OUTBREAK: ZERO is a semi post-apocalyptic pandemic roleplay set in the fictional city of Lethford, USA. Current season: Winter, 20/21.
March 2020. The world is in pandemonium as one month ago, GHNv-20 was confirmed, five months after the beginning of norovirus season. The number of the infected are in the higher hundred thousands, and the death toll is at an estimated 250,000, with about seventy percent of the rest of the population experiencing mild to moderate illnesses connected to the S. pyogenes bacteria.
The fear of the unknown has caused mass hysteria and panic.
In an attempt to provide a semblance of safety and control, military personnel patrol the streets, even here in Lethford City, and the police force is trying to keep up with the rising street violence, assault, and theft.
Welcome to OUTBREAK: zero. Will you survive?
HAYANA
SITE OWNER + HEAD ADMINISTRATOR
Hi! I'm Haya. I'm pretty much your girl for everything! If you have any questions regarding our plot, membergroups, etc. don't hesitate to ask me. I'm also in charge of coding, graphics, anything skin related, and advertising/affiliates.
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ADDI
ADMINISTRATOR
Hey! I'm Addi. Hit me up if you need help with anything. I'm always for plotting so don't be shy. I like coffee, booze, and working out. I'm back from a long hiatus the dead so if you need anything, best ask the others until I get back into the groove of things!
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FINNLEY
GLOBAL MODERATOR
Hi hello! My name is Finnley, or Finn, call whichever and I'll be there for you (yes like the FRIENDS theme song). I am in charge of the claims and helping with miscellaneous things. Let me know if you have any questions!
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outbreak
/ˈaʊtbreɪk/ zero /ˈzɪərəʊ/
a sudden occurrence of something unwelcome, such as war or disease. number, no quantity or number; nought; the figure 0.
[attr="class","CONTENT"] Raphael had found yet another stupid idea that came to his mind just as easily as the thought of food. He needed food to survive and apparently, he heeded stupid ideas to survive as well. The thrill of sneaking around in places he should most definitely not be and now, now that he started working as an intern at Lethford Daily, he even had the perfect excuse and an intern reporter ID to slap in people’s faces. Of course, it didn’t give him any authority to be there and yes, he might have had his roommate edit it slightly to make it look more… serious.
The area he found himself walking around was one he explored before. Last time he stumbled upon, and over, a rotten corpse nearby the quarantine quarters. It was suspected the body was infected and thus passed away from his symptoms but he never heard again from the detective who caught him and dragged him out. It was one of the two incidences of almost getting arrested. Almost. For some reason, he was lucky enough to slip away.
If he could get away today as well he already planned a visit to the movie theater in the area. What perfect occasion this was. He would be alone, didn’t have to pay for a ticket or the overpriced snacks, could just take a bath in popcorn and then watch whatever they had - which was probably some movie that has been released at the beginning of the year. He could think of one or two good ones. But until then he had 'a job to do'.
Man, this whole reporter thing gave him Spiderman vibes. He was given a camera, probably expensive and worth more than he ever owned in his entire life. But they gave it to him. What a reckless thing to do. Raphael knew himself better than others, sometimes at least, and he knew, lowkey expected, to drop it at some point.
His sneakers moved through the thick snow on the ground leaving an easy to spot and follow the shoeprints behind him. Raphael calculated a lot of things but he also tended to forget a bunch - the easiest parts like leaving tracks or screaming out loud because what else would someone do when stumbling over a corpse. As he moved through the area, he attempted to take pictures of the run-down buildings, the yellow warning tape, and everything he thought could be important. When he checked the roll he saw that most images were blurry. Well, gotta try again.
Voices in the distance reached his ears and he turned around, hiding behind an abandoned car, camera ready to snap some soldiers or police officers in action. His hopes were up that he could catch an infected person on camera but he was also certain he wouldn't have the guts to go near them to do that.
Apparently patrol duty was more important than he had initially thought. After finding two people in territory where they weren't supposed to be, Benjamin was yet again met with footprints of boots he did not recognize. Either people really wanted to know what the military was up to, or they just wanted to piss him off. Little did they know, Benjamin if anything found this exciting and it kept his job from being a drag. He wasn't surprised when they kept sending him on patrol duty again either — at this point he had become some sort of magnet for intruders, like a sniffing dog.
He followed the footsteps eagerly. Why was it so easy to get into restricted areas anyway? Did they just need something to keep privates busy by having to fend off strays all the time? A gut feeling told him that the person probably wasn't that dangerous, if they were dumb enough to leave their tracks in the snow. Perhaps another lost civilian? Or maybe just an idiot. He was about to find out.
And then he saw his target sneak behind an abandoned car. He could see that the man was holding something, but couldn't tell what it was from this distance. The thought of it being a weapon already stirred up the adrenaline in his veins, and he raised his gun. Slowly he stepped closer and closer to the car, trying to go unnoticed, despite the snow creaking under him with every step. Hopefully the man would be too distracted to hear his footsteps. He kept the barrel of the gun aimed at the back of the intruder's head, in case he would try anything.
When he was close enough to the man, he held still.
[attr="class","CONTENT"] 'Hands up! Drop what you're holding immediately!'
The moment he pressed the button and a sound came out of the camera indicating it just snapped a picture a voice broke the silence. Startled, Raphael flinched, accidentally flipping the camera in his hands and tossing it slightly up. Clumsy hands caught it and he tightened his grip around the edges until his knuckles turned white. A small sigh of relief found its way past his lips when he was told to drop what he was holding.
Nooooo. This was exactly what he couldn't do. Anything, really, but not dropping expensive equipment that had been given into his care. For once, just once, he wanted to take care of it and not return it all broken or mangled, or with a piece of paper instead of telling them to go pick it up at the police station. He just started his internship but here he was, having high hopes of being the overachieving newbie who was able to get his hands on a good picture of two exposing the quarantine zone.
Slowly, Raphael looked at the man who gave the order. He swallowed hard, his breathing slow but unsteady. He didn't want to let go of the camera. It wasn't strapped around his neck. If he did let go of it it would fall to the ground and most likely break - at least partly. The lens probably wouldn't survive a fall on concrete. The brunette looked at a guy in military uniform, though, his silhouette was cloaked by shadows. Nevertheless, the sight of him made Raphael shudder as well as the freezing temperatures.
"I... I can't. I can't let go of it." he stuttered, swallowing hard once again. He held the camera in front of his chest but didn't dare to move much more.
Startled by Benjamin, he saw the intruder almost drop whatever it was that he was holding. Only when he turned to look was when Benjamin realized it was a camera. The stranger said he couldn't drop it. Understandable."Lay it on the floor. Slowly," he said in a warning tone. He knew he was gonna have to take in that camera and have I.T erase everything on it - just to be absolutely safe that the man had not recorded any military secret. Or of course, they could simply have it be destroyed. Too bad for the civilian, but he shouldn't have come here in the first place. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
"Tell me your name and what you're doing here," Benjamin demanded from the man.
[attr="class","CONTENT"] A sigh of relief left his lips when the soldier seemed to understand that there was no way he could, or would, drop the expensive equipment he held on tightly in his hands. His eyes flicked between the guy and the camera, skinny fingers nervously curling around it. “Okay. Okay,” he said, lifting the strap over his head and slowly, very slowly, as slow as possible, he crouched. Raphael gasped, his eyes widened in the realization of what he almost did, immediately standing up again, the camera still in his hands. “Sorry. I can’t put it on the ground… there’s… there’s snow,” he told the guy, eyes still wide as he looked at him. His lips twitched in a nervous smile. “I mean, it’s just a camera. I can’t harm you with that… I think…”
Perhaps changing the subject was a good idea. When he was asked for his name Raphael did the only thing that came to his mind - the one thing he would always do whenever someone he didn’t know asked for his name. Was it stupid to do it to government authorities? Maybe. Did he think about that? No. If Raphael was good at something it surely would be the not thinking part in iffy situations. “Raphael Hernandez Paulos Roberto Alejandro Doritos Chipotle Super Hot Flaming Cheetos,” he told the military man with a satisfied grin, followed by a bopping of his shoulders. However, his grin vanished within a moment. “Oh, I suppose that wasn’t… funny?”
He fiddled with his hands before scratching the back of his head. "As for what I'm doing here... just... taking pictures of-" he paused to look around him, squinting through the darkness. "Stones. Taking pictures of stones," he said, nodding aggressively.
Benjamin sighed when the man didn't want to put his camera in the snow either. Then again, he had guessed that the camera probably didn't have a hidden laser beam inside of it, nor that it would defeat his gun in a fight, so he just let it be.
Benjamin lowered his gun. He raised an eyebrow when the guy with the longest name he'd ever heard before started joking halfway through his sentence. He stared at the man with a not-amused look on his face before Raphael realized his own mistake in the moment. "Do you have ID on you, Mr. Cheetos?" Benjamin asked sarcastically, ready to see how much of his name had been a lie.
Taking pictures of stones. Right. Benjamin wasn't an artist, so he couldn't judge artists that did things like that, but somehow he didn't think that was what Raphael was actually doing here. "And you are aware of the fact that you're taking pictures of stones in the quarantined zone that is off-limits to civilians?" Raphael was probably going to lie and say that he wasn't, and Benjamin didn't trust him for one bit.
[attr="class","CONTENT"] ‘Do you have an ID on you, Mr. Cheetos?’ ID… ID… Raphael thought about his options for a moment. He carried his regular ID with him at all times but he also had his Lethford Daily ID right under his jacket, hanging around his neck. Biting his lower lip as he ran all sorts of scenarios inside his head he nervously brushed off his hands on his legs. “Sure,” he replied, simple and short. “I’m going to reach into my backpack if that’s okay?” he asked first before slipping it over his shoulder.
He opened the zipper, as slow as he could in case the military dude in front of him would see it as a sign of threat or something and suddenly shoot. A shiver ran down his spine. Today wasn’t the day he wanted to get shot or die, which would be worse, maybe… maybe not. He recalled the other question he was asked, his eyes widening in utter pretense. “What? This is the quarantine zone? I wasn’t aware… I didn’t know...” he uttered quickly, pretending to give his surroundings a look. Raphael shook his head at himself and fumbled around inside the backpack. “Where is ittt... my wallet...,” he mumbled, glancing up at the man.
“Aha! Here it is...,” he paused, pulling his hand out, fingers curled around – nothing. Within a moment he threw the backpack at the guy in front of him and then he ran, as fast as he could on the slippery ground. Raphael ducked underneath a broken fence that led into some sort of backyard and he made his way to the front porch, in hopes to escape inside the building when suddenly the door of the house it belonged to was swung open. The last time he was there most of the houses and apartments were left empty... apparently not all of them.
He came to an instant halt, though stumbling over his own feet, tripping and landing on his butt like so often these days. Lifting his head he looked at a man approaching him, coughing wildly, his clothes stained with… ew, he didn’t want to think about it. The realization only hit when the words quarantine zone echoed in his head. “He’s infected,” he mumbled under his breath, slowly crawling backward.
Raphael, despite not really coming off as the brightest star in the sky to him, was listening to his instructions and Benjamin wasn’t worried about the other having any unknown tricks up his sleeve either, but as always he wanted to expect the unexpected and stayed on guard. He nodded slowly and watched Raphael’s every move as he searched his backpack.
Then the guy’s eyes widened when he was told about the quarantine zone. Benjamin wasn’t alike to the police and wasn’t trained to recognize liars, but he had a feeling he was acting. On the other hand, the guy did also genuinely seem to be that stupid, unless this was all part of the act. He struggled to find his wallet, and Benjamin found it strange he didn’t keep it in his jacket or pocket in the first place. Once again he wanted to raise his gun at the man for this suspicion alone, but made up his mind about it a little too late when a backpack flew towards his head and the guy suddenly started sprinting off the scene.
Two things were going through Benjamin’s head once he had knocked the backpack out of the way. One: he had to immediately chase Raphael down and restrain him, and two: Wow, this guy was actually an idiot. Did he really think he could outrun and escape Benjamin? He started the chase, clicking his gun to load it and taking the safety off in the process. The worst part was possibly that the guy wasn’t even running outside of the quarantine zone, but further in, where more military stood guard, and worse, where the infected were. He followed behind quickly, trying not to slip on the ground himself. He was catching up on Raphael as he snuck through under a fence. He aimed his gun at him, but didn’t know how he was going to land a non-fatal shot, and thought straight up killing the man would be too brutal. When Benjamin arrived at the fence himself, however, he knew he wasn’t going to fit through and instead climbed straight over it. This lost him some time, but he was convinced he could keep this up for longer than Raphael.
He went around the corner to find the idiot at the front porch, crawling backwards from a coughing, sick man and all Benjamin’s internal alarms started ringing.
”Don’t move! I will shoot!” he yelled, aiming his gun straight at Raphael’s chest. He kept his distance from the two, knowing one of them was infected for sure and the other might have just screwed himself over. If he didn’t watch his every move now, he would be next.
”Get back in the house, you, immediately!” he barked at the infected man, who obeyed and closed the door again. Benjamin still held his finger on the trigger and his heart was racing. Anger started to take him over a little bit when he realized he may have lost control over the situation.
”Stay a distance from me at all times, if you try to run again I won’t hesitate,” he barked at the other, angry for his stupidity. The worst part now was that Benjamin couldn’t touch him to restrain him, or even get closer to him, so if he tried to run away again, he would most likely have to fire to protect the rest of the population. Benjamin was somehow surprised that he found himself in this situation; he knew it always could happen, but never thought it actually would. In frustration he tried to get to his radio while simultaneously still trying to aim at Raphael —something that didn’t work that perfectly well. ”Faulkner here,” he said over the radio. ”Civilian found in restricted area, he came into contact with one of the infected. I have him under gunshot since he tried to run. Need back-up to put him in quarantine until he is tested.” He couldn’t arrest Raphael without a radioactive protection suit on or however terrible the virus was, so back-up would have to do it. He had never paid attention in biology and didn’t know how easily it would spread, but he refused to take any risk and put more lives in danger. He shared the address of the place and hoped he would get a response saying they were on their way. While he was keeping his distance, he still felt somewhat scared that he was somehow risking catching it from where he stood.
Fight like you'll never die Fight to stay alive Fight to raise the crown Fight to take them down Fight like you're gods and monsters Because you want to To save a life
