Board Thread:Roleplaying/@comment-5543592-20190330040916/@comment-5583506-20190330225614

Shanks sat outside the warehouse. His back slumped back against the cold, hard steel walls. Cigarette in mouth and his fuzzy hands shoved into the pockets of his coat. Being alone again, he decided to pull back his hood and expose himself to the evening breezes that played with the fur that covered his elongated head.

He didn't know what to make of this cause. Though he had no doubt that they were all qualified in one way or another, he felt it as if he was but a mark in a huge gamble. And he needed to make sure that it paid off his way. This Shrike woman was definitely not a target to take lightly, but so was he.

The people here were stranger than expected, although he was glad to see a couple of familiar faces. Hancock had a face that only a blind hedgehog could love, but he was a good man. Probably the only man at this place that he could trust. Also, looking at him made him not feel so insecure about his own mug. His shrew of a wife Naomi, had a good heart though she rarely showed it to him. As for the rest .... he didn't particularly care. He found the redhead, named Kayleigh, under Naomi's guidance to be a hottie and had the kind of spunk that he liked in a woman, but she wouldn't look twice his way. And for good reason...

He took a huff from his cigarette and scratched his whiskers. Fleas?

Then there was Tanner. The man didn't look like much, but he seemed reasonable enough to live and let live. And then there was that brooding, black-haired little thing with the synthetic lenses. He had gotten the impression that she hadn't liked him at first sight, not that that was anything new to him. Few people did. Still, she came off to him as more hostile than any others in this crew of misfits that he could almost smell her hostility. Except maybe the annoying old Ghoul that had lashed out at him during the debriefing.

There was Will. A waste of space, to be sure. Not of any use in a battle, except maybe as cannon fodder. But he seemed to have a good heart and an honesty about him. Which was more than he could say for anyone else at this place in the middle of nowhere. There was the pair that he had come with, the Walkers. Didn't know them, and didn't care. Same went with the rest.

There were no other men like him. Only him. And he didn't mean it as praise or self flattery. For 243 years he had been alive, twisted in body and soul. And only God knew the why and how of it, but the omnipotent cunt had refrained from ever explaining it to him, even back when he had still believed that there was some sort of higher call or purpose. He could smoke to his heart's content, as he could never get any lung cancer. He could drink till he spewed up his own guts, if he so pleased, as he wouldn't suffer from a drinker's liver. His own body regenerated so efficiently to the point where not even self-destructive behaviour had been able to entertain his two long centuries of solitude and reflection. And during all these centuries he had kept himself alive for the sole reason of trying to puzzle together just what had happened to him: the full extent of his life from before the war. Yet with each passing year the traces waned and faded, like footprints on the dunes in a sand storm.

Not even the Ghouls these days seemed to be able to provide him with a satisfying answer. Every little thing there was related to his past had expired in a gigantic flash of light, along with any relatives and friends which he might have had from back then. He remembered an estranged ex-wife, and a daughter that he had loved dearly. Sometimes he could see their faces in his dreams, and other nights they were naught but a vague blur. Even their names escaped him from time to time, and other times he could remember them perfectly, sometimes even calling them moments before waking up, only for them to slip away during the day. It left him embittered and in a foul mood, and he was always in a foul mood.

The whole business with Shrike was but a cobblestone on a path he had set out for himself. If there was such a thing as a clear answer of just what and who he was, somewhere in this world, he intended to find it before contemplating to end this miserable existence once and for all.

Life would have been so much simpler if I had simply turned into a regular dog, he reflected. People at least liked dogs.