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JANUARY TEST DRIVE MEME
You awaken to godawful static overlaying a female voice that's too monotone to be anything but a recording. The static makes it difficult to understand the warning, but it's clearly a warning if your surroundings tell you anything...
You're buckled into a sturdy seat bolted to the wall behind you. Around you, there are dozens of others like you, some awake and others still unconscious, but it seems most of the seats lining the walls are occupied. The lights are dim, likely auxiliary lighting, leaving you mostly in the dark. You smell smoke and hear the sizzling crackle of electrical systems popping and shorting out. Some of the seats were jarred off the wall, leaving the occupants either wounded or dead. Count yourself lucky all you have is a headache and various aches accounted to whiplash.
You appear to be in a drop ship or an escape vessel of some form but the pilot is dead and the hull bears a massive gash where it buckled under the impact and sheered off. Through the door-sized opening, you can see vegetation. The air that wafts in is heavy with a humid heat, but it's obviously breathable.
Once you make your way outside, you'll see greenery: Trees, grass, and shrubs tangled with vines that grow wildly and suffocate the trees they climb. In the distance, behind the ship, you can make out a sandy desert that seems to stretch on endlessly. Forward through the trees, however, you may see a crumbling wall, but more importantly, you'll see signs of civilisation. Buildings and other structures seem contained within those decrepit walls. Maybe the natives can fill you in on what's going on, because the last thing you remember isn't being in an escape shuttle. As a matter of fact, you don't remember much about your arrival or where you are. But it's going to be a bit of a hike, better get moving. Though you might want to grab the backpack of supplies under your seat before you go.
With that, the power dies, leaving the drop ship in the dark, crackling and groaning as the hull cools from its catastrophic re-entry.
no subject
[ On the bright side, he could always request she shank him in the head should he fall. She would hardly be repelled by such a request. ]
Are you certain? [ That he recognized plants, wildlife, was actually enough to give Gamora pause. That couldn't be right. ] But the only sign of civilization I've seen are ruins. I knew Earth was a backwater, but not that much of one.
[ Which, in retrospect, may be an insulting thing to say directly to someone from Earth, but too late now. ]
no subject
The ruins I saw are of a city abandoned a long time ago. From before the outbreak. But the rest of the world ain't much better. It's been going on a couple years now. Most o'the population is dead and walking. The rest surviving however they can.
[He had no reason to not believe her claims of being an alien. He saw the dead walking damn near every day. Anything was possible and likely after living that reality.
He did feel kind of bad that this was her introduction to the planet, though.]
Sorry for such a shitty 'Welcome to Earth', but... welcome to Earth.
no subject
Your entire world fell to walking corpses?
[ Something about that seemed so very wrong, but it wasn't like there was more than one Earth. Still, walking dead? Shouldn't they have decomposed, fell apart? ]
In only a few years. [ Maybe she should ask how long Earth years even were, but later. ] You said it's an infection?
no subject
[He could go into detail, how it only took a few weeks for all the major cities to fall because no one knew how to handle the dead. No one figured it out well enough before there were too many to fight. But what was the point?]
A virus. A doctor explained it to me once. One of them ones that ain't transferable to animals. Only humans get it. Don't know the technical term.