Valerie stuck close behind Caelin, shining her flashlight behind him in order to light the way. The darkness made it very hard to tell if there were Screamers or not, only the light gave any solace. She had not gone out of her way to explore the outside when she was by herself, only going out a few times in order to search for food and when…well when she was running from Screamers. Everything seemed so ominous and menacing in the dark, almost unrecognizable.
"Hey, man, don't sweat it, I hate bugs too." She whispered to Jez behind her.
They didn't see many large Screamers and other than the worm situation, everything was decently fine. The house didnt look like much, it was a single story building that looked to be a little larger than the average cabin. "Welcome to my humble abode. There are a few rooms upstairs and 2 in the basement. There is fresh water and also bottled water but there isn't much so use sparingly." He said, not going to the front door. "Wait here." Caelen went to the side and pulled a window open. He jumped inside and walked to the front, moving the few pieces of furniture he placed in front of the main door to keep it closed.
While they waited, Nina glanced around at the others. "Did anyone else get hurt just now? There were sure a lot of Screamers around that other house…."
"Mutated worm thingy. Yep, dont like that" he says shaking his head.
He was glad that he wasnt really seen as a wuss by the girls for acting how he did. It was a giant two foot long fat worm about to go in his pants. At the time, he didnt really care at the time.
Once they arrived, he stepped inside and looked around, a sense of nostalgia filling his chest. This is this the first time.in a while being in an actual house. And he loved it.
He looked down at his wound, seeing as it was spreading a bit, they should probably take care of that real quick
"Bathroom's third door on the right." Caelen said from inside the kitchen. He was trying to see if he had enough bread to make a sandwich for himself and anyone else who might want one. The answer was no, there a single piece of bread that had a bite taken out of it. It seemed Calen made breakfast and didnt have time to eat it so he shoved in the fridge.
Nina walked inside, glancing around cautiously. "Thanks, Caelen, this looks really nice." Then she turned to Jez. "Hey, would you let me look at that injury please? There might be something besides antibiotics I can use to make it better or…well, at least less painful."
Adrien looked around the home, tugging at their ponytail nervously, "Is there any place where I could, uhm. . ." They trailed off nervously, "Set up my experiments? There are only a few of them, but I have been trying to figure out a way to destroy these things." They really didn't feel welcome by these people, perhaps they had gotten off on a bad foot before, but now they needed to get back to work, no second could be lost.
Nina glanced over at Adrien and offered them a smile. "Hey, I don't think I heard your name? I'm Nina, it's nice to meet you. I guess I'm probably not the person to ask about a room, but….Caelen said there's a couple rooms in the basement, maybe one of them will suit your needs? I'm not sure if your experiments require darkness or certain temperatures or anything like that."
Jezariah nodded gratefully "yeah, if you could help me with that…." he trailed off, looking down at his leg before he looked back up at her. "Thatd be nice" he let out a soft chuckle, running his hand over his frizzy hair
Once they got inside the house, Valerie deviated from the group and began to explore the house, making note of every escape possible in a case of emergency. Now upstairs, she decided to take the last room down the hallway as her's. It was surprising that the house was in pretty good shape for being something that was supposedly abandoned. The sun was finally starting to rise, relief that the night was finally over, she sat down and got out an energy bar. She hadn't realized how hungry she was until she started eating devouring it almost instantly.
Adrien nodded quickly, maybe now wasn't the greatest time, the group seemed like they would moving often, so perhaps they should just do what they could with whatever they had. Thankfully, they weren't at the stage where they needed specifics to work with. It was rather simple at the moment, but soon, they would be credited with getting rid of all the screamers, it would just a take a lot of work.
Nina turned back to Jezariah and herded him to the living room couch. "Sit down so I can see the injury. I'm going to need to know how long ago you got hurt and as many details as you can about how the injury's behaving, please."
( @Whats_Up_Its_Brooklyn btw, the sun only started to set like an hour ago….)
Jez, taken by surprise by how she was taking it, listened and sat down. "Well" he rolled up the leg of his pants and showed her. The flesh was torn from the bites and as a wound would usually be red or a light red from the irritation, this was black and dark red. The saliva mixed with his blood.
"About 20 minutes before I met you guys. And it hurts like hell if that helps you any" he chuckled
Nina pursed her lips at the sight–it definitely didn't look good. "I think this is one of those wounds that will have to be cleaned regularly," she decided. "And it definitely needs stitches, although I'm not too sure about closing it up with the infection still inside it like that." Her main problem was that she didn't know whether to treat this more like an infection or a venom–or perhaps a virus? Could the black stuff be contagious? She didn't like the thought of that, but tried to stay business-like. "Either way, I think the first thing I'm going to do is apply a tourniquet to make sure your bloodstream can't carry the infection any deeper. Then once I clean it, I'm going to observe the wound, and you, to see if your symptoms change. Let me know if you start to feel feverish, short of breath, nauseous, numb…..anything, really."
He nodded, trying to stay serious. Which he was never good at when it came to him getting hurt. Or him with a girl. Trying to distract himself from the pain was always his immediate reaction.
So automatically when she asked if he felt something at all he smirked "what if its something in between us?" Jess says leaning on his elbow with a wink.
Jess was a bit flirty when it came to these things, trying to be a comic relief or a distraction. Any other times hes just pretty chill and serious
(Sorry, I saw that Stark said Breakfast and I immediately thought it was morning, whoops ¯_(ツ)_/¯.)
Valerie heard Jess trying to flirt on Nina and immediately started choking on her food out of laughter. Soon she started to die on the floor, "DAAAMMNNNN" She cried out, now sobbing, unable to stop. It felt good though, she hadn't laughed in a while, but now her stomach hurt.
(That's fine hun!! Honest mistake ♡)
Jess turned around confused, but a bit worried at the same time "uhm…you alright??? Was it that bad? I'm off my flirting game" he pouted, crossing his arms
"No no," She managed to get herself off the floor still wheezing "Please, keep going, don't mind me." She burst out laughing again, "I mean if you're looking for someone to flirt with, I'm open 24/7, single as a pringle, call me anytime, baby." She made the call gesture with her hand before returning to her energy bar, now fairly entertained at what was coming next.
(loolllll sorry I was away for a bit there XDD)
It took a minute for Jess's words to sink in, and when they did, Nina blushed slightly. "I….don't think a fever will indicate anything between us," she said as politely as possible, having absolutely no idea how to handle the situation. Valerie's laughter made her blush even more, and she coughed, struggling to carry on. "Um. I'm going to disinfect the wound now, which will sting a bit."
Jess raised a brow, a smile crawled onto his lips "I might take you up on that" he says before turning back to Nina. Chuckling a bit at her reaction, he didnt say anything more, not needing to.
He watched her deal with the wound, wincing a bit whenever it was touched
(btw do you have a plan for this injury, or can Nina successfully prevent an infection this time?)
Nina applied a tourniquet as promised, then concentrated on cleaning out as much of the black stuff as she could. It worried her that the wound looked so nasty only twenty minutes after Jess had received it, but she did her best to stay calm and think of her options. She'd been lucky to find a basic field surgery kit on her exploration of the town's abandoned hospital, so she could in theory stitch up the gashes or remove tissue that couldn't be salvaged if she had to. "Have you ever been bitten or scratched by a Screamer before?"
(Nah I dont have a plan lol. Later in the roleplay I do but for now, nope. I'll tell you when I do)
He watched as she thought about her options, he himself thinking about what would happen. Nobody ever knew what happened when it infected you other than a slow painful death.
But was that the only way to go? Thinking about it worried him too much, so he shook his thoughts from his mind.
"Never bitten, but plenty of scratches. I dont think the scratches are as serious as the bites. Since…well ya know, no saliva infecting me" he laughed "they all healed within a week, a few scars here and there. He says before pulling up the sleeve of his shirt to reveal a huge scar going down his arm. It wasnt hard to see, as scars on his dark skin usually are.
(Okie dokie)
Nina studied the scar with a thoughtful frown. "Okay, that's good to know. At this point, my main concern, if this is a bite, is that it might carry some kind of….unknown virus or poison. Kind of like in those old zombie movies." Probably not the most comforting thing to say, but she wanted to be honest about this. "I don't know how likely that is, but….these monsters have to come from somewhere, and we can't rule out viral infection as a possibility. In the meantime, I'm going to hope the antibiotic I gave you does some good, and I'm also going to try applying sutures to close up this wound." She'd gotten it as clean as she could, and hopefully stitches would prevent any more contaminants from entering Jess's bloodstream. "Sound good?"
He kind of spaced out for a bit, not really listening to.what she said. So he just automatically replied "yep" with a nod, biting his lip a bit. He wasnt quite ready to.die yet. He was too determined to find out what these are.
Speaking of which, he slung his bag from over his shoulder and opened it. "Uhm, I found about these things a while back, but I've never had time to read them. You guys can look at them if you want" he offers while pulling a thin, tattered journal.
Opening it, there were detailed, yet terrifying drawings of the screamers, all sorts of different kinds. And plenty of notes beside them. Alot of the handwriting wasnt eligible and some torn, but what they could read seemed pretty useful