She watched them edge out of the house, into the rain. They were dim against the world, scrunched down by the rain, but they were there! She'd gotten used to the constant hunger and the coughing-- but her tongue seemed possessed of its own volition, and she would watch as it hauled food to her OH NOOO NO NO NO THEY WERE PEOPLE THEY WERE PEOPLE NOT FOOD NOT FOOD and eaten and been full, and everything was alright. Now the smoker was hungry again, and all she could see was food. NOT FOOD! NOOOOOOO!

Trembling with exertion, Joanna beat down the craving and just watched. Her claws curled into fists reflexively, clenching around air. Her feet, however, moved her, and she jumped out of the window. The smoker's tough muscles took the twenty foot drop easily, and it SHE! She moved after the red smears that had talked. People. Living people. "Maybe..." Maybe a way to find out about this nightmare. With that thought, she screwed down her instincts and dropped a ton of mental sand on them. Now she was ready. She limped off into the rain to try and make a friend.

The blurs stayed to the left, next to the buildings-- she climbed a thoughtlessly-placed drainpipe and resumed pursuit along the ledge. The two blurs stopped and brightened, so she thought they might have gotten out of the rain somehow. She began to climb down the front of the building.

The smoker landed and stalked to a window, preparing to grab the weak one and NO barely curtailed launching her tongue at the only living people she'd seen in weeks. Whew. She walked inside and tried to put her hands over her head. She partially succeeded-- her shoulders worked differently. "I--" she croaked, "I-- surrender." Her tongue was itching her like crazy.

Lucy saw the smoker appear from the curtains of rain and scream at them, but she couldn't understand it. Its hands came up and it started coughing, so she raised the shotgun and shouted, "Get down!"

Joanna saw their faces go slack, then the female brought up her weapon and shouted something she couldn't understand. The smoker's tongue burst from her mouth and punched the weapon from the female, then blam

and her shoulder jerked and

blam blam

she was blown back into the rain, crumpled backwards in the street, coughing wetly and gasping for breath. She managed to let her tongue slide out, stopping it from leaking blood into her windpipe, and heaved a breath. She turned over and began to crawl away, moaning in agony.

Percival stood over the smoker. Likely it didn't even know he was there. The rain thundered in his ears, but he could still hear it coughing. It had attacked them, and was still alive. "Not for long."

The noise made the smoker stiffen. He aimed at its head. Seemed a waste of a bullet, but he had to know it was dead. "End of the line."

She knew he was behind her, and her muscles gave out. She collapsed, bonelessly, and the pistol barked blam and

Percy watched the smoker disintegrate. It bothered him that they did that whole turning-to-dust thing; it wasn't right, somehow. Not having a corpse made him feel cheated. Not that he'd tell little old 'Luce' that until the time was right Maybe he'd have to make one. He turned, reloaded absently, and walked back into the U-Store-It, rattling the metal door closed behind him. Hmm...maybe she'll be grateful.

Joanna opened her eyes and watched the world rotate around her. She felt curious, distant; eventually she realized that this was because she was dead. This didn't seem to matter, much. For some reason, she would only be dead for a few more seconds. She became aware of a pressure, a forcing, and then her gaseous form reintegrated abruptly, and quite painfully. A scream escaped her, then she gasped a breath and began coughing. Dying once had not been fun, but the prospect of dying several times over cemented an idea that had been persistently rapping on some mental door. "...I'm in Hell."

It made perfect sense. So if she was in Hell, chances were that everyone she met was either a demon or the damned. She looked to her right, located the red glows again. An area around them was glowing-- she'd figured out that a corona meant heat was being contained, so they were inside a room of some kind. Lucky I studied neuroscience and vision processing for a semester. She climbed the building next to the metal door and settled in to wait. Her senses were on hyper alert, but she was strangely relaxed, patient. Biding my time...

Time went by. Eventually, the two glows came together, then one got up and moved quickly to the door. The other joined it, and the glows melted together for quite some time. Occasionally redly glowing spots would fly out of the glows. She dropped several levels of a fire escape to investigate. Every time a gout of orange appeared, one of the overlapped glows dimmed. Eventually the glows separated again, and one seemed much brighter than the other. The brighter glow pulled up the sliding aluminum door and became a redly glowing male, although the rain dampened his color slightly.

My turn thought the smoker and lashed out with a whipping tongue, pinning his hands to his body and pulling him back and off balance.

Percy had left the U-Store-It with a self-satisfied smile (and minus his wrist-sheathed daggers). That'd teach her to threaten a guy like him. But his smile was abruptly replaced by terror as the tongue encircled him and squeezed. "No!" He shouted, trying to palm his wrist blades and finding them missing. Shouting was a mistake, as it turned out-- the slimy tentacle squeezed harder then and he felt the starflare pain of ribs cracking, and he was dragged backwards to dangle, struggling feebly. Another smoker? He kept trying to draw breath, but the constriction was relentless. He couldn't...quite...reach his boot knives. Black spots appeared at the edges of his vision and crowded in. He remembered the knife sheathed at the small of his back, and went for it. His fumbling fingers wouldn't close around the handle, and it fell through his waistband. A single, choked cry of despair burst out of the remains of his lungs. His oxygen-starved brain offered up one final thought just before his spine broke and he died. What a way to go. At least I showed that b—.

The smoker gleefully pulled up its catch and dug in. The rain poured down. Eventually the smoker filled itself, and jumped easily down to wander through Hell, looking for another victim. It pushed through the crowd of infected, slapping down commons that growled or yipped at it. It wasn't so scary when you were the demon, Joanna thought. She thought about entering the building the man had come from, but decided that some things even demons didn't need to see.

The sky lightened a fraction, and the rain began to let up. The immense horde of commons began to drift towards the bodies, drawn by the scent. She knew them, instinctively, as brothers and sisters, but also that all of them would fight at the drop of a claw or the scent of fresh blood. They were mindless, responding only to violence and death and light. Heartsick, she watched them beat and slash at each other, heedless of the damage, trying to get to the food. Whatever had swept over the city had taken a terrible toll—sometimes she envied the commons for their ignorance of the nightmare world around them.

Joanna climbed back up a handy drainpipe-- she was incredibly strong, now, and climbing was a breeze-- and stood on the roof, watching the world lighten. The clouds had disappeared, leaving hints of stars and the glow of the sun coming 'round the horizon. Below her, commons scurried for shelter from the burning rays of the sun. She knew it would hurt, but it had been weeks since she'd seen a sunrise. At least there's something wonderful left in this godsforsaken world. At first she was nervous that the clouds would block it, but then they split and the glorious sun rose over the concrete horizon. Her eyes immediately watered, but she basked in the wonder of an infrared sunrise. Then she scuttled for the shadow of the building next to her and sighed with relief. The clouds closed back in, swallowing up the light of the sun and leaving the sky bleak and gray again. Dazzled, she coughed again, irritated by the thing that had taken possession of her tongue. Something landed next to her with a thump. She cleared the rest of the light dazzle from her eyes and peered at the newcomer.

It was a squat, powerful-looking figure, dressed in street clothes and a hood thrown back. Its lips were pulled up in a grimace, revealing needle-pointed teeth. The sun peeked through the clouds for a moment and it cringed, pulling the hood up and casting its face in darkness. Then it spoke. "Sziszterr, come. Prey..." Without waiting for a response, the hunter crouched and leaped down to the street, crossing in two powerful bounds and fetching up against the shadowed building opposite. The smoker followed, dropping five stories with no trouble and limp-hopping across the street as fast as it could. Once she was cloaked in shadow again, she could make out the heat signature of four humans in a basement. The hunter peered out from under its concealing hood and commanded, "Follow, yesz…" Joanna agreed wholeheartedly. She'd found purpose. If she could have the chance to bring down more demons, maybe she wouldn't have to go insane in this horrible body. Maybe it could be useful.