Tamar~

I grab my backpack and run. Luci's ahead of me, pulling me along by my wrist. Danie's hopped on her bike quick as a flash and is speeding ahead of us, one hand on the handlebars, her bag over her shoulder, and the other hand holding her shotgun. Arista's behind all of us, shooting the zombies as she retreats. 

Danie stops in front of an old warehouse. It's dark inside. She drops her bike with a clang of metal on concrete. "Get inside," she orders. Luci keeps running, pulling me with her up a set of stairs in the back of the warehouse and onto a mezzanie that runs under the windows. 

"Duck," she orders. She draws her dagger from her belt with one hand, digging in her bag with the other. Danie lifts her gun into position and starts sniping at the zombies below from out the broken window. Arista's still downstairs, at the door of the warehouse, fighting them off. 

Luci draws her dagger from her belt with one hand, digging in her bag with the other. "Arista and Danie will fight them off. We've got to stay here, protect the supplies so it's safe when they come back."  

I draw my swiss army knife and help her move corrugated tin sheets into a rough shelter. I hope it'll be enough.  

*This is mostly to synchronize Addie/Zain with Luci/Arista/Danie/Tamar.*

Tamar~

Danie keeps firing. I hand her cartridges from her bike's bags as she snipes at the zombies.

I peek out the window at the zombies still massed around the building and Arista. As I watch, Danie's shot hits one in the leg, and it falls. The next zombie falls onto it, gets tangled, it goes down too. The next one falls. 

Luci's seen them fall too. She jumps out of her shelter to help finish them off so they can't be reanimated.

Danie cheers. "Woot woot!"

But then I freeze. "Wait, guys. I hear something..." The moans of zombies, faint, are coming from the distance. I shine my flashlight out the upstairs window. From the alley we came from as we ran from the shop, there's movement. 

My flashlight spotlights a girl with long black hair in camouflage and a blonde with a black jacket. They're running. From behind them I can hear zombie moaning.

"We have to help them!"

~Bluebird~

At first I think this is the end.

I hear gunshots, zombie moaning, scraping metal from outside my pitch-black janitorial closet in the back of the warehouse. They've come, they can use guns (how, I'm not sure), they're making some diabolical device to bust open the door and kill me. I just know it. Then, gradually, the gunshots and moaning cease. An odd crackling noise replaces them. What are they doing now? Are they gone? Dare I check?

And then the door abruptly opens, and I'm staring into the face of a girl.

She's a blonde, like me. I can see a streak of gray- soot? zombie gunk?- across her cheek. In the leaping orange light of a fire behind her, she looks less like a fellow Sunshiner and more like a wicked sorceress. I freeze in terror, both startled and completely unprepared for a fellow human being to suddenly breach my last protection. Whatever I was expecting, this was not it.

Wait. Sunshiner. A name from my previous life, but of what? I have a vague, disorienting image of a girl and a boy, tanned and lightly dressed, walking along a beach. The boy has a surfboard in one hand and the girl's hand in the other; she looks almost eerily like me...And then the split-second scene is gone, vanished behind the seawall in my mind that holds it all back. All my memories, save for the one remnant I managed to hold onto: a name. Bluebird. Somehow I think it's mine, though I also think I had another one once. The seawall is unassailable, though, so any other name I might have had is lost to me.

The memory, if it's even a memory and not some figment of my imagination, doesn't answer my question. Is this girl friendly? She looks something like me, but what does that matter? She could help me, or she could just as easily kick me out and leave me to the zombies. Seeing my shock, she extends a hand to help me up from my tight crouch. "Don't be scared. Torren is crawling with them; we can always use another ally. My name's Addie. What's yours?"

************

Koda says vtkk. No, Koda, you absolutely may NOT go on vacation to Vermont!! 

Sorry I haven't written guys, I'm just so busy. I'm trying to balance time and all, but I finally have a break to write!

Addie ~

I glance at Zain, who is watching me, out of the corner of my eye, then sigh. 

"What... the last thing you heard about me was, was the accident, wasn't it?"

Zain nodded, her eyes becoming downcast.

"Yeah, well, after that, I didn't really feel like being shuttled around. So I took things into my own hands." I sit down beside Zain, gripping my bag with one hand.

"I started just roaming. I felt the need to wander, though why and what my end goal was, is, I have no clue. It's not too bad. Bit difficult at first, I'll grant, but..."

I left the sentence unfinished. I didn't really know how to go on about the last five years, how to explain everything that had happened, the bad and the not so bad. I left every day of my life that past closed, not to be revisted. I didn't think on it myself, so I really didn't know how to talk about it.

Not that it mattered at that moment. Something large and heavy crashed against the boarded window, causing us both to jump to our feet in alarm. 

"Run to the back!" Zain shouts as we run down the shelves and burst through a door leading to the back warehouse. A light like a flashlight dashes across the room of the now open window. Whether it is from friend or foe we don't bother to check. The sounds of moaning and gurgling growls keeps us running.

The door in the back leads to a large warehouse that is now mostly empty. Random parts, tools and wares lie about in a heavy coating of dust. We try to bar the door but by now our attackers have increased in number and lay siege to the door so heavily we can't keep it shut long enough to bar it.

"There's another exit in the back of the warehouse, but I blocked it to keep out intruders!" Zain shouts to me over the cacophony on the other side of the door.

"Well then we either pray we can move that blockade in thirty seconds or we attempt to fight our way out," I holler in reply. But our decision was quickly made for us, when we were out-matched in strength, and the door was flung open. We scrambled backwards, attempting to get to our feet. A pack of zombies flooded in. At least seven or eight. I glanced hurriedly about, reaching for the closest thing in range. One thing I'd learned on the streets was how to turn anything from a stick of wood to a butter knife into a dangerous and accurate weapon. In this case, the weapon turned out to be a two and half foot long lead pipe.

I grabbed it, jumping to my feet and swinging it as hard as I could at the approaching zombie. It crashed squarely into the side of its rotting face, knocking it off its feet. I heard Zain from somewhere nearby, evidently also weilding some sort of weapon, defending herself. Then, out of nowhere, a gunshot rang out, followed by several more.

Within several minutes of united fighting from me, Zain, and whomever else had come, we managed to dispatch the zombies. After the last one fell, I was able to take a good look around. Zain stood several feet off, leaning against her knees and panting. Near the door stood a group of girls, all of whom looked a bit younger than me. 

I look each of them over. I doubt they're here to cause any problems, though I remain tense with the pipe still in hand just in case.

"Hello," says one, looking at me with cautious curiosity. "I'm Tamar." She goes on to make further introductions. 

"Addie," I reply, "and that's Zain." Zain gives a nod.

"We saw you two in the store front as the zombies attacked, and well, we thought you could use the help."

"Well we're obliged," I reply, cracking a small smile. A moment of silence passes.

"Well, I doubt we want to go back out that way, but there's a rear exit," Zain says. We walk toward the back in silence, though on the way, a sound catches my ear. I stop, looking toward a janitor's closet. I cross over, and yank open the door. I find myself staring with a blonde haired girl who looks about my age, maybe slightly older. Her expression is one of absolute shock. 

Shaking myself out of my own shock, I reach out to her to help her up. "Don't be scared. Torren is crawling with them," I say gently, assuming the zombies had chased her in here. "We can always use another ally. My name's Addie, what's yours?"

The girl looks at me a moment, then takes my extended hand. "I'm Bluebird," she says in a stronger voice than her appearance suggests.

"Guys," I turn and call toward the other who are in the process of trying to move a set of shelves away from the door. "We have another member."

**********************************************************************

Okay, so I know this is long, but I was connecting Curious Dragon's and Air's posts (which were both an awesome way to unite the characters, btw) so they flowed togther.

I'm more than a little confused... in my post, Addie and Zain just met up with Luci, Arista, Danie, and Tamar in the warehouse. But then Curio said that Bluebird met Addie...? Are we all in the warehouse except Bianca?

"Who are you?" I ask the girl.

"The only name I can remember is Bluebird."

"Ah. Amnesia. Do you remember anything else?"

"People called the Sunshiners-"

I spluttered. "Wait, wait. The Sunshiners are a massive terrorist group. What do you know about the Sunshiners?!" 

Guys no offense but before you write could you check to see who the last person who posted was and if their comment has been approved yet? It reduces the confusion and trying to decide whose post to go with. Thanks.

Tamar~

Arista sputters, "Wait, wait. The Sunshiners are a massive terrorist group. What do you know about the Sunshiners?"

Bluebird looks scared, even a little confused. I can definitely tell she's not in any shape to answer Arista's questions now.

"Come on, guys," I interrupt the interrogation. "We just got through a battle, let's relax a little bit." I glance over at Luci, asking for permission. She gets there before me.

"We've got a whole bunch of supplies upstairs, and we're building kind of a shelter. Would you... like to join us?" she asks Bluebird, Addie, and Zain.

Bluebird nods quickly, like she's afraid Luci will change her mind. Zain hesitates, looks at Addie. Addie answers for them both. "Yes, definitely! Thank you so much for offering."

Arista leads us upstairs. Her gun is still loaded and cocked in her hand -- it makes me think she doesn't quite trust these three. Luci looks calm. Her dagger's back in her belt, and her hand's not on its hilt. Danie... I can't quite tell how she thinks yet. Especially after that hallucination attack she got.

We all sit in a circle on our bags. Luci bends over a pile of trash in a can, trying to start a fire. I hand her a match, and she nods gratefully. I take out my loaf of bread from my bag, cutting it so one slice makes one sandwich. Arista arranges some metal wires over the fire like a grill, and I set up the bread with slices of cheese on top to toast.

While we wait for food, all of us start working on our weapons. Bluebird unslings a bow and a quiver full of steel-tipped arrows from her back. I didn't see that before, I think. She tests the tips of the arrows on a piece of old wood lying on the floor. Luci polishes her dagger and sharpens it with a small stone. Danie loads her shotgun, and Arista gets a rag and polishes her gun. Addie and Zain sit close together, both cleaning their weapons. 

Arista looks up. "So, Bluebird," she asks, "what do you know about the Sunshiners?" 

Tamar~

Bluebird freezes. She bites her lip, slides her fingers nervously down the shaft of her arrow. Arista looks at her expectantly, crossing her arms. 

"I-I..." Bluebird hesitates. "I don't...remember much. I don't really remember anything specific, actually."

Arista frowns. "There's got to be something."

"Well, I remember the word Sunshiner. I guess... maybe I was a part of the group? I really don't know. I barely even remember my own name, and I'm not sure it really is my own." Bluebird shrugs, curls up tighter. It doesn't seem like she's deliberately covering anything up, but I'm definitely sure she's not comfortable with the subject. 

"Looks like the sandwiches are ready," I say, breaking the awkward silence. I hand the first one to Bluebird, who takes it gratefully, but doesn't eat yet. She must be hungry, but I guess maybe she's just lost in thought. Luci gets the next one, and she eagerly bites into the soft bread and cheese. When I hand one to Addie, she passes it to Zain, so I give her another. Arista takes one with a curt nod, and Danie starts chowing down on hers immediately. I take the last one, eating it slowly as I watch the others. Arista looks like she doesn't trust Bluebird at all. Danie and Luci don't look concerned at the three new members of our group. Addie and Zain sit close together, eating, chatting, and laughing. I guess they're old friends or something. Bluebird sits with her back against the wall, her bow leaning against the wall next to her, and her quiver under her hand. It's like she expects an attack.

I finish my sandwich and dig into my backpack. "I guess we're spending the night here?" I ask.