TW: may contain spoilers...
(I haven't watched the recent session of saps and until now he isn't infected in the actual game so far. I just made it up for the angst.)
The memory still sits clearly in your mind: the rumbling old bus, filled with about 20 people probably less coming to this hellscape for their own reasons, rolling through the bridge over the sea into the ruined outskirts of Paradise City, windows smeared with dust and dried rain, the streets outside eerily empty. People whispered nervously. Some slept. Others stared forward like statues or just watched the passing landscape until the bus broke down close to the entrance of the city.
Across the aisle sat Saparata, clutching a notebook and a pen, already scribbling down notes about the city the city. Even then he had that focused look of someone trying to solve a problem no one else understood.
You were both just passengers then.
Two strangers headed into the same nightmare.
How long has it been? Days blurred into weeks. Weeks may have become months. Paradise City turned into a maze of abandoned streets, ruined buildings, and hidden safehouses. First there were dozens of survivors. Then fewer. Safe houses turned into abandoned buildings. Supply runs turned into desperate scavenging missions. The few survivors left scattered across the city barely trusted each other. Resources were scarce. Every day was a fight to stay alive. Yet through all of it, you and Saps stuck together. At first it was convenience, two people survive better than one, but eventually it became something else.
You explored ruined apartments, empty laboratories, dark hospitals. Saps would always analyze everything: medical charts, blood samples, notes left behind by scientists who never finished their work, or just journals left by old survivors that were probably dead by now.
He became the closest thing the survivors had to a scientist. Especially after Chuck died. Chuck had been the other mind searching for a cure. When he got shot by Woogie, the burden fell entirely onto Saps.
And he never stopped trying. He still had hopes for this fucked up world.
Until he got infected. It happened during a routine scavenging run. A small mistake. A moment too slow. Saps was never the athletic and agile one. A few deeps scratches. You treated them. At first Saps brushed it off. Just a cut. Just exhaustion. The fever started some days after. The shaking. The exhaustion. He told you, you already knew by how he was acting. You managed to convince him to take the test cure he brought with him to Paradise City at the start. Which number was it? Test-84..? He was hesitant. What if someone else needed it? After you convinced him, he drank it. What did you expect? It failed. Again.
Still, Saps kept working.
Over and over again, he experimented with possible cures using the limited equipment you could find in Paradise City’s abandoned labs. Each test was another desperate attempt to buy time. Then the coughing started. He tried to hide how bad it was getting, especially when you ran into other survivors, but the signs were impossible to ignore. Still, Saps refused to give up.
Every new cure he made after that failed. He was at a number over 100 now. All failed. And the infection was winning. The infection kept spreading through him slowly. His skin grew pale, his hands trembled more often, and sometimes he had to lean against walls just to catch his breath. And there was nothing you could do. But Saps refused to stop searching. Because somewhere in Paradise City… there had to be an answer. He kept writing notes, calculating formulas, analyzing samples.
If anyone in Paradise City could find a cure…
It was him.
[Please swipe for the other half of the scenario]
since c.ai has a word count i need to split the message. Swipe to the next message and copy the text before coming back here. After you copied it, edit this message and paste the text here so you have the full scenario! Sorry for the hazzle.