"We advise that people walk carefully through the streets and watch out for any victims of this outbreak. If you come across someone who appears sick, back away and call the authorities as it is highly contagious. If you start to display symptoms such as, nausea, rotting skin, repeated vomiting, it is advised that you come to the authorities for a check up. Any other symptoms and advice can be found at the Government website and our Guide that has been installed on your Scroll (Government instituted communication device). This is Ryan Decker with CBI Radio news, wishing you luck for what's ahead. Next, the results of the latest Griffball game"
As the radio announcer was replaced by a more energetic voice, a small pale hand reached out from the shelter of it's pink covers to turn the radio off, a soft groan emitting from the hand. Soon the covers were pushed off to reveal the short black hair belonging to a girl of only six, who crawled out of the bed while rubbing her grey coloured eyes. The little girl was soon standing in the middle of her room with her arm tightly wrapped around a large stuffed Beowulf while her other hand placed her thumb inside her mouth.
The lights were off in the room, leaving only the few rays of light of the morning rise that flooded through her blinds to aid her sight. The girl made her way to the wooden door that lead to the plain hallway, which she used to get to the top of the stairs, already hearing the news blaring from the TV in the living room.
"-nd with that, the Vale Beowulfs have won the semi-finals and move on to the final.'' came the commentator's voice, which was quickly followed by a nearby cheer and the sound of another jumping on the spot in joy.
"Beowulf's strong and proud!'' The blond that yelled this cheer was currently dancing on the spot, to the dismay of her sister that only face palmed. "Blake owes me a cookie!"
"I want a cookie, Yang!'' Moaned the small girl as she approached Yang, the nine year old looking down at her sister with a big grin.
"We'll share it. Okay, Sis?'' Yang crouched down to ruffle her sister's hair, keeping the grin as Ruby wrapped her arms around the blond.
"Can Chopper have some too, Sis?'' Ruby asked while squeezing her stuffed animal that she had dubbed 'Chopper'.
"I don't know, Sis. Are you sure he deserves some?'' Yang giggled as Ruby pulled away and held Chopper infront of her, bobbing his head she spoke in a high pitched voice.
"Oh pwease, I can't keep Ruby warm on a empty sweet stomach!'' 'Chopper' pleaded, only resulting in Yang to giggle.
"Okay, okay. You get a piece''
"Yay! You hear that, Chopper. We'll be rolling in cookie crumbs!'' She waved the wolf around, hugging him tightly. Her dance was interrupted by a loud sequence of coughs from the other room. "Momma!''
The two rushed across the hall with Ruby leading, already fighting back tears as she managed to burst through the door. She was met with the sight of a woman that looked much like herself, having the same pale skin and raven hair wrapped up in a cover. The woman took very deep breaths as sweat dripped down from her blood red forehead and fading skin.
Arms wrapped around Ruby's wait and forcefully pulled her out of the room, turning Ruby around to face the angry eyes of her sister. "What did I tell you? Never go to Moma while she's sick!"
"Sorry…'' Was the only response through the small girl's various sniffles.
"It's okay…Just wait over there while I get Moma her medicine'' Yang indicated to a space a few inches away and Ruby obediently went to the spot and stood still, Yang rushing off as more coughing fits were heard.
This had become a daily routine for the sisters ever since their mother got sick with a strange new disease that had had broken out months ago, leaving the woman bedridden while the sisters took care of her. Well, only Yang really took care of their mother as she always forbid that Ruby stand anywhere near the sick woman as the disease was very contagious and Yang didn't want to risk it. They had gotten medicine from a friend of their mothers as they were not allowed to give her to the Government ever since rumours started to circulate that any infected people were executed.
Yang was taking some time to get the medicine ready and Ruby couldn't handle the continuous coughing as it only made her want to go into the room and help in some way, but Yang forbid it. The coughing had stopped now, allowing Ruby to calm down more, hoping that her mother was sleeping better. She scratched her arm as she stared at the doorway, the need to check on her mother growing by the second. Yang was still preparing the medicine….and she was just looking. It's couldn't hurt, right?
Ruby approached the door slowly, pressing herself against the wall and pushing her head past the side to peek into the room. Her mother lay motionless under the covers, her skin seeming darker then usual, she was asleep, yet her eye's were open. There was no breathing heard from the woman, her chest was as still as the rest of her body.
"Moma?" Ruby entered the room with a curious expression, making her way to the sleeping woman and kneeling down next to her. The little girl placed her hand on the side of the woman and softly shook her mother. "Moma, you need to move. You said that breathing was good" The girl thought back to that time that she held her breath with the stupid thought that she didn't need to breathe Dumb, dumb. "Momma? Wake up"
There was movement from the sleeping woman now, but it was strange, robotic, stiff and inhuman. Groans came from the woman as it started to rise from the floor, Ruby still had her head against the woman's chest with a few tears in her eye's "I thought you were going to sleep forever, Momma''
"Ruby!" came Yang's hopeless scream, echoing across the house, the body now sitting and looking down at Ruby, it's hands moving to hold her. The nine year old blond rushed across the room and grabbed Ruby, taking one second to throw her away just as the hand slashed down on the air where Ruby used to be.
Ruby now got a look at what used to be her mother, the pale skin was now darker then ever, the smell of rotton apples drifting around the room, what remaining of the woman's hair was falling out and her eye's were empty and emotionless. "M-momma!?"
"Ruby! Go to your room!" Yang yelled as she pushed the woman away with great frustration, the woman had seemed to lost her natural balanced and fell on the opposite side of Yang.
"What's wrong with Momma!?" Ruby asked with tears dripping.
"NOW!" Yang screamed at her, the woman now getting back up with a savage groan.
Ruby flinched at the tone of Yang's voice, tearing up as she backed away slowly, soon taking off up the stairs with soft feet. Soon she arrived at her room, bursting in and slamming her door before jumping on her bed and curling into a ball, no longer holding back the tears. Glass was smashed down stairs from what she could hear, the screams as wood split into two signalled that the cupboard had fallen over. There was loud panting and then a war cry as the wall was hit, a body was heard falling to the ground, then there was silence….
Footsteps were heard coming up the stairs rather slowly, the footsteps were unbalanced as the person seemed to constantly slip as they drew near. Ruby held her breath, strangling poor Chopper and not taking her eye's off of her door. The door knob turned slowly, the door soon being thrown open by the person on the other side as Ruby hid under the covers. She raised the covers slightly and peeked out, witnessing Yang standing by the doorway, frozen. Her clothes were ripped, her blood splattered hands shakily holding a broken baseball bat. Tears flooded from the girl's eyes as she stared at Ruby with a guilty look.
"Ruby…" Yang called out softly.
Ruby rushed from under the covers to hug her sister, crying into her shoulder and leaving a damp spot. "Where's Mamma!?"
Yang was silent for the moment, biting her lip before replying in a cracked voice "Momma's gone…."
The huge buck of the bus as it ran over a jutting rock jolted awake the tall nine year old that was sleeping on his chair, almost being thrown off of the seat as a result. His hand quickly grabbing hold of the pole next to him, squeezing it as if his life depended on it, only to let go when he realised that he was no longer falling.
"Jaune, that is the fifth time you've done that'' came the calm tone from beside him, causing the blond to pout as he turned to face his raven haired friend (Who also had a few pink streaks in his hair…which Jaune felt better to not question)
"I'm just prepared for the worst, Ren. This bus could suddenly crash at any time!'' Was his moaning response to his friend, crossing his arms.
"You're just having a large case of Paranoia'' Ren replied coolly, a small smile on his lips.
"Call it what you want, but I know when I'm right!'' Jaune proclaimed, to which Ren only rolled his eyes. Sometimes Jaune would forget that Ren was only nine like him.
"Where's Pyrrha? She was sitting right behind us'' Jaune asked with his head sweeping the bus.
"She went to speak with the driver about something" Ren replied with a slight yawn, indicating his drowsiness when set his head limply against the seat.
''Don't go to sleep! I need someone to talk to!'' Jaune moaned in distress.
"I need my energy, Jaune. Especially with Nora waiting to greet us when we get back'' Ren replied quietly, adjusting his position.
"Her hugs aren't THAT bad'' Jaune crossed his arms
"Didn't she dislocate your shoulder once?''
"It still hurts…It took a million mommy kisses to make it better…" Jaune rubbed his right shoulder, shivering at the memory. "On second thought, we should both get our rest!"
Jaune attempted to imitate Ren's sitting position beside him, resting his head on the window, he looked out at the side of the road, railings blocking the way to the steep slope of the grassy hill. He felt a small rumble in his stomach as the seemingly swerving movements of the bus started to bring out his motion sickness, his mouth clenched shut and his eyes staring onwards. Wait, why is the bus swerving!?
Pyrrha had originally come to the driver to complain about another passenger that was harassing her (She did not take kindly to be constantly poked and asked 'Is that annoying yet?''), but unfortunately the driver seemed to avoid talking of the other passengers and decided to start complaining.
"-so the guy just bills me for speeding! I mean, you could hardly call that speeding, I was moving like a turtle!" The driver complained, raising his fist to punch the air, though he brought his fist back down instantly to cough harshly into.
"Shouldn't you be paying attention to the road, Mr?" Pyrrha responded meekly, she could of just walked away from the driver, but she the constant yelling of the driver made seemed nailed to the ground. She wished she had just went to the back to sit with her parents, but she inherited her father's nack listening to everyone that demanded to be listened to.
"Who said that I'm not? I'm driving perfectly fine'' The bus was beginning to lean towards the side, but the driver didn't seem to notice, only continued to cough into his hand again, making Pyrrha held the expectation that he would start coughing blood, though he only started scratching his bandaged arm.
His eye's fell on it for a moment, his eye's starting to glare towards it, as if indicating that he found a new thing to complain about. "Even with this thing, you should have been there yesterday. I was just walking home by myself, enjoying the day with daisies an' stuff and then this dude charges at me! Now this dude, he looked as if he just broken out of the hospital, he looked sick as hell! He charged right at me and pushed me to the ground, now while this guy had the advantage in surprise, I was still stronger then 'im. So, I managed to push the bastard of- I mean meanie, pardon me for the no-no word, little 'un- off of me, but not before he took a great bite out of my arm!" The driver gestured with his bandaged arm. "So, I- Oi!" The man yelled out the window as a car almost crashed right into them, just skimming the front of the bus.
Pyrrha looked out of the front window to get a look at the other cars on the road, two yellow ones seemed to share the Driver's expression of anger at the swerving cars, and some of the vehicle's seemed to hold drivers that just suddenly fall limp over the steering wheel. A large truck was also swerving, but the driver of the vehicle was clearly still awake, but he wasn't alone as he struggled to push back the woman that was clawing at him. "Why is everyone hurting each other!?" Pyrrha mostly cried to herself.
The driver of the truck was putting up a good defence against the woman, but even that was broken as he was slammed against the window, his blood curling cries for help could even be heard as the woman started to: Bite him!?
The bus managed to avoid crashing into another car with the unattended driver, the passengers now clinging for dear life from their seats. Various screams of protest came from the back of the bus in a jumbled mess of noise. "What the hell is going on!?" "I want to get off this deathtrap!" "I'm gonna be sick!".
The driver turned his head to address the passengers, giving them a fearful smile and nod. "Don't worry everyone, just stay in your seats. There are just some road ragers on the road, nothing I can't handle!" The passengers seemed to calm at this, though Pyrrha could see form her spot that Jaune was starting to hyperventilate.
This was when Pyrrha realised that the driver was not watching the road as he tried to calm everyone down, when she looked back out the window, she was right to expect that the now driverless truck was now heading straight for them. "LOOK OUT!" She screamed at the driver, who's head shot to look out in front of him, spinning the wheel around.
The bus veered towards the railing, Pyrrha grasping the pole beside her to keep on her feet, looking back to Ren who was holding down a green looking Jaune. Her eye's went back to the truck that barrelled towards them at the result of the screams of the bus, everything seemed to go in slow motion. The bus wouldn't be able to manuver around the truck, Pyrrha knew this and clamped her eye's shut and braced for impact.
She felt the skinny arms of her father wrap around her in a attempt to shield her and that's when… The Truck slammed into the bus and both were pushed off of the road and down the steep slope.
The streets were in shambles, windows shattered across the sidewalk, car's abandoned on the road, even graffiti to explain this 'apocalypse' were already painted brightly over most of the withering walls. A man covered from head to toe in thin black armour observed his dying surroundings, a sigh escaping his lips as he gripped his gun tightly.
"Ozpin, what's the status of Vale?" Came a voice from the armoured man's earpiece, who reached up to adjust the device's angle, making it louder through the wind.
"It seems that everything has gone to hell… I can't see any signs of life in this city, not even any infected'' Ozpin guessed that he should be happy that he hasn't ran into any of the creatures that used to be fellow people, but right now, the thought of the entire town being abandoned seemed to scare him more.
"Search for any survivors and kill any of those THINGS you find'' The voice responded with disgust hidden in his voice, Ozpin knew that his Commander's family had been in the first city hit by the virus, he wasn't given any time to grieve.
"Over and out, Sir'' The contact ended and Ozpin was back to being alone, with only a pistol and a stun baton to protect him. He didn't have the equipment he should have had, the government wanting to get on the outbreak in Vale as fast as possible, but they didn't realise how fast the virus spread here. Ozpin didn't have much hope of finding survivors.
He made his way down the abandoned streets, his eye's glancing at the display of a smashed store window, a corpse left on the counter inside. But, what made him stop was the quiet squelching that came from near the corpse, it was faint, but he could hear and guess what it was.
The solider looked down to his pistol for a moment, clenching it tightly with his finger on the trigger, but he moved the gun to be put back in it's holster. Better not waste any ammo, besides, the noise might attract unwanted attention.
A few cautious breaths came from his lips before he moved inside the broken building, the sound he heard increasing in volume, accompanied by a small groan of delight. He brought out his baton and held it over his head, now crouched by the counter and peeking over the top. He saw it clearly now, squatting down to dig it's teeth into the corpse's hanging arm, was a small woman. Her very posh looking clothes were torn apart, leaving Ozpin a view of her completely black skin, though the few times she pulled away from the corpse gave him a glimpses of her disfigured face, her sharp and rotting teeth. And her eye's, they held a predatory lust, like a hungry animal that finally caught its prey.
This is what the Government universally now referred to as, Grim. While Ozpin had not encounter any of these results of the virus, he could tell what it was when thinking of other descriptions of what occurred in other cities. The once human eye's of the Grim turned to his peeking spot, a few fingers still hanging from the creature's jaw as it licked it's lips, Ozpin raising his baton as he backed away.
The creature pounced at him, throwing itself over the count with it's mouth wide open to display it's new teeth, it jumped at him again, but he managed to hit it back with his weapon. The creature crashed through what remained of the window, but appeared unharmed as it got to it's feet and growled at Ozpin, who only raised his weapon again in a daring motion. The Grim seemed to limp towards Ozpin at a fast rate, it's eyes solely focusing on his arm, which he dearly wanted to keep, thank you very much.
The Grim pounced towards him with it's skin-ripped arms raised to attack, but the soldier dodged to the side, quickly slamming his baton into the side of the beast's head, causing the Grim to fall face first into the glass shard (Though her hands managed to rip the pistol from Ozpin's holster, hitting it across the floor) that stood proud. Ozpin dashed to the fallen body as it still moved, he was quick to pick the head up from it's position and slam it back down on the corner, causing the body to spasm for a moment, but it didn't go limp like Ozpin expected. He came to the conclusion that now was a good time to use his gun, well, if it hadn't been thrown across the room by his attacker.
The body rose from the ground with the shard still firmly impaled on it's head, digging into it's eye as it growled at Ozpin. The man cursed loudly under his breath and raised his only weapon to defend himself, his eyes narrowing at the creature that he refused to let win. The creature lurched forward, Ozpin closed his eyes and moved his weapon…
*BANG*
A shot rang out, launching a bullet into the side of the creatures head as it tried to pounce, but before it could try to grip onto it's last drop of life, another bullet pierced it's head. Now, the beast finally collapsed to the floor limply, the shred of the person that it once was could finally have her peace.
Ozpin took a second to breath out slowly and calmly, leaning against the counter with his eyes pushing his vision away from the dead girl, before placing his gaze towards his saviour. A woman that seemed to be in her late twenties, a mop of long blond hair ran down her back with the slight look that some of it was torn out. Broken spectacles hung on the edge of her pointed nose, covering half of her violet eyes.
The woman's breathing was at a fast pace, her eyes wide at the gun she held in her hands, her whole body slightly trembling. ''I…killed her…I knew her…'' Her voice was pained, slowly lowering the gun's aim.
"But you saved me, which I would like to thank you for, Miss.'' Ozpin made a slight bow and slowly approached the shocked woman, who made not action to stop him.
"I bought clothes from her…'' The woman closed her eyes and seemed to shiver for a moment, before opening them with a hardened expression.
"You did what you had to'' Ozpin reassured, to which she nodded.
"I know…And I know I'll have to do it again'' She sighed, rubbing her temples.
"That is the cruel truth''
She nodded again, the gun now at her side as she looked to Ozpin directly for the first time. "I'm Glynda, ex-teacher'' She held out her hand, to which he grasped.
"Ozpin, military'' They shook hands and turned towards the exit that led out into the streets. "Those shots might of attracted some attention, I suggest that we move''
"Where will we go?'' Glynda asked, ready to follow.
"I was sent here to round up survivors and take them to a secure military outpost, safe from the virus'' Ozpin explained, stepping through the broken window and observing the empty streets. "You're the first I've come across''
Glynda was right behind him, gripping the pistol that he hadn't even tried to get back, though she guessed that he just wants them both to have a way to defend themselves. "Will we be looking for other survivors now?"
"I don't know, I've been here for hours and only came across you. Plus, the only place I haven't looked yet is the east side of the city and that isn't exactly safer then here from what we could observe''
''So, any survivors there are…trapped?'' Glynda rubbed her dry eyelids again in some sort of comfort, Ozpin was standing completely still with a determined look on his face.
"No, because I'm not leaving anyone behind''