Order: Isolation (Main)

Kano opened the door to the dorm and entered quickly, not wanting a surprise visit from an infected. Carefully placing her bow on the table in front of her, she set down her backpack full of supplies from the nearby store on campus. Looking around, she called out in a level voice, "Mateo, where are you?"

Peeking his head from behind the desk, Mateo sighed in relief at the sight of Kano returning from her excursion. "Here, Kano." He replied nervously, rising up from behind his temporary shelter. "I heard a few screams downstairs and hid back here just in case... You've got anything interesting for breakfast?" He asked, quickly changing the subject.

She smirked at his question, instantly producing several goods from her bag. "I've got some bread, some canned meat, and water." She opened up the can of meat and began to make "breakfast". While doing so, she added, "It's the best I could find, okay?" Holding out a sandwich to Mateo, she smiled and said, "Here."

Mateo's dark eyes lit up. "Well, at least it beats eating moldy biscuits and water everyday," he chuckled before quickly motioning his hand in the sign of the cross. "Bendícenos, Señor, y bendice estos alimentos que por tu bondad vamos a tomar. Por Jesucristo Nuestro Señor, Amén." The Latino promptly dug into his meal silently, savoring the oily slabs of spam.

Kano smiled and dug into her own meal, happy to have something to eat. As she ate, she silently thought about how they should proceed now. Abruptly, she calmly said, "Mateo. We can't stay here anymore. The stores around campus are either overrun with infected or ransacked." Not wanting to scare Mateo too badly, she quickly added in a slightly more cheerful voice, "Any places you think we can go?"

The oily nearly tumbled out of his hands when he heard her. "P-Places? Well uh..." Frankly he had no clue, since the dorm room that they were living in right now was his dorm. And he knew of nothing else beside his dorm. "The city would probably be worse right? How about somewhere on the outskirts of town?"

Kano paused mid-chew and thought for a moment, weighing the positives with the negatives, and finally said, "Yeah, that's good." They were close to the center of D.C, and the nearest city would be Alexandria to the south. "We should pack up soon, while we still have energy."

"We could use my old pick-up, though we'll have to get some gas on it." He muttered, finishing his sandwich and licked his fingers. "Do... Do you think we can get over to the gas station to fill it up?"

"Yeah, that's a good idea," Kano grunted as she got up off the ground and dusted herself off. She looked into her quiver and found that she only had about a dozen arrows left. Frowning, she turned and said, "We should stop by a sporting goods store if we can. I'm running low on arrows, and they could have some energy bars." Putting her boots on, she added, "How much gas did your pick-up have?"

Mateo contemplated for a bit. "... Probably about half the tank. It will probably last us about an hour or so if we're just running away." Casting a weary eye around the 'home' that he was going to abandon, Mateo sighed dejectedly. "H-How much time do we have?"

"I'll give you half an hour to get your things ready." Kano said curtly, not sugar coating any words. "Take what you need and I'll help you carry the rest out to the truck," As Kano finished her sentence, she felt bad about making a scared guy about her age move out of his own home. Shaking her head, she cleared her thoughts and started to pack her backpack with water, food, and whatever else she could find.

Mateo cast a lingering gaze over the decrepit dorm room. Although it was dingy, cramped, and smelled faintly of dirty laundry; he would be saddened to leave all his memories behind. He slowly sank himself into the vomit-colored couch that his dorm mates had purchased two years earlier, taking in the scenery. Truth to be told, Mateo was already packed with his knapsack stuffed to the brim beside his feet. His trusty wok was attached to his knapsack by a clip. Then thirty minutes of long silence began.

Suddenly an inhumane screech ripped through the air. Mateo jolted out of his reminiscing, instinctively snatching up the nearest object: a remote control. "D-Don't tell me that was another... victim." The heavy pounding of feet on the floor above him vibrated the ceiling, indicating that someone, or something, was running.

Kano listened carefully, the footsteps plodded quickly for another minute, another screech was heard, then there was no more noise. Thinking carefully, Kano turned and spoke up, "Mateo, we've gotta leave, now. Infected are coming pretty close and if we wait any longer, we won't be able to leave." She picked up her bow and her backpack and went to the door. Looking back, she asked, "You ready?"

Gritting his teeth, Mateo threw his knapsack over his shoulder and armed himself with the wok.  "As I'll ever be..." He muttered, almost unsure of himself. But the death grip on his wok and brisk stride to the door said otherwise. "So... How do we get to the garage? We're three floors up from the parking."

"This is how." Kano rustled through her backpack and found a roll of tape. Walking over to the window, she placed tape all across the window. Then, using the end of her bow, she placed a sharp hit towards the center of the panel. The broken window held together due to the tape as she pulled the panel out of the window. "C'mon, we gotta go."

Mateo paled at the thought of leaping out of the window that was three stories above ground level. "Wait a moment, you've got to be kiddin-..." Another scream ripped through the air. "Alright fine, I'm going!! Geez!" With that, Mateo leaped out the window and screwed his eyes shut. He fell onto a sturdy branch of an oak tree, and caught himself from falling off the branch. Just before he could sigh with relief, his grip on the branch slipped and he plummeted to the ground.

Jumping out right after Mateo, Kano expertly landed on the tree and got down quietly. Looking around, she saw that Mateo's loud crash hadn't attracted any infected....yet. Picking him up, she ushered him through a door that led to the garage.

Groaning, Mateo ambled after her through the door and began galloping down the stairs. His body ached from the fall, but his adrenaline and fear drove him onwards. After a few minutes, he found the exit door leading the the parking area. His hand grasped the frozen metal handle and was about to jerk it open when a loud inhuman grunt was heard from the other side.

Mateo whipped his head to Kano, eyes wide in fright. "What the hell do we do??" He mouthed to the calm Japanese girl. They were stuck between a zombie and their ticket out of hell.

Kano saw the fear and Mateo's eyes, her mind racing. She nocked an arrow and rapped lightly on the door, creating some noise. The infected on the other side had started scratching on the door, desperate to get through. "Open it," she mouthed. The instant he opened the door, she drew the arrow and loosed it into the infected's head, severing the brain stem. Crumpling to the ground, she stepped over the corpse as a sick feeling brewed in her stomach.

Mateo grimaced at the sight of the corpse at his feet. Bile began to rise and he couldn't help but clap a hand over his mouth before stepping over it. He swallowed nervously and fumbled for his keys. "How many of those arrows do you have left?" Out of his ratty jeans, the Mexican fished out a set of keys that jangled quietly.

Kano's hand drifted to the quiver on her back as she felt the arrows and counted by touch. "Ten....no...eleven. I've got about eleven left." She pulled the handle of the car, but the door didn't open. Tugging on it a little more, she saw that the door was locked. Looking at Mateo, she pouted,"Are you going to open this door anytime soon?"

"Huh? Oh sorry about that..." A quick twist of the silver key and the rusty hinges of the door creaked open. The noise seemed to echo in the garage, but Mateo didn't pay any mind. He simply boarded on the driver side and swept the seats clean of any dust and leftover crumbs.

Kano entered the car, wary of any leftover pizza or half eaten hamburgers laying on the floor of the passenger's side of the car. She sat down gently in seat and rested an arm on the dashboard. Feeling something sticky, she quickly pulled her hand away, leaving a web of who-knows-what trailing from her hand. Raising an eyebrow at her surroundings, she remarked, "You're really living the life, Mateo."