The Fatal Conflict (GBS2G7) (Round 4: The Huntsman's Garden)

Originally posted on MSPA by Ixcalibur.

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Kaja pushed himself up from the tarmac, feeling around for his contraption. Thankfully it was unharmed by any of the less than delicate measures that Zaire had taken to bring them here. Kaja had quickly got used to the contraption after his accident, he now associated it's odd gurglings and the sick grey liquids that flowed through it with his own life the way that one would normally associate their heartbeat and the blood that ran through their veins. It was almost a part of him, and in a crisis it was always his first thought. Having reassured himself of his continued existence Kaja took a moment to examine the scene around him. It was a scene of devestation, unlike anything Kaja had ever seen. He searched for some reference point, a comparison that he could get his head around, but he found none. The closest he came was imagining a strain of undeath that did not recruit the afflicted into the undead hordes, but left them rotting on the streets instead, and even then it was not perfect. People had time to flee the undeath, or barricade themselves in their basements. None of the dead bodies looked as though they had been fleeing from whatever had done this. It looked as though they had died instantaneously, as though their bodies had just given up on them for some reason. People lay rotting on the pavements, surrounded by bags of shopping they had been carrying home. Motorised vehicles had careened off the roads into the shop frontages. At a shelter further down the street a large vehicle with two floors stood dormant. Kaja guessed that it had stopped to allow people to board when the disaster had claimed so many lives.

For a moment Kaja entertained the prospect that this was simply a vivid dream. He hoped against fact that a scene of his unbearable destruction simply could not exist, not in his world and not in any other either. But he was fooling nobody, not even his self. As his... competitors, he supposed, started to move he came to his senses. This was a battle to the death, and although unwanted, he had no intention of losing, at least not before he had had words with Zaire and clarified precisely what losing would entail. But first, in his quick scan of the street he had spotted a shop frontage with a sign that intrigued him; Cohens Chemist. If there was one place where he was at home it was at a chemist's. Hell he even smiled slightly, a chemist's in a world as bizarre and advanced at this might have all kinds of interesting herbs, and could lead to a whole new range of potions he could use. Sticking his hands deep into his pockets, he strolled nonchalantly down the street towards the pharmaceutical store, stepping over the decaying remains of the residents of this world as he did so.