G
Guest
Guest
Sands
by bluepencil
Warning:
a fic born of caffeine-deprivation.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
They had done it. They dropped the big one.
It was the end of life as it was known, the end of the multitude of wonders, the death of glory and beauty that had taken mankind many centuries to craft, to flourish. It was the death of innocence, the last time anyone would ever dare question the innate depravity of humanity.
It was time of chaos, of brother pitted against brother, nations rising against nations, and of the silent spectre of Death to hang over all of the burnt planet.
In the midst of this, the creature known as man stubbornly refused to just die. In the midst of it all, there were a select few who seemed to be incapable of forgetting who they were, and what they could have been. In some, this caused madness, in others...
Pandora's box opened with a bang, and hope fluttered weakly in its ashes.
The winds of change bit into the cornerstone of the human spirit, but it healed, and lives began to be rebuilt. Altough there were human predators that stalked right beyond the next sand dune, there always seemed to be at least ONE person hanging around, ready to take the law of conscience into their hands, and protect those who are unable to protect themselves. The hard months may come, but they will pass, and spring will always be there.
I spat on the ground, and on the jerry-rigged system that operated in this chaotic world. They were holding some kind of survey back at the Hub, trying to make a coherent count of what survived out of the great falling-out. I saw no reason to travel all the way, just to be counted, another face among the many.
Hell, I just saw the world crumble into itself, I'm not waiting around for something as inane as a government official..
I took all that I could carry in my pack and headed off in the opposite direction. The hard, sullen fire that rained down from above didn't bother me anymore. I walked, my friend, I walked. Halfway to nowhere I walked. Endless sand, the angry sun, those were my only companions. I was walking to my death, and knew it well. I suppose that the only thing on my mind then was to find a likely-looking spot, amybe the charred remains of what had been an ocean of seed, a reminder of the farmer's life that was taken from me. In the blackened fields that once had been a sea of orange wheat, I would lie down, and die.
But as time comes, memories fade, and with it, purpose. My endless journey became like a creed, a hard-headed refusal to lie down and slip into endless slumber, a stubborn refusal to die.
I was not alone,there were others like me, even more than I had estimated. At every town I chanced to walk into, there were always a band of rugged survivalists like myself, carrying on with the best that I could do. I was a scavenger, that enabled me to live. I took everything that I scrounged up, sold all that I needed to , and kept all the rest. I had happened on some pretty sophisticated stuff on occasion, earning me the name of Gadget Magnet.
I cared not for the name, or the things that I take. They are nothing more than useless baubles, the remnants of a destroyed technology. I lived by choice at the barest minimum, eating my fill of the limited echoes of what had been a grand civilization. I could hardly believe it, but in this limited diet, my life began to start to improve. Perhaps I had just learned to cope, but the sight of charred, broken buildings, the barren remains of what had been fertile soil, even now, I find it to bring a stab into my heart, though the memories faded even so.
I had been walking for a long time, I had grown old, old, but the world ended not so long ago. I pulled out my PipBoy, the only relic of the past that hung on to. Without it, I might as well have been dead, forever lost in this wilderness. Miles and miles around, nothing but stark barren ground, burned in patches. No roads, not landmarks by which to guage my place in a senseless world. I checked my location again, and saw that I was just a few miles south of what should have been a small town, a good place to rest and trade.
Three days later, and no town.
I sprawled down in the shade of an outcropping of rock. I took off my cap and looked with wonder at the quart or so of swaet that had collected. From inside my pack, I drew a water canteen, enscribed with the number 17. I drank the very last drop remaining in the container and sighed wearily. I napped, the first time in many days, and awoke at dusk, to the sound of unearthly howling.
I snapped awake, and climbed the shaft of rock. I felt like hitting myself. Hard. The town I had been looking for had been right behind me this time.
It was also nothing but a charred ruin.
My only weapon was a knife, sharp and unused. I pulled it out as I drew near the town. Ther could be no telling the danger that was hiding inside. Raiders, wolves, hostile nomads and old, crazy soldier waiting with an AK-47... there were a lot of ways to get killed out here in the Wastes.
Of all things I was most wary of, only the soldier, the symbol of all that wrong with the old regime. I had always lived in the tense, waiting fearfully of the day when the military would round us all up, the wanderers, the stragglers, the dregs of humanity and forced to fit into a mold.
They were all crazy, in their craziness they killed us all. But then, I was crazy too, wasn't I? You had to be to survive out here.
It was quiet, too goddamned quiet. The total quietness of the absence of life. This place was abandoned, and none would be crazy enough to stay in such a staggeringly lonely place. I slid my knife back into the sheath and walked into what had once been a town. I shook my head as I stuck my seeking eye into several burnt houses. There was nothing of use the I could salvage here. Othe scrounging nomads had beaten me to the spoils.
Damn. I had hoped on finding more crap to take.
It was sound, carried by the wind. It was a low, sobbing noise, unearthly in the dusken sorroundings. At first I was afraid, thinking it was a spectre, one of the lost souls clinging to this place.
I had no idea of how right I was.
I honed in on the noise, and finally determined it to be coming from inside a decrepit old shack, the only building that was left standing. By the looks of it however, it seemed like it was still going to collapse anytime soon.
I poked my head into the shack and saw...
A little girl, huddled aginsta dark corner, looking at me with bright blue eyes devoid of all fear. She was young, a little slip of a girl, no more than nine. All she was wearing were old, rags that were the same color with grime, as her long, matted hair.
I can't forget the first thing she said to me.
"I remember my parents..."
I felt bile rise up my throat, an anger and hopeless hatred that surprises me even now. All the walls, the stark protective shell of cynicality that I had built up over the year fell before that simple blow. I couldn't leave her to die here, even if my creed proclaimed me to be a lone wolf in the wasteland.
I felt fear again, and I wanted to choke her life our from her throat, for I feared her at that moment more than anything else in the world. I feared accepting her, growing attached to this girl that exuded such an aura that led me to protectiveness, just to watch her die out in the Wastes.
I quelled those thoughts and approached her. She seemed.... too apathetic to even shift her gaze. Her unblinking eyes followed me as I sat down beside her.
"Who are you?", I asked.
"Tandi." she answered.
"How do you survive? What do you eat?"
"There is stuff in the houses, it's hidden where only I can get to them.."
"Where are your parents?"
"They're Dead."
She said it so calmly, so much cold factuality in her voice that it chilled me to the bone. How dare this world, to force such a young child to cope with the hard realities of Death at such a young age!
I decided then. We journey through the wasteland, and in time, she opened up to me. I too, had grown to be frank with her, and we learned much about each other. Although she was little and weak, she had strength in spirit, and it was that spirit that allowed us to keep on going. She was as much of a loner as i was, and so we avoided most of the bigger towns. But we had each other now, and we were lonesome no longer.
We were walking along, trying to explore the Nothern Part of the Wastes. I had tried tellling her that one part of the Wsteleand was just as good as another. There was no reason for us to head up.
"Yes, we do! It's there. That's all the reason we need."
And so we journeyed. It seemed as boring a travel as any, until that critical night, when we were tired and set ourselves down to sleep.
*crrk*chrrk*
I ignored the sound, and set it as just another of the random desert noises that come crawling on cold nights.
"EEEEEEEEEEE!!"
That, I could never ignore. I leapt awake, and looked for my precious charge. I saw her, and my heart froze in iced fear. She was in the center of a pack of Radscorpions, huge and man-sized, like nothing I had ever seen before.
She screamed once again as a radscorpion tail lashed out and cut a deep slash into her arm.
I don't know then, but the sight of her drove me to limits I had never known I had. My life meant nothing as I charged at the Radscorpion pack, armed with only my bare hands and slaughtered them all. Their chitinous shells were nothing, as I dug deep into the crevices and pulled free sensitive organs. For Tandi!, I cried and let repressed blood-lust consume me.
Blood pooled as dead insectoid beasts lay mangled around a wounded young child.
I cradled her into my arms and looked into her unfocused gaze. Soon enough, it regained the spark of life. It looked into my weather-worn face and said one word...
"Poppa?"
I cried and hugged her then, for what seemed like hours. The trauma of the experience had snapped her already shocked mind. All her previous memeories were erased, and from then on, we were no longer just two companions wandering around a hostile desert. She was Tandi, my daughter, and me, her father.
I gagged and tried to spit, but I couldn't. My mouth was beyond dry. in my arms, Tandi lay shivering, hit by sun poisoning. I had wrapped her in my tan robes, shielding her away from any ray of the angry sun. My uprotected back burned, but I didn't care. I would willingly give my worthless life for her.
We had been set upon by a freak sanstorm, and all my packs were blown away. With thirst killing us, we traveled in search of a place to die.
I walked over a rise and tumbled to the sandy ground. I cried, and broke the fall with my body, cradling her protectively agianst my abdomen. I cried as looked into her innocent, unconcious face. It struck me as futile. Why is it that when I had found a reson for living, that my thread would end?! I rammed my fist into the ground, again and again, until I felt the trickle of blood on my knuckles. I stuck my fingers deep into the soil and raked the hot, hostile soil that I had slaved over for countless years.
It felt surprisingly cool to the touch.
I opened my eyes and saw my fingers lying unseen under a pool of brownish liquid. I held the wet figers to my lips and tasted the wetness. It was bitter, and tasted of mud, but it was enough. I dug and clawed my little pit, and watched as it began to fill with more of the amazing liquid. The sand particles settled soon after, and the pool began to clear, and reflected the bright blue of the sky.
I laughed, and laughed and laughed.
Water!!
Tandi healed up after a while. With the prescence of such easily acessible water, I knew that there was other life around here. I saw them in the form of the strange two-headed cow that had sprouted after the blast. Bhramins grazed upon terse, orangish grass. Grass! It was pasture, and fertile soil could be seen to gather upon the the tiny circlar valley that we had fallen into. It was protected by high sand dunes on all sides, sheltered from burning winds and hostile life.
I reached into my pocket and brought out something that I had been keeping for an inteminable amount of time now.
A bag, filled with kernel seedlings of wheat and corn.
People stumbled into our little paradise, time and again, and we decided to form a community. We named it Shady Sands, for the circle the marked us on the map. We grew, and became a peaceful, progressive town that would show the world that a little kindness goes a long way.
Tandi grew to become a restless young woman. She wanted to explore the Wastes... bedamned luck it is...
She couldn't remember how it used to be for us, and now, I can't let her do it again. I was an old,old, old man, the sun had scarred and crippled me forever. She will learn to accept it soon enough, that a life of adventure, should only come once in a lifetime.....
-from the Journals of Aradesh, founder of Shady Sands.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Okay, so what if I decided to against the historical continuity? I've had my fun writing it, that's the point.. I hope you like reading it...
put this on..
http://uro.topcities.com/bluearmor.gif
~cause I can get a little cranky....without moi daily dose oh coffee!!~
-it's the freakin' bluepencil!
~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^
by bluepencil
Warning:
a fic born of caffeine-deprivation.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
They had done it. They dropped the big one.
It was the end of life as it was known, the end of the multitude of wonders, the death of glory and beauty that had taken mankind many centuries to craft, to flourish. It was the death of innocence, the last time anyone would ever dare question the innate depravity of humanity.
It was time of chaos, of brother pitted against brother, nations rising against nations, and of the silent spectre of Death to hang over all of the burnt planet.
In the midst of this, the creature known as man stubbornly refused to just die. In the midst of it all, there were a select few who seemed to be incapable of forgetting who they were, and what they could have been. In some, this caused madness, in others...
Pandora's box opened with a bang, and hope fluttered weakly in its ashes.
The winds of change bit into the cornerstone of the human spirit, but it healed, and lives began to be rebuilt. Altough there were human predators that stalked right beyond the next sand dune, there always seemed to be at least ONE person hanging around, ready to take the law of conscience into their hands, and protect those who are unable to protect themselves. The hard months may come, but they will pass, and spring will always be there.
I spat on the ground, and on the jerry-rigged system that operated in this chaotic world. They were holding some kind of survey back at the Hub, trying to make a coherent count of what survived out of the great falling-out. I saw no reason to travel all the way, just to be counted, another face among the many.
Hell, I just saw the world crumble into itself, I'm not waiting around for something as inane as a government official..
I took all that I could carry in my pack and headed off in the opposite direction. The hard, sullen fire that rained down from above didn't bother me anymore. I walked, my friend, I walked. Halfway to nowhere I walked. Endless sand, the angry sun, those were my only companions. I was walking to my death, and knew it well. I suppose that the only thing on my mind then was to find a likely-looking spot, amybe the charred remains of what had been an ocean of seed, a reminder of the farmer's life that was taken from me. In the blackened fields that once had been a sea of orange wheat, I would lie down, and die.
But as time comes, memories fade, and with it, purpose. My endless journey became like a creed, a hard-headed refusal to lie down and slip into endless slumber, a stubborn refusal to die.
I was not alone,there were others like me, even more than I had estimated. At every town I chanced to walk into, there were always a band of rugged survivalists like myself, carrying on with the best that I could do. I was a scavenger, that enabled me to live. I took everything that I scrounged up, sold all that I needed to , and kept all the rest. I had happened on some pretty sophisticated stuff on occasion, earning me the name of Gadget Magnet.
I cared not for the name, or the things that I take. They are nothing more than useless baubles, the remnants of a destroyed technology. I lived by choice at the barest minimum, eating my fill of the limited echoes of what had been a grand civilization. I could hardly believe it, but in this limited diet, my life began to start to improve. Perhaps I had just learned to cope, but the sight of charred, broken buildings, the barren remains of what had been fertile soil, even now, I find it to bring a stab into my heart, though the memories faded even so.
I had been walking for a long time, I had grown old, old, but the world ended not so long ago. I pulled out my PipBoy, the only relic of the past that hung on to. Without it, I might as well have been dead, forever lost in this wilderness. Miles and miles around, nothing but stark barren ground, burned in patches. No roads, not landmarks by which to guage my place in a senseless world. I checked my location again, and saw that I was just a few miles south of what should have been a small town, a good place to rest and trade.
Three days later, and no town.
I sprawled down in the shade of an outcropping of rock. I took off my cap and looked with wonder at the quart or so of swaet that had collected. From inside my pack, I drew a water canteen, enscribed with the number 17. I drank the very last drop remaining in the container and sighed wearily. I napped, the first time in many days, and awoke at dusk, to the sound of unearthly howling.
I snapped awake, and climbed the shaft of rock. I felt like hitting myself. Hard. The town I had been looking for had been right behind me this time.
It was also nothing but a charred ruin.
My only weapon was a knife, sharp and unused. I pulled it out as I drew near the town. Ther could be no telling the danger that was hiding inside. Raiders, wolves, hostile nomads and old, crazy soldier waiting with an AK-47... there were a lot of ways to get killed out here in the Wastes.
Of all things I was most wary of, only the soldier, the symbol of all that wrong with the old regime. I had always lived in the tense, waiting fearfully of the day when the military would round us all up, the wanderers, the stragglers, the dregs of humanity and forced to fit into a mold.
They were all crazy, in their craziness they killed us all. But then, I was crazy too, wasn't I? You had to be to survive out here.
It was quiet, too goddamned quiet. The total quietness of the absence of life. This place was abandoned, and none would be crazy enough to stay in such a staggeringly lonely place. I slid my knife back into the sheath and walked into what had once been a town. I shook my head as I stuck my seeking eye into several burnt houses. There was nothing of use the I could salvage here. Othe scrounging nomads had beaten me to the spoils.
Damn. I had hoped on finding more crap to take.
It was sound, carried by the wind. It was a low, sobbing noise, unearthly in the dusken sorroundings. At first I was afraid, thinking it was a spectre, one of the lost souls clinging to this place.
I had no idea of how right I was.
I honed in on the noise, and finally determined it to be coming from inside a decrepit old shack, the only building that was left standing. By the looks of it however, it seemed like it was still going to collapse anytime soon.
I poked my head into the shack and saw...
A little girl, huddled aginsta dark corner, looking at me with bright blue eyes devoid of all fear. She was young, a little slip of a girl, no more than nine. All she was wearing were old, rags that were the same color with grime, as her long, matted hair.
I can't forget the first thing she said to me.
"I remember my parents..."
I felt bile rise up my throat, an anger and hopeless hatred that surprises me even now. All the walls, the stark protective shell of cynicality that I had built up over the year fell before that simple blow. I couldn't leave her to die here, even if my creed proclaimed me to be a lone wolf in the wasteland.
I felt fear again, and I wanted to choke her life our from her throat, for I feared her at that moment more than anything else in the world. I feared accepting her, growing attached to this girl that exuded such an aura that led me to protectiveness, just to watch her die out in the Wastes.
I quelled those thoughts and approached her. She seemed.... too apathetic to even shift her gaze. Her unblinking eyes followed me as I sat down beside her.
"Who are you?", I asked.
"Tandi." she answered.
"How do you survive? What do you eat?"
"There is stuff in the houses, it's hidden where only I can get to them.."
"Where are your parents?"
"They're Dead."
She said it so calmly, so much cold factuality in her voice that it chilled me to the bone. How dare this world, to force such a young child to cope with the hard realities of Death at such a young age!
I decided then. We journey through the wasteland, and in time, she opened up to me. I too, had grown to be frank with her, and we learned much about each other. Although she was little and weak, she had strength in spirit, and it was that spirit that allowed us to keep on going. She was as much of a loner as i was, and so we avoided most of the bigger towns. But we had each other now, and we were lonesome no longer.
We were walking along, trying to explore the Nothern Part of the Wastes. I had tried tellling her that one part of the Wsteleand was just as good as another. There was no reason for us to head up.
"Yes, we do! It's there. That's all the reason we need."
And so we journeyed. It seemed as boring a travel as any, until that critical night, when we were tired and set ourselves down to sleep.
*crrk*chrrk*
I ignored the sound, and set it as just another of the random desert noises that come crawling on cold nights.
"EEEEEEEEEEE!!"
That, I could never ignore. I leapt awake, and looked for my precious charge. I saw her, and my heart froze in iced fear. She was in the center of a pack of Radscorpions, huge and man-sized, like nothing I had ever seen before.
She screamed once again as a radscorpion tail lashed out and cut a deep slash into her arm.
I don't know then, but the sight of her drove me to limits I had never known I had. My life meant nothing as I charged at the Radscorpion pack, armed with only my bare hands and slaughtered them all. Their chitinous shells were nothing, as I dug deep into the crevices and pulled free sensitive organs. For Tandi!, I cried and let repressed blood-lust consume me.
Blood pooled as dead insectoid beasts lay mangled around a wounded young child.
I cradled her into my arms and looked into her unfocused gaze. Soon enough, it regained the spark of life. It looked into my weather-worn face and said one word...
"Poppa?"
I cried and hugged her then, for what seemed like hours. The trauma of the experience had snapped her already shocked mind. All her previous memeories were erased, and from then on, we were no longer just two companions wandering around a hostile desert. She was Tandi, my daughter, and me, her father.
I gagged and tried to spit, but I couldn't. My mouth was beyond dry. in my arms, Tandi lay shivering, hit by sun poisoning. I had wrapped her in my tan robes, shielding her away from any ray of the angry sun. My uprotected back burned, but I didn't care. I would willingly give my worthless life for her.
We had been set upon by a freak sanstorm, and all my packs were blown away. With thirst killing us, we traveled in search of a place to die.
I walked over a rise and tumbled to the sandy ground. I cried, and broke the fall with my body, cradling her protectively agianst my abdomen. I cried as looked into her innocent, unconcious face. It struck me as futile. Why is it that when I had found a reson for living, that my thread would end?! I rammed my fist into the ground, again and again, until I felt the trickle of blood on my knuckles. I stuck my fingers deep into the soil and raked the hot, hostile soil that I had slaved over for countless years.
It felt surprisingly cool to the touch.
I opened my eyes and saw my fingers lying unseen under a pool of brownish liquid. I held the wet figers to my lips and tasted the wetness. It was bitter, and tasted of mud, but it was enough. I dug and clawed my little pit, and watched as it began to fill with more of the amazing liquid. The sand particles settled soon after, and the pool began to clear, and reflected the bright blue of the sky.
I laughed, and laughed and laughed.
Water!!
Tandi healed up after a while. With the prescence of such easily acessible water, I knew that there was other life around here. I saw them in the form of the strange two-headed cow that had sprouted after the blast. Bhramins grazed upon terse, orangish grass. Grass! It was pasture, and fertile soil could be seen to gather upon the the tiny circlar valley that we had fallen into. It was protected by high sand dunes on all sides, sheltered from burning winds and hostile life.
I reached into my pocket and brought out something that I had been keeping for an inteminable amount of time now.
A bag, filled with kernel seedlings of wheat and corn.
People stumbled into our little paradise, time and again, and we decided to form a community. We named it Shady Sands, for the circle the marked us on the map. We grew, and became a peaceful, progressive town that would show the world that a little kindness goes a long way.
Tandi grew to become a restless young woman. She wanted to explore the Wastes... bedamned luck it is...
She couldn't remember how it used to be for us, and now, I can't let her do it again. I was an old,old, old man, the sun had scarred and crippled me forever. She will learn to accept it soon enough, that a life of adventure, should only come once in a lifetime.....
-from the Journals of Aradesh, founder of Shady Sands.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Okay, so what if I decided to against the historical continuity? I've had my fun writing it, that's the point.. I hope you like reading it...
put this on..
http://uro.topcities.com/bluearmor.gif
~cause I can get a little cranky....without moi daily dose oh coffee!!~
-it's the freakin' bluepencil!
~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^
