Sky's prelude: Into the wasteland

[paradoxa]

The woman only stops once she has crossed the street, looking around wildly. Apparently, she was running away from something.
She is twenty-something, maybe thirty, of average height, slender, with long, rather unkempt hair of some dark blond color. Her clothing consists of a grunge jeans with holes at the knees, worn-out chucks, some flowy tunic blouse with a colorful ethnic pattern, and she carries a woven shoulder bag. Everything about her looks a bit worn out and weary, but then, with the storms and earthquakes, most people probably had other worries than to get the next shower and look refreshed.

When she finally spots the guy calling out to her, she heads over to him in a hurried jog.
"They're all dead.. just dead. ", she utters breathlessly, looking scared and confused. She points back to the building where she just came from.

[TetNak]

Perhaps the guy does not respond exactly like she might think he would. "Yeah, I know," he says, taking another drag.

"All ya got to do is take a glance in all the cars. I figure it was the Hand, or, I don't know, could be about anything these days." He shrugs, seeming rather calm for the most part.

"Calm down, calm down." He leans against an abandoned parked car in the lot. "You look like someone that might enjoy this," he says, inspecting her attire as he pulls his bag off his shoulder and sits it on the hood of the car.

"I'm David, by the way," he says, pulling what can only be a joint from one of the pouches of the bag. He extends it toward the girl, "Help you relax, I think."

[paradoxa]

She takes a glance at the cars, and seeing even more dead people doesn't really help to calm her down.
"Oh fuck.. you mean, everyone is dead?" That just seems too impossible to even think about it. But all the fact are pointing into that direction.
She shakes her head, rubs her temples and combs through her hair with one hand, not wanting to believe that.
Then, like a magician pulling a rabbit out of his hat, David produces the joint. She looks at it with a blank stare first, it takes her a moment to realize what it is. It's not a good idea, the voice of reason in her head warns, but since that voice is also confirming that there's dead people everywhere, she just wants to shut it up.
"Whoa, man ... nice. " She reaches for the joint, and nervously start to rummage through her pockets for something, unsuccessful. After a moment, she gives up.
"You got fire?" As she waits for David to answer that question, she remembers to introduce herself as well.
"Oh, my name's Sky..."

[TetNak]

"Sky huh?" He takes the lit cigarette and takes a drag, extending the cherry on the end of it. "Just use the smoke," he says, leaning forward to help her light it.

Once done, he leans back again, "Well, not everyone, apparently, we're still here." The guy takes a long look over sky, up and down, at least twice. Upon further inspection, David looks pretty tired, like he's been up all night for several days in a row.

He waits patiently for his turn with the dope.

[paradoxa]

Sky almost drops the joint at first, but after some fumbling finally gets it lit.
"This is, like, so totally fucked up. I mean, it just shouldn't be happening..." Sky gestures to their surroundings with her free hand and shakes her head again, agitated, as if she wants to deny all of this.

She takes two long hits from the joint, hesitates, and takes a third one, this time exhaling more slowly, before passing it back to David.
"Hey, I know you from somewhere...right?", she suddenly and incoherently changes the topic.

OOC

Bit mentioned that they might have seen each other once or twice at some student parties before the earthquakes and tornadoes started

[TetNak]

David gives Sky a good look. In truth, he's 'checking her out', but using the question as an excuse to do just that.

"Yeah, I think so." He takes back the joint and takes two puffs, passing it back to Sky afterward.

"This is all a mess. Has been for months. I just consider myself lucky, I guess, I don't question it. I figure, there's been so much shit out there killing people, there must be some things we don't know about." He waves around, "I was sharing a room with someone, they died, last night, guess they had a disease, or ... I dunno."

[paradoxa]

Sky apparently is too upset and agitated to notice how David looks at her, or simply doesn't care.
She's fairly disheveled and unkempt, not really surprising in those circumstances, but that seems to blend into her normal look. Her eyes are tired, fine lines showing under them, maybe early signs of aging, maybe just weariness. She's perhaps a bit too skinny, with a narrow figure. Not a great beauty, but doesn't look too bad overall.

Tucking back a strand of hair behind her ear, she takes the joint back and inhales once more.
"It's been real bad, yeah... but I managed to get along, good Karma or whatever. I've been staying with some guys, you know, we've been stuck in that basement" - she points over to the building in question - " for, like, ages. That damned storm... "
She takes another puff and continues.
"And so I woke up this morning, 'cos of that weird nightmare, and they... well, they just didn't. They all died in their sleep or something. I never noticed a thing. " Sky suddenly has to laugh, a tad hysterical, realizing how absurd this conversation is, and hands the joint back to David.

[TetNak]

"Did you just say nightmare?" David asks, looking down at the joint suspiciously. "She better not have laced this," he says to himself, then looks up at Sky again. He is no longer checking her out, but instead he has a nervous type of look on his face, one that seems odd for him somehow. "You did say a nightmare, right? It wasn't, uh, like the Grim Reaper was after you, and, uh, well ... I dunno, God and stuff?"

[paradoxa]

"Grim Reaper? No. I dreamed I was in a desert, all heat and red dust, with all those people waiting in a long, long line for months.. or maybe years... my Da was there too... and there were those angels, taking people away and throwing them down into...-" She breaks off and looks to the ground, it's not a pleasant memory, and even though she's glad to have someone to talk, Sky doesn't feel like talking about how her dream ended.
"I.. I don't really remember much more. " Okay, that was a lie, and a lame one.
"Sorry, man. Let's just talk about.. something else, okay?" She says the last part with an almost pleading tone in her voice.

[TetNak]

"Yeah ..." David agrees, "I'm cool with that." He takes a long puff of the joint. His face gets red, and then he releases the smoke into the air, immediately attempting to 'rebreath' it as it exits.

He passes the joint again which is getting smaller and smaller.

David turns and grabs something else out of his bag, two beers, PBRs to be exact. He hands one toward Sky. "Its 5 o'clock somewhere," he says, shrugging.