((Open RP)) Rosies RP Prompts

This is a weekly article, delivered to you every Wednesday. These articles are intended to be a fun exercise as well as a good resource for role-players to explore Character Development so please feel free to post your own characters reaction to the weekly prompt. So be sure to stay tuned to this blog for future installments!

What would your character do in a proper Zompocalypse?

(The next series of stories for now will be about another character of mine, a Vigilante whom goes by the name of Captain Sophie Storm and Farsighter respectably, I hope everyone enjoys it!))

“The girl I was then was sweet, naive, trusting…”: the stranger paused taking a long drag off her hand rolled cheroot, inhaling deeply the bullets and knives on her chest shining dully in the somber light. Full lips parting to exhale the fragrant smoke from her lungs like unto a dragon a long ribbon of smoke filling your eyes transporting you back in time to see through her eyes and live through her limbs her voice guiding you back with her.

“I was born Sophia Louise Storm, Sophia the name chosen by my mother, Louise my great grandmothers name who did not survive the second world war, and Storm the name my German soldier of a grandfather had chosen when he had gone into deep hiding so many years ago.” The stranger speaks softly a wry smile curling her lips as her cold gray eyes drift before your own. “My birth and upbringing was an oddity indeed, I was born on the Gaza strip, the border between Gaza and the state of Israel. The daughter of a proud Jewish family who had come to the land of Isaac shortly after world war two had ended in 1948 to build the new Zion to make of it the home and to realize the promises to our forefathers of times past.”

“My fathers’ family was not so prodigious or so proud, and with great reason. My Grandfather had been a high ranking German Official during the Second World War. A doctor by trade and his bloodline pure, for in all the photographs my father kept of him he was a tall figure of a man, slight but with hair as white as my own, his eyes the color of winter skies and a coldness of expression which caused me as a child to shudder.”

“He had done quite well for himself in Hitler’s Germany. Father told me that the doctor, or so he was always called even by his children and his wife, was a strict and guarded man to distant to get to know. Secretive and almost never home, he had lead a life of influence during his time in Berlin keeping a house in Austria filled with the confiscated finery and servants only one of the Reich elite could afford.”

“My father had grown up with a governess and later on at a prestigious all boys school high in the French Alps. The funding of which had been paid for, my father later found out, by the life savings which his father had stolen from the very same people he would later sully his fathers Aryan heritage by marrying into.”

“The Doctor however was a sickly man; he was always announced by his dry hacking cough which would shake his narrow shoulders and when he would take his handkerchief away from his mouth it was almost always dotted with blood. The doctors of the time called it consumption and in the end it had been this illness and not the crime tribunals which had ended his long life at last.”

“I grew up during the mid to late nineties in Jerusalem and moved with my mother, father and little brother when I was seven here to Paragon City in the spring of 2002.” Exhaling a lung full of rich aromatic smoke she laughs almost too softly to be heard, “You look astonished, and so you should. You see before you a woman perhaps no more than thirty or forty and yet here we sit in present day 2010 and I tell you I am ten to twenty years younger than I could possibly be. I tell you I am not telling tales or faking my age as some older women have been known to do, I have lived a thousand life times longer than any person should, I have traveled to lands and times untouched by man and have found secrets better left undisturbed…but let me continue” she said, holding up her gloved hand for quiet, “there will be plenty of time for explanations as I go along.”

“My father had been given an important contract with this City shortly before the first Rikti invasion. Indeed in those days even after the invasion Astoria was untouched by most of the crime and violence which plagued the rest of the city They where planning on building a new science facility for the Astoria University and my father had been excited to transplant myself and my brother to a nice American school where my mother would not have to fear stray bullets from the fighting which always existed where we lived for so very long.”

Leaning back in her chair she crosses long leather bound legs, either from the drug like delirium her spell had cast upon you or the fact that you had trouble seeing with all the visions which passed over your eyes but her legs seemed to long, longer than most runway models and you wonder if when she stood up would she reach the ceiling. Contemplating on how very much like Alice you feel, lost in this witch created wonderland you slip back into the vision of the small airy apartment overlooking the streets teaming with life in what used to be Astoria.

The Apartment



You stand in little Sophie’s shoes, white blond hair in a loose ponytail falling past her shoulders. A bright pink backpack almost as big as herself, a pink and white leotard and too too ensemble and a brand new pair of black ballerina slippers tied carefully and fitting snugly to her small feet. The morning sun casting a brilliant and hazy glow over the yellow upholstered furniture of the living room, the walls where painted a sweet butter cream, lace doily’s covered the backs and arms of the over stuffed furniture.

There wasn’t much style to the place but it gave the impression of a home well loved and well lived in. A toddler maybe one or two years old played on the carpet near by nomming his toys gleefully while ten tiny little fingers and toes flexed open and closed in satisfied delight. Sophie stood little face pressed against the window pane blowing hot breath against the cold glass drawing symbols in the fog and looking beyond it to the bustling streets outside.

Sugar Maples lined the street, cars didn’t even honk their horns, women jogged by pushing babies in strollers and men walked their dogs. It was a beautiful autumn day in Astoria, children where inside getting ready for school, fathers, husbands and boyfriends kissed their loved ones good bye, mothers handed out lunches, filled vans for carpool and remembered dentist appointments. The sun was shining and the outlook for the day was bright in Sophies mind.

Today was her big dance recital, and her father had promised he would be there to watch her dance.

As she stood before the window practicing her battement developpe and then her attitude pose before her mother burst into the room her cell phone pressed against one ear as she scooped up her little brother Devin who began to cry from being swept up so startlingly from his toys on the floor. Jillian Storm was a breath taking Israeli beauty of a woman, with a thin straight nose, thick black hair skin the color of almonds and eyes the color of river stones. It was no wonder her father had defied his father and his fortune to marry her.

However Jillian was forgetful, scatter brained, paranoid and irresponsible. She often forgot to pick Sophie up after school, left Devin in shopping carts and wandered away from him to try on shoes. She was forever accusing her husband of cheating on her and she had a quick and vicious temper. It wasn’t to unheard of for Jillian to be heard screaming at her father through closed doors and for the sound of shattering dishes and breaking vases to interrupt Sophies late night dreams. However Jillian was all in all a good mother, no more than seventeen when she had had Sophie she and Reg had gotten married, and now at only twenty seven Jillian Storm still acted like the seventeen year old dancer whom Reginald Storm had found so alluring only seven years ago that May.

However with all her beauty and mental deficiencies Jillian did manage to keep a good home. She was a stay at home mother; she had an easy laugh and a contagious smile. She could light up a room where ever she went and was an exciting woman to be around. She was always talking about some new fad or designer, in fact Jillian was always talking. To herself on the phone to strangers behind the counter Jillian’s passion was for talking and shopping.

This is just what her mother had planned for the day, as she spoke to her friend Kathleen from across the Hall about the big blow out sale going off at Fredricks of Hollywood that day and how the two women would meet for lunch there after. Sophie found her mothers materialism boring and was glad she would be in school all day rather than stuck in a department store somewhere watching her mother try on shoes while she tended to Devin.
So after getting shoved into Jackets and hats, sweaters and little mittens for Devin all three set off on their merry way, Sophie remembering to shut and lock the door behind her mother whom always forgot.

After being deposited to daycare and school for the day the rest of the day passed uneventfully, that was until around three o’clock. Sophie was sitting on the steps in front of her school, she had been waiting for Jillian to pick her up for nearly fifteen minutes, or so her bratz watch told her. She tapped her toes and whistled through the space in her missing front tooth which the fairy had given her three dollars for only last week.

She tried not to get anxious as she knew if she was late to the recital Madame would come and find her and pick her up as she sometimes did whenever Jillian didn’t bother to show up however Jillian had known how important the recital was to her and above all else dancing was as important to the mother as well as to her daughter and Jillian would not have forgotten her this time.

A few more minutes pass and Sophie deciding as little children are want to do sometimes not to await the arrival of some forgetful adult who was charged to take care of them. Forty five minutes had elapsed since the last ring of the school bell and young Sophie storm wouldn’t be late thanks to her mother again.

So up she stood smoothing down her too too and kicking leaves off of her ballerina slippers she set off down the street. It was a beautiful day still all excepting the thick cloud cover which slithered across bisecting streets. Sophie thought to herself how funny it was to see Old Mrs. Wasniack trying to hug and kiss Merl the grocery clerk from the shop-rite and she didn’t blame him for screaming for help as Mrs Wasniack was doing it all wrong gnashing her fake teeth in young Merls face, but Sophie went on happily oblivious to the horror which dawned around her.

Sophie knew the way to Madame Tulleries dance studio and salon, she had biked there with Jillian in the summer after playing on the school playground for a few hours. However her memory was spotty on how long the trip had been and it occurred to her now as her little feet and legs began to hurt that what she needed was a bike.

As she turned from one street to another, the thick blanket of fog closing up the street behind her Sophie spotted a little girls bicycle lying on its side not far from the road. The streamers where pink, purple and blue and there was even a Barbie doll riding shotgun in the little wicker basket attached to the handlebars in front. Sophie picked it up and looked around for its owner, but no little girls where in sight.

Considering the bike as public transportation, Sophie set the Barbie on the near by window ledge of the deli behind her (while above Sophie’s eye level the inside of the window was washed in a spray of blood and gore a hand slides down smearing the blood before disappearing to the floor) and jauntily mounting the bike she takes off with a ring of her new bell.

Coming upon her fist intersection Sophie stopped and waited for the light, little hands clasped primly before her waiting for the little man to blink on again when she was suddenly grabbed painfully by her upper arm. Squealing in fright she tried to run but instead she was forcibly turned around.

It was Jillian.

“Sophie! Thank god you’re alright!” Jillian said bending low and giving her daughter a tight squeeze. Devin was cradled tightly in her arms and looked like he had been crying. There was a bandage on her mothers arm taped up with white gauze and medical tape and dark circles under her beautiful blue green eyes.

Dragging Sophie from off her newly acquired bike Jillian was about to step out into the street when a speeding car whizzes by nearly taking the small family along with the lamp post as it screeched around the corner and disappeared into the rolling fog.

“Good god!’ Jillian screamed jumping back just in time her hand going protectively to Sophies chest keeping her firmly behind her while cradling a squalling Devin to her chest. Sophie just points to the red lighted hand which still told pedestrians to stop and then taking her mothers hand she leads her across the crosswalk when the little man turns green.

There behind them as Jillian looks over her shoulder at the scene now hidden from her daughter the car which had nearly killed them crashes into a fire hydrant, water flooding the streets as a mob of the hungry dead pour into the car while only a few stare hungrily at them as they cross the street.

While mourning the relinquished acquisition of her new bike Sophie was still glad to see Jillian, Devin was grumpy but that was probably because he hadn’t had his afternoon nap as sometimes happens when Jillian dragged him along on her shopping errands to long Over all however Sophie was happy to have some company on her walk to the studio and it wasn’t until after crossing several more streets did she realize that they weren’t going to Madames at all.

They had just turned a corner which lead the way back to their apartment when Sophie had spotted her daddies car parked partially over the curb, the meter which he had hit having spilled shining coins all over the pavement. Sophie giggled and clapped her hands with delight with a cry of “Daddies home!” before breaking away from her mother and darting off.

“Sophie!” Jillian screams after her running as fast as she can as a horde of the undead whom where bent over the scattered entrails of what used to be their mailman look up from their meal to eye the tender Sophie shaped morsel that goes speeding by them. Their glassy eyes fix on the back of the little girl whom goes to the open car door of her fathers beige Taurus, some of them stand up from their bloody feast and begin shambling their way toward the little girl and the heart break which she has found inside.
There bent over the steering wheel, a large shard of metal rebar pins the lifeless form of her father to the drivers seat, the airbag like a soggy deflated balloon spread out around him the air of the car still filled with its white dust as Sophie begins to cry.

Jillian nearly falling in the debris of broken glass and pocket change which litters the ground around her husband, and gathering Sophie up in her arms as if the girl where still a toddler she lets her cry joining in with the wails of her brother. Sobs strangled in Jillians tight throat keeping her from crying out, however the long low groan of the flesh eating beasts who slowly draw near to her and her children snap her out of her heart ache and Misery.

“C’mon” she says putting Sophie down and tugging her by the hand into the darkened foyer of their apartment building.

Helping her mother mutely push the large polished bench against the front doors of the building seemed to go by in a blur for little Sophie. Her small hands still covered in her fathers blood where she had touched his face and pushed at his chest trying to wake him up. She had had her gold fish die once but she didn’t really know what dead meant until she had seen the lack of light in her fathers eyes.

Jillian didn’t seem to care that her daddy was out there all alone with no one to hold his hand, he had spoken to her in whispers Jillian did not seem to hear. He stood beside Sophie looking down at her and neither Jillian nor Devin seemed to know that he was there or cared that he was all alone outside. Jillian kept crying and pacing screaming obscenities in Hebrew at the door, it was finally after they both managed to put the old steel mop handle through the handle of the double doors that Jillian calmed down and dragged Sophie and Devin up the stairs locking the door behind them.

To shocked and to young to understand what was going on around her, Sophie sat mutely holding Devin while Jillian boarded up the rooms. First she pushed the entertainment stand in front of the door and when she had seen the floating masks staring into the balcony windows glowing an eerie red she nailed the coffee and end tables over the holes. She ripped the cupboard doors from off their hinges and cried and screamed when she had hit her friend Kathleen now all covered in someone elses blood tried to push her way in through the front door with her hammer.

Their neighbors scratched and moaned at the front door for hours on end, eventually Jillian boarded up the hallway door as well sealing them off from the main entrance leaving them with just the kitchen, bathroom and two bedrooms, with no way out.

Jillian had forgotten about the injury she had received, the bite from the transient whom had attacked her on her way from lunch with Kathleen that very afternoon. The strange and sick looking man whom had bitten her so savagely. The wound had not been deep so she had gone home to dress it when she saw the news.

Now as she stood over the counter preparing a bologna sandwich for Sophie she noticed the cut was still bleeding, and in fact had bled through. Swearing colorfully and ripping off the gauze Jillian turned several shades of green. The bite was infected and the infection was spreading, a black rash seemed to be spreading up her arm through her veins and the skin around the original bite looked mottled and oozed puss, and Sophie watched as her mother began to cry.

Jillian re-bandaged her wound after dousing it with as much alcohol and peroxide as she could find under their bathroom sink, and when Sophie had asked “Are you alright Mamma?” Jillian had done her best to lie to her little girl, when really Jillian was far from alright.

Slowly as the hours passed and the moaning on the street below increased, the scratching at the outer door and window on the balcony never ceased Jillian grew more and more pale, she began throwing up blood and stood in a stupor in one corner of the kitchen unable to speak. It was when the ghost of her father returned did Sophie fear to speak.

The Ghost of Reg Storm stood over his children whispering into his daughters’ ear, as his wife slowly became one of the living dead. Shut in with her children while only a door to separate the kitchen from the den filled with yet more of the Zombie horde waited hungrily outside. However it was these very same whispered words which had saved Sophies life, and for a little while her brothers.

Sophie moved quietly making her way down the hall she dragged her little brother behind her until they where in their mother and fathers room at the end of the hall. Wrapping her brother safely in a blanket after she had gotten him to sleep and placing him into a laundry basket she hid him covering him with clean towels and blankets incase Mommy tried to find him he wouldn’t be found so easily she crept toward the kitchen where her mother stood staring at the wall.

Moving slowly behind her mother Sophie opened the do not touch drawer and taking out one of the sharp steak knives, the ones her Daddy and Jillian had told her never to use she gripped the big handle in her little childlike chubby hand. When she had finished silently closing the drawer just as her daddy had told her to do she backed quietly out of the kitchen before accidently bumping into the door which banged loudly against the wall.

The sudden noise awoke the beast inside her mother who turned around glass eyes ringed in blood veins like black snakes traced over her body and once beautiful face. She had chewed off her own lips and apart of her tongue and now blood and saliva oozed and spittle sprayed from her gnashing teeth as howled crazily and lunged after Sophie who ran with all the alacrity her ballerina slippered feet could carry her as the screaming horde of undead pounded on the walls and doors trying to get in, now that the Zombie that had been Jillian was on to the chase.

Sophie had tried to shut the door in her zombie mothers face but all the might and heft of a sixty pound seven year old could not out weigh the blood thirsty ravaging of a full grown Zombie. Stabbing out wildly with her duck handled steak knife apart of the set her mother had bought for Christmas the year before Sophie cried as she stabbed at the hand which had once been her mothers until it withdrew and Sophie locked the door while blood poured down the casements. With trembling hands Sophie dropped her knife and made her way to the laundry basket as Little Devin screamed from the other room.

“No! No no no!” Sophie cried, flying out the door, her too too stained with blood she went into her own and Devins room. He had followed her, as he did everywhere out of mommy and daddies bedroom and had gone into their own bedroom whose floor was still littered with toys and that where she found him now, lifeless a meal for their Zombie mother and the crows.

It was then that something whispered inside Sophie, a multitude of voices calling out at once, a power so strong it burned her mind and ate at her guts it was when the one first spoke to Sophie. It spoke to her and told her the words to say, it called on the spirits which hovered close to her always and forced them to do her bidding. It was the spirits whom flowed through her body which she gave strength. It was the voice of the one inside her head who told her to first get the knife in the guise of her father, and it was the voice of the one now which showed her how to use her gift. She could command the dead to end the unlife of the creature whom had been her mother, and all the other flesh sacks which clawed at the walls.

With a rush of blood pressure so great her sight swam red with blood and dark flowers exploded in her peripheral vision the blood stained face which had once been her mother and the heads of all the zombies in the surrounding area popped like giant brain packed water melon.

It was three days later when the troops had finally arrived on scene in that part of what is now called Dark Astoria that a squadron of Special Forces found Sophie wandering the streets. At first they had thought the little girl infected and had almost shot her but when she spoke the darkness and blood cleared from her once blue green eyes leaving them silvery gray like winter skies and she cried out for her Mommy.

((Very cool and fun read, unfortunately I was hoping for a bit of Shepard action but I do have another sinister character I can introduce here with this particular inspiration. Also taking place in Astoria but predominately DA. I bring you... Walking Grave ))

Dark Astoria 6:00p.m. (EST)

Zoe!
Shut Up Francis

Grgle die

(You too can play my character in a proper zompopaclypse. I know I really need to write about someone else)

((Ok Jack as long as I can play Coach, nothing like playing tank against an onslaught with your sheer size. And Stryph, great story I dont see a lot of Family based toons. Hope everyone has fun with this one I'll be writing more on Sophie's life and her past deeds.))

((Great read both of them. I enjoyed them a lot. Now, the story I did some may recognize as one of the missions from Praetoria. I hope you enjoy my take on it. Now, just a little background. I got into the closed beta for Going Rogue, so I was doing this mission with Seer Taboo and like 2AM, it was dark and everyone in the household was asleep. There is a point where that creepy gowl happens in game. I almost jumped out of my chair, that feeling of fear I discribed, happened to me. I guess its pretty cool when a video can actually scare you. I hope its okay I used Ghouls instead of Zombie, but they work the same I think.))

((I outlined the general plot to this response, but work's getting in the way. The story turned out to be alot longer than my usual vignettes and I'd rather do it properly since it would be Bayani/Ren's final stand and his death. Thanks for the prompt though! It helped. =))