If sleep was for the weak, Mal would be a beefcake right now, because there is non stop banging and screeching outside that can be summed up in a play directions as:

Act one scene one: night, Outside big brutus pizzeria

BANG THUD THud

Person one: *heavy breathing* “Rreeeeaaagh” *heavier breathing*

Person two: “h- help”

Person one: "hrahh"

Person two: “oh fUCK NO! GET AWAY! I will fuck you up man”

Person one: “RRRRAAARRGGH!”

*leaping noise*

Person one: “REAarghhhhh”

sound of meaty impact and a thud on the ground

Person two: “I warned you fucker, ALL RIGHT WHOS NEXT”

*sound of stepping on glass*

Person three: “reaghreaahehehrr”

Person two: “huh, arrgh sneaky bastard”

Person three: “RREAAARRRGHH”

*pounce noise*

thud thud Thud THud THUd THUD SMASH

Person two: “get off me you bast-“ *noise of random extra #2 painfully getting mauled*

cruNCH SNAP CRUNCH CRUNCh snap

Person two: “MY LEG!”

eerie silence for an hour

Person three: “reehhh?”

Person two: “rargh?”

*heavy breathing in union* *sounds of leapfrogger no. 2 and ex-survivor bounding away and dragging away respectively*

end scene

And simular encounters were happening

All.

Night.

Long.

Not knowing what the hell is going on out there, Mal curled up into a ball in their sleeping bag and thanked themself internally for barricading earlier. after 15 minutes, Mal gave up on sleep and took out their note book and wrote

August 5th i think?

you know what the collision doesn’t seem so bad anymore. Also what the fuck was that? Unless I find sentient plants that shoot zombies? Or something I better get out of here

REMINDER

gtfo when sun’s up and screechie bois gone. South dolphin plaza and Chris Elena Ln. are no goes.

After putting away their note book and packing up to save daylight tomorrow, Mal spent the rest of the night holding their crowbar ready to quote “Gordon freeman those fuckers” unquote and knife at the ready while standing on a table staring paranoid at every entrance.

Saturday, August 6, 2067. Day of collision’s territory expansion, 14 years until humanity ends.

Today Mal learned a great lesson: those Things? last night are smarter than they seem.

As to how Mal learned this valuable lesson was when they left the Big Brutus pizzeria and got jumped by a leapfroger in a sun dress who heard him packing up last night and decided that if it couldn’t get in, it would wait for its prize to get out. So it stayed silent to be all sneaky like. And was right.

”arrgh bad touch bad touch” could be heard from two figures wrestling, one being our local idiot, and the other being the now deemed sundress sally. After a scuffle, Mal was able to roll the frogger onto its back, pulled the knife from their belt and started stabbing the shit out of it.

eventually sally stoped moving due to the 28 stab wounds, and Mal realized two things big; those things could be contagious, and being trapped in your body with no control sounds horrible. so rather than seeing if turning kills you or not, Mal decided that instead of taking their chances, they would rather be safe then sorry and give themself a “factory reset” by dying somehow so that they would be reset back in time. immediately began to cut their arteries until they could no longer cut themself with their knife. Mal collapsed thinking ‘welp that could of gone better'

And so Mal died again, in a decision that was unbeknownst to mal a catch and a miss because their power counts being infected as being in danger and would reset them to before contact of infection when they eventually die as a leapfrogger. thus saving time that would have been removed from reality anyway and changing nothing.