( video )
Okay, so we’ve figured we’re all here and we’re all fictional. [ that’s said a little wryly. she’s still having some trouble with both those parts. astoundingly more so with the fictional part. ] But that doesn’t mean we have to figure the rest out alone.

We have phones to contact each other, someplace to stay, we can find things to defend ourselves with [ insert hold breath here; she knows, logically, it’s only a matter of time. this is how the movies go. this is how life goes. ironically, it’s up in the air which one of those is more real at the moment. ] just in case. [ yeah wow elena’s really holding on by a thread here. but it’s always a thick thread. if someone tries to break it, it won’t snap. ]

Maybe some introductions are a good place to start. [ or getting out of here. ] I’m Elena.

There are brains and skin and hair sticking to the butt of her gun. There's a corpse with a caved-in skull not two feet away.

Shotguns aren't much use against shamblers unless they're in close range. They’re noisy, ammo is hard to find, and the pellets spread out and never get very far. So force is always the best bet against the undead, with as many as anyone can juggle.

The world works like this: sooner or later, the lumbering, gnashing horde making its way towards Elena is going to be up close, and there's not much she can do to juggle dozens of them.

And Alaric is - she's not sure what he is or where, and she doesn't have the option of going back, not right now. (Stupid, she was so stupid. Should have taken the detour instead of a highway, should have been more careful, should have avoided this no matter how empty the road seemed.) (She has to go back; can't go back. She'll find a way regardless.) Her eyes dart around her surroundings: the abandoned cars, rotten bodies, the yards and yards of overgrown grass and trees on either side of the highway.

Nowhere to run.

Her breath leaves her, shaky. Her lungs pull back in a mouthful of decay and summer heat. Her lashes flutter.

The steel of the car against her back burns into her skin; through her jeans the asphalt is rough and baked by sun. Elena pulls in a steadying breath, flattens herself out, grabs the sleeve of her one-hundred percent deceased acquaintance, and scoots under the van as noiselessly as she can, clutching her gun tight and dragging the dead weight.

Here's to hoping the smell will throw off any potential crawlers. If not, well.

Cool pebbles dig into her back, the rancid corpse is leaking something sticky and wet and warm onto her side. The quiet shuffle of dragging feet sets her every nerve on edge. Elena has never been particularly good at following her better instincts, ones that should tell her don't move or run. She thinks it's because there is something to fear; she still has plenty to lose. (Ric.)

She closes eyes for only a moment, blinks them open and stares at the engine above her head. She's seen people torn apart by hordes. (Not Ric. That can’t happen.)

There are shells in her pack; she'll get them. She's seen worse, been through so much worse. Most of them must have passed by now. Blindly, she reaches to quietly cock her gun, throws an arm back to drag herself towards the front of the van.

She'll find him. (They’re just lost.) She will. (They’re it for each other.) She just has to survive. (They’re family.)