The ever winding circle of life.

Now leaving the land of stars and signs

Karkat stood on top of a building. He sighed, and fell back on the roof, landing on his back, and looked up at the stars, wondering if this nightmare would ever end. If he would ever again see the human he loved dear, or even if said human was even still alive. Karkat sighed and looked up at the constellations and found cancer. "Well, I bet the snob already fucking forgot about me anyway," he said before turning over, and falling through the hole in the roof in which he came up through in the first place. And within a swirl of his cape and a premature swing of his sickle, he checked the area around him for the dead. But, there was nothing. He was still alone. But, Karkat listened intently at the low moans from the room that was boarded up with a warning sign on it reading "DEAD INSIDE". From the look of the boards, they weren't getting out anytime soon, and there was no way for any of the dead to get up to the top floor of a hospital when every flight of traits that left up to another floor had a twist handle door knob on it. So Karkat decided lay down and try to sleep. Even though he didn't think he could in another million sweeps, Karkat was asleep in less than a minute. It was approximately an hour later when Karkat wakes up because he heard the scuffling of feet, and opening his eyes was probably the worst mistake he ever made. Karkat opened his eyes to see the narrow eyes of a zombie clicking its teeth mere inches from his face. Now it's a good thing Karkat slept with his sickle in hand, so he struck hard straight through the repulsive things brain. Karkat quickly stood up was swarmed instantly. "SHIT!" Is all Karkat had the time to say before they swarmed. Karkat looked up towards the hole in the ceiling hoping for one last look at the stars and constellations when he realized what he saw was not just stars but a silhouette of a person reaching a hand down from the hole in the ceiling, Karkat took no time whatsoever to react jumping up 6 feet into the air and grabbing the persons out reached hand dragging himself up to the roof of the old hospital.
"Are you infected?" The person asked in the most demanding voice that karkat had heard in a long time. Karkat took a shaky breath and looked himself over noting one small scratch on his outer wrist barely broke skin, karkat sucked about an ounce of blood out of his arm through the cut and spat every scrap of it out, before answering the girl.
"I'm fine thanks" karkat said before turning to leave stopping instantly and turned to face the girl.
"Rose, help me." Karkat motioned down to the writhing mass of dead corpses.
"Karkat I've been roaming this broken hospital for a while now, there's tons of them in there! How are you expecting to clear them all out." Rose looked dismayed, she had seen no life except from an occasional corpse and, at this point she had just about given up, about lost all hope of ever seeing her friends alive again, it was only when she heard a familiar voice did she realize she was no longer alone. As she walked towards the voice she had seen karkat roll and fall into a hole in the roof, and she was the one who had put the walking corpses  into the room, so she knew that there was several dead in there, so she had ran and reached her hand down to help as soon as possible.
"There's about 30 of them in this floor. We can handle that many together... I have to know if there is anyone I know. And if there is, I.... I can't leave them like that." Karkat finished a fire already burning in his chest cavity.
Karkat turned  to survey the area and saw a familiar figure running into the lower floor of the hospital and was being followed by about five or six mobile dead.
"Shit" karkat said as he lept off the building and slid down the side getting to the bottom and immediately heading into the hospital avoiding the corpses and opening the door and calling to the girl immediately.
"Vriska! Shit. Follow me!" karkat hollered as quietly as he could before turning and running at the zombies and taking out four easily bit the last one was proving a challenge.
Karkat had his sickle at the ready striking at the back of the neck aiming for the spinal cord and missing, the corps leaned over snapping teeth less than an inch away from Karkats neck
"SHIT" it was the most karkat like thing that he had said in the last 3 months sense this had all started, and he had lost all purpose, except to find john. All karkat wants is to find john. As if that thought sent power through karkat he swung again this time taking the things head right off its filthy rotting body.
Huffing and puffing from stress and anticipation, karkat climbed the latter of the fire escape stopping for breath only when he reached the top and Vriska was safe beside him.
"What the hell were you thinking!" karkat demanded to Vriska.
"weeeeeeeell " Vriska sighed
"Let me start from the beginning, I was sitting in that old tree there" Vriska started while pointing a specific tree out.
"While I was wondering where the hell you guys were, I mean I haven't seen you in weeks! Anyway I started walking over to you guys because I saw you sitting here like an idiot staring at the stars, a few blocks back, I whistled my theme song for spinneret mindfang while I was walking to see you guys! Then those creepy dead things started following me! 
"Are you injured? Infected?" Rose asked rather calmly as she and karkat looked over Vriska while she protested.
"ooooooooh god I'm fine really, besides woooooooow I thought the likes of you would be dead by now! Who would have thought? Now back off and stop gawking or I'm going to kick both of you." Vriska stated matter of factly with a grin on her face. Karkat and Vriska both backed off satisfied that she wasn't infected.
"I'm glad one of us is having fun with this" rose pointed out Vriskas smile and grinned herself.
Vriska sat down atop of an old generator and smiled cheekily.
"so what is this place anyway?" Vriska said from her perch on the generator.
""I'm guessing it was a hospital, long-since run down and filled to the brim with these walking corpses." Rose replied looking around herself and surveying the area.
"Really? Hm, reanimating the dead, seems more Aradia doesn't it? Did you see her?" She asked, slightly hopeful it was her.
"No, I haven't seen anyone for months until today. But listen guys we have to take care of all of those corpses on the top floor while were here, there's a lot of supplies that we're going to need eventually." Karkat interjected as he looked down at the heard of dead who have stopped moving now that there was nothing to hunt.
"God don't you think that's a bit dangerous karkat? How many are down there anyway huh?" Vriska looked at karkat raising an eyebrow at him wondering if he was serious or not.
"About 30" karkat replied rolling his eyes.
"We cannot let this opportunity escape us. Vriska..., Rose, are you in or not?" karkat said figuring out if he was going at it alone or not.
"Yeah" Rose and Vriska said in unison and looked at each other grinning.
"So then, any ideas?" karkat asked looking from Rose to Vriska, Back to Rose Etc.
"We have to have luck and intelligence. So, may8e we disguise ourselves as them and kill them off quietly?" Vriska said sounding intelligent.
"Vriska stop being dumb that won't work, they like movement, whether we make sound or not, with that many of them in one spot they'd follow us." Karkat said getting angry because of they're incompetence.
"I meant cover ourselves in their scent." Vriska said annoyed before dropping it and listening to what other ideas they came up with.
"Perhaps we could kill some of them off from up here? Rose looked around.
"This roof is covered in gravel and small rocks, when thrown at a fast enough rate they could perhaps break the skull and immediately kill them."
Rose threw the option on the table and glanced around as no one moved. Karkat leaned back onto a generator and sighed before brightening up a little.
"Vriska, do you think you could get a lucky roll of the dice?" karkat asked.
"It's worth a try." Rose answered for her.
"Yeah....Sure..." Vriska replied and hopped down off her perch on the generator next to karkat.
"Are you alright? You seem a bit dazed." Rose asked giving a look of concern.
"Yeah, I'm fine. I am just wondering about something." Vriska said walking to a flat spot to her dice.
"You see, I am wondering why anyone would do this. Even Aradia, and she's soulless. Heck, even I wouldn't do this as a joke...." Vriska trailed off, and Rose came to her rescue by sighing then replying with,
""I'm sure it will be over soon. All we can do for now is hope."
"Vriska, I'm giving you about 5 seconds to roll those shitty dice or I'm going to go do it myself." Karkat said in an obviously irritated voice.
"FINE." She spat and threw out her dice and they roll... And roll... They land! A 6,7,5! "Not too bad!" A good weapon appearifies. A long sword with a hook, and a small spider at the hilt, made of gold. Vriska throws it to Karkat. "Let's see what the pupa can do." She said smirking.
"Here" karkat said laying down on his stomach scooting to the edge of the hole making sure to test the sturdiness of the roof around it, then hung the sword over the lip and used it to shepherd the dead and pull off their heads with the hook. Meanwhile behind him Vriska is throwing another roll of dice.
"Come on.... Yes!" the dice land on 667 witch just so happens to be flintlock pistols.
"And Rose has a sword. One less person to really worry a8out." Vriska gave Rose a thumbs up and then turned to karkat who was standing up and dropping the sword.
"Okay, good god this sword is NOT doing for me." Karkat motioned to the guns and acknowledged them.
"Don't shoot me." Karkat said as he hopped down into the throng of monsters pulling out his sickles out and pulling an upper hand strike down on the top of one of their heads, and started to tear them apart quite fast.
"But... Ugh. FINE." Vriska throws the pistols down into the building in karkats general direction and rolls another set of dice.
"Ooh! 878!" she yells excitement at her new toy. A shotgun, low on ammo but still great.
"Okay now are we ready?" Vriska asked turning to Rose because karkat was already in the hospital like an idiot. Rose nodded jumping down and skillfully taking out a few of them with the sword karkat dropped. Karkat had already taken down several corpses about five actually by the time rose dot there, and by the way it looked the number was growing steadily, the blood lust showing bright cherry red in his eyes.
Vriska soon followed blowing up a few making quite a bit of noise in the process and attracting more of them towards her.
"SHIT, VRISKA CAREFULL WITH THE NOISE!" karkat yelled trying to be heard over the sound of moaning and shotgun noise.
"Vriska could you be any louder?" Rose yelled over the blows and groans, dodging a few attacks made by the zombies.
"IM SORRY" Vriska sarcastically yells in return. But really, she knew that was a pretty idiotic thing to do.
Karkat grunts in reply giving a lower hand strike straight through the skull of an oddly familiar corpse, but pays no attention to it as he moves onto the next, then the next, then the next... falling into robotic movements. Rose was no better off though as she was in the process of sliding under one of them to avoid there grasping hands, as they reached for her, but as soon as she was up she was slicing at the thoughts and severing their heads with the blade she held. Meanwhile Vriska was blowing up a couple of zombies, one of which was crawling, and looked extremely similar to someone she cared for once upon a time, but she ignored it as is typical for her to do.
"Oi, you good over there?" Vriska shouted over the last remaining zombies.
"So far!" Rose hollered back panting quietly standing over the seven to ten zombies she had already killed, karkat was doing the same standing over the piles of rotting flesh that he had put down in this battle, they both watched as Vriska killed the last two in the room. Vriska didn't hesitate, the moment she had the last one down she turned to karkat,
"Karkat you good on ammo? She asked almost seeming to care, but asking rather apathetically.
"Umm, ammo?" he asked questioning before looking around and seeing the pistols.
"Noooooooo I meant flying cats. YES I MEAN AMMO." She said to him.
"Oh, I didn't use them." He said shrugging it off.
"Okay!" She said in almost a culling voice.
"Is every one ok? No one's bit are they?" Rose interrupted the soon to be argument.
"Yep I'm fine!" Vriska called over to her turning flipping her hair at karkat.
"And, no, I wasn't bitten." Karkat said
"Like you care anyway." He mumbled under his breath.
"So what do we do now?" Vriska asks.
"We should check for supplies" Rose nodded and started searching the shelves.
"That was the fucking plan" karkat said as he turned to Vriska rolling his eyes.
Vriska started to follow some advice that Rose had given her, and began searching on the lower floors for supplies, and found medicine, water, rations, and an emergency survival kit.
THUMP something was drawing near
Rose found a bag of needles and multiple types of bandages, she took it and walked to the others.
"What'd you find?"
Vriska held up what she found. She had taken a backpack from a corpse.
"I have these, they could be useful" Rose said as she held up her bag of needles.