A Dustland Fairytale Beginning...

"A Dustland Fairytale"~The Killers (partial lyrics)

Your mind is poisoned.
Castles in the sky sit stranded, vandalized.
The drawbridge is closing.

Sent to the valley of the great divide,
Out where the dreams all hide,
Out where the wind don't blow,
Out here the good girls die,
And the sky won't snow.
Out here the bird don't sing,
Out here the field don't grow,
Out hear the bell don't ring,
Out here the good girls die.
I saw the devil wrapping up his hands, he's getting ready for the showdown.

Change came in disguise of revelation, set his soul on fire.
She said she always knew he'd come around.
And the decades disappear.
Like sinking ships but we persevere.
God gives us hope, but we still fear what we don't know.

Now Cinderella don't you go to sleep, it's such a bitter form of refuge.
Why don't you know the kingdoms under siege, and everybody needs you.
Is there still magic in the midnight sun, or did you leave it back in '61?
In the cadence of a young man's eyes.
Out where the dreams all hide.

In a brisk mid-November of the tragic year of 2013, a new type of weapon was unleashed from Antarctica, which had secretly been the base of a radical 'government' system set on dominating the rest of the world, or destroying it for years. In the midst of the second year of the war, it had completed this weapon, a bomb no larger than the size of a hand grenade, but something that would completely change the tide of the strife. Being let out in any crowded public places, mass hysteria spread, and death tolls rose exponentially. The only signal that there was a missile there were piles of the dead and an immense level of radioactivity. The mighty United States was the ill-fated test subject, and the poor folk hit by the bombs were buried in shallow graves due to the lack of time and space.
The US was close to a breakthrough for a defense system when they realized their most calamitous mistake in the entire war. Not the time it took to get a defense, nor the non-use of the rusty old nuclear bombs that they and the rest of the world had retired years ago in the Pact of Peace, for the environment and all the people of Earth. No one could have predicted it, and anyone that did would have been deemed insane. The shallow graves. A few short months after the first attacks, the first dead began to rise.
The rest rose within weeks, and each of bodies themselves now emitted all the radioactivity released by one of these bombs, creating a chain reaction that swept the nation. The amount of true living across the country was quickly reduced to only a few million, next a few hundred thousand, and, after that point, it became impossible to keep count, as there were only the few and often far-between. The ones left seemed to be immune to the radiation, but were still no match for the brute force of numbers of the cannibalistic risen. Emergency generators were the only sources of electricity, and communication between cities was out of the question.
And, when all was lost, the scarce number of humans left began to fight back. It had little effect against the hordes of the undead, but it instilled a vigor in the cities that managed to get a refugee safety system set up, and gave the separated peoples of the nation the one thing they needed the most- hope.

((Character ready?))

((Not at all. You can post yours though... It may be helpful to have a character to make a compatibility/incompatibility reference with.))

((Alrighty. Stand by for lift off!))

((And it's up!))

Character Bio
Name: Riley Granados/Rye/ “The OMEGA!” (Alpha is also acceptable)

Age: 14…or 16? Maybe 18…or ten?

Sex: Erm…

Hometown: Well… there’s some kind of Irish lilt going on?

Occupation: BUSTIN’ ZOMBIE BUTT!

Appearance: The Omega—be all end all, baby—has jagged scraps of auburn hair down to the shoulders. Eyes the color of ashy cinder—ahem, excuse me,--eyes the color of death. Tall, lanky, and unwittingly nimble, the only thing about Rye that isn’t transparent is whether or not she’s…or he’s…well, you get the point.

Personality: Frank, open, and perhaps a little too brutally honest, Rye focuses on the good side of life: automatic machine guns and plenty of targets (that’s about the only good use for those walking zombie-vampire things). A one [wo]man team, he…she… roams the skeletal battle grounds like a pro. Although fake it till you make it (or until you get an uzi) is top motto.

Background: Born in the outskirts of pub-poppin’ Dublin, Rye grew up with two things: beer and bicycles. When only…well, who knows…Rye was shipped to live with American relatives, but never lost the Irish swagger.

((It's awesome! Okay, I'll start mine now. Btw I meant previous occupation, but if it's a mystery that's always good!))

((Yeah, I guess I'll leave it a mystery. So are you going incompatible or compatible?))

Character Bio
Name: Seth Penton (the name of ALL my human characters, btw :/. A wonderful example of all my creativity with names.))

Age: 21

Sex: Male

Hometown: Seattle- obviously didn't stray too far.

Occupation: Med Student

Appearance: Standing at about five nine and fairly well built (although his physical strength doesn't surmount to much), however most of his body is made up of arms and legs. He tends to stay tan even when unexposed to sunlight for long periods of time, and often wears full-eye contacts his school was developing for the military, which turned all of his eyes a pale gray, except for the tinges of green that seem to shine through the inner edges. His usual choice of clothing is some sort of cargo pants (pockets filled), changing them when he comes across a store that has a decent pair, and an inconspicuous zip-up sweatshirt. He always keeps himself in utmost neatness, even among the terror, making sure to stay well groomed, one of his many obsessive-compulsive tendencies. He keeps his dark brown hair cut short, but prefers to keep his bangs a bit longer and spiked out. His rather rounded facial features also tend to betray emotion a bit too easily.

Personality: This verdant-eyed fellow was gifted with neat and nimble fingers, a mind for memorization, and in this fallen world, not many of his other traits could be considered gifts. His photographic memory has left more scarring images than any helpful survival clues. He prefers to keep shelter along the freshwater canals and rivers near the coastline, and has just been scrounging for food- and maybe another survivor to partner up with so he doesn't go insane, or, if possible, a base camp that could use his services as a medic.

Background: Just having begun his senior year of training to become a surgeon, his world was spun around as he was thrown into the chaos of radiation and flesh-eaters, he led a fairly ordinary life up to that point. Schooling wasn't any major trouble to him, as his memory did most of the work easily, dissections didn't bother him at all, and he was on a fast track to get into a good profession.

Other: Preferring bladed weapons to keep himself safe, all he usually had for heavy firepower was a small automatic pistol he keeps in the left leg pocket of his cargo pants. He keeps various other supplies of assorted natures in the rest of the pockets.
((Kind of a mix. Having another character to bounce off of was very helpful though!))

((Oooh, I think they're gonna be hilarious...Guess I'll start!))

Dumb vombies Rye snickered internally, a reference to the undead that now walked the streets of America, rotting, festering, and inhaling blood (among other body parts).
The moon was big and orange tonight, shedding its eerie cast on a dirty alleyway where Riley crouched behind an overturned car. A rare lit lamp post flickered across the street in front of a shattered night club, cracking like spider legs. But the thing that drew the eye? A bloody corpse, smack dab in the middle of the gray asphalt: naked and mutilated.
They came like flies to sugar. The infected dead--their bodies moving when their souls had moved on--seeped out of their hidey-holes as if they'd heard a trumpet summons from hell.
"That's it," Rye urged in a whisper. "Come and get it."
They were on the carcass in an instant. Their fetid, milky eyes vacant, they ripped limbs, teared flesh; they thought nothing of cannibalization. And hey, the suckers had to eat.
Too bad this would be their last meal.
Rye's hands moved to the garage door opener hooked onto leather belt. But the square device would no longer open the big white door at the middle-class family's house that had been raided last week (not that anyone would notice). Its circuit board had been rewired and soldered for a whole other purpose. A good find.
The military-grade C4 had been better, though.
After they finished their "meal" and before they could start tearing each other apart (a constant consequence of vombies banding together and part of the food frenzy), Rye pressed the button on the garage door opener. Cackling madly, Rye abandoned cover and swaggered into the middle of the back-alley street.
Rye flipped the suckers TWO birds, and ran like crazy. Twenty seconds. Then they'd all be vombie bits.

Seth took inventory of the meager supplies he had gathered in 'his' apartment, or at least the one he had been occupying for the last couple weeks. He took a quick glance around, making sure he had everything that would really be useful packed up, and reminisced the old days when he used the check hotel rooms for the odd hiding sock instead of old assorted living spaces in bad disrepair for weapons and food. He moved every few weeks, lest his scent linger in his makeshift home, and only taking what he could keep in a very oversized green backpack. Food, maybe a gun, some medicine and medical tools, whatever he felt may be useful for his next move. All he had really been doing so far was moving down the coast, but he figured based from the minimal and animalistic intelligence levels of the creatures, that was safe enough.
He loaded up his knapsack, gave one last glance back at the flat he had already gotten quite used to spending many sleepless nights in, and made his way out, to the next inconspicuous dwelling that took his fancy. The midnight sun blazed above him, shedding haunted shadows and giving image to the perpetual All Hallow's Eve that now dominated Seattle, America, and most likely the globe at this point.

Fiery blazes lit the night like a beacon. The explosion was loud and brilliant, strewing decayed bits of vombie across good ol' Seattle. The night was briefly illuminated by a red-orange glow. Rye felt the force at his back as it lifted his feet off the ground and vaulted her into the chill air.
Riley came down with a crash, scraping hands and arms on the rough pavement. Roads were in a continuous state of disrepair, since most workers were too busy being undead to fix potholes.
"Och, was worth it!" Rye muttered, springing back up and pelting towards the abandoned parking garage on fourth street, where there was a hummer waiting to be hot-wired.

Seth gazed up at the stars and sky, the celestial seeming to be the only beauty the creatures couldn't destroy. He slunk across the rough brick walls, moving without a sound and doing his best not to leave any footprints or any other trace of of civilized existence. Though, perhaps intelligent was the only way to describe the way true humans still lived. Assuming there were still some humans. He'd seen explosions here and there around the city, to afraid that there'd be the...zombie?... creatures following the disturbance to try to find the cause of it. There were also planes that crossed the skies at night very occasionally, letting him know there were really others and assuring the explosions weren't just natural accidents. However, the frequency of the jets were quickly decreasing.
Even now, he heard some sort of boom a short distance west of him, and stilled his panicking heart for a moment, seeing if any of them came out to see what the excitement was. Something bumped off a dumpster further down the alley, followed by a short scampering sound, which faded off into the distance.
He moved on after a couple minutes, figuring anything that would come out would have done so by now, and moved through a door set ajar, into what appeared to be a security office of a parking garage, the monitors dead and gathering dust, the whole room like a scene from a haunted house. He quickly made his way out into the garage, with a few eerie cars strong here and there. He made his way to the entrance, and heard a running sound coming from outside. He quickly pressed himself just inside the corner, drawing his knife and praying to the God he hoped still payed attention to this post-apocalyptic, death-ridden world that it wasn't coming for him.

Rye screeched to a stop near the rusty blue sign hanging from the parking garage entrance. It was crooked and faded, which was ridiculous. It hadn't been that long since it all started. Or had it? Man, time was hard to keep track of.
Chest heaving with exertion, Rye took a few steps toward the shadowy arch and paused. Something didn't feel right.
With no room for hesitation, Rye leaped through an open stone casing, kind of an empty window, and landed in a vacant parking spot inside the garage, Colt revolver cocked and drawn.
"Freeze, vombie!" Rye couldn't see anything, but there was a certainty something was there, a weird (but handy) feeling in the gut.

Seth froze. He really didn't want to get shot by the first human he saw, and had no clue what to do not to get a headful of lead. So, at the moment, the best thing seemed to be freeze and hope the person passed, so maybe he could get his... her... attention once the gun was put away.

Rye peeked around the barrel.
"Och, you're no vombie."
Still a bit wary, Riley slid the revolver into waistband and gave the guy a blatant once-over, measuring him up. He was too tall, Rye noted distastefully (mostly because he was taller than Rye).
Rye sniffed the air. The guy didn't smell like rotting, decaying vombie. He didn't look like one either.
"Got a name?"

"Er--Seth," he replied, now lowering his hands, which he immediately raised when spotted. "Seth Penton." This guy- gal?- seemed rather rough, and he quickly debated asking their name in return. He decided it would probably safer to ask. "What yours?"

"Me? I'm the Omega, baby! Rye's my go-by."
Riley crossed arms and puffed up as best as possible. "What's your sport? Survivin' or dyin'? Must be survivin', since you're still movin'."
Riley glanced around suspiciously. "You alone?"
As Rye asked, a secondary explosion split the silence of the night, making a devilish grin pop up on his/her face.

Definitely an interesting character.
"Yeah, just me. I've been moving from flat to flat along the river since this all started to get bad." He would have ordinarily flinched at the explosion, but he had become callous to those quite a while ago. The other, Rye, seemed to enjoy it quite a bit, though. "Are you part of a group or something?" He/she/it seemed to know what they were doing, so he let his hopes rise a little.

"Och! Grroup! You tink oi be needin' help ta sparrk up fun?" Rye's accent always became more prominent when feeling indignant. "Ta nerrve! Is rreal easeh, ya see! Dey'll eat anyting! Dumb vombies. All ya need ta do is..."
Riley heard the sound faintly and knew instantly what it meant. There were more. There were always more. Without a word, Riley turned and ran off toward the hulking, red monster of a Hummer in the darkest corner of the garage. No time to waste.
"Oi, ya comin' orr what, boy-o?" Rye shouted over the shoulder.

Clearly Rye was not worried about going insane from solitude. If that was still possible for him/her. Or, at least that's what Seth thought they said. Rye seemed offended at the term group (again, if that was what he said) and talked a lot about fun after. However, it seemed their definitions of 'fun' may be just a little different. Seth broke out of his slight daze and followed Rye, and so far her personality led him to head straight for the passenger side.

((Oh you tricky person...))

Rye practically leaped into the driver's seat. Diving down underneath the dash, s/he removed a wrench from his/er pocket and tore off the plating underneath the steering wheel. After removing the barrel (which she tossed over his shoulder into the back seat), he yanked out three wires. Quickly, she tied the two reds together and touched them to the start wire. The engine roared deliciously to life.
"Buckle up, boy-o!" Rye slammed the door shut and revved the engine, enjoying the purr of all that muscle.

Seth quickly bucked in, knowing that it probably wasn't a literal command, but still fearing for his life some. Somewhere in there there was a thought about what Rye could have been doing before the vombies, as (s)he called them (unless it was just their accent), to be so familiar with hot wiring cars.

Flooring it, Rye had them out of the garage and onto the moonlit street in no time flat. She painstakingly swerved around every vombie, lest some leftover C4 hanging around in their useless intestines blow them to kingdom come. That was not the way he was gonna' go.
Rye glanced at Seth, absorbing his expression. "Why ya lookin' at me like tha'?"

"Oh, no reason. Sorry," Seth replied quickly. "Why are you avoiding the... vombies?"
((And tricky? How?))