InsaneJournal

city_limits Safari
'I don't want to set the world on fire,
I just want to start... A flame in your heart...'

It was true what they said; Lincoln Park was fucking deserted. A few rumours persisted that maybe some sort of secretive elite were operating in there, ready to take over the world, at a moment's notice. The truth, on the other hand, was composed of dust and ghostly breeze swirling in the absence of human maintenance. Vehicles either left where they had been parked, many still with full tanks of gas or overturned in the remnants of whatever chaos had transpired there.

Katherine made it a point of business to investigate whatever pertained to the place, since arriving nearby and the recent high school escapades had only reinforced the need to go on a little mystery-solving, even if one ultimately had nothing to do with the other. It would, at least, take her mind off of what had taken place, after all. A few overheard snippets, here and there, had now paid off and access was granted into this playground of the damned.

She might have been immediately set upon, had she been human. But as a vampire - and a survivalist-minded one, at that - she was a good deal less conspicuous than most; no body heat, for one thing. The brunette took care to treat this not too unlike her times in any other urban war zone of the past: Sneak in, find cover, high ground and do what was necessary.

'In my heart I have but one desire...
And that one is you,
No other will do.'

Without much in the way of animal flesh to hand, Katherine had set up a CD player, taken the remote control with her and climbed up the stairs of an adjacent building, perching herself on an open window, a few floors up. She might have a violent temperament, but the vampiress was also a product of her human generation and tunes of yesteryear were taken as a more pleasant accompaniment than heavy metal, for casual activities. Besides, if this was going to take some time, why not make it pleasant?

'I've lost all ambition for worldly acclaim,
I just want to be the one you love.'

Activating the music from afar, Katherine waited for the first interlopers to come along, sniper scope at the ready, the first round chambered and silencer affixed.

Was this some great, scientific experiment? No. Katherine looked out for herself. She wanted trophies.

'And with your admission that you feel the same,
I'll have reached the goal I'm dreaming of,
Believe me.'

Yet, by the tenth shambling horror to fall by her trigger, even Katherine could get bored. It could have been lethal, had she been down there, but that would have been the foolish thing to do. Katherine was brash, crude and impulsive, but she was not idiotic. Nevertheless, she now was restless and the cross between giant squid and stag beetle, now crawling its way up the cracked sidewalk, looked like it could do with some up close and personal treatment.

Either she would end up dust or with a very interesting new necklace.

But then, that was what drove her. The constant need to prove, to challenge herself. Things were going to get a lot more dangerous, once she dropped down into the fray, but for a girl who got nostalgic over the mechanised butchery in Stalingrad, this was Katherine's version of a safari.

'I don't want to set the world on fire,
I just want to start... A flame in your heart...'