Note: I do not own Left 4 Dead. Valve does. They rock.
PS: The hunters in this story will have no eyes like they do in the game. If you check the L4Dwiki there's a part that points out this fact.
It was a dark and stormy night, and through the windows of an apartment complex twenty stories high in downtown Philadelphia, one could see lights flickering where none others shone.
Sitting at his computer desk in his apartment twenty stories high, Matthew Destin was watching amateur performance tapes made by locals of their Parkour routines. He was doing a little research, looking up what moves some people used and preferred when met with different obstacles. There was a fundraiser, a Parkour event near a local park on the following evening and he wanted to see if he could pick up a few tips before showing his stuff and earning donations.
After a few hours Matthew stretched his arms from in his seat, got up, and left his computer alone. He looked about his one bedroom apartment that he was managing to keep afloat on his own and sighed. Life was tough, but Matt struggled and in the end, he felt he was winning. Giving a small smile he went to his room and got out the clothes he had for the Parkour event. It was a special event set up by the city for a massive fundraiser, one that had been gaining lots of donations so far. The whole was a form of race about the city, earning money based on run times. The money was going to children all over the world, and he was happy about that. A locally run clothing company had donated clothes for the race as well, a hoodie and matching sweat pants of the same color. His set was a dark green color that he chose, one that he picked out before most of the less common colors were taken, forcing many of the latecomers into dark blue sets.
He knew from experience that the loose garments would undoubtedly get in the way, but that's what tape was for.
He took a quick look at his clock and saw that it was a few minutes past one in the morning, and time for bed. He quickly disrobed down to his boxers and hopped into bed, and fell quickly into a deep sleep.
The following evening, Matt found himself in the tent to the main event, stretching his muscles to their fullest while hundreds of other traceurs and traceuses did the same, almost all of them donning the same brand of hoodie, but in varying colors. Some didn't bother with the hoodies, for reasons unknown. One thing that was currently concerning him was how a few of the people around him seemed sick. He figured it must've been that Green Flu that CEDA had been going on about on TV. He just chalked it off as another small flu, something to sell a lot of drugs and get the pharmaceutical companies billions.
He recoiled in minor fright when one of the sick people accidentally sneezed at him.
"Ah, gross, man!" He yelled out as he wiped his face of the spit.
"Ugh, sorry dude. I know I shouldn't be out here, but I wanna do it for the kids, you know?"
"Yeah, I get ya, but get a mask or something." He said, waiving off the random sick man with a chuckle.
'Great, just what I need, some new sickness to bog me down at work. Oh well, I'll be fine. Colds never did bother me much,' he thought as he moved to the front of the tent. By the entrance, he spotted a woman who was sitting down, head in their hands, and looking quite ill. He put his sleeve to his mouth and crouched down in front of her before speaking.
"Hey there, you alright?" He asked in a muffled voice.
"What? Oh yeah… I'm fine, it's just, I think I got this damn flu going around." She replied, before couching heavily into her fist.
"That doesn't sound good. You probably… really should head home, you look really pale. Better get in bed before you keel over."
The girl laughed, and the coughed again, "Yeah, you're probably right." She responded before sighing, "I'm sure I'll have another chance to do something like this anyway."
"Thatta girl."
Matt and the girl shared a smile before he left her to collect herself. He was set up for the fourth round, which was starting in ten minutes, and decided to get a drink from the water booth. He grabbed a drink and walked to the starting line, waiting for his turn to shine. He almost choked on his water when he heard a blood curdling scream come from behind him.
He turned quickly on his heels to see what all the commotion about, all the while couching violently from the tiny bit of water irritating his lungs. His eyes were as wide as can be at the sight before him.
The girl he was talking too earlier was running full tilt at a nearby civilian, and upon catching the helpless man, began to bite into his flesh. More screams rang out from the crowd, his attention turning a brief moment to see someone, a man this time, doing the same thing to a now long dead corpse.
He began to panic, and his panic only escalated as he saw the offenders face, recognizing him as the man who'd sneezed on him earlier. Caught up in the panic, it took him a few moments to see a dozen more people running down the street as fast as they could, wearing the same soulless, manic expressions. And what disturbed him the most was that some of them looked bloody in places, and one was even missing half of her face.
He turned and ran, as did most of the contestants and civilians. Those who were unlucky enough to be a target of the deadly looking individuals didn't survive the initial rush.
As he ran, cries of zombies and the apocalypse rang over the screams, but all Matt could do was run, jump, climb, and run some more. Having trained in Parkour for several years, scaling building and jumping fences and walls had become second nature to him, and through sheer instinct he continued to move.
He didn't know how long he ran. He saw the sun drop and rise, and yet he never stopped. Just tried to escape. No food or water or sleep, and yet he was still able to keep going. He didn't know what drove him, where his energy came from, where his fatigue had went. So much was he distracted that he didn't notice the zombies running amuck down below him, nor the ones catching his scent and chasing him, and definitely not noticing when they stopped. It was around this time his skin had become terribly grey and pale.
The last thing he remembered was being atop a building somewhere, his mind blacking out, and his body moving on.
Two and a Half Weeks Later
He could smell everything around him, hear everything around him, and feel everything around him. The cars burning, the buildings breaking, and the moaning of countless zombies in the streets. But what he could not do was see.
"My eyes! My eyes!" He scrambled with clawed hands to his face, reaching for eyes that had long since melted away, "What happened to my eyes!?"
The next thing he noticed was his hands. Dirty, calloused, and equipped with inch-long, jagged nails. And he could smell blood upon them. Whose blood, he didn't know, but it was blood all the same. He did what he could to suppress his panic and just sat down on the roof he stood on, and then he thought.
'I have no idea where I am… I'm blind, but I still know where everything around me is for what seems like a mile. I have no idea what happened. I can't remember anything. I know words, names of things, but…'
He shook his head to clear his thoughts, and began to examine his body. He wore a hoodie, dirty and a little ragged, but being blind, he couldn't tell that the color was dark green. Around his body was duct tape, binding down his clothes in strategic locations, and still holding on strong. In his pocket, he felt a square bulge. He reached inside and pulled out a still instant leather wallet.
"Is this my wallet? Must be…" He said to no one in particular as he took it out and sifted through it.
He pulled out a card, and ran a finger over it. To his amazement, he could feel everything about it. From the bumps of numbers, to even the changes in pigment within the plastic. He may be blind, but his other senses have become beyond super human, and now, he was feeling a little more frightened.
Going through the various cards, he tossed credit and debit cards aside, membership cards to video stores, and finally stopped on his driver's license. He ran his finger over the card, feeling where the ink caused different vibrations, and read off the words.
"Matthew Destin… age twenty-three… eye color brown… Hah, not that that matters anymore. Wait… 287 Fairview Crescent, apartment 208… My address maybe? Seems the most logical…"
He pocketed the card and his wallet and stood up, trying to gain his bearings, trying to figure out what in the world was going on and why he didn't remember anything about his life. He stood near the edge of the building, and peered over, listening and smelling. There were zombies, he could tell, all over the streets. Most just shuffling around, others were sitting or lying down, and others vomiting, much to his disgust. He was unnerved by how they smelled, because they smelled just like him.
"Am I one of them?" He asked aloud, pondering the circumstances.
His head snapped to the left as he heard something strange, different from the zombies. It still smelled the same as the rest, but it sounded much different, and was moving, sneaking, and seemingly on the prowl. He ran to the left side of the building, his left anyway, and leaned over the edge to get a better sense of what was making that noise.
He fell back onto his bottom as he heard a ferocious screech; like a predator attacking, and then he felt the figure he was sniffing for leap from one building and land right next to him. He was stunned by the leap, spanning a distance of over twenty-five feet, and landing without a problem. He looked towards the figure, out of habit more than need for sight, and took it in. He could tell it wore the same style of clothing as he did, and may honestly have been one of the other traceurs at the meeting.
'Traceurs? That's a Parkour practionner… I think I remember something about that…'
His thoughts were interrupted by the traceur. Clearly a zombie, though much more active, it walked upright towards the opposite edge of the building, and then looked and sniffed around for something. It quickly crouched again before screeching another time as it leapt once more to a nearby building. He had also noticed that it didn't have eyes anymore.
"Why is that one so different...?" He spoke as he reached for his face, feeling at where his eyes had melted away, "It was just like me…"
His head turned to his legs, and he used his hands to feel at them. The tape was still holding strong, but one thing he noticed was that his leg muscles were amazingly rock hard, maybe harder. He found his feet to be bare as well, shoes having long been lost, pads of his feet calloused heavily. He stood up and tested them, making small jumps into the air, then higher and higher. Soon, he gave one final, massive leap twenty-five feet into the air, and came down without a twinge of pain.
He then collapsed to his knees, turns to his clawed hands, and started sobbing, "By the gods… what have I become…?"
He continued to sob, though no tears ran down his face. Instead, he just clenched his fists tightly, and pounded on the roof over and over again.
His thoughts and depression were suddenly interrupted by something far off in the distance. It was a very small noise, but he could still hear it. The faint sound of crying.
'What in the world…? Is someone still alive in all of this?' He thought to himself.
"I might see someone… find out what the hell has been happening!" This time he spoke aloud, and dashed.
The need for information, and the excitement of seeing a living creature that could actually respond to his voice, drove him, gave him the will to move. He ran to the ledge, and using his newfound strength, soared from building to building at speeds unknown. He kept suppressing a feral growl that attempted to escape his mouth with every jump, using all of his will to beat it down and to keep thinking he was still mostly human.
His journey took him quickly to an alleyway a mile from where he was once was. He walked carefully down the dark path and the crying only intensified, and the ear piercing wail sounded so sad. He could tell that whoever it was was incredibly young, and this was confirmed when he caught sense of her.
A small child, no more than six years old, maybe even younger, short and thin, was crying on the ground, with her face in her hands. She was incredibly pale, almost white, and was wearing a dirty and tattered blue dress, though he himself could not tell the color. What stunned him the most were her five inch long claws at the ends of her fingers. He took a step back upon noticing this; thankful his senses essentially give him colorblind sight since he had lost his eyes.
"Another one of them…"
The girl quickly turned to the voice, tears in her eyes. Upon noticing him, the little Witch screeched aloud.
A/N: This was an idea that was just nagging at the back of my head for a while, and actually impeded me from writing more of my Samus/Peach (not yuri) fic. I'll tell you guys more about the idea after the character are introduced. Until next time!