerful magician before the Apocalypse; in that case, the loss of magic would be hitting her hard, causing her to overcompensate by being a supercilious bitch.
Or maybe Reed was overthinking this. Whatever the reason, when it transpired from Matt that Diana was going into town to assess the situation, Reed immediately volunteered.
'I may not be able to relay things directly back to you, but D'Sezan is similar enough to Vespucci that I'll have some measure for what looks out of place and what doesn't.'
Matt looked relieved. 'Thank you. I don't think anyone should be going out alone.'
'Not that there's anything out there waiting for us. Revelations was pretty accurate, and it mentioned nothing about post-apocalyptic beasts,' Reed said bitterly. She would almost have preferred that. It would provide some evidence to refute her current theory, that their world had been utterly abandoned by all higher-ups.
-- And when she's freaking out over the squirrel, it's because Trezam has none so she has no idea WTF that little rat thing is.
The town was eerily silent. Diana was fairly certain that she could remember gigantic windstorms and hurricanes preceding their escape into Yggdrasil House; however, the town looked untouched. It was as though the inhabitants had been painlessly deleted from their background, instead of drowning, being crushed, or otherwise suffering horrific deaths. Cars stood parked in driveways, and flowerbeds remained well-groomed, albeit slightly wilted. There wasn’t even a puddle in sight.
Her companion took all of this in with narrow eyes. When she caught Diana watching her reaction, she crossed her arms and looked pensive.
‘I guess the grocery store is the best place to start …’ Diana said. From her pocket, she pulled out the map that Matt had drawn her of the town, so that they wouldn’t get lost. Reed leaned over her shoulder to look, in an uncomfortable invasion of personal space. Diana chalked it up to a cultural thing – she and the other two from Trezam all stood very close to each other – and lifted it up further. She tapped where they were currently, and traced her finger up the road to the crude box labeled ‘Grocers’, tapping that again.
Reed stepped back and nodded, striding off purposefully in that direction. Irritated by this woman taking control in a stranger’s world – all right, so she didn’t know this town any better than Reed, but dammit, it was still *her* world – Diana jogged up to keep pace with her.
In town, they encountered their first animals. A squirrel ran across the street. Reed jumped back and looked wildly at Diana. ‘Kyappi?’
‘I don’t know,’ Diana said, assuming that the woman had asked something along the lines of ‘how the hell did the squirrel avoid getting raptured?’
Reed tilted her head, appearing to think for a moment, then shrugged. ‘Lezzgo.’
‘Sure thing.’
They walked on in silence. The town was small; Diana wondered how the hell so many off-world people wound up in a town less than two miles wide, that they needed to build a house specially designated to hold them all. And of course, thoughts like that were just to distract her from the eerie, oppressive stillness of what should have been, if not a bustling metropolis, at least not a ghost town. The Apocalypse had apparently come on a slow traffic day here, but there were still a few cars, sitting empty in the streets. Most were filled with luggage and possessions, from people trying to cross over into New York before they were wiped off the face of this particular earth. When the first one came into view, Diana shuddered, looked over at Reed, to find that she had had an identical reaction. They smiled tentatively at one another. Reed went to one of the cars, a mini van with the keys still in the ignition, the battery dead and gas gone in the week that they had all been indoors. She poked her head in and inspected the contents for a moment before pulling her head out. Diana tilted her head to the side, by way of asking what had possessed her to do something so … invasive. Disrespectful of the former owners of that car. Reed momentarily covered both eyes with her hands, a gesture that Diana distantly remembered as being akin to making the cross gesture in Talosielism. Not feeling particular ties to her own religion one way or the other, Diana copied the gesture. Reed smiled.
If it hadn’t been for the intrinsic weirdness of being the only people in the entire grocery store, Diana thought she would have quite enjoyed the experience. They each took a shopping cart – to feed twelve people, most of them teenagers, required an enormous amount of food – and went around, stacking and loading up. Diana left Reed to explore the meat section, something that didn’t require label translating and some creative games of charades – to check the back room. As cute as the little town might have been, it would have been more convenient, she thought, to have met the apocalypse in the city. Or anywhere with a large department store, in fact. There was a sizeable amount of food in the store, but if they were going to survive for any length of time, they would need to venture forth into other parts of the world.
For the first time in her life, Diana was beginning to hate her own compulsive practicality. The further and further into the future she looked, the smaller their chances of survival got. Although she did suppose that from the looks of the Shanrien contingent, they might be able to get by hunting. *Hunting what, exactly?* her rational mind asked. Maybe they could become migratory. Maybe they could –
‘Diana?’ Reed called.
‘Yeah! My bad.’ She turned her back on the depressingly small back room (refrigerated, which was always good news) and wandered back out to find the bottom of her shopping cart piled high with plastic plates of meat. ‘Oh …’
Reed was going to kill someone if she didn't get out of Yggdrasil House, and away from Stephen and Neil. It was the grieving. They were both normally the vengeance type, but one can hardly wreak vengeance upon a supernatural event, so they'd taken to alternately moping and having sparring matches. The sparring only reminded them of Evangeline, who would have kicked both of their asses at the same time, and the cycle began again. So she wandered out of the master bedroom that they had commandeered as Camp Trezam and sat in the living room with Matt and Diana. They seemed nice enough kids — Matt especially had to be feeling the strain of keeping everything running as well as it was, and he was *young*. Diana, a bit full of herself, but she was willing to give the girl the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps she really had been a powerful magician before the Apocalypse; in that case, the loss of magic would be hitting her hard, causing her to overcompensate by being a supercilious bitch.
Or maybe Reed was overthinking this. Whatever the reason, when it transpired from Matt that Diana was going into town to assess the situation, Reed immediately volunteered.
'I may not be able to relay things directly back to you, but D'Sezan is similar enough to Vespucci that I'll have some measure for what looks out of place and what doesn't.'
Matt looked relieved. 'Thank you. I don't think anyone should be going out alone.'
'Not that there's anything out there waiting for us. Revelations was pretty accurate, and it mentioned nothing about post-apocalyptic beasts,' Reed said bitterly. She would almost have preferred that. It would provide some evidence to refute her current theory, that their world had been utterly abandoned by all higher-ups.
-- And when she's freaking out over the squirrel, it's because Trezam has none so she has no idea WTF that little rat thing is.
