The House In Limbo City, Limbo City, Tuesday Afternoon

[spin_kick_snap]

The ex that had once been known as the superhero Banzai shambled along the overpass of the highway. For once, it wasn't being bounced off of others of its kind, this section of the overpass was clear of cars and exes both. The ex could continue its mindless walk along, far faster than any zombie had any right to be, staring at the city's iconic high-rises standing tall and strong in the distance ahead of it. For once, hunger didn't plague the ex, it still had a single-minded purpose, to get to the people who lived in those buildings, but not to rend and tear and devour. No, the ex that had been Banzai just wanted to see them, going about their business, alive and happy, moving like tiny ants about their daily lives. Surely if it just made it into the city proper, the ex would see LA alive and bustling once more. And then - and then -

"Hey, puta!" A voice called to it. To her. Not to the ex that used to be Banzai, but to the dead girl who was once Kathy. Rodney Cesares was calling to her, a withered head, misshapen and huge, on top of a rusting car, eye sockets empty and teeth shattered stumps. "Where you think you're going, eh?" the head asked her.

"To the city," she said, or tried to. She pointed towards the skyline that she'd known her whole life, an indelible mark on her heart.

"No reason to go there," Rodney said. "It's all dead, just like you."

The dead girl shook her head. "No," she said. "I'm all alone--"

"Look around," Rodney interrupted. "The dead are never alone. LA's a corpse and you're a maggot feeding on the dead flesh."

The ex shook her head, stringy hair flying about her face. The glint from the setting sun caught her eye and when she looked at the city again, it looked like it was covered in blood. And that's when she heard it, the constant low hum, omnipresent enough she could feel it vibrating in her bones. Clack clack clack. The sound of thousands - millions - of teeth clattering together. The ex stumbled over to the edge of the overpass and looked down...

Into a sea of writhing zombies, nigh uncountable and stretching all the way back towards the city.

"Told you, bouncy-girl," Rodney said with a laugh. "The city's as dead as you are."

It laughed and laughed and laughed and the ex started to scream as the hunger came back, twice as strong as before and then there was nothing left but the hunger, but the need to bite and tear and feed--

Kathy woke up with a start, Ronin nudging at her face with his nose. Her jaw was sore - she'd been grinding her teeth again - but her throat didn't hurt. Ronin was getting better at waking her up before she actually started screaming. "Good boy," she said, petting him as he cuddled closer. "Thank you, Ronin. You're such a good boy. You are."

She'd been quietly having nightmares off and on for the last few weeks. She hoped that they'd ease out some, but no, they seemed to be happening more and more often and they all centered on LA. Not exactly a surprise, considering, but these weren't memories from the year she'd been dead, but some kind of weird subconscious remix about LA being a dead city.

"Except it isn't, is it boy?" she murmured, scritching Ronin's ears. "It's alive and well here. I just haven't seen it. But maybe if I do, I can convince my dumb brain to chill out. That would be a first."

Still, the more she thought about it, the more sense it made. It was Spring Break for NYU. She could go to Fandom's LA, verify for herself that it was still a bustling metropolis filled with living people, and maybe shake whatever bug had gotten into her brain about it otherwise.

Decision made, it didn't take long to turn 'plan' into 'action.' She'd made rounds of all her bug-out bags recently, checking to make sure they were still stocked and ready to go whenever the guys had been out of the house. It took just a second to grab the one under her bed, add Ronin's paperwork, and sling it on over her shoulder. Portal was faster than flight, plus they made less fuss over dogs. And weapons.

Yeah, okay, portal to Los Angeles based on nothing but bad dreams. Sounded like a great idea.

[For that guy who might have concerns]

Comments

[spin_kick_snap]

She had an excellent plan dammit:
1) Go to LA
2) ???
3) Profit.

Kathy rocked on her heels, anxious to get going already. She looked uncertain, on the verge of no, but then Ronin whined a little, too. Right. He hadn't eaten. Neither had she, but that was less important. She wasn't really hungry anyway. "A few minutes," she conceded. "I need to feed Ronin anyway."

[not_every_mage]

"You can't take a hungry dog on a trip," Anders said, grateful for Ronin. He'd have to sneak the dog a treat when they got to the kitchen. "That's no way to treat the very best boy."

He slid his feet into slippers and moved toward the stairs.

"So walk me through it," he said. "Why LA now?"

[spin_kick_snap]

That was why therapy dogs were so useful (okay, that and nine million other reasons). They gave people something outside of themselves to focus on and care for.

"I--" Kathy faltered, verbally and physically behind him, before pushing herself to continue. "I've been having dreams. Nightmares, really. About being back there. In my LA. Surrounded by the dead."

[not_every_mage]

Anders winced. He knew Kathy was still struggling with nightmares, but it always hurt to be reminded how much they weighed on her.

"And you want to go there," he guessed. "The real one, I mean. So you can see everything's all right."

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy nodded, the movement abrupt and a little jerky. "I haven't been back since my fell," she said. "And I don't want to remember LA that way. I need to see that it's big and full of people and completely alive."

And then she could tell whatever was in her brain to shove off. Right?

Right.

[not_every_mage]

“I get that,” Anders said, finding his way to the blender. A smoothie with protein powder, he thought: She’d get something in her stomach without needing to go through the fussy of business of chewing. “But I’m still worried about why you were sneaking out to do it.”

[spin_kick_snap]

Bless. Smoothies and milkshakes had been her go-to in the early days, when even the idea of eating had caused her stomach to rebel. These days it wasn't so bad, but it was still a comfort.

"I wasn't sneaking," Kathy said, a touch more sharply than she intended. "I was just...going. Grabbed a bugout bag and some cash and was on my way out."

Even now the thrum of go go go go beat in her veins like a second pulse.

[not_every_mage]

Anders turned away from the blender to give her a look. “What would you say if Dante or I said that?”

[spin_kick_snap]

"I - " Kathy huffed. "I still wouldn't call it sneaking," she declared, folding her arms. "Just..."

Words failed her. Possibly proving Anders' point, oddly enough.

[not_every_mage]

"Just what?" Anders prompted, still watching her even as he dropped fruit chunks into the blender. "What would you call it if one of us tried to leave when it was barely light outside, without saying goodbye?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"Well, is it important? I'd probably understand if it were important," Kathy muttered, head bowed. She shoved her hand through her hair and sighed. "Look, I just had to...go, okay? Have you never just had it pounding through you until it's all you can think about? Focus on, even? I wasn't sneaking because I didn't have the wherewithal to sneak. That was way too much thought. I just needed to go."

[not_every_mage]

"I don't know what to say," Anders mumbled, shoulders sagging. "You're still going through something, and I want to understand, but I don't. But if you need to go, I need to go with you."

The last sentence seemed to come from nowhere; he wasn't thinking about it until it was out of his mouth. But as soon as it was, he knew it felt right. Kathy could go wherever she felt she had to, but she wouldn't go alone.

[spin_kick_snap]

"But, but..." Kathy peered at him, confused. "You hate LA. You and Dante both. Not just my LA, LA like in general."

She couldn't swear that she would have thought to wake him up and tried to get him to accompany her if she'd been filled with the sudden impulse to go to, like, Des Moines or something, but for an impromptu trip to Los Angeles? Never.

[not_every_mage]

"When did I say that?" Anders groused as he hit the button to start the blender. "I'll admit it's not my favorite city, but 'hate' is a strong word. I ... wouldn't want to live there, that's all. It doesn't mean I won't go there if you have something to take care of."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Well, umm, I mean..." Kathy groped for an answer. Sure, he'd never said it, but that didn't mean it wasn't true, right? "With all the things that happened...And you and Dante didn't want to go there at all on your trip..."

Not a whole lot to hang a case on there, Kathy.

[not_every_mage]

"Because we'd had the worst time in our lives there," Anders explained. "There seemed to be plenty of the country to see without going back. But it didn't mean never ever."

He poured half the smoothie into a tumbler and handed it to her before getting down a cup for himself. The conversation had him finally awake enough to put a few things together. "You're having a hard time with your PTSD again, aren't you?"

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy winced. Her first instinct was to deny it - which was stupid. Rational people did not wake up from a nightmare about being a dead girl again convinced that the best course of action was to flee across the country to make sure the city was 'still alive.'

"...Yeah," she admitted, reluctantly. She fiddled with the cup of smoothie, not meeting his eyes. "I guess."

[not_every_mage]

"What's been going on?" Anders asked, keeping his voice level despite the twisting in his stomach. The lastthing he wanted to do was let Kathy know he was worried, which always sent her back into everything's-fine mode. "I can't imagine you taking off after one dream."

[spin_kick_snap]

"It, uh, hasn't just been one dream," she said. "Kinda on and off for the past few weeks. More 'on' this week than 'off'."

Which was why she'd been sleeping in her room recently.

[not_every_mage]

“I’m sorry,” Anders said, and kept his eyes on her as he took a seat at the table. “Do you want to talk about the dreams, or does that just make it worse?”

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy gave a listless shrug. "They're all kind of variations on a theme," she said. "I'm an ex in LA. One time, it was a literal graveyard, with exes rising up out of the roads and buildings. This time, I was convinced it was alive and I was shambling there, but then Rodney made me look down and I realized there were exes everywhere."

[not_every_mage]

“Sounds like Fade dreams,” Anders said, then considered. “Worse, I know those aren’t real. Yours could almost be memories.”

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy nodded. "These are definitely dreams, not memories? I mean, this one had Rodney's severed head talking to me when before if he wanted me to do something he'd just...take me over. Make me do it."

It was still hard finding the right terms for it. Technically Rodney had just puppeted her body, there hadn't been a person inside to actually 'control.' But in her recovered memories of it, she could almost feel it happening, like a cold slime being poured over her brain.

...It was complicated.

"I hate mind-control," she whined. 0/2, did not want.

[not_every_mage]

“I don’t think anyone likes it,” Anders said lightly, as he reached to touch her arm. “At least not from the victim’s side.”

He looked up over Kathy’s head, as if he might find what he needed to say written there. Another concern struck him. “I hope going to LA helps,” he said. “Don’t you worry it might just bring back the bad memories?”

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy shrugged. "It might," she admitted. "I can't swear it won't. But it's not like I don't have those anyway, right?"