Hello, everyone!
I thought I'd better post the reason I was on hiatus for about a month.
People have celebrity fics, yes? I've seen them on AO3. This is mine. Welcome to my one and only Dude Perfect story, Two Halves of a Soul.
Long story short: I challenged my siblings to a Get Crafty and this was the result. We had a week to write a DP fanfiction...this took a month. Sorry y'all.
This is a post-apocalyptic AU and based off DP's Zombie Airsoft Battle. Most of the final chapters follow the canon storyline. Nothing too graphic or violent, since it's DP and we want to keep it kid-friendly, but rated T for major character death. IF YOU LOVE (OR ARE SOMEHOW PART OF) DP AND WOULD LIKE A KID-FRIENDLY CUT PLEASE PM ME BEFORE READING. I will happily give you the K-rated cut. I have to make one for my little brother anyway.
I hope y'all enjoy! Though I'd love for those who are The Night Is Overcome and Confessions fans to not read this and to instead read those stories, WHICH ARE STILL BEING UPDATED.
My only request: read this alone and don't tell anyone. Treat it like Not Top Ten.
If you do read this, I'd love feedback. I've worked hard on this fic and I hope it's good.
Thanks everyone!
Pound it!
Noggin!
See ya!
Coby Cotton
April 13, 2032
Ruin River Survival Camp
1937 hours
The evening sun has vanished behind a dark gray canopy, and the promise of rain fills me with anticipation. I've always enjoyed rain, the way it washes the dusty forest clean. But it's going to make it hard to gather athaflax for a while, since the spring rains have been liberal, turning the ground to mud near the growth sites of the precious plant.
I pull an athaflax shootling—a mature one, I think, but I can't be sure—from the ground and stow it in the satchel at my side. Cory's the one that's good with plants; I'll have to ask him when we get back to camp.
On the way back, I check my snares, hoping to get something more substantial than athaflax for dinner. I prefer to use the plant for medicine, though it's an excellent food source if you can't get anything else. Miraculously, a squirrel has wandered into one trap, and I pick up the snare and carry it back to camp, a tingle of relief in my chest.
The Woods of Wasting loom starkly around me as I traverse the path back to the Ruin River Survival Camp, the place my twin and I have called home since the zombie apocalypse began. As its name suggests, the camp is built on the shore of the Ruin River, an amalgamation of logs, rope, and tattered cloth. Cory and I live on a plywood platform twenty feet up in the trees, to deter zombies, and a tarp provides all the roof we need. It's a precarious setup, but it'd be better to fall out of a tree than to be bitten.
I cross the tree trunk that spans the river, noting the water's murky brown color and the higher level that it's been running at all spring. Today, the water is so high that it brushes the mossy underside of the trunk, and I make a mental note to monitor it. We've come close to floods before, and the camp couldn't stand against one if it happened.
The other survivalists eye me warily as I walk across the camp with the squirrel and athaflax. They know better than to try and steal my supplies—I might be a little undersized, but I've learned how to use a pistol so well that I could shoot any of them through the heart before they even reached for me. The real danger is when they try to attack Cory—we're the same size, but he's not much of a fighter.
One could say that Cory isn't much of anything, except a colossal idiot. He's one minute younger than me, overdramatic, reckless, and completely useless when it comes to fighting zombies. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to badmouth my twin, but it's accurate. And it's not that he's not smart—it's just that he doesn't have many of the skills needed to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. Despite his lack of survival instinct, though, he has the biggest heart of anyone I know, and I'd die for him. Although if I did, Cory would lose his mind and wander into a horde of zombies, so it'd be best not to die.
I climb the rope ladder to the platform, setting my satchel in my hammock and glancing around our living quarters. The hammocks hang in one corner, and across a large branch is the closed-off bathroom. The space heater has been tucked into a hole in the tree for now, since it's not quite night yet, and the misting fan for summer sits beside it. Our hot plate and water dispenser are in the corner we call the kitchen, with spare blankets stacked nearby. The only decorations we have are the strings of beads and feathers hanging from the ceiling—we looted an arts and crafts store, as well as a camping one—and the scrap of plywood nailed to the tree, with 100% Cotton spray-painted on it in blue and yellow. Cory and I made that sign when we were eleven, after our parents died.
"Cobes!" yells Cory's voice, and I look over the edge of the platform as my twin jogs into camp, a satchel of plants slung over his shoulder. "I found onions!"
This provokes death glares from the other survivalists. See, in Ruin River, everyone fends for themselves, and stealing each other's food is perfectly acceptable, so I have to make sure that I always get back before or with Cory in case everyone else tries to take his scavengings. It's happened before, although once I learned how to shoot properly, the residents have left us alone. They always do, unless Cory walks in by himself. Then they've basically got free dinner.
Suffice it to say that no one alive is fond of the Cotton twins. The dead, maybe, and the undead, more so, but the survivalists…hey, you've gotta hate a pair of scrawny orphans, right?
My twin climbs onto the platform and draws up the rope ladder, dropping his satchel onto the floor. "Let's get the hot plate fired up, Cobes! Hey—is that a squirrel? That's, like, the best thing ever!"
"We got lucky," I reply, turning on the hot plate and then filling our only pot with water. "I can't remember the last time we got a squirrel."
I watch Cory pull the cutting board from its slot in the tree and start chopping up wild onions, noticing with a pang, as I always do, the dark circles under his eyes. I don't know if there's been a day in the last six years in which neither of us has looked exhausted. It's one of the many ways in which we are identical.
"Did you get athaflax?" Cory asks, tipping the onions into the pot. "The roots would really top this off."
"Yup. It's in the bag. Bring it over here, would you, Cor? I don't know if it's mature."
He crosses the platform, picks up the snare and the satchel, and tosses them over to me. I catch the squirrel and let the athaflax thump onto the plywood. Pulling out my knife, I start skinning the squirrel, and Cory sits down next to me, picking up the athaflax shootling and cutting the roots off. I guess the plant is fine, then.
My twin bumps his shoulder against mine, nearly causing me to drop the knife. "You ready for the storm, Cobes?"
"Always," I reply. "We're gonna have to put the cans out. Rain's always better than river water."
After I finish preparing the meat, I chop it into small cubes, throwing it into the pot. Cory tips the athaflax roots off the cutting board, and they splash into the water, sending small searing droplets flying through the air. A deep peal of thunder rolls through the woods, and rain begins to fall outside. I breathe deeply, inhaling the scent of petrichor, and watch as the soup starts to simmer on the hot plate.
"You think they're close to a cure yet?" Cory asks, scooting over to the edge of the platform and letting his legs dangle over the side. I follow him, looking out over the camp as the rain starts to cascade onto the lean-tos and tents.
"I don't know, Cor," I say, the same answer I always give. "I would say we'd have heard, but you don't hear much of anything out in the woods. Sometimes I wonder if we should've stayed in the city."
"Me too," Cory sighs. "But…we can't go back there. Not even for supplies."
The city is probably the only thing Cory is afraid of. The kid is fearless, unfazed by virtually anything, even zombies—and sometimes he's too brave for his own good. But the dark recesses of Woodlands and the dust drifting through the air terrify him. Our parents died trying to get us out of there, and he's never been back. I've snuck back into the city occasionally for supplies when we're really desperate, but I've never told Cory. It's one of the only secrets I keep from my twin.
When the soup is ready, I ladle it into the only two bowls we own, and we say grace before eating. I swear it's the best thing I've ever tasted, certainly more substantial than anything we've eaten for a while. The squirrel and athaflax roots complement each other well, and the onions lend the soup a flavor unlike anything I've had for the last six years.
"I'll go put the cans out," Cory offers, setting his empty bowl on the plywood. "And I'll go down and mark the water level—I'm pretty sure it's been getting higher. Any more and it'll knock over the bridge."
I start cleaning out the bowls and the pot as Cory grabs our water cans, climbing the ladder leaning against the tree to put them on the rain stand. We're definitely going to need more water soon—the dispenser is running out.
Cory winces as he steps back onto the platform, and my gaze rakes over his body, pinpointing the injury site. He freezes in the middle of rolling his shoulder, realizing that I'm watching him.
"Cory," I sigh. "Again?"
"I'm fine! Really!"
"No, you're not."
I stand and cross the platform, grabbing my twin by the hood with one hand and pulling aside the fabric of his hoodie with the other. Sure enough, a dark bruise is starting on Cory's shoulder, and he grins sheepishly up at me.
"What happened?" I ask, releasing Cory and stepping back.
"Just—same as always," Cory mumbles, the smile dropping off his face as he stares at his shoes. "I can't stop them, Cobes, there's no point in trying. I'm too small. Anyway, it was before I found the onions, so they didn't get those."
I sigh, dragging a hand down my face. "But we can't just let you keep getting beat up for a couple of stupid plants."
"I'm used to it," Cory says, shrugging and then wincing again. "I'm gonna go mark the water, okay? Don't worry about it."
"Careful," I warn, deciding to drop the issue for now. We'll talk about it later. "Don't go into the current. I don't want you getting swept away."
"C'mon, dude," Cory laughs. "I know I'm not the brains of this operation, but I'm not that stupid."
"Sometimes you…" I trail off. "Okay. Just don't get yourself killed, Cor, okay?"
"I'm going fifty feet, Cobes, it's not like I'll walk into a den of zombies or something."
Cory climbs down the rope ladder, and I keep one eye on my twin as he crosses the camp to the bridge, hoping I don't have to shoot anything. I'm reluctant to let Cory go anywhere on his own, since he really is liable to stumble into a den of zombies or possibly a ravine, and he won't kill the zombies even if confronted.
Another peal of thunder booms, and I wait for it to peter out. It doesn't. In fact, it gets louder, and I poke my head over the side of the platform to check out what's going on.
Cory is kneeling on the bridge, looking up in shock. Rain pours down as the other survivalists run into the trees, screaming.
And a wall, a literal wall, of water and debris is exploding through the woods.
"Cor, move!" I shout, flinging myself onto the rope ladder, but it's too late. The water engulfs my brother faster than I can blink, and I feel bad for thinking Cory's an idiot, because I then make what is probably the stupidest decision of my life.
I push off the rope ladder, sucking in a breath, and plunge into the torrent.
The water is dark and murky, but warmer than I expected given that it's only April. Still, twigs and branches are caught in it, lashing against my face as I tumble through the current. When my head comes back up, I gasp in air and yell, "Cory!"
"Coby!" he screams, his voice hoarse and far away. "Help!"
"Hang on!"
I've always been a good swimmer. Cory isn't, which is to be expected, but even if he were, swimming isn't really something one can do in a flash flood. The current is too strong, too fast, and even pointing my feet downstream is darn near impossible. I try to fight it, but it pulls me back down into the depths. Water starts to creep into my lungs, and I decide that I will not go down today if I can help it. I wait until my feet touch something hard, and then I push upward.
My head breaks the surface, and I suck in air as I glance around wildly for Cory. No dark-haired head bobs above the water, no screams cut through the roar of the flood.
But a tree branch dips very near to the surface of the water, and there's no way of avoiding it. Terror shoots through me, the flood catapults me forward, and a flash of pain explodes in my skull as the lights go out.