DOARS- Week 8, Day 2- The Only

Dum Dum Dum! The last entry was creepy and cliffie and really interesting all rolled up in one! Or at least that's how I saw it. How are our favorite Sw0rds going to fix this one, huh? Read On!
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-Cycl0n3's Diary-

Dear Diary,

Last night Lynn disappeared after the party. I searched everywhere for her, but it was as if she had disappeared into the very ground. So I came home, exhausted, worried sick, and praying that she would come home safe, that it would all be a prank that she was playing on me.

Thank goodness the kids had gone to bed before the party ended yesterday, I don't know how I'm going to face them. If Lynn doesn't come back, what will I tell them? How do you tell your kids that their mother vanished without a trace? How does a superstar sports legend even disappear like that? She's going to turn up. She has to!

I can't live without her.


She did show up early in the morning, but she wasn't herself. Her body was decaying and falling apart. How did she go from a vibrant woman to this walking corpse over night? I was horrified. What was going on with her? I pleaded for her to tel me what happened, but she merely grunted. Was my Lynn even in there still? Who was this monster standing before me?

Before I could react she lunged at me and caught me in a vice-like grip. When I tried to struggle her arms starting coming out of their sockets, and I stopped immediately. I couldn't hurt her. She was my wife. Was. But  maybe my Lynn was somewhere deep down in her, maybe we could get her back.

In between my fear and panic and trying to figure out a way to extricate myself from the rotting flesh that surrounded me, I felt a sickening tear in my arm. This creature had sunk her teeth into me. Pain flooded my body as her teeth sank deeper into my muscle tissue.

Throwing caution to the wind, I pushed her off of me, finally having a use for these muscles that she had encouraged me to develop. Her body went limp, but thankfully seemed to stay in one piece.

My momentary relief was destroyed when I realized that I couldn't breathe. Not only could I not breath, but the icy cold feel of death permeated my entire body. I was dying.

 My body crumpled to the floor and my heat beat its last beat. My last thought was for my children- please don't kill our children.

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End of Entry

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 -Raquel's Diary-

Dear Diary,

When we woke up this morning my parents were gone. The last time we saw them was at the party last night, they were dancing and having a good time. Was their absence now part of Dad's surprise for mom?

I'd love to believe that, I would, but this was out of character for them. They always let us know where they were and if they were going to be gone. And something felt... wrong. Hector and I turned to the only person we know that never sleeps and deserves a degree in observation, Pat.

"Do you know where mom and dad are?" I asked her and Hector watched her reaction. The forced smile was enough to confirm my suspicions that something was amiss. Pat stayed silent for several moments and focused on something intangible.

"Yes," she finally responded. She was always that concise, never offering up more information that exactly what was asked. Was that an alien thing or just a Pat thing?

"Where are they?" Hector asked in a tone that meant he didn't just want the short accurate answer. Pat's smile faltered and her shoulders fell.
"Tony captured them." She said softly.
The room fell silent.

I couldn't speak, I could barely keep standing. Tony's attacks on us had been shallow, always the dishwasher, the sink, the shower, etc, but this? He took our parents? How did he even do that? Were they ok? Were they alive?
My knees started wobbling and my head started spinning, leaving me no other option than to drag my shaky body to the nearest chair. My parents had been captured. Had he formed a minion army of zombies here as he had on the alien home world?
I was familiar with them, how indestructible they were. How do you kill something that is already dead? He had turned all the alien women into these walking dead and slaughtered the majority of the civilization. Rommich and I had been working on stronger weapons and retreat strategies and possible relocation of the remaining 5 aliens, well 6 aliens, now. We had always thought that it was impossible to do on simWorld, that he could only control beings on other planets. I see that we were wrong.

That's not the worst of it, though. Once he captured a person's soul and bend their corpse to his will, he integrated their minds into himself. He knew everything my parent's knew. It was fortunate that they didn't know about Pat. Was that why they didn't know about her? Did Pat know this was going to happen?

That question hit me like a slap in the face, and I couldn't restrain myself from asking it.
"Did you know they were going to be turned into zombies?" I know that my tone sounded more accusatory than question-like, but the flit of guilt that flashed over her face answered my question sufficiently.

"Wait, Zombies? What? What happened to our parents?" Hector demanded. Pat looked at me and then to the floor. It looked like she was trying to muster up courage to answer. The boiling anger in me had done that already. How could she have known and not told us? How could she keep that from us? If we had known we might have been able to prevent this!

"Tony turns people into zombie slaves and uses them to fight. That's how he's fought this war with the aliens and destroyed most of them. He steals their souls and when their bodies die he takes control over their decaying flesh. When he captures them, he learns everything they knew. That's why Pat didn't want our parents finding out about her. Because she knew that Tony was going to kill them." My voice was filled with poison and bitterness. I would have cried if there had been any room for emotions other than hate and anger. How could she do that to us?



Horrified, Hector looked at Pat, "Is that true?"
"No! I didn't know! I promise, I didn't know he was going to take them. I thought it was possible, that's all. I still don't know very much about our enemy. I didn't know he could take people from your planet, I thought it was only other planets like my people's planet. That's the honest truth. That's why the fewer people know that I'm the helper the better, because it was always a possibility that he'd find a way to build an army here. I should have told you, but it was my biggest fear, and I just couldn't. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," Pat burst into tears, displaying more emotion than I had ever seen from her. I believed her. She didn't know, but she did know it was possible, and she should have told us. That didn't help us now, though. Our parents were gone.


"Is there a way to get them back?" Hector asked, his voice scarily devoid of emotion. Pat looked up at him through her tears and softly shook her head.
"I don't know, there might be a potion that can free them of his hold, but we haven't been able to find it. You don't have the resources here to discover it. My people have been trying for over a ten simWeeks to come up with a solution, but we haven't been able to. We may never find the combination that we need."

The room fell into a mournful silence for a moment. Then as if a light bulb went off above my brother's head he piped up.

"That's because you don't have me. I found out how to make you real, how to make old ones young, I can do this, too. Pat, is there a way to get me to the alien's research labs?"
"I don't know... I could ask, though..." She bit her lip. I laughed inside, I keep forgetting that she was raised here. I know more about her people than she does.
"I've been there." I announced. Now I wasn't in the habit of telling people that I had been to the alien home world or fought a zombie face to face. I never mentioned that I knew the secrets and goals of the rest of the aliens that were living, but now seemed the time to speak up, because I believed him. Hector was a genius at potions and mixtures, if anyone could cure a zombie, it'd be him.
"What?" The other two asked in unison. I rolled my eyes, I wasn't going to tell them anything else about that, and they were getting distracted.
"Sims can go to the alien's base on their planet. If you contact Rommich and tell him that Tony's forming an army here and that you want to help them find the cure, he'll take you there, I'm sure of it." I said.


Pat clapped and smiled. "If Hector is going to my planet, and you've already been, then I'm going, too. It's about time for me to see where I came from and start fighting in this war with my people."


So preparations were made, Rommich was contacted, and Hector began gathering what he would need.
Rommich would be picking them up that night, and before then Hector had make all the necessary arrangements and step into his new role as a scientist and full-fledged adult.

During the agonizingly long hours of the day Pat and I tried to keep ourselves busy. It seemed like Tony was trying to do that, too. Almost all of our appliances broke, there had never been so much water on the floor of our house before.

 Pat and I tackled each appliance with diligence and in her case, skill.


But soon the hours and preparations came to an end. It was time for them to go. Hector took one last look around. He didn't have to tell me that he might not be back for a while, I already knew. He wasn't coming back until he found a way to save our parents, and if he never did... then... I don't even want to think about that, but I think we all know what that means.





 "Are you read, Pat?" He asked, after taking the final look at our parent's room. She nodded.

 Before the two were able to leave the house, Pat enfolded Hector into a tight embrace.
"We're going to save them. Together," She whispered. I saw a tear form in my brothers eye and he let her go. It was then that I realized that Pat was in love with Hector. You'd think with everything going on, that my mind would be bogged down with worry and fear and a host of other emotions, but that side of me had shut down, the only part of my brain that was still working was the logical part. And it just informed me that an alien was in love with my brother, and he loved her as much as he can love anyone. Zhiddezoe wasn't going to like that. She had plans for Pat, and those plans certainly did not involve Hector.
He cleared his throat and looked at me, as soon as his eyes locked with mine, the wall that had been keeping out emotion crumbled into a million pieces. My brother was going to the front lines of another planet to save my dead parents. The air was suddenly much too thick to breath and a lump formed in my throat.
"Bye, Kid. Stay out of trouble, you hear? Keep up with your school work and make sure you graduate with flying colors, ok? And-" He stopped his speech because of the sound of Rommich's arrival. "I love you, sis," He said to me and he forced himself to leave, obviously not ready to leave me, but knowing that the time had come.

I stayed silent. There were so many things I wanted to say, but the lump had choked out anything I might have said. My heart broke as my last living family member left my world.

"Come back," I whispered to the air, when I finally managed to say anything at all.

After locking all the doors, I collapsed onto my bed. Why didn't I go with them? I know that I decided to stay here because if by some miracle my parents returned healthy, I wanted to be the first to know about it. I couldn't abandon my world or my house. I was the only person on this planet that had fought zombies and lived to tell the tale, how could I have just left? If I keep reminding myself of that, will it hurt less to be completely alone?
Besides, I had to stay for my school, and to take care of the house. I would have been useless to them, just another person taking up space and another person that they had to protect from their own mass of zombies. But here... I have to protect me. I'm staying because it's the right thing to do, but I'm not sure I'm going to survive this. Surely I'm Tony's next target.

The last of the Sw0rd's,
Raquel Sw0rd

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So what did you guys think? Huh? Any ideas about where the story is going from here? Will we ever see Hector again? Will Lynn and Cycl0n3 ever be normal sims again?

This is the official announcement, in case you didn't pick up on it, Raquel is our next DW! She still has a few days until she's a YA, so she hasn't taken over officially, yet, but pretty soon now she will!

Also, adult Hector is on my page and able to be dowloaded! Yay! I also have the entire family up there if you want to check them out. :)