SET Initiative

Addie had beaten him to the airvent. Unfortunately for her, she hadn't crawled more than a few feet in the dark vent before the floor of it suddenly disappeared as the shaft went to the next level.

Addie was now laying at the bottom of the shaft, on the level below where she had just been, dazed. Even with the armor, it had been quite a thud when she hit the bottom. She groaned, shutting her eyes for a few moments as she tried to catch the air that had been knocked out of her lungs. Suddenly, she snapped her eyes open.

Something was vibrating in the vent. Like.. someone else was crawling in it. It felt like it was coming from where she had just been. So, just to try and see if by chance that person she had been looking for was indeed there, and not just her mind playing trickson her, she dragged herself to sit up, legs screaming from the impact.

Lifting her rifle, she tapped the side of the vent enough for the sound to echo upwards. Then again, after a few moments of silence.

Austin was crawling backwards now, his focus fixed on the Infected trying to find a way to fit in the vent. Or perhaps another way around. He froze when the rattling noise echoed through the air vent. Something else was in here. Or trying to be.

He waited a few moments before hearing it again. Maybe- Nope. There it was again. But by this point Austin crawled back a little too far and fell head-first down the two floors and hopefully onto something soft. (Not.)

He groaned: At least two ribs were cracked. He had fractured his right arm trying to break the fall, and his nose was bleeding. Austin rolled over and cursed. "Nicely done," he said to himself. His arms were over his face and his knees were pointed up. He didn't realize if anyone else was there. "Now you can just sit here and wait to be eaten alive."

Addie managed not to squeal as something tumbled down the vent. At first, she had her rifle trained on it, until she realized.. it was a he. And not just any he.

"Austin!" Came her relieved, quiet cry. She dropped her rifle and crawled over with some difficulty thanks to her legs, reaching up to send her helmet away. She looked just as rough as he did, but at least she didn't have blood pouring from her nose.

She pulled herself next to him, hands reaching to move his arms, taking extra care with the one that seemed to be swelling from the fall. "Austin, it's Addie." If he let her move his arms away, she then reached to check the bridge of his nose, to see if it had broken. "Oh my God, I'm so glad to see you. I thought you were dead." It took everything she had not to burst into tears.

Austin's head throbbed and he couldn't see straight. He just wanted to regroup with himself. He held his face in his folded arms and tried to just think straight for a minute.

Fortunately, Addison's cry brought him back to reality. Austin sat up in an instant, gave her one look and hugged her tightly. Once he'd helped her get her helmet off, he kissed her. Afterwards and held her face in his hands.

"Me? Dead? Been there, done that." He forced a smile. "I was looking for you."

Hopefully there weren't much Infected in archives. Not that there were many humans here to begin with.

Addie was surprised when he grabbed her and hugged her. Of course she hugged him back, ignoring the pain shooting through her aching muscles. She had been about to speak once the helmet came off, but instead, he kissed her!

She was shocked for a moment, but kissed him back, arms around him, and when they broke away, she managed a forced smile of her own.

"Well I thought you were dead again. Are you okay? Let me look at you, I think we're alright for a few minutes." Overwhelmed, she leaned in to kiss him again, just briefly, before she started inspecting his injuries. The fall had done quitea bit of damage, but nothing fatal at the moment. "Can you move? We gotta get somewhere safe with more room."

Austin felt a twinge of guilt when he realized how happy Addie was that he wasn't dead. Red Voice had made sure of that.

See how happy she is? Even though you shut her out and shove her away, you're all she's got. And it's pathetic.

He promptly decided to not care when she kissed him again.

"I'm fine, now." He grinned. "My ribs hurt, and I think my arm's broken..." The adrenaline rush of almost being killed began to fade and the pain started to settle in. He dropped his arm from Addie's face. "Agh. Yeah, definitely broken. I can move, but it'll hurt like the dickens."

Then he realized something else. He couldn't feel his right leg. It wasn't asleep. Just totally dead. Numb. He decided to just walk it off for now, but it was weird.

"But first how about you? Are you okay? I can't assess anything through that armor." Whether that was something playful or not is beyond me. "I saw you crawling instead of walking."

Addie winced, examining his arm. " Yeah, we'll have to find a way to set that and brace it so you don't break it any worse."

She wasn't sure if he was trying to make an attempt at playfulness, but she chuckled weakly. "My legs are... they'll be fine. I'm good to go." She probably shouldn't even cnsider walking on them, but she didn't have a choice. Once she forced herself t stand, doing her best to control the grimacing, she leaned down to help him up, cautiously. "Keep your arm tucked against your chest, so it doesn't move."

She reached for her rifle, legs shaking as they protested with waves of pain to the shifting weight, but she just bit her cheek, and straightened up. "C'mon, we gotta get out of here and find a secure room, if we can."

Austin nodded. "We can do that in a bit." But he was more worried about her legs. Something had been wrong with them for a while but she had always just played it off. Now it was serious.

He refused her help to stand up, struggling to push himself to his feet with his left hand. He then shuffled around to her right side and put his arm under hers, grabbing her left shoulder. "Ready when you are," he said quietly, holding her right hand in his right hand despite its brokenness, and holding his arm close to his chest.

On a list of all the long nights in the history of long nights; from the night before Finals or the night after a best friend died, this night would rank pretty high up there. Probably right up with the guy who survived Everest with no gear. For two days.

That night was probably slightly worse than this one.

Addie kept a tight grip on his hand as slowly, but surely, the pair hobbled through the air shaft, Addie keeping the rifle up, and ready to fire, just in case. Every now and then, she stopped, and laid on her stomach to peer through the vents down beneath them, to see where they were.

Finally, she nodded once as she laid there, and after a bit of work, pulld off the grate cover for the vent. The room below was empty, and surprisingly similar to the storage room she had let herself have a meltdown in. Outside the door, there was the occasional growl as an Infected went by, but all in all, it was probably as secure as they were going to get, and if they were going to tend to their wounds at all, they needed to sooner, rather than later.

"Alright, c'mere and give me your good arm, I'll lower you down." She'd have to rely on the armor more than a little, but it was the safest way to get him down.

Austin just focused on moving. He could feel his leg. Could he? He couldn't. He was sure it was there. It was right in front of him every time he forced it to move.

But his body told him otherwise.

Austin leaned against the wall of the vent every time she stopped to look for a secure place to go. Finally, there was a secure room.

"Yeah, okay." Austin said tiredly. He held onto Addie's forearm as she lowered him down, and he hit the ground with a cringe-inducing thud.

"Are you sure you can climb down okay on your own? My arm isn't worth much right now..."

As if the rest of you has worth. She's doing all of the heavy lifting, now. You're dead weight.

Addie nodded, wincing as he hit the ground so roughly. "Sorry.."

She dropped the rifle down next, and with some caution, she started to lower herself down, before he had even made her re-consider. "Well, not a lot of options, so.."

She dropped down, which was a lot further for the petite woman, and though the suit took a majority of the impact for her, she still cringed as her legs burned. She managed to stay upright though, reaching for him right away. "Alright.. come here, let me see what we can use to brace your arm up."

She managed to stay on her feet as she started to go through the contents of the storage room, only grimacing or wincing when her back was turned to him, and he wouldn't see. "Alright, I found a plate thing we can use for now." She called quietly over her shoulder, now looking for somethign to tie it on with.


Whenever she returned to where he was, she sat, hard, beside him, but it wasn't until she had tied the metal plate to the bottom of his arm with the cords she had found that she reached for the watch on her wrist to remove the armor, and examine her legs. The muscular limbs looked severly bruised, and she was fairly certain the fracture from so long ago was just not healed up, or at least not properly. She groaned, and laid back for a moment, shutting her eyes, similar to how he had been at the bottom of the shaft. "Alright.. Besides your arm, ribs, and nose... anything else hurt?"

Austin did as he was told. He let Addie do what she thought she needed to do to help him heal properly before she removed her armor.

"Thanks," he said before looking over the damage. She didn't look too good, and he wasn't really sure what to do. He knew first aid, but only very basic. And even then it wasn't much.

He squeezed his eyes shut in a grimace when she asked if anything else hurt. Of course he hurt elsewhere. She would probably do something to fix that, too. And here he was just sitting here, useless.

"My leg feels a little weird... It's probably nothing. I need to know where you need the most attention, though." He hastily shifted the focus of attention back onto herself.

"If I can do anything right now that'll help you, just say the word."

Addie huffed. "Austin."

She sat upright and glanced/glared at him. "What will help me the most right now is knowing that you aren't about to just drop dead or shut me out again and leave me here on my own. I can handle being sore, or a broken bone or two. What I CAN'T handle is being ignored or shut out or left alone in this damn cruiser without a clue what I'm supposed to do."

Sheshifted, painfully, to her knees and just sat there watching him. "So I am begging you. Help me by letting me help you. Let me take a look at your leg." Though her expression was hard, likely from the weeks of struggling to cope with the rollercoaster of his moodsx her voice was quiet x and concerned.

Austin kept his mouth shut and nodded. He had it coming.

She's not as pathetic as I thought.

Shut up.

When she was finished making him feel even worse, he nodded. "Okay." Was all he said. Upon inspection, the leg looked normal. Maybe a little more pinkish than usual. But overall it looked like it would work just fine.

"It... I can't feel a thing." He interjected as she examined his leg.

Addie sighed. She hadn't meant to snap at him so. He just...grr.



She reached for the watch, to bring her helmet up, hoping it could tell her what was wrong. She glanced up to him before she started letting it scan him.

"Look, I'm sorry. I just.. The last few weeks before this.. I didn't know what you were going through, and I couldn't handle it. " She hesitated, then reached for his hand, just for a second, if he'd let her. "I need you, okay? You can't quit on me now, Austin, not after everything. Please?"

The helmet's display switched between different scans of the body. The leg itself was fine.

The helmet couldn't tell what was wrong.

Austin had a distant look in his eyes. He didn't meet her gaze, and his hand was limp in hers.

"It's okay. I'm not leaving you."

Not yet, anyway.

Addie scowled. She had no idea what was wrong with him, and now,he was already shutting her out. Just perfect.

She scooted away from him. He wanted to be distant, fine. She had no idea what had just happened, but she was about to blow a fuse. So much for having someone to lean on again.

"We'll have to wait until I can find some better medical equipment, miggt have something that I can use to figure out what's wrong." She stated flatly. She moved until her back pressed to the wall, head leaning back and closing her eyes for a moment while she thought.

When Addie put distance between them, he just frowned at his lap. This was just wonderful.

His inner thoughts battled, with his more chaotic and darker thoughts slowly defeating his attempts to stay light.

He didn't know how much time had passed. It didn't matter. They were stuck in there for now.

An hour must have gone by before Austin tried to clear his head of the voices and look over at Addie. She was obviously hurt. It was his fault.

Before his darker thoughts could pipe up any further, he slid over and sat next to her. Austin put his good arm around her shoulder and pulled her close if she let her.

"Hey, I'm really sorry. I know I'm difficult. I've been trying to deal with... These thoughts. It's like a voice in my head telling me that I'm wrong. You know I'm not just about to leave you, though. Right? I couldn't give up on a job half-finished. Plus, I still owe you coffee."

If only it were that easy.

Addie stiffened for a moment as he slid closer, still agitated at him. She didn't shove his arm away, and though she resisted for a moment, she allowed him to tug her over.

She rested against him, comforted despite her agitation, but kept her gaze on her hands in her lap. As he explained why he'd been so difficult, she frowned slightly, feeling guilty for being so upset. She gave a sigh of surrender.

"I'm sorry too..I just..I'm not okay, Austin, and I don't know what I'd do without you, if I had to try and get out of here alone. " She managed a choked laugh. "I think you owe me more than coffee at this point.. probably dinner too."

As she tried to joke, she felt a pang of despair. They were probably never going to get out of this alive, so there would be no dinner, not even coffee.

"Well, I'm not about to let you find out. Dinner sounds nice." He smiled briefly.

Despite it all, they were alive, at the very least. One more day of survival. Survival... Wait a minute. "How did we even get here, anyway? We were close to the checkpoint, but..."


Puzzling, wasn't it? "In a little bit, once you're rested, we can move on and find the teleport back to the ground."

Austin absentmindedly rubbed his hand back and forth on Addie's shoulder.