Volume I - Episode 19 Where: Cologne, Germany When: 12 days after E-Day, 9:10 pm Krystal dimmed the lights and rolled her wheelchair a little closer to the door. She cocked an ear, listening intently. Her heart pounded in her chest. Every muscle in her body was tense. Flick! There it was again! The sound of a cigarette lighter! For nearly two weeks there had been no sign of human life anywhere in Cologne. And now there were people right outside her door. What could it mean? she wondered. Her mind spun with possibilities. Were the last two weeks a dream? Had people just vanished temporarily? Had she somehow...fast-forwarded through time? Each possibility led to the same hopeful conclusion... Were people coming back? Krystal pressed her ear against the door. Outside, the corridor echoed with the sound of panting. Her first thought was there were people out there having sex. But then she remembered she was on the eighteenth floor of a building with no working elevator. She'd be breathing pretty hard too if she had just walked up eighteen flights of stairs. There was a whisper of voices. So there's at least two people out there. She slowed her breathing, desperate to hear what they were saying. "Well, that was brutal," a man's voice said. Judging by his accent, he was from the same part of England Big Steve had been from. There was a momentary pang of guilt as Krystal thought of Big Steve and the horrible way in which he'd died. "We are unfit too much," a heavily-accented German woman's voice said. "I think smoking is not helping." There was a brief silence as, Krystal assumed, the pair took a drag from their cigarettes. "So...which door?" the man asked. "I'm pretty sure the light was coming from that one." "Yes, I think so too." "Alrighty then, let's see who's home." The was a shuffle of movement, and then the sound of approaching footsteps. Krystal gasped and rolled quickly away from the door. After all this time with no human contact...after all the hours spent craving human interaction as simple as someone to talk to... I'm terrified. There was a knock on the door. "Hallo?" the German woman's voice called. "Jemand zu Hause?" Krystal stared at the door, frozen with indecision. Do I answer??! Who are they? Why are they here? What if they hurt me? She rolled further away from the door and ran her fingers through her hair. "Think, dammit," she whispered to herself. "I need time to think..." Another knock. "Hallo?" the woman called again. First published: Sunday, 15 August 2010 Credits: Finn head morph and texture by Phoenix1966 Casey body morph by Thorne and Sarsa VAMP:Jayna nails by Poser DAZ Fable Hair by Aery Soul BO Charms by outoftouch and Bice Simple Glasses for V4 by pgmeri01 Bracelets by Inception8 Rings by Vicky Griffin and Chris Cox Tattoos by Gary Davis, Jasmine Beckett Griffith and others Raiver top by Ravenhair Supervisor For Raiver by Boundless Jeanz by the3dwizard Wheel Chair by Keppel The Apartment by Stringy Bad Attitude by Capsces and LittleFox The Hitchhiker by mytilus Cast modelled in modo 401 Rendered in Poser Pro 7 Composited and postwork in Photoshop CS5