“Poor you. You should be thanking me that I accelerated the process. Had the rednecks fired off their guns willy-nilly, because you sucked at sneaky, Blinders would’ve come running down anyways.” Wayne said. “Is the Morphine screwing your head or something, or you just ignored that little detail of what you did back there?”
Wayne checked the time on his watch and then took the time listening to any sound. No footsteps that like sound likes Blinders are rushing in any time soon. “Regardless, I’ll take the heat, considering you’re more inclined to pit the blame on me for your own inexperience.” The man chuckled as he continued to hear any sudden movements.
"Yeah, I'm not in the mood to listen to old people bicker." Violet followed Boris out of the room and into the new area of the mall.
"Speak for yourself. I'd rather get disemboweled alive by Blinders than be subjected to whatever those bastards might have had in mind. They seemed like they were patrolling the place, so we ought to leave as soon as we can." Molly said with a grimace while she worked, taking out a bottle of isopropyl alcohol and a rag. The label was practically dried and peeled off from age, but there was at least enough for several more uses. Carefully, Molly took Ezra's wrist and seemed to be feeling for a certain artery on it, stopping on the thumb-side of his wrist. Wrapping her fingers around the arm, she squeezed down on it for a few seconds before releasing. Molly repeated it a few times. "This should get the bleeding under control before we sew it up."
(Just a little recap in case we are lost: Ezra, Boris, Wayne, Molly, and Violet are traveling up to escape the borders of Florida. They were confronted by two rednecks that caused a scene to alert a small mob of Blinders. Outsmarting the Blinders, the gang slipped inside a small store that is connected to a larger mall. Ezra was injured during the scuffle but Molly is there to patch him up. Wayne and Ezra are not on good terms. Boris and Violet are heading inside the mall to find any sort of supplies for Molly and an exit to the other side. They found a mysterious backpack with directions to find a mysterious person who appears to be connected to the Blinders. Any questions, feel free to ask me! Sorry for the big wait. :wagh: )
Ezra grumbled under his breath upon hearing Wayne try to justify his reasoning, rolling his eyes in annoyance. He barely said anything when Molly examined him, almost like he was intimidated by her little remarks earlier. Nonetheless, he kept still for Molly to properly assist his wound. The bad blood he held with Wayne would be subsided for now while he examined the notebook from earlier. He read about the development and adaptations of some Blinders throughout Florida. There were many pages, each one was highly detailed in explaining how and what the Blinders were in certain areas of Florida as well as recording new discoveries found by other people. As he flipped through the pages, the note with directions fell out. Ezra read it as best he could, spots of blood cutting out vital parts of information. He gazed back to the notebook, trying to put it together.
Sam? A leader? Leader of what? Whoever this Sam is, she is studying the Blinders... He slowly gazed between Molly and Wayne. We will be heading to the state border soon, so we might pass by his person if they're still around...
"Looks like this notebook is giving us details about the Blinders. Whoever that person was, they did a great report on a few of the Blinders in Florida." Ezra said holding up the notebook. The man looked down at a specific page, reading out loud. "'These Blinders possess certain traits that can be commonly described as an adaptation in animals, however, whereas it took nature thousands of years to evolve, the Blinders did it in a decade.' Adapt to the environment? Like camouflage or something? All the Blinders I've seen weren't as smart as this person makes them out to be... Do you guys have any idea?"
"Let's hope those two don't kill each other," Boris joked. "But anyway, ve should find some supplies for your friend as vell as an exit. Pretty sure those Blinders are going to be busy vith their barbeque."
As the two walked through the mall, it was littered with clothes, broken glass, blood, and occasionally, a body. Some stores were robbed of all belongings and others barricaded to no avail. It was eerie being in a mall with no sound other than the echo of their footsteps. Boris paid no mind to it as he gently kicked over some rubble to see if he could find anything under it. Somewhere ahead, there was a gurgling noise followed by some rackets. Boris ignored the noise, carefully eyeing the floor for useful items and the walls for exits.
"Vhelp, you can finally go shopping without a crowd. It's a bit... veird."
Wayne saw no signs of Blinders anywhere, and it seems that those two men were just out there by themselves. “Never seen a Blinder like that. Probably some crackpot making things up to deter people from moving around too much. Resources and food is scarce around here… I’ll probably make some shit up too if I want to protect my assets.”
He turned to Molly and Erza. “I ain’t sitting around any longer. If he’s fixed up, I’m ready to go now.”
"To be fair, we're in Florida. Not much intelligent life to be found," Molly joked sarcastically. "But I'm in the mood to humor this dead person's theories for a little bit..." She took out a needle driver and a hook-shaped needle from her kit before grabbing the rag and dabbing the soaked end of it around the wound and into the outer edges for sanitizing it. "Though, until I close this up, we're not going anywhere anytime soon. I wouldn't wander around by myself in a place like this."
She kept speaking as she looped the surgical thread through the eye of the needle and tied it off, placing the hook on one side of the wound. "Oh, and this is gonna suck, so please don't make too much of a ruckus when I drive it into your muscle tissue..." Molly warned Ezra before immediately jamming it through the deeper part of the open wound, and then driving it once more out the other side to start the first stitch. "As I was saying, maybe places like the city and the countryside don't warrant a Blinder to be any different than a normal human, physiologically speaking. If I remember my freshman courses on evolution correctly, there will inevitably be at least one member of a population born with some kind of mutation in their DNA." She started as she worked her way through the 2nd and 3rd stitch using a swift hand. "Like the case of field rabbits and albino rabbits. All of the brown hares would just be eaten once the snow falls into the ground, but their albino buddies can hide from predators just fine, so they survive the winter. Since all the brown ones got eaten, the white ones have babies whose coat color eventually can change with the season." Molly was on the 4th and final stitch, but paused to give Ezra some breathing room.
"Blinders can't be any different if that freaky virus is just piggybacking off our bodies to get around. And to make matters worse, viruses don't 'check' for any errors when replicating themselves. Every year a new flu shot had to be cooked up because it would develop resistance by mutating. If it's some suped-up version of the flu, no wonder we haven't gotten any word about cures yet."
=============
"Yeah... kinda stinks around here too." Violet said, frowning at the smell of the decomposing bodies they'd find. "I've tried so hard to avoid malls... movies taught me that nothing good ever comes from abandoned malls. So, we should probably remember to knock before we open any doors... and maybe find some emergency exits in case we need to get the hell out of here in the next five minutes." She stopped talking once she heard some distant noises. Even though she strained to hear, she couldn't tell if it was coming from an open window or actually inside the mall. Either way, it made her want to hurry through searching the place. "I really hate the mall..."
Ezra rolled his eyes with Wayne's comment before looking down towards Molly and the hook-like needle she took out. He immediately grew pale and his body stiffened. Sweat rolled down the side of his cheek and he attempted to pull his arm back slightly. He knew that Molly would upset if he struggled but he could not stop staring at the needle. He felt his heart race and when he spoke, he sounded horrified.
"Oow! Ow! D-Do you really need to use needles..? Can't you just... wrap it up or something? Doesn't it heal the same..? J-Just hurry up and get that stupid needle away from me!"
Ezra, despite being afraid of needles, kept himself from struggling in Molly's grasp, knowing that the sooner she finishes, the sooner it will be over. He turned his head away, biting his lip as she carefully stitched him up. To distract himself from the sight of the needle, he listened intently to what Molly said.
"Mutation in DNA? Do you think this person found some sort of mutated Blinder or something? Sounds a bit far fetched if you ask me but after a decade, I guess it's not hard to believe if the Blinders changed a little bit. So far, I haven't seen anything weird with the Blinders, so I don't buy it. We should keep a lookout, just in case we spot something weird, no doubt the person who wrote this saw something strange too..."
The noise from earlier continued to get louder and louder as Boris and Violet traveled in the Mall. Not too far from the two was a lone Blinder trapped behind the iron fencing of a closed boutique shop. She slammed her body against the bars but never made any difference in her attempts to escape. She looked perfectly unharmed and untouched by anything around her except for the tip of her index finger being bitten off. Boris stared at the Blinder and moved in a little closer to examine her. Both Violet and Boris would be safe, there was no way this Blinder could escape her prison.
"Yikes, looks like this one was trying to save herself by caging herself in," Boris said, carefully approaching the Blinder. As the Blinder stuck her arms between the bars, Boris casually grabbed her wrist, examining her missing fingertip. "Guess a Blinder must've nicked her finger. Vhat a vay to go... at least she's not infecting others, yah? Maybe your doctor friend vould like to see a Blinder up close?"
Boris let out a hearty laugh before releasing the girl and trailing off to continue his search for an exit. He stared up at a Macy's store, knowing that on the other side would no doubt be an exit.
"Vell, we can travel through this shop to reach the other side. From there ve should be away from the massive hordes and closer to the country-side."
“Tch…” Wayne was annoyed that he’s basically stranded until Molly ensured that Erza is capable of walking. He sat down, watching guard for anything strange, as Molly and Erza converse among themselves about the mutation of the Blinders.
“It’s not out of the ordinary for Blinders to adapt to the environment they were in. As Molly said…” Wayne added his own thoughts. “If whatever it was can change the biological aspects of our bodies, it’s not as far-fetched for them to adapt certain things to where they are living in.” Wayne checked his watch. “But again, that book made it sound like it’s straight from science fiction.”
"Well, until we see something mutated for ourselves, let's hope it isn't anything freakishly drastic. And unless you want to tear it open and bleed out in the middle of a fight, no I can't wrap it." Molly rolled her eyes at Ezra's phobia of needles, but couldn't help but find amusement that a suture needle alone would get him so nervous despite the initial intimidating vibe he gave off not long ago. "It's already hard enough looking after your own neck as it is." Molly finished the last suture and tied it off before concealing the stitches by tying off a fragment of clothing to it. "This should at least keep anything from getting the stitches dirty, but don't do heavy lifting with this arm, got it?" She warned before standing up. "May as well try and catch up to them."
Violet looked at the Blinder, the instinctive uneasiness still there but to a lesser degree thanks to the fact she was trapped in her own space away from them. She turned up her nose away from the Blinder with a scoff.
"I wouldn't put it past her to try and dissect it for fun if she could." Violet quipped sarcastically and sighed. "It's our best bet at getting out of here without crossing paths with any more creeps at least. But we gotta grab the others first-- I reckon we might stumble across another surprise or two since the stink isn't going away."
Ezra grunted before rubbing his arm gently from Molly's stitches. He took her advice and tried not to do any heavy lifting. He rose to his feet and placed the bag from the dead girl over his back, deciding to keep it since it holds valuable information. He looked out towards where Boris and Violet left and urged Wayne and Molly to follow him.
Mutations in Blinders..? Wayne's right when he says it sounds like science fiction. I bet even the doc thinks it's a bit silly. Ezra gripped the notebook tightly in his hand flipping through some pages. Even so, why would this person write such nonsense? Did that girl know something we didn't?
While Ezra trailed the empty mall with Wayne and Molly, he managed to see Boris waving them over to the Blinder caught in the boutique shop. The smell was as bad as Violet made it out to be with the decomposing bodies scattered about. Ezra seemed to be somewhat used to it but kept his distance. Ezra caught up to Boris and Violet with Molly and Wayne in tow. The two men stared at the vacant Macy's store knowing that there will be an exit on the other side.
"Alright gang, we should be out of this mall soon and off to the countryside. Once we reach the Georgia border, we can part ways from there..." Ezra said as he looked to the Blinder trapped in the cage, thinking back to what the notebook said. "Looks like a normal Blinder to me..."
"Huh? Vhat are you talking about, Ezra?" Boris grunted, eyeing the Blinder.
"Nothing, just forget about it," Ezra said, moving towards the Macy's store. "Let's just hurry up and get out of here. There might be stragglers hidden in these stores. I'll be by the exit."
Whether or not the group followed him, he had already left to the Macy's store. There was no doubt he was bothered by what the notebook said, even if it wasn't true. Boris stuck behind with the group but trailed slowly after Ezra, rolling his eyes and playfully urging the group to follow.
"You can take any valuables you see, they von't need it."
“No shit, old man.” Wayne responded to Boris was venom in his voice. “Don’t go around telling us what we already know. We’re survivors.” Wayne already picked up myriad of items along the way after Molly patched Ezra’s wounds. After encountering two rednecks and Blinders, and wasting his secret weapon against them, he needs to sort on items for another one. Just in case of emergency.
After Ezra left to the Macy Store, he noticed the Blinder stuck in the cage. “How the fuck did it get in there?” He noticed on a small wound on her finger, seemingly it was ripped off. From that point, it was the most present of the infection that spread. “So just a wound like that can get you turned?”
He overheard Ezra and Boris conversation about the notebook again. Still believe in that sort of fiction. That was Wayne’s thought after hearing it, and stump that they are still carrying around that notebook. Wayne entered the store, seeing clothing all over the place. “Nothing in valuable here. New clothes in case your current one stinks.”
He continued, since he already packed enough clothes to last him two weeks before exchanging for another. Looking ahead, he seen that the exit is in sight. “Unless you want to go shopping, I’m pushing forward and see anything wanderers still lurking around. Or rednecks. If there’s more than one, there’s got to be a whole bunch horde up around here.”
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