The room that laid outside of the briefing would have been dark and impossible to navigate, if it wasn't for the flickering, dim ceiling lights that kept the small space below somewhat visible, although very eerily shadowed. It was an obvious makeshift contraption, a long and thick cord lead out of it, fastned to whatever surface it could be, presumably plugged into a power strip hidden out of the way somewhere. She almost at once realized how destroyed the floor was, what used to be laminate was now cracked and brittle like plastic, peeling to reveal old and rotting boards that laid underneath, covered in layers of dirt and ice. It wasn't like the first time when Spy had shown her around and it was dim enough to just assume that the floor was made from packed dirt.
"It's a shitpile in here, watch your step!" Soldier said with a laugh, "gotta love the luxuries of the apocalypse!"
Luxuries indeed. The hall was wide and dark, the only things providing any light were the few lamps that were situated on the floor, against the walls. It seemed as if there was one lamp for each room, there was about twelve of them. There were no windows, but she could feel the cold air slithering through what were probably drafts in cracks in the wall and ceiling. It was little cleaner than the the small room it lead out of; the floors in there were made of lumpy and and uneven concrete. They must have tried to fix that particular area up and run out of supplies before the job could be finished. The doors sitting in the frames were barely there, worn down and slightly warped from the elements.
"Guess it's cozy sleeping in here, isn't it." Wynter muttered sarcastically.
"You say that like you expected a four star hotel! This isn't a vacation, if it was you'd be signing a plane ticket to Hawaii! This is... boot camp!"
"Hey, hey, alright, calm down Sergeant Anger. Save some of that aggression for the war, yeah?" Wynter reasoned mockingly, trying to hold back a laugh. What a hysterical character. "I'm just joking around with you."
"Well you better watch out because around here, joking around will get you killed. Killed, Lieutenant..." Soldier's voice trailed off. "Do you have a last name?"
"Corey."
"Ah. I knew that... well, you better watch out because around here, joking around here will get you killed, Lieutenant Corey!"
"Charming way to die."
Soldier either didn't hear her or chose to ignore her, leading her to the very end of the hall, opening one of the frail and rickety doors to reveal a small, dark, modest room. The walls had boards nailed up in various places, the walls themselves fashioned out of what appeared to be tile. The only items inside of the room were a hospital bed, a large wooden crate that had "MANN CO" stamped on the sides sitting near it, and another was placed in the corner, filled with what looked like linens.
"I asked Spy to put some blankets in that crate, because you're gonna need 'em." Soldier said, picking up a lamp from outside the door and bringing it in, turning the knob on the side to enlarge the flame, casting more light into the room and allowing Wynter to look around. It wasn't much, but by leaps and bounds it was way better than sleeping oudoors under a snow-covered tarp, or a hole in a pile of snow, or out by a campfire laying in the snow...
As far as she was concerned, there was no snow, and she was happier than a pig in shit. The bed might not end up being warm, the walls drafty, but goddamn it was going to be dry.
Soldier opened a door in the wall to reveal a small bathroom. "The only place we have running water is the showering rooms, if you have to use the toilet in here, don't."
"So where do you..."
"We have a shower room, I'll show you in the morning. For now, I'll give you a few minutes to get settled in."
Wynter silently laughed to herself. "Shower. Haven't had one of those in almost a year..."
Soldier tipped his helmet to her, and left the room. She wasn't completely sure how she was supposed to 'get settled' because she hadn't brought anything with her.
Well, she had a backpack with some clothes but those were back at the shelter, almost a convenient half mile away. She wasn't sure if she'd get the chance to go retrieve it alone, and she didn't want to end up in a situation she'd have to tell everyone where she was going.
"I need to have a plan B in case I piss somebody off and I end up on my own again..." she thought to herself. She still wasn't sure how good or bad the outcome of all this was going to be, though a few of the team members were pretty friendly with her, it was the disapproving ones -especially Medic- that had her worried.
In her mind, she made a mental list of things that she ought to work on while she was here. Things like asking intelligent questions, not asking questions when they're stupid, having physical endurance when it came to training tomorrow or whenever they decided to test her abilities. That would entail mastering any combat techniques, shooting, aiming, or stabbing they saw fit to teach her.
She didn't want to drag anyone down, or waste anyone's time. She remembered occassions when her father would take the time out of the day to teach her something and it would take her a while to get the hang of it. It was a feeling of being useless, and it was a feeling she greatly disliked. Even a small twinge of it in the back of her mind was enough to bother her.
Wynter smoothed out the mattress of the hospital bed, patting it down a little before climbing onto it to rest for a moment. It wasn't the most comfortable thing in the world -it was old, somewhat thin, and lumpy- but she was grateful for it.
"I wish you could be here..." She thought quietly to herself, thoughts of her father entering her head.
With a sigh, she closed her eyes to relax in thought, time seemed to slow to a halt as she acknowledged this first time in a while she'd actually had a quiet moment to herself without constantly listening for preadatorous animals in the bush or fellow humans that may not be meaning so well.
It was ironic, laughable even, to think the very place she had wound up in to be drafted, set right smack in the middle of an Armageddeon battle of sorts, would be the place she found peace. Even if only for a little while.