#* exodus

location: the streeeeets.

It burned white hot, ecstasy and wildfire mottled into something near animalistic. Like so many before him, wielding the o’brien name and nature as weaponised power and fear, caelan swung wide and drove the tip of one blade into the temple of an infected, it was easy to see that he carried on the family tradition. A release - a temptation, for death to take another swipe at him. A challenge he offered up on the edge of a blade; try me. The crunch of radroach beneath his boot draws a grimace to features painted with the blood of others. A wild man, he seethes through grit teeth and steadies his gaze upon the hoarde moving through the streets before him, watching it break apart until something stops him in his rage.

It’s been years since he’s felt anything but hollowed out. A carcass, cracked wide by afterglow and left to desperately fill the void with anything that might shock him back to life. Anger, anguish and despair are the only few sparks that come close. He’s carried his name sake like an anvil on his back, for breaking beneath the cursed hands of madmen; the human experiments regarded as potentially life saving by those beneath Felix Estrada are nothing but another plague on this earth; not unlike the one he stares down now. A plague which had now sunk it’s teeth into his brother. Bairre’s features are unmistakable, no matter how grotesque they’ve become and it hammers the organ in his chest to life for the briefest of moments, “Bairre….” he mutters mostly to himself as he steps back into the fray; eyes fixed on the corruption that has hollowed out the formerly missing O’Brien.. “Bairre... - Bairre..” His voice grows louder until it cracks and wilts beneath the agony of loss and suddenly he sees nothing but his brother; dangers of the world around him ripped into an abyss he can’t see into.

The sting of each scratch across his skin means nothing as he surges, pushing through the throng of the dead towards the only one he can see. If he makes it - if he reaches his brother, maybe it’ll be different. Maybe, just maybe he’ll find a little piece of himself to turn spark to fucking flame. Blades cut through sinew, snap into bone and shatter all that left within the living dead, but he’s not nearly aware enough of everything converging on him now until it’s knocked from his lungs "—the feck ov' me..." A rotting frenzy catches him and his back slams into a discarded vehicle and he’s dragged under, one of two blades spinning out of reach.

"Uh-uh, no way," Asuka's effort to catch up is minimal, however small she is, there's no denying she's damn quick. "Like hell I'm letting you go galivanting off by yourself. You don't get to play lone hero all the time." Which, admittedly, was one of the qualities in Ash she'd come to like the most - despite their errant need to compete against one another. This was one battle she'd hand to him over and over again, mostly based on the face that she wasn't about to go stepping into every mess without thinking it through. Whatever white knight complex he had; he could keep that trophy. "I let you go on your own and this'll be the time you actually do get killed, and guilt looks really ugly on me."

Noah's head swims with panic, an overwhelming feeling of being underwater and for a moment, he can't quite hear what the woman is telling him. He should have known by now, that any instance that would require him to remain at the compound to provide care during absolute disaster, is the exact instance he should have been elsewhere; searching for his siblings. Your efforts are going to get them killed... He hears it, over and over again, day in and day out. How could he ever manage to do enough to keep them safe? Emerson. He takes off, pushing past hands that seek to hold him still but there's nothing - not a god damn thing in this world or the next, that could keep him from any of his brothers, or Cole. "Get the fuck out of my way," he shouts through grit teeth, picking apart the crowd of people seeking medical help in some way; seeking out aid for loved ones, nursing broken bones and scratches so deep they'll wear the scars forever. It's something he knows too well - but the scar that might remain, should he not make it through the halls to his younger brother in time would drag him under.