...
"... What..?" Nina lifts her head from the cement beneath her. She opens her eyes, and deconstructs some of her rods. Adjusting her eyes, to the bright light that welcomed her. It was an electric light, barely hanging on by two, damaged cords. It flickered slightly. As she stared up at it. She slowly took note of the metallic piping, and ruined, cement ceiling. She looked around... seeing that she was in a cement corridor, literred with trash, dried blood-stains on the walls. Rusty, but still somehow shining pipes, lined the ceiling. She groaned internally, as she picked herself up, off the floor.
As she stood up, she took in the floor. Cracked cement, picked-clean bones, mixed in with trash. Difficult to tell if they're human...
She looks over her body, at the sticky human blood, and dust... she quickly consumed it... and was immediately surprised, upon finding microbes that could resist. Unfamiliar... alien. She still consumed them, but it took her five minutes. The DNA was completely different, from anything she had experienced before. Barely resembled anything she had encountered, so far. It wasn't Earthly.
She looked around, as she took a small moment, to study the DNA. Finding nothing of real use in it, she just stored it in with junk DNA. Like with many other microbes she had eaten before, it was practically useless. But she kept the DNA, anyhow. Seeing as it could prove some use, in the future. Incase she encounters anything quite like it.
She pulled out a coin, from the trash. A sticky, USD penny. She shrugged, and looked left and right. Both ways, were just more passageways. Similar corners. Behind her, she realized, was a door... judging by the symbol, it was likely a broom closet.
She tried the knob... either locked, or broken. She didn't care either way. As she ripped it off it's hinges... as expected, on the other side, was a collection of cleaning supplies in a small closet. After all, the symbol on the door, was a mop in a trolley.
She searched through, for anything that could be useful. Nothing of real note.
She looked down at the coin she had grabbed, shrugged, and flipped it. It landed on heads, and she started down the left passage.
Coming up to a rusty, steel door... she tried this one, and it opened easily. But on the other side, was just a bathroom. She didn't plan on using the sewer, just yet. She could still try the right passageway.
And so, that's what she did, she started down the cememnt hallway... kicking open doors on each side, every time revealed an office room... is this some kind of prank? Blackwatch wouldn't do this, and they didn't even know she existed. They were just looking for that distant cousin of hers, Alex Mercer.
Her head began to ache horribly, as she attempted to figure out how she got here. Kicking open office room doors, left and right.
Finally, rounding another corner, she came upon another door. This one opened, with no resistance. Cool air washed over her, as she stared off, into an alleyway. it didn't make sense, why such a small office complex, would be down this alleyway.
She headed back, and attempted to get anything out of the computers... it was just a group of inconspicuous windows tech support scammers, who "worked" here. They had accumulated 15 million dollars, over several years. She took the debit cards, from all abandoned wallets she could find. Stashing them into a wallet, she had crafted... she headed back to the alleyway.
She looked through a few doors, she came across. First, lead to what appeared to an abandoned bakery. Nothing of use here. Down another door, she came across an abandoned gun shop. Old, dusty weapons still inside. She nabbed several AR-15s, glocks... and several other weapons, that seemed most useful. She used her tendrils, to make them all select fire weapons... and, running low on biomass, just snagged one Type 56 AK, and converted it as well. Before Grabbing all the appropriate ammunition.
She was very low on biomass. Only had as much, as two adult men. She sighed, as she entered the next building. It was a dollar store. She consumed every food can, all of the stale candies, and even some peanut butters. With a stock of, mostly useless bio-
mass... she was a bit of a happy camper.
She arrived at the end of an alleyway, and ducked back. Seeing... drones? It was hard to tell what they even were, but they certainly weren't blackwatch. Wrong insignia... not gentek either. What looked to be an APC, rolled past.
She extended a tendril, to keep an eye on them. Before looking around, just after they rounded a corner. This street, appeared to be completely deserted. She internally sighed, as she managed to silently get up, on top of a building. Looking around, she saw a cyberpunky, dystopia. Aside from the large, floating building, wires leading to it... All she saw, aside from that APC, and the drones that accompanied it... was what appeared to be some kind of quarantine zone.
Even with her powerful vision enhancements, she couldn't see much, past what appeared to be a border.
She pulled out the only rifle, that had a scope. One of the more high quality Armalite Rifles. She loaded a mag into it. And managed to form a suppressor, just in case. She engraved some threads, onto the end of the barrel. And twisted the suppressor onto it. She then looked around, with the fully zoomed in scope. She spotted an abandoned beer bottle, on one of the rooves. She took a potshot at it... the bullet veered to the left.
After a few more rounds, they consistently veered a foot to the left. She then adjusted the scope, and shattered the beer bottle with one more round.
This rifle, was now accurate enough to pick a bead of sweat, off someone's forehead, after a little more trial and error.
She then, just for fun... killed a fly, she had managed to spot.
After marvelling over her rifle, and being disappointed about not having the paint she wanted... she looked over the border. She would spot, what appeared to be soldiers. In mostly grey uniforms. They definitely weren't blackwatch... different designs, different tech, different insignias, even different tactics. These guys just wandered along the border. There were no zombies swarming it, which was another sign that this wasn't even manhatten. It appeared to be... eastern europe. Judging from the building designs, anyways...
She tried to remember what happened, just before waking up in that hallway. All she could remember, was walking into an alleyway,
in pursuit of a gang member. Looking to consume him... before a loud boom, and seeing nothing but white. Afterwards, she just remembers blackness, and then that ceiling light.
She shook her head... the only explanation, is that she's somehow been teleported here... though, the loud boom she remembers, does indeed support that theory. It doesn't make much sense... wait... she remembers now, there was the sound of an engine... but, attemtping to think on it, just caused her to gasp out of pain. Her head was buzzing, like a beehive... she shook her head, once again. Before continuing on.
She slipped into another alleyway, and started heading towards the center of this quarantine zone.
Along the way, she started spotting some weird growth, on the ground. She was deciding on whether or not she should consume it, when something turkey sized jumped at her. It shrieked, as it flew towards her. Her reflexes kicked in, and she punched her hand through it. A beak of some kind, poked against her forearm, but couldn't penetrate.
She quickly consumed it, and fell to her ass.
She clutched her head, as red memories, of being born from the sack of a much larger, but similar creature... going through some kind of portal... and attaching to the head of a woman, flashed through her mind.
She remembered attuning to the nervous system, and controlling the human host, who screamed along the way, attempting to resist.
She remembered eventually running out of flesh on her host, and then finding another potential host... then pain, after pouncing.
She shook her head again, as she pulled her hands away... this creature could control humans? What was it? The beak... it broke into the spine, and hijacked the nervous system. Separating the brain, as much as possible. She... she could use this, but it's cruel, even for her. She shook her head, deciding that she'll still use it, but kill the brain in the process.
Deciding that it was an alright alternative to infecting humans, and turning them into zombies... she started devising plans on how to weaponize this. She shook her head... gotta find herself a base of operations, first.
to be continued...
**Sorry for the short chapter, just kicking off the story, first!**
