Nyxen sits around the small camp they've made since leaving the city a year ago. He still can't believe that it's been a year since this all happened and he's lost his brother. Him and Thalia have found other survivors but with no luck as they've had to kill them due to trying to take him and her as prisoners or take them out of this world. He was the one to decide that it'd be safer on their own to survive this hell. Nyxen gets up with a huff to go grab more kindle for the fire pit, running his fingers through his now shoulder length hair.
"This certainly doesn't get any easier man. Not as excited as when this started." He was only speaking his mind to himself when he hears the snapping of twigs behind him. He immediately spins himself around while grabbing hold of the knife and unsheathing it. He lets out a sigh of relief when his eyes set upon Thalia, whom was carrying a duffel bag over her right shoulder. "You were about to be shanked woman!" She smiles as she approaches him stopping in front of him and reaches up to tap his face a few times. "That is so sweet you thought you could. Good reaction time though and not grabbing your gun first either. Keeping the zombies away." She chuckles as she walks over to their tents by the fire pit and sets the duffel bag and starts sorting through it.
Nyxen just shakes his head, sheathes his knife with a slightly shakey hand, and resumes his search for more kindle to use for the fire pit. Thalia was taking out canned food, bottles of water, first aid items, and a few treats she found that she found he loved grabbing on his runs. She decides to lets herself smile a little as she knew he was still struggling with this new world and the loss of his brother without a proper burial. Thalia gets up, walks over a few steps to his tent and chucks the bags of chips into the tent. She walks to the log she has in front of the fire pit and sits down on it which felt great to her as she got to relax. "You know, you could let me do more runs. I'm not useless and definitely not dumb about how to survive. Considering we've gotten this far without us dying and my trap ideas with your location ideas have made our camp able to continue living in." Nyx says as he sees how relaxed she has gotten in seconds from sitting down on the log she used. He sets down a rather large bundle of branches and sticks he collected, grabbing his fire poking stick and pokes around the fire to make sure everything gets burned.
Thalia watches him but has always kept herself from asking him how he's been. She looks to him as a little brother from knowing his brother and everything he had told her about Nyxen. "Yeah, maybe you should go on more runs. Give you a break from being here and I think I'd enjoy the time not going out all the time." She wanted this for him so he could move on and to grow himself with more responsibility. It's definitely what his brother would have wanted and she's glad that Nyxen is wanting to do more now. She knows that the terms and situations aren't exactly what they were supposed to be for him to grow but it's better now than later. "Well, I'm going to take a little recon before fully relaxing here. Better to make sure that the traps are still up and haven't been tampered with." Nyxen interjects with a small smile, "Already did that before you got here and before I gathered the kindle. Just go rest, you've earned it."
Thalia nods as she stands up slowly to take in the fact she was going to actually enjoy some time away from making runs. She stretches her arms above her head for a few seconds before she drops them to her side so she could reach into her left side cargo pocket. She pulls out her hand out with a big folded up paper in her hand and tosses it to Nyxen. She watches him catch it as she heads to her tent. "A map with enough notes to show you where I've been, where we are, and what paths are the safest to take." Nyxen nods to her before he returns to the upkeep on the fire. He stays up for just an hour before he gets up to put out the fire by peeing on it. Once he had the fire put out, Nyxen heads to his tent and opens it up to see the bags of his favorite chips. This brings a warm smile to his face while he sets them off to the side, settles himself on top of the sleeping bag, and closes his eyes to succumb to the effects of slumber.
Once light shines right through his tent, Nyxen groans with agitation. "Morning came too soon." He mutters to himself as he slowly starts to sit up and rub his eyes to wake himself up. He gets himself up on his feet before walking out of the tent and not seeing Thalia anywhere. He got used to seeing her at least stretching in the morning before heading off on a run. This got him curious to see if she was up or not so he walks over to her tent to quietly unzip the tent door a little. He looks inside to see she was still asleep and he zips the door back up with relief in his mind.
"Enjoy some rest." He whispers under his breath as he began to grab some gear for the journey. Nyxen grabbed his big bag he had to grab instead of keeping his little one he had when this all started. He knew it'd slow him down but it could also carry more, a smart choice he knew he made. He grabs his pistol that was given to him by Thalia and holsters it in the holster strapped to his right thigh while he had his knife always strapped to him on his left hip. He made sure to pocket the map given to him so he wouldn't lose it. He didn't need her mad at him if he lost it on the first run out in a while. With that, he set off East of their camp after he takes out the map to help lead him to the nearest town that Thalia hadn't hit yet. He knew it'd be dangerous to go where they haven't checked out yet but he knew they weren't the only ones scavenging for supplies.
Nyxen travels through the woods, his focus on the path ahead of him. Throughout the year Thalia had taught him how to navigate through the area they were in and how to navigate in general. Just in case he did lose the map and needed to find his way back or if they got separated. He was kind of glad she taught him this as he thought of it as a way to help them survive better and they could plan better. Nyxen suddenly hears the sound of twigs snapping ahead of him, with the sound of staggering footsteps. He shuffles behind a tree to hide and peak out from behind it to try and see it was zombies or injured survivors. He looks around to find just a herd of zombies heading to his right in what he'd say would be around North in direction.
He patiently waits for them to pass so if he made too much noise they wouldn't be on top of him and get him stuck in a troublesome situation. After they pass along in what felt like an agonizing hour he moves forward, careful with his steps. Nyxen sighs with relief that he was patient to wait this out so he can get to the town that was only a mile out now. He never understood why Thalia ventured further than this little town that was two miles out from their camp. After what must have been an hour to reach the edge of the town, Nyxen looks around to do some recon from afar so he could see what is happening here that she wouldn't start here. That's when he notices a tower zombie in the distance, one that looks to be bigger than the one in the city as it easily looks to be 12 feet tall. "That is one huge and ugly looking motherfucker." He groans softly as he pockets the map in his back pocket.
He decides to just stay on the edge for now as the tower was on the other side of the town and what seems to be a few miles out. He makes his way to a trailer that looks it has seen better days, the pale yellow paint chipping away and bullet holes in the side of it. Nyxen quietly steps up the concrete steps and tries to open up the door to find it locked. He knew better from the last time he picked a lock that there might be zombies locked inside so he steps down to make his way to a worn out deep blue trailer next door. He walks up the plastic made steps and tries the doorknob to find luck as it opens. He carefully walks inside slowly pulling out his knife from its sheath and creeps inside of the trailer. He first checks the kitchen for any food as he sets his knife down on the counter and rummages through the cabinets to find nothing that they could safely eat.
He decides to grab his knife and continue through the trailer. He heads towards the back of the trailer, checking the bathroom first for any medicine they could use and any first aid items to no luck. He didn't want to give up as it could've been grabbed when this all started and maybe the people living here left something. He makes his way to the first small bedroom, his eyes catching a glimpse of something shiney. It was like the wheels of a simple gamer that loved shiney objects start to turn as he walks towards it. He moves a shirt off the object to find out it was a trophy for first place in a singing competition with the name Masi Jules Harrington engraved on it. This made him chuckle a little as it reminds him of everything before this.
He turns around and goes to walk out of the room when he is face to face with a zombie he hadn't heard. He falls back onto the bed with the zombie trying to bite him on top of him. He had dropped the knife in the quick scuffle to keep himself alive, teeth chomping close to his face in such determined hunger. "Fuck!" He uses one hand to try and keep him from being bitten so he could use his other one to reach for the trophy. He couldn't quite reach it, his fingertips just barely touching it before he had to bring his arm back to keep the zombie from biting him. "This is going to be stupid but," He says as he headbutts the zombie and pushes it off him to the floor. Nyxen quickly grabs the trophy to get on top of the zombie and smash it into the skull of the zombie. It was still alive so he kept slamming the trophy on the skull of the zombie until it was caved in and the zombie stops moving. He sighs with relief as he wipes the bloody muck off his forehead and sits on the floor to collect himself.
"That was too close." He says while he catches his breath and looks at the zombie to think about how bad that could've been. He grabs his knife off the floor right next to the zombie by its legs and stands up. He still wants to search the rest of the trailer as he heads out of the room and to the big bedroom at the end of the hall. Nyxen walks through the open door the zombie must have came through to get to him. He checks the bed, underneath it, and the bathroom that was attached to the room. He finds some bandages and rubbing alcohol that he stashes in his bag then slings it onto his shoulders by the bag straps. He then checks the closet to find an AR-15 just sitting in the closet. "Hell yeah!" He exclaims as he looks for any ammo and to his success he finds a whole bag of ammo for not just the assault rifle but for shotguns and pistols. He starts to pack the ammo boxes into his bag so he wouldn't have to carry another bag and once he finishes with that he grabs the assault rifle after he sheathes his knife.
Nyxen felt that this was the best he could do for now since he was on his own. He walks out the trailer to see a herd of zombies heading in his direction so he quickly ducks off to the side of the trailer in hopes they didn't spot him. The sound of their staggering footsteps was agony as he awaits them to pass but they stop at the sound of gunfire. They were drawn by the loud booming gunfire but it was followed behind of something really loud crashing onto the ground which caused it to shake like an earthquake. Nyxen steadies himself as he watches the zombies fall onto the pavement in front of him. That was his queue and he makes a quick run for the tree line into the woods. Once in the woods, he pulls the map out and looks at it to get where he needed to go. He folds the map up and pockets it then makes his way towards camp in hopes the zombies don't follow.
After a few hours of hiking back to camp, Nyxen makes it to the edge only to hear Thalia talking to people. He quickly sets himself behind a tree to get a layout of what's going down and spots two men talking to her and one of them a gun aimed straight to her head. He sets the AR-15 on the ground and pulls his pistol from its holster to steady his aim on the man holding his gun up. "Come on man, steady your aim." He mutters to himself as he finally calms himself down enough to steady his aim and fires. The bullet soars through the air and hits its mark, the male falling to the ground dead and with a bullet hole in the side of his head. Thalia took the distraction to disarm the man in front of her and hold him at gun point with his own shotgun.
Nyxen holster his pistol quickly and grabs the AR from the ground as he runs over to Thalia. "You okay?!" She nods to him as she aims the shotgun to the man's genitals before she spoke to him, "You get the joy of being a prisoner cause I know there's more of you. Also, nice shot by the way Nyx." He nods to her but his focus was on the mystery guy as he aims the AR-15 at his head. The man may not know but the AR wasn't loaded and Nyx wanted to keep it that way. "Look, we just need supplies all we want. The town nearby has a freakishly huge zombie and we avoid going there!" The man says as he tries to plead them to let him go. Nyx sighs and looks to Thalia as if quietly saying to let him go. "Look, we can take him back ourselves. See where he's held up and tell them we don't want to be bothered." She quickly states back to him, "Yeah and you shot his brother so they may not leave us alone. That was smart but now we can't let him go."
Nyxen groans in annoyance, "But that can be used a warning. Tell them to leave us alone if they want to keep their people alive and not lose anymore lives. It's pushy and gets the message across if we bring the head of his brother." Thalia sighs at the thought but decides to go with it as she made mistakes in the past that got them in trouble. She was trusting him this time to lead them with this decision. Nyxen cuts the head off the man's brother while Thalia got the man off the ground and orders him to take them where him and his people were located. The man leads them north of their camp, Thalia and Nyxen behind him to make sure he doesn't try anything as they walk. It took most of the day away as it was sunset by the time they reached a small little community of small little cabins in the woods.
The people stare in fear and confusion as they see one of their own being held at gun point. Thalia leads off to make them aware of the situation and why it came to be. "This man and his brother stumbled upon our camp then tried to raid me of everything we had. Thankfully for me and unfortunately for you, my partner here shot his brother to save me." Nyxen raises the head of the man's brother in the air for them all to see. He then takes up after her statement to the community, "This is what's left of him. We had our camp set up to survive this and I'm sure that's why you have this here. So we don't need to take any further bloodshed past this. You leave us alone and we'll leave you alone" The community began to get outraged, yelling at Nyxen and Thalia for such horrendous acts. Thalia groans but before she said anything Nyxen interrupts her, "Further on this subject, we are just gathering supplies like you all are and we'd be willing to trade and help each other out. I saw that tower in the town nearby here and our camp. We can work together to forget all this in order to take it down."
A woman walks out in front of the entire community, "Well, we can't agree to that if you hold one of our own hostage and you so savagely killing another. You two are really stupid coming all this way thinking you'd be rewarded." Thalia quickly interjects the woman to try and clear the slate. "Look, all we want is to survive peacefully just like you all. As much as we all possibly can right? So, if we help each other take down the tower in the nearby town, him and I will split it 50/50. You take half the town we take the other half and leave each other alone." The woman nods and walks back to discuss privately with her community. Thalia on the other hand shoots an angry glare towards Nyx and whispers to him, "You went into the town?! The tower was the entire reason I skipped it over and went further out. Why do you think it took me so long on my runs?!" Nyxen quietly shouts back to her, "Yeah and I got us ammo, more bandages and an AR-15. I kept away from the damn thing and came back with enough time to save your ass."
She huffs before they were interrupted by the woman in charge, "Fine, you let him go and we'll help each other out. There are worst things to happen and worst terms to agree on in this new world." Thalia sighs with relief and lets the man go with his weapons as well as a box of shotgun shells. Nyxen nods to the leader then at Thalia before they left to return to their camp, Nyxen keeping an eye on the community in case they tried anything. It was deep into nightfall when they returned to camp and Thalia went off on Nyxen, "Are you fucking stupid risking your life going into town with that tower?! I would have considered it if I was with you but alone was just foolish. I thought you were responsible enough but clearly still think this is some kind of game!" Nyxen snaps back at her, a little hurt she thought he was being childish. "I only stayed to the edge and in the trailer park! I'm not dumb enough to go in the area of the tower. I got in, got what I could find, and got out. If I had stayed you'd either be dead or some sex slave to those two bozos. I mapped it out and didn't take any unnecessary risks. I took what you have shown and taught me into consideration an there's so much we can get from that town if we can get rid of that tower!"
Thalia was about to say something else but she lets it go. She realizes that he was only trying to help and that he really wouldn't have done anything to jeopardize their camp. "Look, I'm just trying to make sure you stay alive for the sake of all this. For the sake of a promise I made with Tanner that if he was to die in combat I would look after you cause he knew no one else would want t-" She was interrupted by Nyxen as he steps close enough that his face was only a few inches away from hers, "I can take care of myself, I know what I'm doing. If he had died I would've just found my own place cause I had the money. I stayed with my brother cause I knew he didn't have anyone at home to rely on or talk to. I used to think he was a dick but I know now he was only looking out for me. So don't talk to me about him like you know him." Thalia was shot with a pang of hurt. What Nyxen and his brother didn't know, is that she had loved his brother. She never came out with it as she had her head wrapped up in her duty to the country.
She just nods to him quietly and heads inside of her tent. She zips the tent door closed and lays down on her sleeping bag. Nyxen just gathers up some wood, sticks, and other kindle to start the fire in the fire pit. Using the method of spinning a stick to cause enough friction, the smoke and light of the fire about to ignite. He blows on it and it starts to slowly burn, so he tosses it into the pit with fresh logs of wood in it. He blows on the source of his heat to make the fire start to come alive, the flames rising up some to meet the logs. "She may have been in his little pack or whatever it was, but she knows nothing. Tanner would have done the same thing as me if he was here." He looks at the now ever growing fire in the pit as a tear manages to escape from his eye and rolls down his cheek slowly. Nyxen wipes the tear away as he shuffles through his bag, grabbing the bag of chips he had taken with him just incase he had gotten hungry on his run. He slowly reaches in the bag and pulls out a few chips to toss them in his mouth. He munches on the chips until the bag was empty and he tosses the bag into the fire.
After a while, he puts the fire out as it was getting late in the night. Getting up to walk to his tent when he hears the faint sound of muffled crying. He realizes that it was coming from Thalia's tent, making him look to the ground. He shakes his head as he opens up his tent door, walks inside, zips the tent door closed, and lays down on his sleeping bag. He just ignores her muffled cries until he finally falls into a deep slumber.
Thalia wakes up early in the morning, ignites a fire in the fire pit, and grabs a can of corn. She sets it in the pit near the fire so it could cook as they didn't have any set up to balance it over the fire. That's when she hears Nyxen open up his tent and steps outside of it. Nyxen notices that she doesn't say good morning to him this time and he knew why she didn't. "Look, I'm sor-" Thalia snaps at him mid sentence, "You know Nyx, that hurt what you had said to me last night. I do know Tanner not as well as you but I knew him enough that I know what he'd want. He'd want you safe and happy. To continue to live happily and hopefully find someone to love in your life. Well, that's what I was wanting in my life Nyx. I wanted to be with Tanner but I let my sense of duty come before my sense of love for him. I paid with that by losing him to a tower and I carry that with me every damn day. Tanner would be so proud of the growth you've achieved but so disappointed with how you acted last night and you know that."
Nyxen was speechless as he noticed that her tears had dried on her face even with her trying to hide it. He had no idea she loved his brother and now he felt worse than last night for what he had said. "Well Nyx?" He closes his eyes tightly for a few seconds then opens them up before he spoke, "Yes. I do know that and I'm very sorry for everything I said. I was just pissed that you were trying to discipline me like you were trying to be my brother when he was always upset with me when I made money playing games."
She nods and holds her arms out as she stood in front of him. Nyxen steps forward and allows her to embrace him in a hug. A few tears creeping their way out of his eyes and roll down his cheeks. "I always saw you as a brother Nyx. Even when I had never met you I felt that way from hearing Tanner tell me about you. I grew up as the only child so I just see you as a brother I have to take care of. I know it's not my place to do so, but I feel responsible for you now that Tanner isn't here and I'm not one to break a promise." Nyxen didn't say anything as he just let her talk and while they were in an embrace. She finally lets go of him and pulls back to wipe the tears from his face.
"Cheer up Nyx, I miss him too." He smiles at her and wipes tears away that were fighting for their place to escape from his eyes. That's when the leader and a group from her community showed up to their camp. "So, about taking down this thing you call a tower. What did you have in mind young man?" The woman gives a stern look in Nyxen's direction in hopes of an answer she can agree on. Thalia decides to speak for him as she was better at planning and even Nyxen knew of that. "Well, without him speaking I know he was planning on taking it head on which is why I have a better plan. We have to find a way to distract it, get something long and strong enough to trip it." Nyx steps forward with something to add to her plan before she could have them all waiting on the next part of the plan. "If we go with that then we'd have to find a way to keep it down and maybe have something to swing and pierce it's skull to kill it for good."
The woman nods, "Well, I'll have my people do recon and see if we can come up with the items we need to do this. Sounds super ridiculous but we don't know what else we could do. If this ends up turning bad, it's your heads I want on a platter. If we're going to be doing this we need to exchange names. The people call me Mayor and that's all you need to know." Thalia and Nyxen nod to her as Nyxen speaks up again, "This is Thalia and I'm Nyxen. I'd say this would need about a week time to get everything into order. I know how to distract and will share that another day before we start this whole operation." Mayor nods to them both before they take off towards their community.
Nyxen sighs with relief that they weren't there to try and kill them. "Yeah, me too Nyx." Thalia says as she walks over to grab her can of corn from the fire pit like it wasn't hot to her at all. She uses her knife to cut the can open before grabbing the spoon from her tent and eats in her tent. Nyxen just shakes his head upon seeing her grab the can like she had just put the damn thing in the fire pit. He just decides to grab a bag of chips to munch on for the meantime until he felt like eating some real food. It was a lot to take in and all cause he went out for a run into the town nearby, to come back and have to kill someone, trade off a hostage to a community and make a deal with them, to sorting out plans by today. The only thing they had to do was make a distraction and help with making the traps and rig to kill that tower.