Post by Markus on Jan 18, 2014 4:58:02 GMT -5
OOC Name: Markus
OOC Gender: Male
IC Name: Cooper
Character Model: Chris Evans
Age: 32
Sex: Male
Hair: Black
Eyes: Blue
Height: 6'2
Weight: 88 kg/ 195 pounds
Weapons: Compound bow. Combat Knife. Throwing knife.
Special Survival Skills: Ex-soldier. Mixed Martial arts, generalised wilderness survival, knife fighting/throwing, knowledge and experience handling a myriad of weapons and vehicles including; motorcycles, helicopters, ATVs, jet skis etc. He has training in first aid as expected of a soldier.
Quirks: PTSD. Various physical scars. Has been alone for most of the last five years ( two before the end) and is quite socially unpractised because of it. Prefers his own company. Mild claustrophobia.
Short Biography:
Cooper was a soldier in the english military for over a decade. He signed up at 18 and did tour after tour all over the world until he was forcibally retired when he almost strangled a fellow soldier after he tried to rouse him from sleep. Rather than medically discharge him on mental health grounds, the brass agreed to honourably discharge him on the condition he would seek help. Instead, at the age of 28, he flew to America and disappeared in the wilderness of the Rockies, where he'd been living for two years before the rage virus broke out. Apart from occasional trips into a town kilometres from his base camp for the few supplies he couldn't make himself or live without, he lived isolated from the world. It was months until he became aware of the outbreak. A trip into town turned into a fight for his life as the zombified towns people attacked. Newspapers from just before the collapse of government and infrastructure gave him an idea of what had happened. Gathering up his things, Cooper began to wander the forests and country of North America and Canada. What he was looking for, he couldn't say, but now the whole world had joined him in the crazy house he figured it was time to rejoin it. Now, he finds himself on the peninsular-turned-island of Delaware, having just stumbled across the New Haven compound.
Cooper's Entrance
It was cold, even under the cover of the trees. Leaflitter, frozen into brittle flakes of ice, crunched beneath his boots. His breath frosted before his face, tiny ice crystals forming on the stubble on his chin and upper lip. There was almost a full moon, but beneath the canopy only a few moonbeams filtered through to the ground. Enough to track by. Usually at this time of night, approaching the coldest hours, he'd be tucked in a lean-to of branches, the layers of his clothes stuffed with leaves and his gloved hands tucked into his armpits to ward off frostbite... but tonight, with fresh deer tracks passing beneath his feet, and the promise of a hot meal in his stomach after weeks living on roots and dried meat, he was risking it. It wasn't the smartest thing he'd ever done, the dead could hunt by night far better than he could, but he was hungry, and determined.
Cooper brushed a branch aside, cursing as it revealed the source of a sound he'd been hearing for hours. A river blocked his way, banked by crumbling concrete canals and the dirt the failing borders had loosed. It looked relatively deep, but slow moving, almost still. The fractured reflection of the moon blinked at him, beckoning him into the water after his prey. With a sigh, Cooper shrugged his pack from his back, swinging it around to his feet. This was going to get cold.
His clothes came off in quick jerks, trying to hurry but hampered by the cold that shook his limbs. The shivering only intensified as he shed layers, goose-bumps pebbling his skin as the freezing air hit it, the slight breeze raking icey fingers over his body, his muscles hunching close to his bones to escape it. It was only going to get worse too. His clothes and boots went into his bag, along with some dry tinder he found in the hollow of some roots, and the bag went back onto his naked back as he shivered on the bank. Normally, he'd keep his boots on, but he'd seen what wet leather could do to your feet. Trench foot wouldn't just be painful, it would kill him out here. Gathering himself – and his courage – Cooper gingerly made his way down the dirt and concrete bank, placing his barefeet carefully between jagged pieces of man-made rock.
The first touch of the below-freezing water on his skin had him hissing with the pain of it, a great gasp of breath sucked in through his teeth. The second was no better, and he had to force himself to keep toeing his way forward, cautiously easing down the bank until the water hit his waist.
“Fuck.” He muttered, voice hoarse and creaky from disuse. Teeth gritted, he lifted his pack up over his head to keep it dry and forced himself to keep going. The water rose as he waded further toward the centre of the canal, the tug of the current on his legs growing as it hit his belly, then chest, flirting with his shoulders. He was numb almost everywhere the water touched, the rest of his nerves screaming at the terrible cold, his teeth trying to chatter. He clenched them harder and kept going, the water finally beginning to creep back down his body. He stumbled up onto the other bank, shaking like a leaf in the wind, and fumbled the kindling out of his back, yanking a tattered blanket out along with them. The old wool went around his shoulders, the kindling went onto the dirt and the flint in his hand made comforting schick, schick noises as he dragged the steel against it. A spark, a flame, and Cooper was down on his hands and knees, blowing frantically at the embers until they caught and the dry tinder went up. A soft sound of relief, and the ex-soldier huddled close, carefully feeding twigs into his little blaze.
A few rough passes of the blanket had his skin dry enough to dress again, and with his layers back on it didn't take him long to warm up. He stood, stamping out his little fire and kicking dirt over the embers. Satisfied he wasn't going to start a forest fire, he ducked back into the trees, staring silently into space until his night vision came back. The tracks weren't hard to find in the brittle undergrowth, heading south into what he thought might be Delaware. Not a bad place to be, if the rivers had kept most of the zombies out. Farmland if he recalled, though most was probably young forest now, the kind of enviroment he liked. Plenty of game to hunt. Rabbits to snare if he could take the time to set them. And... was that the scent of smoke? Cooper frowned, hesitating, his feet stilling... continue the hunt, or investigate? With a sigh, he conceeded that there was little chance of him catching the deer, let alone killing it. He changed direction, walking in fits and starts as he tried to follow the scent. Eyes were a human's forte, and even then we weren't the best, but scent could be counted as our greatest failing of a sense. It took him a good hour to make his way out of the woods, and the sight that greeted him had him rubbing his eyes in shock.
Walls stretched high into the sky, buzzing with electricity, solid in their grey concrete bulk, many layered and stretching as far as he could see in the darkness.
“Bloody hell.” He breathed, scratching at the stubble on his jaw. Could it be? Living people, surviving behind these huge walls, free – relatively – of the constant threat of the dead? But then... He'd met his share of survivors on the road. Knew very few were happy to see a strange face. He rubbed a callused palm over his bearded, weather-roughened face. Especially a strange face like his. Dressed in what remained of his military fatigues, layered with every rag and cloth he could pull over his head, his boots scuffed, caked in mud and leaves and maybe a few spots of blood. His only possessions were a hiking pack, as tall as his back was long, and ragged and so dirty he could no longer tell, nor recall, the colour it had been. A compound bow was strapped to the back of his pack, scratched, pitted, but in perfect working order, its ragged quiver of hand-made arrows a pitiful accompaniment to the once-great bow. A six inch combat knife was strapped to his thigh, another smaller knife secreted in his boot. All together he was a rough, hard looking man. The kind of person you wouldn't want hanging around outside your gates. Especially on a cold night. With that thought, he melted back into the forest, keeping the fence in sight between the trees as he searched for a sturdy one in which to spend the night.
OOC Gender: Male
IC Name: Cooper
Character Model: Chris Evans
Age: 32
Sex: Male
Hair: Black
Eyes: Blue
Height: 6'2
Weight: 88 kg/ 195 pounds
Weapons: Compound bow. Combat Knife. Throwing knife.
Special Survival Skills: Ex-soldier. Mixed Martial arts, generalised wilderness survival, knife fighting/throwing, knowledge and experience handling a myriad of weapons and vehicles including; motorcycles, helicopters, ATVs, jet skis etc. He has training in first aid as expected of a soldier.
Quirks: PTSD. Various physical scars. Has been alone for most of the last five years ( two before the end) and is quite socially unpractised because of it. Prefers his own company. Mild claustrophobia.
Short Biography:
Cooper was a soldier in the english military for over a decade. He signed up at 18 and did tour after tour all over the world until he was forcibally retired when he almost strangled a fellow soldier after he tried to rouse him from sleep. Rather than medically discharge him on mental health grounds, the brass agreed to honourably discharge him on the condition he would seek help. Instead, at the age of 28, he flew to America and disappeared in the wilderness of the Rockies, where he'd been living for two years before the rage virus broke out. Apart from occasional trips into a town kilometres from his base camp for the few supplies he couldn't make himself or live without, he lived isolated from the world. It was months until he became aware of the outbreak. A trip into town turned into a fight for his life as the zombified towns people attacked. Newspapers from just before the collapse of government and infrastructure gave him an idea of what had happened. Gathering up his things, Cooper began to wander the forests and country of North America and Canada. What he was looking for, he couldn't say, but now the whole world had joined him in the crazy house he figured it was time to rejoin it. Now, he finds himself on the peninsular-turned-island of Delaware, having just stumbled across the New Haven compound.
Cooper's Entrance
It was cold, even under the cover of the trees. Leaflitter, frozen into brittle flakes of ice, crunched beneath his boots. His breath frosted before his face, tiny ice crystals forming on the stubble on his chin and upper lip. There was almost a full moon, but beneath the canopy only a few moonbeams filtered through to the ground. Enough to track by. Usually at this time of night, approaching the coldest hours, he'd be tucked in a lean-to of branches, the layers of his clothes stuffed with leaves and his gloved hands tucked into his armpits to ward off frostbite... but tonight, with fresh deer tracks passing beneath his feet, and the promise of a hot meal in his stomach after weeks living on roots and dried meat, he was risking it. It wasn't the smartest thing he'd ever done, the dead could hunt by night far better than he could, but he was hungry, and determined.
Cooper brushed a branch aside, cursing as it revealed the source of a sound he'd been hearing for hours. A river blocked his way, banked by crumbling concrete canals and the dirt the failing borders had loosed. It looked relatively deep, but slow moving, almost still. The fractured reflection of the moon blinked at him, beckoning him into the water after his prey. With a sigh, Cooper shrugged his pack from his back, swinging it around to his feet. This was going to get cold.
His clothes came off in quick jerks, trying to hurry but hampered by the cold that shook his limbs. The shivering only intensified as he shed layers, goose-bumps pebbling his skin as the freezing air hit it, the slight breeze raking icey fingers over his body, his muscles hunching close to his bones to escape it. It was only going to get worse too. His clothes and boots went into his bag, along with some dry tinder he found in the hollow of some roots, and the bag went back onto his naked back as he shivered on the bank. Normally, he'd keep his boots on, but he'd seen what wet leather could do to your feet. Trench foot wouldn't just be painful, it would kill him out here. Gathering himself – and his courage – Cooper gingerly made his way down the dirt and concrete bank, placing his barefeet carefully between jagged pieces of man-made rock.
The first touch of the below-freezing water on his skin had him hissing with the pain of it, a great gasp of breath sucked in through his teeth. The second was no better, and he had to force himself to keep toeing his way forward, cautiously easing down the bank until the water hit his waist.
“Fuck.” He muttered, voice hoarse and creaky from disuse. Teeth gritted, he lifted his pack up over his head to keep it dry and forced himself to keep going. The water rose as he waded further toward the centre of the canal, the tug of the current on his legs growing as it hit his belly, then chest, flirting with his shoulders. He was numb almost everywhere the water touched, the rest of his nerves screaming at the terrible cold, his teeth trying to chatter. He clenched them harder and kept going, the water finally beginning to creep back down his body. He stumbled up onto the other bank, shaking like a leaf in the wind, and fumbled the kindling out of his back, yanking a tattered blanket out along with them. The old wool went around his shoulders, the kindling went onto the dirt and the flint in his hand made comforting schick, schick noises as he dragged the steel against it. A spark, a flame, and Cooper was down on his hands and knees, blowing frantically at the embers until they caught and the dry tinder went up. A soft sound of relief, and the ex-soldier huddled close, carefully feeding twigs into his little blaze.
A few rough passes of the blanket had his skin dry enough to dress again, and with his layers back on it didn't take him long to warm up. He stood, stamping out his little fire and kicking dirt over the embers. Satisfied he wasn't going to start a forest fire, he ducked back into the trees, staring silently into space until his night vision came back. The tracks weren't hard to find in the brittle undergrowth, heading south into what he thought might be Delaware. Not a bad place to be, if the rivers had kept most of the zombies out. Farmland if he recalled, though most was probably young forest now, the kind of enviroment he liked. Plenty of game to hunt. Rabbits to snare if he could take the time to set them. And... was that the scent of smoke? Cooper frowned, hesitating, his feet stilling... continue the hunt, or investigate? With a sigh, he conceeded that there was little chance of him catching the deer, let alone killing it. He changed direction, walking in fits and starts as he tried to follow the scent. Eyes were a human's forte, and even then we weren't the best, but scent could be counted as our greatest failing of a sense. It took him a good hour to make his way out of the woods, and the sight that greeted him had him rubbing his eyes in shock.
Walls stretched high into the sky, buzzing with electricity, solid in their grey concrete bulk, many layered and stretching as far as he could see in the darkness.
“Bloody hell.” He breathed, scratching at the stubble on his jaw. Could it be? Living people, surviving behind these huge walls, free – relatively – of the constant threat of the dead? But then... He'd met his share of survivors on the road. Knew very few were happy to see a strange face. He rubbed a callused palm over his bearded, weather-roughened face. Especially a strange face like his. Dressed in what remained of his military fatigues, layered with every rag and cloth he could pull over his head, his boots scuffed, caked in mud and leaves and maybe a few spots of blood. His only possessions were a hiking pack, as tall as his back was long, and ragged and so dirty he could no longer tell, nor recall, the colour it had been. A compound bow was strapped to the back of his pack, scratched, pitted, but in perfect working order, its ragged quiver of hand-made arrows a pitiful accompaniment to the once-great bow. A six inch combat knife was strapped to his thigh, another smaller knife secreted in his boot. All together he was a rough, hard looking man. The kind of person you wouldn't want hanging around outside your gates. Especially on a cold night. With that thought, he melted back into the forest, keeping the fence in sight between the trees as he searched for a sturdy one in which to spend the night.