＝ｓｕｎｂａｔｈｅｒ＝ [Closed w/ tvvitchy]
The stairwell was dim, slightly damp and everything you were told to avoid in those creepy survival video games. Damp meant fungus would grow if the conditions inside the stairwell were right - and that fungus could be the whole reason this was going on! He didn’t want to become one of those things! He had seen them when he looked outside! Gross, mutated creatures with empty eyes that wanted his blood. No fuckin’ way did he want to become one of those things and then be after his friend’s blood.
Swallowing thickly, he took a small swig of the caffeine in his thermos and pulled the fabric of his shirt up and over his nose, to act as a protective barrier between him and any possible infectious fungi lingering in the shadows. There was no way he was going to get infected this early into the game. No sir.
Okay. Okay okay, okay.
There wasn’t anything growing as far as he could see.
Tweek glanced at Matthew with a quick nod and slid into the stairwell, pausing once the mute was standing next to him. With a map in hand. Holy shit! He could make plan with that! Fishing a pen out from his back pocket, he huddled close to the new kid and began to chew at the pen cap as he thought.
" O-okay — I, I know we should get our friends, but it’s seriously too risky! What if they’re - they’re dead! Agh! ” a thought that made him squeak slightly with fear, he didn’t want to be friends with those things or a corpse ” We can’t assume they’re alive, okay??? ‘cause, otherwise we’re probably gonna die s-saving a corpse. ” And dying because of a corpse was not how Tweek wanted to die! With the pen he’d pulled from his pocket, he marked sector 4 with a question mark. A maybe, because those were his friends and he’d be damned if he didn’t try to save them. Cartman was marked with a clear x while everyone else managed to get all question marks from Tweek.
Shit.
This wasn’t gonna work at all.
Sector 4 wasn’t far, though. Maybe they could go and grab Kenny and Craig before anything could happen to them. But..
There was also someone listed in sector 6 and that made him slightly uncomfortable and he didn’t want to leave him behind even if he didn’t recognize their name.
“ OKAy, ” voice cracking, he tapped sector 4 on the map with the pen, ” W-We can go this way or, ” the pen tapped sector 6, ” this way, nng- ” Jesus Christ, this was a hell of a lot of pressure but he had to do it!! Nobody listened to him when he Googled this stuff weeks and weeks ago! ” Probably r-really dangerous etiher way, I mean, did you see the streets! Jesus, they were all over the streets! ” he sucked in a big breath and, ” I think, going this way would be best, because — ” the pen tapped the forth sector again; he knew the people there and trusted Craig’s judgement not to get himself involved in this shit, ” W-well — we can swing around and get them either way, right?? Right, so.. ” Christ kid, you’re talking to a mute. Cool it.
Okay cool sounds like he has a plan, but there's something that had only just occurred in this feeble little mind.
Pushing Tweek aside as gently as possible, DBag snatched up the map yet again, confirming what they already knew but seemed to forget far too easily. All of the sectors were connected, side by side. So if they moved to sector 4, they'd be on the side of sectors 3 and 5. If they headed for sector 6 it wouldn't be that much longer until they could loop around, ending in what the New Kid mentally categorized as the "main" sector -- sector 1.
There was no way to confirm that new arrivals always ended up there, but it sure as hell was where Athena had first been dropped off. It was the first, the biggest(?), the best. It was also where the Pariah were locked up, before this whole fiasco.
It would be dangerous as hell, but Matthew couldn't in good conscience wander away from new citizens that had no clue what was going on. That happened, right? Every technological wonder of this place was shut down, the whole system now that the surges had had time to make their way from the first sector through two and six all the way here. But there was no way of telling if that meant new people wouldn't still funnel in every day.
Mind made up, they handed the sheet back to Tweek and adamantly pointed at sector 6, praying to god he wouldn't disagree and leave them to make their way northward alone. Douchebag could really use someone to help them along. At least to act as a translator for those who weren't familiar with these grandiose hand gestures.
