Nightshift 49: The Bookworm

[chainsaw_royal]

[From here]The dark looks the same, no matter what, but the moment Hime's flashlight beam ghosted over rows of books, she knew something was odd. When a flash of lightning illuminated the darkened bookstore, it was confirmed

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[zack_fair]

[From here.]

The increased sound of the rain was a quick clue as to their location. Back in the town, huh? Zack staggered toward the counter as he tried to overcome the vertigo that came every time they stepped through a door, and he only barely avoided dropping the materia that he was still holding on to in case something happened.

He recovered quickly, taking a look around with his flashlight. It was clearly a bookstore, but the place was trashed, with most of the books scattered across the floor. The store went pretty far back, so much so that he couldn't see the end of the aisle that he aimed his flashlight down. That wasn't good, since there could be zombies lurking back there.

Granted, they could just leave and get away from the danger without bothering to explore, but he couldn't help wondering if some of these books might be useful. More than that, he was curious about why the place was so messed up. While he hadn't come into this store during the day, he was pretty sure he would have noticed the broken window as he'd walked by.

"I wonder what happened here," he said with a frown. "Maybe someone ended up here before us." And subsequently got into a nasty fight. There didn't seem to be any blood on the floor -- no pieces of zombie, either. This chaos couldn't have happened on its own, though. Zack glanced over at Cloud and Yuffie, waiting to see if either of them had an explanation.

[thatdamnedninja]

"Nothin' wrong with being light-hearted," Yuffie countered casually, following Zack to the door. "Or honest."

She'd give as good as she got. He wanted to treat her like a kid? It'd only come back and bite him in the end; she'd make sure of it.

Unfortunately, the only thing getting bitten right now was her. Vertigo ripped its nasty, greedy claws into her as she stepped through into the new location-whiplash dizziness sent her head spinning, her stomach rioting, and her knees crashing to the floor. It was no worse than all the other teleport-whatevers had been, but- "U-Ugh," groaned Yuffie, catching herself on the palm of her free hand before she could topple any further. The room dipped and wavered around her.

But, a little eventually added up to a whole lot.

Yuffie, breath catching unsteadily, scrambled back to her feet. She was fine. Would be fine. Very soon. And if the rain outside and the mess inside were any indication, the finer she was, the better off she'd be, in more ways than one. There weren't any zombies lurking around within seeing, hearing, or smelling distance just yet, but that didn't mean there wouldn't be soon. And zombies weren't the only nasties out on a night.

She shook her head, unsure. "It might've been like this before nightfall, but… there's no way of tellin' for sure."

[notthistrain]

Cloud had started closing his eyes before stepping through doorways. While not the safest thing to do, it was somewhat easier on his stomach and he had two other pairs of eyes to warn him of danger in the event that they appeared directly in the middle of it. At least he looked to be handling the teleporting better than Yuffie was.

He wanted to bend down and pat the ninja on the back, but knew she'd appreciate it more if he didn't. After all, she'd just gotten done lecturing Zack about not being treated like a child, though he didn't particularly think that sort of gesture counted as babying. He took the chance to check out where they'd landed instead.

From the look of things, they were back in Doyleton. It wasn't the same shop they'd been in previously, and the sound of groaning, walking corpses wasn't as close as it had been before, though he knew the threat was still there. The room was a mess, and someone or something had busted out the glass of the storefront, leaving them more exposed to the elements as well as the zombies.

"If everyone else is gettin' zapped around as much as we are, I wouldn't be surprised if we weren't the first ones here." The blond stepped toward the shattered window, examining the mess more closely. He was tempted to stick his hand or even his head through the opening, but who knew if that counted as cheating or not? "Think we can step through here and actually end up outside?"

[zack_fair]

It looked like Yuffie was still taking the weird warping feeling pretty badly, but Zack only eyed her for a second before turning his attention to the room and the window. She'd said she didn't want to be treated like she was only in her single digits still, so he was going to abide by that as much as he could. If she didn't want a hand up, that was her decision.

So none of them seemed sure of when this damage had been caused, but either way, it made it pretty clear that this place was far from safe. The spa had been in pretty good order in comparison, though that had been a bit earlier on in the night. Zack nodded to Cloud, figuring that his guess was probably the right one.

He went and joined his friend at the window, taking note of the fact that it had been broken from the inside out. There was no shattered glass on the floor, after all. "Looks like someone else tried before us, but who knows if it worked or not," he said with a shrug.

Did they really want to end up outside, though? It seemed like the town was a pretty bad place to be, though at the same time, it was clearly the most interesting spot. He turned toward the blond with a smirk. "What, are you eager to take down some zombies or something?" He wouldn't have expected it from Cloud, but he wouldn't have expected him to be able to fly an airship, either. His friend still had a ton of questions that he had to answer, but it would clearly have to wait.

[thatdamnedninja]

"If we can make it to some of the other stores, stockin' up on all sorts of neat loot would be a piece of cake," Yuffie suggested, voice tinged with a mixture of longing and doubt. If only. They might be able to get out there, but getting into someplace else wouldn't be so easy. Even if they could just smash another window, the noise could-probably would-bring all those undead freaks shambling in to join the party.

… Then again. Yuffie hopped, wobbly yet nimble, across the mess on the floor to join the others at the window. The real question was, why weren't the zombies here now? Had the window-smashing incident been long enough ago that they'd just lost interest? Could be, could be.

"Chances are, we'll have to go smashing up the window of every other building we wanna get into if we do get out there, but," she shrugged, "I'd be up for it. Thunderstorm and hordes of creepolicious zombies or not, it's more interestin' out here than it is back there." And while Yuffie'd never admit it outloud, she could do with a break from all the warping. Nausea sucked serious balls.

[notthistrain]

This part of the bookshop was pretty much ruined, what with the rain blowing in. Given how Landel seemed to be able to fix things up during the day, however, it was doubtful the shop would remain that way. If they were still around for the trip next week (Holy forbid) it would likely be back to normal.

Cloud peered out through the rain, trying to see if they would be up against any immediate opposition. Somehow, going to building by building by way of window seemed too easy. If that was the case, then surely they'd see others running down the road, or hear them in the distance - the ones who'd broken through the window in the first place, for example.

Unfortunately, the only way to know for sure was to give it a try. Making sure the others were ready behind him, he nodded. "Let's go."

[to here]