The Lamb Himself Will Provide God - Gwilled_cheeze (2024)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

The shaking is hurting his teeth, but he can’t stop it.

Right now, just as familiar as many other times throughout his short life, he has no control over what is happening to his body. His hands gripped the length of his forearms tightly, some deep-rooted sense of self-preservation and comfort that does little more than make the trembling more violent. It’s a pulse he can feel electrifyingly precise in each induvial cell, a pinprick current running through each tiny nerve ending that forces his body to writhe and jolt outside of his control. His own heart beats rapidly to the rhythm, a vibration under his skin that bubbles up into a dread so deep and foreboding that it’s a wonder he doesn’t die this very moment.

He’s forced to breathe through his mouth in shallow, lethargic gulps, his nose swollen and full like an infected sore. His throat is tight and painful, each exhale coming out as a whistle barely heard over his broken sobs. The deprivation makes him dizzy and tired, his chest full of shooting pains that make his ribs feel sensitive and brittle, like something inside of him is about to snap as he edges closer and closer to suffocation.

And yet the physical pain is barely comprehensible to him, distant and dull like a long-forgotten memory as the present drifts slowly by. He hardly understood where he even was right now, tucked away into some dark and closed off-room that the man had taken him too with soft promises of safety and comfort. Even now the man still stood over him, whispering tender words of reassurance that only fell on deaf ears, a murmur to his senses as his mind shut out everything but the empty lot and body that still lay in it.

He feels like he might be sitting down, but the image remains the same as when he was standing over the body for the first time. He can feel the gross, rank air blowing filth and saltwater from the harbor next to him, the stench heavy and foul. His empty hands still feel the weight of the pipe pistol curled tightly within his fingers, the recoil fresh and vivid in his arm. And before him, unmoving and prostrated pathetically across the ground, was the body of that nameless man, shot dead with own hands.

His limbs are a tangled mass beneath him, uncomfortable and uncanny in the way they fold under his chest. His face is visible, a slathered chunk of splintered bone fragment and gore that sits vivid and flush in the aftermath. The wound just under his eye is deep, impossibly so, a chasm burrowing forever into a pitch blackness farther than the reaches of the man’s skull. He can hear the wound calling to him, letting his name echo cruelly off the walls of flesh and bone, whispering curses and laments at the unforgivable thing he had done. Despite how much he longs to look away from the carnage, his eyes are drawn to it, helplessly refusing to turn his back on his own deeds. Somehow, he knew that if he managed to somehow advert his gaze, that the corpse would do everything in its imagined power to put itself back into his line of sight. This terrible thing he had willed into existence, determined to follow him for the rest of his life, reminding him of his choice to shoot the man and end his life for the sake of saving his own.

A sudden hand on his back draws the illusion away, the lot snapping back into the depths of his mind as his senses spit him back out into the little, dark room. The man knelt down beside him, a warm, indistinct shape just out of his line of sight that he cannot bring himself to look at right now. The touch on his back is too foreign and gentle, this hatred bubbling under his skin too inconsolable and illogical to reason so that he can only whimper and hide his face away the mans worried gaze. He can hear him sigh heavily, briefly leaving him to wander to some other part of the room, only to come back and lightly pat at his back in an attempt to get his attention.

“Listen,” the man said, “we can’t stay here much longer. All that noise is gonna draw something over here, and we need to leave before that happens.”

It was a reasonable statement of necessity meant only with silence, Shaun already slipping back into the empty lot and returning to the sight of the poor body before him. His senses flood with a perverted recollection of details heightened to the extreme, the blood inhumanely red and voluminous, the body far too cold and stiff for the recently deceased. The little voice coming the wound raises in volume, reverberating down into the other gunshot in the man's chest, begging and pleading and screaming to know why Shaun had taken his action against him, why he couldn’t have just run away, why he had drawn his gun knowing that they had already run out of bullets.

Beyond the image, he could feel someone slowly pull his hands away from his face, tenderly taking them within their own. A thumb sweetly brushed across his palm, the sensation strange and different, slowly bringing him back into his own, real body. The person squeezed his hands lightly before disappearing, the brief absence causing his heart to ache in longing for the return of the warmth and touch. Instead, something firm and heavy and cold was placed into his hands, an unwelcomed feeling that almost went ignored until he felt the sloshing of liquid within it. Suddenly his senses brightened and sharpened as they homed in on the bottle of water with a fierce intensity, the feeling of fingers brushing curiously along the bite mark in his hand unnoticed as he forcefully ripped himself out of the man's hold and drank.

It was a narrowing of the senses he had never experienced before, like everything else had simply turned off in the wake of his thirst. Every though or feeling, any minor function or action, it all stopped completely, tucked away in some other corner of his mind where it couldn’t distract him from the bottle in his hands. He drank hard with a greed that was insatiable and desperate, an overwhelming urgency to fulfill some deeper primal sense of self. He wanted to take as much as he could, and then he wanted more. It was not a pleasure or a relief to have and to take, it was a drive that could not be stopped, like a flower leaning towards the sun, voided of any opinion or joy or grief as his body simply took what it could.

He choked as the man quickly came to coax the bottle away from him, gently at first, but then firmly when he realized the boy refused to let go.

“Slow the f*ck down with that,” the man said, having to place a hand on Shaun’s chest and physically hold him back from the bottle, “You’ll make yourself sick.”

The words were lost to him, nothing but meaningless sounds from some other animal, but the loss of the water had brought an Immedient refusal, filling him with an anger that wasn’t anger. A hatred seethed inside of him, his sharpened senses narrowing onto the man this time, fixing him with a gaze that showed the kind of blind, illogical fury that only a cornered animal could have felt. His eyes only saw the man's hands, bottle clenched tight so that some of it spilled along his fingers, and something in Shaun’s jaw ached to get it back by whatever means necessary.

The man recognized the look, but stood his defense well, his own gaze far more experienced and powerful than Shaun could ever hope to rival. The snapping of teeth was metaphorical, but understood, and Shaun slipped back into lucidity with confusion and shock. The man thrust the bottle back into his hands, coming to stand so that he loomed over him like a stone pillar. His expression was menacing and hot, but he only shook his head and walked past him.

“Don’t f*cking drink all of it.”

The words were spat him, a final power play that established his place in this world, and once again he felt small and weak. The water now felt like guilt and shame, but he still drew the bottle to his lips for a tentative sip, almost afraid of being caught but the water too tempting to resist.

Now that his mind had cleared, he could take in the taste and feel of the water beyond the simple recognition that it had been consumed, and the difference from the Institute was damning. The water there had always been clear and sharp, like a new, well-polished knife. It was cool and invigorating, like drinking a pleasant breeze, and it was only by comparison that he knew how perfect the water there really was. This water was round and dull, like a stone, but after so long it was more than perfect enough for him. The salty, mineral taste left him longing for more, but already he could feel the consequences of his reckless behavior creeping up within his body. His stomach, empty except for the sudden inflow of water, felt bloated and sick, the water churning inside of him and threatening to erupt back up through his throat.

The man had been right to restrain him, to shock his sense of control back over himself the way he did, and in any other circ*mstance Shaun was sure that he would have agreed with him. He was smart enough to know better, at least he often thought so, but if that were true, he wouldn’t have needed the man to remind him of his own self-restraint. Instead, he was filled with irrational anger towards him, the water fulfilling more than just his thirst. It was a savor in a bottle, and he had lost control over possession of it. It was if every part of himself that made him himself had been forgotten, replaced by an empty shell that only knew how to keep itself alive. The ego without the superego, an impulse without direction.

This was eerily familiar to him in a way that had his skin crawling and his hands shaking once again. This was a glimpse at the hunger that ravaged so many hearts, a desperation to live without any guidance of morale or reasoning, pure instinct and nothing else. He had come very, v ery close to the sort of thing that drives people to eat one another without remorse, and all over a few sips of water.

Somewhere behind him the man swore rather loudly, and Shaun dared to look over at him despite the shame and fear threatening to send him back to the empty lot. On the other side of the room was a boarded window, and the man stood plastered over it, peeking through the small slivers between the boards with an intense expression. He watched in silence as the man took a step back, seemingly contemplating something, only to return to the window once more and swear to himself again. His body was rigid and stiff, his shoulders rising so that they came to cradle the sides of his head as he hunched over. Indistinct murmuring spilled from his lips carelessly, senseless profanities barely audible. Finally, the man sidestepped away from the window, not turning around until his back was planted securely to the wall next to the window.

“You feelin’ good to move?” the man asked, his voice breathless and tight, “Cause we have to go. Now.”

Shaun could only stare up at the man in silence, wide eyes hazy and tender.

A stranger’s blood was staining his clothes. His hand had a chunk bitten out of it by someone he had tried to sympathize with. He was small and scared and hungry and so very, very alone out here in this new and terrifying world. Even staring up at the man's face, only that gaping wound stared back at him, deep and agonizing, calling his name once more.

The man came to him, all lean muscle and determination, and gripped him by the forearm, ushering him to his feet. Shaun did not resist, didn’t even register the pain with a groan, his thoughts turning hazy and warbled like a blurry mirror. The room swam in drifting pools of darkness and shapes, the throbbing ache in his palm somehow distant and faraway from his own body. A numbness spread through him, cloudy and somber like a sigh, and he watched as the man’s appearance faded in his vision, details softening into a haze of indistinct colors.

He followed the man in tow as he led him through the corridors, rusted wall paneling and cracked linoleum flooring passing by nondescript and forgotten. The thought of where exactly they had been was a clouded thought at best, the horror in the forgotten mementoes of past lives seeking shelter and the grander scale of civilizational collapse somehow non-bothersome under these circ*mstances. What was one more number to add to the ever-growing list of heart-wrenching tragedies and human graves he would see throughout this journey of his? This place was no different to any of the other buildings he had taken respite in, and the finer details faded away as he keep his gaze solely on the man ahead of him.

The man himself was agitated, as to be expected, yet it did not show in his careful behavior. He walked silent and dreamlike as air itself, more of a ghost than a tangible person. Even his artificial foot was now tread upon lightly; a practiced balance of weigh t keeping the crude joints from groaning underneath him. It was a trained suppression that he had only known coursers to be capable of, lithe movements that gave them the advantage of secrecy so that they could watch and listen unnoticed from the shadows. He stood tall and imposing, his entire body listening for any disturbances that would impede them, highly tuned to his environment as if he were simply a part of it.

At last Shaun was led to the ground floor, an expanse of chairs and desks branching off into endless hallways on either side. Ahead of them stood a large door of glass and metal, secured only with a few pieces of furniture. The man eyed it suspiciously, blindly reaching behind him to take a hold of Shaun’s shirt sleeve, pinching the fabric roughly between his fingers. Without word he escorted the boy away from the door, instead taking him deeper into the building. Through the darkness he could just barely make out a line of countertops built into the wall, curving towards a little room at the back that the man now led him too. Only one other door stood in the room, and the man paused in front of it, looking back at him with a stern and hardened expression.

“Listen closely,” the man began. Somewhere outside, a shout resonated loudly throughout the streets, and the man stopped and listened as something crashed into the large glass door they had avoided.

“f*ck. Ok. Listen,” he let go of Shaun’s sleeve to grasp both of his shoulders tightly, his gaze intense and almost desperate. “We’re going to walk out of this door. Slowly. Don’t say anything, don’t move too quickly. Just keep your f*cking head down and keep quiet. Got it?”

Shaun only nodded in response; his face eerily calm in the darkness as he stood at attention without so much as a worried glance at the sounds behind him. It was clearly not what the man had been expecting from him, confusion and worry hiding underneath the anger he relied on so heavily to guard himself, but he forced himself to look away from those too large, too pleading and willing eyes.

The man slowly opened the door to the outside, a length of back-alley streets stretching off into the ruins under the hard light of moon. The air was warm and damp, like breath rolling across the back of his neck. The farm was only a few buildings away, and the putrid stench that carried on the wind felt very reminiscent of being trapped within someone's mouth, waiting for the moment when they would finally come to bite down. Even gazing up at the skyscrapers surrounding them, they stood crooked and blackened like ruined teeth, an insatiable hunger looming in their brittle supports.

Ahead of them the city expanded further into ruins, and behind them the echoing shouts of the starving and the depraved grew louder as they drew near in their search. The man was undeterred, motioning to him with a simple hand gesture to begin following him in completely silence, and Shaun obeyed without question. Within the building they had just escaped from, a number of men carelessly tore through the chairs and desks with unbridled aggression, calling out for anyone that could hear them that they would find them and lay upon them a fate worse than mere human consumption. The man stood unshaken, but looked curiously back at Shaun as if to gauge his reaction, offput by the trusting, distant eyes that stared back at him.

He hid himself within the man’s shadow, each step now taken in measure, so that they slipped quietly away without notice. Shaun came to mimic the man’s movements absentmindedly in rhythm; carrying himself so that not even the few items he held in his pockets made a sound. Through empty streets and debris, they walked calmly by like specters, the voices trailing after them without direction.

One the voices drew close, a gristled rough bark vaguely reminiscent of human words. The man took hold of Shaun once more and pulled him between the narrow alley of two massive buildings, pushing him hard into the wall as he held a tight grip over his mouth. The man pressed his body against him as a hurried flurry of footsteps ran back and forth across the street. Shaun was crushed by the force of his weight, the faint wispy breathes of the man making him hold his own in anticipation.

At last, the footsteps carried on, lost within some ruined structure as the person sought to seek and destroy whatever he could find, but at least it hadn’t been them. The man pulled away from him, his gaze focused on the streets they had already walked through, biting hard at his lips as he listened for anyone else that might be close. The city was filled with echoing noise, calling voices that shouted threats of dismemberment and the careening of metal weapons that they struck across the pavement as a warning. It all sounded so distant, yet so close, blending in behind the skyscrapers and roads, the winding alleyways a maze of multiple Minotaurs.

A statement that should have been entirely metaphorical, if not for the bellowing roar that followed. It almost sounded like a man, a very distinct human quality to the vocal cords that gave them a life unlike any other, but the guttural volume behind it, like an eruption of air, was greater than any human could achieve. The other voices fell silent at the outburst, but only for a moment, caught unaware of the thing that had been following them all this time. Now that they were caught, their voices, once heavy and brash in their threatening tones, now turned shrill as they shrieked in terror.

The man looked pale, stricken by the sounds of booming wails in the distance. Shaun felt his heart begin to race erratically, the roaring cracks of gunfire trailing off into a viscerally wet pop as something very large and heavy suddenly hit the ground not far from them.

The man grabbed him by the wrist without warning and took off through the alley, practically dragging Shaun behind him as gunshots popped ineffectively amidst something terrible and loud. Silence was no longer a priority it seemed, the man lamenting a quick but clear, “f*cking Freaks!” as he raced away from the unfolding carnage. Shaun dared to look back, a dark curiosity pulling him from his submissive passiveness, but whatever had found the hunters had done so out of sight from them. The further the ran the more distant and quite the shouts and pleads became, slowly dying away to faint hollowing in the wind that was indiscernible between man and beast.

Within the hollowness of the city, the sounds resonated off the crumbling walls for miles, and yet they still did not stop until they were left with only silence. Shaun had pushed himself hard to keep up with the man’s unrelentless pace, but untrained and weak as he was, exhaustion quickly overtook him. His body rolled with fatigue, his steps awkwardly clipping into graceless shuffling until his foot collided with a piece of scrap and he was sent careening into the ground. His breath escaped him in a pathetic wheeze, unable to right himself as he lay face down on the crumbling pavement. The man, still holding onto his hand tightly, was almost thrown down as well, but managed to hold his own and kept himself upright. He looked back at Shaun in shock, then further back down the streets, frantically searching for signs of danger. When he found none, he quickly grabbed the boy under his arms, forcing him to stand once more as he ushered him into a nearby building.

The man swore at him caustically, a meaningless reverb of desperation laced with dread that flew over him without clarity. Shaun could barely stand as the man blocked the door behind them, vaguely watching as he stuck bits of whatever furniture he could find in front of their exit. The man had lit his small lantern, the faint light unable to penetrate farther than a few inches into the expansive depths of darkness around them. Dissatisfied, but left without options, the man turned to Shaun and made haste deeper into the building, pulling him up numerous flights of stairs with his gun drawn and his teeth barred. Though they appeared to be alone, not even the extremely desperate would be caught completely unaware in strange territory. Shaun was helpless as he was forced to carry his worn and tired body to unknown heights within their temporary home, a blur of aching pain felt throughout his limbs making his mouth feel tingly and numb.

When at last the man found a respite deemed suitable enough, the two were given a chance to truly rest. Shaun immediately collapsed to the floor, resting his head against the wall behind him as he gasped and panted for breath. There was a fierce burning in his legs shooting up into his chest, and his throat felt chalky and dry. The man had taken to the sole chair that seemed to be in the room, breathing heavily as he removed his hat to run his hand along the top of his hair. He looked exhausted and worn, far too old for those extreme levels of physical exertion. His skin glistened in the lamplight, oily and slick like a puddle, and Shaun felt the terrible grip of thirst take hold of him again.

The room itself did not help in that regard. Tiny and cramped without any windows, their shared body heat quickly accumulated in a rancid and warm pocket of dense air, too stifling to breathe. The humidity made his body feel clammy and damp, and as he reflexively went to wipe his brow, he felt a pinch on his hand that stopped him. The wound in his hand was large, torn skin hardened with streaks of dried blood, tiny slivers of muscle tissue exposed between grooves from human teeth. Shaun flexed his fingers to a sharp, tearing pain; the stretching forcing the caked-on crusts of blood to snap and rip from his hand. Looking at the wound filled him with a sense of wrongness, as if he were looking at something intangible rather than merely horrifying; the absurdity so great that he could not tear his eyes away from the grisly image, hypnotized by his own flesh.

But the man was transfixed as well, by a curiosity of his own so great that he could no longer tolerate the niceties he had afforded his ward this whole time.

“So,” he began, his voice thin and labored, but hard like steel. “What the f*ck is your problem exactly?”

Shaun didn’t notice him at first, his heart pumping to a slow and unsteady rhythm as he stared deeply into the wound of his hand, feeling the hot air stagnate on the exposed flesh.

“Hey!” the man said, and his tone quickly snapped Shaun’s attention.

“I said, what the f*ck is your problem? You answer me when I f*cking talk to you.”

Shaun attempted to swallow, a nervous habit he didn’t realize he had done, but could only choke on the dry rolls of his throat. It took everything just to look up into the man’s eyes, guilt-ridden and helpless as he felt. The man’s anger was not felt in its entirety, but rather a stern confidence filled his words, and Shaun realized the man was not asking about his well-being, but beginning an interrogation.

The apathy and the exhaustion took hold of him in full, completely lacking hope in the face of his consequences. He was already admitting defeat, unsure of what would happen to him, but too tired to save himself. He truly was foolish in the end, careless in his action and now unable to do anything more with what little he had done. His naivety had been the death of him, and now it would come to be everyone’s. That little flame of righteousness had gone out, leaving him cold and empty and without the drive or will to think clearly and act while he still could. In the face of failure, he felt hurt most of all by the man’s seemingly despondent behavior towards him, lying helpless and broken on the floor. He was too tired to fight back, too sad to bargain or lie for his safety, and so he said nothing and let his head rest against the wall behind him with his eyes closed.

“Hey,” the man repeated in a more forceful tone. “Don’t f*cking ignore me here, goddamnit, look at me!”

Shaun heard the thud of his boot as he flung himself to his feet, stomping over so that he stood ominously over him. The air grew warmer and more foul as he approached, his body blocking the little light that the lamp afforded so that Shaun huddled pathetically within his shadow. He felt small, not just in height compared to the man standing over him, but rooted deep within his person; a fault of personality. Though he knew he was to answer for his actions, he still childishly shied away from confrontation, his arms loosely coming to shield his body as if it would somehow deter the man from hurting him should he choose to.

He felt the man take hold of his wrist, though with surprisingly less force than he had been anticipating. In fact, the way his fingers just barely put pressure on the skin felt almost gentle, and a shiver wormed its way through his spine at the touch.

“...what happened here?” the man asked him.

Shaun opened his eyes to a look of concern, the man’s concentration focused on the ugly wound on his hand. The bite was not so large that it covered the entirety of his palm, only the padding between his wrist and his last two fingers. But it was deep, and scarily so, indents of teeth marks circling the whole of the damage like a grim mosaic, crumbs of scabs and dried blood flaking off like snowfall.

Maybe it was pity that drove him to ask that, or perhaps it was the relation it had to the farm and Shaun’s involvement. Whatever the reason, Shaun could barely stand that look in the man’s eye and the way he gently held his hand as if he still cared. His heart ached for comfort, something soft and secure like his mother’s hold was once long ago, but the fear drew him away from the only person who could have provided it.

“...b-it....me...” Shaun managed to choke out. He tucked his face into his shoulder, hoping that the man would just let go of him already and stop whatever kind of torment this was.

He didn’t look as the man let his hand go gently, leaving him to retrieve his pack where it resting next to the chair. Shaun let go a shaky breath, a whimper escaping him as he struggled to maintain composure. When the man returned, he kept his face hidden, not watching as he procured his canteen and a dirty cloth within, wetting it with far too generous an amount of water.

“This might sting a bit, but I gotta clean it first.”

Shaun felt the man take his hand gently again before a sharp drag tore across his palm and took a chunk of dried blood with it. Despite the slow and careful movements, the fibrous cloth dug deep into the hard scabbing crusted onto his flesh, yanking and pulling at the skin. It was like being bitten all over again, the faint catch of dried blood tearing away from his skin and coaxing a fresh wave out of the wound as he stifled his cries and whimpers against the fabric of his coat. Most of the filth had come off in large swaths, a sticky, yellow substance underneath peeling away like an old bandage. Each swipe of the terrible cloth caused him to bite down on his coat, attempting to hide his discomfort and pain from judgement.

When the wound was finally clean the man discarded the little cloth, placing it within his bag and taking out a roll of fairly-clean bandaging. A small sliver of something meant to act as gauze was placed over the wound, and the bandage was wrapped tightly across his palm. His hand felt swollen and hot, like an infected sore, but it was clean and cared for, much to his confusion and worry.

“You’ll need stiches, or a stim, but that should hold you over for now,” the man told him.

Instead of returning to his chair, the man chose to take a seat across from him, his airs no longer oppressive. Shaun drew his hand to his chest, painful but arguably better than the disgusting mess it had been moments before. He dared to look at the man, his appearance old and tired, remorseful in its haggard lines and shallow skin. He was afraid of what to say, if he even could say anything to him, but his gratefulness was greater than he hoped for, touched by the display the man had showed him despite his anger.

“Thank you...” he forced himself to say, hoping his tone would not incite further conflict between them.

“Don’t mention it,” the man said, “it doesn’t matter.”

Did it truly not? With how crucial and rare supplies such as these could be, parting with something as simple as bandages was almost on par with an offering of food. The man only pitied him because he was weak and alone, but his survival, not to mention his well-being, didn’t mean anything to him, did it?

Why else would he have followed him, tracked him down to the farm and escaped with him, when he could have just as easily let him go or abandoned him to the hunters for an easy meal. If not empathy, then selfish exploitation of what he could feasibly provide for him, but even then, these lengths he went were great for something like that. Looking at him in the lamplight, Shaun noticed a scattering of bruises coloring his exposed arm in splotchy patches. The shadows made his face look slimmer and more hollow than before, and his tired posture had him seem worn and vulnerable. His hands, that he rested in his lap, were scrapped and calloused, and Shaun noticed that one of his fingernails had recently been ripped out.

“Kid,” the man started, his voice lethargic and empty, “what were you doing at the farm?”

Fatigue had taken them both, physically and mentally drained of all resistance and challenge. Their bodies were sore and tired, unable to even stand if they had needed to. The heat felt encompassing and soothing, like a blanket, and if Shaun had been allowed, he would have easily slipped away into a deep sleep. But the man was looking at him, not forcing the question but laying it out just the same, knowing he would have to answer it at some point.

“I was...trying to get those people out.”

He knew he couldn’t provide details that painted him more suspiciously than he already was, but this minefield of a conversation would prove detrimental if he could not navigate it carefully. He was much too lethargic to think clearly, but fear was a strong motivation that kept him lucid enough to give a simple answer that made sense.

“Yeah,” the man said, sounding just as exhausted as he was. “And despite never having even fired a f*cking gun before, you somehow find and try to liberate a f*cking camp of human hunters. Without even telling me.”

His voice was somber and even, threatening to rise as his anger surfaced beneath the firm tone he took with him. It was justifiable given Shaun’s foolishness, in a sense he had abandoned the man without warning, but he did not expect him to take such offense to the action. Selfishness is close to Godliness in this world, the only thing that could possibly save you when push came to shove. The man had clearly lived by this notion for years, a hardship grinded deep into his bones, and yet he still expected Shaun to be different in spite of that.

The logic in his answer was faulty, and the man had taken notice of that, he knew he did. The coincidence was too much to rationalize, and his incompetence was louder than his bleeding heart. There was no reason for him to attempt something so risky on such short notice, in such secrecy, but his reasoning had been purposefully left out. And the man knew exactly why.

“Let me guess. Deacon put you up to this, didn’t he?”

The man’s tone had sharpened into something cruel and dark, his expression hardening into disgust as Shaun’s own face lay open and shocked before him, only confirming that the man had already known what had happened. The man’s face deepened into a red flush as he scowled, slamming his fist against the ground beside him as Shaun’s heart began to race. It stood to reason that the man who disclosed Deacon’s existence to him should piece together his involvement, but that did not bode well for Shaun at this moment.

“Of f*cking course it was him! I f*cking knew it!”

The man forced himself to his feet, Shaun pressing himself against the wall behind him out of fear of what he would do next. He had expected the man to lunge at him, furious with his dealings and connections to such dangers, but instead the man turned away from him, pacing back and forth within the tiny room as he rambled to himself, oblivious to Shaun’s fear of him.

“So, he’s recruiting f*cking kids now!? Is that it!? You have kids do your f*cking dirty work you f*cking railro ad f*cking piece of f*cking sh*t goddamn f*cking f*ck !-”

Shaun helplessly watched as the man’s tirade devolved into senseless profanities, a burning anger building inside of him with nothing to unleash it on. His frantic footsteps shook the floorboards, his body casting the walls in strange shadows that whipped across Shaun’s face in a blur of light. The man slammed his foot into the chair, sending it crashing into a corner with a loud screech of worn metal. His words were a lost barrage of meaningless noise that only served to strike fear into Shaun’s heart, whimpering on the floor as the gun in his breast pocket pressed coldly into his ribs, a grim reminder of his options.

“Why did you go along with it!?” the man turned his fury onto him in full, his body a dangerous weapon in the tiny enclosed space. “Do you even realize how f*cked you are in this deal!?”

“I...-” he crumbled under the man’s gaze, unable to be defiant towards him. “He...he wanted me to help....he said to open the cages-”

“He didn’t want you to do sh*t except get f*cking caught!” The man threw his words at him caustically and without remorse. “Your dumbass is only useful as f*cking bait ! ”

The man continued his furious tantrum as if the words that he just spoke were unsurprising and expected. But to Shaun, the shock of hearing them had drowned out whatever worthless profanities the man would continue to spew.

….bait....

The word sat clear and evil in his mind, a thrum against his lips, an ache along his palm. He looked down at his bandaged hand as the man’s anger dissolved into a steady ringing in his ears, the image of the bite still vivid and clear within his mind's eye; All jagged flesh and torn skin.

“What had he promised you, huh!? Food? Shelter? A new f*cking mommy and daddy-”

He had been so willing, so determined in his desire to help. Even though he had been goaded into it, when he saw those people, those human beings stripped naked and beaten and caged, he had done everything he could to free them. That man...he had looked so...hopeful, when he approached. Those grim and hallowed eyes filled with eagerness and life for the first time in years. An eagerness for something he couldn’t have imaged, as he was blinded by his own romantic warmth for the human condition. Had he imagined a tenderness within those eyes? A human face still buried there beneath the years of filth and hunger? His palm ached at the memory, at what he had gone through, and what he had done, all for the sake of someone who took a bite out of his hand...

“What the f*ck do you mean I was bait!? ”

The air sat rancid and sour all around them, hot and musty with their shared breath, foul as the land itself, and beating hearts. The man had stopped, panting feverishly in surprise at the sudden outburst, Shaun anger unexpected and unassumed. The silence between them was damning, demanding in its liveliness, a pulse seemingly ignited between them as Shaun stared up at the man with a very real and adult anger. The man’s expression had dropped into something wide and strangely soft, as if he was almost scared of what was happening, the normal guarded look he often carried left exposed and raw in the wake of revelation.

Shaun’s own eyes were sharp and narrow, a mimicry of the man’s own fury now turned onto him in full, inexperienced and uncontrollable. The youthful tenderness that made him stand out as a rarity in the hellish wastelands had all but vanished, replaced by a mature and hardened visage of seething rage.

“It’s what he does, kid,” the man finally answered after a prolonged silence between them, his voice grim and thin. “It’s what they f*cking do.”

Shaun went to bite back against his words, but choked. His confusion and heartache rattling his brain so that he could not speak coherently the many thoughts that raced through his mind. He sat still on the floor, breathing heavily as he clutched his wrist tightly in his good hand.

“Look,” the man attempted to approach the subject carefully. “Whatever he had promised you-”

“I just wanted to help!” Shaun screamed. “I just wanted them to GET. OUT.”

His throat was hoarse and sandy, but he screamed as if he were in the throes of death.

“That’s all I ever f*cking wanted! For this to just stop!”

“Easy, kid,” the man did not approach him, but he slowly moved towards the chair, righting it so that he could gently sit down. “Don’t lose your head over this. Deacon would have already gotten to those people by now, they’re fine.”

Shaun gasped and sputtered, unable to respond to the man as he breathed ghastly and viciously amidst his meltdown. The man was holding his hands out towards him as if he were some sort of rabid animal, unpredictable in his behavior.

“The railroad most likely took them off somewhere, while we were getting f*cked over.”

The man spoke drearily, as if from experience, his tone bleak and bitter. It was incredible how much his faced changed when it was not red and full of anger. His eyes were wet and shiny, a lovely pop of color set within his terrible, hollow face. When the tension drained from his body it was like his life drained away with it, the will to fight gone as he sat beaten and jaded before him. Shaun own fatigue crawled up in the aftermath of his anger, so many questions filling his mind but too spent to engage with him any further.

Defeated, Shaun let his body fall slowly to the floor, his eyes wide and hurt and barely able to remain open any longer. He had reached the end of a very long and tangled rope, and the idea of hanging no longer seemed terrible to him.

On the other side of the room, he heard the man shifting around, his shuffling dimming with each passing second.

“My name’s Maccready, by the way,” his voice was distant and soft, like a memory. “What’s yours?”

Shaun thought about that for a moment, his mind bleary and hazy and quickly leaving him to nothing but blackness and cold, but he managed to answer just before sleep overtook him.

“My name is....Isaac...”

Chapter 2

Chapter Text

There was rarely a time when Shaun would be granted visitation into Mother’s office. He could count on one hand the number of times he had ever been within that room. On the few occasions in which Mother would willingly seek out his company, she had come to him within an open common place or within the confides of his personal room; area in which both she and the majority of the Insititute held free access too. Even in the times when he would be alone, he was never granted total privacy or confidentiality, his existence did not afford him such luxuries; still, to be called into her office suggested a secluded intimacy to their strained relationship that was not unanticipated during this time in his life.

The room was more enclosed and darker than the rest of the Institute, and the contrast was unique in its unformulaic disposition. A standing sentiment to the older, grander glories of the former world, her space was eloquently crafted and collected with old and new treasures uncommon in the stark sterility outside her door. Most of her possessions had been the byproducts of her personal projects, experimental pieces she proudly displayed to no one but herself as an ode to her research and success. Carved furniture replicated from cloned wood cells, delicately restored or printed art pieces salvaged from the museum ruins, an assortment of old novels transcribed on new paper. Her tastes withstood the test of time, much like she herself did, a person unlike any other on this earth; and she held that status proudly.

He liked her office, but more so, he liked the opportunity to speak with her again.

X6 was the one to call on and escort him there, a quiet and methodical figure who seemed to trail in the wake of Mother’s shadow more and more with each day. His place was taken behind Mother, a lingering aftermath of her form, saying nothing unless it was permitted of him to do so. It was not uncommon that he should be there, and in truth Shaun preferred his presence at this time. There were very few instances where Shaun felt closer to her son than merely a synth in child form, though it came with its own challenges. Her conversation had grown colder and more sterile over the years, once strained but attempted connection now left to the bare bones of whatever she decided his worth to her was on that day. She only ever sought him out for a purpose, and he missed the days when she would come to him for the trivial excuses of bonding like a normal parent and child.

Sitting before her made the memory more vivid, and unfortunately, distracting. Her appearance had changed much during that time as well, a liveliness in her features smoothed away into artificial perfection without so much as a hint of warmth in her shockingly green eyes. There was no playfulness or tenderness to her body anymore, and he knew she did not call on him to play cards to share stories from the old world. His purpose was beyond that now, and he accepted it without opinion, much like X6 now accepted his role as part of her shadow.

“I want to ask you a question.”

Her voice was lithe and punctual, a clear, concise formality that no longer seemed reserved exclusively for business. Her terminal illuminated her face in an almost ghostly appearance, and she had not opted to cease her work for him, but rather temporarily ignore it, its presence a lingering reminder of his time and importance.

“What is the most important thing in the world?”

An odd question to present to one unfit to answer it, though she seemed to call upon him to do precisely that. It was not the first time in which she had chosen to poke his brain out of curiosity, though his existence did not suggest that any such interaction was merely a trivial matter. He was an experiment, a test subject, a vital statistic in the Insitute’s research, and so he had assumed that the question was not looking for his opinion, but for a single, correct answer to be noted.

He thought hard and quickly on the possibilities, unsure of what purpose he was designated to fill at this time. He chose the first answer to come to his mind, relying on his conditioned response rather than any that required further thought.

“I don’t know.”

Her question was unbridled and confusing. It was vague in a sense that it did fully disclose the purpose for its asking. Shaun could give many different answers to such an uncreative thought piece, but he knew nothing of which one would satisfy her.

She frowned at him, a thin crease in her face that hardly broke the mask of flawlessness she bore. Her hands folded neatly in front of her, placed symmetrically atop the desk in a practiced motion.

“You don’t know?” Her head tilted slightly to one side, a very human gesture that she only enacted on purpose, rather than reflex.

“You can’t think of a single thing to answer with, Isaac?”

The name stood out to him as unusual, an unfamiliar address that tickled the back of his mind but did not prompt him to question it openly. Mother’s gaze was bright and unblinking, like the artificial light on a control panel. She was cornering him, though her prodding was still gentle for now, smiling and opening him up for suggestion as if she were having a normal conversation with a normal human boy.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Intelligence? The pursuit of scientific truth?”

He presented his suggestions to her noticeable disappointment, struggling to maintain composure in her presence. He truthfully did not know what someone like her would consider to be the most important thing in the entire world, his own education and experience were so limited that he could only think of her attributes and her reasoning for allowing him to exist.

“Or is it...success? That things are done right or not at all. Results? Progress?”

He was growing desperate to find the one single truth that would satisfy her, not only for their shared benefit, but also for the growing curiosity to know the answer for himself. He did not think much of the world as a whole, at least not in the way her question now inspired thought in him. He knew certain things and what other certain things had to be done to improve the overall quality of life, but a deeper, less numerical meaning was never discussed with him, and his nervousness was slowly fading into animated inquiry.

“Or...is it something else? More than one single thing? Is it a lot of different things all interconnected? Is there a single most important thing in the world?”

“Isaac,” Mother’s voice was firm, a displeasure in her tone unnoticed in Shaun’s peak.

“It could be that the most important thing in the world isn’t really a “thing” at all, but a concept or a motion, a natural, unbroken process that has to continue every second or every day.”

“Isaac,” Mother tone had grown slightly louder, her face a blurry assortment of colors and shapes that suggested a physical form but couldn’t quite hold his focus as his thoughts ran wild and free.

“Or maybe...maybe nothing is really “important” in the way we think it is. Maybe every process that happens just happens and everything that exists merely exists, maybe importance is just an opinion we transcribe to certain things we isolate outside and hold value too, even though-”

“Isaac,” His name was not spoken, this word she repeated a meaningless sound that could not grasp his attention. Despite being only a few feet away from him, only separated by a wooden desk, Mother somehow seemed far away, calling to him from somewhere outside of this dark and dirty little room. X6 stood pallid and firm behind her, filthy and old and staring at him as he called out-

“Isaac!”

A hand was suddenly placed on his shoulder, a mangled mess of dirt and white skin that shook him with unnecessary force. Beyond him the darkness of the room shifted from something clean into something desolate, the walls and floor now closer and encompassing, the light from Mother’s terminal now a faint, warm glow that cast wicked shadows against the man’s face as he loomed over him like an unknown specter.

“Wake up already kid, we’re burning daylight in here.”

Shaun focus was bleary and unrefined, everything surrounding him in a haze of darkness and undecipherable shapes. The air felt hot and damp, but somehow his body was chilled, a light sheen of sweat settling across his skin in slick, greasy pools. His sight refused to focus and rationalize what was before him, still caught in the limbo of memory as he searched the room for Mother and the familiarity of her office.

“Isaac! Jesus f*cking christ, kid!”

Shaun’s attention was forcefully concentrated away from his confusion, snapping his eyes towards a lank and hallowed figure staring down at him with growing anger and spite.

The man looked to be on the verge of a great anger, but as he looked up at him, Shaun watched as his expression fell into something desolate and almost tender. His fierce eyes had quickly lost their luster, shifting away from his face as if ashamed to look upon him. He sighed, mumbling something quietly under his breath as Shaun slowly pieced together where he truly was.

“I asked about...when’s the last time you’ve eaten,” the man’s voice was controlled, frustration kept in check as he attempted to look at Shaun without the pity he clearly felt.

Slowly the circ*mstances returned as a deep hunger shook his body. His delirium had forced him to temporarily forget, lost in distant, better memories from years past. He wasn’t in the Institute anymore, sitting with Mother in her cool and clean office. He was here, in some dank and terrible little ruined building out in the wasteland, dirty and starving and in so much pain he was almost blinded to it. His mouth pooled with sour and think drool, the sudden reminder of food overwhelming.

“Uh...” he struggled to answer, his tongue swollen and bitter. “It was...just before I met you?”

A can of beans and meat, slimy and foul but so very fond and tempting to him now. He had thrown it up the next morning, and nothing filled him with regret more than letting such a precious resource go to waste. The tragedy was almost worse than the shooting that had occurred just moments after.

He didn’t hear what the man said, still half asleep and confused and hurt. Shaun attempted to sit himself up but collapsed back onto the floor as pain surged through his body. His damaged hand had attempted to shoulder the weight of his body, a terrible mistake that almost had him howling if not for the thick coating of spit choking him on his way down. His entire body felt sore and stiff, a consequence of having slept on a hard, uncoated floor after extreme physical exertion the day prior.

“You alright?”

Shaun coughed up a glob of phlegm, cradling his hand against his chest as his head throbbed in pain.

“Yeah,” he chocked out, “I’m fine.”

He was not fine, but still he put his good hand to the ground and forced himself up into a proper sitting position. His spine cracked with an audible array of disgustingly loud pops, the sensation making him wish he could snap every sore bone and ligament in his body for relief.

The man brought to him a small tin, its contents a sickly pinkish gray that emitted a foul and rotten smell that had his hunger churning into nausea, but when a dirty little silver spoon was placed into his hands, he did not hesitate the scoop the substance into his mouth with fervor. The “food” held the texture of wet sand, vaguely tasting reminiscent of meat but possessing almost none of the qualities, but Shaun cared little about its terrible makeup so long as it could take away the emptiness inside of him.

The man himself did not eat, only watching the display before him knowingly, as awful as it was. He was mercifully patient during this moment, saying nothing as Shaun gorged himself on half a tin of cram sacrificed from his own food rations. It was not until Shaun was scrapping the inside of the tin for possible leftovers that the man spoke to him.

“So, what exactly is your plan here?”

Shaun looked up at him nervously, the taste of grim still heavy and sordid in his mouth and making him ache for more.

“Um, what- do you mean?”

The man exhaled forcefully through his nose, nibbling on his bottom lip as he expressed frustration through the sharp and clipped movements of his body.

“I mean, where the f*ck are you going to go after this? You’ve given me a few bullsh*t answers but you haven’t actually said what exactly what it is you’re doing.”

Shaun’s pulse quickened; the spoon clasped tightly within his hand clattering against the side of the tin.

“I-…" he needed to think of a feasible excuse that would explain his elusive behavior without giving away such sensitive information that could put his life in even greater danger.

“I...got into some trouble when I left home. It was either leave or stay there and die. Someone I knew left for a settlement up north, I was hoping they’d be able to take me in.”

The man eyed him suspiciously, and Shaun could only hope that his pathetic appearance and natural nervousness only made the lie more believable.

“This friend of yours know you’re looking for him?”

“No,” Shaun said quickly, “and I need it to stay that way until I get there. My folks are...I think they hired someone to find him. If they know where I’m going, they might get there first.”

Shaun placed the empty spoon back within his mouth, letting his tongue curl around and flick at the silverware as it bled a thick, metallic taste.

“Why do your folks what you back that badly?” The man raised the question not out of skepticism or curiosity but prodding as if he already knew what the answer would be.

“If-” Shaun lightly bit into the spoon, letting his teeth clatter against it as he crumbled under the man’s gaze, “if you can’t be useful to them in the way they want you to be, you have to be useful in other ways. Otherwise, you’re just a....just a waste of resources.”

His teeth clicked against the silver spoon with a soft ping, his tongue scrapping away caked on filth along the bowl and handle that he instinctively swallowed down with a mouthful of spit. The man drummed his fingers along his knee, staring intently at the floor without further comment. It seemed that he bought the story well enough, probably because most of it was true, minus the intrigant details he didn’t need to know, and hopefully never would. An awkward moment of silence passed between them, a shared remorse from two different perspectives, two different realities that didn’t collide but mourned together regardless.

The air sat thick and hot around them, the light barely revealing that the door to the room was open to allow some semblance of ventilation, though the darkness that stretched out through it was not welcoming or safe in his opinion. The man must have taken his focus on the door as a will to leave, for he drew his attention back with a twinge of desperation in his tone.

“Isaac, it’s really not safe to travel alone out there. In your condition especially. I can guarantee you’re not going to make it farther than the Boston Commons by yourself.”

Shaun furrowed his brow in dejection, then in confusion. It took a second for him to register that the man had addressed him by name, only, it was not his name that he had spoken. For a moment his thoughts of travel had been diverted as he stared at the man in contemplation, only to sudden shock himself with the realization that he had given a fake name and completely forgot. The man himself was eyeing him with a sort of intense and hopeful expression, masked by a sense of stern disappointment. Shaun had forgotten if the man had given his name to him as well. All the more reason for him to continue his journey alone.

“I have too, though. I have to be able to do this by myself. I can’t travel with anyone else.”

The man’s face turned hateful and bitter, his lower lip jutting out in a pale pink lump.

“The f*ck do you mean you ‘have to’? What does that even mean?”

Shaun bit down harder on the spoon, wracking his brain for an excuse that didn’t seem farfetched or suspicious.

“I-...people don’t just do-...they don’t want to...help. Not without something in return.”

“Yeah,” the man cut him off, stating matter-of-factly, “most people expect payment for their services.”

“Yes,” Shaun stuttered. “I had a...friend...that was willing to help. But. But he died, and I don’t want anyone else to get caught up in this and die because of me.”

The man slammed his artificial foot into the ground, shocking Shaun and causing him to bite down hard on the spoon. His teeth ached as the handle was wedged between his molars, but his focus remained entirely on the nameless man before him, afraid of him and what he would do.

“And what about me?” the man stated firmly, “You think I'm gonna be taken out by some sh*tty hired gun that likes to stalk little boys?”

The man effused a level of offensiveness that suggested a personal investment towards Shaun’s statement; an opinion that seemed bewildering and almost absurd given his natural disposition towards him. Though there was a subtleness in his expression that gave hint to something underneath his words, something he wanted Shaun to understand on him own without having to state it outright himself.

“I-?” Shuan looked at the man baffled. “Did- did you want to travel with me?”

“I don’t want to do f*cking sh*t,” the man answered, looking more and more like every second he spent in Shaun’s presence was a test of endurance, “I’m saying you need someone to accompany you or you’re going to f*cking die.”

“I...understand that,” Shaun kept his eye on the man’s gun where it was saddled along his back, the stock peaking over his shoulder. “But, you don’t work without a price.”

“That’s right, so what’s in it for me if I do this for you?”

His reasoning made little sense, goading Shaun into an answer he wanted to hear but couldn’t rationalize under these circ*mstances. He must have known that Shaun had nothing to offer him in return, nothing that he could disclose right away at the very least. In truth he was offering him salvation and freedom, but he could not state that outright least he draw attention where it shouldn’t be. He had already given up all that he had for a weapon and the knowledge of how to use it, but the man seemed to demand more. Maybe this was how things worked in the wasteland. When you had nothing, you sought out anyone that could possibly give you something, and you rung them for everything they had.

“I can’t promise you anything, I already gave up what I had. There’s nothing I haven’t already given up to you.”

“f*ckin’....” the man beat his hand together in exasperation, refusing to accept Shaun’s forlon and bleak situation. “There’s gotta be something, anything you can make it worth my while. I’m not leaving without payment.”

Shaun was scared, of this man and whatever it is he was after. His actions were contradictory, his logic confusing, his wishes unknown and unexplained but demanding with a fierce insistence that Shaun was unable to quell. He was already lying through his teeth, and if it didn’t continue, he might as well just start telling the truth and allow whatever comes to pass do so without mourning.

“T-there’s food there,” he replied. “At least, that was what I heard him say. That he was going north and that things were better and and-, he’ll be grateful if you help me. He might let you stay, but if not, he’ll at least pay you with something. I promise.”

Shaun held his hands up as if he were surrendering, or trying to calm a wild animal, both of which were an accurate way to describe his situation. He didn’t want to man to travel with him, both for his own safety and for the sake of the man himself, even if he was correct in ascertaining that Shaun would not last for very long on his lonesome. It was a difficult choice to navigate, to gain temporary security at a great risk, or die take an even greater risk and die along with the rest of the wasteland in utter hopelessness. The choice, however, was not his to make, and the man made that clear as he smiled with a mouth of yellow teeth.

“That’s some bullsh*t too, but fine, alright.”

Shaun held back a sigh, breathing slowly through his nose as dread settled in the pit of his stomach along with the meat product. This was not ideal, possibly detrimental to his plans, but his plans were already proven to be ill-thought out and fruitless. If he were forced to work around this than he would, he would have too, he just wished the man didn’t seem so happy with the result that he gained from practically bullying Shaun into companionship. Though, speaking of the man...

“Um,” Shaun started awkwardly, unsure of how to ask politely without seeming either rude or stupid. “Did you...tell me your name last night? I...don’t remember what it was...”

The man’s giddiness fell into disbelief, not as if he were surprised that Shaun had forgotten, but rather disappointed that the boy had forgotten so quickly.

“Look, I'll give you props because you were clearly out of it last night,” he raised his hand as some gesture of explanation or exhaustion, motioning with it as he continued. “My name is Maccready. You got it this time?”

“Yeah, I got it,” Shaun said, and let his face fall gently into his hands.

When it came time for them to move out, Shaun had to come up with another lie to explain his habit of evasive procedures. Perhaps not fully untruthful, he told steward that he was merely keen on taking extra precaution to not be followed, either by his own demon, the Deacon, or whoever might decide to trail after them in hopes of an easy meal. Maccready had told him that such measures were unnecessary now that he had joined his company, but Shaun, or Isaac, as he would have to remember, chose to stand a little firmer in his regard and whether he genuinely agreed or was tired of arguing, Maccready relented.

So here they stood, walking the backways through the city ruins in small loops and roundabouts towards a vague destination somewhere to the north. Maccready was more knowledgeable of the Commonwealth’s layout, but he was impressed by Shaun meager hand drawn map of the area, adding bits of detail and corrections to some of his pathways and perimeters and urging him to keep the map secure and in top condition. Maccready had possessed a map of his own a few months ago, a prewar one that had been drawn over in some of the more recent develops to the county, but circ*mstances led to it being ruined and so he had navigated thus far using only his memory and his wits to keep out of danger. He seemed proud of that fact, though Shaun kept the map close and double-checked every corner and road for good measure.

They had only been walking for the better part of two hours, hardly making much distance with the amount of ruin they had to walk around or bypass. They were not even outside of the city limits, and actually traveling southwest for the majority of their trip. Maccready seemed fairly agreeable with the decision, noting that their destruction of the Habormaster Farm would draw attention from another group of hunters within suitable distance, and the far west of the Commonwealth was less populated if he remembered correctly. Shaun didn’t fully believe that sentiment, but thus far they had not seen any evidence of people living within the vicinity, so he would state they were safe enough as of this moment, which gave Shaun ample time to reflect and think ahead on what exactly he would have to do from here on out.

His plans at the moment revolved around selling his watered-down version of the truth until he got where he needed to go and was safe enough to let the man go, hopefully choosing to leave of his volition. Though selling the lie required him to keep up-to-date and convincing of certain “facts” he presented, his name being the most troubling of things to remember. He was not conditioned to respond to it, and more than once that man had called out to him only to be met with indifference or ignorance which Shaun had to chalk up to emotional distraction or damaged hearing, and eventually this would come to be suspicious behavior if he did not catch on quickly.

The second most damning factor to consider was X6. A perfectly constructed bloodhound of impeccable record, it was surprising that Shaun had managed to escape him for as long as he had. He knew slightly the certain methods they applied when hunting down their prey, but even with his foresight that alone was not enough to keep him safe forever. Eventually X6 would resurface to him, and he only considered it luck or very bad circ*mstance that he had not done so earlier. Shaun had been in a bad way for the last couple of days, and X6 could and would have taken full advantage of that. Though coursers were one to silently lurk within the shadows until the moment they strike, they would not draw out the chase farther than necessary for the sake of practicality and results. The moment he saw Shaun he would take with without hesitation. But he had not seen him, and Shaun, for a brief second thought of the possibility X6’s survival out here in the dangerous wastes and felt a twinge of remorse and fear for him. He was his enemy in this sense, but he merely did what he was told, he followed orders like a good synth was supposed to do, he fulfilled his purpose where Shaun could only fail.

He was his friend once, in a way. He only hoped that he wouldn’t encounter him when it came time for the Insitute to fall. He didn’t want to think about that part of the plan.

He also didn’t want to think about this Deacon man, though he threw a wrench into his plans greater than he could have foreseen. Aside from his supposed sadism and his own questionable actions that Shaun didn’t care to know, both he and X6 held that terrible factor of knowledge. Both of them, or at least one for certain, knew of his true origins, and if that information were to fall into the wrong hands than not even the grace of a good friend could save him. At best Maccready could sympathize with him, just as Danse had, at worse he would turn him in without hesitation despite the hope for the future resting within his hands. And in his pockets.

The data was sensitive, but luckily, he had kept it safe and well hidden, and in his trailing thoughts Shaun absentmindedly placed his hand within his pocket to feel the drive that held his precious code.

And stopped dead in his tracks when he felt that it was no longer in there.

Perhaps he had been mistaken. He was distracted after all, and things tend to move around when one is walking. Hell, he could have even moved the drive to a different pocket and not have realized it. Any and all possibilities were better than the horrible cold truth that the worm drive was missing from his f*cking pocket.

His hands shook as he traced the inner length of his right trouser pocket, then his left, then the back and the breast pocket of his shirt. Desperately, pleadingly searching for something he was dreading to accept was not there. His breath cut short, all of his focus now on his person trying to think of what could have happened to his most vital piece in overthrowing the Insitute. That drive contained the only copy of the worm he had obtained, the only thing that could completely erase everything without backup or failsafe. It was no less than a virtual atomic bomb, capable of reducing the databanks of the Institute into the very wastelands they observed.

And he didn’t f*cking have it anymore.

His hands balled up into fists, his wound burning tightly against his bandages, but what was a momentary pain compared to a worldwide downfall in the making, and all the result of his own ignorance and vulnerability. Shaun bit down on the inside of his lip, his canines digging hard into the soft flesh caught between them, feeling everything but hardly comprehending it as his body shook in fear at the future he wrought. He couldn’t have lost it, it couldn’t have merely fallen out, even with all of the turmoil of the previous day. He couldn’t have just been so foolish as to drop it, could he?

Could he?

Between the fighting and the running and the times he spent incapacitated, did he remember to check if it had still been there? Would he not have noticed despite the dangers presented to him, that something so f*cking valuable to him had fallen to the ground? He felt for certain he would have, he wanted to scream that of course he would hold this responsibility with the utmost importance and not forget to check that he was still carrying the drive on him.

But if that was the case, then where was it?

Maccready had stopped a few yards down the road, only noticing Shaun’s quiet footsteps had stopped completely when he turned towards a corner and happened to notice the boy was no longer trailing him. Shaun heard him call out by name, not too loudly as to draw attention from farther off, but still confused and annoyed at his sudden cease in the middle of the road. He approached him with agitation, his eyes looking past him down the path they had already traveled, looking for signs of trouble and finding nothing.

“What is it?” He asked him, coming to stand partially behind him as he withdrew his gun.

What else could Shaun do but continue to lie?

Chapter 3

Chapter Text

Shaun wouldn’t be surprised if he died today.

It would make the most logical sense in the end, that he should solely be responsible for his own downfall. He didn’t want to be so hopelessly pessimistic and simply give up before his time was due, but in his opinion, he would only be denying the inevitable at this point. Even though he had done the impossible and escaped from Insitute imprisonment, he had never before encountered such a delicate predicament with absolutely no navigational way through. Perhaps that was just the ever-constant whirls of anxiety that seemed to fuel his body where food was scarce, clouding his higher reasoning and having him believe he was slowly dying even at this very moment, but all of his past accomplishments now seemed so small and trivial in comparison.

It stood illogical that something as frivolous as misplaced or lost property, no matter how sensitive its subject matter may be, could ever compare to some of the physical challenges he has had to face within this past month alone; but at this moment, what was a flesh wound on one body compared to the possible genocide of all human life within the commonwealth?

His computer worm, the only weapon he had that could face against the Insitute and destroy them in the only way that mattered, was gone now.

In the wake of his discovery Maccready had naturally assumed something to be amiss and attempted to take the initiative, lunging forward with weapon and teeth bared in preparation for attack. But no threat could be uncovered, leaving Shaun alone with this man and his insatiable bloodlust, itching for a confrontation that couldn’t be found. He did the only thing he could think of and played the fool, a role that seemed his birthright to inherent, blaming his behavior on a sudden and fearful pain in his wounded hand.

Of course, much to his expectations, his companion merely brushed the incident aside with little to no consideration; only throwing in a snide remark about his poor endurance that served as a reminder that his wound was indeed quite severe and needed to be treated properly. His phrasing was dull and uncaring, but his eyes were sharp and gazed over his bandages with a concerning intensity, but he asked no follow up questions and resumed his place with no indication of suspicion.

With no means to dwell further on his predicament, Shaun was forced to carry onwards with his urban explorations, faithful companion in tow. The concrete labyrinth of the Commonwealth would prove tedious to navigate the longer they remained within in, but the time it afforded him was valuable and had to be put to use immediately. At present, his idea was to utilize his backtracking methods to circle around and prod a bit at some of the areas they had already explored, though he would be limited in the exact areas he could justify reaching. First and foremost, he would have to cease his trek west and instead focus on traveling north, something with seemed to bring forth hesitance in Maccready.

The dangers were ill-explained and purposefully kept vague, either because they were to be naturally assumed throughout any area they would explore, or the man thought his sensitivity to the subject would cause difficulties if talked about for too long. Regardless, his comments were kept short, and Shaun’s reasoning was just tedious enough to keep the man in his company as they headed north.

Shaun’s logic was not purely composed of smoke and mirrors, though he knew how to use this to his advantage. His wounded hand meant they could both justify a bit of scavenging, and consistent risk meant that little could be argued for not taking the initiative to explore the area they were already in. Nowhere was technically safe, just more or less dangerous depending on the populace, might as well bite the bullet and take something before someone else took hold of it.

Of course, this meant that their progress had slowed to a near crawl through the city, and that was a completely different danger to look out for. It wasn’t good to cut their travel short and remain locked within the city for so long; even by way of crude calculations Shaun could tell his time with X6 would soon come to pass. At most they could not afford to spend another night within the boundaries of this particular stretch of ruin, least he lose another innocent soul along his journey, if not his own. It was only short of a miracle that they had managed to evade X6 as long as they had, but Shaun wouldn’t dare to push his luck farther than he already had. Even if his exact locations were not yet known, he would soon find him in due time; just as one’s shadow forever follows in your wake, all the way to the ends of the earth.

And here Shaun stood now, staring deep into the unwavering darkness of his own shadow as the sun passed by lazily overhead. That dark and endless visage that stared back at him, deep and featureless, offered the suggestion of a cool respite he had secretly longed to indulge in. To be simple and without, instead of full and complex, was a horrible mercy he was terrified to return too. He was supposed to be keeping watch of the streets, barren and empty as they were, while Maccready checked the security of a building they had decided to search for possible supplies. He was often not one to slacken in way of safety, but for now the silence was a moment of respite he would appreciate, even if his justifications of using this time to think of a better and more rounded plan would be fruitless as he stayed trapped within the machinations of his own mind.

Crouched on his haunches in the middle of the sidewalk, Shaun could only gaze into his own silhouette in the same manner that one might peer over the edge of a tall building. An anticipation, a longing, an expectation for something to happen the longer he looked into this still, unmoving image. He almost felt that if he had the willpower to reach out to it, he could dip his fingers into himself like water.

Water...

He was certainly thirsty enough in the afternoon sun, but he didn’t think to indulge at this time, self-consciously afraid of his own wants and needs. If they were lucky, they could find water inside, something he could take for himself so he would no longer need to leech off of Maccreadys canteen. He had to properly thank him for his patience, or at least paid for in double before his generosity ran completely dry. He had given too much for so little reward, and even if somewhere inside he had done it out of some semblance of kindness, hunger and desperation would rear its head and sap away the little bit of humanity he still held.

The crunch of gravel pulled him from his self-pitying thoughts, and Shaun made to slowly stand as if to give the illusion that crouching had been integral to his part of the watch. The streets had remained silent and unnoteworthy the entire time he had been out here, though the exact length of that time escaped him. He said nothing to Maccready as he emerged, only looking expectingly in his direction while his eyes flicked over to the roads, as if still curious about what could be lurking farther on. Maccready kept his own silence, merely turning his head sharply in the direction of the door, keeping their sights locked on one another until he disappeared into the building once more.

The interior was small, but spacious; an open space of but a few rooms nestled within the ribs of a much larger, forgotten structure. Though fairly unassuming, the building had been left to rot for seemingly quite a number of years, which proved suspicious considering the outer walls held the former Brotherhood of Steel insignia in full display. A few steps inside and the entryway blended seamlessly into a mock corridor that branched off into small offices and standing prison bars.

“Do you know what this place used to be?” Shaun questioned, hoping to satiate a bit of his own curiosity.

“Yeah,” Maccready sounded bored as he replied, “it’s an old watch outpost for the Brotherhood, used to monitor and record activity between some of their colonies that used to be near this area.”

“If it was owned by the Brotherhood in the past, wouldn’t it be a hotspot for looting now?” Shaun asked, eyeing the reaches of the short hallways suspiciously.

“Assuming it hasn’t already been picked clean? Yeah.” Maccready had slung his rifle back over his shoulder and lazily stepped towards a standing desk pushed back against a far wall. “But these little rinky-dink offices, they were only for records and intimidation. Aside from maybe some extra stock of weapons they didn’t really hold anything worthwhile.”

He tore open an empty drawer before slamming it back shut, choosing instead to take a rest on the old plastic chair that looked as if it could hardly withstand his meager weight.

“But,” he continued after a moment, “there ain’t much else in this area worth the look, not until we cross the river at least.”

Shaun took a look over the upswept floors and empty holding cells, swatches of dull, uninteresting brown and gray. A few renovations had been done once, little pieces of refurbished walling or support beams sticking out like one of Frankenstein’s limbs, crudely attached to its surroundings. The walls shielded them from a faint breeze drifting lethargically outside, only strong enough to blow small whorls of sand off of the floor and onto the tops of their shoes.

A sparse handful of lamps hung down from the ceiling, buzzing loudly like wild insects.

Despite its desolated appearance, the building somehow still received power from an unknown source.

Unsettled, Shaun took his time in exploring the reaches of the small precinct, grateful that he was guarded by a temporary protector so that his focus could remain solely on scavenging potential supplies. No drawer or cabinet was left unchecked, though there were few remaining to begin with. A few standalone filing units were turned over or left gutted by previous seekers, unorganized papers left scattered along the floors around them. When Shaun bent down and attempted to read some of these old reports, he found that they had been trampled upon, and left at the mercy of the passing seasonings so that they were left torn and smudged; numbers and letters blending into muddy, worthless pools.

In conjecture to the cramped filing and reports receptions, the only room that stood apart from the floorplan was a single office left solitary behind a sturdy wooden door. A steel plaque was mounted securely along the wood at eye-level, baring the title Knight Sergeant Ovid in proud visage. Shaun was unfamiliar with the title and its ranking, its authority and importance now leveled to dust with the rest of their chain of command.

Shaun briefly wondered if a Paladin was of higher rank and quickly pushed that thought away as he opened the door.

Perhaps a knight was not one of very much respect, for at the very least this one was given quite a cramped and pathetic personal workspace space. A stuffy little room only graciously a bit more spacious than the jail cells outside; packed wall to wall with various cabinets and storage containers. It would have had to be the only space they had readily available in this prewar structure and their senior officer was stuck with it unless he wanted to chart his records outside. Even the institute afforded more space for those that lived and worked under them.

Provided they weren’t a synth, of course.

Though this knight appeared to have made the most of what little he was given, for the space was lavish in the sense that in its prime it would have been teaming with personality and cleanliness. Left to ruins now, in its past this space must have been kept orderly, though why he assumed that Shaun didn’t know. Perhaps it had been Paladin Danse’s formalities and the way it reminded him of the coursers in the SRB division, proud and elite, a symbol of perfection from their airs of command to their perfectly pressed uniforms.

An ugly thought of the paladin, his face unknown and undetailed, dressed smartly in a suit of black reared towards him suddenly, and Shaun quickly pried open the first drawer he could focus on.

A few folders, the papers a mind-numbing sequence of meaningless numbers and code that would do nothing for his thirst or his wounded hand. A few tools in the drawer beneath, caked with grime and slick with a faint coating of oil. More papers. No water.

He was beginning to believe that this would most likely be a lost cause, though Maccready had been polite enough in allowing him to search the place regardless. Or maybe he was also desperate and in dire need of whatever they could find, he just had the maturity to be subtle about it.

Another drawer contained more files, and Shaun lightly bumped his forehead into the desk in frustration.

In spite of the office having little space to occupy a single person comfortably, a good portion of its area had been allowed to house a number of small trinkets. Nothing of any noteworthy importance, utterly useless for work or to eat, but in their own way they were so full of life, and he couldn’t help but allow his eyes to wander among them while he searched. A single baseball resting on top a filing cabinet, a confiscated item? Or did he play on his off time? A stack of aluminum cafeteria trays next to the door; did he often take his lunch in here? Did he prefer to eat alone or was he not welcome to eat with the rest of his command? An ashtray on top of the desk; was he a smoker? Did the Brotherhood allow their soldiers to partake, or did he do so out of sight where he could not be caught and punished? A few motivational posters on the wall; where they for decoration, or did he need the reassurance in his darker moments?

All of this was meaningless now, he had no reason to ponder on these hypotheticals as if it would do anything more than make him depressed, but the room was so small and cramped and all-encompassing that he was drowning in it. All around him was the standing grave of a stranger he couldn’t possibly know, but all the same he cared in a way nobody else seemed to.

His hand ached, a dull pulsing itchiness that had him longing to tear at the bandaging.

A quick glance underneath the desk revealed even more junk that at first glance seemed to be haphazardly pushed aside in abandonment, seeing as though the office lacked a chair and the garbage filled too much foot space to have been kept there in its prime. A few empty bottles with little chips and cracks that scattered along their surfaces like veins, small tins and boxes lined up surprisingly neatly along the back, and at its center he saw something faintly gleaming.

It was metallic, but all of its gloss and glamor had been ruined with caked on grime and filth, little pieces of something black and tar-like coating most of its surface. It was small and thin in his hands, and it was only when he picked it up that he saw it connected to a small chain, stiff and curled with something odorously foul. Though most of its surface was covered, the coating on the back had been scrapped away, revealing the name that had been professionally etched into it so long ago.

Danse.

His breath had been cruelly ripped away from him in that moment, suffocating and lifeless as his gaze locked unbroken onto those accursed letters. Within his hands he held his former friends' holotags, the ones that he must have been wearing when they met; for the blacked tar that clung to its surface, faintly discolored with traces of brown or flaking yellow, were the charred remains of his skin.

He dropped the tags in horror, barely containing a horrified scream as he gasped and sputtered weakly. Tiny pinprick tears bubbled in the corners of his eyes, lost to his lashes as he desperately tried to grasp the truth of what he had found.

He had to have been mistaken, surely these must have been a backup, a replica, a replacement, something other than the original identifiers that he had been wearing during his immolation. But the grim matter that covered and contorted it, that heavy scent of iron and filth, it was undeniable. He could no longer question the nature of the tags, only the way they mysteriously appeared so very far away from that dank little hospital in which he had...when Danse had...

He stared at the tags where he had dropped them, a clumped mess distinguishable from the other garbage it accompanied by way of its terrible nature. Though looking closely, Shaun could see that the various items underneath the desk were perhaps not as miscellaneous as he had originally believed them to be. The boxes that lined the underneath had all been pushed back against its walls, leaving the center open, where which only four items stood apart. The tags had been resting on top an empty carton of cigarettes, next to which a black ball was placed next to it, and a little farther away from both of these was a small flip lighter standing upright.

The ball he examined next, and after that everything else clicked into place. It was hard and dense, surprisingly heavy for its small size, and he feared it would crack upon the ground should it fall from his shaking hands. Its surface was smooth and shiny, a polished black paintjob only broken by a number 8 on its side.

This was not a random assortment of junk belonging to a former commander from years past, this was a diorama of an event he was sure nobody else but him had witnessed.

But ultimately, somebody had.

This was a cruelty he was unprepared for, confused by its purpose and scared of its existence. Was it not enough to have suffered through the events firsthand, did one have to take the barebones of this transgression and lay it before him as if it were little more than a game? For what reason did it serve to remained him of this particular trauma in this specific place with no one but himself to understand what it could mean?

He had known he was being watched. This shouldn’t have been surprising, but that did not mean it hurt any less to have his past so callously left out for himself to witness.

This had to be a reminder, if not a message. A warning perhaps? That he should not get too comfortable or believe himself to be too safe just because he was in the company of someone capable of defending him. He had gotten close to him once, and he would do it again, this just served as the first of what could become a frequent occurrence.

Reaching a single hand out, Shaun carefully poked and prodded at the various objects, looking for answers to questions he wasn’t entirely sure of. Whatever he wanted from him, whether it be specific or just merely intimidation, his message was too vague to simply leave it as is. Curiously, cautiously as if he were approaching the jaws of a viscous predator, he brushed his fingertips against the junk items as if they could explode at any moment. Each minor contact made him flinch and gasp, a dark chill running along his arm and down his spine as he picked apart the diorama. The boxes were empty and null, but the cigarette carton, the one that Danse’s tags had rested on, contained a key within it.

A tag that hung off of its side labeled it for Jail Cell 3.

Coming to stand, Shaun took a momentary glance around the office once more, suddenly claustrophobic in his surroundings and very much eager to leave.

Maccready was no longer seated in the chair, and when Shaun emerged from the little office the building was empty. A looming dread overtook him as he stood transfixed to the spot, slowly turning his head so that he got a full sweep of his surroundings and confirmed that he was alone. He held his breath, nervous for the revelation that something was beginning to happen, something terrible and profound that he wanted nothing to do with but had no choice in the matter. His chest tightened, his hand felt itchy and hot, his teeth were sore from the intensity he which he ground them together. Then he saw Maccready's shadow fall from the outside and realized he had merely taken watch, and he breathed a deep sigh of relief.

Maccready caught him as he was walking towards the cell, just barely coming within sight, the afternoon sun from outside obscuring his body in blinding halo so that his entire form was dark and unreadable.

“Find anything in there?” He asked him.

Shaun swallowed against nothing, lightly tapping his teeth together so that they clicked within his mouth.

“J-just a key for one of the cells.”

“Didn’t see anything in there last I saw.” His tone was casual and lazy, and if he could see his face Shaun would guess that he was ready to leave the area.

“If it’s locked it might be for a reason,” it was hard to keep his voice steady, his best attempt leaving his volume just below his normal cadence so that he sounded tired and dreary.

“I’m gonna have a look anyway.”

Maccready said nothing in return, and Shaun did not follow up with any further excuse, somberly approaching the cell in question like a child approaching the door of a disciplinary office. Through the bars the cell looked much the same as the others; a single bench, a toilet, maybe a few random things left on the floor that weren’t even worth a passing glance.

But Shaun knew better now.

Unlocking the cell, Shaun hesitantly nudged the door open with his shoe, cringing at the whining groan of the rusted hinges being moved for the first time in years. The cells themselves did not possess overhead lamps of their own, possibly for the sake of their captives utilizing them for various destructive purposes. This meant that apart from the lighting they received from the corridor, a few swatches were left in shadow from the odd angles of the room. This one in particular was especially dark on part of the overhead lamp having been broken, and Shaun dreaded to think that might have also been done deliberately.

Crossing the threshold of the cell felt familiar to stepping into his own containment unit within the Insitute, and the comparison left him sweating and breathless. Therein stood the single bench, the toilet, and along the far wall, so dark he had to be right upon it in order to read them, two posters; a dark red and black piece depicting a single, fierce eye that stated, “The walls have eyes,” and a faded blue and yellow piece of a construction worker with a helmet who said, “Use your head!”

Underneath the bench he found a child’s bear toy, on which were placed a pair of sunglasses, much like the kind X6 used to wear, and next to it was a strange metallic object. This he held in his hands in more confusion than fear, uncertain as to what it even was as opposed to what it was supposed to mean to him. It wasn’t long, but was oblong shaped, slightly rounded but with little protruding bits along one side. A groove was etched along the bottom of one side, and two black pieces were symmetrically placed on either side, like a pair of eyes. A deeply grooved hole lined in rubber lay on the bottom of the object, and its strange makeup led him to believe it was some kind of mechanism for a larger piece.

Its award shape and size made it a bit difficult to conceal, but Shaun slipped the thing beneath his coat. Whatever this meant or however it was supposed to be used, he had no idea, but he would carry the thing with him until he understood more; least he find himself cornered and lost without his precious clues.

With this he was confident enough to leave the building, but not the surrounding area. He gathered from the posters that he was to keep watch for more wayward signs that would be left for him, and without knowing the finer details behind these actions, he couldn’t dare leave just yet. Upon his exit, Maccready was eager to push forward north, claiming they could cross the river then continue west for a safer route. He was confident in this plan and pushed forward with an audacity of leadership he did not possess, something which Shaun hesitantly and indirectly brought up as they set off.

He knew it would be unwise to call him out to his face, so masking it as a compliment while urging him to postpone was his best move. It was indeed smart to travel less compact areas, they could very possibly leave the border of the city by nightfall then take the plains northwest with ease. Except, their path was too easily trackable, and according to the map that Maccready himself had taken the liberty of adding too, the path they would take via the bridge meant they would have to cross though college square, something that went brought to light made Maccready bite his lip in contemplation. Another bridge just further down the road lead along a different highway that bypassed the cluster of buildings, and the extra time could be afforded to checking one of the areas he had marked that was along the way. All of this he spilled out rather quickly, unintentionally leaving little to no room for interjection. With only mild complaint, Maccready agreed to the idea, giving him an inch that Shaun would have to somehow turn into a mile.

The afternoon sun had moved within the sky, a bright blaze overhead now arced at an angle to the west. They still had a good number of hours left until nightfall, but the darkness had a penchant for creepy slowly along and then suddenly taking over everything at once. A light hue of blues and purples would snap into a deep black within the span of only a few minutes. Time was a hard to measure essence, but then again, so was everything else.

Every step was slow and calculated, not too fast that he risked passing something by without notice, but quick enough so as to not draw attention to his behavior. The first clues had been close together and easy to spot, all located within the same space. But out in open, anything and everything could have held potential, from the smallest misplaced pebble to the very structures of the commonwealth themselves. Until he was given some sign, there wasn’t anything he could afford to ignore.

Only a few blocks east and the first sign emerged.

Even though Shaun was technically the one to lead this strange exposition, Maccready had taken it upon himself to walk a few paces ahead. This typically proved uneventful and unnecessary, he wasn’t at a distance significant enough to spot anything before he could, and if anything, it only made Shaun much more of a target the farther away his protection was. Though this time Maccready had paused in his walk, staring at something to his right while holding his hand up for Shaun to stop.

Shaun obeyed, though his questions went unanswered as his companion merely told him to stay put for a moment. His face was hard and stern, and yet, as he ducked into the alleyway, he did not draw his gun or any other weapon, and it was this that gave Shaun cause to follow him.

Stopping at the mouth of the alley, Shaun watched as Maccready approached a misshaped figure slumped against the wall. Even from this distance Shaun could tell the man was dead; his lithe and wiry frame had become subjected to gaseous bloating, puffing parts of his body up irregularly so that he appeared lumpy and stretched. His abdominal region was the worst by far, his stomach so shrunken in his life, that in death it had swollen to the extremes so that the flesh tore and split along his navel. Maccready tapped the figure with his artificial foot, frowning at it as he knelt down and patted his pockets for inventory. Finding nothing he stood and turned back to look at him.

“Didn’t I tell you to f*ckin’ wait, kid?”

He was annoyed, but Shaun only took a tentative step forward, much to his confusion.

“No, Isaac, you don’t need to see this. We’re leaving.”

He spoke matter-of-factly, already making his way towards him with steady strides and a force behind him. But Shaun thought that the body was too significant to ignore, for if it was not a sign, then it was surely a very strange coincidence. Before Maccready could do anything more Shaun thought of something to ask.

“Why was he all alone out here? Do you think there are other people nearby?” He phrased this question as if it were a primary concern of his, and not something he already knew for a fact.

Maccready stopped and turned back to look at the body.

“No, guy was a f*ckin’ sicko. Nobody would even bother with him.”

That response gave him pause. The body was still composed enough for the features to be recognizable, though there were many injuries and scars throughout that made it difficult to decipher what was post-mortem and what wasn’t.

“Did you...know this person?”

The way he had approached and subsequently left the body made his indifference seem typical, but if he had known this individual beforehand, then it made his behavior much more questionable.

“f*ck no, I don’t associate with them,” he spat as if insulted, mumbling vulgarities to himself that Shaun couldn’t hear.

The alleyway was closed off, the only thing within it being the body itself, and there was no trail of blood to indicate that it had been brought here recently. Living in extreme physical hardship, it would have already been a challenge to determine the man's age, and in death it proved completely impossible. His features were warped and broken, like a soft plastic left to melt under the sun. He wore dull colored rags and no shoes, his body left in a crumpled heap underneath a poster for stimpaks. And to his left, just out of reach of his hand, an empty bottle of nuka-cola stood upside down on its neck.

His eyes flicked between the poster and the bottle for a moment, but then Maccready had grown impatient and made his way back onto the street, calling for him to follow. And so, he did, confident that he had received the message loud and clear.

The Backstreet Apparel had once been a point of great interest to the common scavenger, and even Maccready seemed to anticipate that this former raider’s nest could still possess something of value. Despite having been emptied and monitored for a number of years under Brotherhood jurisdiction, it stood likely that the place had been inhabited since then due to its desirable location and makeup. The appeal had been in it sitting just along the edge of the deeper city and blocked by the river, leaving it easier and safer to access, yet very defendable with lots of spaces to hide supplies or weapons. More than once he had come through this area and found that the former department store had gained a new parasite within it, leaving him with pockets full of spare ammunition and caps.

All of this he spoke of like a happier memory, and Shaun had reason to suspect that it was partially a ploy to distract him from the body they had found earlier. In spite of its nature Shaun had found himself unfocused towards the horror of that particular detail, the body sat as more of a background piece to his actual interest points, and if he were not preoccupied with keeping his wits sharp in an effort to find more clues he would have been greatly bothered by that change in behavior.

As they approached the entrance, Shaun was made to hide among the ruins of a truck that had once been carting industrial piping and told to stand watch. Being left behind suited Shaun rather well in this instance, for already he could see the true reason he had come here, not even fifty yards away from where they stood. The Backstreet Apparel was large, but not so much that Maccready would be long during his investigation. Shaun could be quick, he could be keen, and the moment Maccready left him he had emerged from his little hiding place and made haste towards the nuka-cola machine he spotted prior.

The air was thick with moisture, a foul dampness carrying on the wind from the river just beyond him. The disgust did little to quell his abject thirst, and the sight of the cola machine and the memories of sweet refreshment it drew from him made his tongue ache all the worse. The faded red stood out as dazzling, a mesmerizing omen of promise amidst the barren grey of the Commonwealth.

From the outside the apparatus appeared to be empty, but Shaun still pulled at its little glass door with fervor and anticipation, almost willing into existence that which he sought so desperately. For once he was filled with expectation not terrifying or numb, but a growing excitement seeped with pride. He had been forced to play the game, but know it seemed he would win, and without hesitation he reached into that pocket cooler and felt around for his prize.

A small parcel wedged into the top of the cooler, placed just out of sight so it could not be visible through the glass port.

With a little nudge he felt the parcel come loose, and he quickly caught hold of it, cradling it in his hands as if it were the most fragile and precious thing he had ever come to possess. He briefly turned his shoulder, checking if Maccready had not yet returned from the building, and relieved that he was still alone for the time being. Slowly bringing his prize into the open, its contents rattled gentle against the hardened plastic. It was a common case bearing a medical symbol, its outside tarnished and bespeckled with what Shaun could only hope was years of caked on dirt and grim.

Popping open the lid revealed what was left for him; a stimpak, and a single holotape. For a moment, he was filled with something joyful, staring at these objects in wonderment. This was an accomplishment, a reward for his intuition, and he allowed himself to feel pride and a sense of victory.

Then he heard the crack of Maccready’s rifle and knew the game had still yet to be won.

Chapter 4

Chapter Text

The resounding crack of the rifle pierced the air, and suddenly everything blurred into a hot and terrible darkness. The blazing afternoon sun was lost within a foul abyss, drowning and rank with the penetrating smell of rot and decay. He could taste the smell in the back of his throat, all bile and acid, and an intolerable pain that suffocated and choked him. His insides were cold, and his skin was thick and clammy, but the air was smoldering, solid, compressing down on him so that he fell to his knees and stayed there.

The second shot was penetrating, a force he could feel throughout his whole body, a heavy weight against his palm. Jolts of electricity were shooting lengthwise along his arm, his hand throbbing with the kickback as his fingers curled around the grip. His blood flow felt constricted, so numb that his felt sharp as it forced itself through his veins. He was terrified, but still, he could not advert his gaze from the body that lay before him. Sprawled limbs grotesquely misshaped and limp against the hard pavement, the skin stiff and yellowed like a plastic casing. His outsides were dry but inside he was a gooey mass of spilling liquids and collective gases that ballooned him outwards; a taunt stretching to his abdomen that teased the possibility of forcefully exploding in a rancid mess of rotten flesh. The bullet hole beneath his eye was expanded in the advance stages of decay, a few remaining strips of sinew blacked and curling like burning paper so that the gray jellified mass of his brain was left naked and soft to his view.

The third shot, and the visage was gone.

Three shots in quick succession, and a terrible bellowing from the Backstreet Apparel, and Shaun had all but collapsed against the mere sounds of it. He was on his knees, his stomach curled tight so that his face was buried against his small body, struggling for even a faint whisper of breath as he shook violently in the midst of his episode. He was drooling, thick and sour, smeared along his lips as he gasped open-mouthed in an attempt to suck down the putrid commonwealth air. He was shaking, too cold and too hot within his unwashed clothes, a mess of ruined character and mind.

But then the fourth shot sounded, and he found himself awakened.

It was not as if the troubles had left him, he knew that deep down his staccato memory of pain and viscera was as much a part of him as the heart is to the body; but somewhere in that blurry recollection he remembered that he was not alone. Just a few yards away his companion had fired against something, and despite the stupidity in his actions he still rose to his feet and stumbled towards the violence of his own volition.

A few steps forwards and he was staggering, hardly able to keep himself upright but filled with a grit to push himself towards the Backstreet and....

Well, he didn’t really know what he was going to do.

Despite the determination, he hadn’t even drawn his gun; horrified by its existence on his person and repulsed by the idea of ever touching it again. Yet, in spite of his disgust with violence, he was still choosing to throw himself into a fight that ultimately had nothing to do with him. Sure, Maccready was his companion, and his distasteful personality did not cause Shaun to turn his back with so little care; but he was far more capable of defending himself, so much so that Shaun’s presence could only serve to hinder him in his time of need. This should have kept him at bay where the gunfire somehow failed, but here he was, approaching the door of the Backstreet Apparel as if somehow this would all end for the better.

He wasn’t so desperate and foolish as to actually get close to the doorway. Even though his brain had been fried to a pulsing crisp he still retained enough logical input to stay clear of imminent danger for now. An overturned truck in the road provided ample cover with a decent view of the building, and though his options were restricted, and his skillset limited, he was willing to try a non-direct approach first. He had little to work with, but the only thing the commonwealth flourished in was useless garbage unsuitable for any practical purpose. Lamented over once, but now it seemed a heaven-sent opportunity.

He first picked up a chunk of rock that had been dislocated from the road an indeterminate amount of time in the past. This he threw with less than accurate provision towards the open doorway in the hopes of drawing some attention towards it and away from his companion. The handful of crumbling cement did little to deter the action within, an unknow shuffling much like the scrap of heavy furniture resonating within. The next object he set his sights upon was the partially destroyed mirror hanging from the truck's door. Some of the reflective glass had been smashed and fallen away, but a few decent sized pieces remained, and the dingy metal would be loud enough on its own.

Though left to decay, the piece was still secured to the steel of the door with a resistance almost unmatched to his meager strength. It took placing his foot along the car and using all of his weight to wrench the thing from its wielding, and a few shards of mirror had come loose and scattered to the ground beneath him. A single shard had fallen across the exposed portion of his wrist, a few droplets of blood dripping onto the rusted metal from the faint cut he received. He quickly looked towards the door, his sudden impulse to draw attention now uncertain if he should become a target so easily. He waited a moment, struck with the animalistic instinct to stand perfectly still in wait for the predator to appear first, but no face showed within the doorway and no sound was heard except for the shuffling. He moved with caution as he lowered himself to the ground, fully expecting the awaiting maw of some hungry moral-depraved wasteland citizen to emerge with weapons drawn. At the very least, he had expected to hear shouts of threats, promises of torture and dismemberment, and the confidence of someone who only had one possible thing to live for.

At the very least, he had expected to hear return fire. But even Maccready’s rifle was now silent.

Pitching the mirror towards the door he watched the useless metal soar silently across the pavement in an overarching swing, flying through the open doorway and clattering loudly inside. If the glass shattered, he could not hear it, but the metal had hit something of equal material and the two produced a teeth-grinding clash that no one of sensible mind could possibly ignore.

Whatever bellowed back at him though, was definitely not a thing of sensible mind.

The silence that followed was brief and dripped with a horrible, drooling tension eager for the sudden bite, the fall that awaits the impact. Something had responded to it, something that possessed a terrible sense of mangled vocal cords capable of producing such a disgustingly organic yet certainly inhuman sound. For a brief moment, the lithe inhale before the voices reaches its true peak, its tone was almost that of a person, a man of very deep baritone. But then the voice warbled, twisting into something far too guttural and beastlike. Its sound was wrenching, and its volume tremendous, so much so that he felt the reverberations tingle deep within his bones.

Predictably, it would seem his plan was a success, and an unfortunate one at that.

The fear that had taken hold of him at the moment was not merely a fierce grip at his heart, but a constrictive force around his neck; fingers large and powerful pressing tight against his frail little windpipe with the grim determination to watch him slowly suffocate to death.

The bestial roar was followed by a cry of his false name, then the sounds of frantic movement within. Footsteps mingled with the dull slaps of raw flesh carrying a great force behind it, a terribly large body lurching towards whatever it heard or saw. A faint sloshing resonated behind each set of steps, like the smacking of a wet mouth, growing in volume as dual forces raced towards the door.

At last Maccready had emerged, flung from the building by the momentum he built in his mad dash towards escape, coming to crash down on the pavement with a bone-shattering thud. The beast that followed closely behind soon emerged mere seconds later, and Maccready had only that single moment to drag himself out of reach of that terribly swollen arm that reached out towards him.

That beast...so awful in its design that only something as capable of cruelty as a man could have possibly thought up such a thing. There was nothing natural about it, no trace of acceptance in the nature of this world as it stood out as an abomination before all who witnessed it. It was large, so great in its bulk and its height that it could not fit itself through the open doorway, no matter how desperately it swung its boned fingers towards its prey of choice. Its skin was a toxic green pulled tight against its body, a yellowish hue underneath like the buildup of pus making it reminiscent of a huge and monstrous pimple. Much of its defining features had been flattened against its face, the lips splayed open so that its ghastly teeth slammed together like a horrible wind-up toy, spewing out guttural growls from the depths of its inflamed throat.

Its inability to chase them any further did not quell Shaun's initial fear and surprise, his body focused solely on his own survival as he dove behind the truck for cover, leaving Maccready with the responsibility of putting down the beast on his own. A well placed, clean shot into the center of its forehead, and the thing had fallen in a visceral splash of loose flesh and pus.

A great and terrible thing, brought down in an instant. A being of such gargantuan proportions and disgusting visage, the full extent of its power and cruelty unknown to him at this moment, fallen by a single shot of a rifle. It was a reeling experience, almost comedic for what it represented to him, that even something as mighty as whatever the hell had attacked them could still be killed, and easily.

Though the sight of the monster did little to stir any further reaction from Maccready, something Shaun couldn’t not comprehend or take notice too as he stared horrified at the mess of the body in front of them. What once was so large, and imposing had suddenly unraveled in an unrealistic course of what he initially took as a form of rapid decomposition. The swell of its muscles had drooped dramatically in only a few seconds, the empty flesh it left behind thick and rubbery and laying in folds across the ground.

It was then that he took sight of the growing puddle beneath it, a steady flow of thick, yellow liquid squirting from beneath its body as it deflated into a flattened mass, its skin discoloring into a darker, deeper green.

The sight alone was enough to turn his stomach, the fluid so vicious and sticky in its appearance that Shaun suddenly found himself hunched over in an attempt not to vomit what little food he held in his poor stomach. The sickly yellow that popped with bright color, so very much like the buildup of infection, left a taste in his mouth that unsettled him deeply in its supposed similar taste and feel.

The rough shove into the body of the truck behind him only further churned his stomach, gasping wetly in shallow breaths as Maccready took hold of his shoulders.

“What the f*ck were you f*cking thinking-!” he begun to instantly scream in his face, his demands lost under layers of profanities and swears as he struggled to coherently direct his rage onto him.

“Do you have any idea what you could have f*cking done! To both of us!”

He didn’t. He couldn’t even begin to comprehend what he had witnessed; how could he possibly have predicted that such an occurrence should be a possibility? How could he have conjured up such a monstrous behemoth in his imagination, nonetheless believe that it could theoretically exist? All he wanted to do was help, but why did that seem so impossible to do?

If this was his punishment, he would endure it. Vocal reprimand was familiar to him, effective in the way his conditioning had made it to be, but he would accept every hate-filled word that was thrown at him because he knew he deserved it. The iron grip at his shoulders, the bruise at the back of his head where he was repeatedly slammed into the car behind him, that struggle to breath as his body was forced to constrict and coward beneath the closest thing he had to a friend; it was not as bad as what he had faced before. He could handle it. He would handle it.

His self-loathing had deafened him to much of what Maccready had said, most of it a repeated set of rhetorical questions and insults that did little to actually explain the danger they had come close to facing; what he had come close to facing. The emphasis on that was quite pronounced, and he couldn’t blame the man for repeatedly stating as such. What would have happened if he had actually dared to get a little closer to the building? What if he had gone so far as to enter it? Whatever sort of things that being had planned to do to them, the extent of what it was capable of, was fortunate enough to be obscure for now.

Though Maccready had clearly not seen it that way, his physical aggression bordered towards an increasingly dangerous state that had Shaun tense in preparation for what could have very well been a strike to his face. Instead, his next sentence had risen, as if in question. He had only heard him shout “give me that!” before the grip on his shoulders was gone and something was wrenched from his hands.

Since when had he been holding the stimpak throughout this chaos? He couldn’t remember. His focus had been so entirely diverted that it could have been that he never put it away to begin with. Or perhaps he was further anticipating its use the moment he realized they were both in grave danger. Regardless, the medicine that was left for him was suddenly ripped from his hands, and Shaun could only stand by and watch as Maccready injected it into himself, just above a now noticeable gash within his thigh.

Watching the effect was mesmerizingly absurd. The torn layers of flesh that had been split apart against the grain of muscle had slowly come together to fuse back into its natural state. Much like watching video footage of a plant growing at double its usual speed, the meat and skin moved too quickly, pulsing and palpitating like a living organism. He stood transfixed as he watched the irregular stretches of torn flesh knit itself back into perfection and smooth out until the wound was entirely healed, a faint trace of scar tissue so minimal that it might as well have not been there at all.

Maccready breathed a heavy sigh of relief, tossing the stimpak aside as he wiped his against the only dry patch of clothing he could find; and it was then that Shaun noticed that he had covered in the same viscous slime that the beast had excreted.

Once healed, he seemed to calm down significantly, though the air about him was still tense with anger. He was breathing heavily through his nose, his face pressed into a tight scowl, and Shaun did everything he could to make himself as innocuous and invisible as possible.

He dared not ask any questions, make no suggestions, not even express worry or concern for his condition. Instead, he trudged silently behind him as he turned and took off towards the bridge.

They had not gone far before they made camp. A little hole-in-the-wall garage nestled within the burnt-out complex of some apartment or office building. They faced the river south, the looming skyscrapers like gnarled dead trees in the distance. Maccready had not spoken to him at all since that confrontation, not directly at least. He had plenty to say to himself, and if Shaun overheard then he cared very little to quiet himself. Half-insane ramblings that looped in illogical circles of anger and resentment, vulgarity freely flowing so that his words made little sense. He had every right to be angry, to hate him for his involvement. He refused to even look at him as he settled himself down, determined to stay here until he was ready to move on.

At least Shaun had put the holotape away instantaneously, that was the last thing he would want to be taken from him.

Again.

The sun would not set for another few hours, but it was unlikely they would continue their travel before nightfall. This setback was not ideal, but he would have to work around it with little complaint. They were dangerously close to perimeter where the Insitute lay underground, and though there monitoring systems did not extend to the surface directly, should they have traced him to this spot it would be far too easy for him to be recaptured.

Not that any of this could be vocalized.

The hours ticked by in mostly silence, save for the hushed ramblings Maccready gave under his breath as he slowly began to calm down. Nothing was eaten, no preparations or plans prepared, each left to their own corner as the sun faded away into the horizon and the shadows crept closer and closer. They both knew they could not stay here; the garage was exposed and easy to access, but it wasn’t until night fell completely that Maccready ushered them both along into an accompanying building with higher floors without word.

Neither of them had supper that night, the topic of food not even entertained under their current circ*mstance. Even though he had eaten earlier that day, his body was still acclimated to three square meals on a regulated basis, and the pangs of hunger had him picking restlessly at his body in a series of nervous ticks. Maccready had taken significant time to fall asleep, and Shaun wondered if he knew he would be sneaking off again. They held little trust between them, and though it had been broken only once, there was not much he could do to prove himself.

The building they had chosen held the Brotherhood insignia, as did much of the neighborhood. Towards the east the land had shown signs of recent past development, and its reach had extended into the apartments they now inhabited. A quilted patchwork of quick repairs blended the old prewar architecture with a new pop of stability and personality. Floors had been divided into rooms, rooms divided into individual living spaces, each with trace remnants of its former inhabitants still within. Shaun was given his own room with his own bed, and that was where he stayed until he crawled out of the unboarded window and made his way towards the thicker, “newer” parts of the old development.

It was astonishing how close such a territory advancement had come to the Insitute. Of course, the commonwealth had no way of knowing that their worst fears had been hiding, unreachable, just under their floorboards; yet the progress this settlement had made so close to their enemy, it was a wonder it hadn’t suffered any accidental malfunctions and mishaps.

The Brotherhood had a penchant for organization and utility, which arguably made them admirable to some degree. A respectful opposition you could feel accomplishment for having strategized into oblivion rather than some common pest that could be crushed underneath a child's boot. Though left to ruin now, their structures had been impressively crafted with new material, and their streets had been large and clean so that easy navigation and transportation was possible. Their influence on the environment made their territories stand out as luxuriously advanced and their supplies well utilized, even if they were still composed within the heathen slag of the surface world.

Finding a terminal was easy. Much like the Insititue, the Brotherhood had well adapted to technology, embracing and understanding its possibilities rather than rely solely on the works of nature. A sound structure of some bureaucratic usage had a number of impact offices with a stable power source, and thankfully there was a distinct lack of monstrous beasts hiding within.

Sound would not be a primary issue to take into consideration since Maccready was still lodging a few blocks away, but just in case someone or something else happened to be listening in, he had sure the entrances were securely blocked and that no corner was left out of his line of sight.

Deacon, if that was truly was the person behind this dreaded game of search and chase, must have taken into account his newfound company, for the message he left to him was not an audio recording like the last.

The instant the holotape loaded the screen of the terminal was filled with a simple paragraph of text, with only the faint clicking of keys in the programmed sound bytes to fill the air. He made sure to pay close attention to each line of text, each character that comprised every word, the beginning and end of each sentence, looking for possible subliminal clues he was meant to uncover.

I have to hand it to you, junior, I'm impressed that you had the gung-ho to follow through on your end of the bargain. That was good, and good boys deserve a reward. Let’s hope this next job doesn’t bite you in the ass before I do. You'll be doing a drop-off for a friend of mine. Take something filling from your friends bag and leave it in the empty church nearby. My friend will be very grateful if you didn’t f*ck this one up and get the wrong people involved again. I don’t like hunters getting so close to my meal tickets. Don’t disappoint.

Distaste was second only to hunger, but this entire letter felt smeared with salvia and eagerness for more. His hand was still a burning, inflamed mess underneath its bandages, and the revisiting of the event that caused it only made its pain more pronounced. But his anger proved to burn more strongly than the beginnings of infection, his white-knuckled grip on the desk a brief searing hot flame of potential. But each line slowly turned that blue heat into an acrid sting, disturbance and anxiety prickling at his stomach as he digested everything before him.

One sentence in particular had his inquiry dangerously superstitious and afraid:

I don’t like hunters getting so close to my meal tickets.

Something in the phrasing stuck out to him as odd, though it wasn’t the initial referral as captive humans as a “meal ticket.” Whatever this man was and however he chose to do it, he seemed to be someone of a repeated goal and action. His motives were unknown and his accomplishments hard to decipher, but he was a worker of some kind, at least, that was what Maccready had indirectly implied.

On a hunch Shaun had taken out the previous holotape he was left, doing a quick double check to make sure that nobody was watching him from the shadow.

Nobody important anyway, it's not like he could conceal himself from the one man who knew in detail his exact circ*mstances.

Reviewing that tape had been an emotional exercise. He can distinctly recall the phycological turmoil he endured when he had discovered the tape on his person, and the subsequent fallout that proceeded it. His attention had been divided between the fear of being uncovered, and the fear of having to then act on the whims of a stranger with less than noble goals. But there he found a piece of damning information that had gone overlooked, or unabsorbed, during its initial play, and which now set a pang of disgust and worry through him.

Your [friend] , Ma-c-rEa-deY, that shot all those huNters, I bet he didn’t tell you he’s one of them, did he?

He stopped the tape in panic, sitting in the quiet stillness of the empty office with his body quivering and his heart racing.

It wasn’t forgetfulness that had taken him, it was distraction. It was the revelation that he had been found and blackmailed by an unknown figure into doing something drastic. It was the sudden appearance of Maccready at that moment demanding to know where Deacon was and what was happening and having to quickly lie and cover his tracks. It was stewing on the implications of his work and the thought of food and people and strangers and farms. It was an overload of information and emotion that caused him to not intake this very important detail of the man he was now traveling with.

Maccready was a f*cking human hunter.

His knowledge of their territory, their movements, their habits. He had known where the farm was located and knew to go there when he found Shaun missing from his bed. He was violent and temperamental, dangerous, hostile, volatile, and insistent on sticking with him every step of the way despite his obvious dislike of him.

He was missing the details of this, the specifics, he had to be. There was more to this accusation than he was being told, but its effect was anticipated and received. He was already untrustworthy of him on account of his behavior, but now it only proved that he had been right to keep him at arm's length and conceal himself as much as possible.

It wouldn’t be beneficial for him to get overwhelmed again. He had slivers of information with no backing proof or means to disagree, nonetheless act on anything in his current position. Where could he begin to decern fact from fiction, trust from sabotage. He had two strangers at his attention with each their own undisclosed purposes and histories, until he knew more he could do nothing else but remain vigilant and take whatever opportunity he had to further his own advancement.

No matter how afraid he was.

He left with both holotapes hidden in his pockets, his mind swirling with ideas and opinions that only fatigued him and made him long for a safe and rejuvenating rest. The climb back into the window was tedious, his own physical prowess being of no concern to his development within the institute and so went unrefined. At least he had been quiet, he would need to be to make the trip more than once.

Maccready slept with his door locked, a wise move. Shaun would remember to lock his door upon his return and sleep soundly through the night with the weight of his sins to keep him warm and safe. The lock was more of a warning, a suggestion to stay away, least the person within become cross at being disturbed in their time of rest and relaxation. If the door had squeaked on its hinges, or if the knob had rattled even the tiniest bit, then he would have accepted that punishment as well, for if he could not accomplish this then truly there was no more hope to be found for him.

The room was dark and his snoring light, one must be ever vigilant when each moment of respite could be met with lurking terror and an open jaw. He felt with his hands as he crossed the floor, letting his eyes adjust to the pitch. Maccready rested in a state of tense solitude, curled on his mattress with his arms guarding his few belongings. He looked fitful and uneasy, as if he could sense a disturbance nearby, waiting for some sign that would flash him awake just before something could strike him.

Fortune was on the side of Shaun tonight, and how that came to be must have been an act of mercy from some higher force. Either that or he was just very good at stealing things undetected, he had done so before many times after all. The tape didn’t say what exactly to take, or how much, so he settled for one can of cram and one can of beans then stole away into the night.

It was difficult to tell if it was hunger or guilt which gnawed cruelly at this stomach. The thoughts of human flesh and those who sought it out was still fresh in his mind, as was most of the bizarre interactions he had with the man only a few days since they met. Repulsion was met with an odd sense of betrayal, and the desire to view this act of thief as some kind of divine justice. And yet, he did not feel good in what he did, the precious cans in his hands like the world's most sacrilegious contraband. Food was next to godliness in this place, and he had taken some that did not belong to him, all on the orders of someone he didn’t trust. He felt like his mind was spiraling downwards trying to rationalize the divots of knowledge he had obtained, longing for a time when things were either right or wrong, not both or neither.

The wind held a slight chill, and the foulness from the river blew like the scent of unclean machinery. Temperature was something of a mystery to him, far too used to an ever-present consistency so that the changes felt sudden and frightening. The cold was only felt in the darkest hours of the night, when the great overhead lamp of the sun would disappear completely along with its natural warmth, and he wished to be back in his filthy bed as soon as he was done with this drop off.

The church was rather easy to locate. The point had been marked on his paper map by Maccready whilst he felt in an agreeable mood to offer up his own knowledge of the city's layout without asking for a charge. Many streets were still left barren, leaving much mystery to the surrounding area. The structure itself was a monument of brick and mortar, holding a countenance of something different from the rest of the buildings he had seen before. Its sharp, slanted roof that peaked at sharp pinpoints and its sizable, rounded windows making him feel an eerie sense of foreboding, as if the thing he were approaching held something organic about it much like a person.

He left the cans outside the door, too unnerved by the building to enter it, and distrustful of anything that could possibly be inside.

As he walked back across the river, he thought of a series of excuses that could justify his and the food's disappearance should Maccready have caught wind of what had transpired. White lies are easier explained than full-on tall tales, but what was considered excusable was harder to judge. He had to take into consideration who he was lying to, and how merciful he had been up to this point. He played his emotions as a cover, using whatever little traces of humanity this man still had left to trick him into looking the other way. He was gambling, in a sense, and would have to find a more suitable method of preservation if this proved precarious.

As he climbed back through the window of his temporary room, he looked out over the horizon, and took in the true size of the world. He remembered looking down from higher platforms and windows on the Insitute, at the scientists and the citizens and the synths walking to-and-fro in their neatly pressed uniforms and their elegant avoidance of each other as they passed by on duty. They had looked so small then, from such that meager height, and he had felt as if he had truly stood at the very top of world. But now, the sky was endless, and the distant city stretched far away into oblivion, continuing on past where he was capable of seeing. The world was so large, so immense, and he was so very, very small within it.

But his attention was not fully on this revelation, but rather on the lights he saw flickering across the river. Faint pulsing sparks of life that blinked curiously at him as the scent of smoke carried on the wind.

He slept uneasily that night.

Chapter 5

Chapter Text

Back in the days before the great war, there existed a mythological being known as the “Tooth Fairy.”

Whether or not this being continued to exist in the minds and ideals of the Commonwealth’s common was unknown to him, but within the Institute such fantasy figures held no place for even the most impressionable and innocent of children. Specters and spirits were not humored as entertainment or analogies, though that be more a result of cultural decay than anything deliberate. No one had even heard of such an outlandish childhood figure until Mother offhandedly mentioned it to him when he lost a tooth for the first and only time.

He didn’t possess baby teeth. He was never a baby to begin with, the loss of his tooth had been the result of an accident involving a flight of stairs and a newfound sense of exploration and freedom not typically given to synths for probably this exact reason. The scientists were in a flurry to get their hands on him and have an in-depth search of his mouth for dentistry analysis and security was in debate on whether or not to punish him as they would any disobedient synth or wait until Mother arrived. Shaun had been confused and afraid and in pain for the first time in his short life, unable to stop himself for wailing at the sharp searing ache in his gums, animal instinct covering his mouth and batting away the hands of the doctors that tried to get a closer look at the damage that had been done.

Mother was more agreeable during those earlier years, or perhaps she had just simply done a more thorough job of making sure he was kept away and oblivious from the uglier parts of her personality. It was hard to pinpoint exactly when that line that separated innocence from ignorance finally gave out, but gradually it was enough for him to be confused and hurt by the supposedly sudden change in behavior. He couldn’t imagine her acting the way she did then, hushing him down to a more controlled and stifled sob, holding his hand as she ordered the doctor to give him a topical anesthetic, trying to turn his confusion into wonderment at the tall-tale of a magic fairy that would gift him money if he left his broken tooth underneath his pillow that night.

A woman out of time she was, for the effect on the room was of such foreign perplexity that it was more embarrassing than endearing. Everyone had stopped to stare at her in bewilderment, as if she had spoken a language not their own, which in a sense, she did. If it might have been possible for adults to experience childlike wonder, then it was only those adults that hadn’t devoted themselves to peeling back the fabric of reality in search of the ultimate truth. Wonder for them was a new thesis, a new discovery, an advancement in their very real, very tangible work that meant progress towards something palpable.

She was just as confused as they were, though more bashful as she attempted to keep the air light and her “son” calm and happy, but the look on his face seemed to shatter that for her more than the scientists. Of course, his place as a synth meant that when he was told something by a superior, he was to believe it to be true, because it usually was. He had never before heard of something so outlandish that this transgression of hesitance and disbelief, this sliver of his own opinion shining through the conditioning, went ignored at the time because the sentiment was shared by everyone else in the room. There was an ache in his chest as he watched her nostalgically recall these bits of information from her life in the before times, attempting to mask the disillusionment with humor as if she were playing a bit of joke on them.

The doctors took his broken tooth away and gave him a new one, and that was the end of that.

No more tall tales from his mother. No mysterious late-night visitors. No surprises under his pillow.

In the early hours of the morning he had awakened, a pale blue light illuminating the room like a fine mist, almost ethereal in its gentleness and peace. Though the room remained dilapidated and old, the barely rising peak of the sun gave it a sort of natural beauty he would soon grow to appreciate, something tender and mild that did not have to be extravagant or finely crafted to be enjoyed. The apartment stood quiet and still, the outside world still deep in its slumber so that Shaun remained the only soul to inhabit this space.

His body was wracked with the growing pains of his journey, his muscles stiff and sore so that his rest was not comfortable, but so awful was the idea of moving that he lay completely still and allowed the aches to ravage him undisturbed. His sleep had been a fitful one, figureless dreams of emotional turmoil and stress that left him exhausted and weak, but right now it was peaceful, breathing deeply the smell of dust and rot as one would the scent of their favorite pillow.

Maccready would not wake for another hour or so, unintentionally creeping lightly into his room with the expectation that he should be unaroused and difficult to wake, surprised to find that he was indeed conscious and ready for his arrival; the holotape left under his pillow already tucked within his pocket with the others.

Between them they shared little words and no breakfast, for once a relief since it meant his companion would not notice the distinct lack of food among his possessions for just a little while longer. The morning felt hungover, weary from the action of the previous day as neither acknowledged the tension that built within them. If Maccready was still upset by the incident, then he was making an effort not to show, and so Shaun would do the same and resort to the faithful practice of remaining silent unless directly called upon to speak. What he unwillingly uncovered about Maccready still lay heavy within his mind, however untruthful it might be in actuality, and the new holotape burned against his breast as he already concocted a number of excuses and scenarios that might play out in the near future.

They left shortly after, the air holding a crisp and clear quality that only appeared in the faint hours just after dawn, slightly chill like a cool glass of water. Shaun led the way east with no objection, naturally easing his body forward so that Maccready fell in behind him subconsciously. Soon he would come forward, as was predictable for him, and step into his role of mock-guardian and escort as he strove bravely, threateningly ahead.

Just as expected, they were soon within the old offices of the Brotherhood, Shaun left out in the streets as Maccready scoured the innards of the ruin in case there should be another unexpected attack. His confidence had wavered, either that or his paranoia (or more accurately, his diligence) increased so that he first ravaged the building with minor distractions to see if anything stirred within. This method proved double-edged, for the most silent and stealthy of dwellers could always take the advantage of an expected intruder and hide themselves among the wreckage until their prey willingly entered, though this was a method better suited for man than beasts. If he were to choose which to be left alone with, a cannibal or a monster; well, he already made that choice, didn’t he?

Maccready's work was quick and methodical, though in his brief absence Shaun turned his gaze across the river, towards the lights he had seen last night upon his return. In the dim haze of the morning light, he saw no fires burning, most likely snuffed out once the sun began to rise. The wind still carried a faint trace of smoke whenever it blew in from the south, and the acrid scent had his curiosity itching and his defenses high.

It was no surprise that the building remained as safely barren as it had been the previous night. Maccready had taken the role of sorting through a wall of empty filing cabinets, leaving Shaun to his own constructive devices elsewhere. Only two standing walls separated the monitor room from where Maccready stood, but there was no other option. His fairy had decided to play risk and leave an audio for him this time, and with the volume cranked as low as he could muster, he played the tape.

“aY-n-’t that a bu[ -ummer ]. FriEnds, right? Can-’t live with e’M, Can’t live [ Without ] e’M. [ Shame ] yyOu mist-ED OuT on the [ Party ], my friEnd was so ec-Site-t-ed to meet you. You can Make iiiiii-t uP to him though. There’s a PLacE [ Across ] the Ba-ru-iid-guhh where he lIvEs. The Beat-Nick is [ Expecting ] a surPrise vis-Et fromP-UH-no-Key-[ O ]. We-’ll mAke a ReAl [ Boy ] of you Y-et, [ Junior ].”

The informal and pieced-together quality of the audio made its incoherency particularly tedious to decipher, and the volume notched barely above a whisper didn’t help. The hodgepodge of syllabus crudely glued together with ancient editing software made the bulk of his “spoken” words clip and studder like a speech impediment, though after playing it through a second time (double checking that Maccready was still preoccupied in the other room) he seemed to piece together what he needed to.

He was right to avoid entering the church. That desolate house of worship was no place for sanctuary and respite in these times. Though he knew next to nothing on the concept of religion other than its criticism in the eyes of the scientific elite, Maccready had poured forth his own withering and most-likely biased knowledge when he had asked about the commonwealth prior, and it only seemed the perfect place for the foolishly desperate to seek refuge in. Stumbling in as a free meal on two legs would have only proven them right to pray for salvation to a non-existence ear, and that seemed just as pathetically primitive as eating another human being for food.

Misguided logic aside, he was not out of the clear yet. His avoidance had only triggered further investigation, and now he was scheduled a meeting under the name “puh-no-key-oh" with a stranger in association with Deacon. He could not foresee this operation going in his favor in any way, but without much say in the matter he would have to attend anyway.

This presented a number of difficulties to take into consideration, many of which seemed nigh impossible considering the intentional lack of details he was given in his message. For starters, he would have to again cross the bridge south (if he was hearing that garbled mess correctly), which right off the bat would raise eyebrows, if not fits, from Maccready. Then there was the question of where and when he was supposed to meet with this “friend” of Deacons. The holotape had left both of those dates absent, and it seemed unlikely that someone as observational as his stalker would forget those details. The church seemed the most likely of places all things considered, but it was just as likely he would be led down a path through a series of vague clues until he reached his mark. And that left the most volatile of the factors to come to a head; having Maccready with him while he was to have this meeting.

Sneaking away at night was surprisingly easy, but with his companion wide awake he would have a harder time slipping away unnoticed. And even if he could, he would only incur Maccready’s wrath and suspicion, which would threaten to crumble this entire operation if not taken care of in advance.

People could grow an addiction to gambling, a thrill for the risk and the unknowing factors that might play out. Shaun could live to a hundred and never understand the appeal.

With little else to do then, Shaun ejected his tape and stashed it away with the others. He could only hope that in the coming trials his advisory had laid upon him, his collection of contraband would not increase further beyond what he was capable of carrying inconspicuously. There is nothing more tantalizing for idle hands than to search and scrounge, and if either friend or foe were to find any one of these tapes, then the repercussions could be scornful.

Perhaps it would be wiser to simply destroy the tapes upon receiving their message, maybe he could even consider investing in a small journal of some kind if the need to file information was critical enough. It would certainly be easier to keep hidden a single notebook than an ever-growing number of tapes, but in that format, it would also be easier for someone to read.

With these variables in mind, Shaun would continue to sit on a series of endless hypotheticals, swirling points of data around in his artificial brain whilst continuing to search the office. By the time he crossed paths with Maccready, he had already deduced that little else would be of use to them here.

This place had long since been picked down to the bones, and then some. Most of the rooms had been supplied with the typical working essentials, but nothing of nutritional or medicinal value had gone untouched throughout the years. The areas of greater assumption had been ravaged to the point of complete desolation, and the unlikely candidates had been blown open by a force only equal to that of someone with only one thing to further live for. If there was a box, it was already opened; its sides split apart, and its empty husk left prostrated on the ground. Soft furniture was sliced open and hollowed out, ventilation was ripped from the walls and gutted, flooring was bore through so that potholes littered the ground in deep, malicious wounds.

It would appear that the one-tracked mind of the commonwealth populace was at least thorough and quite creative in his endeavors to survive. Desperation had a knack for drawing out that certain spark that gave even the most dimwitted of people the ability to see possibilities beyond what lay in their current reach. If one where to find anything out here that somehow escaped the prickly little hands of the starved, then it would require them to think in a manner different from anyone else, above even the most clever and ingenious methods used to hide what precious little resources were left. The two of them certainly presented a unique disposition that could have been very much to their advantage; Shaun, with his superior institutional education and vast analytical skills, and Maccready with his furlong experience and cultural knowledge of the Commonwealth.

One who held the knowledge and knew how to apply it, and one with a fresh pair of eyes and the quick intelligence to find new and creative methods to survive.

Between the two of them, they came out with a single bottle of water and a small hunting knife, both of which Maccready took for himself.

This brought no hard feelings for Shaun. Having already given up on the hope of finding food of any kind in this place, he was more preoccupied in a different search, even if the hunger that gnawed angrily at his gut told him otherwise. The useless items that had remained here varied from inedible decorative items to old, bygone files outlining colony management and reports, and any one of these could have been the subliminal message he was looking for. His thoroughness gave the impression of desperation in hunger, a typical eagerness that raises no suspicion as he carefully picked apart and noted everything he saw. His divine epistle could take the form of anything, its chameleon spirit lying in wait for just the right person to it clearly for what it truly was, though it would seem his clues were kept intentionally more subtle this time around.

A few posters had first attracted his attention, and he tried applying these with any items he saw in close proximity to each other, but to no avail. A few undamaged reports he found listed a few named locations, but he couldn’t decipher a pattern between them. It would seem that the Brotherhoods reach had extended far into the northeast, a few trade routes trailing off to territories claimed throughout most of the habitable southern regions but tapering off into the east. The space they occupied was vast, and though the report was dated long before their inevitable end, their growth was fast and continuous. The report was also filed away with a topographical map of the area, and this he pocketed away for further use.

Nothing else of any use was found, and with little to go on Shaun decided the best course of action was to sway their direction northeast for the time being. Not too far to their left was a geneticist lab, and the surrounding area trailed into deep urban carcasses that eventually led to other claimed colonies in the east. The coverage was great, and as long as they trailed the river Shaun could possibly find an excuse to loop back south. Until then he simply needed to bid his time and look for further instructions. Easier said than done, but what else could he do?

He could have considered that the reason he found no subtle clues within the building was because his message would not appear to him in such a format. For such a short time frame he had grown used to this secretive espionage between him and the mysterious figure that lurked in his shadow, and thus he failed to dwell on the possibility that Deacon would ever consider something as bold as a direct approach.

The air held a particular twinge of death in its countenance, that certain special kind of emptiness that pervades something that was once alive and fill. A hesitance, as if the very earth itself were holding its breath in anticipation, its tender lungs constricting tight into a dark and choked purple. The crisp quality of the morning had fleeted, and the wind had disappeared completely, leaving the rancid fumes of accumulated filth to bubble up from the pores in the dirt and settle across the ground like an unseen fog. Their shoes ground against the brittle stonework of the pavement, each step grinding gravel and sand beneath them like gnashing teeth, breaking apart the quiet of the oncoming afternoon.

Maccready had taken the lead, so he was the first one they shot at.

The ground next to him had exploded, just inches from his foot. A shower of loose stone fragments rained down on them, a fine mist of dust and grit spraying into their eyes long before the clap of gunfire reached their ears. The shock held a delayed reflex, a slight catch before the inevitable fall, and for a single second nothing had changed.

No breath was taken, no words were spoken, the world remained as quiet and still as it had been, everything unmoving under the bright light of the sun.

A mere flinch, and Maccready had acted faster than he could comprehend.

The grip that held his arm was hard and unwavering like steel, so familiar, and by its force he was pulled to the ground. The flesh of his cheek tore open, and he felt as if the tiny pricks of the pavement were attempting to crawl inside of the wound. His breath was stolen, and the rapid fire of gunshots had appeared to him only as a muffled ringing somewhere above him. Before he could recover, he was lifted onto his feet and forced to run, the sights surrounding him swirling into incomprehensible colors and shapes.

The ambush had been too close for relation, Maccready's rifle being unsuited from such short distance and impossible to pull out without first being shot, and thus they were forced to flee. From what Shaun could gleam, they were retreating back the way they had come, but that was all he could understand as of now. Should he have wanted to resist he would have found himself unable to, outmatched and overpowered by the inhuman strength that comes from such fierce determination, but in this moment, he allowed himself to be freely moved towards whatever salvation could be found. All prior knowledge and judgement of cannibalistic sins had melted away, and he trusted no one else but the man who seemed so capable and so willing to save him here and now.

A peppering of destruction followed them, none spending their bullets precariously, but each sounding off enough of their fire so that the streets splintered and cracked in their wake. Above the rolling claps of the iron hail, the voices of men shouted from all around them, mouths dripping with cruel desires and thick saliva. Their mindless babble of hungry delusions drippled off into common swears, and many of them laughed as they watched the pair scurry through their trap.

Chances for cover were minimal, and each a short-lived respite. Only a brief pause within an alleyway could be afforded before they were found again, a hard breath taken behind a dumper barely enough before they were forced to run from a flurry of new shots. Their numbers couldn’t have been more than a dozen, but for once it seemed as if the winding recesses of the city were suddenly crowded, each corner concealing a new threat in waiting. A crude pipe rifle gracefully missed its mark along his forehead, bursting his ear drums open so that Maccready’s words of anger and worry faded into bloody murmuring. Any chance of ducking into the deeper parts of the city had been skillfully cut off, forcing them back towards the river as the crescent formation tightened around them.

His shoulder burned, the grip pulling fiercer with desperation so that the joint threatened to be pulled from its socket, but the pain was minimal compared to what could possibly lie in store for either of them if they dared to stop now.

Somehow amidst the chaos, neither of them was wounded. Each shot had been terrifyingly close, and they bore injuries from their escape, but mercifully they had managed to avoid being struck, even though the chances were not at all in their favor. Maccready seemed especially agitated by the nature of this ambush, his confusion forcing his hand to act in ways that seemed animalistic in their logic. They only ducked behind a single car before making a risky dash across the bridge, a move that only halfway across seemed too daring to be successful.

There was no coverage, and the distance should have been too great. They had given their marks a clear shot of themselves, and with fear Shaun looked back at the now rejoined party behind them as they crowded the edge of the bridge. They stood confidante and combative, like a lion sizing up the competition seeking its territory, and it seemed as if they were prepared and ready to continue the case. Their bullet pecked away at their feet, and with graceless practice Maccready managed to avoid tripping over the unbalanced weight in his artificial leg. Jeers sounded after them, comments on his soft, full face and body that made him sick, some who called out to Maccready by name.

They should have been shot and killed, they shouldn’t have made it, but somehow, they did.

Maccready had thrown him to the side the moment they were clear, and Shaun was not diligent enough to realize he could have been useful in watching for attacks ahead of them. Instead, he watched dumbfounded as Maccready slung his rifle into his hands and took a shot at the mass still standing on the other side of the bridge. He struck two before the rest could react, then a third as he flung himself to the side for cover. The distance diminished the wounds, the figures slumping over stupidly as if rendered unconscious, the fragments of broken skull falling out of the line of sight so that the men in the street seemed to be peacefully sleeping as opposed to horrifically dead.

Their retaliation was pathetic, as their crude weapons and skill could not stand in comparison with Maccready's refinement, but even down three men they still held the advantage of numbers. Maccready’s aim was fast and accurate, but he was still limited by the single shots he produced. The hunters took the gamble on where or who he would aim and dash to a new position. The second they chose to rush the bridge the two of them would be cornered, and all it took was for one of them to get a lucky shot in to render them unable to resist them.

Shaun lifted himself slowly, taking care to keep his body, and especially his head, concealed as much as possible. How brave he wanted to be in this moment, but he felt as if he were swallowing glass. Even with his hearing shot, the echoing pops that sounded across the river drummed heavily in his ears. Distantly, though standing right next to him, he could hear Maccready shout in frustration as his rounds quickly diminished. With a faint click the barrel was emptied and Shaun had gathered enough courage to make his move.

“Come on! This way!”

He could tell that he shouted much too loudly, but his voice was nothing but an annoying vibration in his skull. Without care for repercussion, he grabbed Maccready's sleeve only long enough to give it a hard tug before he took off running into the city. He knew the move was a dangerous one, but he also knew that right now Maccready would follow him wherever he went, and such an opportunity was disturbingly fortunate enough for his own plans.

With a speed that not even Shaun realized he was capable of exerting; he tore down the familiar street with only his destination in mind. He didn’t dare to stop or look back, desperately confident in Maccready's ability to keep both of them alive throughout this ordeal. Behind him the thundering grew closer, but from which gun he could not tell. Pushing his endurance, Shaun bolted through the doors of the church, almost coming to understand the holiness of salvation that people often prayed too.

His exhaustion tore him down the moment he barreled inside, skidding to a halt so abruptly that his body trembled and heaved with aftershocks. The sudden force that hit him weighed heavily down on his chest like a tight embrace, his skull pulsing with adrenaline. The hallowed walls were a shelter, a comforting force in the way they seemed to cradle him gently against the forces outside, and he was grateful for the few seconds of relief.

He had failed to spot the man who stood at the pulpit, so stricken by the chaos he faced that he focused only on the threats he knew of, oblivious to the dangers that could have lie ahead. He didn’t see how the man was caught off guard by his startling entrance, his gun poised as if to shoot but hesitating to do so. Instead, he was watching him curiously, back within the dark bowels of the inner sanctum, making no move to come forward or speak out to him, and it was only by the faint gleam from his pistol that Shaun finally noticed him standing there.

The man's appearance was all shadow and hard angles, and despite being aware pf each other none of them spoke. The man kept his arm steady and pointed at him, as if an unspoken reminder that only one of them held any power here, and that was the way it should remain. The stranger looked from Shaun then turned his gaze back towards the doors.

Behind him, Maccready burst through, frantically calling for his attention amidst the sea of voices trailing behind him. Unlike Shaun his senses were keener and more alert, and he spotted the stranger upon arrival, hardly coming to a stop before he aimed his rifle forward with intent to kill.

The man ducked below the pulpit, and Shaun reflexively threw his arms up and slammed them down along the barrel of the rifle. The force did little to knock the weapon loose from Maccready’s grip, but its aim was sharply diverted, and despite the vulnerability they held there were no shots from deeper within the church.

Without explanation, Shaun bolted towards the entrance, unaware that he had narrowly dodged Maccreadys attempt to strike him for his bold and idiotic actions. He was shouting at him, shocked and angered, but Shaun paid him no mind as he slammed the doors shut, focused solely on the rumble outside that grew louder as it came closer to them.

They were cornered in here, but there was nothing left for Shaun to do but take cover and hope for the best. Quickly, he ducked between the rows of pews and curled into himself, waiting for the inevitable and putting any semblance of faith he had towards Maccready.

Only seconds later the doors were blown open, ancient wood crushed and splintered as if it were no more than cardboard. Instantly the remaining hunters were set upon viciously by two lines of defensive fire, two fatally wounded at the threshold so that they crawled pathetically back down the stairs to bleed out on the streets. The last few among them had escaped death by only the fairest increments, and seeing they were at a severe disadvantage, backed away. One of the injured was taken with them, swearing retaliation and a death far more slow and painful than the one they would have been given had they accepted defeat from the start.

The other wounded lay slumped against the church steps, wheezing thinly as he attempting to gracefully save face while in his death throes, forced to watch his group leave without him. He looked ragged and hurt, but the pain of moving would be more so, and thus he leaned his head back and made no attempt to do anything else.Maccready aimed his rifle towards him, then lowered it, content to ration the bullets at the expense of a few unnecessarily prolonged last moments for someone else.

With the wheezing of the dying to fill the air, none of them thought it fit to say anything, nor to move from their respective positions just yet. A dreadful anticipation still loomed over them, and a true survivalist knows never to turn their back too soon, least something sink their teeth into it. The seconds creeped onwards at a tantalizingly heart-wrenching pace, each one straining their ears for something still more yet to come, but nothing emerged from beyond those broken church doors, and at last they were alone together.

Shaun was first to emerge, unfurling himself cautiously as even the faint ruffling of his clothes seemed to be unusually loud and noticeable amidst all the quiet. He held his breath as an animalistic precaution, listening for any sign of reprisal. He poked his head up just enough for his eyes to peer over the backs of the pews, watching Maccready as he stood rigid with his rifle still aimed at the empty streets, fingers firm and white.

Behind them, the floorboards squeaked, a faint mousy noise that instantly drew their attention. Maccready swung his rifle back, landing his aim on the stranger who still hide mostly concealed at the back, undoubtably having his own gun drawn and aimed at him in turn.

“W-wait!” Shaun forced himself to shout out, his voice strained and choked so that the most of what came out was only a garbled gasp.

He felt the hard eyes of both men upon him, but neither responded to him nor holstered their weapons. The hidden depths of the inner church protected the man, shielding him from Maccreadys determined will to kill him. Despite this, the stranger must have held Maccready in a clear shot, but strangely refused to take the advantage for what it was worth and held back.

Shaun took the initiative and urged his aching body to come to a stand, resting his weight on the pews to support his shaking legs. This motion drew more attention from Maccready who side-eyed him with greater agitation, shoulders hunched as if debating whether or not to take the risk and move closer to him.

“ Isaac !” He spit through his gritted teeth. Somewhere in the darkness the floorboards groaned.

“Wait a- a second,” Shaun gasped, “I...I don’t think that guy is one of them.”

If looks could kill then Maccready's rifle would be redundant, if not entirely useless, for the anger he put forth in his expression was far more terrifying than the loaded weapon in his hands. But still, Shaun stood his ground and met the gaze with a type of childlike innocence that he figured could explain his determination to settle things in this manner.

From behind the pulpit, the graveled, husky voice of its preacher called out to them.

“He’s right, for whatever that’s worth.”

Maccready’s attention snapped forward, his finger dangerously sliding along the curve of the trigger with a hateful eagerness.

“You! Shut your f*cking mouth!” He hiked one of his shoulders up and flicked his head back towards the doors. “And you! Stay low, and crawl towards me.”

“No, Maccre-”

“f*cking! Shut up!” Maccready cut him off. “Just-. Just stay down and come here!”

There was no use trying to appeal to his better nature, the flush thickness of his face showed that he was still in active pursuit, itching for something to tear into out of some primal cognition to eat before you yourself are eaten. It reminded him of when the Insitute tried to introduce a newly synthesized animal into a preoccupied enclosure. Without instinctual interference, sedation, and emotional bonding, they told him, the pack would take one look at the new animal and tear off its limbs. Nature was cruel and illogical, that’s why they fixed it. That was part of what made him unnatural, he didn’t have these ingrained survival impulses that got in the way.

Genetic recoding wasn’t possible, and even if he had a sedative, he figured that the man was liable to bite one of his fingers off rather than allow him to administer it. He had made an ally of one dangerous individual before, surely he could do it again.

Shaun used his fleeting strength to rise to full height, giving the stranger a perfect view of his head and torso, which he noted with a slight hitch of amusem*nt in his voice.

“There’s no need to act so hostile in a house of God, friend.” He called out to them. “ ‘sides, you’re far from supper to me anyway.”

Maccready looked torn, but his sights never left the darkness at the back of the church, trying to will himself into seeing beyond it and whoever lay hidden there. He had shouted for silence, for explanations, for Shaun to come to him, for the stranger to eat sh*t and die, but neither of them fired first. The man responded to none of it, content to let this circus play out in the church that he had claimed, but he perked up at Shaun’s polite inquiry.

“What’s your name?”

Maccready's hostility was boarding onto the absurd, but that question that Shaun dared to ask almost stumped him completely stupid. He was so taken aback by the put forward pleasantries that he ceased shouting and gaped at him with a dumbfounded expression.

The man behind the pulpit gave a small laugh.

“I much prefer you to your dad, kid. You can call me Nick-”

“I AIN’T HIS f*ckING DAD!”

The fury in which Maccready shouted took them both by surprise, and an awkward air settled around them. For all the times he had seen him infuriated, he had never before found so grim and terrible an expression. It was not merely the type of anger that gives rise to bloodlust and the force to strike down anything within your sights, it was a deep, blackened sort of pain that felt like slowly pulling teeth one by one. His shoulders did not shake or quiver, his eagerness to pounce replaced by a predator's calm intuition to wait and be vigilant. Whatever softness could have remained in those blue eyes had snuffed out, and yet there was a dull mist surrounding them, a pain of a different kind that lay nestled underneath.

The man gave a muffled apology, any snide remark he had left to stew as he took in the shift before him, keeping himself concealed and his voice faint.

Shaun witnessed the change with a foreboding sense of dread, and slowly raised his open palms in front of him in a gesture of harmless intent. He choked on his reply, but steadily refused to look at Maccready.

“M-my name...is Isaac,” his breath was short and irregular, the church suddenly sweltering and dusty and painful to remain in. “If...if we don’t shoot, do you promise to do the same.”

Maccready made no reply to that, his countenance unshaken. The man at the pulpit made a reply.

“.... sure,” he said slowly, “I'm game. So long as your ‘friend’ is. I don’t know how many times I gotta say I'm not a hunter, but I'll say it again just to be clear. I am not a hunter.”

“...ok then...”

Shaun let out a shaky breath as he looked from the dark sanctum of the church to Maccready. He made no move to lower his rifle, his gaze sharp and focused, the grip on his gun natural and firmly relaxed. He felt in control, unwavering, and he didn’t turn his head as Shaun took slow, methodical steps towards him. He walked painfully on pins and nails, agonizing slow as he crept towards Maccready the same way he often crept past his mother's door. Dust filtered down around them like snow, another thing he’s heard about in passing but had never, and will never, truly see for himself; each particle glistening with life as it caught the few rays of the sun that slithered through the door. He couldn’t bring himself to reach out to him, the boldness that had once overtook him now a soft and gentle thrum that urged him to stop within arm's length of his companion.

He swallowed around nothing, feeling his dry throat struggle against the motions. Maccready's breath was labored and calm, deep. Out on the church steps, the hunter’s breath drifted into a whisper.

“We-...we can’t just kill someone who isn’t a threat to us,” Shaun’s logic would have to prevail to a mindset that fully adjusted to a world were such generous thoughts often lead to one man devouring the other. Truly, there was the chance that the stranger was indeed a threat to them, who was to say? There was not even a tell at this moment that this was the person Shaun was supposed to meet, and even if he was, he was still choosing to believe that he wasn’t just walking directly into a trap, in spite of his better judgement. But there was always a chance, and until he knew for fact that the stranger had to die in order for them to be safe, he would never be able to justify killing him.

“Please.”

What would he do then if this didn’t work? How could he possibly stop the onslaught from worsening when he was outmatched? If he failed here, then he lost all explanation for his actions, he would have to face whatever came next and the failure to know what lay ahead was the most terrifying of all.

The floors at the pulpit groaned as the stranger stood upon them, and from the blackness a figure emerged with his palms raised and his gun missing. From his appearance, he looked nothing like the hunters he had seen; gaunt and loose-fitting clothing sheltering a lithe, wiry body, and a wizened, hard-set face that held a faint trace of kindness and hospitality. He stepped out into the light with a half-co*cked smile, a confidence that gave him the will to boldly come forth despite the rifle aimed at his heart.

He stepped down into the aisle and stopped, letting the two of them get a good look at him and the handle of the gun from where it lay cradled in his belt, far from his open hands. Maccready said nothing, eyeing him critically from his oversized shoes to his tousled hair. He looked old and tired, but skilled, a man very much like himself. A scar ran from his lip down to his chin, the top half of his left ear sliced away cleanly at a straight angle. He was thin, unhealthy skinny, but not malnourished and wasting. His chin was strong, and his cheeks were firm and rounded, pursing his mouth in a curtain of wrinkled flesh.

Maccready’s shoulders relaxed and his gun lowered, his face slack and apathetic. Saying nothing he turned and made his way through the doors. Shaun watched him pause at the threshold, scan the streets briefly, then descend down the steps. Along his way he passed the crumpled body that lay stiff on the steps, the man's broken body wheezing out its final breaths and he waited patiently to die. Maccready lifted his foot and pressed it to the man's throat, listening to the whisper cut off and the reflexive gurgling of blood bubble up in his windpipe. His face remained stoic and unreadable as he shifted his weight down so that the man's spine pressed painfully onto the wedge of the step behind him, looking down at his pained expression with inhuman disinterest.

Shaun was pulled from his display by a wispy call from behind him. The stranger was closer, but still kept his distance, and as Shaun turned to look at him his smile creased and he flicked his fingers towards himself, urging him to come closer. Shaun peeked back at Maccready to find him disappearing from sight, off to scour the bodies of valuables without a care of who they used to belong too, and he felt nausea. The stranger made another call to him, and he approached with his hands still raised to his chest.

“So,” the stranger began, eyeing him up and down in a way that made Shaun feel exposed and too aware of the fact that he was now alone with this man. “What brings you two over to church this early in the week?”

What day was it exactly? Shaun didn’t know. He had given up on remembering the passage of time at some point and had not bothered to reorientate himself on the matter. Even if the exact date was of little importance to him, which he had decided it was once he realized he had forgotten it, he also had no Immedient recollection on how long he had been out here in the Commonwealth. Each day felt like a year, each week a century, he could have been out here for months and now known it, though he doubted it had been that long.

This revelation had knocked him off course, and he had no time to afford pondering on such meaningless aspects.

“I’m looking for a ‘beat nick?’ I’m ‘pah-no-key-oh,’” he struggled with the pronunciation of the foreign words, the message on the holotape horribly mangled with odd syllables and indents. He spoke softly and carefully, aware that their meeting was supposed to be under covers, but still the man looked around precariously then fixed him with a harsh glare.

“You need to work on your subtly. Otherwise, you’re just pointless.” his tone lowered into a humorless candor, the co*cky friendless gone as business crept in.

“But yeah, I'm Beatnik. And it’s ‘Pinocchio’ for the record, get your code name right before you f*ck this up.”

Shaun made no reply, only nodding his head, his Insitute obedience recognizing that he was in the presence of authority and had to act as such.

The man tilted his head slightly, staring deeply into face as if searching for something. Shaun faltered underneath his gaze, withered down to a specimen as he waited anxiously for what was supposed to happen now that they had met. The holotape only told him to come to this location but gave no further instruction, he had to rely on his new co-conspirator to lead him towards whatever Deacon had planned for him.

Beatnik looked behind him, then finally spoke.

“You’re gonna come with me and meet some other people. Only some of them are expecting you, don’t say anything stupid and don’t talk to anyone if you can help it, but don’t stand out like a weirdo. I’m just the go-between guy, whatever he has in store for you, it’ll be found there.”

Once again Shaun nodded, staying silent as he digested the information. The man paused as if waiting for a reply, and when he didn’t receive one, he rolled his eyes and returned to the pulpit. From somewhere in the dark, he retrieved a bag, and as he stepped out towards the aisle he slung it over his shoulder, his face regaining that gentle kindness as Maccready walked in.

“The boy's hand looks pretty rough,” ‘Nick’ told him, “We don’t have any stims, but I know my way around a needle and thread. Our lot isn’t too far from here, I'd like you two to come along if you can.”

Shaun’s hand was still protected and hidden within his glove, and the certainty that this man possessed knowledge of him that he had not disclosed sent an iciness through him.

Maccready was lightly speckled with blood, his fingertips coated in a sticky film that he wiped without care on his pants. He looked calmer, but most definitely unfriendly, and he looked between Shaun and Nick with a look of disgust. Refusal seemed evident, but he fixed his eyes on Shaun's hand and shook his head.

“Whatever,” he said, “Lead the way.”

Chapter 6

Chapter Text

Their bodies were still warm.

That once gentle flush of color which had painted life within them should have begun to fade by now, swept away with the rest of their blood until they quietly faded into a pale facsimile of their former selves. Yet the overhead sun that enlightened the late afternoon was unbearable, and within its exposure their delicate flesh remained vividly scorched and seething; so tenderly pink that they seemed almost embarrassed by the circ*mstances they found themselves in, stiff and unmoving under their gaze as they passed by.

And still so gruesomely warm to the touch.

Even keeping his distance, he could so scarcely feel that nauseatingly familiar heat wafting off of them, and somehow, he imagined that it burned hotter and more fiercely than the light above them, settling terribly deep within his bones.

Forced to walk beside them, still feeling that disgusting warmth whenever he should stumble too close to them, he could only think of how long they would stay in that spot. Underneath this sun they would remain for hours, slowly cooking, and when the hour came for them to be found and eaten, they would still be pleasantly hot and fresh.

Not by way of his own hunger though, he would forever remain sure of that. Though the tightening ache of his empty stomach gave rise to increasingly demanding relief and occasional curious temptation, he would remain ignorant of the taste of human flesh. He would never hold that knowledge of what a sensation it must be to have that snapping pop of broken skin break beneath your teeth, that forbidden carnal flavor of a meat never meant to be consumed. Hunger had put these thoughts into his head, bred them and nurtured them against his pleading so that beneath the guilt and the horror there was that subtle and terrible longing. But he was still himself, and he would never submit to so primal an urge just because his body was slowly dying.

Others before him had already been consumed by that urge, and they in turn now consumed others. They had experienced that same feeling of painful emptiness deep within them and had sought to fill themselves by any means possible, often with little to no hesitation. They now sat full and grim with the flavor of another day’s survival rich on their palate, and they relished the feeling of success and comfort it gave them.

This he considered to be a fact, and Shaun would not question it. His stomach faced the throes of a different kind of pain whenever his gaze would fall upon eyes that were still open and a face still recognizably human. What did it mean in this world of starvation to look down on a body and know that what little humanity it still retained within its broken form would be discarded so carelessly in the hopes of a quick and easy meal? How easily was personage forgotten when those who were still living needed whatever they could find to stay that way? This thing that lay before him was dead and useless, nothing more than meat and tissue that could find a better use inside of someone's stomach; and yet its form was still bipedal, its hands possessed opposable thumbs, it wore clothing unlike other animals, and its face was marked by intense expression and familiarity.

And yet, in the end, it would be eaten all the same.

Despite the bleakness in this thought, it was with some consolation to know that they would at least be dead when it came time for them to be eaten. The fight in them had already been beaten down, the light within them snuffed out. They wouldn’t know what was happening, they wouldn’t feel the knives and the teeth slowly ripping them apart. They wouldn’t fight back, and they wouldn’t care anymore. From their perspective everything was already over. From Shaun’s perspective, the ache of the bite mark in hand burned and throbbed painfully, and he could hope that he would be granted this same mercy.

It was easy to lose himself to his own ghastly amidst the silence in their journey. Even Maccready was uncharacteristically quiet as they were led past the carnage of previous killings, enveloped in a foul mood more soured and malicious than what was typical for him. It drew Shaun's consistent vigilance towards him, keeping in check the smallest details of his person from the shuffling gait brought on from prosthetic leg to the slight slouching of his spine as he hunched his shoulders. In much the same regard he could tell that Maccready kept his own vigilance over their new acquaintance, evidently suspicious but cleverly cornered by half-truths and unfortunate circ*mstances.

Far from a pleasant situation to be in the middle of, but as long as Maccready was still under the impression that this was all due to Shaun’s injury then the rest would fall into place smoothly enough. “Beatnik” was not so much a trustworthy individual in his own eyes so much as he was a necessary one, ironically mirroring the relationship he currently held with Maccready, and furthermore probably true of most partnerships that existed out here. Mutualism brought on where parasitism wouldn’t flourish, each in turn scratching one another’s backs but constantly teasing the notion of letting their nails sink a little deeper within the skin each time.

It would be a pleasant surprise if the medical aid Beatnik promised him didn’t turn out to be completely fabricated, but surprisingly, nonetheless. In truth it was feasible to “unexpectedly discover” the supplies to be used up upon arrival, or, more likely, to be kept just out of grasp until his assignment reached competition. Coming to expect this he realized it would be pointless to air grievances to the fact that his wound was too warm, and daring to raise his hand close to his nose, he noticed it now carried a sickeningly organic scent. Everyone present knew that this could no longer be safely ignored. The bandages had not been replaced since the wound was wrapped, nor had the area been cleaned since. A bubbling uneasiness crept through him, tickling his insides at the notion of finally peeling back the layers of gauze and discovering what was beginning to fester within his own flesh. Even the mere thought sent hot trickles shooting down his arm, and his palms felt itchy and hot within his gloves.

Still, he held his tongue, and was grateful that each in turn proceeded to do the same as well. The foundation of this peculiar company was already built on distrust and lies, the most damning thing to break apart such a fragile alliance could have easily been a few choice words spoken carelessly. A thick tension vibrated among them, waiting to find a weak spot to pummel in which case the whole operation would be blown open and Shaun wouldn’t know where to proceed henceforth. Thankfully though, even Maccreadys quiet self-mumblings were halted and neither man seemed particularly eager to attempt at small talk, and thus an equilibrium was temporarily achieved, uncomfortable though it was.

Further discomfort had been wrought by the bloody trail in which they were forced to retrace. The short trek to the supposed settlement had led them back along the very streets they had fled from, leaving Maccready's carnage on voyeuristic display. No attempt was made to loot these particular bodies, already condemning them to un-personhood as they began nothing more than roadside markers to count their steps. The two men seemed completely unaffected by the sights strewn about them, but though he kept his eyes focused ahead of him, Shaun could not shake the uneasiness in having to walk in the wake of such intolerable bloodshed.

It was here that Shaun had put his complete faith in Maccready capabilities and abandoned him to whatever should come next, all to bring about these circ*mstances that were not coincidental. Though the hunters held such a tactful advantage over them, and their numbers were at least a dozen strong at the beginning of their ambush, almost half of them now laid dead at the foot the bridge alone. Many had tried and failed to simply reach cover on the other side, and only the lucky few who made it could only survive a few meters further. Each shot should have been considered a miracle, a mark of success for someone whose prowess won out in the end despite the odds against him, but it only further confirmed that Maccready was a person of severely dangerous capabilities. If he held any ire regarding Shaun's actions then he chose to disclose it yet, but all the same he would continue to keep the man at a distance, though perhaps not a distance that a sniper could feasibly take advantage of.

It was by sheer coincidence that the body of a single hunter should have fallen directly within the crossroads at the very foot of the bridge, and yet Beatnik took full advantage of its grim placement to mark precisely the turning point they were to take. A sharp right had led them east away from the bridge and down along the riverside road, and the step into unfamiliar territory was taken.

As unsettling as it was to gaze upon the ancient destruction that had given the wasteland its very definition, it was perhaps more so unnerving to find evidence of recent habituation nestled within the corpses of the past. The further along the river they were taken the more the old life of the city gave way to a newer, lesser life that sprung from its bones like a growing fungus. Here the crumbling edifices of prewar architecture were stripped open and laid bare, only to be crudely patched over by scavenged material to make little homely pockets of shelter. Such constructions grew in number and complex design until they overtook each other and became hom*ogeneously intertwined, clustering like insect nests. He could only presume these dwellings to be emptied as of now, the parasites incubated within having finally crawled out of their shells and setting off to build new hives somewhere untainted, but he was not alone in being affected by this oppressive atmosphere.

A restive suspicion was beginning to show blatantly upon Maccready’s face, and he made no show of trying to suppress it. He surveyed the neighborhood in all its deplorable condition with quick, sharp jerks of his neck, inhaling the reality of the little pocket nests with a sort of dawning realization washing over him. The veins along his throat had pulsed under extreme tension as he ground his teeth so furiously, and with such unrestrained persistence, that Shaun was anticipating to hear a sickening crunch spill from his mouth at any moment. By way of this agitated display Shaun retained his caution and kept his own sharp glances flittering about him, though his eyes would often drift towards Beatnik and the absolute calm disposition he held as he led them along.

Their journey was relatively short, and within minutes they were brought before the outskirts of the aforementioned encampment. Under certain conditions could this construction possibly pass as a settlement, and it was presumably the low standards brought on by lack of resources that made such a squat little plot a home to those who dared to call it one. From the outside the place appeared as a labyrinth of free-standing planks and pallets of every conceivable size and condition prostrated next to one another to form a set of walls, ineffectively separating the innards of the city from the world beyond. Quilted irregularly by whatever material scraps could constitute a barrier, most of what remained standing in solid condition did little to provide any real protection, and thus the wall seemed to function more as a sort of privacy curtain than a defensive measure. Peering out from atop the uneven line of the wall were a small handful of rooftops and the rise of a great concrete structure that could only be pre-war in origin and acted as the heart of which the colony was built around. Despite the easily penetrable nature of the settlement, a stationary bus with its side doors splayed open acted as a sort of official entry point, and it was here that Beatnik made to lead them inside and Maccready’s patience had finally run out.

Beatnik had brought himself to the doors with smooth confidence, though he had only just placed a single foot of his upon one of those small, plastic lined steps of the bus when he was brought to a sudden halt.

“Who the f*ck do you think you are, bringing us here?”

The question was struck forth raw and stinging like a harsh and unexpected slap across the face, and Shaun had felt a strange tingling in his own palms at the thought. Such an abrupt awakening into the reality they were in, breaking apart that peaceful silence that had enveloped them so unproblematically since their departure from the church. Its effect was profound on Shaun, instantly causing him to recoil and cower within the brief pause that followed, anticipating something foul to come of it. Such a tone was not typically left to smolder without due repercussion, his own experience with Maccready’s unpredictable actions setting him alight with anxiety so that he looked fretfully towards the voice with the expectation that he was to be punished for something he did.

To have such a strong knee-jerk reaction was becoming second nature, even to a question that was not even proposed towards him, yet in spite of what Shaun believed to be an obvious danger, Beatnik had remained completely unfazed by the outburst.

If indeed Maccready’s frightful tone had any effect on him, then Beatnik had long since mastered the art of not letting intimidation show. Somehow, he retained complete control over his body, keeping it in a relaxed state so much so that not even a single muscle had twitched or tensed when unexpectedly prodded at. It was a collected state that Shaun had only ever known coursers to be capable of, though even then they had never shown such a casual and almost lazy demeanor. His expression was absolutely neutral, perhaps even a bit bored, if one could be so daring as to suggest such a thing, and it sent uncomfortable chills trickling down to Shaun’s stomach.

“I already told you,” he begun, his voice steady and composed with a slight twinge of amusem*nt, as if trying to keep the conversation light and agreeable. “I brought you here because I wanted to take a look at the bo-”

Maccready was absolutely shameless in the way he cut of the man mid-sentence, and Shaun felt a strange flush of embarrassment for being associated with him at this moment.

“You know damn well what I f*cking meant. What kind of business do you having in a f*cking Sicko colony?”

Another very short pause, undoubtably due Beatnik turning his explanation over in his head, trying to find a way to form the correct arrangement of words that would hopefully nullify the growing hostility unfurling before him, though Shaun found the seconds to be much too long for his poor nerves to handle. It was as if the air between them had begun to coagulate, and slowly it was starting to fill his lungs like water. While he certainly couldn’t speak out against the question, even if crudely put it was still reasonably sound under the present circ*mstances, he still took in each of their responses with a critical lens and picked the words apart piece by piece while they argued.

Beatnik had careened his head back slightly and gave his best attempt at a non-suspicious smile, which in this context did little to cement his own innocence and only further set the both of them on edge.

“A home’s a home. Nothing more valuable in this world than a friendly neighbor, can’t afford to be picky as to who it-”

“I wouldn’t accuse someone’s standards as being unfairly picky,” Maccready interrupted once again, “and I certainly wouldn’t sink so low as to call this place a home .”

A dangerous tension was vibrating between them, and Shaun felt it resonate deep within his bones. It could have very well been his own fear of being caught in the middle of this argument and having all of his secrets exposed, or perhaps even loosing this fleeting chance that was presented to him and orchestrated so well that he made the foolishly bold move to insert himself into the argument.

He spoke out in a shamefully hushed voice, his words drifting pathetically out so that they almost dispersed completely on the wind. He choked, catching Beatnik’s gaze in curiosity, and he cleared his throat a little too loudly before speaking up once more.

“What’s a Sicko Colony?”

At the sound of his lithe voice Maccready instantly snapped his head so sharply in his direction that Shaun could almost swear on his life that he heard some kind of trickling snap resound from his neck. His gaze was heated, almost shrouded by anger as was to be expected of him, but then that familiar anger lopped into something like bewilderment and his face showed a very animated surprise almost akin to horror as his words finally settled over him.

Beatnik’s response in comparison was much duller, though his grin had taken a bit of smug look to it. He curved his eyes back and forth between the two of them, taking in Maccready’s reaction as if predictable, and he made no attempt to be the first to answer Shaun’s inquiry.

A grimace wormed its way across Maccready’s face, his lips pursed in a peculiar way so that it aged him by a few decades and hollowing out his mouth in a gruesome, almost toothless manner that repulsed him. His gaze fell away from him, staring awkwardly at the ground near Shaun’s feet but incapable of meeting his eyes. When he finally turned back towards Beatnik his sights were piercing with an intense disgust, and he spoke loudly to the both of them.

“It’s a...it’s a f*cking...” he struggled to provide a suitable answer, each word marked by an exasperated sigh or awkward fumble of syllables.”... den of spoiled meat that not even the hunters will f*cking bother to pick at.”

When he finally managed to spit out that sentence his composure seemed to return, and he stated clearly and with an authoritative air, “We’re not going in there.”

Shaun turned his head back towards Beatnik, silently awaiting his response in the hopes that he could find another foothold in which to insert himself into their debate before their conflicting personalities officially nullified this meeting altogether. But as it so happened, the moment Shaun flicked his gaze back over to the bus he noticed a slight movement from beyond the doors, and he fell deaf to whatever Beatnik said next.

The figure was blurry, obstructed from view by both distance and cover, but its form was undeniably human in shape, and Shaun subconsciously leaned himself forward so as to try and view it better. Whoever it was listening in to their little spat, they leered just out of sight in a very peculiar manner, shuffling on their feet awkwardly and occasionally throwing their arms about in a violent spasm that made their form questionably disproportionate, until Shaun realized it was not a single person huddling behind the door.

This time he leaned his body back, allowing himself to peer into the colony through the little slivers of space between the planks that made up the wall. Though most of what lay inside was obfuscated by junk and clustering buildings, he could make out that a number of the settlement’s inhabitants had grown curious to the noises outside their door and had come to take a look. Their exact features were listless as they stood huddled together like frightened cattle, but it was obvious that they were a haggard and unclean bunch, though that was unsurprising and too ambiguous as to the very nature of this place.

Though, the horrid smells of the commonwealth had seemed to have subtlety increased without his noticing. Most everywhere had some sort of foul stink that lingered on the air and permeated every surface it touched, though some places were almost indescribably strong and putrid. He had figured that a place where people resided would presumably produce such filth and squalor, though the wind had been in his favor up to now, and the people had not been crowding as close as they could to the outside, and thus he failed to notice just how absurdly putrid this place must have truly been. A savory bitterness was lingering on the back of his throat, and the heat of the afternoon only fermented the sensations so that he felt as though he would gag if he continued to focus on it.

By then his attention was brought back to the issue at hand, and the smell seemed to linger along Beatnik as he continued to goad them inside.

“Come on,” he prodded, his voice taking on a sort of teasing lightness that Shaun thought was risky, “it’s not the worst thing that’s been going on. I can promise that you and the boy are gonna be fine, nobodies gonna end up on someone else’s dinner plate. They’re not that kind of people.”

Maccready had remained unconvinced, though his attitude was less standoffish by way of concern and more so a kind of general repulsion, and his reply took Shaun by great surprise.

“That’s not exactly what I’m most concerned about here.”

With his own stomach twisting itself into knots with nothing to fill it with, it was inconceivable to him how Maccready’s suspicions could possibly be placed anywhere else. The scarcity was a well-established plight, and even with his limited experience Shaun could feel the weight of its burden steadily crushing him down, its influence seen behind every action like a shadow that followed in his wake. Maccready had been here for years, had suffered under this famine for so long that it had undoubtably changed him in ways that would forever stay with him.

So, what was beyond those doors that he was so hesitant to face?

He watched as Beatnik shook his head lightly, amusem*nt playing on his face as if Maccready’s actions were a gross exaggeration he could hardly take seriously.

“There’s no need to get so worked up about it,” he said. “I can guarantee that they’re gonna be more scared of you than you are of them.”

The way in which he phrased that statement, combined with a certain slyness in his tone, had bothered Shaun in a peculiar way he could not express. He was speaking of them as if they weren’t shrouded only a few feet behind him, addressing them as if they were a herd of frightened animals. If this was supposed to have a calming effect on them, to make them believe that something wasn’t amiss in this place, then it didn’t work as intended.

Maccready took a particular offense to this, though not in the same way that Shaun had.

“I’m not scared of a bunch of f*cking Sickos.”

There was that word again, that emphasis in the way he spoke that implied a greater significance to the people that lived here. It stood out not as a description, not his mere opinion of the citizens here, but as the proper name for what they were. Shaun could see the cluster behind the doors undulating in strange movements, crowding around each other as they pushed forward to look sneak a curious look at the outside. There was a wrongness to them that he couldn’t define just yet, too out of focus to see the details of their face or the way they carried themselves, but he could tell that something about them wasn’t right, and so he played his best guess.

“Are the people in there...” he hesitated, afraid that the cluster could overhear what he was about to ask. “Are they....physically ill?”

That was the only way he could think of to ask, and even then, he felt as though he had just taken a drastic step in the wrong direction. He had spoken as if he was asking something sacrilegious, like a dirty secret, and indeed it very well must have been for both of them looked to him with a pitiable and ashamed expression, letting his words linger for a bit before answering.

“They’re not...” Maccready attempted to speak up, only to stop himself and turn himself away from Shaun before continuing. “...not just physically, yeah?”

His voice was quiet and clipped, unbecoming of someone who as of now had been so full of spit and venom. His stern demeanor had all but withered away, only to be replaced by a sort of melancholy, and if Shaun could see his face, he would dare to think it might have been reddened by something other than rage for once. Even Beatnik’s attitude had shifted, settling down without heart and sureness as he sighed audibly.

“Look,” he started, and the drop in his voice seemed to exude exhaustion and weariness. “People make all sorts of bad choices when things get rough. Can’t really blame ‘em for it in the end, no matter what happens people are gonna look for something to make things a little easier, consequences be damned.”

He wet his lips, looking back from Maccready, who stood silent, then to Shaun, who stood confused.

“Your friend’s right though. Hunters don’t mess with these kinda places, not typically. I can promise you that you’d be safer here than anywhere else; as much as it means to be safe anymore, for what that’s worth.”

After he finished his piece, they all stood silently on the streets, taking a short pause for each to collect themselves. For all the lies he’s probably been telling, this was arguably the most truthful Beatnik had been since they met, and the thought only made Shaun feel weak and out of breath. A faint whisper of croaking voices echoed from the settlement, though the most that could be heard was the occasionally raspy coughing fit that seemed to plague so many of its inhabitants.

“It’s just...” Maccready finally spoke up, looking at neither of them, but staring blankly at the top of the wall. “It’s not a place for kids to be in.”

His tone was firm but carried none of its usual heat.

“The boy looks old enough to know, not that most really factor age into anything anymore.”

Maccready’s face hardened at that fact which he knew to be true, as if the idea of arguing against it was just a futile was claiming the sky wasn’t blue or that objects fall to the ground by way of gravity. It was the reality of this world, but still he carried himself as if prepared to fight a losing battle until the very end, and Shaun could not afford to have him digging his heels into the matter any further.

“My hand still really hurts,” he pleaded with him, though he kept his tone firm so as to show he was not bending to any argument.

Somehow the effort it took to keep his voice steady was not an impossible feat, and he felt certain that one way or another he was most definitely going to enter this settlement before the end of today.

“If it doesn’t at least get cleaned soon, it’s going to get worse.”

Maccready’s tenacity was an unyielding thing, and yet his retort had curled and died on lips. The look he gave him was one of intense regret, judgmental in Shaun’s own resistance to him but with a strange twinge of depression. He looked utterly defeated, though not a broken individual, and the painful look he held in his eyes was almost too much to bear witness to.

Neither of them spoke any further, and thus Beatnik had decided the argument had come to a close and turned back toward the gates.

“I’ll start getting everything set up. I keep towards the back, you’ll see it.”

And with that, he disappeared inside, and the two of them were alone in each other's company once more.

At least with his departure, Shaun found the air a little more tolerable to breathe, though the heavy scent of filth and sickness still permeated each lungful he took in. From beyond the doors, he could see the shadowy figures shift and pull away, dissipating into the depths of their colony. He looked towards Maccready, who simply eyed the bus doors with a conflicted apprehension as he quietly mumbled something to himself.

Shaun finally took a step forward and made to follow Beatnik’s trail before they lost him to whatever they were about to enter, but Maccready quickly stopped him.

“Wait...just...”

That poor disposition he wore had seemed so foreign to him, and so damning in its defeat, that it filled Shaun with a terrible apprehension and gave himpause to consider that perhaps Maccready had been right to avoid this place. Perhapsit was not too late for them to wash their hands of this affair and continue onwards somewhere else. If he had made that proposal to him just then, had givenhim one final out before they both took this plunge, then was it better for him to just take it? Was it really just nerves that made this place seem so dreadful to an outsider, or was there really something dangerous lurking within?

Maccready, though, did not attempt to stop him. Instead, he settled himself right next him, far closer than he ever typically dared to keep himself.

“Just...stick close to me for now, ok?”

Shaun didn’t miss the odd twitching in his hand, the way he flexed his fingers as he brought his hand up only to quickly shoot it down back to his side.

“And try not to stare at them. We’ll be out of here quickly.”

It wasn’t entirely clear who’s comfort that statement was meant for, since Maccready seemed just as hesitant over entering, and kept whispering to himself as he led them forward. Shaun welcomed the pace and quickly fell into line behind him, keeping just enough space between them to avoid any unnecessary physical contact and yet remaining close enough so that he was grazed by his warmth. Uncomfortable as it was, Maccready’s back provided suitable cover for Shaun to hide his own shocked expression once they finally entered the colony.

He realized instantly why this place was so infamously avoided by even the most bloodthirsty and desperate of the Commonwealth.

It was disgusting.

The stench was hardly an indicator was to the true state of the living conditions the people here were subjected to, and it shocked him more to think that these conditions were of their very own making. They could not have possible found in a comfort in living amongst such filth and squalor, with open waste left to sour and stink in the open streets so that many of them, Shaun and Maccready included, were forced to trudge through them and follow the slimy trials deeper into the city. But the condition of the colony was nowhere near as horrifying as its people.

“Unwashed” was the first thing to come to mind, though so basic and simplified a term did not begin to describe it. It was not merely that all of them had fallen so dangerously out of practice in caring for their own health and appearances, it was that the majority of them had progressed to a state where it was nigh impossible to manage the upkeep. They were physically ill, with many of them displaying open pustules and wounds that festered with grueling diseases so that they appeared more dead than alive. That thing he had encountered once, the thing Danse referred to as a “ghoul” seemed a close comparison to how wasted away their bodies had become, and he fought the urge to vomit out nothing but spittle and bile while they could still clearly see him.

A good number of them had kept watch over them as they wandered in, though their eyes were glassy and fogged, most likely seeing shapes moving ahead of them but taking in none of the details and forgetting they were even there after they moved out of sight. Others simply ignored them, either lost to the throes of their illnesses and shaking upon the ground with no one to care for or help them, or merely huddling away in some corner mumbling to themselves and pulling out the remains of their hair. The few that seemed to keep a sharper mind had a wide variety of opinions they let show, from fear to mistrust to pity, as they let them pass by without interruption.

Beatnik’s living quarters, if indeed that is what it was, were kept far in the back towards the river, a small two-story shack built into the foundation of the wall. He was waiting for them at the door, speaking to someone kept inside at a table spread out with a few medical items of questionable condition. Maccready had eyed the other stranger curiously, maintaining his air of hostility so that he appeared distrustful and quick to anger, though Shaun could see that when left to himself he seemed weirdly embarrassed, and his face held a perpetual pink hue.

“This is my friend David,” Beatnik offered, “he’s better at stiches, so he’s gonna be the one to take a look at ya.”

Shaun gave a polite introduction, though it was obvious to them both that he was shell-shocked from what he had witnessed and was barely able to keep his composure. Maccready said nothing, keeping his eyes to the ground as he fumbled around for something in his pockets, biting so fiercely at his lip that it swelled in irritation. He brought out a pack of cigarettes just as Shaun sat himself down at the table.

“I would prefer if you didn’t smoke inside,” David told him, “not that it would really do much, but it bothers my lungs and I'd rather not have a coughing fit while I'm working here.”

Maccready flashed him a heated gaze as he snapped his teeth around one of his sticks, but he still turned on his heel as he pushed his way outside. For a moment it seemed as though he would stay just within the doorframe, so that Shaun would remain within his sights, but then he looked out towards the rest of the colony and grimaced. Flicking his lighter in his fingers he stepped out to the side of the shack and disappeared from view, unknowingly leaving Shaun alone with these men just as they had intended.

“We have a lot to discuss and not a lot of time,” David whispered to him.

He picked up a bottle of clear liquid and a rag, urging him to remove his glove. The sensation of the thick leather gliding across his aching palms was terrible, and he felt the edges of the wound throb painfully as they were released from the pressure. David was gently in the way he took hold of his wrist and removed the wrappings, and the sight of his torn flesh coming to view had gruesomely captivated him.

“I’ll answer your questions if I can, cause I imagine you got a lot of them,” David said, and he quickly ripped off the gauze covering that had fused deep into the exposed tissue of his palm, forcing Shaun to stifle a pained yelp with his undamaged hand.

“But first, I need to tell you about this that job you’re going to be doing for us.”

Chapter 7

Chapter Text

As it turned out, the bite was not as grievous as it appeared.

Though it was far from the first wound he had ever received, he had dreadfully anticipated a worse fate for his poor hand. The bite was more severe than the accidental loss of his tooth or that sprain in his thumb that he had gotten as a result of his minor floundering within the Insitute; and so traumatic were its origins that he had built within him this imagine of flayed, rotten tissue crumbed with festering and oozing diseases no doubt inspired by those people (the “Sickos”, as they were to be called) that he had witnessed outside.

Such as their name suggested, as it was crassly explained to him, they had suffered from plagues on both the body and the mind, and thus they had come to be outcasted and shunned as per their history.

It had started with the chems, the substances of which produced intense feelings both wonderful and dreadful, and of which they had grown an intense and unbreakable attachment too. The effects on the body, no matter how low and controlled the quantities, were profound and terrible, but nonetheless people had forfeited all sense of caution and care to subject themselves to the throes of sensation unlike any other.

When political strife began to heighten into extremes, the details of which were too long and arduous to be discusses with him as of this point, many had used them as an escape; a means of which to feeling again in an unfeeling world, whether it be a peaceful bliss or burning anger. Merely something to distract the mind from what was happening around them.

Many had cited this deliberate ignorance as part of the reason the famine had started. They were too distracted or too sick to work, they broke apart and shattered the budding economy by favoring chems over necessities of actual importance. They were an easy and acceptable target, their own struggles left unacknowledged so that no one cared to think that perhaps the famine had affected them greater than most. Trapped in a vicious cycle of self-destruction, driven by hunger but battling the vices of addiction and forced to choose between survival and relief. The food scraps and the drug rations ran thinner and thinner with each passing day, and they fought with teeth and fingernails until they tore themselves apart and nothing more was left of them.

Of the few that survived, there was no underhanded or foolish method they did not try, desperate to subject themselves to intoxication by any means possible. They huffed the gases from human waste, they drank water in such quantities that it made them dizzy and sick, they choked one another until they passed out and some did not wake up again. The people who did not partake had looked at them with pity at their most favorable and subjected them to their own uncontrivable anger at worst.

Eventually, the world around them died away, and the only thing that prospered in its place was disease. Those that did not die by way of starvation were left to fight against cancer that ate away at their flesh, of fevers that boiled them alive from the inside and melted their brains into soupy mixtures that could tell neither time nor day. Many were cared for, by loved ones still clinging to hope for a day in which all of the pain and suffering would disappear and life would resume as it had before, perhaps even better.

But of those that were not cared for, they were left to fester and rot, unseen and forgotten. Of the particularly creative, some had even embraced the diseases, for it took away the sensations of hunger and brought them into a fevered and clouded state of mind, much more tolerable to endure for what little life they would still live from then on.

All of this David had explained in much shorter words during his surgery, as well as the fact that his name was not actually David and that his codename was “Chariot.”

He was also given his mission, of which the finer details were undisclosed due to a supposed lack of importance, unless he was to be brought back for more complicated work. As of now that was still undecided.

There was a weapons cache being held for them at Irish Pride Shipyards, hidden away in a spot that not even Chariot knew the exact location of. There were clues that he was to use to uncover it, and then he was to deliver it back here. Simple enough work that either of the agents could have done themselves, but of which it was now burdened unto Shaun for reasons they either did not know or did not care to explain to him.

Not that they needed to. He could hazard enough guesses as to what Deacon was planning with him.

Any complications that could arise had all centered around Maccready, for they believed his journey safe enough to be done alone. But if Maccready were to insist on staying within his company, which he undoubtably would, then certain precautions had to be undertaken, since he was a dangerous and known threat.

That was how Chariot described him, at least, and though Shaun could not exact dispute that claim, he had noticed a shift in the way he spoke once they left alone with each other. During their introduction he had held himself in a calm, yet friendly manner, a certain gentleness that suggested intense exhaustion to conflict and made him appear old and nonthreatening. Once Maccready stepped out for a smoke, Beatnik had followed after him with his own, and Chariots tone had dropped deep within his throat so that he sounded grizzled and unpleasant. His speech was short and punctual, and he always spoke as if Shaun's presence were a blight upon his day, which it very well could have been.

He wondered, briefly, if it was also blackmail that drove him to his deplorable little patch of the Commonwealth, to cater to the whims of someone who toyed with him and played with him from the depths of the shadows. In that case, they both were in similar circ*mstances, yet their compassion towards each other was not great, and they both seemed eager to escape from each other's presence.

Maccready returned, alongside Beatnik, just as Chariot was wrapping his newly sewn stitches with some fresh and mostly still-white bandages. The procedure had been a painful one, and it showed by the red tenderness of his face and the little droplets of tears that he couldn’t help building upon his lashes, but he still clung to each word with clarity and was not distracted from his purpose. He let his hand rest on the tabletop, silently wishing for the dull throb to ease down as he took steady, controlled breaths. Maccready looked at this work with an unreadable expression, calmer since his break, but still flaring irregularly with undisclosed yet vivid emotions. He wished him to be capable of playing niceties for appearances sake at the very least, but he was all too quick to speak of business with a very obvious desire to leave quickly.

“So,” he had begun in a most blunt and impolite manner, and Shaun had to suppress the urge to sigh audibly for what was undoubtably going to be another difficult conversation.

“What exactly are you asking for? For the boy’s hand?”

He gestured vaguely in Shaun’s direction without taking his gaze off “David.” It was evident with the way he threw his hand about carelessly and the neutral displeasure he painted over himself that he was attempting to appear indifferent, and perhaps even a bit threatening should he be told something he didn’t wish to hear. Though, none of them had been blind to his previous behavior, and the image of his startled and uncomfortably embarrassed expression was still very fresh in all of their memories. He stood with one hand pressed firmly into his hip, while the fingers of his other tapped impatiently against his thigh.

Chariot leaned back in his chair, already easing into the role of his own false personality, which was better refined and believable so that only one that was aware of the deception could have perceived it. How startling it was to see how drastically the features of a person’s face could change with only a smile and a fake tenderness showing in their eyes. His pause did not seem menacing, merely the ponderings of an older soul, and he looked briefly at Shaun’s bandage before turning back to Maccready.

“As it so happens,” he said, “I’m in need of a bit of a helping hand myself.”

Maccready exhaled a slow and labored breath, flaring out his nostrils in an undignified manner. Already Shaun could see that this was the beginning of an argument.

“Unless it’s something cheap, then you’re out of your mind to think a simple stitch job is enough to get me running errands for you.”

Though he knew this to all be par for the course, Shaun still could not help the way he flushed in embarrassment over Maccready’s rude and disagreeable tone. Of course, he was just acting in a way that most likely had benefited his survival up to now, and it wouldn’t surprise him to know that most bartering of any kind would consist of this same tight-lipped snapping until a suitable middle ground was achieved. That still did not make any of this the more bearable to witness, and he found it particularly distasteful considering Maccready’s own ignorance of the circ*mstances. He knew nothing of the set-up, from his perspective “Nick” and “David” had just been kind strangers willing to help someone and only asked for something in return after going through the motions of suturing his wound. If indeed they had been nothing more than such, then Shaun would have jumped to their defense, but as it stood, he only waiting patiently for Chariot to propose the mission in a way that it made it seem agreeable for him to undertake, however he planned to do that.

Chariot made a little show of scratching the bottom of his chin with one of his long and grimy fingers, as if he were thinking over how to phrase his next question even though Shaun presumed he had everything in their interaction mapped out from the start.

“Then I suppose, I could offer you something more?” he said. “If that would entice you?”

Maccready tried to hold strong in his expression, though curiosity and doubt were still to be found deep in his harrowed gaze.

“Depends on what you’re offering.”

Though Chariot kept his voice gentle and even friendly, Maccready was impartial to his charms, and each sentence he spoke was spat forth like an insult.

“Well,” he offered. “I have caps. Plenty of ‘em.”

Maccready’s expression deadpanned, and his voice had thrummed down to a low simmer of its former self.

“Pointless.”

Chariot barked out a laugh, a deep-throated and grumbling sound that reminded Shaun of the way pebbles would sound when they ground underneath his shoe.

“Don’t I know it!” he spoke in amusem*nt. “I’m sitting on a mountain of the damn things and can’t find a single use for ‘em.”

Caps he knew to be a sort of currency, one that the Insitute was reluctantly forced to adopt during the periods in which they had business with the surface world, but which they never used among themselves. The exact economics were never taught to him, though he had often overhead discussions of credits and the way in which their own government systems far surpassed the Commonwealth in both efficiency and integrity. The concept of money was never something he had a use for, though he understood it to be valuable, and as such the idea that they were to turn the money down had taken him aback some.

He looked to Maccready then, hoping to find a better understanding on the way bartering was to work out here, but was perplexed by the small changes in his expression. It was clear he was keeping himself stone-faced, for whatever reason at that moment, yet there were subtle twitches in the flesh under his eye, and the top side of one of his lips quivered as if he were straining himself somehow. He said nothing, only watching Chariot as he made himself comfortable in his chair before continuing.

“How’s about a portion of the cache then?”

Shaun returned his sights back to the table, hoping that recognition would not show on his face. In honesty he had not expected his offer to extend like this, and it made Shaun a little nervous.

“What cache?” Maccready asked.

“The one I'm asking you to retrieve for me,” Chariot explained. “You collect this on my behalf, and I'll give you twenty-five percent of it as payment.”

The proposal was not a bad one on paper, but frankly, neither had the money seemed at first. Had Shaun been alone and bartering under different circ*mstances, he probably would have accepted the payment along with the job without little extra thought in regards to this side of arrangement. He could have concerned himself with the details of the job itself, the dangers, the locations, rather than the actual value of his reward. And that only showed him how ill-equipped he was to deal with these sorts of things, for Maccready had instantly poked a hole through his offer.

“You’re asking us to collect something for you? Why wouldn’t we just take it for ourselves?”

The idea had never crossed his mind as a possibility, but for Maccready, it was probably the first, and it made the job seem all the more suspicious to him. Of course, they had their own effective method to ensure Shaun’s compliance, that was a given, but how could they persuade Maccready to act in their own best interests? The answer was to push the responsibility onto Shaun.

“Oh, no need to be so hard, mister.” Chariot said, completely unfazed by his question. “Your friend vouched on your trustworthiness, and I don’t think the boy would want to do any wrong here.”

Quite a clever bastard he was though, he had to give him credit for playing such a risky hand so ingeniously. Of course, this would have backed Maccready into a corner, and of course it would fall to Shaun to keep him in line and ensure this deal worked out for everyone the way it was meant to. He didn’t need to see the incredulous look that Maccready gave to him just then, he could feel it piercing hot against his skin, a perfect accoutrement to his already reddened face.

“Is that so?”

“Quite.” Chariot said. “And I am in desperate need of a trustworthy person’s assistance in securing and delivering this property.”

Maccready was silent for a moment, flicking his gaze between Shaun and Chariot as he picked absentmindedly at his nails. His demeanor was critical, yet even Shaun could tell that he had been successfully played and drawn in.

“What kind of cache are we securing?”

Chariot let his face morph into an uneasy doubt, building up his walls just high enough to let it show he was hesitating.

“I’m sure it stands reasonable enough that I ask for confirmation before I disclose any further information. Surely you understand.”

That raised his temper some. For a moment the two of them bickered back and forth, dancing around the issue of what exactly the cache contained, accusations of deceit and mistrust being flung back and forth but expertly so. Despite Maccready’s infamous temper Chariot seemed to be able to navigate the minefield of his emotional state so as to keep him from suddenly exploding, successfully curving each of his points in a manner that kept him semi-collected. He kept him talking, he kept him roped into the conversation instead of giving him a way to cut himself out, and he let him chip away at his walls to give him the illusion that he was winning in their little spat, eventually coming to reveal the final hook that he would use to ensure his complacency in the deal.

“It’s food,” he admitted. “Some old Brotherhood MREs that had been hidden between transports when they started attacking the caravans.”

That answer did not seem to surprise him, a sly look crossing over his face as Chariot filled him in on the necessary details to cement his lie. The run-down of the mission was almost the same, though he had presented it differently. He got the tip-off from a reliable source and would have easily secured it himself if not for a few unsavory characters lurking around the area, all they had to do was retrieve it for him and bring it back, and he was willing to sacrifice some of the goods to them if they should be successful. It wasn’t an unreasonable request, and Maccready took to his proposal as if considering it, and indeed he was most likely pondering the possibilities of what they would face and how they would go about it, but Shaun could tell that acceptance was imminent.

Apprehensive dread had begun to curl and twist around in his empty stomach, a sickening uneasiness settling deep within him as he watched the negotiation play out before him. It was a tactical move on Chariots' part to bring the subject of food into the discussion, far easier to work with when considering how difficult the present company was, and yet, it made Shaun feel dirty with his role in the deception. The famine was no joke, and its effects were so devastating that even the most hardened and hesitant of people would take the chance to have even a fraction of what was left. The knowledge that he had taken food from Maccready’s pack only matters worse. He could only hope that there was more to this setup that had simply been undisclosed to him, for at the moment he couldn’t see how this wouldn’t come back to bite him when the pieces would eventually fall into place and Maccready would learn that there was no food waiting for them, for him .

Shaun felt numb and stringy inside as he watched the discussion come to a close before him, listening to none of the pointless parting words they exchanged. He stood up from the table, his hand swollen and hot, the fresh stitches pulling at his skin as they dug deeper into his flesh. He naturally fell into step behind Maccready and, forgoing a passing glance back at the two agents, he left without a word of his own.

This time he did not cower behind his companion as he was led back through the slums of the sick colony. The shock in seeing them in such a horrible state would always be with him as a painful memory, yet this time he was able to look upon them more clearly as he passed them by, and he forced himself to gaze deeply into every terrible and broken face as if to remind himself of the life that existed beyond his own lowly body.

Many of their characteristics had gone to waste, leaving them as empty shells devoid of features and hair and clothing, so that they appeared like warped and melted mannequins sculpted from wax rather than real people. One man, at least, he had assumed it was a man, sat shivering underneath the blistering afternoon sun, his skin a hideous shade of paling green and his eyes milky and damp. What might have been a woman stood rigid against the wall of a shack, eyeing him down with the ferocity of an animal, her only two remaining limbs inflamed and pocked with tiny holes and bites. One man had just barely escaped his view, though he met his eye from where he had hidden himself among a gaggle of others. His deformities had ravaged him to such a state that he appeared as only exposed, sagging muscle, which he concealed underneath strange clothing that looked like a uniform of sorts. He had only a glimpse of this man before he ducked out of his sights, and he made no attempts to search for him any further.

Such grotesqueries could only blight the soul with intense guilt and pity, and there could be no other way to describe the intense feeling that filled him as he shuffled out through the bus doors.

This is what the Commonwealth’s people had been reduced too.

This was a world so artfully and carefully constructed by the best, most tender hands for them to wallow and suffer in until they died.

A damnation so abysmal in its making that they could not even suffer together as one.

It suddenly struck him how profoundly wrong it was for Beatnik and Chariot to be using this place as a cover, to be hiding amongst the broken and ill bodies of societies rejects where nobody would dare to look for fear of expulsing what little food they had managed to cram into their thin bellies. It was irrefutable that it worked for them so well, to mask themselves in such a decrepit place so that they could scheme unbothered and undiscovered for as long as they pleased, with not even the colony's inhabitants lucid enough to understand what was transpiring just beneath their noses.

And here he was, thrown into the terrible soupy mix of ethical inquiry and forced to play his part for them, slimy and nauseating as it were.

They would tear him apart for this, and honestly, he was beginning to believe that they would be right for doing so.

But such thoughts were, at this moment, counterproductive, and he could only let them simmer in his brain for so long. There was still work to be done, and though he would have stayed silent and brooding for the majority of their journey to the plant, he had found that they had wandered just far enough away from the camp for Maccready to say his own piece.

A hand had suddenly fisted his collar tight, and Shaun’s mood was snatched away as his attention was hurdled forward into the dark and irascible face leering over him. The scent of smoke was heavy and foul on Maccready’s breath, and his lips curled back to reveal the hardened, yellow plaque that shielded his teeth as he sneered.

“What the f*ck happened back there?” he emphasized every word with a sharp jerk of his neck, dangerously close to slamming his forehead into Shaun’s nose.

It was a small consolation to think that his own fear would play into selling his lie so effectively, and that was the only confidence he had at this point.

He only hoped that this would be over quickly.

His first response was a stammered mess of clipped words and word-like sounds that did nothing but make the hand on his shirt tighten its grip. If there was ever a time to spill the truth and face whatever would come of it, then it was now, while the secrets were still short enough to safely jump down from. But instead, he was watching them slowly pile up higher and higher, and he peered over the edge as the ground disappeared and had to convince himself that the fall would at least be quick and painless.

“I...I only wanted to help,” he finally managed to say. “He fixed my hand, and he said they needed someone to do this for them. I felt bad for them. I didn’t want to say no.”

“So, you figured you’d drag me into this sh*t, too?”

The sharp punctuation in each word was like a strike to the face, and Shaun hoped to avoid riling him up towards the real thing.

“Do you think you’re in any position to be taking f*cking jobs from strangers? How do you know this isn’t just another f*cking ambush or a set up or some way to f*ck us over considering they could have easily and more safely done this job themselves? Well?”

Maccready could easily have shouted him out until he completely lost breath, but his demand for a response kept his retort short enough and his attention unyielding.

The truth was just on the tip of his tongue, almost bitter in the taste of confidence he wished to spew back at him. Shaun of course knew more details of the job than Maccready did, but instead he was forced to look like a careless heartthrob walking blindly into danger by will of good graces.

Really, it wasn’t that soundless an accusation, but the belittlement had left him feeling spiteful against all better judgement; for why couldn’t he do something out of the way of his own generosity? Even the risks, calculated as they were, for even he would admit that every possible angle had already been noted and accounted for, would not have swayed his decision to provide aid to someone who requested it. The thought of the dying man who asked not for food, but for a single drink of water before his passing, came to mind, and the idea that somebody else unfortunate enough to have found him could have cruelly turned him down made him disgusted.

For so (seemingly) honest and desperate a plea, that alone should have convinced Maccready or any other traveler to provide their hand, but of course it did not, and he could also not fully refute what he knew to be fact. The hungry and the hurt were not of sound mind, and even the kindest and most righteous of people would do the worst they could in order to secure themselves a shred of survivability, he had seen it with his own eyes and heard it loathingly with his own ears.

Under different circ*mstances he still would have undertaken this job, and he had no way of explaining that.

All of this he thought, and none of it he spoke, only staring back into that hateful, untrusting gaze while trying to force himself to stop quivering underneath it. He felt impassioned, but weak-willed and cowardly, and no amount of confidence or clever arguments could have changed the fact that Maccready was almost twice his size and possessed the mental fortitude to kill without remorse.

Which only begged the question as to why Maccready even bothered to the accept the job in the first place, when by all accounts it seemed more within his person to simply deny any and all further involvement with those people, and Shaun suddenly found himself puzzled. As he understood it, Maccready was not an individual that acted on the benefit of others without reaping some kind of reward for his efforts, and even though a reward had been promised to him, he spoke in doubt of the validity of their claims, which could only point to his entire outburst being strictly rhetorical and merely a means of which to punish Shaun for taking the leading steps before he could and putting his trust into the words of a total stranger.

Ironic, considering that was exactly what he had been doing all along, and a cold ache formed deep inside of him at the possibility of the holotapes being a mere cleverly constructed lie that he had foolishly fell victim too; and suddenly the desire to tell Maccready everything became overwhelming, but he chose at that moment to let him go.

Shaun knew he must have worn a stunned expression just then, but Maccready only looked at him with disappointment as he carelessly dropped him back onto his heels.

“You’re a f*cking idiot, kid,” he said, and without a further word more Maccready suddenly turned and continued onwards down the street, leaving Shaun to follow obediently behind him, speechless and cold.

“Are...?” Shaun hesitated to speak up, staring intently at Maccready’s back as he led them a few blocks ahead. “Are we still doing the job then?”

Uncertainty was plain in his voice, but he felt iced down to the marrow as every event of that day replayed over in his mind. He was quickly approaching a state of mental overload, exhausted and burdened by the weight of the responsibilities bestowed onto him, and he wanted to be bold enough to Grab Maccready’s hand and force him to stop and explain himself. Instead, he only lingered close within his shadow, hoping the desperation in his voice could afford him a small break.

Maccready didn’t turn to look at him, bringing his rifle forward so that it rested in his hands, though with no clear indication that he planned to use it at that moment. He popped his lips irritatingly, as if in thought.

“Chances are there’s something worth checking out there,” he said. “Probably not an entire cache of MREs, those got wasted years ago.”

He spoke curiously, almost more to himself than to Shaun.

“Still,” Maccready continued leisurely, “there’s probably a bit of dried meat and maybe a bag or two of that powered meal sh*t they used to dish out to the newbies. Either way it's worthwhile to at least scout the place out, god knows I could use the protein.”

Shaun own stomach ached at the thought, empty of everything except dread as he stared intently at Maccready’s back. His tongue felt dry and thick in his mouth, and something acidic burned just at the back of his throat.

“Yeah,” Shaun mumbled out. “Hopefully the portion they let us keep will be enough, we’ll just have to see when we deliver it.”

Maccready made an odd noise of acknowledgement, almost a questioning hum of indifference that he let settle between them with no explanation, but which instantly caught Shaun’s attention.

“We’re still going to deliver the cache, right?” he asked, an edge of apprehension worming its way into the question as if pleading with him.

Maccready initially said nothing as they came upon a second bridge, and he made to lead them both across the river and to the north. The water beneath was a clouded swamp of murky sludge without so much as a trace of blue within it, opaque so that it could hardly reflect the sky above them and carried on it the sharp, stinging smell of chemicals that made his head swim and his eyes water. Shaun stumbled behind him, queasy and gasping for breath, and in the distance, he could see the first bridge they crossed and the little edge of colony resting by the riverbank.

“Maccready,” he spoke in a tone that was attempting to sound stern, “we’re going to deliver the supplies to them, aren’t we?”

Without breaking stride Maccready tossed his head back and threw him an ugly look of contempt, but instead of replying he only snorted in amusem*nt and continued on.

Shaun made to refute him, but kept his mouth shut and allowed himself to trail a few steps further behind him at a safe distance. There was no point in an argument now, not when he couldn’t defend the honesty of the people he was working for when they were just as untrustworthy as Maccready was. All he could do from this point was either hope that Maccready's ignorance and better nature won out against him in the end, or the more likely, he would have to plan ahead on how to secure the cache and deliver it on his own.

With the glaringly hot sun high above them, the silence that brewed between the two was a welcoming refuge for Shaun to lose himself to his thoughts, witlessly shadowing Maccready like a ghost while he forged onwards in practiced vigilance. For little less than an hour, Shaun’s vision was encapsulated solely by the dirty, tattered fabric of Maccready’s coat, and within that solid stretch of color he let himself plot against the man in front of him. While only trace beads of sweat managed to form along his brow, and his skin grew clammy and warm in the stifling heat of the day, he asked for no water or rest, completely tunneled within his own mind as he laid out the facts as he knew them and attempted to piece them together in the most efficient way possible.

Though the process was not a simple one, and in ever growing frequency he found himself derailed by bubbles of conflicting opinion and emotion turmoil, and he found that the most easiest of methods for which to carry out his plans were often times too guilt-ridden to allow much further consideration. All in all, he knew that cache needed to be taken and delivered, though both honesty and secrecy seemed to him nigh impossible considering the actions of his company. There was only by the slimmest chance the possibility that Maccready would locate and secure the cache without seeing its contents, and even if Shaun could somehow smuggle them himself, it would not bode well for him to find out that there was indeed no food to be found at that location. He would need an explanation, or a scapegoat, but in either likelihood it spelled out disaster for his plans and for any chance of being able to go back to the colony without a very horrible confrontation.

Despite that, abandoning Maccready was simply out of the question, for even if the possibility and fear of retribution were not present, his conscious rejected the notion as simply unthinkable on his part. Though the tape left to him last night held heavy accusations against Maccready, it still troubled him to think of abusing his trust and leaving him without warning, and he couldn’t explain why his chest felt tight at the mere idea.

With the precious time allotted to him, he made little self-progress. The heat soon gave rise to a numbing ache within his head, and his thoughts had slowly melded into a loathing, pointless mush. The ground they covered had been decent, though that was only an assumption on his part, for the wasteland drifted past him without much consideration or notice. It was quiet and the wind was still, the sun only broken by the occasional pocket of shade gifted from the overhang of nearby ruins.

Shaun breathed in the rancid air, with the lingering scent of fermentation and ammonia, and tried to steady his thoughts amidst the condensing throb of his migraine, hoping to find some solace in himself before they reached the plant. Here, in its isolation and total desolation, the Commonwealth seemed almost peaceful; quaint, in the sense that out here with just the two of them, it seemed that the only troubles one could find were the ones he carried inside him.

Though just then, a shrill scream sounded from within the building just ahead of them, and the peaceful moment was shattered.

Chapter 8

Chapter Text

The Commonwealth’s vast ghettos embodied a ruinous decay that at time had all the countenance and silence of a graveyard, which made it the perfect, empty background for all kinds of terrible sounds to flourish and carry.

The wailing cry that pierced the air could have sounded off from miles away, deep within the bowels of the city’s hidden corners and alleys, but it also could very well have been sourced from only a few feet away, that was the nature in which the horrifically loud screaming appeared to them. As if the very man were crying directly into their ears, they heard the full-bodied, deep-throated efforts of his death rattles exploding out from him, slowly curling off into a choked gurgle as it tampered away into a brief silence once more.

In the momentary pause where the poor man was doubtlessly struggling to breath in another heavy lungful of air so that he might cry out again, both Shaun and Maccready had each caught one another's eye and acknowledged a conflict of interest between themselves.

Though Maccready seemed unaffected, for poor Shaun, the sounds of human screaming were not yet a commonplace and easily ignorable occurrence, and he stood stunned and appalled by all the occurred at that moment. His heart had instantly begun to race with the fierce, animalistic desire to flee for his own safety like any rational being would, but the recognition of suffering imposed on another person had kept him sympathetically rooted to the spot and staring at his guard in anticipation. The look of confliction on his face was undeniable, and as Maccready set upon it with recognition and a look of great disappointment.

“Hey,” he called out to him. “Come on, we need to get a move on.”

It seemed disturbingly easy for him to speak in such a causal manner, as if he were deaf to that terrible screaming that had enveloped their space like a darkened cloud, and his tone did not need to be firm in order to challenge Shaun’s anticipations. He saw in the boys’ shocked expression something he was swiftly looking to snuff out, and he had quickly turned his back figuratively, and now literally, on whatever was transpiring just beyond them.

Yet, his subtle urging for abandonment could not compel Shaun to move from his spot, and he stood rigid, thinking in quick, fleeting seconds, how this was but another test of his ethical and practical capabilities.

“We need to-” he started to argue but was quickly put down before his appeal could even be spoken.

“No, Isaac. We don’t.”

Maccready tossed an ugly look from over his shoulder, stubbornly refusing to turn himself away from the direction he hoped to guide them in.

“This has nothing to do with us. We’re better off just leaving while we can.”

Shaun wished to speak out against him, though he knew the endeavor to be a pointless one. It wasn’t as if he could claim absolute cruelty on Maccready's part, not without some semblance of deep-laden hypocrisy within his own faults, for indeed his impulsive choice to start turning his back on the source of the screaming was entirely a decision based on his own experiences. It was indeed a probable and just method of survival to simply ignore troubles that are not your own, least they impart unto to you, and it was a technique that was deeply ingrained within each broken mind that had to accumulate to these conditions long before Shaun had even learned of them. Trying to convince him to work against his own ingrained instincts would be no easier than trying to domesticate a savage beast, but was he not at least somewhat correct in insinuating that they had no obligation to insert themselves into whatever was transpiring just ahead of them? As unjust as it may sound, was it not true that this fight was not theirs to take part in, and thus they could safely and easily resume their journey?

Perhaps it couldn’t be entirely refuted, but in some ways, it could very well still be resisted.

Without uttering a single word, Shaun turned himself away from Maccready, and stood facing the direction in which he believed the screams had sounded clearest. He made no attempt to move from that spot, but he rose Maccready’s challenge with one of his own.

“Isaac,” he muttered viciously, his voice a silent hiss that drowned in the wailing outcries that, by this point, had grown into sickeningly pathetic sobs.

Still, a hard look of resolution must have painted his features, a more prominent sign of his own stubbornness that his meek body language could convey, because Maccready finally bothered to face him directly. With long, purposefully aggressive strides, he approached with his teeth gnashing and his fingers gripping the barrel of his rifle tight.

He peered down at him with a scrutinizing look.

“Give me one good reason,” he told him. “Just one. And I'll do it.”

Shaun thought for a moment, anxious over this rare opportunity, but gave his answer with as much stated confidence as he could muster.

“Whoever is over there could possibly attack us later, unless we deal with them now while they aren’t expecting us.”

In truth, it had been the farthest thing from his own mind, the absolute least of his concerns with how overwhelmed he was by that terrifying exclamation of pain; but he knew, long before he possessed any knowledge of the Commonwealth and all the terrible things that existed out here, he knew that emotions had no place in a logical argument. Maccready needed a reason to fight, and the betterment of someone other than himself was not sufficient unless it could be used to better himself by extension. The words had felt sour in his mouth, as if he were licking at a rotten tooth, but it was his best attempt at meeting him on similar ground.

Maccready did not respond to him, however, and he fixed Shaun with a look that grew distant and cold the longer he held it. It was dreadful to think he could have gone unconvinced, to know that somewhere deep inside that empty gaze there was a perpetual longing for fulfillment that overrode any sense of humility and restraint he could have possible possessed, like looking into a fire and only thinking about the amount of wood that must be fed to it to keep it lit.

In the lingering pause that followed Shaun had quickly thought up another argument, and then another, and he would keep thinking up all the excuses and lies that he was capable of so long as it would indue this man with enough sympathy to act where he couldn’t.

Maccready’s gaze sharpened, and without further word he turned towards the source of the screaming, and set off with an aggressive pace.

Shaun instantly went to follow by his side, not so much privy to the danger as he was eager in seeing his efforts be brought to fruition, but Maccready had quickly sought to distance himself and had achieved in outpacing him by a full block just in time for him to come upon the scene. Shaun could only watch from a distance as he rounded a corner, and from there it was only the audible cracks of his rifle and the shrill screams of voices that filled the air.

Yet, as far as he could tell there was only ever the one gun that was fired, and by the time he had caught up with Maccready and witnessed the scene for himself, there was only the one body writhing pathetically by its lonesome.

He looked up at Maccready in confusion, noting his expression of frustration and the obvious lack of a massacre before him, and came to the grim conclusion that he had been too late. He was filled with a cold sense of trepidation, eyeing his surrounds with an anticipation of witnessing some adversary in wait, the possible makings of another ambush, but Maccready had quickly given chase to whoever he had seen, leaving Shaun alone with the fallen victim he had sought out.

Despite his previous willingness in subjecting himself to further jeopardy out of an intense guilt to see to someone else’s safety, he now showed a profound hesitance at approaching the man before him. For some reason he could not explain, the sight of that man’s shaking body had instilled an extreme terror within him, and his confidence had all but drained completely.

Cautiously, he took a step forward, only for the man to shrink back and yelp like a startled dog, curling in on himself further as if expecting the worst from him. From this distance, it was difficult to gather the true extent of his injuries, but the color of blood was a prominent contrast on his dull and weathered clothing, and it was obvious that his sufferings had been great. In keeping this in mind, Shaun dared to approach him with his steps light and his palms raised, making sure his soft voice of reassurance reached him long before he did.

The man had given Shaun a look akin to that of a wild animal, and he shook with a ferocity that suggested he was being approached by a monster as opposed to a young man. Still, with all the appearances of being beaten to a cowardly mess, Shaun was still observant enough to check him down for weapons. Though he wanted to give everyone in the Commonwealth the benefit of the doubt, and had gone so far as to gamble with his own wellbeing on more than one occasion, he knew that, rationally, he would need to be vigilant enough and expect all possibilities.

Much to his surprise, he was able to approach the man without trouble, though the poor thing was practically suffocating himself under his own sobs, begging to be spared from further torment. With no sign of a weapon within arm's length, Shaun dared to kneel close beside him and offer up his own hand as proof of resolve. It was an act of tenderness that had showed others before just how tender his own flesh was, and he had to stop himself from offering up the same hand that had been bitten before, yet this time the man had initially shrunk away from him rather than take advantage of his presence. It was reassuring to himself in some way, but he had never viewed himself as anything reassembling a threat, and something ached within him that found this man’s reaction disgusting and repulsive.

But then the man had sprung forward to grasp his hand with such sudden ferocity that it stunned him, and Shaun had almost instinctively wrung his hand away out of fear until he realized that the man was not sinking his teeth into the meat of his palm, but rather crying out in thanks for his kind actions. His grip did not indicate even an ounce of hunger or eagerness, but a trembling gratitude that shook the man down to the bones, borderline delirious amidst his own terror and grief. His blessed tears of profound appreciation echoed alongside the few cracks of Maccready rifle that sounded off nearby, and being completely overwhelmed and inexperienced for this situation, Shaun attempted to sooth the man down from his tantrum with gentle words of affirmation.

Shaun felt flushed to be the recipient of such praise, which the man blubbered out extensively with no filter or restraint, and it was with great difficulty that he managed to quiet him down enough just about the time that Maccready had returned. One look at his grim face and smoking barrel was enough to that something was wrong, and it was for the man’s own safety that Shaun insisted he be composed enough to remain silent for the time being.

Maccready had only looked over at them and sighed deeply, regret painted over his features.

“They f*cking ran off,” he muttered bitterly, and threw his gun back over his shoulder so violently that it slammed into the back of his head.

Shaun said nothing to him, but shook his head with a conflicted sense of shared disappointment. Shaun never asked for death in any sense, and in a way, he was relieved to know that none had fallen during this ordeal, but he still recognized the uncertainty that arose from having so close an enemy slip away from under you. It had made his argument worthless in the end.

He left Maccready to seethe in his own dissatisfaction and anger, his concerns for the man before him requiring all of his focus. Although the perpetrators had fled, they had still been stopped and the man had been saved, and now he could safely turn attention over to his condition.

There was an awfully frightful amount of blood that coated his person, yet a quick glance at the dampened spots of his coat and trousers showed no signs of a deep wound that could have produced it; which made sense considering the man wouldn’t even be conscious if he had lost this much to begin with. Fretfully, Shaun had sought out something for which to clean him with, begrudging coming to accept that he had nothing more than his own sleeve with which to wipe away the gore, yet when he pinched the fabric between his fingers and lifted it gingerly towards the man's face, he was denied.

Softly, with short, bashful movements and little words, the man had stopped his hand, along with any of his further attempts at looking over his person. Though he continued to cry and express an intense amount of pain, he seemed hesitant to accept anything that Shaun attempted to offer him, only giving him soft affirmations that while he was grateful, so grateful, for his kind and benevolent actions, it was ultimately unnecessary.

Shaun wanted to argue against him but did not push the issue. Likely, the man was being cautious in accepting anything due to either concerns for legitimacy, or the notion that they would demand something in return for helping him. It was a shame that the wasteland had tainted even the most selfless acts of kindness with the implication of deceit or foul play, but equity was apparently now measure purely under a person's worth, and Maccready did not help in disputing that point at all.

Once he had grown tired of dwelling on his own failures, he had decided to turn his frustrations towards the poor victim he had been forced to save, and he made to attempt at hiding the fact that he had initially wanted to no part in doing so. While Shaun had wanted to see the man benefited first and foremost, Maccready instantly set upon with suspicion, demanding answers for who he was and what he had dragged them into.

Though still shaken, the man was coherent enough to answer him with only some difficulty, and Shaun helped to keep Maccready at bay and patience enough to allow him to tell the whole of his story without interruption.

He had told them that his name was Logan. He and his family lived on a small homestead situated towards the northwest and were fairly isolated from the nearest settlement, only allowing one additional family to live close to their property. His wife, Linda, suffered a severe leg infection following a raider attack, and they had no choice but to amputate the limb. Preparations were being made for the operation, though they were lacking in supplies needed to ensure her survival, and thus Logan had taken it upon himself to search anything that could be of use. He had been gone for two days, and in that time he had been followed by the very men that had attacked his home.

In the end, he seemed to be the victim of a very tragic, yet unfortunately, commonplace predicament, and after his finished recounting his tale, he fell fresh tears in thanks for be saved, assuring them that he would have certainly perished had they not been so kind enough to intervene when they did.

Shaun did not humble himself in feeling proud over what he had helped to accomplish, having finally had his efforts to do good be recognized for what they were, though Maccready appeared less than impressed by the circ*mstances presented to him. In having rolled his eyes in the face of Logans tragedy's he instantly attempted to disengage the both of them from any further involvement with him, goading Shaun towards saying his goodbyes and continuing on with their own journey.

Shaun had often found Maccready’s rudeness to be appalling, having been raised under a strict code of etiquette, but he was tolerant enough of his behavior to ignore it for the most part. In the presence of other people, however, it was downright embarrassing to be associated with him, and Shaun didn’t try to hide the ugly look he threw towards him. Maccready had already fulfilled his role of the muscle, and that meant that Shaun could take over in the communications and care aspects without being budged an inch. He even went so far as to calmly ask Maccready for a rag in which to clean Logan’s face, which was, after a bewildered pause, then spitefully thrown into his own.

He gleefully took up the filthy rag with a smug expression that Maccready was, thankfully, too blinded by his annoyance to take notice of, though in doing so he meekly noticed that it had been the same one used to clean the crusted gore off of his hand a few days ago. Traces of dried blood stiffened the fabric into a hardened knot of filth that he instantly tossed aside as a lost cause, not that Logan seemed to mind any, as it seemed probable that he would have denied it regardless.

The blood on his face had already settled in a thin crust over his skin, which Shaun took to mean that any bleeding that had occurred has since stopped, and this was affirmed by the fact that Logan now appeared rather calm. If his injuries had been grievous then he would have been preoccupied with his own sense of self preservation, but instead, in being left alone in Shaun’s company, he seemed entirely focused on him .

“You know,” he had started off with, “it really does mean a lot that you and your dad stepped in when you did. Not a lot of folks would do that sort of thing. You’re a rare breed.”

This was now the second time that someone had assumed the relationship between Shaun and Maccready to be a familial one, and it was difficult to describe the uncomfortable feeling that arose him whenever it happened. He understood it must have been a fairly logical assumption to make, considering especially that people, for some reason, viewed him as much younger than he actually was. But at the same time, it filled him with an intense sense of shame in being seen as a relative to such a man and an overall detachment to the concept as it were, though such feelings were not exclusive to Maccready.

Father had never been his father; even though, through a scientific standpoint, the argument could have been that he was indeed Shaun’s biological parent. Their relationship had not been as close as the one that he and Mother had shared, but to accept a viewpoint of her as a parental figure had seemed illogical and wrong, even after being under her exclusive care for years now.

Shaun was not a being that had parents the way that Logan had, and he couldn’t even begin to describe what his actual relation to Maccready really was, and so, awkwardly, he had to allow the comment to stand as it were.

“T-thank you, sir,” he replied with. “I always try to help where I can, even if it’s made a bit more difficult because of...some people.”

His voice was laced with an undertone of bitterness, but he was cautious in making sure that only Logan had heard him, sharing in his disapproval with him like a dirty secret.

“Are you alright though?” He followed up with. “I mean...with all the blood...”

“I’ll be frank with you son, I'm banged up pretty bad, but unless you have any stimpaks you could spare then I'm afraid there’s little to be done for me.”

He spoke plainly on the base assumption that they were just as starved for resources as he was, yet there was a lingering trace of optimism laced within his tone, as if he were hopeful that Shaun might prove him wrong. He had already encountered a surprising stroke of good fortune on this day, and Shaun hated to douse his faint shred of expectation with the harsh reality of their situation.

“I’m sorry sir, if I did have any I would have offered, but as it stands, we don’t have much in the ways of supplies either.”

“Is that so?”

Shaun heard his voice crack a little as he spoke, that last little prospect of hope instantly snuffed out under his cruel words, and it filled him with a deep regret in having instilled such despondency within him. A pessimistic outlook would not aid him in any sense, for after all, it was the Commonwealths burning passion to stay alive that kept them from certain death in even the most horrid and hopeless conditions, and he dreaded to see someone come so far only to give in due to a broken spirt.

“B-but! I’m sure there’s still something out there to be found.” He stumbled over himself trying to make his situation seem less hopeless. “For you, and for your wife.”

“Oh? Do you know where there might still be something left?”

His hoarse and withered tone had begun to bleed out with an intense desperation that was barely concealed by his own fatigued condition. His eyes widened like crystalized saucers, shining with an anguish that seemed savage, but with a tenderness that felt wholehearted.

“I’m...I'm afraid I don’t really know where to look. I’m just as unfamiliar with the area as you are.”

Logan sniffed hard, a clear sign that he was close to another break down as the weight of his tragedies bore down on him without any chance for respite. The few clean patches of skin that Shaun was able to see had been flushed with agony, his lip quivering like a wet slug as he tried to maintain his composure well enough to still be able to communicate how despondent he truly was.

“Please,” he had begged him, his voice a hushed whisper that he barely kept concealed. “You have to know something! Please! My poor Mary doesn't have long for this world as it is! Please, I’ll do anything!”

All the while he kept casting fearful glances towards Maccready, who had stood situation only a few feet away out of earshot, curbing his temper around a half-burned cigarette. Having worn his malice clear on his sleeve, Shaun knew that no sympathy was to found in him, and thus Logan kept his pleas audible enough for only the boy to hear, both of them seeing that faint curl of smoke as a timer that gave them precious little time for resolve.

Shaun pitied this man, he truly did. The wasteland was an unfair and unjustified torture that stripped its individuals down to their most animalistic components, and any question as to why an induvial did or said something strange was often answered by quite easily by way of extreme despair, but...

“Mary?” Shaun asked, confused. “Who’s Mary?”

“My wife,” Logan stated. “I told you, she is very sick. You couldn’t have possibly forgotten already!”

Logan was clearly offended by Shaun’s question, almost raising his voice loud enough to catch Maccready’s attention, who only turned his head towards them in annoyance before rolling his eyes and callously puffing smoke in their direction.

“I’m sorry, sir-” Shaun started, only to be cut off.

“You should be!” Logan chastised him. “My poor wife is sick and you won’t tell me where to find something to help her with!”

“I want to help you, sir! I really do!” Shaun argued against him, trying to explain himself quickly and carefully for both of their sakes.

“I had heard you refer to your wife as ‘Linda’, I was just a little confused on how many people needed help!”

Logan looked as though he had something more to say, but then suddenly stopped. He looked confused, and then startled as it sank in exactly what Shaun had said to him. He looked disturbingly pale underneath his bloody mask, but before Shaun could ask, an expression of shame and remorse suddenly overcame him.

“Did I mention Linda by mistake?” He spoke softly, his hardened eyes softening sentimental gaze that drifted far away.

“Linda is my daughter,” he said after a moment. “With everything that’s been happening I must have been thinking about what she’ll do without her mother. We were all hit pretty hard by that raider attack, but she was always such a frail thing, you know?”

He sighed deeply, chuckling to himself shallowly without any trace of humor.

“I’m sorry, son. That was my fault for causing such confusion. I hadn't even realized what I’d done.”

“It’s alright sir, I didn’t mean to upset you again. I promise, I want to help you and your family in any way that I can.”

“Yeah?” Logan said, absentmindedly thumbing a dried blotch of blood away from his cheek.

He then turned to Shaun with an odd smile on his face.

“My girl is about your age, too.”

He said that as if it was supposed to mean something, though Shaun had no idea how to respond other than a quick nod to affirm that he heard him.

“Yeah, she was born a few years before the famine hit, and the damned thing stunted her growth. Made her awfully small and petite, like a little girl, and I'm always fretting over her because of it, even though she’s almost a woman of her own now.”

The way he spoke of his family sounded wistful, as if he were losing himself to his own memory, yet his gaze was locked firmly to Shaun’s in rapt attention. While lost in the throes of deep melancholy, the typical worn and weathered features of his face had made him looked quite aged, yet animated with newfound vigor, he seemed surprisingly youthful. He had the greasy creases marked around his eyes and forehead, but his cheeks, though thin, were not hallow, and the flesh of his mouth did not sink beneath them the way that Maccready’s did. There was a noninfectious excitement to his words that Shaun could only listen too respectfully without response, confused as to the unexpected turn in the conversation.

“I think I'll be good for her to meet you,” Logan told him, looking at him with a bizarre expression.

“Oh yeah?” Shaun responded awkwardly.

“Yes, she hasn’t really met anyone her own age before. We were a bit out of the way of the closest settlement. Never got many visitors. Perhaps you two could stop by afterwards.”

Without warning Logan bent close to him, his foul breath curling across the shell of Shaun’s ear.

“You’d just have to be careful with her now,” he whispered to him. “Remember, she’s just a small little thing, you know?”

Shaun couldn’t repress the violent shiver that ran through him, pulling away from Logan in grand repulsion of his sudden and unexpected action. He didn’t understand what he had meant by that, or why he whispered it in such a way that suggested something evocative, but Shaun was suddenly made very uncomfortable by the topic and the way that Logan continued to smile down at his flushed face.

“Well!” Shaun said abruptly” “Do you know what kind of things you need to look for? For your wife’s leg?”

At that moment, Shaun did not care how rude he was in changing the topic, nor had he cared for his volume in doing so. Something had started to feel wrong with how the conversation was flowing, and he blamed the Commonwealths barbarian customs and lack of social courtesy for inciting everyone to act in such a strange and unruly manner.

Logan frowned a bit, looking contemplative.

“I had a list of some of the absolute important things we would need for the procedure, but really, it’s not enough to cover everything. I’ll need to really get my hands on a good stockpile of stuff if Mary’s gonna survive having her leg cut off.”

“Well...” Shaun mumbled unsurely.

“Come on kid,” he said, with a bit of impatience creeping into his tone.

From the lot they were situated in, Shaun chanced a quick glimpse towards the sky, and noticed how the sun was no longer looming overhead, but instead had disappeared behind the roof of the collapsed building beside them. By his best estimate, for he still could not accurately tell time without the aid of a clock, he supposed that it was sometime in the late afternoon, possibly two or three at the latest. In recalling the previous events of the day, it seemed to him as though time had progressed both numbingly slow and shockingly fast in simultaneous intervals, which may be due in part to his bad habit of losing himself to his own thoughts; and here he had hoped that upon receiving his stupid assignment, he could accomplish it and simply move on with his journey to the north, but now that seemed unlikely.

The two of them could not afford any further detours, and it seemed unlikely that Maccready would allow for the man to accompany then whilst they helped in his search, so there was in truth, very little that he could suggest that would be of any help.

“Why don’t we...start by listing off the areas you’ve already searched,” Shaun said after a moment. “Then we can tally those off and work our way down through process of elimination.”

“Oh, I...uh.” Logan cleared his throat with a slight dumbfounded expression. “I’ve already scoured through most of this area and haven’t found squat. Unless you think I might have overlooked something?”

Shaun groaned to himself in frustration.

“Here,” he said, reaching into his pockets. “Why don’t I just pull out my map and we can take a look of the area.”

“You have a map!” Logan exclaimed. “Let me see it!”

Logan looked suddenly delighted, and as Shaun tried spread the paper between them, he had eagerly snatched up the bit he could reach, almost ripping the paper as he sought to take it. Shaun had to chastise him for his excitement, not going so far as to grab his hand to stop him, but patting at his arm at an attempt to calm him down. Logan meekly apologized and gently took hold of the paper in a loose, but shaking grip, urging Shaun to guide him onwards.

His map was still underwhelming lackluster, though Maccready had helped to mark a few landmarks and areas of interest in the meantime, giving him a slightly more accurate idea of landscape than he had before. Not much was to be seen of the map, though not far from them was a place called “Kendall Hospital,” which Shaun immediately pointed out.

Logan looked at the area with intrigue, his grip tightening on the paper once more.

“Have you checked this area before?” Shaun asked him. “It would be the most obvious place to look for supplies so-”

“No, I hadn’t.” Logan interrupted him. “It didn’t seem.... So there’s something there, you think?”

“I-I don’t know? I’ve never been-”

“It’s in the hospital right? That’s where there’s going to be supplies? A lot of them?”

Overcome by this idea that Shaun had unveiled something vital to him, Logan’s expression morphed from one of pleasure to one of unbridled frustration. As much as Shaun had wanted to justify the typical Commonwealth inhabitant's behavior as one of congenital and intentional defect, he could no longer deny that this man’s incessant urging for his cooperation was unjust and suspicious, and he quickly made a move to remove himself from the position he had placed himself in.

But Logan, anticipating his reaction, had suddenly sprung his arm across the map, and took hold of his hand in a tight grip.

“Come on, kid,” he moaned gruesomely, “This is where the supplies are right? That’s what you’re telling me? That’s all I need to know!”

In keeping his voice low, he careened his face close to Shaun’s, forcing his vision to swim with the heavy scent of staled blood and new sweat. At such close proximity, Shaun had noticed that underneath his dry mask, not a single cut or bruise marked his face; he was entirely unharmed.

“Let go of me,” Shaun whimpered back, his voice hardly a breath.

That blood on his face couldn’t have been his.

“Come on, boy. Don’t you want to help me? Don’t you want to help my wife?”

The grip on his wrist tightened fiercely.

“Don’t you wanna see my girl?”

There was something horrible in those eyes, in that agitated expression, and it was a relief to know he was not the only one who had seen it.

Shaun had been just as startled to see the barrel of Maccready’s rifle pointed at him, but Logan had instantly tried to mask his fear as surprise and grief, fully animated to any extremes that would paint his character in a better light. Without giving Shaun the chance to cry out, he had suddenly flung his arms across the both of them, as if to shield them from the weapon, but which only helped in keeping Shaun exactly where he wanted him.

“Please!” Logan begged, an expression of put-on grief now hiding his intentions. “We have nothing! My wife will die without help! You two have to know where something is! I’ll do anything!”

“Yeah,” Maccready goaded him. “Tell me, what’s your wife’s name again?”

Logan paused for a minute in shock, attempted to look offended by the question but knowing the same delusion would not work a second time. With a half-hearted, embarrassed smile playing along his lips, he looked from the barrel of the gun to straight into Maccready’s eyes.

“L-...Linda?” he answered tepidly.

Though Shaun’s heart was racing, Maccready appeared entirely calm, almost disconcerted. His shoulders were relaxed as they expertly leveled the rifle, and his expression did not impose a sense of urgency or danger towards the predicament at hand. He didn’t even look at Shaun, keeping a languid eye on the man ahead of him, unflinching as he suddenly rose to his feet with Shaun in tow and pressed the nose of crude revolver against the boy’s temple.

“Come on, friend,” Logan said in an unsteady voice. “Why don’t we all just turn around and go our separate ways? Wouldn’t want to see your son hurt know, would you?”

“I’m no more an ailing father than you are,” Maccready told him plainly.

He had painted himself as completely uncaring, only a slight facsimile of who he actually was, but the realization that Logan held no leverage over him had worked in intimidating him. While Shaun could only hope that he might survive this standoff between the two, Maccready was in a great position to walk away, and Logan was a sure loser.

Suddenly, Shaun was pushed forward towards Maccready. Though he had made no attempt to catch him, rather wanting to let him fall safely by his side, the angle had fell the boy across his arms, and the effect had blocked the one clear shot he had. Throwing Shaun aside, he quickly leveled his aim on the fleeing man, but did no more than clip the side of his ear as he fled into the depths of the city.

As Shaun lay gasping for breath, Maccready slung his rifle back into its holster, staring down at him with a smug look that appeared both knowingly amused and bored simultaneously.

“You done playing model paragon of the wastes yet? Can we get back to what we were doing?”

Shaun felt as though the world underneath him might just swallow him whole, and he shook with aching creep prickling along his skin and settling deep within his marrow. He felt like a needed space away from people, that he was totally alone and exposed, that he was suffocating, that there was a sickness inside of him that needed to come out. He was overwhelmed and scared, and as he looked up at the man leering over him, he felt betrayed.

“You...you kn-….” He struggled to make himself known, but the accusation hung heavy in the air between them.

“Nah,” Maccready said. “But I figured. Out here, you've got...maybe a fifty-fifty chance of finding a baker or not. Hmmmm, maybe more like sixty-fourty. But after that sh*t about his family? It was pretty obvious.”

Thankfully, he did not rush Shaun through his episode, but he couldn’t necessarily hide his impatience either, looking around him with a sense of restlessness.

Shaun choked down a sob.

“Why...?”

“Take it as a learning experience,” Maccready told him.

“I...I almost-!” Shaun felt ready to burst into tears, but he was more afraid than aggrieved, cowering in Maccready’s shadow much like Logan had done in his.

“Oh, shut up. It’s not like you were in any real danger,” Maccready told him firmly.

He tried to maintain that act of aloof indifference, but at the sight of Shaun beneath him, he had begun to look very uncomfortable and conflicted.

“Hey. Look at me,” he demanded, glaring over him. “You weren’t in any real danger. Maybe now you’ll listen to me instead of acting like a little f*cking idiot, yeah?”

He looked down at his quivering form for just a moment longer before stepping away for another smoke, leaving Shaun to pick himself up at his own leisure, and providing no comfort for what he had done. Worn and so terribly exhausted, yet thrumming with grim energy, Shaun lay still for a few moments with his knees pressed to his chest. He would have gladly spent the remainder of the day wallowing in his own despair so long as he could do so unbothered, but the idea of Logan or his accomplices coming back had pushed him to raise himself. Wiping his eyes, he stuffed the torn remains of his map back into his pocket and took his place at Maccready’s side, albeit with some distance between them, which he mercifully did not reprimand him for.

The remainder of their journey was disturbingly silent, and neither had the gall to look at one another. Though still within each other's company, the estrangement between them had felt greater than only a few feet, more bottomless than this thin, humid air could have suggested, and somehow, in the strangest ways, Shaun felt closer to the Insitute then ever had while out in the wasteland. Somehow, the unpaved roads and washed-out buildings were glossed over by a glassy sheen held just before his eyes, everything so Crystral clear yet with the faintest hint of distortion to the light; the feeling that you were looking through something that stood in front of you, rather than directly at whatever you were facing.

Add to that Maccready’s incessant mumbling, like a constant buzz in his ears so enervated and common that it only tickled the senses he could not fully drown out in his anguish. From every angle, and every corner of his person, that faint little frustrated whisper just circling him like a ghost, maundering and muddled just barely out of the range of being heard at all.

But slowly, rising in agitation, like a little fly that hovers just a little to close, so that the thundering rattle of its wings sounds so loud despite it coming from such a tiny being. Buzzing and buzzing, thrumming and humming, the mere suggestion of vocalizations finally articulating into a full-fledged scream of anger as Maccready suddenly darted forward, slinging his gun into his hands with a look of absolute ferocity that knocked Shaun back to his senses.

He hadn’t even noticed that they had reached the shipyards.

He hadn’t even realized that they weren’t the first ones there.

Chapter 9

Chapter Text

Congregating before the shipyard's central depot, fifteen men had just finished drudging out a heavy steamer trunk they had found hidden in the drydocks and were blithely relishing in their victorious find. Temptation oozed out from their laborious breathing, their pillage so irresistibly enticing that each of them had huddled eagerly around the trunk with barely concealed restraint, so impatient to ravage its contents that they scarcely noticed Maccready’s sudden approach until it was too late.

A bone-shattering crunch had showered them all with splintered remnants of skull and soupy brain tissue, and fourteen men looked back at them in awe and animosity.

Shaun had flung himself towards cover the moment the first shot rang out, and he could only hope that he had done so quickly enough to have slipped away unnoticed. For all his cowardice, he was as willing to embrace combat just as much as a fly is willing to embrace a spider, yet Maccready had faced such reckless outrage upon seeing that their cache had been compromised, that he had set forth with intent to kill the moment his gun had been freed of its sheath.

His first kill had been swiftly and effortlessly executed, the victim being so preoccupied with his treasure that he had left his back exposed and his head deliciously unguarded. In the times to come he would provide an easy meal for some passing scavenger, but the others in his gang would prove their weight in manpower dutifully. They were quick to react to their fallen comrade, briskly leaping out of the Maccready’s sights before he had the chance to down another. His next two shots were fired in quick succession, but had only just grazed their targets, only clipping the tender flesh of their scalps and ears as the bullets missed the juicy plumpness of their skulls.

Underneath the dilapidated cask of what used to be a Brotherhood transport vehicle, Shaun watched the shootout with grim anticipation. His unrestricted view provided him with gruesome detail that he nauseously wished he could turn himself away from, but of which the imminent danger had called for his full, uninterrupted attention. It would do neither of them good for him to simply tuck his head down and ignore the gunfire before him, yet he knew he did not possess the capabilities to fight alongside Maccready, not that he would have wanted too regardless. His presence would only prove a distraction, yet his absence would leave companion severely outnumbered. At the most, with what little he could do, he resigned to watch and hopefully act in accordance if the opportunity presented itself, taking the role of a voyeur as the brutality unfolded before him.

Maccready, for as rashly as he acted, was not so ignorant enough to start a fight he knew he would lose, and so his confidence was backed by his expertise. He had taken cover before the other men could realize where the shooting had occurred from, and without letting himself play the sitting duck, he had kept light on his feet and constantly moving, darting from behind storehouse walls and upturned vehicles to place himself right into the heart of the conflict.

Any praise Shaun had for his intense capabilities would, of course, not be allowed to bear any semblance of fruit. No matter how often he was benefited from his presence, he could never find it within himself to praise such barbarous actions. It was exactly this show of skill that reminded him exactly who he was trapped in the company of, and who he had wistfully deceived more than once; it having occurred to him that this sudden attack was fueled by the false hope that the cache contained preciously sought-after food stuffs. His justifiable anger would be hard to quell once he realized the truth.

Under the ceaseless hiss of whizzing bullets and the muffled screaming of human voices, Maccready’s rifle would crack ferociously like an angry whip, hitting its targets with an audibly dull thud of visceral wreckage. Velocity would mercifully carry the massive shells entirely through the body at its most precise, but on occasion, it would pull some of their inside out along with them, visible slivers of bone peeking out from beneath the piles of gore left behind that made Shaun’s joints ache to look at. Indeed, the sight of every goopy slurry that had once a solid part of a human body served as a reminder of his own bleak future, and his guts churred hotly as if they could spill out underneath him at any moment.

He was dreadfully fearful of his companion, almost more so of any other hunter he had encountered thus far; for at the very least they had been direct with their intentions and wore their methods of self-preservation as a badge of pride, yet, he still could not shake this irrational concern for this man’s wellbeing, even if it was not mutually reciprocated. He watched Maccready face off against this entire battalion by his lonesome, with the knowledge that he was more than capable of handling it without any need for assistance, and still his eyes would dart back and forth across the action with apprehension that shook him down to the very core. It was as if he needed to constantly remind himself, between each choked lungful of air, that Maccready had already proven himself to be self-reliant, that his marksmanship was excellently infallible, and this was demonstrated in the pulpy mess that he left in his wake.

Instead, his concerns were centered over the upcoming aftermath. Once the fight was over and the dust had settled, Shaun would have to resume his deception under the looming threat of becoming one of these forgotten bodies left to rot without grave or name to any of them. He hadn’t even thought out what he would do to keep Maccready from uncovering the truth right away, the present had always demanded his attention and any chance to dwell on the issue in private had been thwarted by his own emotional turmoil. He was deathly afraid of victory, of successfully securing the cache for themselves, of finally awakening this beast he had trapped himself with and facing it without hope of mercy.

No, he had absolutely no reason to be concerned, no justification for it if it could not be reciprocated mutually. That was something else Maccready had proven to him. He was not the only one being deceived.

So then, why did he feel as though his heart would stop beating when he noticed that Maccready was about to be ambushed?

As clever as his hand was, Maccready was still a lonesome fighter, and the terrain had worked against him in this regard. Unlike the bridge, where he had ample space to run away down the open streets of the city, he had been so determined to charge forward into the action that he had unknowingly left himself open to an attack from behind. For each man that he executed, the others retaliated with their own strategy, and Shaun watched as they cleverly split themselves up and spread out farther and farther until Maccready’s focus was skewed between them. Some had managed to draw his attention with continuous shots to his cover, which gave ample opportunity for a small handful of men to sneak away. In having circled around the facility itself, they now came creeping up behind the warehouse, completely unnoticed.

There was no doubt that Maccready was capable enough to slaughter these few pitiable men with little difficulty; the only issue was that he needed to be aware of their presence behind him, and as Shaun watched them slink forth from beyond the shipyards docking bay, it seemed he was due for imminent failure.

Meanwhile, Shaun’s own gun still resided loathsomely within his coat pocket, its pressure against his stomach being a constant reminder of its presence and his failure to wield it.

But buried underneath the fear of its power was the temptation to utilize it for something better. It would certainly be a safer bet than attempting to shout something, perhaps less likely to draw attention to himself as well. However, it was just as equally possibly for his efforts to blow up in his face and damn them both; distracting Maccready instead of warning him and resulting in his death, leaving Shaun powerless and exposed for the hunters to set upon with greater ease.

Uncertainty and a tight time frame had frightened him, and it was with intense trepidation that he pulled forth his rusted pipe pistol, wrenching it from his pockets as if he were wrestling against the choice of his actions. Nevertheless, there was a justification in this that he repeated to himself like a prayer; that he was not intending to kill, but to save. He would fire a warning shot towards one of the assassins, and either the sound of the gunfire or the men’s reaction to the shot would draw Maccready’s attention, and then he would be safe.

Shaun, to the best of his abilities, attempted to rest the magazine of the pistol along the ground. He could not stop the shaking in his hands, nor was he willing to peek out from beneath his cover for the chance of a better shot. His eyes swam in pools of sweat, each choked breath taking in more dirt than air.

But in lining up his sights, he discovered a second terrible happening that Maccready seemed oblivious to.

The cache was currently in the process of being moved.

A heavy steamer trunk full of weapons was not an easily transportable thing, though its weight did little to dissuade their attempts, nor did it bring about any suspicion towards the nature of its contents. Though all of their men had been heavily armed and armored, these two men he saw now stood apart from the rest, cradled securely within the scavenged frames of power armor. Why they had not charged forward into battle beforehand was an easy assessment, they had not enough coverage for the skeletal frames they had found, and what remained or what they had crudely wielded onto it was not sufficient enough to tank brute force. Neither of them even possessed helmets. They were power and strength, but not precision, not endurance, and so their gang had assessed the risks and decided the best thing for them to do was to retreat with the trunk; a victory for some rather than a potential loss for all.

A single shot into both of their skulls would put an end to their attempts and leave the cache permanently grounded. There was not a man among them who could lift the thing on his own. They would need at least two of them just to pick it up, but nobody would even dare to make the attempt, not with the attention they would draw to themselves. All Maccready needed to do was see what was transpiring, and then the trunk would be theirs again.

Or at the very least, it could be Shaun’s, for with each dreadful second that passed, there was no guarantee that Maccready would be able to focus on both the men ahead of him and the men behind him.

Shaun certainly held a greater investment towards the cache than he did, an actual reason for ensuring its safe delivery that went beyond just himself, more so than this psychopath could even comprehend from within his little self-centered, sociopathic bubble of ignorance and hatred.

Who did Maccready live for besides himself, anyway? What would he ever do with his life that would be beneficial to the lives of those around him, to Shaun? He had shown him time and time again, had outright stated it to him, that he had no personal stake in his wellbeing. He constantly dangled him over potential dangers, and for what? To prove a point? To gloat over his own experience and strength and remind everyone else that they were beneath him, that they only lived out of his ever-changing choice of mercy?

These were the type of people that they told him existed on the surface, the examples of what a lifetime spent in its ruins would do to somebody.

Maccready ate human flesh. Maccready hunted other people as food.

Whether he would admit to that or not, it was an undeniable truth.

Just as it was true that Maccready had saved his life before. Had given him food and water, had cared for him and protected him. Begrudgingly.

Shaun could hardly describe himself as a righteous person, as someone with a certain strength of mind and will that was capable of hard resolutions. Ironic, considering all he had set out to do. He was and most likely would always be a soft coward making coward decisions, so afraid of blood on his hands that he willingly allowed them to be gouged by others.

He was not a murderer though, at least not by choice.

With unsteady aim he fired three shots, all in quick succession. Two of them had missed, clamoring along the metal wall of the warehouse with a piercing clash. One of them, though, had struck one of the men in the shoulder, his agonized scream more than loud enough to give away their position, and by Maccready’s rifle they were swiftly dealt with and silenced.

It had cost him the only three bullets that were loaded into the chamber, and it had cost them the cache.

He had to tell himself it was worth it, watching those men haul the steamer trunk out of sight with this deep, grim sorrow for his own future.

Maccready had evidently witnessed them leave as well, but at that point there was little that could be done about it. It seemed that Shaun’s surprise attack had whipped the hunters into a panicked frenzy, and for the few that stayed behind, they were getting desperate and sloppy.

While their accomplices fled, the remaining hunters ensured their successful retreat by unloading continuous fire into the wall Maccready had hidden himself behind; not with any expectation that one of their shots would kill him then and there, but with the correct assumption that he would be forced to remain concealed and withdrawn for his own safety. They would only need a suitable distance away from them, then their power armor would enable them to travel for as long and far as they wanted without need for rest; the two of them would never be able to catch up to them.

It was an unfortunately brilliant plan, one that shouldered them with a defeat that neither of them had the humility to outright accept. The only thing they had left to win now was the security of their own lives and Shaun had found himself at a severe disadvantage in that regard.

While Maccready remained safely predisposed, one of the hunters had ceased his fire to scout out the surrounding area. From beneath his own place of hiding, Shaun had only a glimpse of a wandering set of legs, draped in bloodied trouser, prowling about the deserted cares that littered the lot. It was obvious that he had only a vague direction from which to search, but he worked methodically in checking the interior and undercarriage of every vehicle he came across, patrolling with an agonizingly slow pace.

At risk of being found, Shaun had no choice but to slip away and seek cover elsewhere. He had already emptied his pistol, and it was doubtful that he could reload in the time it would take for this man to eventually wander over to his hiding place, should he have even considered aggressive relation as a suitable option to begin with.

Shaun used his forearms to cautiously push himself back, the raw stitching in his palm throbbing in irritation by his attempts to squirm out from beneath his cover. His eye followed the hunter as he drifted out of sight, so close to where he was, but he dared not to move any quicker than he did for fear of suddenly drawing his attention. He had tried to listen for his whereabouts, but the ceaseless gunfire had drowned out his movements completely, leaving Shaun blind and deaf to the danger that lurked only a few yards away.

When he finally crawled out from beneath the car it was with great uneasiness. He had no indication as to where the hunter had gone, aside from his last sighting to be very close by towards his lefthand side. He heard the crack of Maccready’s rifle and felt assured enough of his escape that he boldly, yet cautiously, made the decision to dart off towards the right; hoping to jump from cover to cover without being seen.

That was the plan at least, but a swift punch to the sternum doused his efforts instantly.

The world spun drastically as the air was violently forced from his lungs. Shaun crumpled to the ground in a wheezing heap, clutching his chest as he desperately choked in small slivers of air. The force of the punch had rattled his stomach, his throat tightening and pulsing with the dreaded expecting of vomiting, but only a thin line of drool spilled from his mouth.

The man laughed viciously above him, a sickeningly raspy chuckle that died on his lips as soon as it was uttered, falling eerily silent and morose as he watched Shaun writhe pitifully before him. In once praising his sympathies, he acknowledged no cruel irony for this coincidental turn of events, so cold and unflinching was his demeanor. With no discernable expression on his bloodied face, he leveled that familiar gun towards Shaun, centering the barrel to his forehead, impassive to his pleas and to his weakness.

A rifle round then pierced the left side of the man's cranium, shattering his fragile skull in a bloody spray of gruelish brain matter, and he fell before Shaun’s feet with a heavy thud.

Maccready stood at a distance, poised confidently, yet clearly exhausted, over the bodies he had so proudly slain. His shoulders shook with intensity, and he heaved in great gulps of air as he absentmindedly rattled the gun in his hands. His gaze was fierce and profound as it met Shaun’s, yet he did not linger for very long. Behind him was a hunter he had deliberately wounded in the leg, lengthening his life temporarily for a purpose that needed no witness other than himself. Having the decency to look almost ashamed, Maccready turned his sights away from Shaun and threw his anger completely unto his fallen prey, taking hold of him by the scruff of his collar and dragging him out of sight.

He had watched solemnly as the two disappeared from view, grateful for not being forced to watch, but blindness would afford the hunter no further privacy in this moment. Shaun could plainly hear the man’s violent howling as he was subjected to cruelties beyond his comprehension, vaguely hearing the heavy whacks that shook his voice and the faint snap of his bones. He had no idea how long the man would be kept alive, how long he would be forced to endure whatever was being done to him behind that wall, and it was not a fate he would wish unto anyone, not even the hunters.

Not even Logan, whose gruesome demise now lay before him in all its terrible glory.

The shot which killed him had struck the rear of his skull, severing the brainstem and completely pulverizing the cerebellum in what was a mercifully quick, yet messy execution. The back of his head was now a grisly open-faced concave crater of which the rest of his gray matter slowly began to seep out in pulpy chunks. He watched as the goopy mass congealed underneath the late afternoon sun, turning stiff and waxy beneath the rich, heavy stink of iron.

His face, unmarred by the unexpected attack, maintained a serene, slack-jawed expression that tightened into a gross rigidness, stretching his mouth back into a sort of lazy grimace. His skin was growing stiff, becoming a hardened mask of plastic that seemed less human the longer he looked at it. Gone were the pleading eyes that had so thoroughly drawn his compassion, now only glassy caricature that carried nothing but a faint glimmer of his reflection as he gazed deeply into them, wondering how they had managed to look so soft and tender when he was lying through his teeth.

It was not a sight he could turn away from, and yet, for once, such a scene did not instill within him an impassioned sense of horror and dread. His skin was scorching hot to the touch, his limbs shook and quivered beneath his weight, his dry throat constricted into a tight, knotted mess that choked away his breath; but inside he only felt cold and lifeless. A frigid ambiance overtook him, deaf to the screaming off in the near-distance, unsurprised by the spilt brain mass that dried and hardened on the tip of his shoes.

Slowly he came to his feet, keeping an unflinching eye on Logan’s corpse as he struggled to rise on shaking legs. As he stood above him, a felt a saddened indifference to the state in which he had been reduced too; once a figure that had inspired an almost rebellious act of compassion out of him, then becoming just another heart-wrenchingly fearful being that acted on the wills of his stomach rather than his heart. Now, he was simply a slab of meat, neither good nor evil, and for a moment Shaun merely stood over him reflecting on the reality that in death he was no longer himself and that he was truly gone.

He took his gun, picking the dreaded thing up in a single, shaking hand, and he took the canteen that was attached to his hip. He hesitated for a moment before rooting around in his pockets, grabbing a few handfuls of bullets and tossing aside a few junk items of little value, but which must have been telling of his personality and history if he had bothered to look at them. The slip of paper was the only thing that had caught his attention, unfolding it to reveal that it had been the shred of his map that he had torn from his very hand, upon which the shipyards had been titled and marked.

He tore the paper into tiny shreds, then he went off to look for Maccready.

Chapter 10

Chapter Text

Shaun remembered the very first time he had seen the sun.

He had been awed by the intensity of that vast, celestial body above him, ever-present in its placement within the vast sky overhead. In his experience, light had always come from an artificial source; a human construction that had been controllable, perfected, softened, replaceable. But beyond human capabilities was a force of nature that had existed long before mankind ever had and would continue to burn for centuries after they were gone, wonderous and huge.

Now, he saw how the sun sat low in the western sky, swollen and pulsating with dreadfully dull heat, and he thought he would be happy to never again set foot under its oppressive light.

He’d be grateful for the coming nightfall and the chance to truly rest, but at the present time the sun’s haggard position in the far distance left deep, cool shadows for him to hide within, and that was decent enough for now.

He stood weakened of body and spirit in the shade casted by the large, concrete warehouse centered by the banks, the very same one that Maccready had dragged the last hunter behind, and Shaun actively ignored the screaming that occurred just beyond the corner as he greedily sucked down the water he stole from Logan’s canteen. A faint, metallic taste lingered gingerly along his tongue, one that he had hoped had merely bled from the canteen itself and not from some other source, but the coppery flavor did little to dissuade him from fiercely gulping down half the supply in a foolish moment of weakness and regret. The relief to his dry throat was too good to not indulge in to its fullest, though the pleasure was soon masked by an ache in his empty stomach, and a drastic change in temperature within him that made the late afternoon heat seem all the more intense and unbearable. Just as quickly as he drank, the water would leave him in fat rivulets of sweat that made him feel all the more hot and parched, his face dampened and red with a glossy sheen.

He felt disgusted with himself, in more ways than one, but especially of the physical sense. Of all the creature comforts he had forfeited in his hopeless quest above ground, it was the routine and sterile bathing that he mourned the loss of above all else. Food, and the lack thereof, was not the foremost on his mind, as the water had cruelly dosed that particular flame for the time being, but all the same it reminded him of the clean white tiles of his bathroom and the feeling of soap lathering against his skin. He had never thought of the process as anything other than a daily occurrence, a necessity of hygiene standards as opposed to a luxury in comfort that he had so stupidly taken for granted back when he had it. Never in his life had he gone so long without washing, and every day the oil and grim that secreted from him caked on thicker and more foul, and the reminder left him feeling itchy all over.

He felt diseased; like the people back at the sicko colony, and he thought he truly must have been just as rotted inside as well.

His stomach gurgled with discomfort, the water swishing back and forth with nothing to absorbed or digest, and a vision of festering puss filled boils suddenly came to mind and would not leave him be.

He brought the canteen back to his lips, hesitating for just a moment before swallowing another deep mouthful, choking the water down against a thick lump in his throat. The drink snaked its way down to his stomach like a solid clump, landing thick and dense so that he suddenly had to brace himself against the wall he leaned against for fear of vomiting. His hands shook and his lip quivered with the throes of nausea, swallowing against nothing as he willed himself to retain what he had forcefully drunk.

He signed shallowly, closing his eyes and allowing his forehead to press against the bleached concrete as the sharp crack of bone snapped violently nearby. He heard two voices viciously spit back and forth at each other, one pathetically cracked and whimpering, and the other a sharp hiss that rumbled lowly and clearly with rage, but to Shaun they were only a quiet little murmur that barely drew focus away from the churning waves of sickness that overtook him.

He needed a shower, and he needed to lie down, but most importantly he needed Maccready to....finish with whatever it was he was doing so that they could just move on from here already. But what exactly could be done now? Could they secure the cache? Maccready was surely looking for his own answers in the only method he knew how, but Shaun should have been utilizing this time to his own advantage as well. The fighting method could be left to his companion without much issue, but it was the continued deception of this very companion that required constant thought and careful planning, neither of which he had the energy to commit to at this time.

Shaun groaned to himself as another shrill cry pierced through the air, listening to it with gross attention as it wailed out ferociously with anguish before quickly being reduced to muffled sobs. His mouth felt repulsively slimy with a thick spit that clung to the back of his teeth like plaque, familiarly soured by the heavy scent in the air, yet his tongue was dry and numb as he clenched it tightly between his teeth.

Slowly, he backed away from the wall, keeping a single hand rested on it for balance as the water in his guts sloshed violently with his movements. Keeping his steps short and light, he guided himself towards the wall's edge, coming upon the corner that obfuscated his view of whatever Maccready was subjecting the hunter to. He knew he was not brave enough to witness the scene with his own eyes (he feared his poor stomach was quickly approaching its absolute tolerance to such grand sights of pain and suffering), nor did he wish to be seen in turn; yet even without seeing it, what he had heard painted a vivid picture with enough gruesome detail to leave him reeling.

Shaun could just picture him lying there, corpse-like in appearance and condition yet tragically kept alive. He heard how the hunter’s breath was defined by a visceral gurgling, one that shamefully reminded him of his own grumbling stomach, and knew that the poor man’s lungs were slowly filling up with blood. Each wet gulp of air sounded like a struggle to take in, rattling his broken ribs so that Shaun’s own chest felt tight and constricted in sympathy.

In such condition the hunter’s words were spewed out violently, as if each syllable was an impossible feat to even pronounce, and as such Shaun could only hear tiny snippets of what he finally admitted.

The only words that he could make out of that garbled speech were “skinny” and “cannery”, everything else falling away into nonsensical vowels and ending with a brutal coughing fit. Maccready spat back some kind of retort, though his voice was strangely quiet and his tone held none of its usual bite from what Shaun could tell.

Taking great precaution, Shaun dared to lean forward a bit more, hoping one of them would say something that would finally make sense of all this terrible violence, but all that came forth was a fearsome gunshot.

Startled by the unexpected noise, Shaun had thrown himself backwards, painfully falling to his knees. The harsh movement threw him into a severe wave a nausea, and instantly he felt something creeping up along the back of his throat, forcing him to kneel over and puke up nothing but a little foamy liquid. He braced both his hands on the ground before him as his shoulders jerked and spasmed, breathing deeply through his mouth in an effort to combat the urge to vomit a second time. There was a twitch in his neck muscles, his gullet pulsing as he gagged irregularly, occasionally belching out a little gas or water but thankfully nothing more.

He didn’t even look up at Maccready when he rounded the corner. His presence had been made obvious and there was no point in attempting to deny it, though it was safe to say that his companion had assumed the worst and chastised him for his unchecked curiosity, something that Shaun blatantly ignored with a few slow nods of his head. In truth, he didn’t need to witness any of it to know exactly what Maccready had done, the only thing left to find out was why.

Maccready was at least gracious enough to offer up his hand in assistance, though Shaun crassly brushed him aside to stand on his own. Maccready didn’t question it, choosing instead to wait off on the side and fidget restlessly in clear agitation, practically bouncing on his heels in anticipation to leave. He wasted no time recklessly pushing his way through the shipyard, and for as much grace as he typically carried himself, his reckless persistence in escaping had left him stumbling and tripping over the very bodies he had previously slain. He swore constantly to himself, no longer attempting to quiet his own odd behavior as he bordered on screaming his frustrations to no one in particular.

Following as close as he safely could, Shaun trailed behind with much greater control over himself, watching his companion flail and flounder as he tore through to the open streets and headed for the southern bridge they had crossed before.

Shaun was certain this was not the direction that the hunters had fled.

Still, he waited with bated breath, hiding within the edges of Maccready's shadow as he was led back into the depths of the urbanite wilderness.

This time he would be sure to keep his wits about him and retain his focus on their navigation and surroundings. Maccready himself seemed distracted by his own anger; a common occurrence not too noteworthy if not for the fact that it presumably kept him too preoccupied to scout for potential danger himself. Though Shaun had seen the remaining hunters escape with the cache to the north, he could not claim with certainty that they were entirely in the clear now, nor could he simply put aside any other possible dangers that might be lurking in the area. Their shootout was loud and bloody ordeal, and it could have easily attracted attention from some lowly fellows eager for a chance to collect on the leftovers, or worse...

That thing he had seen only the night before came to mind; a hulking mass of swollen, discolored flesh that he had never laid his eyes on before that day. He recalled the fearsome bellows of his roars, deep and guttural like an animal, though it walked on two legs and possessed a five-fingered hand like a human being. Its face had been an inflamed and shredded mess of torn, loose-hanging skin and bone, but the familiar structure was still there underneath it; two eyes, a nose, a mouth. Its body looked huge and menacing as it charged forward maliciously, supposedly a thing of pure strength and force; yet Maccready’s shot that ruptured that body like a burst pimple, and its soupy contents drained out until it was nothing more than sagging skin.

Danse had once told him about those other things, the ghouls, who used to be human, and he quickly snuffed out that train of thought before he could distract himself any further.

Instead, he noticed that they were now treading back through familiar territory, though not with intent to go back to the colony as he had initially believed. At the crossroads that would have led them over the Charles River, they had taken a sharp right to the west, following the river at a blocks distance.

In the looming shadows of the skyscrapers, they winded down the city streets with an unstated destination in mind, seemingly putting as much distance between themselves and the shipyard as possible with little thought of where they ended up. Shaun tried to familiarize himself with the area, cataloging the shape of the buildings and the names of the roads to memory, trying to predict where they would be heading since he dared not ask Maccready himself.

The further into the city the drew, the thicker and saltier the air became. It was reminiscent of the butter he used to be given for his daily bread each morning, only now the memory twisted his guts with repulsion. In his starvation he thought constantly of food, but every reminder of the richness he had once tasted back home revolted him. Previous indulges both recent and ancient haunted him with their profound effect they once had on his body, sensations of the stomach and tongue ghosting cloying and maudlin throughout. He kept a hand over his nose and mouth, shallowly breathing in the scent of stiff leather and sweaty fabric in an effort to control himself, but all it did was cover his face of astonishment as he took in the scenery they had then stumbled upon.

The monoliths had well concealed this destruction from view, but in squeezing past the narrow gaps between them, they came to the remains of what must have once been an inner-city neighborhood before, but which now only existed as a massive crater in the earth.

Shaun had been stunned by its extensiveness, but Maccready he had evidently already seen and accepting this cataclysm as commonplace, and so confidently walked past it while giving its crumbling edge a wide berth, casually warning Shaun to do the same.

As grim and terrible as this place was, it was here that Maccready decided to take shelter for the night, selecting one of the more stable structures at a safe enough distance from the pit itself, and after a brief inception of the place he hurriedly rushed the both of them up to one of the higher floors.

Shaun could estimate that they had at least a couple hours of daylight yet to burn, but with suitable shelter already found, he rationalized that it was better to take it now and wait out the coming darkness rather than risk exposure when the time came. Without ceremony or preference, they settled into a dilapidated room whose window held a perfect view of the crater’s depths, and this he stared into ominously with a foul sense of premonition.

Something writhed within it, a familiar skinless being lying within a murky puddle at the pits center, contorting itself in discomfort as it bucked and clawed at the mud beneath it. Though the distance rendered it to only a discolored, humanoid shape, he could not help the discomfort that welled in him at this creature's existence.

Behind him, Maccready relaxed into a chair, a little calmer in appearance and attitude. This, along with the sun steadily lowering off on the horizon, Shaun felt it necessary and appropriate to finally address what they were to do from here on out.

Without taking his gaze away from the pit, he timidly broke the silence that had grown between them.

“What are we going to tell Nick and David?”

He shuddered at the thought, dreading a confrontation with his two temporary extortionists. Under present circ*mstances it was not illogical to presume that failure on his part might be met with extreme action, and ironically enough, he feared the repercussions of this loss more so than the actions of any cannibal murderer at this point.

Still, he thought it necessary to fill them in on what exactly transpired, especially if they not going to secure the cache for them just yet, though that was assuming that this was only a minor setback. If anything, they would know what to do concerning their property, and their assistance in keeping Maccready cooperative would be much needed.

Speaking of; Maccready, woefully obvious was he was, knew of none of the greater concerns that Shaun held towards the missing goods. Even if he had, he would have only shown the same amount of distasteful indifference towards them as he did to this very basic worry that Shaun presented him with. The question fully reignited the anger that he had slowly been trying to quell, causing Maccready to suddenly snap at him as he rose to his feet in agitation.

“We’re not gonna tell them sh*t. Just forget about the cache, it’s a lost cause now.”

As he said this, he began to pace irregularly about the room, lost for direction but too disturbed to sit down.

“If they want it that f*cking badly, they can just go get it themselves at this point.”

For a moment, Shaun could only watch his ward awkwardly stumbled within the tiny, enclosed space; his forceful tone having triggered an Immediate subdued and placid response. But as the weight of his words truly sank in, Shaun felt a full-bodied chill gradually wash over him, and he whimpered out a meek, questioning sound that went ignored.

Maccready did not follow up with anything more, but in his irritation, he brushed past Shaun to take a wary glance out of the window.

They were much too far away for the ghoul to notice them, but something had triggered it to raise its head and scream, howling in a hoarse, raspy screech that carried on the wind as little more than a faint, burbling squeak. Despite this, and for all its writhing and wiggling, it did not rise from its little puddle, and upon closer inspection it was obvious why. Its gangly limbs had lost all of its flesh and skin, leaving nothing behind but withered bone that could barely support its meager weight, condemning it to this hollowed grave without any hope of dragging its pathetic body out. It was perhaps on its final stages of starvation, close to death and a danger to nobody.

Maccready shot it regardless.

A splitting boom exploded within the room before echoing out into shrill white noise. In such close proximity the rifle was obnoxiously loud and obtuse, electrifying the air with obscene energy, but Maccready only took it in stride, sneering at the sight of Shaun covering his ears against the sudden fire. With nothing more to see he finally stepped away from the window, taking his place in the chair once again with an air of satisfaction and relief.

Shaun didn’t understand how such an act could bring him to a relaxed state, nor could he understand how he was capable of firing off a gun with such steady hands. His own were shaking, firmly clasped over his ears in a vain effort to quiet the dull, vibrating thrum that took over his hearing.

He couldn’t help but look out of the window himself, dreading the sight of that reddish lump in the distance but unable to stop himself from staring at it with rapt attention. It finally lay still and peaceful, crumpled within its precious, soiled puddle so that nothing distinguishingly human about it remained, only a faintly visible texture to its form that gave the impression of something organic and rotting.

It was almost convincing enough to let him drop the conversation as it were, to simply turn in for the night and anticipate whatever the oncoming morning should bring. It would be easy; it would give him the chance to rest, deeply and peacefully, while he still could. His body ached for the opportunity to offset its burdens for just a little while, to not feel this tightening grip in his chest or this painful throbbing deep within his skull. It was almost convincing.

But the sight of Maccready lounging casually off to the side, his gun’s barrel still hot and emanating faint whisps of smoke, was not.

He lowered himself to the floor with unsteady legs, an act that was done not out of comfort, but with the idea that he would be unable to support himself for much longer, and especially when he called over Maccready’s attention again. The wall at his back was sturdy and cold, perfect to brace himself against should he need too, and the icy stone felt pleasant when he pressed the back of his head into it.

He waited an agonizing couple of minutes to finally speak his mind, churning his thoughts around as if to map out his argument, but only coming to abruptly break the silence between them without any caution or gentleness in the end.

“Why...are we abandoning the job?” He asked.

Though he spoke imploringly and gazed over at Maccready with tender pleading in his eyes, he was met with only an ugly expression. It was a highly expected, yet still disappointing, response to have been given, yet his anger did not flare up as it had before. Rather than dismiss him directly, Maccready muttered a retort of some kind under his breath, falling silent as he let the question die out without a proper answer. He cast his gaze down to the rifle strewn across his lap, awkwardly tapping his fingers against the body in what looked like a nervous tick.

“We can’t just walk away from this!” Shaun pleaded with him. “W-we...we agreed to deliver the cache to them! It was-”

“Bullsh*t,” Maccready finished. “We had no reason to agree to this sh*t in the first place, so what’s the point in going after it now?”

His head snapped up as he spoke, though it seemed as if the heat in his tone actually diminished somewhat, as if he were breathing out a sigh of relief with each word. He was presenting himself with absolute decisiveness in this decision, and it left Shaun feeling both horrified at the prospect, and furious at Maccready for establishing it so hastily.

Ignorantly, to be more precise.

Indeed, his ignorance was a constant source of annoyance and worry at the best of times, and often Shaun wished that he were capable and bold enough to grab Maccready by the neck and wring that cruel stupidity out of him at times like these. There was never a time in which he didn’t speak down to Shaun as if he were some naïve fool, and though he often thought of himself in much the same way, in this moment, Shaun resented such a view of himself. Should he be able to, he would have loved to expound the full truth of the matter to him, just to savor the expression he would bare and the apology that he would anticipate to come after.

But of course, keeping Maccready purposefully misinformed was the entire crutch in which the plan was supported on, and as frustrating as it was, he was forced to quietly bear it. That obliviousness was what allowed him to be coerced into the job, and possibly the only thing that kept him from bursting open Shaun’s skull without a second thought; but now that same obliviousness was causing him to believe that he could simply turn his back on the matter with no repercussions whatsoever. It was a conundrum of his own making, and still that desire to rip the veil of ignorance away from Maccready’s eyes was prevalent and burning within him. He wanted him to see the true dangers that he was facing and demand that he act accordingly.

The very idea of doing such left him chilled and uncertain.

“But...” Shaun spoke meekly, “w-we....promised...?”

Maccready fixed him with an unimpressed and disappointed look.

“Promises don’t keep you alive and fed out here, Isaac. You should know better than that by now.”

It took Shaun great effort not to let his dissatisfied expression give him away, and for once he felt something almost akin to admiration in Maccready’s ability to freely speak his mind with such confidence; especially considering that he was technically right, though Shaun would be damned before he ever admitted that.

Still, his reasoning for suddenly abandoning the job had initially struck him as odd, and the questionable nature of it only seemed that much more profound the more he analyzed it. Maccready had been reluctant to involve himself with other people's affairs, something that Shaun had understood and reasoned with that to a degree, but in the end, his self-servicing preservation had given way to greed, and the promise of payment (or perhaps more accurately: the opportunity for theft) had been sufficient in persuading him to comply. Despite his initial uncooperative attitude, they had found themselves taking the journey to the shipyard and willingly instigating a gruesome fight to preserve the cache, which he doubted Maccready would have done on his own.

He even went so far as it purposefully kept one of the hunters alive for interrogation, which clearly showed that he had plans to continue, yet abruptly change his mind with no explanation; something that didn’t make sense considering the amount of effort he had devoted towards the success of the operation up to his point.

Except for one thing that stood out in Shaun’s memory.

“Is...” he started, unsure of himself. “Does this have something to do with a “cannery”?”

The word sat foreign and strange in his mouth, gliding along his tongue in hesitate syllables with no connection to anything he could possibly use for reference. It was never a term he had heard before, with no idea as to what it possibly described or the significance behind it.

But Maccready knew, evidently, and whatever that thing should be, he now knew that it was not something he should have tread upon so lightly.

Maccready’s reaction was one of extreme shock, spinning himself around fiercely so that he faced Shaun directly, his expression one of the meanest and most profound he had ever seen before.

“Don’t f*cking talk about sh*t you know nothing about!” He shouted.

He threateningly pointed a single finger towards him, as if it were any comparison to actual weapon he still kept on his knee.

“We’re not going there, alright? So f*cking drop it.”

He spoke with such ferocity that he practically screamed, putting forth as much authority into his voice as his anger could feasibly convey. He gnashed his teeth menacingly with every word, and with the brief pause that followed, he seemed ready and willing to unleash himself fully on the matter.

Shaun had braced himself accordingly, expecting severe retaliation for whatever it was that he just uncovered, but much to his surprise, nothing more came of it. Maccready stopped in his outburst to take in a deep, prolonged breath, quickly falling silent as he barely restrained himself from further emotional onslaught.

That should have been more than enough evidence to support his initial inquiry, to know that something vital had been unexpectedly thrown into this already complicated mix and made the situation a whole lot worse. Truly, he had nothing more to gain, and in fact, a drastic amount to lose by continuing to press the issue further, but he could not let the conversation cease so easily after what he had spotted just then.

A terrible look in Maccready’s eyes that seemed so startlingly out of place, a slight waver that bled into his voice that he desperately tried to conceal beneath his roaring anger, and he masked it well. To anyone else that subtle difference would have been unnoticeable, insignificant, perhaps just a bit of surprise at his comment for being made in the first place with nothing more to it. But Shaun knew better, from his own experiences.

Maccready looked afraid.

It was not something he had ever expected him to feel, and the grim reminder that this person whom he was so afraid of was truly just that, a person, someone who also felt the same emotions and fears as he did in spite of his common demeanor, left him reeling somewhat.

Still, there wasn’t a connection to be made between them with this revelation. He knew better than to call out what he had learned to his face directly, to try and level with him on common ground when he constantly worked so hard to make their footing uneven, but it at least gave him something to work with.

He had to try. Afterall, Maccready was not the one in danger here, though he acted as if he were.

He sat irritably in his chair on the verge of a fit, trying to suppress his convulsing tics and give himself an air of nonchalance, which he failed at quite horribly. Shuan observed him for a moment as he tapped his artificial foot with such ferocity that the rusted screws squeaked and groaned with the motions, not concerned in the least as to the maintenance of its condition in this state. His eyes constantly flittered about without stopping to look at anything in particular as mumbled to himself all the while.

He kept his gun gripped tightly within his hands now, and Shaun focused on its shape and size as he spoke to Maccready once again.

“Maccready,” Shaun offered up carefully, “We have to go back and tell them what happened. We can’t just leave them in the dark with no explanation!”

Though he knew he had spoken out of turn, he had hoped that his voice did not sound so assured and commanding in its pleas as to instigate further hostility, but the desperation in his tone was evident and the fear pronounced in each trembling word. Still, he thought of none of this as a bad thing necessarily, for his meekness was often his best defense and his greatest support towards his cause, but unfortunately, it seemed not to invoke the sympathy or contemplation he had been looking for in his ward.

Rather than giving in to his appeal, Maccready only glared at him, hissing out his false name with a sharpened edge so that his warning was clear and precise; this was the last chance he had to drop the topic of his own accord before he would be forced to do so.

Shaun didn’t hesitate for a second.

“What if they think we stole it from them?” He asked, his voice growing firm as he stood his ground. “What if they come after us?”

Maccready’s face scrunched into a ghastly expression as his skin flushed with a deep, scarlet color.

“So what if they come after us?” he screamed. “You think I’m f*cking scared of them or something?”

And indeed he did, for Maccready’s voice shook ever so slightly as he roared, as if he were trying just as hard to convince himself of his own bravery.

Shaun thought of him as a hypocrite, as often he did, but more so in this moment to be so terribly afraid of this lurking danger he would not fully disclose, yet choosing to direct his anger towards possibly the only person who did not want to see him harmed. He was not even a person capable of cruelty should he have wanted it.

It was appalling, but very much also just a mere assumption on Shaun’s part, and it seemed dangerous to assume that any anger Maccready put out as simply misguide or misunderstood.

Shaun, on the other hand, thought that his feelings were neither, and thus had no qualms with admitting his own fear in this situation.

“Well, I f*cking am!” He screamed.

An uncomfortable silence descended upon the both of them, almost shameful with the aftermath of their heated emotions. He did not hide the worry that wracked his features, nor did he have to still his shaking limbs and force himself to look his companion in the eye, lingering with the trembling feeling of excursion and uncertainty that stood real and unquestioned and so very, very convincing.

Shaun did not have to pretend to be something he wasn’t to make his point known.

Maccready was left stunned, so taken aback by this sudden and unexpected outburst that he stared slack-jawed at Shaun with no trace of his former anger still present in his dumb expression. There was a sick sort of satisfaction in knowing that he caused that sort of reaction, and Shaun realized he may be just as much a hypocrite as Maccready was; the f*cking synth that he is.

Nevertheless, confidence was not something he possessed either naturally or artificially, and he waited by without comment, eager to hear Maccready respond in some way. He felt himself thrumming with agitated energy, hugging his knees close to his chest and hitching his shoulders up so that they covered his ears, anticipating something great to come of this and dreading it all the while. He couldn’t even bring himself to look at Maccready, staring at his own feet bashfully as if it would somehow make him look even more innocent and harmless than usual. In the anticipation, he recited lines within his head, hoping to make it through the fallout amicably.

The groaning creak of the chair signaled that Maccready had stood, and the clattering thump on the table meant that he thankfully placed down his gun for the time being, and Shaun felt a little calmer as a result. Still, the dull shuffling of his footsteps as he drew ever closer made his heart pound voraciously within his chest, and he stared humbly at the floor as those worn and drabby shoes finally came into view, and he looked up to see him standing over him, tall and menacing.

“What are you suggesting we do, exactly?” Maccready hissed, his voice carefully punctuated and articulate as he spat out his own questions. “What is your plan, here? Tell them we f*cked up? That we let the hunters take the cache right out from under us? Do you have any idea what they’re going to think, what they’re going to do, when they find out?”

“No, I don’t-” Shaun started.

“No. You don’t.” Maccready said. “You don’t think of these things. I do!”

“But! It's better they hear it from us first rather than finding it out on their own. They’ll see that we’re honest and they’ll know who really did take it.”

Maccready growled to himself like a beast, his hands coming up to pull at that greasy knot of hair he kept in unruly frustration.

“They’re gonna see that I f*cked up! That I just- let them f*cking walk out of there without doing anything to stop it!”

He was grumbling hoarsely almost entirely to himself, neither his focus nor his words directed towards Shaun in any coherent way.

“God I am such a- f*cking! Idiot!”

This was going nowhere except south, and righteously so. If Maccready could not feel sympathy, stubborn and mule headed as he chose to be, then at the very least Shaun could.

“There were too many of them.” He told Maccready. “There wasn’t anything else you could have done that would have changed the outcome. It wasn’t your fault-“

“I know,” Maccready quickly snapped back. “It was yours.”

For a split-second, the weight of the comment didn’t register, and the two of them stared at one another with no shared recognition between them.

Then his words suddenly fell upon like a slap to the face, and he was stunned.

“What…?”

He couldn’t think of what to say in response, so surprised by that accusation that he could hardly scramble his thoughts together to make sense of them, as if he had been told something totally nonsensical. He squirmed beneath Maccready sharp gaze, his mouth suddenly dry and the urge to drink from his canteen overwhelmingly strong.

“You f*cking heard me,” Maccready said. “Where were you during that fight, huh? Where did you run off to while I was putting my f*cking life on the line to try and get the goddamn job done!”

Despite the absurdity in what he was saying, Shaun instinctively caved into the shame and guilt that was thrust upon him, having naturally learned to become submissively pallid towards the authority that stood above him. He was scared and confused, quaking underneath Maccready’s fierce eye of condemnation as he struggled to make himself heard.

“I…I couldn’t-..I can’t-!”

He choked on his own tongue, breathlessly gasping out futile little disparaging notes that did nothing but make him look like a frightened little child who was caught and fearful of their rightful punishment. He especially felt a chill run through him when he recollected his actions and realized that Maccready was ultimately, right. He had indeed kept himself out of the fight while entrusting his companion to do all the work on his part; a set-up that he initially thought they had acknowledged as necessary and beneficial to the both of them.

With newfound confidence, Maccready bent down to mercilessly jab his finger into Shaun’s chest, the force behind the action so great that he grew fearful of an illogical notion that it would somehow pierce straight through his ribs and into his heart.

“You couldn’t?” Maccready snapped at him. “You mean you wouldn’t.”

He drew in a large, obnoxious breath through his nose, rattling his sinuses so that he jerked his head forcefully some side to side, but keeping his gaze locked firmly onto Shaun without fail.

“I know you still have that little sh*t pistol, and I know I taught you how to f*cking use it! Even your stupid little worthless ass could have done something in that fight! You could have swept the perimeter! You could have f*cking warned me of what was happening!”

With a punctual emphasis to each of his words, Maccready stabbed his finger down on Shaun’s chest with greater and greater force, poking sharply at the tender thin flesh of his quickeningly protruding ribs.

“But no. You ran off and hid somewhere, sat on your ass like a f*cking baby! And look what happened!”

He finally pushed off of Shaun with a final fierce shove to his breastbone, flattening his palm and pushing with the heel of his hand so that his body was slammed backward into the wall.

“You couldn’t even defend yourself for f*ck’s sake! You had me to do it for you!”

Finally, he rose to his feet, leering down at Shaun with absolute disgust written on his face, but blinded to the pain and horror that painted Shaun’s own expression so clearly. He staggered on his own lithe frame, exasperated and full of energy but with no other outlet than the boy who lay in front of him, completely at his mercy.

Shaun could only sit frozen in terror as he watched Maccready shuffle about in front of him, his body twitching and jerking with strange motions of agitation. His hands would slap down on his thighs with each frustrated sigh of breath, his teeth would constantly chew on the crusted skin of lips and swallow back the peeling strips they ripped off, his eyes would dart from his face to the window behind him, sweeping across everything but seeing nothing.

At last, Maccready placed his hands onto his hips, his focus pinpointing onto Shaun’s eyes as his countenance leveled into something stern and coherent for once.

“You need to learn one of these days, Isaac. You need to learn how to help yourself because nobody is gonna bother to help you out here, do you understand me?”

Shaun nodded in agreement on reflex, keeping his mouth shut and his body as still as possible, just as he had learned to do until the ordeal was over and Maccready’s anger was directed elsewhere. He watched on in anticipated fear as his companion hummed and grumbled to himself for a few moments longer before finally taking his place in the chair once again, forcefully dragging his pack towards him from across the table so that he could rummage through its contents for whatever would placate him this time.

Shaun, on the other hand, couldn’t breathe; not just from the ingrained response to such a familiar situation that often left him quaking and ashamed and fearful of his superiors, but from the anaphylactic shock of hearing Maccready account of the day’s events. He felt his words suck at him like a parasite, draining him of sensation until he felt numb and dull all over, fatigued with burden both physical and emotional.

His tongue felt dry and thick, and he slowly brought out Logan’s canteen and sucked heavily from its meager contents, letting his guts churn with the unpleasant feeling of sloshing water to quell that slight fire of righteous fury that he felt trying to burn up within him. He felt liable to faint, but he chose to say nothing, on himself or what had happened, and thought that the only thing he could do anymore was throw himself into a deep sleep and shut away everything that existed in this cruel and terrible world.

But sleep would not come so long as Maccready had something to say.

He had almost tuned out his meaningless dribble, content to let him sit and stew in his own negative emotions and mumble to himself like a madman so long as it would keep him away from Shaun for the rest of the night, but his terrible luck and secretive actions had just been uncovered in the most unfortunate of circ*mstances as he caught the trailing words of “food” and “pack” and “thieves.” Instantly the dull feeling of heaviness that weighed him down snapped away, and he sat up alert and fearful as the man ahead of him screeched out profanities and threats, pulling out the contents of his pack in such a manner similar to the cannibals he had once witnessed pulling the scorched meat from out of that forgotten paladins’ armor, desperately searching for the food that both of them knew wasn’t there anymore.

Shaun took another deep gulp from the canteen, feeling the drink struggle to slide down past the tightening muscle of his throat. He could think of excuses, he already had back when he had first taken the food, but he could not bring himself to speak up, simply watching the scene unfurl before him.

When it was at last determined that the little supply of food truly had been taken, Maccready slammed his fists down on the table, oblivious to the way that Shaun eyed the door and its short proximity away from him. He spouted out curses, both to himself and to Shaun, but most of all, to Nick and David, and somewhere within the ugly retorts and swears was the promise that he would go back to the colony and take what was stolen from him come morning, offhandedly mentioning to Shaun that he should prepare and be ready by then.

The sun fell dreamily off into the distance, fading away into a blur of darkness so that a clouded haze overtook him and spread throughout the little room he was trapped in, finally enveloping it into silence and stillness. On the comfort on his own thin mat, Maccready slept restlessly, though undisturbed, almost eager for the next day like how a child waits for a Christmas morning. Shaun found his own little corner to lie in, but sleep would not come to him just yet, not when there was work that needed to be done.

And he needed help to do it.

Chapter 11

Chapter Text

Darkness descended across the commonwealth, and those who were not lulled into slumber within the presumed safety of their shelters were just now stirring awake, having waited out the blistering sun to prowl the empty streets in search of the last remnants of food that still existed within this barren land. Among the awaking and the dead, the living and the ones who slept, empty stomachs growled out like ravenous beasts, begging from within their cages to be spared any scraps that might be thrown their way; and with every day the denial drew them closer to madness and impulsiveness, sharpening their teeth and their claws as they lunged and scratched at the bars that contained them, eager for a fresh kill that could finally bring satisfaction and rest to these poor, dreary souls.

Most children naturally feared the darkness for this exact reason, long before the real monsters had been created and set free to seek out those tiny bodies as easy prey; a natural, animalistic conditioning that slowly evolved into something too abstractly complex for advanced creatures such as man to fully articulate by themselves.

Shaun had never been a child though, had never been a real human being with these ingrained senses of primal instincts and notions to keep him alive. There was never a time before in which he feared the approach of nightfall and the oncoming darkness that it brought, when the clocks completed their daytime cycle, and the lights were to be shut off for the next eight hours. He had never understood the logic behind it, had never sympathized with the human children in the institute that insisted on keeping their personal lamps on while they slept in the safety of their little beds, the scientists that asked for escorts even though the hallway lights were always kept at bare minimum visibility at all times.

It was always a foolishly confusing thing that he failed to grasp, until it wasn’t, and now he finally understood why people were born with the understanding that the dark was something to be feared.

He knew that the darkness was prime cover for things that sneaked and watched and waited, and he was anticipating that such a thing was currently out there doing just that. He had hoped that he was successful in captivating its attention for just this night.

It was within this blackened pitch that he stood waiting; for a response, for a miracle, for anything really, so long as it would help him.

Time was of the essence, and the window of opportunity he was granted was slowly closing itself for good. He had done his part and done it well, but it was not enough and despite his greatest efforts he had still come up short. The circ*mstances were spiraling beyond his control, slipping from between his fingers, and the time had come to admit and relieve his burdens.

He had waited until Maccready had fallen asleep, had watched the steady rise and fall of his chest as he drifted off into an uncomfortable and fitful rest, then he had left to find paper.

He wrote a note, and in place of a signature he attached it to the holotape that bore his true name. Then he had descended the stairs and left the building altogether, stood out on the open streets underneath the moonlight in full visibility, hoping to be seen. He had left the note on top of a mailbox that stood across from their chosen hideout, and then he had returned to his little room and waited.

He didn’t know exactly what he was waiting for, but he figured that he would understand once he had seen it. Deacon would make himself known in some way, whether to assist him as he had hoped or deny him as he had feared, but Shaun knew he would respond in some way. It was only a matter of time.

And indeed, that time did come when after two grueling hours of waiting and watching, he finally saw a glimmer of light faintly visible from the window, shining off in the far distance. He did not stop to think of the possibilities or probabilities of what the light could have been or meant, merely putting what he might have called faith into unseen hands that worked where he could not reach. He gathered his gun which held no bullets, and his canteen that held very little water, and he left Maccready to the peaceful silence and dark of their shelter to find some way to stop him from attacking the sicko colony in the morning.

When he came upon the streets it was with shaking limbs and a put-on, calm demeanor, prepared to act the part of brave and capable for that deplorable man that lurked within his shadow; the one he had sought to lure out for this night. He set his sights instantly on the mailbox and his presumptions were rewarded with a new bundle hidden within its depths for him to take.

The cloth was damp and sticky within his hands, and he was grateful for the gloves that shielded his skin from its repulsive texture. He ignored darkened color of its fabric and the rancid, think-bodied smell that emanated from it in favor of unveiling its contents there and then, in full view of anyone that could be witnessing these actions.

Wrapped loosely in the bloodied shirt was a few handfuls of bullets, which he did not have to presume fit the cartridge of his pistol perfectly. He pocketed these with unnerved gratitude and great foreboding, making sure to keep his expression visibly neutral despite the trembling of his lip and twitching of his eyelids. Along with the bullets was his holotape, which he snuck back into the breast pocket of his coat, and a message created from the gutted remains of his own letter, which he made note of to destroy and discard as soon as possible.

In a Rorschach of mangled letters crudely patched together, the note read:

HalluciGen. Food Supply. Good luck, Junior.

He read over that derogatory nickname which had been ascribed to him with a great, but still reserved, offense to its implications. He swore to himself to burn away that particular lettering with a bit of obvious fanfare later on, just to get the point across.

Aside from the bundle there was not much left to the mailbox from which to go off of. He took the time to examine the shirt thoroughly, gagging over the sickly metallic scent that overpowered its natural musk, but could not find anything that bore significance to him. Just as he was about to depart towards the direction in which he had seen the light shine from, he happened to catch a wispy glimmer of light next to the mailbox. It was an empty glass bottle, reflecting the moonlight so slightly that he had hardly noticed it, and so innocuously placed that he could not tell whether it had always been there or not. But the fact remained that this bottle was lain on its side, with its neck pointed down the street, and he took this as a clue and followed it.

Off into the night he went, unsure and shaken by trepidation, but not altogether unfamiliar with the circ*mstances in which he found himself. Just as he had done on that one fateful night, the one that seemed so long ago now, he had to remind himself at every corner he crossed that this is what he had wanted, this chance to take command into his own hands rather than sit idly by as the world helplessly crumbled around him. He was a pathetic being wracked by guilt and fear, a falsified personhood wearing the skin of humanity that could only imitate what might be considered tried and true, but he would still carry himself forward no matter what.

Guided by invisible hands he delved deep into the city’s ruins, gazing upon the commonly discarded trash that would have been unnoticed and uncared for by the general populace, taking in its positioning and makeup with all the countenance of a scholar. He saw the city’s layout within each empty can of turpentine, the sign of landmarks in the forgotten toys and figurines, the presence of people in the eyes of advertisem*nts and posters. He dutifully followed the trail that was set for him, only distracted by the compulsion to look over his shoulder and anticipate a figure standing there silhouetted against the moonlight, but although he knew that he was never truly alone out here, the streets remained empty in his wake.

When he at last came to the steps of HalluciGen Inc. it was without ceremony or celebration, and that was a great relief. He knew not of what to expect from Deacon’s information, whether this should be a trap for him to willingly subject himself to, but the building appeared to be just as barren and lifeless as the rest of the landscape, and he felt himself grow a little calmer as a result.

Still, its nature was a mystery, and he could not help but feel as though something were amiss here, though he couldn’t quite pinpoint anything precise. The building was a working space of sorts, possibly the main offices of whatever this corporation had once been, though its title and appearance gave nothing more away. He could only estimate what truly lay inside of it, and why, out of all the possible locations in the commonwealth, someone had hidden food within it.

The main entrance seemed the most obvious and dangerous of places to begin with, but it was also the only easily accessible area of the buildings complex structure, and so, having found the door to be conveniently unlocked, he crept inside.

The first thing he noticed was that, much to his suprise, the decrepit building did not lack for light and many of its lamps were still well-lit and functioning. His initial thought was that the building had been renovated somewhat in the recent past, and little signs of activity and disruptions in the thick coating of dust along every surface seemed to indicate that as fact. However, his curiosity led him to examine one of the bulbs and found it to be one of the pre-war models that Mother had once shown him as part of her junk collection. She had told him how these older models were praised for their durability and power, which the ignorant people of the olden days thought was an ingenuous breakthrough of scientific innovation for their own convenience, with absolutely no downsides or severe side effects to their health.

The Institute knew better than to use these, aside from breaking them down for the radioactive material inside, which meant that the activity this place had seen within recent years might not have been as significant as he first thought. Peculiar, for sure, but not altogether unwelcomed.

He made a general sweep of the ground floor lobby, half-heartedly intrigued as to what this space had once been dedicated too, but far too focused on the task at hand to give it any real thought or investigation. As of now, his primary concern was finding this fabled stash of food that was supposed to be, and not only was he unlucky in this regard, but he also found no signs of an encoded message that Deacon could have left for him to track it down! He doubted it would have been placed somewhere noticeable and easy to access, but the building was enormous in its proportions and littered with furniture, rooms and decaying soft spots in its foundations that made for ample hiding spaces.

After tunneling through old barricades and collapsed flooring he explored three rooms with no success and began to grow worried.

This couldn’t have been a test of his endurance, could it? To have been led into an impossibly large maze with the challenge of finding his prize before daybreak, least he fall mercy to the minotaur when he awoke, enraged and thirsty for blood. Shaun took a nervous sip of his canteen in consideration, eagerly turning over the desk chairs and shelves in the hopes of finding another clue of some kind, something to lead him further so that he did not have to stumble blindly on ahead.

He also took the dreaded thought of deceit into account, and quickly snuffed it out in favor of ripping open the drawers from the nearby filing cabinets.

For once he didn’t concern himself with keeping his volume to a minimum, having finally been granted the freedom to take as many liberties as he needed for this excursion. He, almost childishly, tore through each room his visited, plundering its contents with reckless abandon, worried about nothing but the encroaching time limit he had set for himself. Shelves and drawers were gutted by his hand, splayed open so that their emptiness shone out in all its glory, almost a deliberate ridicule to his failure.

It was with great frustration that he finally accepted the futility of his actions here, having rationally, though spitefully, deduced that he would have to delve deeper into HalluciGen if he were to find anything, though such a decision was still met with hesitance and doubt. Despite the minor obstacles he had overcome to explore the ground floor, too much of the structure onwards was damaged to the point of total inaccessibility, with the sole exception of a bit of crumbled flooring that made for a suitable path down towards the basem*nt level.

He contemplated his chances at clearing away the rubble that surrounded the stairwell in a timely manner before he begrudgedly took his first, uneasy steps down into the cellar; coming upon a small locker room that provided nothing but a foul chemical smell that made his head spin and a shortcut into the building’s maintenance tunnels.

It was here, surrounded amidst piping and crumbling foundation, that Shaun felt himself succumbing to an unnatural fatigue.

It was strange. This day had passed by at a mind-numbingly slow crawl, and everything he had seen and experienced had left him with a deep, overwhelming sense of exhaustion that he had longed to give in to; but that was more of a tiresome blight on his soul than of an actual, physical languor, but it seemed that his exertions had finally taken a toll on his body. There was a dull, heavy-set weariness that spread through each of his limbs; a feeling of liquefaction, of hypoesthesia, as if a gangrenous rot were softening his muscles and bones into pure collagen. There was a slight distortion to everything he saw, a fuzziness that crept in along the edges of his vision, his focus wavering and swirling just out of his control.

He couldn’t help himself, collapsing to his knees on the verge of fainting, desperately fighting back against the lethargy that he felt settling into him and loosing terribly. A harsh fluoresces shone from above him, and below him he felt the cold, uncomfortable hardness of the concrete floor, but nothing could force him to rise and continue onwards at that moment; surrounded by that sharp, stinging smell that seemed to grow deeper and sweeter with each intake of breath.

He coughed. He choked on that smell; that grating, irritating, piercing smell that seemed to stick to the inside of his lungs like tiny spurs. He took a deep breath in, just to sputter it out again in a fit. His insides felt raw and itchy, flayed as if something hiding within his own body was trying to claw its way out, tearing fiercely at his tender organ meat with tiny, sharpened nails. He put a hand to his chest, feeling the jolt of his muscles beneath his palms, and felt the sudden compulsion to scratch back.

With each rake of his nails, he could feel something pulse beneath his skin, throbbing in response to his touch; so irritating and itchy that he scraped and scratched harder and more fierce with each swipe of his hands. We watched as his flesh jumped and twitched and grew red with deep, angry streaks that seemed to move and expand beneath his gaze. And he coughed until his throat was aching and dry, tightening in on itself as if someone were digging their fingers into his windpipe, so hot and stinging and itchy that his hands moved to tear desperately at his jugular to make it stop-

“Hey!” a voice suddenly shouted out to him, “are you dying down there or what?”

He stopped then, paralyzed. The room felt hot and damp, more so than he remembered, but his body felt suddenly chilled although out. The sound had come from somewhere above him, distant enough that he had not been seen, but close enough that he quickly pushed himself backward until he was securely hidden in some forgotten corner of the tunnel, startled and breathless.

He strained to listen, finally noticing the faint sounds of movement and voices that trailed along the corridors beyond his sight, fluctuating in volume as they wandered about. How he had failed to notice such a thing before hand was absurd, for indeed their presence was pronounced and obvious the more he took it in. There were people calling out to him, their mockery cut short by coughing fits that were just as loud and violent as his had been, but for some reason none of them had descended to confront him for his transgression here.

Could it have been that they didn’t truly know where he was down here? But they had clearly heard him. Despite this, none of them sounded alarmed or even particularly interesting in seeking him out, milling about on the floors above as if they too were searching for something.

Shaun went to pull out his gun, seeking out safety in whatever form it could be granted, fumbling blindly in the place that it should have been. For some reason his coat was disheveled, pooling around his elbows and almost slipping entirely off his lithe frame so that he struggled against its entrapping swaths of fabric, when had he even taken it off? And why? His eyes finally moved from the door at the far end of the tunnel, and he stared with complete horror and confusion at his arms.

The skin was inflamed and painful to touch, angry mauls of torn flesh and little beads of blood that painted a terrifying image of self-mutilation; none of which he remembered, buried beneath the acrid scent that leaked into the air.

He stifled another bout of coughing, inhaling a thin mouthful of spit in the process so that he gasped and sputtered desperately, fearful to be heard again by the people above and watching the door to the maintenance tunnels with heightened anticipation; but still nobody came.

He was such a damned fool for having ever come here, for having ever asked for help from the Commonwealth’s most elusive monster, and he should have taken the sparse opportunity presented to him and leave. The exit was not so far away, as long as he had a clear shot to the door, he could make it out to the streets and disappear under the cover of night. He could throw himself behind the nearest building, keep to the shadows where the night was darkest, make his way back to that little apartment by the crater where Maccready lay sleeping, and pretend that none of this ever happened.

It would be so easy to slip back into the little place he carved for himself by Maccready’s side, so sneak back in as if he had never gone behind his back in the first place. He could be semi-comfortable and relatively safe far away from whoever these people were, sleeping off the traumas of the day in loathsomely shared company.

And come the morning, he would take his place obediently by Maccready’s side, onwards to the sicko colony where his tormenters lay falsely accused of his own theft and watch idly as they and all the innocent sick folk they protected where mowed down without mercy. All because of him…

Draping his coat back over his shoulders, he palmed blindly at his pockets until he felt the cool metal of the gun press against his fingertips and felt relieved. Slowly, he brought the weapon out and held it in his hands, feeling its sturdy weight and gingerly brushing his thumb over its rusted casing. The first time he fired this thing, he felt afraid of its power and potential, trembling against the force of its knockback and promising to himself that he would never have to use this thing of such great destruction.

He only looked away from the door to reload it, steadily placing the bullets gifted to him with forethought of this exact moment, his hands trembling around each smooth cylinder. Perhaps he could be true to himself for just this once and not fire it, prove himself capable enough to stay hidden throughout this entire ordeal without needing to bring another person down with him.

Perhaps so, but he couldn’t know that for certain, not until he tried.

Chapter 12

Chapter Text

His resolve was gradual and his motivation wavering, though nonetheless, Shaun came to harden that sense of righteous determination he saw within himself, and finally found the strength of will to continue onwards. He was willing, truly, though far from able, and at the present he found that he could not move an inch from his current spot, but far be it a symptom of fear for the dangers that were surely ahead of him.

Upon attempting to rise from crouched position he had felt himself immediately overwhelmed by a supreme bout of exhaustion that almost sent him careening back to the floor, and it took significant effort towards his focus and energy to be able to catch himself as he did. As a sense of weightlessness took hold of him, he had forcefully thrown his weight onto the wall behind him, his back painfully colliding with the raw foundation but kept supported and upright as a result, leaving him standing amidst the unnatural fatigue that fought to bring him down.

It was a strange feeling overall, foreign in its all-encompassing veil of languidness, but not of the sort that generally came from a lack of sleep. His bones, in particular, had felt as though they had taken on a sudden and abnormal density, one that kept him woefully swaying beneath the intense weight of his meager one-hundred and twenty-five pounds without the balance to right himself properly. A throbbing ache started to rise from behind his eyes, swamping his vision so that the room blurred into a dark, shapeless mass beyond him and the dreadfully familiar sensation of unsettled churning within his guts returned with a vengeance to its name.

He could only manage the effort to puff out fierce, open-mouthed gasps of air while he waited for his body to settle down, but through the pain and nausea he strained with a great effort to keep his hearing focused and sharp, listening to the shuffling footsteps overhead with rapt attention. Even muffled by the steady ringing in his ears, he could hear them plainly, and their presence seemed so obvious now that it was mystery how he had failed to notice them before. Although he could tell that they were making an attempt to quiet themselves, they were still only muted conveniently by their distance within in the building, as their actions were as bold and unforgiving as his had been. If he had only taken precaution, he could have caught on to their whereabouts well beforehand, but instead he grew distracted and threw himself directly into their midst, revealing his presence to them in the process.

And yet, nobody came down to check on him, whether by suspicion or on the rare chance that they had mistaken him to be one of their own, and he was left alone and unidentified while they continued on without worry. It was concerning for sure, but despite the suspicion he had found himself a bit greedy and thus used this time afforded to him without shame. It was a great fortune for one to be able to gasp and writhe in agony without interruption, and so, with only some hesitance to his actions, he stomped down his feet against the feeling of pins and needles until they ceased ache and the numbness had fully subsided. Gradually, his vision grew in clarity, and the dull pulse that pumped through his brain softened somewhat so that he could breathe out a sign of relief without trouble or pain. Finally, his body was beginning to settle down, but what persisted above all, even after the strenuous burden that overtook him seemed to lighten, was the sharp stinging that scraped along the inside of his nostrils; that strange chemical scent still laying thick and present on the air.

As if struck by a realization, that sole remembrance of such a horrid scent now forced his eyes to water profusely as he took in the painful burning that rushed through his sinuses. The flesh of his nose felt raw and dry, and he pinched his nostrils tight between his fingers as he tried in vain to suppress the rising urge to cough again. He need not be downed again by whatever it was that persisted in him now, whether it be illness or a simply a plague on the mind, for he still had work to do and had yet to actually do it.

Shielding his face with one hand and keeping a fierce grip on his pistol with the other, Shaun took his first hesitant step towards the doorway at the end of the maintenance tunnel, anticipating an ambush to sudden spring upon like so many times before. Yet the area was still, with only motes of dust and mold raining down from the ruins above him, the closest voice just above a whisper as it was carried from some far-off room. When he came to the door and poked his head through, he found a means of which to ascend, but no trace of any suspicious person within the immediate area. None of the wreckage he saw could have been ascribed to any individual in particular, though it was this same thinking that initially led him to believe himself alone in this place, and he swore that he would not make the same mistake twice.

As he made his way forward, he could not help but think of how boisterously loud his own body sounded to his ears; the world trembling beneath the might of his delicate footsteps, his panting breath like a screaming cry that seemed to call out with confidence “Look here! A young man all by his lonesome! And he is doing nothing to hide himself, so eager and willing is he to fight anyone who dares approach him!” Such was this hubris projected so clearly in his thoughts, yet the corridor ahead of him stretched on barren and lifeless, the whispering voices only drowned out by the rapid beating of his heart.

Onwards he crawled through the remnants between two now-conjoined office spaces, only noting the disturbed layer of dust that pooled up in piles around the desks and trailed along the floor with a mounting concern for the precise number of feet that tread through it, but not with any thought to stop and search the place while he was able to. Whoever he was trapped in here with would have already scrounged the area down to the bones, and it was only when he left the room and came to a crossroads within the hallways did he realize that not even bones were invaluable to the truly desperate.

Lingering within the doorway straight ahead of him was a figure, turned away so that only his back was visible, but looming before a skeletonized body with clear interest. If he had noticed Shaun’s approach then he paid him no mind, entranced but what might have been a few strips of mummified skin left on the corpses jaw and ribs; though whether cadaver or caviar, he caressed the skull and clavicle as though even they were priceless treasures. He was barely showing restraint, shoulders shaking with the effort to withhold taking in his find, yet giving in to the temptation to feel its authenticity beneath his fingers.

It was never a question as to why it was so rare to stumble across a body, even if once he so innocently believed that perhaps the living still buried their dead in a manner sane and rational, he had come to embrace the reality for what it was; but up until this moment, it struck him that he had never stumbled upon more advanced decay. Of course, the only bodies he had seen up to this point had been the very recently deceased, and one would assume that it didn’t take long for a corpse to be discovered and eaten; but the leftovers, the inedible remains, should have been left behind in the wake of this ravenous appetite. The idea that the Commonwealth’s people were willing to eat the bones, and perhaps even more, of their neighbors was profound and unthought of, almost completely absurd.

It was never a question as to why it was so rare to stumble across a body, even if once he so innocently believed that perhaps the living still buried their dead in a manner sane and rational, he had come to embrace the reality for what it was; but up until this moment, it struck him that he had never stumbled upon more advanced decay. Of course, the only bodies he had seen up to this point had been the very recently deceased, and one would assume that it didn’t take long for a corpse to be discovered and eaten; but the leftovers, the inedible remains, should have been left behind in the wake of this ravenous appetite. The idea that the Commonwealth’s people were willing to eat the bones, and perhaps even more, of their neighbors was profound and unthought of, almost completely absurd.

Yet, he could not deny what he was bearing witness to as the man before him carefully selected out a tiny, slim bone from the skeletons littlest finger and greedily brought it up to his face. Though beyond his sight it was easy to picture the man’s pleasure as he sucked the bone into his mouth with an audible slurp, and with every visceral sound of his carnage came the dreaded anticipation of a snapping crunch soon to follow, but much to Shaun’s surprise, none ever did. For the time being the man seemed content to simply suck on his precious fingerbone, though surely only to unsatisfactory ends as one would assume, and it was only a matter of time before he lost interest in this find and set his sights elsewhere.

Taking this into consideration, it seemed reasonable that Shaun should take this opportunity to leave whilst the man was still distracted. Such action would be risky, as it would require him to bypass the man in an uncomfortably close proximity, but so long as he kept light on his feet and dark within the shadows, then he should be able to accomplish this maneuver without challenge; and certainly, sneaking around this individual was the wiser decision overall. It was in his own best interest to simply avoid conflict whenever possible, not just for the purpose of keeping awareness of his presence to an absolute minimum, but because he would surely meet his end if faced with a real adversary on his own.

However, something deep within himself took a half-formed second opinion on the matter and filled him with something almost akin to temptation, absentmindedly flicking his wrist so that the gun gleamed in the sparse shred of light that illuminated the hallway.

It would be…easy, in truth, to simply take advantage of his opportunity in a different sense. In having lost himself to these repugnant actions, the man had foolishly let his guard down and left himself tantalizingly vulnerable, his back exposed to whoever might be lurking in the doorway just behind him. It wasn’t a pleasant thought, and the idea gave Shaun no sense of pride or self-gratification, yet he recognized a profound sense of righteous justice in the ability to stop this lowly creature and all others like him from ever committing such inhuman acts again.

This was the thought that persisted in him as Shaun began to crawl out of the doorway; the thought of doing something right and noble with the power that was bestowed to him, to do honor towards the person whose very body was being defiled by this monster’s unregulated hunger. Oh, how it sickened him to think of his own precious bones to be trapped between the gnawing teeth of such a savage beast as this! To have his grave invaded by starving vultures who showed no respect towards the decaying body on which they planned to feast.

Such was his outrage mounting by the second, but absurdly so, as if he himself had been the true victim of this disrespect. His hand no longer shook as if grasped the gun tightly by the barrel, nor did his legs quake and quiver beneath the cumbersomely selectively strides he took towards his prey; but his breathing! That remained in stark contrast a thing of great trouble, as he could not withhold or quiet his continuously gasping breathes or the persistent itch that tickled his lungs like an illness.

But Shaun did not heed his own symptoms, blinded as he was to this sudden, impulsively intrusive idea of what he was about to do and why he was so determined to do it. A bubbling excitement in his chest drove out any recognition that his actions were wrong, for in his mind they did not compare to the heinous crimes of the man before him, sick and disturbed as he was to suck on the bones of such a poor and innocent woman, her cavernous black eyes filled with tears as she pleaded for Shaun to come closer and finally pull the trigger-

Shaun stared into the deep yawning pit of the skull’s eyes, holding the same pitch as the night itself, endless and void, and wondered just exactly when it had begun to stare back.

He was hit by a revelation so gradual, yet so steep in its severity, that he hardly noticed the absurdity before him for what it was; but when he did, it gave him considerable pause for reasons he couldn’t quiet grasp anymore. Had the skull always been facing him, even those mere moments ago? He wracked his brain for answer but found the action far more difficult than it should have been, as if a fog had settled over him. Regardless, he was absolutely certain that it- She- was turned towards him now, her statuesque bone expressionless in its design yet somehow teeming with emotion that he could swear was real. He gazed upon her in dumb confusion, taking in the sight of her continuous tears as the pooled beneath her skull in an ever-widening halo that seemed far more expansive than any body of water he ever saw. She was weeping out so softly and tenderly that it had touched him, the pitiful weak cries of his name as she begged and pleaded for him to approach and finish what he had begun.

Shaun was oblivious to how stifled and choked his breathing had become, mindlessly struggling with each breath like an allergen patient lost in the throes of shock, unaware of how dangerously low his blood pressure was dropping; and just the same, he did not comprehend precisely how close he had gotten to his target until he realized he was quite literally panting hard along the back of his neck, with his gun angled awkwardly up towards the man’s temple in a loose, shaking grip.

Reality, and everything that was wrong with it, dawned on him gradually with a mounting terror. He took a sudden step back and forced his hand to draw away its weapon, but his movements were languid, irrationally slow, as if he were only dreaming of these surroundings and circ*mstances.

So pleasant it would be if indeed it were only a terrible dream, the ugly pictures of a damaged mind, but somewhere, beneath the absurdity he witnessed, he knew that he was inexplicably awake for all of this; and that made him all the more terrified of what he saw.

To even turn his head was a monumentous challenge, his vision swimming with an oncoming darkness that dragged the muted colors before him like fingers through melting wax, yet he was committed to set his sights upon that skeleton once more, to see for himself what was truly there. He was expecting, hoping even, to see a grim consistency in its twisted form, longing to find something yet unchanged and understandable, but what he found lying there was that all-too familiar bullet wound which now perforated the skull; a black, bottomless pit beneath the eye, caked in fresh gore by the will of his hand, pitifully staring back at him.

That which should be impossible was now before him, evidence of his crimes flayed and displayed in even the most cramped and uncomfortable of places, but determined to follow him to his death no matter where that might be. A reflexive scream was halted by a harsh and grating cough that suddenly took hold of him, and he scurried backwards from this haunting presence with all the speed of a newly crawling infant, barely able to keep himself aloft with each sluggish step he made in desperation. He doubted the visage before him, refuted its existence by everything sane and rational that he could conjure in his fleeting memory, but his insistence would not make the crumpled body disappear from its place, would not close up that dreadful wound that sent piercing aches pulsing behind his own eyes, no matter how much he pleaded with it to do so.

Though was he truly speaking to this strange apparition with his own mouth? He would have thought not, against all logic notwithstanding, yet amidst his chaotic retreat he must have unknowingly called out to that wounded specter with his own tongue as it seemed that his own presence had since been discovered.

A movement not of the peeling walls or flickeringly lights suddenly caught his eye, one which strayed from his swirling vision in a manner that suggested its own will, whatever that may be. He was instantly drawn to it, though not even panic could force his eyes to flick over to its form with any haste or hurry, damned as his vision was. His eyes were carried along a slow and painful trek through the dark, shapeless mass of this figures being, unable to take in its distorted colors and shadows, until it finally sharpened with a heightened focus right upon the creature’s face.

And what a face it was to behold.

Smooth and pale like a skull, yet healthily covered in a full thick layer of greasy flesh without any trace of flushness to the cheeks or wrinkles upon the skin. Not a single hair remained on its head, from crown to eyebrow to chin, completely barren and tender like an unfractured eggshell.

But the mouth was the most strikingly repulsive feature of it to witness; a terribly wide and inhumanely gaping maw that stretched across its face like an optical illusion, all without any teeth to fill those endless rows of pocked, pink gums that careened forward with its smile.

Without a word he faced away from that figure with as much might as his poor body could muster, and he fled from its sickening laughter and its wet, glossy lips into the unknown depths of the nearest doorway, choosing blind faith in the darkness and distance so as to escape from such a horrid thing.

Onwards he stumbled and swayed like a newborn deer, pathetically lithe and trembling with fear but with enough sense still left to him so as to not foolishly scream out into the murky blackness that surrounded him. A putrid scent of all things musty and metallic pecked feverishly at him as he blindly rushed through rooms with uninterrupted ease, everywhere contaminated by something stinging and acrid that inflamed his sinuses, but all without stability or coherency to him.

With one hand on the wall to helplessly guide his way and steady his feet he trudged through toppled furniture and broken floor panels, his other hand gripping the gun in too precarious a position to be safe but gone unnoticed in his haste. It wasn’t until his right shoulder collided strongly with a doorframe did his grip loosen on his weapon, and in the quick readjustment to take hold of it again, his finger slipped along the trigger and set off a sudden blast that shattered and quaked the room around him.

He yelped meekly, gasping around the coughing fit that sought to stifle him completely, and instantly threw himself to the ground in a curled heap. His hands came up to tightly grip and pull at his hair, while he hid his face in the safe security of his weak and feeble arms. The gun was lost to some dark patch of flooring in the distance, and he cared little of finding it again at that moment, quivering on the floor with his ears ringing and his eyes watering. He was anticipating a blow of some kind to follow with the unexpected sound that he himself had made, his shoulders tense as he braced himself for unimaginable pain and a swift death.

But nothing came of it. He was, after all, completely alone and left to his own devices, free to shiver and cry to his hearts content without so much as a passing glance at his pitiable form.

After a moment’s hesitance, a handful of seconds that stretched on like hours, he perplexingly wondered why pain failed to arrive on him as he had expected. He refused to lower his guard, adamant on hiding away from his possible pursuers and taking whatever little comfort could be afford to him before his demise. But as the ringing died down and the silence expanded throughout the hall he was cowering in, he slowly came to unfurl himself from his protective embrace and looked out at the empty rooms he had ran through with an odd sort of loneliness that felt inadequately received.

He braced his left hand on the floor below him, sputtering out a few semi-deep breathes and as he slowly brought his sleeve up to wipe away the moisture on his face. A layer of dust and other unknown filths caked his left cheek with a grimy mess, though as of now it was the least of his concerns. Though he saw nary another person with him, he could still hear the sounds of shuffling footsteps and low, murmuring voices in the distance, and his quickly returning coherency marked this as suspicious and unsafe.

He rubbed his eyes until they burned, and his eyelids became swollen and red, and finally a bit of light and clarity came back to him. He had not a single clue as to where he was or how he should proceed from here, yet the will to lift himself up and keep going was far lesser than it had been before. The fatigue had never left him, but now settled in him deeper and with greater yearning to give in than he had ever experienced before, though in thinking so he was struck by the memory of when he had lost blood to a hunter’s trap and succumbed to a cold weightlessness without anyone there to care for and look after him, and his resolve hardened once more.

Though diligence had to paid for the startling appearance of a voice rapidly increase in volume as it approached, for its notice had motivated him to rise far too quickly and resume his hurried pace before he could find his bearings properly. It was too much strain for his body to handle, the rush of blood to his temple bringing forth another wave of distortion that only caused him panic and saw him darting away from the direction of the voice without sight of what was in front of him.

His foot collided with something, a ledge, perhaps.

And then he fell.

Chapter 13

Chapter Text

The impact was an abrupt awakening of the worst kind.

Not sudden enough for him to have instantly regained his bearings or sense of self, but profound in how every sensation he had felt was instantly swept away by an intense and forceful shock.

For the briefest of moments, perhaps a mere second or so it took for him to reach the ground, he experienced a feeling unlike any he had ever felt before; a weightless swooping rush that unraveled him like a spool of thread, fleeting away from him before he could even tell what it was.

Then, within an instant, he was left without any feeling at all.

An indescribable nothingness.

An off switch.

An all-encompassing hollowness that left his body ringing faintly like a bell.

Even though he knew better, he would have sworn just then that he had died.

Yet, amidst that aweing moment of surprise, there was a tingle within his fingertips, so spreading up through his arms and down his back in a gradually sharpening ache. His left shoulder began to burn with an acute, creeping ache that so reverberated back down the entire length of his arm. His lungs felt hot and dry within his chest, his breathing shallow against the tight constrictiveness of his throat. What was not sharp and stinging was left dull and raw, his entire body littered with far too many bumps and bruises to count, yet almost all of them sourced along his left side.

All that he could feel was painful now, yet it was proof that he had lived to experience it.

A grand victory for some, surely for himself, but under the present circ*mstances he could hardly find the will to celebrate such a joyous occasion, beseeched, as it were, by another bout of blindness.

At least it was with some small, strange comfort, to guess that this familiar and vulnerable darkness was more likely caused by a grievous head wound, and not by whatever force had taken hold of him earlier.

He really could be so daring as to cure his fortune within moments like these, for indeed he really was quite a fortunate person to have so unexpectedly survived these tortuous sufferings yet again; his weak and fragile body somehow refusing to simply give up and die while it was most convenient for everyone.

No, that would be far too merciful for somebody like him, the world decided. Pathetic as he was, his weakness would be his downfall yet his enduring strength would ultimately be his doom; left to a broke state in which he could do nothing but shake and cry while the forces beyond him kept him alive despite his skull being split straight down the middle. Was it just desserts or merely dessert for whoever might come passing by, his softly tender and perfectly pink brains enticingly splayed out in a gruesome array about his temple. Please be gentle with me, he is wont to beg, hold my nerves delicately within your hands and chew them softly with your teeth as I die.

A quick, jerking motion of neck lifted his head up a few inches from the floor and proved him to be dramatic above all else, yet the pain still hurt like a bitch, and he whimpered like a scolded dog as he rested that little bump on his crown against the cool tile below.

He would not deny an embarrassingly low tolerance for pain, strung out and crying for a possibly broken shoulder and a still intact skull, but even so he knew that these particular injuries could not be brushed aside so easily. If he knew nothing more than the limits of his own body than so be it, but the tight, shooting pains along his spine told him that something was most certainly wrong, and though he may have unexpectedly toughened out more than he should have in past, it would simply not be case this time around.

But regardless of what was healthy and reasonable, he still made an attempt to look past these wounds and keep going.

Not for his own pride in doing so, mind you, but because somewhere above, from wherever he had fallen from, he could faintly hear the approach of footsteps drawing near.

There was no time to mourn himself before he was even dead, though confusion had left him uncertain as to where he was and why he had even fallen to begin with. To his eyes he was lost within an endless void of which there was no tangible escape, and fear had rooted itself firmly into his heart at the idea of taking the first step towards freedom. He first approached was to move his injured arm, yet the pain had instantly overwhelmed him so that he did nothing more than lay there and weep silently to himself as the footsteps grew closer to that mysterious ledge.

His second attempt proved a little more fruitful, keeping his left arm as still as possible while lifting himself up with his right, though even at his most delicate approach the simple weight of his dead limb succeeded in dragging him back down a number of times, not to mention to odd stinging that crawled up through his good hand whenever he braced it along the ground. Every time he flinched against the sensation a shooting drag would race down his back, his muscles tight with the suggestion that they were liable to rip each time he moved, and it took more strength not to cry out in aguish than it did to successfully pull himself forwards. An oppressive heat languished his skin, yet the air was chill and stale with the accumulated history of a hundred years of isolation; a light sweat burrowing down were the skin had split and shards of broken glass had wedged themselves in.

His fingertips brushed against the pile of shards, recognizing them as they grazed his skin and cut into the fabric of his pants, yet his only option was to brush aside what he could and carry onwards through the rest, teeth grit with a shred of bravery he didn’t fully possess. The voices overheard were hushed by their distance, yet they carried along a strange hollowed echo that drifted down to him, casual in their steady approach while Shaun desperately pushed himself to safety.

Blinded, he crawled without notion of his surroundings, oblivious to wither he had crawled ten feet or ten hundred feet towards an unknown exit, but at some point, he had reached a wall, another touch of reality of which to ground himself with but which squashed any hope he had of escape. He could only pat dumbly at the surface in front him, willing some kind of door to appear before him, but quickly coming to the realization that he was trapped wherever he was. As the voices were drawn up to their peak he stilled, pressing his face to the wall with the childish notion that the dark would hide all of his secrets, that if he didn’t see the monster than it couldn’t truly hurt him, and he waited out an inevitable that was sure to come.

The exact number of men was questionable, as their voices were similarly gaunt and raspy and his poor head was beginning to swim and shake, yet he knew there had to be at least two of the bastards leering down at him, though none of them rang out a cry of alarm at seeing him. The expectation of roaring shouts and pounding feet had failed to be unnoticed, and the longer the waited for its approach the stranger its lacking presence seemed to be. The voices did not move from their position, keeping themselves known in such a manner that did not seem to suggest an attempt to catch him by surprise, yet Shaun kept his hearing strained in an attempt to hear them, wondering how far his drop must have been for the men to sound as if they were walking along the ceiling overhead.

Words were difficult to decipher, too many slurred syllables from too far away, yet amidst the few scraps of sentences he had been to hear, something poked out to him was a startling clarity.

“…No little boys anymore… get what we need…go…” was what the closest approximation of what he believed himself to have heard, then the voices trailed away and simply disappeared back into the darkness from whence they came.

He didn’t release his breath until his burning lungs forced him too, shaking against the wall with his eyes squeezed shut and his broken body braved for whatever was to come next, yet the minutes trailed on without any further occurrence. Perplexed, he allowed himself the luxury of a few deep breathes, trying to suppress that damned wheezing that whistled out along with it, and simply counted the seconds by each pulsing throb of his bruises.

By the time he had opened his eyes he knew he was alone again, but how they had failed to see him was a mystery he wouldn’t take for granted. He did not attempt to stand, fearing the failure of his legs and the anticipated reappearance of his foes, but he slowly tilted his head back until he could gaze up at the ceiling, expecting nothing but finding a few distant discolored patches within the enveloping darkness.

Lights; too distant to illuminate the room, but enough to show him how vast and dark his surroundings were. Somehow his childish notion had proven to work, and trailing his eyes to the closest lighting fixture over head, he released he was not to far away from a cornering wall from which the ledge must have been atop.

He had hidden right beneath them, and they left with the idea that there had never been anyone else here in the first place.

He wanted to laugh, but instead he placed his right hand on the wall before him, feeling the little glass shards poke through his glove and wedge deeper into his hand, and he grimaced at the feeling. He pulled his hand back with uncertainty, drawing the glove up to his face as if somehow, he would be able to gauge how badly he was injured despite the darkness swallowing him up. His left arm still thrummed uselessly at his side, and so he stupidly brought the glove up towards his mouth, gagging against the taste as he dragged his tongue along the grimy curve of his palm, and felt the gagged piece of glass poke at his lips. He hesitated, then allowed for his teeth to nip at the offending object in curiosity, the grainy texture scraping along his enamel like sandpaper. He pulled his head away too sharply for his neck to handle and paid the price, but as he doubled over in pain, he brought the glove back up and took the glass between his teeth with set determination. He rested the shard against his canine, ignoring the skin crawling texture and the faint cracking that resonated though his skull, and in a slow drag came to pull the glass out of his palm.

Most likely it was only an inch or two in length, yet against the bite wound already mangling his palm, it may as well have been a sword that pierced his hand. He hurriedly spat out the glass in disgust, his tongue coming to sweep other his teeth in a soothing manner despite the risk of minuscule shards being left in their wake.

His body was shaking, jostling to-and-fro as if the very earth beneath him were trembling with almighty terror, yet as far as he knew he was only at the mercy of himself down here; and pushing that mercy aside he slowly brough himself up to his feet, reclaiming his fallen gun with blindness before taking those first dreadful steps deeper into the darkness that awaited him.

Guided by the safety and comfort of the wall, he realized the vastness of this place, and of this singular room, as it were, was conflicting. As he stumbled forward, he came to find that his exact proximity to the various things that resided here was always closer than he had initially expected; the echoing ambiance of the presumably high ceilings and yawning blackness suggesting a space that he should have found himself lost within, yet the further in he traveled the more frequently he found himself cramped between walls and furniture of the most confusion configuration. He would have balked to think that he may have found himself spiraling endlessly in a never-ending circle for how cluelessly he wandered about, should it not have been for the open doorways that led him from room to room, and the more he stumbled upon the more confused he became as to their purpose and layout.

There was something odd about the various rooms and their strange configuration. He knew that the continuous crunch of glass underfoot held great significance considering the sheer amount he was forced to traverse though, but without the aid of his sight the observation would have to remain moot. The foul chemical smell was still present, much to the chagrin of his sinuses, though he couldn’t be sure if its sudden intensity were simply illusionary on part of his dimmed vision or if perhaps the scent had emanated from this precise location. Regardless, the inside of his nose felt scratchy and raw, though he dared not use his single good hand to do something as redundant as shield his precious face from a bad smell.

Though he did find the need to rip his hand away from the wall, just for a brief moment, to rest along his stomach and quell the aching cramp that had began to bubble up within him. His hunger was getting the better of him it seemed, choosing the worst of times to remind him of this particular long-standing predicament of his, though the amount of sympathy he would show to himself was not nearly enough to warrant another timely respite. In spite of the shooting, almost clawing throngs that pierced through him, it was simply a matter of urgency and a general lack of options that forced him to push these feelings aside and continue onward, following those sparce overhead lights like a holy beacon.

Salvation was far from what he found, though the stairwell he came across was most certainly a blessing of some kind, he could at least humor that ridiculous thought for now. The light was a great relief, inasmuch so as it finally allowed him the vision to see his own terrible form in its entirety, and the momentary satisfaction and joy he felt was horrifically squashed by the sprinkling of glass that tore deep into his leg. The sight had left him quivering down into his belly, a certain crawling disgust overtaking him at the idea that these sharp fragments were burying themselves inside of him with every step.

He felt nauseous, and he knew that he had little in the way of time to indulge himself in this manner, but with his one good arm he picked furiously at any glinting shimmer that caught his eye, condition for his clothing or skin be damned. He scarcely gave it thought to remove his glove beforehand, almost repulsed at the notion of touching the glass with his skin, yet with each clumsy pinch that missed its mark he could feel the piercing sting of the shard wedging themselves in deeper, and he choked out a wailing breath as he tore frantically at his leg.

He had to get them out, out of his flesh, out of his body.

He left the glove dangling between his teeth, not a care in the slightest of the grime and filth that coated it’s exterior, preoccupied solely on ripping open the tears in his pants and clawing desperately at any patch of skin he could see. Uncoordinated and dull, the slickness of his unwashed skin and the little ebbs of blood that welled on its surface left a slippery film on every little piece he tried to grab, his fingers refusing to take grip on these tiny offenders and instead cut themselves deeply along their jagged surface.

He was panicking, he was aware of that, but he could not stop his hand from trembling or picking at his raw and irritated flesh for even a moment, ruthlessly picking out tiny chunks in their frenzied search for the things that invaded his body. With his nails he clawed deeper and deeper, the faint glimmering a teasing mockery to his sights that unsettled his stomach and made his heart pound in frustration and fear. This was an agony unbearable, his leg fiery with the onslaught of a minuscule pricks and teeth, feeling the raw texture beneath his hands, and he sobbed out disgusting and weak as he scratched and scratched and scratched at the red trails his nails left behind.

Would he have ever broken out of that cycle on his own, he would never be sure, but the coughing fit that sudden arose in him provided enough distraction for him to stop the endless torment on his own leg, his bloodied hand reflexively coming up to now paw idiotically at his face as he choked against nothing but his own breath.

The brutality was intense, yet short-lived, and with the respite that from that first fresh lung-full of air came also the abrupt ending of whatever episode had overtaken him just then, and with a dawning realization he looked down to his leg in horror of what he had done to himself.

Whatever faint glimmer had tricked his eye had suddenly ceased to be, not a single trace of glass left in those deep and bloodied grooves he had carved out of himself. A few scattered shards remained on the floor, bespeckled and sticky from where he had pulled them out, but so few were they in number that it truly left no excuse for the damage that he had inadvertently caused.

He stared at his own fingernails, caked and red and rich the scent of iron and sticky between his fingers and felt the urge to vomit.

What the hell was happening to him?

He could scarcely think of an answer, dazed and scared as he was, and he knew that it was cowardice that forced him to simply cover up that bloodied hand with his glove and push the knowledge of his deed aside; but what else could he have possibly done in a situation such as this. Should he have burdened himself further? Cleaned his hands with what little clean water he could find?

Stifling the urge to sob, Shaun carefully pushed himself back up to his feet, no longer wondering how he had found himself on the floor to begin with. There was nothing to dress his wounds, though there was only so much damage that his little cuticles could case, even in a feverish mindset, and so he left his skin exposed and rancid to the stale air of the stairwell without a second glance, though his heart was heavy.

The stairs he had found had led him upwards once again, though if this were the same floor in which he had fallen from, then he had no means of which to confirm it. His memory possessed gaps and swaths of hazy imagery that left him distrustful of his own intuition, surely the most damning of opinions he could have held towards himself at such a moment, seeing as he had nothing more to go by than his own choice of direction. The hallways ahead of him loomed empty and foreign, unrecognizable in their layout yet holding the same barren decay to their walls and doors as the rest of the building, and as far of observations went all of this meant very little to him. Still, as it stood now, he was beginning to think that he was not meant to be looking for a specific place, but rather, a specific person.

And so, with his gun grasp tightly and his leg left to clot naturally on its own, he peeked blindly into various rooms with only the briefest of necessary searches into their contents, allowing his ears to carry him onwards towards whichever man carried the food he sought to take.

The very thought left him gripping nervously at his stomach, belittled by a profound wistfulness at the idea of the treasures he would soon be in possession of, so much so that he couldn’t help but indulge in fantasies of flavor and satisfaction that were contradictory to his mission.

He had to remind himself that he was getting this food for Maccready, and he would be lucky if he was granted even a worthless scrap of it to have for himself, but the persistent gnawing at his innards were too great not to humor, and it almost slipped his mind as to the exact reason he had chosen to undergo this in the first place. He salivated despite his thirst, a lithe groan floating past his lips before he could stop it, and his muddled mind could not comprehend the reality of people and situations outside of this dim and narrow hallway, encompassed by sensations of the worst kind with only a vague memory of his purpose.

He was grateful to hear those distant voices again, if only for the distraction they provided.

Instantly that clawing at his gut was gone, spirited away as if he had never known hunger in all his life, only now feeling the rush of anticipation as he dared to push himself towards those unknown people despite every fiber of his being begging for him to flee. He allowed himself to crawl forwards like a beast, his broken body prowling with purpose and composure despite the wounds that had reduced him to a shuffling mess, striding along towards the joyous sounds of laughter without the clarity of mind to question such suspicious happenings.

And so, he carried on without confusion, listening intently to those rolling peels of laughter that echoed as if bellowed out through a hundred gasping mouths, but only holding the grim recognition that he might come under the need to silence them forever.

He was a walking tragedy in the making, but through the fog that enveloped his mind he kept as quiet and slow as possible so as to avoid such terrible trepidations, though as it were, such actions seemed entirely unnecessary.

As it were, the closer he drew towards that laughter, the greater and more manic it seemed to become, strengthening into a resounding wail of terror that ricocheted off the walls and completely drowned out his approaching footsteps. His confidence should have swelled at such fortune, to lay witness to these daring killers fall prey to such youthful foolishness that he was free to take advantage of to the fullest, yet their howling screech only instilled him with a great uneasiness; stricken by the absurdity in their profound enjoyment and short, gasping breaths.

He had hoped to merely slip by unnoticed, to pass by that open door and its dancing shadows without daring to even peak inside and witness the madness in full, but he had not even come within ten feet of its threshold before one of the men burst forth into the hallway.

Catapulted by a rabid frenzy, the figure dashed forth from the door without warning and collided fiercely with the opposite wall before him with a sickening crack, though the impact did little to stop him. Within an instant he was gone again, rushing back into the chaos with his dead limb flapping wildly behind him, panting between hoarse coughs of amusem*nt without so much as a glance in Shaun’s direction.

His appearance, though brief, was impactful, and Shaun waited with bated breath for what seemed an inevitable return; yet as he listened intently to the destructive commotion within, he dared to think he might be faced with a greater threat than these fearsome men.

He should have turned around and left, found some other hallway to lose himself in and not give in to his insatiable curiosity just this once; but the walls were shaking with the force in which they threw themselves into them, their choked voices growing strained and exasperated yet never once stopping to catch their breath. His sinuses were burning, and his head was pounding, but still he crawled forwards towards the door and dared to peek inside.

What he saw was…initially hard to comprehend, more confusing in its make than alarming in what it meant.

He saw a small group of hunters, three in total, all without weapons and faced with no advisory except for each other, and of which they engaged themselves brutally and without remorse. Stumbling about as if drunk, the men took turns between harming one another and harming themselves, gleefully running into walls and awaiting fists like playful children, smiling with chipped teeth and split lips. Each drew their breath as though it was it be their last, forceful exhales bubbling out cruel humor in their actions, but almost impossible to regain in full. As such their faces were pale and bluish, mouths gaping and raw, holding all the likeness of a sick animal, and acting much the same.

They took no notice of his watching, either blinded by frenzy or succumbing to the swelling bruises that encircled their eyes, though he doubted that there was any force that could halt them in their sad*stic play; and so, he was left free to witness them at their worst, all without pleasure or shame. It was maddening to watch these grown men screech and run amok, clawing at each other’s eyes or bashing their fingers against the walls until they bent and snapped, but Shaun found that in this madness he did not possess the strength to advert his gaze just yet; taken by a prickly sort of dark voyeurism that drives even the most compassionate and sensitive soul towards the scene of a great tragedy, grim curiosity nestling within one’s self like an addiction and forcing the gaze to linger ever longer on those twisted expressions of joy.

He should have taken the grace bestowed upon him and left while he still could; abandon these stricken men to their terrible fate without daring to delve deeper into the reasoning behind the actions they partook in and just accept that it was in his best interest not to get involved with this foul play. Yet the absurdity perplexed him, the miniscule details that grew more and more confusing with each turn about the room; the dull glaze that took over the natural glint to the eye, the mumbled words that escaped past their rasping laughter, the traces of what might have been fear and confusion hiding beneath the smiles they couldn’t control, and all with the tantalizingly sharp sting of something acrid and chemical on the air.

It was not a thought that held enough coherency to be deemed a revelation, yet as it were, he came to understand that whatever was happening to these men was something outside of their control, and perhaps happening to himself as well, for he did not even realize that he was slowly drawing up his gun towards that unbridled chaos with an idea of mercy embedded within him. Suffering was something that he just could not abide by, but never before had he considered that such an action could possibly benefit both parties in a manner quite gruesome and foul. There was that itching once again, the nagging pull at his thoughts that told him that it would be so easy and so quick to just pull the trigger, to put an end to all of this with the power endowed upon him, only now, they would be grateful for it. He would satisfy a need between all of them, if only he had the courage to commit to it.

But was it courage that gave him these considerations, or cowardice? Was it lowly of him to take advantage of the sick, or was it in his best interest to kill off the threats before they came back to their senses? He didn’t know, tired of thinking and pondering and carrying around this stupid gun that brought him nothing but worry and fear. As far as he could tell, none of these men carried the food he desired, and though it weighed down on him heavily, he found enough strength to lower his gun and turn away from that carnage.

His mind felt muddled and soft, far from content with his decision but standing by it regardless, thankful that his confusion and weariness drowned out the gasping laughter that he left behind. Without a care towards his presence, Shaun carried on for six more rooms and another floor, shuffling about lithe and lame but never once stopping to rest. It hadn’t even crossed his mind to do so, blinded not in sight but in the recognition and awareness of his own person. His footsteps did not feel like his own, the thoughts of his wounded leg and broken arm far behind him, greatly fatigued but overwhelmed by a persistent scratching inside of his stomach so that he knew not a moment of peace.

The hallways blended together and stretched on for eternity, peeling paint and dirty linoleum making the same patterns over and over again, rotating, rolling, flexing, repeating, never changing and always the same. His ears were ringing. His nose was bleeding. His stomach ached with a feeling strange and foreign, clawing, ripping, pricking, tearing. There was movement inside of him, tiny legs and tiny fingers, sharp nails and fanged teeth, everywhere under his skin and along his bones, crawling, poking, stabbing, scraping, eating away at all they touched.

But then, a light was suddenly shone across his face, bright and dazzling and clean; a stark contrast to the man that carried it, and the strange pain had quickly left him, if only for a moment.

Shaun blinked against the blinding light, forcefully awakened back to clarity so that he saw the figure of a man before him, draped in tattered fabric and pieces of hard metal that exposed his arms and chest, but concealing his face behind a curious mask.

He could tell that the figure was speaking to him, but he could scarcely comprehend its words, hearing only a fearsome tone of command and authority bellowing out towards him like the growl of a beast. An instinctual hesitance overtook him, leaving him to stand shivering and confused as the man drew closer to him, never removing the light from his eyes so that his pathetic expression of submissiveness was exposed in its entirety. A wispy thought echoed in the back of his mind, a primal urge to run away and hide from this being that approached him, but something stronger kept him rooted to the spot, staring down at those thick glass googles and bulbous mouthpiece as if waiting for something more.

The man was yelling now, his body large and imposing and moving with sharp motions within his peripherals, but still Shaun could not even so much as move his head to look at him directly, the light as captivating as it was blinding. A pervading sense of wrongness seemed to linger within his thoughts, an idea just barely out of his grasp yet so close that he could practically smell it. His stomach burned with fresh scarring, his throat felt swollen and hot, he needed to throw up, he needed to get whatever was inside of him out. The man was screaming at him, so close that the rotten stench of his unwashed body struck through the fiery bleach scent that seemed to surround him.

A piercing sharp pain suddenly ran up his left arm, his shoulder inflamed from where his touch had pulled on the joint, and Shaun finally screamed out in alarm and made to dart away from that terrible thing before him.

But he only managed a short distance before a heavy force struck him from behind, his gait staggering as he was propelled forwards and collided with something cold and metallic.

His head swam with a dull, throbbing pain, the sounds of clattering metal lost to him as something cold and stale brushed across his face in panting waves. His eyes felt dry and irritated, stung by a chill wind, and a familiar scent encompassed him fully.

Somewhere above him, looming over him like a shadow, was a voice and a form that held no meaning, a figure mysterious and threatening, but the only concern Shaun had was the sudden urge to vomit, a rolling pulse that crept up along the back of his throat, a pounding ache that struck through his belly.

He coughed, uncaring towards the voice that called out to him, distant and confused, and felt his throat constrict and grow wet in anticipation and pain, only to sense something other than bile begin to crawl up inside of him.

Chapter 14

Chapter Text

In a manner quite inappropriate and strange, one could unapologetically dare to draw a comparison of the human mind to that of a simple fish, though perhaps not in the ways that one might expect.

Of course, there is a shared kinship between the fragility of their being and the sweetness of their innocence; smooth in appearance, tender of flesh; yet nothing is greater in similarity than the cruelty that is so often inflicted upon them.

It is so easy to flay open a living fish, to peel back those glistening orange scales and bear witness to that tiny bundle of interlocking soft parts that make up its being, and in much the same regard can the subconscious also be so horrifically gutted and exposed.

A being so small that it could be held comfortably within the human hand, but only at the expense of its own comfort. To pluck it from its tank was simply unfair and unjust, but it being an outlier and a lesser being meant that it had no rights to the same creature comforts afforded to the others; especially since its presence put the rest of its colony in danger. It had been slightly bloated, only noticeable by how it forced its little body to tilt on one side as it swam in irregular circles around the tank, barely a little bump along its stomach. In the open air it gleamed with a slimy film that was neither majestic nor alluring when held against its bright colors, looking all the more pathetic and strange when its mouth pulsed in repeated gulps and its tiny fins flicked about fruitlessly. None of it was recognizable as fear and pain, only slight alien movements that lacked a sense of understanding and purpose, evoking none to compassion or mercy when it most needed it.

Mother was unabashed in how she used the dull tip of her pin to penetrate the underbelly, sawing deep into that unyielding flesh until the organ were all but ripped apart and the fish could only pop its little mouth out and stare at the room with its lidless eyes. It wasn’t a known cruelty to him then, only a curiosity, an uncertainty, and he had watched as she had used to pen to pull out that little insect creature from within its belly.

Parasites, she called them. Living things that live inside other living things, nestling deep within their bodies, feeding off whatever they could find in there. Tiny legs gripping to the underside of smooth muscle, tiny teeth slowly picking away the tissue while its host was still alive to feel it all happening.

He didn’t know how they got inside of him, but nothing was going to stop him from getting out.

The sting and burn of his scraping nails did little to deter him in his efforts, the pain but a reminder that he was horrifically, unfortunately, still alive within this sickening moment, but his blunt cuticles could hardly pierce through the flesh satisfactorily enough to reach them. Each graze of his nails only caused them to stir and squirm from beneath his skin, burrowing in deeper past the blood and the meat, thousands of wriggling bodies infesting is own, pushing against the back of his eyeballs, crawling up the back of his throat. How many had he managed to throw up? How many of them were still inside of him? They were in his lungs, and he couldn’t breathe, they curled up under his nails when he scratched them, they bit and stung the inside of his nose where he couldn’t reach them, but nothing he did seemed to get them out.

His skin festered with a searing burn, endless layers of tissue all swollen and red and peeling away beneath his fingers without ever reaching bone. Every inch of him felt infected, every cavity full of parasites, and his mind reeled with unbridled limitations to the primal horror that overtook him. Lost to him was any word or tongue that could have translated that deep-rooted sensation, so inhumane in its extremity that it made the very concept of a living being curse the very nature of its own existence. What might have been thoughts were only feelings, what might have been colors and sounds and the movement of his body was nothing more than useless senses with nothing to give him. Gone was his coherency and understanding beyond the feeling of maggots wiggling down within his belly, his recognition of self only a primal instinct to keep scratching at his own skin no matter what.

He didn’t even notice when it stopped, lacking in a clear conscience that afforded him the awareness of time so that what was dream and what was memory blurred into a murky picture within his mind; but somehow, through that haze, he noticed that the feeling was more suggestion than actuality, and the rawness of his skin did not stem from any parasite or bug.

It was grounding, in a way, he could at least be grateful for that.

Beyond the veil of his hazy senses, he knew himself to be prostrated on a bed of some kind, his body stinging and hot much like how his throat became whenever he cried, but his eyes would not open, and his head would not turn. He felt as though he were shaking, though every thought he had and every piece he learned only fell apart into fragments with little to connect them to. Breathing was a chore, and he wanted nothing more than for any and all sensation to abruptly stop, to quit this lowly body for good and be rid of all experience forever; and if he had been able to take his own life than he would have done so in an instant.

But it seemed as though death was simply not in the cards for him, and though he might curse the very hand of his creator for bestowing him with the cruel gift of pain, it was with relief to find that the lingering feelings that took hold of him were gradually leaving him; gently fading away as though it had been nothing more than passing thought. In its place came new and familiar sensations that tingled the mind for what they suggested; the coarse fabric of dirty sheets beneath him, the putrid stink of something organic and foul on the air, the muffled haze of distortion weighing heavy inside his head. His shoulder throbbed with swollen pressure like a toothache, deeply tender as if burdened by the weight of his entire body, yet he was feeble and without the strength to move himself. As his breath grew steady and calm, he focused on the scarce warmth that surrounded him, unsure if he wanted to open his eyes to whatever reality this was or quite possibly keep them closed forever.

In what might have been deemed the product of an ill and delirious mind, Shaun’s initial thought towards that familiar screaming was one of almost humorous exasperation. How silly he was to have recognized his friend based on the anger of his tone alone, given how prone to outbursts he seemed to be. Why, if he were speaking at any other volume Shaun would dare to think of him as a stranger!

But those thoughts of friendly teasing had been quickly snuffed away, the uncertainty as to the circ*mstances he found himself in causing his initial panic to return tenfold. It was not in best interest for either of them to have become embroiled in such a manner, and without the context to ground him, he was left wide awake and shivering beneath his blankets with his eyes squinted shut, hoping and begging that they would not be closed forever. Until then, the darkness behind his eyelids was his only cover, feigning sleep as the only means of protection against whatever forces had taken him here. He struggled to keep his breathing regular and quiet, and even greater was the effort required to push past the cotton in his head and the ringing in his ears so that he could listen in on his friend and learn without his knowing; though amidst his fury and his erratic shouting, the only discernable thing Shaun could gather was that something was very, very wrong.

Even without his sight, Shaun could tell that Maccready was fighting himself for control over whatever situation they had encountered, short and illogical sentences spat out without clarity so that only the general tone of his anger carried along to whomever he spoke to. He sounded rabid and inconsistent, drowning within his own emotions and unable to convey them beyond the occasional enunciation of “food” and “scratches” which he repeated verbatim and with great emphasis. It made Shaun’s skin itch to think about it, striking him with an odd sense of familiarity but completely void of memory; yet they evoked a profound feeling of shame and mounting dread within him.

Maccready would have certainly carried on in this manner for as long as he wished had he not been suddenly cut off by another voice that held steady and firm against this raging storm of a man.

“I assure you, nobody here had anything to do with this; we would never harm an innocent kid like this. And I’ve already treated his wounds, so you don’t have to speak to me like that.”

It seemed like a nigh impossible feat for anybody to maintain their composure against Maccready, yet somehow Chariot had managed to keep his tone smooth and collected, which did little to calm the air of anxiety that clung about the room denser than that putrid stick of filth and disease, but Shaun was grateful for that bit of control, nonetheless.

Maccready, however, refused to relinquish the control he sought to gain for himself.

“No!” He shouted back. “I know it was you f*ckers that set him up, he mentioned you by name! Why the f*ck else would he have gone there?”

Shaun could only hope that the men were too enthralled in their argument to notice how fiercely he shuddered just then, gripped by a sudden mounting terror that made his fate see all the more inescapable.

“You said he mentioned us by name because you were gonna attack us. Sounds to me like the boy was just trying to do the right thing and spare everybody the trouble of further bloodshed. Now, that does not mean that we asked for him to do this on our behalf, and truly, I genuinely cannot express enough just how sorry I-“

“You’re sorry?! Is that really-“

“I told you this was not our doing, and I’ve seen to it that the boy is treated, but he’s not fit for travel right now and you can’t just walk away while there’s still concern over our missing property.”

“Oh! Is that true now? Is that how it really f*cking is?”

Maccready sounded almost incredulous, sputtering out a rhetorically amused bark of false laughter before doubling down the sharpness of his tone.

“I bring you a f*cking sick and injured kid and your worried about your f*cking useless bullsh*t-“

“Bullsh*t that you intended to steal from us,” Chariot bit back sharply. “Now I think I’m owed the truth as to what you’ve done with our supplies-“

“You think I’m f*cking stealing; you think you have anything worthwhile in this sh*thole that would be worth my time.”

The irony of that statement was not lost on anybody, certainly not Shaun, and buried deep within the anxiety he carried there was the faint calming relief in having not to participate in this unseemly squabble.

“f*ck you,” Maccready spat. “f*ck you, and f*ck this place, and f*ck all of your f*cking sick freaks for painting me like I’m some kind of despicable person-“

“So where is the cache then?”

Though Chariot was far more composed, he too was beginning to loss a bit of his patience, and that calm demeanor he had donned upon their first meeting was gradually chipping away.

“It’s f*cking gone!” Maccready screamed. “There is nothing more to say on the matter. Skinny Malone has it now and there is nothing, f*cking nothing, anyone is gonna do to get it back.”

For a moment there was no further words for them to exchange, the silence only squandered by the rhythmic thump of Maccready artificial leg as he presumably paced back and forth in agitation. Chariot held his tongue for a moment, either in contemplation or futility, but Shaun was silently begging for Maccready to lose this argument before either of them lost their lives, though when he finally spoke again it was still with that stubborn defensiveness that plagued him so frequently.

“You’re f*cked,” Shaun heard him say. “And that’s not our problem anymore.”

His brash stupidity would be the death of him one day, though if it had carried him this far and it was likely it would see him through to the end of this argument without having his brains splattered against the nearest wall. The dire circ*mstances he was not privy too endowed him with a dangerous confidence he really couldn’t afford to flaunt so openly, and Shaun was beginning to seriously consider leaping out of the bed and trying to quell this confrontation himself; though he wasn’t quite so foolish as to attempt that just yet.

It did not help that Chariot had decide to swerve the topic onto something more troublesome.

“Perhaps the food is a lost cause at this point,” Chariot said. “And perhaps I’ve been too focused on that to address the more concerning matter at hand, if you’ll excuse my audacity in stating so.”

The punctual way in which he spoke reminded Shaun of Mother, and the authority which he projected out made him feel significantly small and vulnerable, like a goldfish.

Without allowing MacCready a chance to rectify this accusatory tone with a remark of his own, he spoke out quite suddenly and unexpectedly, holding his voice stern despite who he was faced with.

“Don’t think it’s escaped me that that this is now the second time I’ve had to bandage this poor boy up,” he pressed. “And given your behavior I suspect there’s a reason why.”

The little bed he rested in, once possessing the faint blushes of peaceful warmth from his body, now felt cold and lifeless as the room was abruptly bathed with a chilly air. Those thin and soiled blankets clung to his tiny frame like a reassurance from a fellow victim, and it was the only consolation he could give himself in that time.

Maccready’s anger had evolved to a new level.

“What the f*ck did you say?”

But still, Chariot spoke on relentlessly, ruthless in how perfectly he mimicked that same punctual sharpness to his tone.

“I’ve noticed how your son acts around you, always scared of-“

“He is not my f*cking son,” Maccready was firm in reestablishing. “I told you already. I do not-”

“The who is he exactly?” Chariot challenged him. “Is he a nephew? A younger brother? Why are you traveling with this boy and why did he come here screaming and crying for you not to kill all of us-“

There was a movement from across the room, a frantic pounding of heavy footsteps and even heavier metal, and Chariots question was mysteriously cut off.

“You be real f*cking careful what you say to me, do you understand?”

Maccready’s voice took a dramatically different tone then, as if his all-encompassing anger was suddenly pinpointed with snipers’ accuracy and precision, far too steady in its threat compared to the awkward fumbling he had started out with.

Shaun couldn’t see, nor would he even want to had he been giving the chance, but not too far from his bedside he heard something heavy collide with a large object, forcing it scrape horrendously across the wooden floors with an ear-piercing screech.

“You don’t know a GODDAMN thing!”

In the quiet aftermath of their baseless accusations, Shaun was left mentally grasping at straws in an effort to recall what exactly had transpired the night before. He was scared and confused, more so at his inability to remember than anything happening outside of himself. He knew he had left a message for Deacon, and he remembered going to that strange building, but the further down the timeline he went the more those still images and facts turned into a mushy feeling of disgust deep within his guts. There was a continuous presence of shame in the nature of his actions, though a foreboding sense of dread forbad him from ever discovering what exactly that was. It was as if something vital was being held just out of his reach and should he have just been able to grasp it, then perhaps this painful ache inside his chest would finally cease; though it seemed something within himself was purposefully keeping this revelation at bay.

The turmoil on the other side of the room had quieted somewhat, continuing on with a steady back-and-forth that was overshadowed by the presence of another voice that had finally decided to make itself known. A soft touch of lips barely grazing against the shell of his ear had held his unyielding attention, terrifyingly aware of the figure looming over him.

“I know that you’re awake, kid.”

Shaun wouldn’t dare to respond back to him, stunned as he were into complete and utter stillness of breath and body, even though Beatnik had seen through the illusion for some time now. His proximity was uncomfortably close, the natural warmth of his body cascading over him like a shadow, but it was simply in Shaun’s nature to keep his eyes shut tight; a frayed little bundled of nerves and broken pieces that hopefully looked pitiable enough to be left unbothered for just a while longer.

Beyond his terrified form, Chariot and Maccready carried on in such a manner that they were eventually forced to leave the room at Beatniks discretion. Shaun could only listen to them depart, hypocritically begging against his better judgment for his dangerous and terrible friend to stay with him and protect him from whatever was to come; but he had already come to accept that he was truly alone under these circ*mstances. Beatnik merely allowed Shaun to continue his game of possum unchallenged, surely seeing the way in which he subtly ground his teeth and pursed his mouth, but never giving him the relief of an external confirmation. Instead, he lingered on that silence between them, knowing how it filled him with humiliation and fear, and letting him stew in it like the coward he was.

He suffered for a lasting eternity of only two minutes, after which the door was suddenly thrown open by a great force and closed just as mercilessly. Something moved through the house, barreling towards his bedside with a profound agitation, yet Shaun was compelled to keep his eyes shut and his spine rigid, despite the weak trembling in his limbs.

He was afforded peace for a mere second, not understanding the expectation he had failed to meet, and with it, the respect he had forgotten to show.

“Open your f*cking eyes and look at me,” he heard Chariot say.

Shaun, of course, obeyed without question, peeling back his eyelids like a misty-eyed newborn pup and hoping to appear just as innocent as he gazed out fearfully at those rabid dogs beside him. Chariot was furious, controlling himself by way of willpower and a practiced restraint, but leaving his anger expressive along his brow. Beatnik sat peacefully by his side, a wry smirk painted over his features and a knowing look to his eye that made his presence seem all the more threatening in comparison.

Despite the undivided attention Shaun had given them, both of them seemed at a loss for words, struggling against something that they could not, or would not, convey unto him. Chariot was the more expressive, shifting on his heels and pointing his finger without ever uttering a single comprehensible word, and so it was ultimately Beatnik that took the floor.

“So,” he had started, a friendly tone laced with mockery. “I’m told yesterday was quite…eventful.”

A rather uncouth way of putting it, though it left no room for any further confession. The truth was made known to them in some way, though it was likely that the finer details had been left murky at best. Circ*mstantial or not his failure was ultimately damning, and that seemed to given Chariot enough to work with.

“Skinny Malone has our weapon supply,” he said suddenly.” The one you were supposed to retrieve for us.”

“And your actions the other day seems to have caused more trouble than it resolved,” Beatnik chimed in.

“Doesn’t matter though, I’m told you did good last night.”

“Despite what your friend seems to think.”

“You need to learn how to keep your mouth shut, you keep pulling risky moves like that and we’re gonna change your codename to Icarus.”

A humorless joke at his expense, but Shaun didn’t dare to comment on it. He remained silent, soaking in every that was spoken to him but contemplating nothing on the reality in revealed. The events of last night seemed like nothing more than the product of a fevered mind, bordering on complete fantasy, yet he felt as though it were also strangely memorable, an echo of suggestion underneath his fingertips that told him that what he suffered through was incredibly real.

Chariot had paused for a deep breath, steadying himself with his hand rested on the back of the chair like a crutch. His outburst had seemed uncharacteristic, from what little he had revealed of his character; though as he averted his gaze and held himself, it was clear that he was coming down from a harrowing experience of his own. Beatnik never dared to look away, stating directly into the depths of Shaun’s eyes with an unflinching intensity, far more confident in this outcome than he should have been.

“That gas f*cked you up pretty bad, didn’t it?” Beatnik asked him, though his tone sounded rather rhetoric and thus did not demand an answer.

“Couldn’t make out the bulk of what you said but the injuries are superficial for the most part.”

What a relief.

“You’re shredded pretty badly, but you’ll live.”

What a goddamn relief.

“Which is good, because we need you to do something else for us.”

Shaun could feel his face flush with heat, his eyes stinging as the men before him grew distorted beneath a fresh wave of tears. It was impossible to breath, as if a weight had been placed atop his chest; the responsibilities and secrets he kept so profound in their burden that he practically suffocated beneath them.

“I..I’m sorry…” He managed to choke out. “I-…”

“About what? The job?” Chariot asked rather harshly.

He dismissed the subject with the wave of a hand, uncaring and cold towards the honest display before him.

“Don’t…just, don’t. It’s out of our hands at the moment and there’s no point sending you over there.”

“Maccready’s working on something else to make it up to us,” Beatnik said. “Which is good because you’re going out on your own for this one.”

That statement should not have come as much of a surprise, but his own disappointment must have showed in that downcast expression he wore because Beatniks smirk quickly turned into an ugly frown as his gaze steeled into something sharp. An unexpected knock at the door drew their attention away, saving him from a confrontation, though only Chariot left to ascertain it. Upon his return he seemed exasperated, almost quelling his anger so that what remained in its place was an exhausted sense of annoyance.

“Give me a few minutes and we’ll talk about the job. Get yourself cleaned up and dressed in the meantime.”

And then he left without another word, practically springing out of the door with an urgency that seemed misplaced given his depleted look. From beyond the door there was a hushed murmur of raspy voices buried beneath an uncontrollable cough that seemed to taint the very air he breathed, and Chariot soon disappeared into that cacophony of sickness, leaving Shaun to merely wallow in it.

Beatnik, meanwhile, had given up his anger in favor of busying himself at a nearby table, so certain of Shaun’s complacency that he had no desire to even look at him while in his company, though perhaps Shaun could be so bold as to believe this privacy was afforded to him out of basic decency.

Rising from the bed revealed the full extent of his physical condition, an underlying rawness beneath the bandages that left him gasp for air and scared to move. To even lift his chest seemed impossible, his skin tight and inflamed as if he were slowly unfurling like a flower, though the worst of it came from the dull throb in his shoulder. The entire joint seemed swollen and plump, marked by gashes and grooves that were not deep enough to warrant treatment, and moving it only sent a shattering tingle coursing down the length of his arm; yet it was not restrained by either cast nor physical limits, the bones inside still healthy and strong and fully functional, if only he could will himself to use it. Instead, he fretfully crawled out of a bed like a worm, supporting himself on whatever limb hurt the least and barely bringing himself up to a proper sitting position before he attempted to stand on his own.

The result was an instant collapse back onto the mattress, huffing out breathes behind clenched teeth as his body was sent into a shock. He was offered no assistance or encouraging words, doomed to carry himself up on his own until he finally managed to secure his feet underneath him and push through the sharp pressure in his back to stand.

His head was swimming in dazed confusion, an inch away from blindness as he shuffled bleary-eyed towards the basin of water that someone kindly set aside for him. It’s off-color murkiness and floating debris gave it the uncanny appearance of a toilet, and the smell it gave off suggested much the same. His stomach flipped as if entertaining the idea of throwing up just to show off his disgust at the way these people lived, but he only swallowed back his pride and flicked at the water with his fingertips.

“Don’t forgot to scrub your hands real good,” he heard Beatnik shout to him. “You still got bits of Rust under your nails.”

A quick glance at the reddened crust hiding beneath his cuticles and Shaun was frantically splashing his hands into the filthy water with reckless abandon. The yellow tincture, the faint organic smell, the little pieces of sediment that drifted down to the bottom of the bowl; nothing was a stomach churning as that repulsive muck that pervaded his body. With striking familiarity, he dug at his own fingers, blindly poking at the tender flesh of the matrix without hesitation or caution, raking his digits across fingers that no longer had nails to protect them, desperately wishing these dry crumbles of color to leave his body at whatever cost. He scrubbed until the water turned brown and foul, his hands bleeding and piqued with a burning sensation across the meat, but so long as his hands were clean, he could bear it.

He had initially been without a shirt, though he had been left with the rest of his modesty, and as soon as he hid his mutilations beneath the crusted clothes of yesterday, Chariot returned, and business had to resume as normal.

His mouth felt very dry and sour, a faint memory of a cheese he had enjoyed once during dinner with his mother now making him nauseous at the idea of consuming it once again, though if he were able too, he should probably force something down if he could find it.

He doubted either of them would spare him something to eat, though considering they had spared his life so far it didn’t seem that irrational to assume. He almost dared to ask had it not been for their undivided attention suddenly being thrust upon him, and he was quickly made to sit down at the table while the two briefed him on his work.

“Let’s start with some of the basics, we don’t have a lot of time to get you ready.”

Chariot pulled out a folded scrap of paper from his coat pocket, eyeing it with a scrutinizing gaze before gripping it tightly and continuing.

“First thing’s first- How much do you know about the Slop Shop?”

He spoke out assuredly, as if he didn’t just construct the most absurd and confusing sentence Shaun had ever heard. It hardly registered as a legitimate question, and it was only from their expectant look towards him that he realized he had to come up with an answer.

“I-…I don’t understand what you mean, sir. What is that?”

Chariot let out a frustrated groan, smothering the paper in an iron grip, though Beatnik was quicker in filling him in.

“They’re another hunter clan,” he told him. “Not the ones that stole our weapons, but they’ve been causing problems for us as of late.”

“Problems that are affecting more than just this one colony,” Chariot added on.
We’re not even in their territory but for some reason they’ve started rushing the gates. And they’re doing it across the Commonwealth.”

“Doesn’t make a whole lotta sense from a hunter’s standpoint. Most don’t even bother with the sick as a food source, and the really desperate are still smart enough to know that it’s easier to infiltrate through a weak spot and hope you don’t get caught leaving with anything on your way out. We take a daily headcount, and we know that nobody is missing.”

“They’re making themselves obvious and attacking only the sick, and we don’t know why.”

“And that’s what you need me to find out?” Shaun finally asked.

“Exactly,” Chariot almost praised him. “We got too many heads here to just leave this place unattended, but you’ve been requested by name for this.”

This too, felt strikingly familiar, though that particular memory was quite clear.

“I don’t know why but orders are orders. I guess either way you’re useful for something.”

“All we’ve been asked for is information.” Beatnik sounded almost reassuring. “Don’t do anything stupid and don’t drag the rest of us down with you, and this will be considered a job well done.”

Something didn’t feel right about the way they were presenting this, though it may have just been his nerves still reeling from the shock of whatever had happened just a few hours ago.

“I know you’ve done work like this before, so this isn’t anything new, but if you have any question then spit ‘em out now, cause you got to get going here pretty soon.”

He certainly had plenty of questions he wanted to ask, though very little of them were polite or related to the mission in any way. Regardless, he knew he couldn’t sit and panic against the inevitable, not if he wanted to get out of this in relative peace, he just needed to calm himself down first.

“I’m sorry but, can I please some water first? My throat hurts.”

The two agents shared a look between themselves, one more incredulous than the other, but Chariot eventually pulled away from the table in an exaggerated manner. They must have thought him suspicious for his simple request, either that or they were very hesitate to sacrifice any resources that weren’t essential for his immediate survival, as Chariot never fully turned himself away as he retrieved a canister from the other side of the room. When placed into his hands, Shaun could not help but think that they were testing him for something, for him to refuse the water or accuse them of tampering with it, but he didn’t care to play into their game. Greedily, he refreshed himself with their supply, far from humble in the long gulps he took, though he still politely relinquished the canister to them when he was finished.

Neither of them made to take it from him, it would probably be the only necessity they leave him with before the journey. He accepted that without question. He wasn’t any happier, but he was calm.

“How many groups of hunters are there? How will I know I’ve found the right one?”

“Lots of people turned to hunting when things starting going bad, but its hard to keep groups like that together,” Beatnik explained. “Lot of paranoia and bad behavior between them. They either eat each other or slip within a couple months. The Slop Shop is one of the three big clans that somehow have been able to stay together and relatively functional despite it all. Which is the strangest part, considering they’re not as…eloquent, as the other two. You'll be able to tell them apart pretty easily, just look out for the eyes.”

Shaun was honestly a little surprised to see that these organizations were a little more structured than he initially thought, though even that was being generous towards the general concept of survivors banding together to hunt down and consume human flesh. He had taken it initially as being a singular entity that operated within the city, or perhaps an overall concept that held no distinction between who was predator and prey, but the formation of unique identities within the wasteland certainly stood out to him.

“Who are the other two?”

“The Happy Hunters and the New Essex Dieters. This stretch of the city of technically Happy territory, though they tend to control most of the Northeast. Those are the boys that took our weapons.”

And undoubtedly have been the ones he encountered before that. He knew that those damned smiling faces had meant something, but he hadn’t considered such a simple and innocent mark to be the insignia of a gang.

“The New Essex Dieters hang out around the coast. They’re not as bothersome but don’t f*ck around with then if you see any. They’re remnants of a former affiliation and carry themselves in much higher regard. We don’t know a whole lot about them outside of their business model.”

“You’re going to be heading south. That’s where the Slop Shop claims territory, though we only have a loose idea of where their exact location is.” Chariot added. “Outside of hunting, we don’t understand why they’ve been hitting up certain territories. That group has attracted a lot of the Commonwealth’s worst and desperate, but we looked into the chem angle, and it still didn’t make sense.”

“So, they’re not doing it for drugs?” Shaun asked. “But they’re not doing it for food either?”

“See why this is a bit of a headscratcher for us?” Chariot said. “The best place to start would be the remains of Warwick. That used to be the site of a former colony before the Slop Shop razed it to the ground.”

“That old sewage processing plant?” Much to his surprise, Shaun actually knew of the location they were supposably speaking of, though not for any good reasons. The name had always been spoken in terms of “success rate” and “statistical input”, though after Mother’s project came to fruition it became spoke in greater context of information and activity.

“Oh, so you already know of it? Great. Save’s me from havin’ to pull out the map.”

Both Chariot and Beatnik rose from the table, and Shaun followed in their example.

“Leave from the main road past the church we met at,” Beatnik instructed him. “Try to take the Mass Pike East but don’t go under it into the subways. Stick to the open roads and don’t stray towards the coastline. As far as I know the colony was completely abandoned after the attack, but who knows what could have taken up residence there in the meantime.”

And with those parting words, he was given his gun back and sent on his way, expecting to bring his captures the impossible by way of his own sacrifice. And what should he get in return for this? The chance to be let go? Perhaps a celebration meal of the finest canned gruel that Commonwealth had left to offer? Unlikely, but he was not in any position to deny them what they asked for, and between the three of them they all knew that he was going to obediently play his part the moment he was told to.

As he left their little desolate shack, Shaun was once again greeting by the foul and unfortunate lifestyles that this colony helped to perpetuate in. The smell once again reminded him very strongly of cheese, of which he would never have an appetite for again it seemed, though it was long-standing condition that all had grown oblivious too in the time that they spent here. Walking through the colony meant stepping over prostrated bodies and collective filth in a struggle just to make it towards the city’s gates, all while the people stood around ticking or zombified, hardly acknowledging his presence amongst them.

Past another dilapidated structure he found a woman, who stood apart from her fellow sickly brethren by the fierce convulsions that overtook her, so that he was both startled and confused by what he witnessed. He could tell she was lean from starvation, yet her entire body appeared swollen and fat, an uncanny yellowish hue to the skin that made the foaming spittle on her lip stand out all the brighter. She held a fierce grip on her hair, pulling at the long strands so that her head was violently tugged back and forth in a painful manner. It was terrifyingly tragic to see the effects of their lifestyle fall so viciously over them, and he wondered briefly is there was ever a moment in the present day when this woman did not live like this.

A rushing figure snapped him away from his thoughts.

Chariot, having barreled through the colony, was just as fearful as Shaun was to witness this display, and in his terror, he ferociously cast him aside so that he could reach the woman faster. Shaun didn’t mind it, watching as his tormentor laid down beside the sick woman and held her with tender words and welcoming arms. Even while using these people to hide amongst the dregs of the Commonwealth, they didn’t shy away from the nastiness of their neighbors like so many others did. And this, this act of companionship and care towards the less fortunate was the most honest he had ever seen them act. Chariot, beneath the false personalities and ugly words was giving enough to be kind towards an unfortunate victim, and in that moment, Shaun found a sense of respectability towards his actions that he wouldn’t dare to speak aloud.

Though, he probably shouldn’t have watched as intensely as he did, stupefied as he were by a rare act of kindness in the world filled with so much despair. Chariot had suddenly turned to look at him, his eyes reddened by sadness, but his tone laced with anger.

“What the f*ck is wrong with you?!” He shouted. “Go away! f*cking go away!”

Shaun took a step back in surprise, aching wishing to extend his own hand and share with them in this moment of humanity, but the filth and the anger and the unknown had taken on a dangerous extreme, and so he quickly turned and left that place without ever looking back.

Chapter 15

Chapter Text

The Commonwealth seemed to run afoul of the most inhumane and horrifying conditions that a person may be subjected to, but for all it was worth, the barren streets they left behind in their wake, carrying with them the echo’s many lives once lived, were at least quiet and relatively peaceful to travel

Which is not to suggest that walking was made any safer by this level of complete desolation, for it only suggested a temporary respite from the daily struggles of life; truly an empty wasteland of a landscape in which to lose oneself in. But Shaun knew better than to trust the lies told to him by the damned and dying, to never believe the silence for what it foretold, for the Commonwealth possessed a dark underbelly of malicious activity that never slept and never stopped; though in spite of that, nothing had stopped him from leaving the city quite efficiently, truth be told.

He had expected to at least pray witness to some signs of recent habitation, as the only quick glimpse at his map confirmed that Beatnik had intended for him to backtrack through the massacre that was wrought by Maccready’s hands, yet even those bodies had since been moved, leaving only bloodied stains behind for some poor, wandering soul to lick off of the pavement.

Only a single day left to the wolves, and already the flesh had been taken in full.

He wasn’t so much surprised as he was disappointed, though the memory of that site and the reality it presented had only served as a reminder as to the subtle plumpness of his cheeks and the thinning layer of baby fat beneath his skin, loving traits that would surely spell-out a swift and merciless death if he did not keep a sharp eye out on his surroundings.

Best not to dwell on those particular wandering thoughts for now, though, as temptations for his flesh sat as only a high secondary worry for present concerns. For the sake of this task imposed upon him, Shaun was to travel south to an alarming degree, almost close to the initial site of his surfacing, and though he had undertaking non-linear and counterproductive routes for the sake of evasion in the near-past, the boldness of this particular move had left him feeling breathless.

But he was not in any position to argue his orders, and though he would have loved to take the eastern coast line as a bit of extra protection, it was clearly marked as territory by a rival gang to the Slop Shop, and it would put him at far-greater risk to wander blindly through their streets.

So, there he was, passing by the Mass Pike tunnel just as he was ordered to do, and coming back to that familiar stretch of dusty road that had marked his initial entry into the city limits; only now he was without a companion to walk alongside him. For better or worse, the lack of company had made the barren wastes all the more empty and loathsome, and himself but a mere speck drifting through it. The budding heat of the afternoon had made those vast plains of dried earth take on the uncanny resemblance to coarse human skin, and would have dared to take a lengthy swill of his canteen had he not shown restraint.

Honestly, he probably sweated out most of what he drank, and for the life of him he couldn’t remember the last time he even passed water or waste in this hellhole. The ramifications of his presence in the Commonwealth were already having damning effects on his body, of which he was powerless to combat, unless he wished to further the process along and be done with it already.

He paused then, literally and figuratively, as the profoundness of his thoughts suddenly struck him with the severity of their suggestion, and the fact that he had been having greater and more serious accounts of hopelessness as of late, bordering on the suicidal.

It wouldn’t help to dwell on those thoughts, frustrated and hurt as he was. He was a mere creature, semi-organic and lashing out in animalistic impulses, and it just wouldn’t do to forsake all that he had done simply because the thoughts of what it was that he could have possibly done last night made him want to curl in on himself in shame.

That just wasn’t progressive towards his goals, and he still had so much road to walk.

But he couldn’t simply brush his inner monologue aside and drift about in a mindless haze, he knew well enough that his consciousnesses needed to fill itself with something least he succumb back to the blackened thoughts of his own inevitable demise; and he found, to some surprise, that his mind instantly latched on to that fresh memory of the sicko girl, and he found himself captivated.

Such a poor thing she was, age undeterminable beneath the filth of herself and her condition, yet she had seemed so small and helpless like a child that it instilled that same sense of sympathy towards her. It truly broke his heart to think that she was one of the lucky few to have been shown some semblance of compassion in spite of what she was, and that the best of what the Commonwealth could offer her was a peaceful slum to slowly die in alongside her fellow junkies. Seeing her as repulsive as she was tragic, Shaun had wanted nothing more than to see her relieved from the uncontrollable throes of her own body and restored back to the innocent purity that she must have possessed once long ago, and he truly wondered how so many could not feel the exact same.

Chariot seemed all the more an enigma to him now than when they initially met, and for what Shaun could see of him, that man was being as open and honest as he ever was. To throw himself so passionately towards that girl while also hiding amongst her people for protection, the audacity was just unfathomable. If it was a simple ploy to act the part of a friend or protector so as to not cast suspicion, then he could perhaps see the logic in that, yet it did not amount to any of the hostility they showed towards his own compassion towards the sick.

In the most twisted way, there was perhaps a mutual benefit to their shared parasitism of one another, and a fiercely guarded one at that, though Shaun strongly doubted that either Beatnik or Chariot were even capable of that level of empathy. Not like this own, which was open and tenderhearted and so awfully burdensome that he willingly dragged himself onwards towards an unknowable fate for the sake of liberating a people that he had no personal investment in.

Damn his bleeding heart, and damn this drastic heat.

And damn that dreadfully familiar feeling of the deacon’s cold gaze along his back.

Let him see his sins for what they were, judge him for it with the full extent of whatever backwards law he could impose upon him, Shaun would never break stride.

And for miles he felt his presence, that invisible wraith hanging in the shadows and mocking his every move, the subtle hand of influence guiding him along the chosen path without ever revealing themselves to him. Yet even in the hazy blur of the far distance there were occasionally glimpses of a shifting color, of a very faint movement that could have easily been nothing more than a trick of the light, but it always lingered somewhere far behind him at a considerable distance.

His presence made his skin crawl, the sensitive flesh already bristling with the rough texture of his clothes rubbing against the wounds that could not be bandaged, and the heat had only made it worse. Such a distance could not have truly had an effect on the weather conditions, could it? And yet how else could he explain the sudden muggy density of the air’s humidity now coming down on him like a wet blanket, smothering him beneath a deep, warm heat that clung to his raw and tattered skin? Each step drew closer towards the lips edge of a bubbling stew pot, sweat damping his hair like a soggy cap, and still, there was so much distance he had yet to even cover.

It seemed that a break was well in order, and his voyeur would just have to accept the limits in which he could be pushed and played with.

Shaun took a cursory glance at his surroundings before making the bold decision to cut off of the path and walk deeper into the dried plains. He knew that within an hour he could have reached another township and taken refuge in a place with more structural security, yet he knew that from approximation that he was quickly approach a place in which he had once been before, and never wanted to step foot in again. Instead, the relay tower stood tall and imposing against the horizon line at his back, and he took solace in its familiarly as he nestled down on his knees. Just a few minutes of peace, maybe a little swig of water if he so dared, and then he could resume a steady pace towards Warwick and hopefully make it there before nightfall.

How long had he been walking? An hour or two, perhaps more? The distance wasn’t so extreme that journey seemed outlandishly impossible, and he wasn’t exactly striding along with impressive speed, yet the sheer relief it was to finally stop had made his trek seem herculean in proportion. The arches of his feet felt sore, and the weight of his body seemed to press down heavily against the short bone in his heel with every step. Even resting on his knees still kept an approximation of the burden, his body so worn and tired that under any other circ*mstance, it would perhaps be in his best interest to simply nap within this patch of dust and earth and slumber away like a simple beast. The romanization of such an act was dangerously tempting, and the perk of his rather wise design to walk across the plains meant that it was theoretically impossible for anything to ambush him.

He hoped that the bastard trailing him was quite sour over that one.

Small victories in even smaller quantities, he would take what he could get.

Hesitantly, Shaun drew out his canteen, feeling the weight of its contents with a pang of guilt for his actions, though shamefully, he still indulged himself with a tiny sip. The regret was instantons, the water both unnecessary to his thirst and a grim reminder of how dry and empty he was inside. His stomach rocked with a wave of recognition, awaken with a new need to be filled and satiated once more, and he was left burdened with hunger and thirst as he returned the canteen to his pocket.

Such was the cruel irony he so often faced, and now, with his punishment served, it was probably best to continue onwards before something, or someone, caught up to him.

He left without ceremony or regret, shuffling awkwardly back up to his aching feet but never faltering in those resolute, meaningful steps to took forward. Nothing lingered within his peripherals, his demons far away enough to not breathe their hot breath down his neck, and there was no need to take caution in his stride. The sun was still steady in its overhead rise, barely touching upon noon despite the sweltering heat it cast down upon him, and if he cut corners and avoided the winding roads of the southeast, he could very well arrive to his damnation in due time. He might, if he was lucky enough, find exactly what he was looking for and make his return all in the same day.

Yes, he could very well believe in such impossible fantasies if he tried hard enough, though he still had little idea as to what sort of answers they were expecting from him anyway.

It made little sense for anyone to attack a sicko colony, given the reasons provided to him, yet it did not seem implausible that some would be so desperate enough as to try it regardless. His own stomach could attest to that much, and really, he felt as though he would eat just about anything non-human if it was suddenly thrown his way. So, what other options did that leave him with? A personal gain of some kind, obviously, though with economics more of a suggestion than anything, perhaps it was just a needless act of cruelty for the sake of entertainment; the thrill of sad*stic intent and the easy target could find.

That all seems perfectly sound to him, but they wouldn’t have sent him out here otherwise…would they?

There came the return of that small, rebellious spark that seemed to tint his glasses with delusions of grandeur, the urge to act drastically in much a manner that a stubborn child might, but he was in position to say no to their demands, and such astute offense would do little to get this particular assignment over and done with.

He could find an opening for escape later, once he was sure that Maccready wasn’t going to kill him and this figure in the distance had finally stopped trailing him.

Though, it was with a curious realization to find that said figure was not currently following behind him at some distance; at least, from what he could gather. The sudden absence of the foreboding and watchful eye had been impossible to catch, always assuming that he was never in a position that afforded him complete privacy and security; yet, as Shaun gazed out across the dried plains and the few tumbled buildings in the far distance, he found that there was really no place that anyone could still be following him from. He was alone, and exposed, standing idly with his back to potential danger and still not a single thing had ever tried to come close to him.

It was, strangely enough, unwelcomed and suspicious, and Shaun allowed himself to pause for just a moment so that he might strain his ears a little since his sights could not be fully trusted.

The plains were peacefully as quiet and still as they must have been for long, not even the wind carrying a suggestion of echoes or rustling shifts as the few remaining trees stood barren and stiff against the landscape without any leaves to shake.

Then, a very faint, crackling pop, like shoes slowly pressing down against a patch of dried dirt, sounded out very, very close to him.

And he ran.

Chapter 16

Chapter Text

So tenderly young and spry like a fawn, running with impulsive animalistic fear and sore, aching legs; never will prey feel so alive and so free than when it just barely manages escapes from the jaws of its predator.

So much for suicidal impulses; the irony isn’t lost on him at all.

Though neither are his acute senses, and he’s lucky for his over-analytical assessment of everything there is to see or know, because right now he doesn’t know what’s chasing him or why he isn’t able to see it in the first place.

Out on the open plains like this there truly is nowhere that a person could hide, for better or for worse, and so it was a guaranteed impossibility that this phantom menace was simply ducking out of sight whenever Shaun dared to even turn his head. But he knew that his footsteps where not the only one’s present, that those plumes of dust that were kicked up where not just the aftermath of his own escape attempt; but what else could that possibly signal?

The product of a broken mind, an accumulation of stress and an overactive imagination, literally bringing his demons to life just to give himself the thrill of a good chase and remind himself just how much he values his own life.

Perhaps that is why he is not even taking the chance that this could be a mere illusion, logical fallacy notwithstanding. His fear is telling him to run, and if he should be bold enough to wear the skin of a living creature than he may as well act as one and forfeit all reasoning in favor of sheer impulse.

And how easy it was to give in to it, that absurd fear of an unknown, unseeable threat; how natural it felt to push himself past the stinging pain and the dull fatigue and simply run without destination in mind, all caution to the wind. It didn’t matter how blisteringly raw his scratches were, how they threatened to rip open along the seams like a tight-fitting shirt with each blundering step he took forward; so long as those thundering crunches behind him stayed at a considerable distance, he would consider himself thankful for the pain.

For now, though, Shaun cast another quick glance to that phantom, still only an invisible mimicry of a threat, and felt conflicted towards his fate. He could not shake the feeling of a presence looming within that empty space behind him, nor could he stop his own reflexive shaking as he blindly darted forward across the field, yet still there was nothing trailing in his shadow that could solidify his fears and thus alleviate the suspense of confusion and uncertainty.

He must have given chase for at least a mile or so, certainly long enough for his frail body to now curse the very pain it once reveled in. His lungs were dried and withered, gasping breathes so raw and stringy that he felt much inclined to cease his breathing altogether, and his legs grew numb with pins and needles. So long did he endure such things that even the scenery seemed to feel the effects of fatigue and weariness, the dried earth becoming more brittle and coarse as the skin of the commonwealth dried away into dust. But see here, how the even the color differed at this distance, how the lightish tan lost its feeble luster and darkened into a harrowing grey, then even more so into a deep, unsettling black.

He was walking on scorched land now, the ground touched by something great and terrible so that the earth was forced to bear its scars forever and on, and he chocked against the char and dust that flew into the air before him. His franticness had fallen way to an awkward jog, galloping dumbly like a lame horse, but even so, those other footfalls seem to flow as well, and immediate worry became hesitate curiosity and astonishment at what he now saw.

A huge mass lay far away in the near distance, but to reach it, one would have to transpire through the thin remains of wood and stone that just barely withstood the bulk of this grand attack., and so he did. Within that tar-like moor there existed only feeble little sticks that stood half-upright like newly formed sprouts, brittle and blackened so that they crumbled to ash beneath his touch, and were so few and far between, that they seemed to stretch on for miles like a vast, yet strangely empty graveyard.

Shaun quickly decerned that these must have been the remains of houses, or some other type of structure, and meant that all he walked through was the everything, and everyone, who could not survive against such intensity. Only a few, vague shapes remained visible beneath the ash, but none of them bodies or bones, for even burnt as they were, one would never turn down a hot meal such as this; But what did remain seemed all the more terribly familiar and though their markings had been ravished by heat and scavenging hands, those warped pieces of metal and empty, iron husks were all that was left of the Brotherhood of Steel.

He dared not look at a single one too closely, least he be beseeched by memories too awful to recall, and so he passed by them with a mourner’s gait and was pleased to hear that his demon showed the same respect. Even the most wicked seemed to recognized so profound a tragedy as this, and yet to simply gaze upon this wreckage filled him more with a sense of confusion than purely pity, for this great expanse seemed unnatural in its proportion and he could think of nothing that might have been the cause of it.

Even when he finally came to source of the wreckage itself, and saw the great, black thing that lay at its center, his mind could little comprehend the severity of its truth and the nature of its demise. Such a big thing of twisted metal, beached like the corpse of a whale, and almost just as skeletal with what little remained on its foundations. Such a structure seemed too large to be a machine, yet altogether too advanced to have been a building of some kind, and although he didn’t fully understand what it was, he understood the significance of being led to it.

With a dry mouth he called out the nothingness around him.

“Is this what you wanted me to see? Is this why you brought me here?”

He, of course, received no reply, yet he was determined to stand his ground.

“I don’t know what this is! I didn’t do this!”

A terrible defensiveness overrode the guilt he should have felt at witnessing the effects of his heritage. Whether it be by his own hand or not, he could not claim complete innocence in this manner, not when so many people were out for blood. Yet still, he could not hold himself much the same as Mother, and he would defend that point to his last, dying breath.

“I’m sorry, ok!? I’m sorry that this happened!”

And he truly was, whether anyone believed him or not. He was genuinely saddened by the everything that the Institute had wrought, himself included, and he understood also that this thing, this grave that he was standing on top of, was only the faintest little scar in a long tapestry of gnarled wounds. This was no more a pebble than a tombstone, even if the damaged seemed to stretch on for miles.

He would have said more, lamented to himself openly now that he knew there was someone there to listen to his woes, but he was paused by an unexpected and sudden reply.

“Hello there, boy! What are you doing playing around this ash pitt?”

Shaun quickly spun of his heel, taking in the approaching figure with great apprehension. It was a surprise to see how quickly the old man had snuck up on him, but given his weakness for dramatics and prose, it was only natural that someone should have taken the advantage to catch him in the midst of his foolishness.

Though with all honestly, he was expecting the reply to come straight from the demons mouth, but as he eyed the approaching figure with a curious nod, he could not be for certain whether this man was the one they called “The Deacon” for not.

Regardless, he quickly halted the man approach with a dismissive reply, fully intending on leaving that spot, and all its memories, behind.”

“Nothing Sir, I’m just on my way through.”

“It’s not good for boys to play in such ash pitts, very terrible for them actually.”

As if sensing his attempt to flee, the old man stopped at a reasonably distance, close enough to be seen and understood, yet far away enough for them to shout each other’s reply. The man was of typical commonwealth description, ghastly and bent, looking far older than he might have actually been, dark skin made darker by a lifetime of walking beneath an unforgiving sun. His voice carried a resounding hollowness to it, as if he gasped with every breath, more bone than body left to him, and it gave him an air of weakness and vulnerability that might have been mistaken for honest concern for him being there.

Shaun kept up his polite dismissal, hoping to simply walk away from this awkward encounter without another bite wound.

“As I assume, that’s why I’m on my way.”

“This ash pitt used to be a prime feeding spot, you know? Lots of people used to come for the scraps, though there isn’t much left now.”

“I know, I have seen so myself.”

And what an awful thing to have seen, in all its gruesome entirety. For as long as he lived, however long or short that may be, he doubted he would ever forget that look of joy that crossed those starving men’s faces when they finally reached that inner sanctum of cooked human meat. The smell alone was enough to have him salivating, out of hunger or nausea only his conciseness could tell, but such an event was one that truly cemented the Commonwealth’s downfall in his eyes.

“Did you know?” The old man said, sounding quite astonished with such a terrible confession. “You are very lucky then. I still walk the ash pitts and haven’t seen unopened cans in so long. You’ve witnessed a miracle, boy, and I pray you live to witness one again.”

Such joy and happiness emitted from him then, the little of sparks of hope and the way he spoke of soldiers tombs as canned food made Shaun sick to his stomach. He should have held his tongue and ignored the comment, but he was feeling rather bold.

“I wouldn’t wish that on anybody.”

He froze just as he said that, the childlike innocence of his mind fearing the backhanded punishment of speaking out of turn towards an adult, though it quickly matured into a genuine fear of losing the very tongue he so freely wielded. If the man seemed taken aback or offended in any way, then he didn’t show it.

“No?” He asked curiously, a wide-eyed in-culpability to his face that soon settled into a knowing look. “Oh, perhaps not. Such a terrible thing to pray for, isn’t it? But that is what it is, and as such I must wish for a young boy such as yourself to have it. Am I wrong for that?”

Under any other circ*mstances, the reply would have been instantaneous and obvious, a denial in such a profoundly absurd comment that surely would have been forgiven for its astuteness. But there was a softness in his tone that spoke of hardships known and experienced, his hollowness a thing of tragedy and the effects of a stomach left forever emptied. There wasn’t a threat laced within his words, only a caring sign of shared suffering and the vain hope to see it through to the very end.

Shaun hesitated a reply, turning on his heel so that his back was to the man and the open roads before him.

“No, I guess not. I really should be going now.”

But still, that old man did not relent. His insistence a thing both saddening in his presumed honesty as it was disturbing to his already fragile state of mind.

“Why not come with me, boy? It’s true, I have nothing by what you see before you, but in some cases that is more than enough to get by.”

Red flags were popping up left and right, better he start walking now and hope the message gets across.

“I don’t think that’d be very good for me, sir. No offense.”

“None taken, in truth that is probably for the best. I don’t know myself in hunger, but neither do most people. You be careful now, it’s not safe out there.”

The road was scraggly with rubble and debris, his attempt to flee was slow and awkward.

“I know sir, I will be.”

“It’s not safe for boys.”

“I know sir, I’ll be careful.”

Please, just let him get away while he still could.

“Beware the Catch-A-Lot’s, son, they’ve been hunting boys lately.”

Now that had given him pause, and with the slowest step imaginable, he came to a very reluctant halt. He knew better than to willfully reach for a lure that was set specifically for him, yet such an immediate and natural flow to his warning had piqued his curiosity, and with such distance still between them, Shaun could surely afford a bit of questioning so long as it was to his own benefit.

He looked back to the old man, still standing by his lonesome with his hands awkwardly held out before him like he didn’t know what to do with them. He was unarmed, as far as Shaun could see, and a quick glance showed no other close hiding spot for an ambush to lie in waiting.

He waited a moment, just to see if perhaps a bit of impatience or eagerness would show on the man’s face, but he just stood there dumb and lithe, watching him with wide eyes and a weird, puckered mouth. Finally, he asked.

“What are the Catch-A-Lot’s?”

The man co*cked his head to the side like a bird.

“The New Essex Dieters, to the east.” He spoke. “They never hunted boys before, as far as I know of them, yet they seem very eager for rarities like yourself. Best stay away from the color white.”

The name struck a familiar chord with him, though only slightly. They were one of three notable clans of human hunters that preyed on the Commonwealth, though despite their status they had yet to make a considerable mention until now. He realized then how very little information his informant tended to grant him, not in the sense that that they were deliberately keeping him out of the know (he knew that already), but in a manner of speaking their information did little to actually aid him, whereas this strange warning that the man ended with was surely to be more valuable to his safety in the long run. Considering his options, it was better to gather information while it was being so easily presented to him, though he would take everything with a grain of salt just to be safe.

“Why are they so eager for new pray?” Shaun asked.

“Couldn’t tell you. People want what they want, and they tend to get it one way or another. Quite a large sum they’re offering for such a boy, but I have no will left to give chase.”

So, the man was at least honest with their position towards one another. He only sounded assured in his vocalized weakness but the possibly of a rouse didn’t split passed him either. He was unsure whether it was a good sign that the stranger had brought up the topic rather than himself. Shaun dared to stay that something smelled a little fishy about everything.

At the time he didn’t know the irony in such a figure of speech.

“You’re not going to chase me?” Shaun asked, almost humored. “Are you going to tell them I was here?”

“Not on my soul, boy. Soldier’s honor, whatever that means now.”

“Soldier…?” Shaun asked, incredulous.

The old man certainly sounded honest enough, and nothing about his solemn face or weak and brittle body betrayed any sense of latent hostility or ill-intent, but doubt still sat heavily on his mind, and a deep offended sadness for a name he could possibly have taken in name.

“are you…” He tried to ask. “…were you..?”

The old man seemed to pity his struggle.

“Perhaps once, a long time ago. But you know how the story goes. I’m no more a soldier than a traitor, but who wasn’t during those days.”

“I can’t say I know anything about the Brotherhood actually, it was rarely spoken of and I haven’t witnessed much of it myself.”

Technically not a lie, though even Danse had seemed hesitate to believe that. With how widespread their influence appeared to have been, claiming ignorance on them or their actions was almost akin to claiming to have never heard of the sun before.

Almost, technically not a lie, though a more damning truth than this.

The old man looked at him with surprise, and he took that as a bad sign.

“You don’t know of the great, terrible, awful tragedy that befell the Prydwen?”

He watched as the old man put a hand to his chest in shock, and for a second Shaun worried about this stranger’s mortality than his own, give how feeble he looked at such a question. He then leaned in closer, still very much far away from him, but squinting his eyes so that he could take in the youthful features of his Institute upbringing and be satisfied with them.

“Ah, but you seem so young, and so very little of it is spoken of now that that must be true.”

The relief Shaun felt was astounding.

“Well, let me tell you boy,” The old man began, waving one of his hands to the blackened wreckage before them.” This here used to be the pride and joy of the Brotherhood, nah, the very heart and soul of its empire. A great flying ship it was, that flew above the commonwealth like an angel of death, and it brought destruction wherever it went.”

“It flew through the sky?”

The disbelief was evident in his voice, and for once he didn’t feel embarrassed for so rudely questioning this man’s outrageous claim. Of course, he had seen diagrams of old-world aeronautics and knew that as soon as the Institute surfaced in full, they would take to the skies with newer, improved models; but he doubted very much that anyone outside of the Institutes very best knew how to build or operate such complex machinery. The idea was simply laughable, like expecting a dog to understand and write out a mathematical formula.

The old man was quick to his own defense, but his tone held more humor and wonder than any sort of anger at being seen as a fool.

“Believe it for certainty boy. I’ve seen it myself once long ago, even set foot on it and glided through the air with all the little people below me as nothing more than ants! Such a special it was! Everyone awed at its power, nobody ever thought that such a thing could possibly be brought down.”

His face grew animated as he spoke, his expressions wild and his creases deep as he smiled at his own story.

“So, what happened to it?”

“It was brought down,” his reply instantaneous and his tone dipping a little.

“By institute hands no doubt, though very few can claim to know their methods. I never saw it myself I had abandoned post long before they tried to run back to the capital with their tail between their legs. but those who did say that for a moment they sky was illuminated a brilliant and shining blue, and the next thing you know everything was swamped with fire and the ship became that wreckage you see before you.”

He then pointed to that black pit with grave seriousness, and the weight of the sky seemed to fall down upon them for treading along such a morose sight. The sweltering air seemed to chill; his own body suddenly fatigued with a weariness that left him burdened with a responsibility to great to hold up. Shaun subconsciously backed away further from the wreckage, almost shamed at how his feet had tarnished such a sacred ground. But above all else, what he felt most was a dreadful sense of awe at such immense power and potential, like when he first woke up and gazed into Father’s face. He felt…small, weak like a baby bird, and this was the lion that lay slaughtered by something even greater than the greatest predator.

“…How could the institute do that?”

He meant it in both regardless; in actual possibility and in conscious decision.

“Beats me, I never think on what the devils can do, though you can look at this Abaddon here and take a guess as good as any.”

He didn’t want to look at it anymore, he didn’t want to be here anymore, but deep down, he knew this was a reality he would have to face eventually, and he should appreciate the lesson for what it was.

The old man (was he The Deacon? Was this entire encounter premeditated? Or was it simply chance that he should have meet this person here and now, with the responsibilities he carried and the fate of the Commonwealth resting on his shoulders. He didn’t know, and he wouldn’t ask) looked at him with a funny expression, and Shaun didn’t dare to look him in the eye.

“You sure you won’t come with me, boy? I still have a guitar! It works pretty well. Makes nice sounds when it’s quiet. Ting Ting Ting!”

He was smiling, some of his teeth missing and the others coated with a black tar-like substance.

“I can teach you how to play.”

Shaun needed to leave this area immediately.

“No thank you, sir. I really have to….I have somewhere to be. Goodbye.”

And without room for a rebuttal, Shaun turned and walked briskly away from that place, his shoulders shaking and his fingers twitching. He didn’t turn around, even as the old man shouted after him.

“Goodbye now, son! Be safe, and God bless you!”

God bless him? That’s the first he had ever told that, the idea struck him as absurd all the same.

What use was nice formality and blessings in the midst of so terrible a reality as this one? Ever the cynic he would deny such probabilities and whatever comfort their words may have suggested; for God was not here in this place, and even if he were…

The Institute would surely drag him from the sky and kill him just the same.

Chapter 17

Chapter Text

Darkness was fast approaching, but in spite of his little hiccup along the road, Shaun had managed a fairly productive pace and arrived dutifully within light of the same day. Overhead, the sun was already hanging its weight across the sky, pulsing with a muddy swirl of botched warm colors to accommodate the pleasant coolness on the wind: A picturesque scene only made deplorable the repugnant landscape in which this glorious sunset was forced to oversee, but at least the terrible smell that lingered on the breeze for miles had been exactly what he was searching for.

Warwick’s Homestead was a place he only knew in passing, solely on its reputation alone, and as far as past settlements went, this particular one captivated his opinion in the worst sense. In the former days of Boston, the area had been a waste management facility, and somehow, people of the newer age had taken its grounds as a living space, completely of their own, unbiased volition. When first gathered, the idea had seemed as humorous as it was repulsive, little more than a crude joke in the Bioscience division that he had happened to overhear once; yet, as it were, the Institute’s interest in that sorry lot had taken on that special little leap of personal touch, and soon one of their own was amongst the common populace to investigate its soil, praised for and rich in human feces.

Shaun could only shake his head at the state of things now, chocking against the savory stink of awfulness and the bitter salt of the ocean by its side as he lingered outside the colony’s gates. How anyone could have managed to stay willingly in such a place, he could hardly comprehend, viable crops be damned.

“Though,” he thought to himself, “from what I’ve seen, it’s possibly they couldn’t differentiate the smell from one another.” And he laughed at the idea.

Then he frowned, deeply saddened and ashamed, awkwardly shifting on his feet without daring to look up at the yawning makeshift barrier before him.

It…truly wasn’t his place to find humor in such things, especially not in this place, where he had work to do and little time to be doing it.

He was running on fumes and little else, surely that must be impacting his thinking a little. Perhaps, when he got back to his employers, he would be bold enough to demand a ration of food for his services, and the idea filled him with a bit of prideful enthusiasm.

But right now, he had nothing to show for such a reward, and a quick glance at the sky showed that he had perhaps only an hour to investigate the former colony before nightfall; two at the absolute most. After that, he would be forced to leave and take up shelter a little ways off, far enough away from the colony to hopefully provide a bit of protection against anyone that might still be scouting the area out.

“And hopefully with enough distance to damper the smell a bit as well,” he added, with quick regret.

He reminded himself of his focus, and soon his resolution returned with an acute professionalism towards the facts as he saw them. With his eye for detail, he first took in the surrounding exterior of the colony, adding to it his experience in coming upon the place as it were.

The area was a bit isolated, far off onto the shoreline, with not much left to come across until one reached the colony itself. The approach had been uneventful and rather easy, very quiet and without a trace of recent activity in the beaten path that led to its gates. He had expected to walk upon a familiar scene of past violence and mayhem, tussled footsteps left in the dirt and maybe a few splotches of blood thrown in for color; but aside from some minor garbage, everything seemed as perfectly ruinous and natural as the rest of the land.

A bit curious, but he had still yet to see the interior.

He was hesitating a bit on actually entering, focusing a little too hard on the exterior wall and its patchwork of old wooden pallets. It was underwhelming to see that, much like what he had encountered before, Warwick was place of new, lesser furnishings layered atop an old-world structure, like a spider spinning’s its web along the ribs of a skeleton, only with less grandeur. From a distance it was hideous and large, visible to anyone within a mile or two’s distance from it, yet the surrounding desolation gave it an air of total isolation, content to be left on its own.

The gates were swung open, revealing the depths of the colony and all its ramshackle housing to the outside, and with nothing else to go on, Shaun gracelessly showed himself inside, uneasy all the while.

It was almost startling to find how similar this colony was from the last one, and with his first glance he would have almost sworn that he had set foot into a perfect replica of the place. The very same hastily built constructions falling over each other as they crowded for space, the mark of uncleanliness in how filth and garbage was allowed to accumulate along the sparse walking paths, the odd funk of disease that seemed to permeate into everything; it was all exactly the same as the colony by the river, minus the populace to actually fill it.

It was…unnerving to see this place without the sick to inhabit it. Somehow, the little shacks and garbage piles didn’t hold the same still countenance of abandonment as much of the other structures he had come across did. Though they had forgotten (or intentionally withheld) to tell him the exact time-frame in which this colony fell, its desolation felt startlingly recent, like an empty bed that still held a trace warmth within its sheets. It was hard to say what precisely felt out-of-place, as much of the debris had been there in much the same condition as it was now, looking just as unsightly and boorishly uninteresting. In presenting itself much like an inner-city slum, it was hard to believe this area had ever been a stable farmland in the times past, and that thought seemed to stick with him as he wormed his way through the narrow alleys of the colony.

All throughout, under and atop the old facility itself, were the little shacks and rooms that comprised the bulk of this little village, and yet there seemed to be no area left dedicated to farming.

A futile effort, of course, the Institute had done quite a thorough job at ensuring that nothing on the surface would be able to grow until they had done it themselves; yet even so, those who are truly desperate would surely try their hand at it regardless, wouldn’t they? Even more so considering that Warwick held the reputation of fertility and a large crop yield; yet not even that had seemed to draw in any particularly crafty stragglers to the newly vacated lot.

That certainly struck a chord with him, though perhaps he was merely failing to take into account its newer reputation as a Sick Haven. Quite possibly that might have put more than a few people off, even those who were willing to turn on their own kind as a food source; and it was for that reason that a hunting raid seemed an unlikely possibility.

But, if not for food, then what reason did someone have to attack this place?

Robbery? But as far as he could, everything had been left just as it were.

Hatred? An attack on the sick for the crime of simply being alive and repulsive to look upon? It might have been a safe bet, though the grounds of the colony held no particular signs of struggle or violence. Shaun looked for blood and bullet casing, the marks of weaponry along the doors of the little shacks, and he found nothing to suggest that this place had been attacked.

So, what did that leave? That the place was simply abandoned- evacuated in the midst of something great enough to warrant leaving, and yet nobody had heard or seen from these people since.

His thoughts drifted towards the only example he could have imagined for job this clean, to be in and out without a mark or witness to give them away, and he shuddered against the thought of X6 finding him here of all places. With haste he shielded himself against a wall, peering out towards the winding alleys and back-roads until he realized the absurdity in such an action and sighed deeply to himself.

He looked towards the dull sun overhead, swollen with fatty yellows and blood reds, and quietly made a note that he had wasted half an hour reiterating what he already knew about this place, the same things that had been told to him beforehand.

What else could be done, then?

There was still the waste management plant itself to investigate, and a few footpaths deeper into the colony that he had yet to take, but with what little he had found so far, neither had seemed particularly fruitful.

The plant was no longer in use, of course, having long since lost its power so that it was nothing more than an odd-looking building with some complicated and useless piping as part of its makeup, though he still chose it over more of the same the common dregs he had been shuffling past before. The first entry point he spotted had been very close to the colony’s entrance, traces of concrete underfoot signaling that this had once been a lot for vehicles of some kind, and the doors to the facility aligned with them perfectly.

Much like the gates, the doors were opened, and to no surprise, he saw that the interior had been refurbished for more simple housing. Beds were arranged in disorderly rows, cramped within corners and littered with the stains of living bodies that made their peace upon them. Personal items lay in bundles and crates, either squirreled away for protection or simply left for any passerby to take. Those who had more than one set of clothes had laid the piles in their beds, messy and unwashed, and a few remnants of a meal lay stinking on a table without any flies left alive to circle it.

Curiously, he poked at this rotten bowl with a pencil he had found, uncertain as to what exactly he was playing with but very much assured that it passed for edible at one point. A tiny portion of liquid, dark and foreboding, yet clear without much body to give it substances, and a few mushy chunks that broke apart or squished with just a little nudge, carrying a metallic rank mixed with something oily.

Nobody would have turned their nose to such a delicacy as this, unless they were forced to.

Shaun felt his stomach, empty and weak, tie itself into knots.

A little deeper into the complex he found a wall that was newly constructed, a poor, shabby arrangement of boards and scrap metal, and beyond it a very small room containing only a bed, and a small desk with a terminal on it.

All at once his despondent attitude changed, and Shaun was suddenly elated by this new find. Giddy with hopeful anticipation, he bounded towards the computer, eager to finally grasp upon something useful and tangible to the case.

He was grateful to find the machine still operable, it being connected to a rudimentary power source that must have been sourced outside somewhere; yet his elation was short-lived as he quickly found that the terminal was locked behind a firewall.

Frustration came brutally, the empty textbox yearning for a password he could not provide and mocking him for it. He made three attempts to guess what the password was, the name of the colony, the code-name of one of his tormentors, and after some brief consideration, his own name, just to test an inquiry. All results were negative, and after his third attempt the computers security measure was activated, and the device promptly locked him out. He knew better, but he was still irritated enough to press a few random assortments of buttons, hoping that somehow his foolishness would turn in his favor and somehow grant his access to the device once more.

He quickly stopped before he could possibly cause damage to something important, holding his head within his hands with enough frustration to tag at his hair a bit. If he remembered correctly, the terminal would unlock after a short time, and he could try to input another password then, but until that happened, he was stuck waiting. He knew next to nothing on the subject of computer science and code, having been endowed with little educate than what was required for him to meet Institute standards, and most of that had been with him since the moment he was created. If there were any way to bypass the security measure than he did not know it, and aside from a few educated guesses, he had no way of knowing the password unless he stumbled across it somehow in his search.

The thought of having such luck struck him as laughable, and with great exasperation he left that little office to search the other side of the colony, quickly succumbing to hopelessness in the endeavor.

A few minute glances into the dwellings as he passed proved as bountiful as is previous search, and he noted that among the refuge in which these people slept, there was nothing of individuality and character that would have made one stand out from the other. It seemed as though each little hobble, both barren in furniture and rich in loose paper and rags, suggested a unified personality shared amongst the entirety of the colony; despondency reigning supreme above the more noble or quaint aspects of humanity.

And yet, he could not deny that upon closer inspection, there were still the faintest traces of emotion that ran deep into every foundation. The poorly constructed houses built with sturdy roofs to protect from the rain, the thin blankets crumpled together in such a way as to suggest an attempt at comfort and warmth where none other could be found, the scattered needles and plastic bottles showing that relief was still very much sought after, even if they were hidden beneath mattress and clothes out of shame.

Under one such mattress he found a paper, well-worn with age so that it felt soft like a piece of cloth, and could barely hold onto its shape against even the most delicate of touches. It appeared to be a note of some kind, though the writing was smudged to such severity that it made reading it simply impossible. But he didn’t need to read the words to know that this note held an extreme, emotional importance to whoever had last held it, it layered creases and blurred letter the result of frequent caresses upon its page, and it filled him with a dark perplexity to understand that nobody would have left such a precious memento behind if they could help it. Even food, at its most rare, was nothing compared the memories that people still desperately slung too, and though he tried with all his might to discern a name of any kind within that messy scrawl, it was fate that this particular memory was doomed to fade.

He placed the note in the depths of his pockets and carried on without another thought towards it.

Further back into the colony he reached a dead-end, having been led up to a small section of metal platforming that must have once been part of the plant itself, and saw from a meager height how truly small and isolation this plot of land was. The area was a peninsula, bordered on all sides by the sea and only accessible by its single road and entrance; try as hard as he might, an alternate route was out of the question, unless they had chosen to throw themselves into the sea as an option for escape.

A warm breeze blew in from the east, coating the back of his neck in thick, salty vapor, and he shuddered. The black-waters of the sea promised nothing of fortitude or escape, and they wouldn’t have had to travel out very far to find that out, and sticking too close to the shore would have made them visible to whoever breached the main gate. He staring into something as impossibly impenetrable and endless as the sky itself, but he wasn’t ready to brush aside the possibility that they may have fled this way; he just didn’t fully believe it.

Shaun poked around for a bit more, hoping to come across anything that might have given him a lead of some sort, but all that he could find were old memories and the sparse drug memorabilia that marked the plight of the Sickos. Darkness was encroaching fast, and he had only been left more confused than when he had started.

He would have to stay another day at least, possibly pick apart each individual shack one-by-one for clues, maybe even scout the surrounding area at a greater distance, though he hadn’t seen anything suspicious upon his initial approach. Before he left though, he would try the computer a few more times and simply hope that he hadn’t inadvertently broken it in his first attempt.

He wasn’t expecting much at this point, brow-beaten and weary with the thought of having to investigate this place for longer than anticipated, and he almost allowed for his exhaustion to make a fool out of him once more by starting into the blank screen of the terminal without the recognition of change within it.

He was stuck for a minute on his own warped reflection in the shining depths of the screen, a lithe parody of expression and form that seemed thinner than in days passed, and it perplexed it so greatly that he, for a moment, in all grogginess and low-hope, failed to notice that the screen refused to come alive as he mindlessly tapped away at its keyboard.

He blinked, dumbfounded, pressing a random assortment of keys with a single finger and far too much concentration than required, and still the textbox did not reappear.

With a slightly mounting panic he tapped the side of the console with his palms, poking uselessly around its outer frame like a curious chimp, and worried that the damned thing had suddenly lost its power at such convenient timing.

But, no, its screen was still dimly illumined, functional but empty of all its contents and with no way to return to its previous lock screen.

Had he broken with his silly antics? Surely that had seemed to be the case, but as he quickly stood to his feet and swayed wearily out of the office in despair, he noticed that the rotten gruel left behind on the table was nowhere to be found, and a disgusted rage filled him instead.

He should have known he was still being followed, he should have known that whoever was following him had no intent on helping him with this particular assignment, but the reality of it burned him far greater than he would want to admit.

Agitated yet conflicted, Shaun began to pace about the room, his fingers flexing and stretching within the confines of his gloves, and his teeth threatening to rip the supple flesh of his lower lip. His ankles hurt and his muscles wept with fatigue, but his mind was racing and his heart aching for some kind of relief that could not be found. He wanted to scream, to cry, to pull on his hair and act out in much the same manner as a young child might, but he knew that it would change absolutely nothing about the situation at hand.

Curse the Deacon, or whoever it was that was trailing him, playing these horrible games with him without even the courage to look him in the eyes directly while he did it. He must have known about the computer and followed him just to get to it first, snatching away his only chance at delivering a successful report back to Beatnik and Chariot, and for what? To spite him? Because it certainly did help in his efforts to the complete the job successful; the very job that that his fellow acquaintances send him out for.

He paused then as that thought struck with intense absurdity. The Deacon had been the one to introduce him to Beatnik, and he assumed that by association that the two were allied with one another as part of some mutual partnership or organization. Nothing seemed to suggest otherwise, but if they were both working towards a common goal, then why would one thwart him in his efforts to help the other? What business was it of his that the missing colony stay missing? A set-up of some kind? Then why had he still not shown himself when Shaun was cornered here at Warwick?

Shifting a little on his heels, he turned to stare fearfully at the open door, the colony an endless series of sleek and narrow hiding places and the ocean a vast, murky grave beyond. He strained his ears for any sound, jumping at the minor splash of the gentle waves against the embankment wall and expecting a sudden flurry of footsteps to come marching in behind it. But the area was quiet, and nothing lurked within the little ramshackle homes or in the lengthy shadows outside them. A quick in-and-out endeavor, so much like a courser that it thrilled him with terrible anxiety, but unexplainable in any other way.

He needed to leave, to just make his peace for the night and journey back to the riverside colony tomorrow to deliver the bad news. Maybe they would have an explanation for him, a reason for the odd behavior and the missing files that didn’t reflect poorly on his inability to handle them accordingly. Maybe they would laugh in his face over his foolishness, or maybe they would find him a useless pawn and dispose of him just as they Institute disposed of faulty synths. Should he even bother to return to them empty-handed in that case?

With mourning he sat himself down at the table, holding his head with weariness as he imaged how that figure in the darkness must be laughing at him right now. Laughing at his ineptitude. Laughing at his expense. Always laughing.

The silence was starting to seriously bother him, and he lifted his head with a deep, rank breath full of all the rot and musk that still hung heavy in the air, and he choked out a tiny sob.

With nothing left to do here, Shaun stood, intent on leaving the colony for the night and returning the next day to pick the place apart from the ground up, when something caught his attention in the most peculiar sense.

A scrap of paper stuck to the bottom of his shoe, discolored and wrinkled by his boot, but noticeably sleeker than the crumpled note he had found earlier. He had thought it to be garbage at first glance, almost carelessly tossing it aside as he pinched it between his fingers in disgust, and what catastrophe that would have spelled for him if he did. As it were, he found the paper to be newer, fairly untarnished for it being from a very old, pre-war notepad, and it’s writing was legible and smudged.

What he uncovered from it drew his curiosity anew.

In plain, simple writing, the paper was a small reminder to the writer, an unnamed and unknowable person who must have been another agent watching over the place from what it spoke of:

‘Increase security measures around the perimeter. constant watch at all time.

I think some of them have started using again. Couple of them are acting more confused than they used to be and some are wandering outside the gate when nobodys looking. I dont know how there getting it but I found these bottles with gunk inside I never seen before. Do a sweep of the huts and be on the lookout fo’

And it was there that the mysterious note ended; not with punctuation and prose, but with that eerily vague statement trailing off into nothing.

It wasn’t much to go off of, but for what he had seen it was more than enough. The very pencil he had found on the table had been used to write this note, yet he knew it for certain that he hadn’t spotted his sheet of paper earlier. Unfinished as it were, it most likely fell to the floor, unseen to him and the Deacon alike as it author suddenly dashed from the table, leaving his meal and his possessions behind, never to return to them.

Shaun reread the memento a second time, and then a third, taking in each of the words with grand verbose until he finally left that solitary room and stood on the landing just above the facilities stair, gazing out onto the empty colony with a recollection of its perfect disorderliness.

Messy as it was, there was no particular sense of disarray that would have suggested that the colony had fled in a hurry. Though their precious keepsakes were left, they had not been forced to leave them.

Approaching the gate with this thought, he took in its simple structure and noted how its protective barricade was only accessible from the inside. Unmarred and whole, the sturdy blockage showed no signs of a forced entry, and the undisturbed dirt suggested the same.

It seemed strange and impossible to him, yet in the end there was no denying the evidence he saw.

The colony hadn’t been taken by force; it had left on its own accord.

But why would they do such a thing, and why were they reported as having been attacked?

The answer was a simple one, found amongst the refuge and garbage that peacefully littered the main road out of the colony, once having been overlooked and discarded as nothing more than common trash by the untrained eye, but which now held a greater significance.

A little plastic bottle, off-white in color and possessing a strange, spiral-shaped stopper at its top, almost like a glue bottle; yet it’s hollowed insides were crusted with the dry remains of a foul, brownish tar-like substance that stank heavily of chemicals, and Shaun noted that he had seen a similar bottle within one of the shacks. He reckoned that if he searched through more of the little houses, then he would have discovered much more of these things, hidden away within corners or stuffed underneath mattresses to keep them well-hidden from the guards.

He knew little about substance abuse, only gathering the basics secondhand and by complete accident, but he needn’t be a genius to understand what he held in his hands now, or how it had found its way to this particular colony.

Someone had undeniably been supplying the colony’s populace with drugs, abusing their dependency and their trust for a steady source of relief to lure them out of their hiding place, like baiting a trap so that an animal might walk willingly into it. Of course, the colony hadn’t been attacked, their prey came straight to them, right into their eager hands.

As a tactical ploy he could not deny that it was genius, yet the very nature of it made his heart hurt, and he quietly mourned for the poor sick whose simplicity had been used against them.

He held that visage of the sickos in his mind; their haggard, unwashed appearance and filthy, decaying bodies damning them to an existence between life and death, and in such a state, despite what they had done to themselves, they were little more than wistful, innocent lambs. Their bodies may be ruined and their minds gone, but who could have possibly found it within themselves to prey on the helpless sick? To turn their vices against them so cruelly and productively?

Only the most deranged and vicious of individuals.

Someone with the capability of great evil, yet also the profound patience to lay in wait and see their plan slowly come to fruition. Someone who could enter and the colony without ever having been seen…or perhaps, someone who was allowed to freely come and go as the pleased. Someone who was trusted enough to interact with its populace without suspicion or observation, assuming they ever saw him at all.

Shaun already knew he hadn’t come here alone, but now that his mind had drawn the connection, he couldn’t help but feel afraid for what he had possibly uncovered.

The little bottle and the incriminating note burned in his hands like fire, and with slow and careful movements he placed both of them within the safety of his pockets; all with the knowledge that was being watched by a hungry predator in his midst.

Was it wise to even hint at his suspicions with a cautious glance? Perhaps not; but all around him the colony lay as still and silent as it had been before. The air was thick and salty, the sun diminished to nothing but a tiny speck of color far off in the distance, and only his own footsteps followed him through the dirt. Under the twinkling of budding stars, the peace of such isolation felt tarnished, and it was all he could do to keep a straight face and a steady pace as he left the colony behind for good.

Under an ever-brightening moon, he allowed his sore and tender body to carry itself far away from the stench of ruin and potential, the sight of so many broken homes and hearts. His demon had left his shadow to freely prance around the darkened landscape at his pleasure, and with grim fortitude he refrained from looking over his shoulder as he walked past so many cuts and corners, refused to call out into the night with words of disgust and hatred. Let that coward watch as he marched determine through the night; he would not stop for rest, he would not allow his fear to slow him down, he would go back to Beatnik with what he had found, and this would no longer be his responsibility to bear.

All pleasantries of a flickering thought, a mere moment of inspiration bathed in the soft glow of the moon. Evening was a blanket of thought over him, a serenity so peacefully numb and comforting that he blindly entered the ruins of Quincy without thought as to his direction.

The crumbling city stood imposingly vigorous despite the decay in its features, its age clear but its foundations still sturdy enough to hold. By sight alone it was easy to see that the area had once belong to the Brotherhood of Steel, and its familiar visage brought a strange comfort over him, in spite of the many dangers it suggested. He had not entered the city when he first passed by it, forgoing its many hiding spots and looming towers in favor of the marshes to its east, and he regretted it, if only because his shoes were still wet and slimy.

Now, he openly wandered its dry and weathered streets with a sort of respectful silence for its history, keeping vigilant against its darker corners with matured caution. The idea of passing his night in one of these buildings had occurred to him, but even at his most composed he could not even humor the thought of making him vulnerable in the face of his free-roaming demon, even if he had chosen to let his prey meander on his way with condemning evidence right there in his pocket.

He also…could not stand the smell of this place, and how unfortunate it was to find that the memories of Warwick would stick with him as far as the wind could carry it. Even at such a distance the smell of overpoweringly dense and pungent, curling around the back of his tongue and tickling the tender flesh of his belly. How was it that the scent of filth carried on this far past the colony’s boundaries? A visage of decay and ruin came to mind, a body left to rot under a hot sun so that its rank proceeded it, and though he had found the comparison quite accurate to Warwick at the time, the air didn’t have quite this level of sharpness in its funk.

As a matter of fact, if he were to let his nose guide him as much as the road, he would find that rotting stink only grew that much stronger the further away from the colony he went. Confused, he had to gather his bearings just to be sure, but he was undoubtedly heading north, almost outside of the city limits with Warwick far off to the coast. And yet here the smell seemed to take on a fiercer, piercing twinge that made his eyes water, bordering somewhere between sour and savory. The disgust was almost enough to have him heaving.

He was grateful to notice that the road was to lead him up a slight slope of some sort, the incline much anticipated for the fresh air it could provide, as curious as this path was becoming. His hastily drawn map, lacking in sufficient detail and practically unreadable as of now, told him nothing about this lower slump of the Commonwealth besides the few settlements he knew to be in this area. He could tell that the roads had been repaved in the past, and large structures of metal claws stood beside overturned truck beds of stone and dirt; a curiosity he could not place. That faint metallic taste in his mouth almost had him convinced that what he was smelling was the remains of a crude factory once established here in the past, yet the distinct, almost familiar tang of organic material lay heavy beneath it all.

It reminded him of the sicko colony by the river, with its heavy aroma of unwashed human body left to fester together as a great, decaying mass, and upon arriving to the top of the quarry he understood why.

Here was the former colony of Warwick’s Homestead, dead and rotting in an open grave of smooth, white marble, looking much too akin to having been served up on a sliver platter just for him; and that was perhaps the most damning and awful thing to note in such irony. It was horrible to see their greasy skin glistening with fervor in the moonlight, their open mouths and eyes gaping up at him like the fish in mother’s aquarium; but despite the twisted, mangled forms they possessed in life and in death, not a single one appeared to have been eaten.

The sight alone was enough to sicken him, crashing to his knees in dizzying waves of nausea and repulsion, but it was the knowledge that these bodies had been simply left here to rot that prevented him from quitting that place at once. He understood, in the cruel reality of this wasteland, that such a thing was an absurdity like no other, and though he forced himself to scour their forms for bite marks and missing limbs, he found only bullet wounds and bruises.

Pathetically, he spit onto the road, the softness of the evening spoiled by a crawling sensation along his skin, hot under his collar. A hand clasped firmly across his face did little to deter the pungency, and even when he turned away from the grisly sight, that visage of firm, waxy skin and bloated stomachs did not leave him. In his weakness, he curled himself inward like a turtle trying to hide within its shell, pressing his head to the pavement in an effort to ground himself against the turmoil inside him and actually piece what exactly he had seen.

The idea’s had only hit him in fragmentary pieces of logic; the disappearance of the colony, his inability to identify anybody from Warwick, the refusal to eat the flesh of Sickos, the absurdity of any wastelander letting this amount of meat simply go to waste. He coughed violently into his hand, dazed and confused by everything he had seen, and it was in this position that they had found him.

A call from within the quarry, echoing off its perfect marble in terrible, hoarse screams of command; orders for him to stay put, orders for others to go get him. Shaun knew he couldn’t run, could barely even stand with the weight of so many dead bodies pressing down along his stomach, and in one futile step he knew his fate was sealed.

But it was then that a terrible idea came to him, a notion that not even the most hardened of stomachs would dare to eat the sick, and he committed.

In his panic he allowed his body to go loose, then stiff, writhing on the ground with his arms quaking and with enough spit in his mouth to blow out to foamy bubbles. He didn’t even dare to look at them as they approached, gargling against his tongue with his eyes rolled back as far as they would go, acting oblivious to the many hands that now seized hold of his arms and legs and the voices that screamed over top of him. He made sure his thrashing was violent, his head scraping into the hard pavement underneath him, and his mouth cramping with the strain he used to grind his teeth together.

He felt a hand press along his forehead, a raspy voice whispering to him as they coxed through the thralls of his false episode. Shaun didn’t know when he was supposed to stop, sporadically allowing his limbs to relax before he suddenly jerked them again, allowing his coughs to be plentifully and his breathing unsteady so that they could witness his sickness in full. He felt one of them pull up his shirt, his dirty fingers lingering on the fresh scratches that lay hidden beneath his thin bandages, he knew then that he had them convinced.

Panting heavily, he allowed himself to cry and shiver, whimpering out to his ‘parents’ in a desperate plea to make the pain stop and desperately trying to dig his fingers into his own skin. He tried to mentally count to voices he heard, the ones that whispered eagerness and praise at his condition; the hands he felt, crawling along his face and peeling the gloves off of his hands, and only knew himself to be far outnumbered. He figured some of them had guns, but he also had one in his pocket, and if he could…

If only he could…

Just then, a felt a sharp pinch on his neck, a sudden heat flaring across his skin like the bite of an ant, and everything blurred into a restless, fitful black.

Chapter 18

Chapter Text

The hazy mist in which Shaun quickly succumbed to was not profoundly deep in its hold over him, but it was intensely penetrating.

Within an instant he was beseeched by a thousand stinging hornets and ants, a multitude of sharp, scaling bites that made his skin jump and furrow with its strange and terrifying intensity; and yet, underneath the pain was a delicious vulnerability what crawled along the sensitive cognizance of his mind like the gentle caress of mother’s touch.

But far be it from a pleasurable experience; what seemed to unfurl him like a rosebud only allowed the throbbing pulse of his insides to spill out into the nothingness around him, the lines of what he was now blurring with no definite beginning or end. He was weightlessly heavy, burdened by his place within the mortal coil, and still so many parts of him seemed disconnected, unraveling at the seams so that they drifted away from him like colorful birthday balloons.

He always liked those balloons, but they wouldn’t let him keep any after the party was over.

Instead, he was forced to watch as those colorful morsels, remnants of a human value bestowed upon him for only so briefly a time, were collected and callously popped by his fellow party attendants. The joy held in those worthless baubles of dazzling color was snuffed in an instant, a burst of sound like the wailing cries of the damned shrieking for their pitiful lives. The great greens, the precious purples, the beautiful blues; all of them full and dripping with a vivacious red, splattering the pristine white tiles beneath them with gore and little fragments of bone.

He had cried for them to stop but they would not listen, his desperate pleas lost to the fearsome pops and cracks around him, his tears mingling with the pool of the blood as it rose to greater depths around him. His party was in tatters, his balloons in pieces, his cake soiled by filth and decay. He no longer recognized the guests that circled in around him, their hollowed faces and dirty clothes unlike anything the Institute had ever housed, but they were there, advancing upon him like curious dogs, and even his own cries sounded more animal than human.

They would have eaten him alive.

They wanted to.

They wanted to so, so bad.

Them with their terrible wide mouths and bloody, toothless gums; sucking on anything they could get their hands on, biting anything that moved, singing happy birthday to a boy that would never grow up.

Happy sixteenth birthday, Isaac, and many, many, many more to come.

Happy birthday replacement son, unreal boy.

Mama’s absolute favorite toy.

Can you feel the love inside you? That aching tug within the chest? You can tell that something’s there, you can express that you recognize its existence, awareness of the self and all the things within; but do you truly feel it? That which gave you life also gave you knowledge, but did it give you anything more than that? You can cry out in anguish just like any real animal can, but what’s holding you together isn’t a natural force. There was always a coldness in places where there should have been warmth, the touch of metal long before flesh would come to meet flesh, so what then, do you really feel?

Do you think you would even recognize pain if you actually felt it?

Are you even thinking, or do you just believe you are?

The love from mother seems real enough, believable in its soft-spoken words and tender moments. The party was such a nice gift, a wonderful privilege to experience for just that one day. His metal brothers without skin were singing alongside him, stiff and heartless in their expression and discarded to an empty corner away from the other guests. Shining, soulless eyes staring out at the living organisms and seeing only ones and zeros.

Where were the ones and zeros now? Surely not here.

Where ever “here” is.

Time and place are only words for measurement and record, outside of that there are variables for which such concepts are entirely forfeited. What is time but the progression of a feeling as it builds and dies, what is a place but where that feeling grows the strongest? Maybe somewhere, underneath that veil, there’s a heart that beats irregularly, a pair of lungs that slowly fill with fluid, but between birthday balloons and cold, metal skeletons there’s hardly any room left for a human person.

Just the idea of one.

But even an idea has a kind of existence, a tangible place in reality, and that’s the most sense Shaun can make of himself right now. There, but not really.

Enough to be, but even that is too much to bear right now.

It’s sour. That’s the word that comes to mind.

Sour like rotten breath or tearing skin, the feeling of his teeth having gone unbrushed and the greasy stink that clung to the unwashed bodies. Acrid like the air, burning and coarse against everything it touches.

The sensations that force the skin to curl and the eyes to water. The wasting away.

His surroundings go unregistered, forgotten just as quickly as they’re seen, the presence taking absolute priority. He can only vaguely tell that he was moving, going somewhere, being taken to some place, but his mind is full of balloons and nothing else is real.

Balloons that pop with human blood, that spray out shards of bone and teeth and gurgle wetly with their dying breaths.

Balloons that forever look up at him with their cold, unseeing gaze, the only living thing amidst ones and zeros and metal now laying beneath his feet.

Pop.

Chapter 19

Chapter Text

If a person’s existence is defined solely by the presence of thought, then what does it mean for the living individual if those thoughts are troubled? If his world be only populated by ghosts, then does it stand to reason that everything that known or can be known is simply metaphysical in its make-up; or perhaps his skin should simply become translucent instead? How does a mind comprehend a sense of bodily autonomy if the location of its own body remains a mystery to it?

Should he have possessed the will to channel his thoughts and realign himself, perhaps he could have seen past the phantom colors before him and decipher exactly where it was they had decided to dump him, yet such an ability was beyond his grasp. He could somewhat comprehend, through that foggy haze of disorientation, that whatever it was they had afflicted upon him was gradually lessening now, though not at speed at which it should have brought comfort. Instead of a pleasant dawning into a tangible reality, his vision swam with subtle tricks and japes; a creeping shift in the world around him that he failed to notice until everything would suddenly snap back into place, the scenery changing like a slideshow in agonizingly long seconds.

His brain was lagging like the damn computer it was, but in the eyes of these ghost-like shapes he was all tender flesh, bared down to the bone and ripe with the sting of humiliation and fresh sweat.

There wasn’t a soul that could have possibly gazed upon him at that moment and see anything other than a human being, and even he could believe in the impossibility of it all. His limbs felt heavy and cold, yet inside he was sweltering with a dreadful sickness, rocked by crashing waves of vertigo that he had never felt before; and no matter what some might say to his limited perspective, what he experienced then was a far cry from a mere approximation of reality. They tortured him the same as any living creature, standing just outside the range of vision to taunt him with coarse laughter, lingering within an air weighed heavily by the stench of grease and fat.

Try as he might, their language remained a mystery to him, and it only further painted these shadows of men as something otherworldly and dangerous. Joyous babbling met with clipped peals of laughter out in the darkness, the demons dancing within the shadows behind a wall of eager grins. They callously threw curious groans and gasps in his direction, perhaps meant to incite some sort of reaction, but which only reached him like the braying calls of disturbed animals. In much the same manner they would flare their long and terrible teeth to him, tease his proximity to them with the damp heat of their presence; yet somehow, they never dared to actually come close enough to touch him.

For what reason had they to hold themselves back? Surely nothing for his own benefit, but what did they stand to gain by prolonging their torment of him any further; and furthermore, what could these things in human skin possibly want from him anyhow? They smelled his fear and laughed, cruel and hungry, yet not a single one was brave enough to take the first bite. With his supple flesh before them, their restraint was electrifyingly, almost mounting towards something great as they waited in anticipation for something to come. But what?

They wouldn’t eat him yet, just as they wouldn’t eat the others, standing by in joyous delirium, flesh melding unto flesh as colors blurred and skin crawled and blissful agony overtook them all.

He couldn’t picture a more scenic nightmare as vivid as this.

Behind him, he could have sworn he heard another balloon pop, and the demon’s frenzy suddenly grew hushed and controlled. Almost drawn by an unknown force they were seemingly made to bow before the darkness and the terrible thing the slunk forth from it.

What else should have stood before him then than the devil himself?

What else should he have done but bow his head alongside them?

Surely it would have blinded him to gaze up into that horrid visage for too long, to stare with fear and confidence into the eyes of upmost evil and know all of the truths that lie within them. He had seen the devil walk towards him, draped in the dark skin of man like a leather cloak yet proudly displaying his grotesquely lithe body and all its pale, milky patterns underneath, and felt as though he had seen enough. The way he had moved was awkwardly disturbed, strutting towards him earnestly like a playful jester, shuffling steps and waving hands and a manic laughter barely concealed behind his wild teeth.

Shaun had quickly averted his eyes, fearful and small before so might a figure, and he could hear the demons cheer at his submission to their lord.

How dreadfully familiar a feeling…

He would have vomited if he had been permitted too.

Instead, he kept his eyes shut tight, desperately clinging to childish security as he felt the Devil’s approach with a sudden gust of heat and invisible flame. The air seemed to vibrate in his presence, thick with static and lowly whispers, trailing a history behind him like a string of toy ducks. He could hear the beast lower himself alongside side him; could smell his rancid breath against his face, and could so clearly picture the little locks of hair and flesh that lay embedded forever in his teeth. His hand had felt warm and large against his frail shoulder, five fingers, small, blunt nails, and the humanity in his form almost made Shaun shudder with disgust.

“Little boy…” he heard the Devil call. “Little boy, little boy…tell me…what do you see?”

Had he only imagined the fangs or were the Devil’s teeth truly as small and blunt as his own were? They certainly felt the same, pressed up against his temple like a gentle kiss, but in his minds eye he could only picture the long, thin incisors of a predator, and sat in silence as he waited to feel their descent into his neck.

“Little boy, little boy…” The Devil sang to him. “Tell me, can you see? Can you see it?”

From beyond, in the darkness, his imps made to answer for him, to regale their master with tales of their newly fallen prey. They had heard him speak, they said, of things unknowable and true. He was just like the first, he was special, he would not disappoint; their voices all a murmured hiss of excitement and pleading.

“Quiet!” The Devil silenced them, spewing rage and hell-fire at the lowly demons at his command. His great arms slashed at the air around him, a threat of punishment that earned their quick retreat, but even crawling deeper into the shadows, the stayed near enough to witness.

Shaun felt the Devil tenderly take hold of his face, his palms blistered and dry, rubbing soot and grease beneath his eyes and lips. He knew the Devil saw his tears, knew that he had caused them, and whimpered as he caressed them with a delicate touch.

“Little boy…precious, special boy…I need to know.”

The Devil was crying alongside him, his voice a wet groan of desperation, of intense longing, yet his grip suggested nothing of weakness or vulnerability. The beast had seen his pain and shared it, revealed in it, drank it up like a fine wine and savored the taste of misery against his tongue, and in return he bespoke intensity and desire, yearning for Shaun to open himself up.

“I need to know the things you see, the truth you hold. Look into my eyes, boy, and know me.”

What else could Shaun do but obey? Even behind his eyes the room was spinning, his heart was racing, the Devil’s grip would not yield until he obtained what he sought. Shaun was but a powerless mote before him, and he had felt the need to let that voice in and command him.

Shaun saw the Devil before him again, saw that he had soft brown eyes set in a hard, reddened gaze and maddening smile, bespeckled with color and wizened with age; and felt seen.

The Devil let their gazes linger, perhaps seeing something within the eyes of his prey that words could never transcribe; perhaps seeing a soul buried deep within artificial flesh, and analyzing it better than any computer was capable of. When at last he spoke again his voice was soft and raspy, fluttering on the wind with wings graceful and strong, and finally reaching that place deep inside that held all the answer he was looking for.

“I’m going to test your knowledge, boy, and you will answer.”

He gave his command softly, as if it were merely an option, but he had grabbed the sides of Shaun’s head and shook it in mock acceptance. His demons reared and chuckled, creeping closer with curious fingers and eager, sniffing noses. Shaun paid them no mind, kept his sights on the soft, brown eyes before him, and felt as though he truly would do whatever was commanded of him then.

“My friends…you know my friends..?” The devil whispered to him. “My friends went away some where…far, far away…”

He paused as if to collect his thoughts, his face going slack as his eyelids drooped and his mouth curled into a frown. Then his eyes seemed to click with recognition, and was illuminated once more.

“My friends…” he said. “Went away. You know my friends? You know where they went? What their faces are.”

When Shaun did not speak the Devil’s grip grew firmer, his gaze heated and his teeth bared.

“Tell me what you saw. I know you saw. I know you saw it!”

Shaun swallowed.

Behind the Devil his demons grew frantic, their laughter a mockery, boldly insane and manically sick; and the burning of his flayed skin reminded him of a similar group. When he looked into those soft and knowing eyes again his stomach churned, he felt something crawling beneath his flesh, and the air seemed thick with a strange, chemical smell.

“Tell me,” The Devil shouted. “Tell me what happened to my men. My… friends!”

Where was it the demons had taken him? What corner of hell did this small, dank circle of light and warmth exist in? His last memory was a fragmentated mess of events that he could barely fit together; but he recognized this place. The cool concrete floor below him, the burning breath in his lungs, the hushed whimper of voices far off in the distance. Above him was the sound of shuffling feet, within him a yearning to seek out…something, a fear etched deep within the pit of stomach.

Behind him he heard a balloon pop, and before him the Devil’s visage seemed to undergo a gruesome metamorphosis. Shaun was paralyzed with fear and avoided his gaze.

“They killed themselves…” Shaun meekly answered. “They were laughing and…and they just tore themselves apart.”

He felt bile rising in his throat, afraid to look into the deep, blackened wound on the Devil’s face and see himself and his sins within there.

“They attacked each other like animals. The air…was poisoned.”

Just like their minds, just like his mind. Just the same as every damned mind left in the Commonwealth it seemed. Why was he even speaking this shameful confession out loud, damning himself further by the betrayal of his own wicked tongue? He was wracked with fear and guilt, wishing to conceal himself from the awful beast and the awful knowledge of what had transpired that night. But his body was not his own any longer, held forcefully down by the greatest of forces while they unraveled him down to the core of his being. Was this a kind of unmaking? The recycling of his person he had once been so fearful of back home? What would they create from his body after he was gone?

He anticipated a fearsome wrath to suddenly come crashing down upon him, but the Devil’s eagerness was reserved only for his knowledge and the desire for more of it. With his hands now shaking, he gripped Shaun even tighter, squeezing the light layer of fat along his face in admiration.

“You see! You can see!” The Devil flicked his tongue across his teeth, his excitement profound and disgusting. “Tell me more! Give me more of your knowledge!”

Oh, how desperately Shaun wanted to resist, yearning for a swifter, more merciful death than whatever the Devil would subject him to; yet it seemed as though his punishment was to face his sins with disgrace and humiliation.

“…Clawed his eyes out…” Shaun choked out, his voice a gargled mess of whimpers.

“Who?” The Devil insisted.

His tears fell freely, his mind full of popping balloons and muted colors, that gaping wound staring back at him as Beatnik’s voice whispered in his ear.

You’ve still got bits of Rust under your nails.

What else could Shaun do but confess?

“…Rust...”

When he hung his head in sorrow, he could see that his hands were tainted, forever stained with the horrors they had committed; the delicate craftmanship of his perfect softness, mangled by such acts of harm that should have been an impossibility to him. To even gaze upon the torn remnants of his nails, knowing they had dug and clawed their way through human flesh; even under the unfortunate circ*mstances he had been subjected to, he could not forgive himself.

But the demons only cheered at his sins, howling with great joy and acceptance at the terrible news he had brought to them. The Devil grinned wickedly, pulling Shaun’s face forward so that he could mash his teeth against his lips in a gruesome kiss, lapping at him like a dog. He tasted of soured milk and musk, his rotting breath blowing hot within his mouth, and when he pulled away, he picked Shaun up by the arms and presented him before his demonic entourage.

“He has the sight!” The Devil praised. “He has the sight!”

And at his word the demons jumped about with a maddened joy, howling out in a frenzied victory and clawing at each other’s throats. They seemed eager to pounce him, bouncing from foot to foot as they prodded closer and closer to their master and his prey, but the Devil’s hand was strong and unyielding, his presence firm behind him.

Shaun’s heart couldn’t handle the strain, a painful throb echoing through his chest and down to his ruined fingertips. He was struggling against each shallow intake of breath, choking on his tongue as his mind grew fuzzy and light. At his ear he heard the Devil whisper to him;

“You’re going to be part of something big, my precious boy. You are our ticket to greatness.”

Such praise given by such a loathsome being, he simply couldn’t bare it any longer. As they carried him off, he felt the darkness envelope him once more, and this time he welcomed its cold embrace without resistance. Let the nothingness consume him, he thought, allow his mind to drift back towards memories great and small, fact and fiction; anything other than the sight of true hell before him, the dreadful recollection of what he had done to that poor, awful man. He would grateful sleep forever, if only they could have allowed it; the darkness was a peacefulness amidst all the chaos of the waking world.

Which is not to say that his dreams were full of easy pleasantries; for in truth, they were an obscure cacophony of color and textures, endlessly swirling down towards a pit of absolute devastation and ruin like the fall of Icarus. He saw little coherency in the mess of his mind, small and compressed within an endless void of empty space, all physical sensation and anxiety beneath a layer of fake skin.

Welcome to pure existence; cut off the fat and truly know yourself, you’ll be grateful for it in the end.

Should he bow his head in thanks? So many times now he wished he were simply dead.

But for what it was worth, the feeling gradually subsided, and when he opened his eyes again it was to the normal scenery of naked decay that solidified his presence within the real world.

His neck felt stiff, stuck towards an awkward angle with his chin brushing against his left shoulder, and he bitterly thought he deserved better than to have been left on the cold, stone floor without so much as a pillow for his trouble.

He knew better than to voice that thought out loud though.

Instead, he used his painfully quiet awakening to gather the pieces of his mind, falling back towards a quaint, mousy attitude without a strong recollection of the absolute danger he was currently in. Though his eyelids were heavy and his vision bleary, he forced himself passed the temptation to return to the darkness and hesitantly did a sweep of his surroundings.

A room of fair size, though its exact dimensions were lost to obscurity in the poor lighting. Barren walls of packed cement and sheet metal entombed him, while a length of bars blocked his only hope at freedom.

His mind drifted back to the old Brotherhood outpost at the police station, though he doubted he was being kept there; a gross approximation of the place, perhaps.

A subtle noise had been present since he first woke up, and with its monotonous, continuous rhythm, he almost let its importance shelf itself at the back of his mind. Certainly, the sight of the cell gate drew the bulk of his attention, as well as the shadows casted before it by a gaggle of men that stood somewhere down the hall, yet the room was small and its occupancy full, and when he finally felt sure enough of his isolation to actually raise his head, he found that they had left him in the company of another captive.

He blinked away his surprise and swallowed down a yelp, hoping to remain inconspicuous for just a little while longer, but if his cellmate had noticed him at all, then they hadn’t shown it in the slightest. Their figure was a lumpy mass laying strung across the only bed they had provided, and so still were they, and so haggard was their limp arm hanging off of the raised mattress, that he dared to think for a second that they had simply left him with the leftovers of their previous hunt. But machinery surrounded them, burying their body beneath a mesh of tubes and wires and dirty blankets so that even with a corpse-like appearance, the steady beat of a heart monitor proved they still lived, despite it all.

The recognition of their vulnerability settled his nerves somewhat, and he didn’t have the energy left to even feign shame at such a thought. Rather, he took the opportunity to approach them, his steps light and his movements slow, desperate for information yet cautious enough to restrain himself from impromptu, poorly-thought out actions. His best interests were to be kept at a distance, being unseen and in turn, knowing everything; but he was not at a point at which he could safely do this alone, and knowing exactly who (or perhaps, what) he had been caged with was a necessary start.

He just hoped this didn’t draw attention from anyone else…

Gingerly, he approached the bed as it contained something far more dangerous than a scrawny, starving invalid, but in this world one can never be too sure. Even the most tragic and pathetic of forms could throw around their meager weight with truly nothing left to lose, and he would now carry the scars of past mistakes and assumptions forever. Whose to say that this sickly victim wouldn’t tear out his throat the moment he got too close, wouldn’t fight against their iv and broken limbs just for a small taste of what he had to offer? For all he knew, he was approaching a sleeping tiger, and the first tuffs of orange hair only cemented that thought.

But that curious lump neither shifted nor growled at his approach, holding the countenance of a corpse and keeping the illusion strong by taking only the most shallow and thin of breaths, the blankets lying still against its back.

Perhaps they were asleep, in which case, he had the perfect opportunity to study this strange specimen without interruption, and he started at once with the complicated machinery they were interlocked with.

Not that he knew anything about such medical devices, mind you, but all knowledge (or an approximation of such) was power, and even with his limited vocabulary for such machinery he knew what importance it held. There was a respirator for breathing, a heart monitor for visual data, tubes and pumps for circulating blood and a plethora of wires connecting them all to a power source outside the cell. On full display where the non-automatic necessities for cleanliness and filtration, though giving the condition these monsters had left their sick in, it seemed as though they were seldom ever used. The lower half of the bed was a caked mess of accumulated filth and gore, only kept somewhat decent under covers but leaving behind a pungent smell in which their patient would stew in. The few patches of exposed skin left nothing to the imagination, and he could only guess as to what horrors befell their body as they slowly wasted away into, quite literally, a puddle.

Though solid, the curving fold of their thin skin suggested a liquid-like quality to their form, their body folding like the creases of a cloth, pale and dull from what must have been a lifetime secluded within the darkness. What remained of their hair was lackluster and knotted, wild with length yet patchy around the base of the skull, some locks appearing to have been ripped straight from the scalp.

It was a pity, and he could only sigh and shake his head at the sight, though his stomach burbled with an uncomfortable remorse underneath it. All the acts of cruelty he had witnessed, and somehow this seemed the absolute worst. How could these monstrous cannibals do this to a sick person? To force them to live through painful ailment so that even death should have been a better option.

But that simply brought forth a very strange curiosity that picked at his brain. Why had they bothered to keep someone in this condition alive, why haven’t they eaten them yet? Even as deplorable as this, free food was free food, and it wasn’t like they had much more to offer anyhow…

He was so captivated by the gruesome sight before him, lost to the complexities of condition and history that he had still yet to uncover, that he scarcely noticed the object of his voyeuristic observation was awake and knowing of his presence. He had casually allowed his vision to roam over them, taking in each patch and puddle with the intent to utilize it for his benefit later, and it was only when he returned to the head did he find a single, glaring eye staring back at him.

The surprise was almost enough for him to forfeit all subtlety and dramatically leap backwards like a startled cat; yet it was with extreme restraint he managed to swallow back a gasp and take his retreat with deliberate, exaggerated steps. Though the figure seemed confined to their bed, it did not stop him from assuming the absolute worst was about to happen, and Shaun quickly raised his palms in anticipation for the person suddenly lunge for his throat.

Much to his bewilderment, though, the poor bastard seemed to hold very little interest in his invasive presence, lazily following his movements with a dull recognition behind those cold, fish-like eyes that made him squirm. He waited with his nerves aflame, looking for the subtle twitch of a finger, perhaps a shiny glint of a concealed blade, almost hoping for something other than this awkward stalemate he had been condemned too, but as the uncomfortable silence lingered on, he felt as though he was left with no other option then to make the first move.

He cast a quick glance to the bars, eyeing the shadows with suspicion before hesitantly waving his fingers towards his cellmate.

They said nothing, their eye gloomy and dead; Shaun felt himself choke on his own spit.

He took a nervous step forward, watching for any sudden movement and keeping a safe distance just in case. The figure did not even blink at his approach.

“Hey…” he offered up with a soft voice. “Can you hear me?”

They said nothing, their body corpse-like in spite of the monitor beeping away behind them. Somewhere down the hall he heard voracious peels of laughter.

“Please, listen. My name is Isaac. I don’t know where I am or how I got here, but I need to get out. It’s very important that I…I find my friend before he comes looking for me. Do you know how to get out of here? Please?”

He pleaded tenderly to them, hoping that somewhere underneath that glossy hue of disturbance and slumber was an intact human spirit, a heart still strong and willing to beat for him.

But try as he might, that figure did not stir, limp and lifeless and broken down so that he truly was left on his own.

Approaching footsteps quickly halted his pathetic mourning, and knowing it was useless to even try and hide from his captors, Shaun sat with his back against the furthest wall, and patiently, hopelessly awaited his summons like an obedient child.

The figure that first approached the bars was huge and menacing, his height unburdened by the years of malnourishment that had slowly withered his frame. His skin had grown thin and leathery, stretched across his bones in hardened, ashy patches, yet it was the strange, milky paint that he adorned himself with that drew the most attention. He stood before Shaun as a patchwork being of irregular shapes and shadows, accompanied by two lackeys that stood down in the presence of his greatness.

With unbridled eagerness he had opened the bars and welcomed himself inside, and though the gate remained open, it was only there to tease him with the impossibility of escape.

“My boy!” the strange man shouted, his expression manic and his voice so disturbingly familiar. “I am glad to see you awake my friend! So, so glad to see you.”

Shaun did not dare to verbalize a response, nor did he risk looking into the eyes of absolute madness. To his side the steady beep of the heart monitor seemed to grow in speed, though the lying figure remained inert.

“I knew there was something special about you, I knew it when I looked into your tiny, little eyes, my boy!”

The man approached him with large, uneven steps, his balance wavering against his exposed hips bones and his arms flailing about wildly. It seemed that at any moment he would lose himself and come crashing to the hard floor, yet his awkward footing kept him upright, waving like a scarecrow in a heavy breeze.

“They found the body, just as you said it would be! All ripped apart!” He giggled with excitement, crawling closer to Shaun with shaking knees.

“Look, I even saved you a piece. Need to keep you healthy and fed for- for all the good things you’re gonna do for me.”

And with this he aggressively thrust out a garish hand and presented him with a reddish, swollen lump of gristle and meat, his smile wide and dripping with fresh saliva as he looked on expectantly.

It took everything Shaun had not to openly retch at the sight of it, though his disgust was still evident enough for the man to curl his lips into a sinister sneer.

“What? Not hungry?”

His other hand quickly shot out with an unnatural speed for so scrawny a figure, fearfully taking a fistful of his hair so that he could not move away as he held the bloody meat up to his mouth.

“Come on, kid. Take a big bite.”

The scent of iron was pungent and foul, and underneath its metallic stink was the soured-sweetness of human musk left to fester and rot. His tongue was tainted by its proximity and strength, his stomach curling into tight knots, shrinking itself in fear of being filled with such grotesque “food.”

He knew he shouldn’t have said anything, but couldn’t help himself. He panicked.

“I can’t eat that!” He shouted out, and instantly he regretted his choice not just for the punishment that would surely come from his disobedient insolence, but for rancid aroma that suddenly wafted into his mouth.

The strange man seemed unimpressed by his display. Out in the hallway, his minions jeered.

“It’s impolite to turn your nose up to free food, kid.” They called to him. “You don’t want to make Jared mad, now do you?”

The man- The Devil- (Jared?) said nothing, gripping the meat tight within his bloodied grasp, his head chocked to the side with a dumb look as his visage bore down into Shaun’s eyes without a shred of mercy to his soul.

Here he was, being presented with a choice, his cleverness and endurance tested past its absolute limits, and with his back pressed against the wall what could he possibly do or say that would save him?

He felt sick, not just of body, but of mind.

“T-they need it more than I do…” He meekly protested, and with a shaky hand he pointed to that lone, bedridden figure and tried to ignore the shame in his cowardice.

Jared, he would have assume, clicked his tongue irritably as he stared hard into his eyes, almost searching for something. After a moment he let go of his hair and drew the gore away from his face, in which Shaun breathed a sigh of relief that he hoped would go unnoticed. He watched as Jared slowly rose to his full height, tip-toeing back across the room like a drunken clown before coming to the bars that separated him from his men, and kicked them with a bone-rattling clang.

“Didn’t I tell you useless f*ckers to feed her!” He shouted to them, and instantly their demeanor changed from fearsome demons to fearful little men, scrambling over themselves under the might of their overlord.

“We tried to, sir! You know she’s refusing food! Won’t eat anything we give her!-“

“I don’t care!” Jared shouted back. “You find some way to get this f*cking sh*t inside of her or I swear to god I’m gonna-…I’m gonna rip your f*ckin’ skin off!”

His lackeys yelped with certainty and thanks, showing their gratitude and respect by meekly bowing their heads and promising they would do as he said. Jared, with his shoulders set and his teeth grit, marched over to the figure on the bed, viciously shaking the lump of meat directly in front of that unwavering eye as he growled at her.

“You see this f*cking sh*t Catie? This is what’s gonna keep you alive, and you are not- f*cking- dying, on me. Do you understand?”

The figure said nothing, their heart monitor beeping away with reckless abandon, yet whatever shown on their face only made Jared bare his teeth at them.

“f*cking ungrateful bitch.”

With a languid grace, he threw his sights back over to Shaun, smiling his wicked grin at him as excitement took over him once again.

“You, boy. You’re gonna be better than she ever was, I can tell.”

Shaun nodded his head without a word, his limbs shaking violently so that his teeth painfully clipped the edge of his tongue. His eyes followed Jared across the room, back over to the bars, where he gracelessly made his exit as his men locked the gate behind him. Callously, he threw the remains of Rust into the awaiting hands of the man by his side.

“Pulverize it or something, just make sure she eats this sh*t.”

And with that, they all disappeared, those inhuman monsters slinking back into the darkness that had birthed them, and leaving the weak remnants of mankind to their sorrow and suffering.

What a f*cking miserable existence to be stuck with.

Shaun hardly had the thought to such extreme anger, his responsive emotions much less productive in their grief so that instead of being fueled by a kind of righteous fury or pronounced fear, he took his brush with cannibalism and cried about it. Should he have been a braver person, perhaps even a real person to begin with, he might have chosen die with dignity rather than cower before danger and cast the ire onto some other poor soul who had nothing to do with it in the first place. What on earth possessed him to drag that miserable invalid to his own defense? Surely, he was better than that, but with his hands tied and his mouth dry, he made the instinctive maneuver to preserve his own self worth and being, and all at the cost of that other person’s comfort and livelihood.

He had hung his head in shame, willing to dedicate his precious time to mourn is own loss of being, and perhaps would have stayed in that miserable state for rest of his short life had it not been for that strangled voice calling out to him.

He looked up into that lonesome, dreary eye staring over at him; a deep, gargling rasp mocking him in his depression.

“That was a f*ckin’ sh*t move you pulled there, kid. Usin’ me like that.”

Their words were thick and muffled, spoken around a dry and swollen tongue, and clipped with a very strange sort of pronunciation, as if the vowels in each word had been switched around.

“You’re no better than them, are you?”

There was a smile somewhere in those words, a lightheartedness that came having no heart left at all, and it shattered him. At the very core of the matter, it was the truth, and no matter how he rationalized his decision it still did not change the fact that he had quickly sought out an escape through another person, and one who was so bedridden with sickness that they could not possibly hope to fight against it.

He whimpered to himself and hid his face against his knees, but still that person called out to him, and of course, with heavy heart, he listened.

“So, why didn’t you eat it? Was there something wrong with it?” They struggled to throw the words out at him, their breath reduced to a wispy, regulated flow that chugged in time to their respirator. “Did you see ‘em do something to it? Spit on it or something?”

He almost ignored the question, writing it off as a cruel joke in lite of such drastic circ*mstance, but the bitterness in their tone and the curious glint to their eye told them they asked with genuine concern for his reasoning, and it struck him just how odd his actions must have seemed to someone who had become so used to cannibalism within the past few years. Underneath his disgust he recognized the reality of the world he lived him, the oddity it was to refuse food no matter how it was sourced, but his mind felt weakened with the burden of this knowledge and his stomach was still hollow and churning, and so he spoke without restraint.

“It was human!” He cried. “He said it came from-…from…”

“From Rust I’m guessing? Lucky bastard. What does that matter?”

His breath caught in his throat.

“What do you mean, ‘why does it matter’?!” He spat back at them. “Why wouldn’t it-…It...”

He had more to say, more to articulate to this depraved soul who had so obviously lost their way, but in the end, he could not even force himself to speak out against them. The question died on his tongue, a sour taste, and should he have had any tears left to shed he would have given them freely. He turned away from that single, burning eye, letting exhaustion and defeat take him.

The stranger seemed to laugh at his display, their breath pulling at their teeth in a sharp huff as their boney shoulder faintly shook.

“Oh, you’re one of those lot that still don’t eat human,” they rasped. “That’s rich. How’d you manage to pull that off for so long?”

“Why do you care?”

The stranger huffed in annoyance, and Shaun huffed right back at them.

“Yeah? f*ck you too, kid.”

And with that their conversation came to a grinding halt, a pause lingering over them like a foul smell while they each stewed in their own acrimonious thoughts. Shaun allowed his shoulders to slump in an almost childish pout, fighting against the occasional sniffle as he ground his teeth in irritation. The steady pulse of the machinery filled the silence with a clinical sterility, and if he closed his eyes, he could picture that he was back within the safe, humming walls of the Institute, instead of a dirty, dark cell somewhere on the surface.

There were many times when doubts came to mind, when his efforts seemed in vain and the threat of his unmaking seemed a far better option than whatever they could possibly subject him to up here.

He wished he hadn’t care enough to actually take the plunge and fight, but since he had, he had only himself to blame.

And the stranger seemed to agree with him.

Amidst their lulling quietude, that eye had refused to leave him, and now it seemed to double down in their anger as it demanded his attention once again.

“Why’s Jared got an interest in you anyway?”

Shaun bit his tongue and buried his face deeper within his arms, hoping to return to his own remorseful desolation without the constant need to face his sins in the reflections of other people, but the stranger refused to let him off that easily.

“Don’t f*ckin’ ignore me, you welt. Why’d you let Jared drag you to this place? Are you bloody stupid?”

The trickle of anger rose up in him like bile, his teeth grit in a snarl as he gave in to thoughtless defense.

“I’m not a f*cking idiot,” he spat. “I didn’t come here by choice. I got caught and…I don’t know what they did to me but I’m here now. And I didn’t ask to be!”

“Really? You expect me to believe that?” The stranger looked him over with a critical gaze, his voice full of venom and spit. “What use does he have for someone like you if don’t take chems? That’s what I want to know.”

“I…” his anger fizzled out, uncertainty peeling away at his skin as he thought back to what he learned at Warwick and found that too many pieces didn’t fit together like they should.

“I…have no idea what he wants with me. That’s…actually what I was hoping to find out.”

With his hands pressed awkwardly together, Shaun turned to face the bed, his heart leaping with nervousness at the opportunity he had.

“Say…” he asked. “You…have you been here for a while? Do you know what they’re doing here?”

The stranger hummed against their mattress, looking him over with suspicion.

“I saw the bodies they left. Why did they dump them there? Why did they lure so many people to this place if they weren’t going to eat them?”

It hadn’t made any sense back when this revelation was just a concept to him, but now that he had witnessed and lived through so such strange events, he felt as though he were blindly groping for answers within a paradoxical situation. The scent of filth lay pungent and stale within this hallowed cell, the number of men he had seen far too great in number to feed by any other method. He had thought the Deacon to be behind this initially, but the nightmares and the Devil and advanced medical machinery all poked holes in theory.

It wasn’t just for the sake of his mission that he needed to learn this, his own life was on the line now, stolen tape be damned.

The stranger watched him with perplexity before sighing out breath like a death-rattle.

“I suppose it’d do you good to know a few things, if you can do something for me in return. I could even help you to get out of this mess.”

“Really?” Shaun tried to not let his astonishment grow too excited at the prospect, his eye flittering over to the bars for fear of seeing shadows lying in wait.

“Yeah, sure. You seem like a nice kid, you just gotta do a quick favor for me and I’ll tell you anything you need to know.”

“I-…” he hesitated, suddenly unsure of the truthfulness behind those words and lengths he would go to secure his own freedom. The choice was not an easy one to consider, and the apprehension wavered his tone.

“I… will do what I can to help, if you can tell me what’s going here. What do you need me to do?”

Their heart monitor picked up in excitement, their eye blossoming out with a flourishing green hue, disturbingly similar to his mother’s.

“Can you kill me?”

Chapter 20

Chapter Text

Any person can be made a slave so long as certain aspects of their personhood lie outside of their control, whether it be in a physical sense, or simply the emanation of a weakened mind.

Cait was rather well-versed in the subject; and though she had refused to outright admit it, it was glaringly obvious that she had been a slave all her life. Perhaps in some regard they had this in common, though both of them knew that she had sunken to a far deeper level than most, and the shame in it loomed over both of them as she spoke.

She did not dwell very heavily into her far past, but it seems she was quite literally born into her troubles, and thus her life has never known a moment of peace, merely purpose. A harsh concept for a young mind to grasp, but in her adulthood, it had settled as a grim and bitter reality for which she coped with accordingly. As a result, the blame seemed to lie heavily on herself, though her phrasing suggested the chems to be an entity of deceit in their own right, almost as though their sheer existence was to blame for her addiction, rather than the fault being her own in taking them.

The fact of the matter was, from her perspective at least, she didn’t have a choice in rejecting them. That dreadful deliciousness had so thoroughly ensnared her since she first sought after it, that to picture life with its absences seemed impossible. For her it was always the means to an end, and the ends to a means; it was the push she needed to keep her body going when everything around her broke her down, it was the peaceful numbing that kept her from screaming out in pain and loneliness. It kept her thoughts quiet and her anger in check, it gave her a reason to open her eyes every morning despite everything that would happen afterwards.

It was just as much a part of her life as air and water. How could she possibly be expected to simply quit it?

She had once thought herself lucky that Jared had no interest in her ever getting clean.

He had said she was…“special” because of it.

“He kept going on about this old bird he used to know,” she told Shaun. “Swears on everyone else’s lives that she could see into the future. Saw it for himself, apparently.”

And thus, he had sought to claim that power for himself by any means necessary, and through experimentation and shaky alliances he had built himself a small empire of sick-minded individuals, placing the importance of his own passion project as the only guidelines they had to follow. He didn’t give a damn what his men did, in fact, he’d actually prefer it if they indulged themselves in grotesqueries outside of his demands, but he was also quick to give them a harsh tug on their leashes if they ever disrupted him.

Meeting Cait was the closest he had ever come to finally obtaining that power.

“Made the mistake of indulging him in his fantasies, now he’s convinced that I can predict things before they happen.”

And by the time she realized the danger she had put herself in, it was already too late. Her health had declined rapidly, his demands became harder and harder to satisfy, but even though his faith in her had wavered, he refused to let her go without a suitable replacement.

“And that’s what he needs me for…” Shaun realized.

His memories of what transpired were lost to a dreamlike disbelief, but in between the patches of falsities and make-believe there was something terribly real that he had partaken in. He had assumed that he was merely caught in the spider’s web, and spilled out everything that he knew out of shame, perhaps hoping that it would save him from a deserved punishment. But instead…

“He asked me what happened to someone he knew, and I-…”

“That was about Rust then?” She didn’t seem to catch on to Shaun’s guilt when he spoke. “He was a right bastard and he had it coming, doesn’t take smarts or magic powers to see that he wasn’t coming back. Guess you just got unlucky in that regard, huh?”

She was right, technically, but would he gain anything from telling her the complete truth? A lump had formed in his throat, his tongue dry and heavy within his mouth. She took his silence as her que to continue.

“Even though I haven’t given out good advice in a good few years, he still insists on keeping me around, though I don’t think I’ll be around for much longer anyways.”

“Then…why do you want me to kill you?” Shaun hesitantly asked her.

When she first proposed an equal trade of knowledge for death he was appalled, quickly putting a stop to any attempt she made to negotiate her terms. It seemed as though she was quick to catch-on to his tender-hearted mindset and changed her approach to full-blown honesty and gruesome detail.

“Because, f*cking look at me! Do you think I enjoy lying here in my own piss and sh*t while those assholes drug me stupid every day?” Her tone was sharp but her sentences were even and spaced, forced out of controlled, steady breaths by her respirator so that she could not even indulge her anger to its fullest, crippled as she was.

“You’re gonna end up the same as me, kid. They’re gonna pump you so full of sh*t that you’ll be spewing it back into their faces whether you want to or not. At this point I’m done for, but I can help you avoid ending up like this so long as you spare me the trouble of a slow death.”

“I-….”

Shaun had understood exactly what she meant, and his heart twisted with pity for the fate she was doomed to. There are times in which life is simply not meant to be preserved, either for its damning presence amongst others or for the cruelty in which it is forced to live by, and in such cases, death would be a greater mercy. Could one even argue that this lump of thin, decaying flesh before him was truly living; yes, their heart was beating and their single, obtuse eye was glaring at him with recognition and passion, but even the most simple and disadvantaged of animals could accomplish the same. The bruises on her discolored skin, the injections wounds that festered and bled; he had believed her when she said there was nothing that could be done for her. He knew that she deserved to be spared any further pain, he would have begged for death himself.

And yet, this was not the first time he had held someone’s life within his hands like this, and the burden of such a cruel verdict had frozen him. He had passed out pleasantries and punishments in full, and his fingernails stung at the memory. No matter how hard he tried to twist his mind around it, something within him refused to even humor the idea. He never wanted to take another life again.

“I’m sorry…but I can’t. I can’t kill you.”

His voice was heavy with shame, his determination wavering as fought against the steady shaking of his limbs. Cait only scoffed at him bitterly.

“You know, you’re not any better than them just cause you feel guilty or scared or whatever.”

This was true, and the sight of her exposed ribs and shoulder blades only further cemented this fact, but he simply remained silent and brooding. His skin felt uncomfortably raw beneath his bandages and dirtied clothes, a dark temptation to peel back the layered scars captivating his thoughts with heightened peculiarity. There were impurities within him, pieces he wanted to tear out and discard in the hopes in would him clean again; but he sat in repugnant, vile circ*mstances, imprisoned inside and out by torturous forces that would have driven mad even the most compassionate and rational of minds.

Maybe he secretly pitied himself the most; he would be the only one that did.

Down the hall, voracious laughter sounded out, accompanied by a flurry of shuffling footsteps.

“You better hope you’re a better bullsh*tter than me, kid.” Cait told him. “You don’t want to disappoint them now.”

Her words were cautious, advice from someone who knew exactly was about to happen, yet underneath his tongue there was a giddy expectation towards his inevitable fate. Should he have been able to see her face, he would have bet that she was smiling at him, finding solace in their shared misery since neither could escape their own. Her morose delectation should have been the death of her, but if she wouldn’t die than she would at least find company in another tortured soul.

Shaun suddenly felt the urge to wipe that hidden smirk from her face, but he was too cowardly to give her what she wanted.

…But at the very least, he might be able to give Jared what he wanted.

It was a curious thought that crossed his mind, and one that he had no choice but to follow through with once they showed themselves before the bars. Much like before, Jared seemed to slink out the shadows with almost supernaturally devilish surprise, flanked on either side by an escort.

Perhaps too early to note, but did Jared always travel with company? The few times Shaun had seen him he was never alone, his followers always close by and just as eager as they were afraid to be standing in his presence. This could have easily have been a mere habit that was common amongst all of the Commonwealth’s low-lives, but Shaun’s analytical mind picked up that detail with acute curiosity, his attention peaked by new information he could possibly use.

Though, that would have to come later, of course; he very well couldn’t do anything about Jared’s men just yet, but know that he knew what his end goal was, he could put a certain theory to test.

With the biggest, most desperate smile he could muster, Shaun stood and eagerly awaited his new master, tottering on his feet as if he could barely contain himself with excitement. It must have made quite a picture, a boy barely past his teens fighting to maintain steady eye contact with the monster before him, but grinning all the while as if expecting something great to come. He knew that the way his hands trembled and his knees buckled would go unquestioned; so long as he held that certain passion in his gaze, his fear could be his strength, his most powerful tool.

That visage of the devil came back to him, long fangs and horns draped with human skin, once so inhumanly powerful that it seemed impossible to stand against him, but what stood before him now was nothing more than a terrible man lost to his own delusions. He didn’t rush for Jared once he entered the cell, but he did make the effort to learn forward in anticipation, panting through his open mouth and picking at the fabric of his coat. He awaited his approach with growing impatience, groveling before him with expectancy for that dirty syringe he held in his hand.

He couldn’t let Jared infect him with whatever was inside of it.

At least his pathetic eagerness earned him some satisfaction; Jared seemed amused by his sudden change in behavior, his men eyed them both with suspicion.

“How’re you feeling now, kid?” The devil leered. “You seem to be in a bit of a bad spot there, hmm?”

Shaun sucked in a shaky breath, his lip quivering as he looked up into those merciless eyes.

“I-…I don’t feel so good,” he gasped. “I feel itchy and- and…. I don’t feel good.”

Without eloquence or clear excuses, he allowed his words to tumble out of him, giving in to impulsive, mindless dribble without ever shifting his gaze away. He saw Jared’s face split open into a gnarled smile, his teeth small and blunt just like any other mans, but he knew they’ve bitten down on human flesh with animalistic ferocity.

“Oh? Poor boy, you look like you could use a little pick-me-up.”

He brandished the syringe between two fingers, its contents a blackened, murky mystery in the dim lamplight.

“You want Uncle Jared to make it better?”

His voice was twinged with amusem*nt, and it made Shaun’s stomach roll, vile and hot, but the spittle that dripped from his mouth cleverly conveyed an intense hunger for more. Vigorously he nodded his head, reaching out his hands towards that poison as if it were his saving grace, and allowing himself to whine like a kicked dog when Jared quickly snatched it back.

“Not yet, I need to ask you something first, and you’ll have to answer, ok?”

Shaun carelessly ran his tongue across his lips, making a distasteful, sloppy mess of himself like an ignorant child. His breath hitched as he croaked, something akin to sob being the only answer he would give. He must have looked zombified and master-less like all the others, but his mind had never felt sharper than now.

“I wanna know more about your future here, where exactly you’re gonna take me, do you understand?”

He lowered himself to one knee, his legs shaking with the effort. How could someone so powerful, overtly feared by others, also appear so weak and frail?

“Look into the future, my boy; far, far into the future, and tell me what you see.”

With a sinister glint to his eyes, he held up the syringe, his smile wide and expectant and black. Shaun leaped with excitement, tearing the chems from Jared’s grasp with delighted glee. With shaking hands, he made a show of fumbling with his jacket sleeves, exposing the torn bandages of his inner arm and placing the tip of the needle into to crook of his elbow.

Jared gently held his face, his breath rancid and hot against his mouth.

“Show me the future of the Commonwealth, son.”

And with a choking gasp, Shaun curled his body forward, concealing the needle from view as he pushed the plunger down and spilled the fluid within his sleeve. He shook his shoulders violently, coughing up spittle as if he would vomit at any moment, and with fierce, irregular breaths he spat out the same senseless nonsense that Cait said he was looking for.

“I-…I see-…” Shaun paused, his eyes rolling back as he finally broke his gaze from the beast before him, his mouth fluttering like a dying fish.

“I see a figure with great power, his face his blurry. There are flashing lights everywhere, like lightning! The air is moving, people are cheering, there’s a door that couldn’t be seen before. But it’s…it’s not…”

He gasped, letting the empty syringe fall from his hand as he gripped his arms tightly.

“It’s not enough…it’s not enough…”

He trailed off, his voice growing hoarse until it finally gave out to a shrill whine, and he let his body go limp and fall. Jared was quick to catch him by the shoulders, his hold firm but surprisingly restrained, and though Shaun had feigned complete submission to his false episode, he could still clearly see the concern and fascination that crossed his face. Still, he kept his eyes crossed and his head lolling from side to side, fluttering his eyelids as if on the verge of fainting, and when Jared finally lowered his body to the ground with that strange care and tenderness, Shaun almost smiled to himself in glee.

While he waited there on the cold floor, his body uncomfortably prostrated in a facsimile of the sick and needed, he overheard Jared desperately relay a strange urgency towards his men, demanding they all leave at once. It was a concerning change in tone, and an even more alarming one to witness, even his men seemed to think the worst for what was most likely a very common occurrence for them, but nonetheless they obeyed. One of them had even held the organic meat slurry that was to be Cait’s meal, but they all left without so much as a sympathetic glance in her direction, and in the silence that followed Shaun could tell she was amused by this change.

He hadn’t dared to look up at them, not fully, not while they were still within earshot and liable to return and catch him in his act, but Cait was so enthralled by the deception she had witnessed that before they had even left the cell, she was barking out wheezing coughs of laughter. Shaun wanted to sneer at her, demand she shut up and take his pitiable plight with as much sensitivity as possible, but her empathy had run dry, and it made her amusem*nt all the more pronounced. As if she could sense his seriousness, the tactful way he had so cleverly lied straight to the devil’s face, she pushed against the timed, mechanical flow of her respirator just to spite him with ridicule and disbelief.

“Not bad kid, you almost look like a first-time tweaker.”

Her snide comment abruptly gave way to a severe coughing fit, one that Shaun at first attempted to ignore out of offense to her ignorant attitude; but as he finally rose to his feet, he could make out the stoma hidden behind her hair, the lanky bit of plastic piping that substituted her trachea having been wedged into her throat and barely secured there with bits of old duct-tape. The gross display of medical abuse was enough to check his own attitude, to humble him a bit, but Cait still hadn’t had enough of him.

“Very convincing act, expect for the fact that you actually pissed yourself that last time. You’re lucky Jared’s not all there, or else he would have caught on to that bullsh*t quicker.”

He wanted to argue her point but was thrown off by her comment. With almost absurd haste to check, Shaun patted down the front of his trousers, his memory failing him in defense of such a childish and crude act of weakness. He felt the wet patch at his side, the slimy ick he avoided ingesting now having been absorbed into his jacket, but his pants only felt slightly damp to the touch.

He flushed with embarrassment, furious at that weak and struggling laughter that did everything in its meek power just to point at him and jeer.

“Yeah, well, it’s still better than the position you’re in,” he groaned out.

All at once the laughing stopped, and Cait’s eye flared up at him with a sudden intensity that seemed to scorch him to the bones.

“I know,” she simply said, and Shaun was instantly filled with regret at having so callously shamed her for something that was well out of her control now. He felt his mouth go dry, his spittle still coating his chin so that he stood there gawking like a toddler before her; but without even having the chance to apologize for his outburst, she surprised him with an odd sense of approval.

“Tell you what,” she said. “There’s some old clips they use to keep my tubes and wires in place. You can take some of them and pick the lock on the door there. Think there might even be an old screwdriver or something you can use as wretch.”

It didn’t register at first that she was giving him a way out, the practicality of lockpicking was not something he had never had the chance to learn up until now, but at her insistence he felt himself lock up inside, unsure whether or not to take this opportunity so soon. She mistook his hesitance to act for uncertainty towards herself, and she practically growled at him.

“Just take the f*cking pins, you coward. They’re not even doing anything except keeping the mess in line, its not gonna f*cking kill me.”

“I know that,” he said.

He didn’t know that, but since she had so boldly presented that possibility to him, he could not shake the feeling that he would cause irreparable damage to her if he just carelessly plucked at her medical equipment, and he didn’t quite trust that she was putting herself on the line here with no beneficial outcome for herself. Why suddenly go back on the terms she had set if only further cemented her own suffering; they wouldn’t even kill her for helping him escape.

“Maybe the next prick will have the balls to off me, I don’t know.”

She sounded despondent when she spoke, as if she had little hope of ever having this kind of chance again, and it made his skin crawl to try and weigh this moral dilemma out.

“So, you gonna pick the lock or what?”

Shaun looked into her swollen green eye and sighed. He had no other choice in the matter, and waiting for another opportunity only put him at risk for worse things to come. And yet, he didn’t want to leave her here, just laying there in pain and waiting for the day she would finally die. But no matter how he tried to twist it, tried to reason with himself that killing was not the ethically stark position he often thought it was, to even look at her was to surrender to the bleeding heart inside him, and he just couldn’t take another person’s life.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll…try- but I don’t actually know how to pick a lock.”

If her opinion of him could sink any lower, than maybe her look could finally kill, but alas she was resigned to merely huff at him in disbelief.

“It’s not that hard, kid. You just need some little pins or thin wire, and like a screwdriver or something similar to use for tension. The key is to keep your heads steady and not push too hard, otherwise you’ll break the pins.”

The dry explanation didn’t inspire much confidence, but he was a fast learner, and if she had found it simple, then surely he could master the ability without much issue. The only concern now was being caught.

He first looked for the tools she outlined for him, a bit of a challenge in itself considering the sloppy work that had been done to keep her alive. The cell could hardly have been called spacious, but it was large enough to have possibly dedicated most of the room to medical equipment, albeit with some tight fitting; but for some reason they had saw it fit to squeeze everything they had onto one side of the room, leaving Cait practically laying upon of an electrical monstrosity with no organization to be seen. Instruments and tools of all kind had been left in whatever position was most convenient, and thus he searched within cramped corners and wire bundles with almost reckless abandon but woefully came up empty-handed.

The solution she gave him was to just take a few extra pins and flatten them out; so long as he kept light pressure and didn’t bend the wench in the process, he could substitute with anything that was small enough to fit in the lock, and he would be sure to make the most of that tip moving forward.

The pins were much easier to find, if only because they absurdity of their usage had left them glaringly obvious to the eye. When tape became scare and the need for rope was in high demand, people made due with what they had; never doubt the Commonwealth’s ability to improvise and work around a problem. The downside was that their solutions often went against such standards in practice that it made him sick to even witness them. The intravenous tubes and electrical wires were a jumbled, knotted coil, but some effort had been made to keep them all together in one horrendously vicious pile by way of string and thread, all joined together in a loose wrap secured by paperclips and hair pins. Taking these out only allowed for the tangled mess to flop back to the floor, and just as Cait said, it had done a damn thing to her condition. How this medical malpractice actually managed to keep her alive was beyond him, and it made him weirdly nostalgic for the orderly conduct and cleanliness of the Institute.

Maybe, he grimly thought, his observations were not entirely without fact, and Cait would soon find herself on a rapid down-slope that this franken-machine could not revive her from; a very small and tragic victory for the both of them.

Under her guidance and experience Shaun quickly learned the basics of lock-picking, and once he found a steady logic in the craft he felt as though the process was surprisingly simple; all cleverly applied bits of pressure and suddenly the lock was opened. He hadn’t even broken the pin in the process, and had a healthy handful in his pocket for any other doors that stood in his way. He felt proud, but not necessarily prepared for the next step, but the hallways only echoed faintly with far-off voices.

“Can’t leave through the front,” Cait had told him. “But there’s a way out through the back. Sorry I don’t know much more than that, but I don’t even know where this place is, to be honest with you.”

“That’s alright, you’ve done more than enough.”

She laughed at him then, for once being devoid of bitterness so that she sounded much more human than she had earlier, and it made his heart twist.

“If you say so kid, just don’t get yourself caught, ok?”

And he assured her that he wouldn’t, just as he assured her that he would bring back help for her, but she had already spent her energy and didn’t bother to dismiss his proclamation with the harsh reality check he needed; and so, he set off out of the cell with too much pride and not enough subtlety to quite make it through.

Cait would have wished him luck, but she knew that he would need much more than that to get out of here.

Chapter 21

Chapter Text

The hardest step of any journey was always the first one, and for Shaun to take that initial plunge out of his cage was certainly one of great fortitude; for to seize in his independence was to boldly stand up to very face of danger itself and spit in it.

Or, so it seemed to him.

In actuality his nerves had almost gotten the better of him, terrorizing him with nightmarish scenarios and doubts so that the thought of placing even a single foot outside of his cell seemed like the most unspeakably rebellious act imaginable; surely, he was awaiting a fate worse than death for these terrible transgressions.

And yet, here he stood, unmolested and relatively free out in the dank, dark hallway of the compound, the first step successfully taken. It seemed as though everything past this point would be just gravy.

And why shouldn’t he think that, ludicrous as it may seem. He believed himself to be well-earned a bit of confidence for all the self-loathing he subjected himself to on the regular, and for once it seemed that his projected superiority was finally shining through. His intelligence was his strength, a rarity outside of the institute, and by way of his cleverness he managed to not only gain intimate knowledge of his enemies, but outsmarted them in the process. There was pride to be found in such a deliciously deceptive act of wit, and it did well to embolden him with the courage to carry forward with this escape attempt; but there was always the lingering dread that kept his confidence in check, and the silence certainly wasn’t helping in that regard.

It wasn’t necessarily strange, but it did seem suspicious to him that for all the ruckus these fellows seemed to engage in, the halls were peculiarly quiet now. It felt deceptive, a false security brought on by the predator holding its breath so as to suggest to its prey that it was safe to let its guard down, but were they subtle enough to actually pull it off? He strained his hearing a bit and found that I truth they were not; preoccupied in some other room far off in the compound so that their loud voraciousness was kept muffled and hushed; but in no way to suggest that they were aware of him having slipped out of their grasp.

Still, it would do him better to proceed with caution; his intelligence could only carry him so far, after all, and against the wills of raving lunatics it could end up being a hindrance more than anything. A confrontation of any kind would do him no good.

Speaking of, a good place to start would actually be to reevaluate what he had with him at the moment, seeing as the damn hunters had stolen his gun back when he playing sick. He…was hopeful of making it out of here silently, but just in case it didn’t work out the way he wanted, he should have something on him; and much to his surprise, he did. In spite of the hunters attempt to disarm him, Shaun found that they had surprisingly not taken anything else off of him. A quick pat down revealed the presence of his canteen and map, as well as the extra rounds of ammunition that were currently useless to him but surely would have been of interest to them?

Out of curiosity he brought a hand to his breast pocket and felt relief that the small flip-lighter he kept was still there. The thought of losing such a memento seemed almost worse than being without a proper weapon, its utility hardly recognized beyond what it meant to him personally. He left it there undisturbed, grateful to have it despite the burden it carried.

Perhaps in the excitement of finding him they had forgone protocol, or maybe they had taken the sight of his small stature and rounded face to mean that he would pose no threat to them whatsoever, but either way, they had also not taken the utility knife from his pocket, if they had even known about it at all. With caution he brought out this little weapon and weighed the option in his hand, curling his fingers around the handle with the same hesitance in which he first held a gun.

It wasn’t worth much, certainly not against a firearm, but in a pinch, it was better than nothing, though he’d still rather forgo any kind of physical confrontation if possible.

For now, the darkness was his greatest ally, his only camouflage, and what a coincidence that they should have supplied it in bulk for such an occasion as this. Leave it to acts of needless cruelty to suddenly come back swinging with vicious karma in its hands; to deny their prisoners the basics of comfort and light, it should come as no surprise that Shaun slithered his way out right from under their noses. He looked up at the dark ceiling lamps with contempt, felt the static hum of electricity through the walls with disdain, and could only scoff at so pointless and petty some people could be.

Damn them, then; he didn’t need the light to find his way, not when they had left a trail of breadcrumbs for him to follow.

Gingerly, he traced his fingers along the wires that attached to Cait’s various medical apparatuses, and carefully begun to follow them deeper into the darkness before him. Let her feeble life source be his guiding hand, it was the least she could do and he would be eternally grateful for it; he would even be sure to pass along her tale of woe to whoever would listen, there might still be hope for her yet.

And if there wasn’t, well…at least it would be out of his hands by then, as saddening as the thought was.

He couldn’t let those feelings consume him though, not now, and he carefully choked back a weakened hiccup that left his throat raw and tender with emotion. As of now she was still alive, the electric current at his fingertips as strong as any heartbeat, and grimly it was as though she were with him even now, making her escape alongside him, holding his hand through the darkness just to remind him that he was not alone out here.

Silly, childish comforts that did nothing for him.

Fruitlessly, he made an effort to push those thoughts away, focusing solely on the wire path he was to follow, but little progress did he make before another odd detail to his surroundings suddenly demanded his full attention.

He hadn’t noticed it at first, quiet obviously, but in all fairness his own cell had been a basic and crude makeup of old concrete bricks; nothing out of the ordinary as far as he was concerned. Now, however, carefully crawling across these new floors and passing these new walls, he had begun to realize that they were drastically different. His gloves did not brush up against their surface with abrasive resistance, and when he dared to feel them with his naked fingers, he felt the smooth, cool surface of metal; but not the kind he was expected.

The wasteland had been cobbled together by nothing but hand-me-downs so that everything had held that same patchwork decrepitude in its making; but these walls were not at all like the scrap they often scavenged. Even without rapping his knuckles against their surface, he could tell that the walls were at least a couple inches thick, hard and sturdy under his palms and seemingly grooved with an odd but consistence pattern. The bolts alone, larger than his fist, were enough to confirm the type of resources and machinery required to keep this structure together, and those only existed pre-war.

However…he had seen his fair share of what remained throughout the years. Time had done well to strip them of their uses, to threaten their foundations, and those feeble shells of weakened concrete and steel couldn’t hold a candle to the reinforcements here.

It only begged the question as to why? What sort of building was this that needed to be made this sturdy in first place?

The claustrophobia alone was uniquely familiar, almost startlingly so, but he couldn’t exactly explain why. The stifled air and the strange, lingering chill left him with all sorts of questions and uncertainties.

He pushed forward with a creeping dread, but very quickly came to an abrupt end to his wire trail. Following the path with his fingers, he felt as the loose cords began to suddenly crawl upwards, eventually finding a home within some kind of large, open port built into the wall that he was initially hesitant to touch. What he could barely see, he could feel, and it painted an archaic picture of the kind of thoughtless electric work these savages were capable of; too many adapters all forcefully crammed into the same sockets, loose ends left to dangle uselessly off the frame. The mechanical gore was enough to send a shiver up his spine, and he recoiled from the mess in disgust.

But in doing so he had lost his only connection and coherency, the crutch in which he so desperately decided to support himself with, and suddenly the looming unknown ahead of him seemed all the more deep and endless.

He had no choice but to swallow back his troubles and push forward regardless, bracing himself against the wall as grew despondent with this increasingly hopeless venture. Did he even have an inkling as to the layout of this compound? Of course not; and it seemed that with every passing second, he only grew closer to his inevitable recapture, this fabled exit he searched for nothing more than a dream he could only hope to grasp at, but it was then that his hand reached out into empty air, the wall suddenly coming to end at an intersection of hallways, and he caught sight of the first minuscule trickles of light there in the far distance.

A quaint, faint flicker of soft orange to his left, the dimness of its light may as well have been a million miles away for how it refused to bless him with its mercy, and yet its mere presence was enough to chill and astound him. The sign he was looking for, the first hint at a possible escape, and yet he knew better than to trust that alluring tempest of wavering color. What lay beyond, within the realm of its visage, was of course the presence of men and danger, more entrapping than any steel bars he could be locked behind.

But the only way out was through; he had already made it this far, and in times like these he had to remind himself that he had done this once before with success. Surely it was far too late for him to simply return to the safety of his kennel like a fearful dog, but that still did little to actually calm him.

He couldn’t allow the ensuing panic to cloud his thoughts, to jeopardize the thinking he relied on above all else, and yet the walls suddenly seemed too close, the darkness too thick and heavy, and Shaun found that breathing had become impossible to master.

In his confusion he made a stumbling step forward, a hesitate urging towards the light, though only managed to helplessly lose himself to the surrounding abyss. Flailing his arms against nothing, Shaun groped blindly for any surface he could hold himself against, that dangerous orange star his only sense guidance and calling him towards his own damnation. Far away he could hear the faint snippets of conversation, the light clop of footsteps as the hunters padded around in distance rooms, and he watched that wavering flicker with unyielding concentration, fearing that it would soon come closer and reveal him there.

He was anxious enough to almost gasp when he soon collided with the wall again.

Instead, he managed to draw in a deep breath, careful to let it out without sound, and collected himself. Somehow, that stumbling trip through the darkness had brought him to other side of the hallway, an impossibly long and endless voyage of about ten feet; and he relished in this victory with joy, a sigh of relief just barely brushing past his lips as he rested his forehead against the solid metal.

He hadn’t made it very far at all and he was already feeling overwhelmed, what was he going to do with himself?

Shaun looked towards the light with a bit of scrutiny, taking in as much detail as he could from so little and insignificant a thing, but all that he could determine was that it was some kind of small oil lantern, and it either hung near the top of a wall or sat at the top of short staircase towards the end of the hall; not enough information to formulate anything worthwhile, but he was pressed for options.

He would have to take that path and follow it wherever it may lead him, either keeping to shadows or using it was coverage to walk amongst the hunters as one of their own. Neither choice filled him with confidence, but it was enough determination to see him boldly take one step forward-

And then immediately recoil back when something loud began to shuffle towards him.

For a brief moment, the idea that he would have ever left his cage suddenly seemed like a profoundly foolish one, the knife in his hand as tiny and worthless as a toothpick. His spine went stiff and his knees felt weak, but he didn’t move an inch, his breath stifled as he listened to a faint patter of footsteps echoing off the thick, iron walls, their direction indiscernible, but their proximity dangerously close.

With one hand still on the wall Shaun took a few precursory steps backwards, watching and listening for any sudden change that indicated an oncoming attack, but the footsteps seemed to take their time as they wandered without urgency. Surely, he was still in the clear, but not for much longer.

As he moved, he felt the texture of the wall change beneath his palm, hard metal quickly giving way to the softer, thinner scrap that he had grown familiar with, and he flinched back from it in confusion. Maybe it was just the stress accompanied with visual impairment, but Shaun swore that the layout of this compound was becoming stranger by the minute, and he was quickly reaching his mental limits in trying to comprehend it in such a manner.

But what he understood perfectly, from the moment he felt it, was that this chunk of the wall had a door, one that provided too many possibilities for him to take into consideration on such short notice. With a tight grip on the door knob, he listened for any sign of activity within, the dreadful pounding of his heart filling his ears with phantom footsteps and ghostly whispers; and as that distant light began to encroach further, he slipped through the door as silently as he could, throwing himself to the mercy of whatever lay beyond it.

He hadn’t known what to expect, but it wasn’t exactly this.

Although darkness permeated this place much the same, there was a drastic shift in the overall atmosphere that told him he had entered somewhere vastly new and different; he had once felt this way before, back when he saw the surface world for the first time, and the rough gravel beneath his shoes was recognizable in much the same regard.

He…he couldn’t possibly be outside already? The ground might have been earth but then, what of the stars? Where was the moonlight? And yet the invisible space felt…large, and as he reached upwards, even standing on his toes, he could feel no ceiling above him, no walls apart from the one at his back. The air was twinged a naked chill that left him feeling raw and vulnerable, but the breeze was so subtle it might as well have not been there at all, leaving a thick, mineral smell to linger heavily all around him.

Strange circ*mstances aside, Shaun was more or less exactly where he wanted to be, wasn’t he? He had made it out and he felt himself renewed with vigor as he set forth into this strange new world, eager to put some distance between himself and the horrors he had witnessed. With light steps he took daring little plunges deeper into the unknown, becoming bolder and more daring with how quickly he dashed towards his freedom, though the uneven terrain quickly made this an impossibility.

He had found that, not very far from the compound, the area was littered with loose debris, some still heavily set within the ground so that they almost sent him sprawling when his foot unexpectedly collided with them, though a quick investigation with his flip-lighter soon revealed them to be the remains of an old railroad track. An interesting clue for sure, one that might have helped him pinpoint his location and make navigation much easier; but unfortunately, the lighting was too dim to help him read his map, and he was still much too close to the hunter’s compound to risk using it for more than a few seconds. They surely must have noticed his absence by now, and if not, then they would soon enough, best not to risk exposure if he could help it. Though the tracks could still prove useful in their own right, giving him a path to follow so that he could at least distance himself thoroughly from the compound, but such hopes were quickly dashed; this attempt at following a trail out had ended much faster than the first time, though by a much different means.

No sooner had he begun to walk along the tracks did they suddenly come to an abrupt end, a giant mass of stone standing before him, reaching endlessly into the black abyss overhead.

Perplexity gripped him, rattled him, forcing him to scour his brain for answers that just weren’t there as he tried to circle around this obstruction, only for it to slowly dawn on him that the stone actually encompassed this space entirely. His limited sight took in rock and gravel all around him, the smell of iron and salt profoundly dense and pungent on the air, and he stared up into the sky, the ceiling, with the diminishing hope of catching just the faintest glimmer of a distant star, the shifting murkiness of clouds that must be obstructing the moon from illuminated this place, but nothing could shake the looming greatness that seemed to compress him down.

He had no idea where he was.

He had no idea how to get out.

He could hear voices echoing not very far away, and as he turned his head, he saw an ominous glow slowly ebbing its way out of the darkness.

He was cornered, completely trapped, and his mind raced with all sorts of improbably actions that he knew would be pointless. There was nowhere he could hide, the light would only expose him soon enough, they would see his face and know that he wasn’t one of their own.

They would punish him, break him down, teach him that those who didn’t know their place would pay the ultimate price.

Except for the fact that his place wasn’t amongst others at all; he was…special, not quite the same as others like him and kept around solely for the uniqueness of his existence. His purpose.

He supposed…if it worked twice already, it could possibly work again.

So, he “let” them find him there, crawling on the ground like a little, blind mouse and growing frantic at their sudden approach. Before they could fall upon him with their anger and punishment he began to fearfully shriek; “Run! He’s coming!” and made a maddening rush forward as if to run past them.

It was no surprise that they caught him, practically tackling him to the ground as he tried to shake off their hands, and when he put on a show of seizures and garbled words they only sighed with acceptance. They hardly looked at him as they dragged him back, his garbled nonsense rolling off them without comment or dismissal, and though their grip was firm, it was not painful. They made no effort to silence him physically, only giving him an occasional vocal reassurance that all would be well, and he realized with grim satisfaction that he had been correct; he was special, and because of that they were hesitant to harm him.

Already he was picking apart this fact in his mind, drawing comparisons, analyzing the little details he gathered, preparing so that when they delivered him into the awaiting arms of Jared, he was ready for him.

But if he could cry at the sight of him, he would have.

“Little boy,” Jared cooed, his posture stiff and his voice cold. For a moment he didn’t seem anything like that playful devil he had encountered earlier, his eyes now belittled with a piercing clarity like that of an Institute courser.

Shaun briefly imagined X6 standing before him, slathered with face paint and reaching out to him with dirty nails, and went cold.

“We’re do you think you’re going? Surely you weren’t planning on leaving us so soon?”

He smiled at him, flashed his filthy, rotten teeth in fake amusem*nt, but the sternness in his voice was sharp, like a lash across the chest. Shaun felt his chest burn with fear and shame, but rather than hide it, he flaunted it for all to see and waited for Jared to take the bait.

“We have to leave!” Shaun shouted at him. “He’s coming! He followed us here!”

The change in Jared’s demeanor was instantaneous, his eyes going wide as he took in Shaun’s poor appearance and behavior with a mounting anxiety.

“Who’s coming? Who followed us here?”

“The shadow man!” Shaun proclaimed. “The man who lives in the shadows! I saw him. He has been to Warwick, and soon he will come here and death will follow him. We have to leave while we still can!”

He had just barely managed to choke out his “prophecy” before a violent coughing spell overtook him. The physical requirements of continuing this act were beginning to take a toll on his body; already his shoulders were burning from how the guards held him up, and his breathing was becoming a chore, but he could see that the display was working as intended.

“Are you sure this is what you saw? Someone is coming here?”

Though he asked for clarification, it was evident that he believed everything Shaun had told him, his shoulders hunching up in preparation for quick action.

“How soon to we have to prepare?”

“Uh, boss,” one of the guards interrupted, flicking a look of concern to Shaun that had him sweating in his grasp.

The air was…strangely taunt, squeezing down around everyone with a gruesome tension, yet everyone seemed to take it different. Whereas Jared and a healthy following of his men seemed ready to pounce at the nearest thing that moved, a selected few did not seem to share his energy. Rather, they looked at the scene before them with mixed reaction, some displaying a nervous disposition, while others turned their gaze away in disgust and anger.

Jared singled out the guard with a terrifying look.

“What? What is it?”

The guard paused, mentally navigating a minefield as he fought control over his response.

“We just returned from the northeast section; defenses were secure and there were no signs of recent activity. Perhaps- I mean… is it likely that the vision was-“

“Was what?” Jared spat back. “Incorrect? Is that what you’re insinuating!”

Landmine detonated, and the blow was a near fatal one. Shaun felt the guards grip on his arm grow tighter, others flicking their eyes between their boss and the door behind them as if weighing their options.

“Never, sir. I only meant to suggest-“

“Because you saw what he did! He predicted the death of Rust, the failure at HalluciGen!”

Jared spun around, pointing at his entourage with fury in his eyes.

“You all saw it!”

A gaggle of his most loyal demons shouted in agreement, their sneers anything but human and their bodies grotesquely thin with malnutrition. Under the lanterns glow they twisted and writhed, snapping their heads back and forth, jerking their limbs about in odd movements, their skin gouged with needle scars and festering wounds.

Sickos, clearly, but not all of them, at least not the guard that seemed hesitate to act.

“…You…saw it…”

“I did, sir,” the guard relented. “I believe the prophecy is true. But I think we should use our time wisely. The shop is safe enough that we know exactly where an attack could come from, we can check over everything and make a plan in the meantime.”

Jared was eerily quiet, and before he answered he looked to Shaun as if to ask for a second opinion, something that Shaun rejected by lolling his head backwards and fluttering his eyes shut. The grip on his arm was still tight, deliberately so.

“Alright. Send at least three people to each of the entry points and double check all the defenses. I want guards posted outside the cell at all times. The boy stays alive at all costs, understand?”

Every last one of them, from the ruthlessly deranged to the questionable hesitant, let out a resounding shout in agreement. It seemed as though the verdict would stand.

Ceremoniously and with the greatest care, they carted Shaun back to his prison, his status demanding their respect even though he did not command it from them. Even so, he knew better than to resist, and for that brief moment he relished in the power in seemed to possess over them.

But once they rounded the corner, and Jared was officially out of sight, the guards proceeded to cruelly toss Shaun onto the floor of his cell, glaring at him viciously as they locked him in.

He laid there in stunned silence, unmoving as the guard argued amongst themselves none-to-quietly before the bulk of them departed, leaving only a single, weathered looking man to stand watch.

The hunter was big-boned and heavily armored, allowing him to retain some of his bulk despite the years of starvation he faced; or perhaps it was his position within the Slop Shop that allowed him to keep a healthy layer of fat underneath that shrunken skin, but either way, he was large and intimidating and kept focusing in on Shaun with this hateful, accusatory stare. A lowly whimper did nothing to change his expression, and Shaun’s attempts to mimic struggling to his feet only caused him to spit with cold, unfeeling laughter.

“Give it up, kid,” the guard spoke. “You can’t bullsh*t me the same as the others.”

Shaun felt something twist sharply within his chest, swallowing hard against a lump in his throat as he fought to maintain composure. He couldn’t let himself be intimidated into revealing himself so easily.

“You…” he coughed, the struggle to breathe far from an act now. “You don’t understand. There’s a man that was following me, he knows what happened to Warwick-“

With fearsome swiftness the guard suddenly took hold of the bars that separated them and shook them aggressively with all his might, the rattle echo putting a definite end to any excuse that could have saved him.

“Shut the f*ck up!”

His teeth were grit and his knuckles white, yet there was a looseness to his anger that left him sneering at his prisoners from afar, his anger never mounting beyond a sense of profound disgust towards them.

“You think Caity never told us stories just for an extra hit? You f*ckin’ sickos are all the same.”

With a grimace he spat, as if the mere sight of them left a bad taste in his mouth.

“Word of advice; Just save it for Jared when he asks and you’ll get it soon enough.”

And with that he slinked back from the bars like an ominous snake, taking his position against the far all with a stiff posture and a weary, disgruntled expression across his face; but Shaun took in those words with great consideration.

So, he had thought Shaun was searching the facility for chems? Not much of a surprise there, and honestly it was a relief to know that hadn’t considered an escape attempt despite having caught him outside, but that wasn’t the most striking thing Shaun had picked up from the guard.

Based on appearances alone, it was easy to say that the guard was notably healthier (in comparison) to the others in the Slop Shop, but only just now, carefully observing him, did it make sense as to why. Jared and his men had been all lean muscle, erratic movements, and wide, unfocused eyes as was typical of most sickos from what he could tell. But this man, and a few of the others, did not possess such traits; their scars did not come from frequent injections, and their visage was clear and knowing. They were non-users, most likely the minority within their group, and as such they didn’t yield to their boss’s nonsensical demands quite so absentmindedly.

In fact, looking back on the encounter from earlier, the way those men had actively tried to steer Jared away from such illogical fallacies; they had seemed exhausted and strangely cautious, exasperated with their boss beyond tolerable levels, almost as if they thought…

“You think Jared is crazy too?”

Whatever stroke of confidence Shaun had in breaching that question was almost instantly snuffed out by the sharp look that the guard threw his way. But that look also told him everything he needed to know; the contempt on his face was clear, and he couldn’t even find it within himself to disagree, only to evade.

“You better watch your f*ckin’ mouth, kid. That kinda talk doesn’t typically go over well in the end.”

“But you don’t believe me, do you?” Shaun asked, his voice barely a whisper as he looked to the man with awe. “You think all this vision stuff is-“

“I think you need a reminder of exactly how things work here.”

The guard took an aggressive step forward, his lips curled back in a sneer.

“Boss gives orders, we take orders, and f*ckin’ junkies like you sit in the cage and behave themselves, ‘else they get thrown in the quarry with the other failures; understood?”

Shaun nodded his head, knowing better than to raise his voice against such a force, and decided not to approach the topic again until a later time. Instead, he took his own place against the wall, watching the guard grumble to himself in irritation for the rest of his shift as the turned the information around in his head. Past actions and consequences had to be reevaluated, new variables taken into account, and it seemed as though he had all the time in the world to think things over.

Everything he had been through, everything he had see and felt since those hunters had grabbed him, it all meant something in the end, the pieces of a puzzle slowly coming together around him; and then there was himself, stuck in the middle of this, forced into the dead center with the spot light overhead.

Perhaps…that was the ideal place to be in the end.

To his right, he heard Cait’s heart monitor beep out a steady rhythm. She had not said anything about his capture, did not even open her eyes to look at him, but that was fine. He understood well enough that she had failed just as he had today, and to look upon such things was to be filled with even greater despair. He wanted so badly to go over to her and stroke the remains of her hair, to tell her that not all hope was lost yet, but he didn’t.

Instead, he stared blankly ahead, biding his time and playing the obedient prisoner for now.

Jared believed him to be a prophet that could tell the future, while some of the guards thought of him as a typical, lying drug-user; Shaun was neither of these things, and if he played it right, he could use both to his advantage. The alliance between dishonest and cruel men were always inherently shaky, but with greed and hunger added to the mix, it could lead to destructively explosive endings.

He just needed to not blow himself up in the process.

Chapter 22

Chapter Text

Fear is as much a thing to be conquered as it is a necessary survival instinct, and though the well-behaved conformist never rises in the face of his oppressor, he does, ultimately, survive in the end.

Shaun had always been good at following rules as they were laid out to him, most likely something that they had programmed into him during his initial development, but it was still an undeniably key aspect to what made himself who he was. Always the obedient child, following protocol was easy and un-troublesome, something he did unquestionably and with no negative association. On the other hand, cutting the grain as it were was simply “unnatural” to him, and it filled him with an anxious insecurity whenever he acted on these bouts of impulsive rebellion.

A well-behaved prisoner is seldom rewarded, but a troublesome one is undoubtedly punished; this would always be true, no matter what kind of cell they trapped you in.

Was it a cowardly approach? Certainly; but though it often remains unsaid, he knew that most people would choose to live as a coward than die as a hero. The few who thought different were the ones currently being digested.

Another escape attempt was out of the question, but perhaps he didn’t need to do something so bold in order to make saves, so to speak.

Looking at it from such a perspective, Shaun could almost say he was beginning to relax somewhat, even with the guard glaring at him like that.

In similar fashion to the last one, this new guard appeared to be another clear-headed, undoubtedly “clean” individual, carrying none of the marks or makings of the sick, and it stood to reason that this would be a recurring factor in all of those assigned to watch over him. At least they recognized that substance abuse was not a vice that was easy to tame, and in keeping with that it was probably easier to eliminate temptation altogether than risk anyone trying to sample the ware; he could almost applaud them for thinking this through so thoroughly, if not for the fact that this divided contact had left a deliciously open weak point for him to exploit.

But the scene wasn’t quite ready for him just yet; the air was still vibrant with the aftermath of his failed escape attempt, and he had yet to hear any news about Jared since he ordered a perimeter check. The risk of exposure was high, and he already pushed his luck with prodding the previous guard with delicate question; it was probably best to wait for now, allow the tension to die down and wait for the others to play their hand first.

In the meantime, Shaun supposed he could try and… “settle in” a little, not that there was much to really settle into.

The cell was rather proportionally small, but then again, so was he; with his size and stature taken into account the dimensions seemed almost accommodating. Cait’s medical equipment had taken up most of the space, but he still had enough room on the other side of the room to stretch out his legs without having to come into contact with any of her devices or wire. The stone flooring was a bit discomforting, but there wasn’t anything that could be done about that, seeing as though the only bed was currently, permanently, occupied.

With deep regret he set his sights on that skeletonized tragedy of a woman and sighed. He felt sorry for Cait, he truly did; nobody should have to suffer through this kind of hopeful fate like she was, but despite the urge he felt to comfort her, it simply wasn’t a possibility at this time. What the previous guard admitted to him still weighed heavily on his mind; that Cait was well-known for lying in order to receive chems, something that seemed to both anger and disgust the non-users within the Shop, and which left a bad taste in his own mouth. Was he in any position to cast judgement on her, especially when she was placed in such unforgiving, ruthless circ*mstances? Probably not, but he still felt that twinge of disappointment whenever he looked at her, knowing that she had done all of this to herself. If he were to approach her now, then the others would just assume that they were conspiring together, and thought brought unnecessary heat towards the both of them.

For her own safety, as well as his own, she would just have to suffer in silence for now.

But that also meant that Shaun would have to face whatever happened next all by his lonesome, and as luck would have it, he seemed to be expecting company.

The man that approached the bars wasn’t quite as hard-featured as the sickos of the colony were, but he wasn’t on-par with the guards either. His features were naturally rounded, and the years of acute malnutrition only served to increase the distinct heart shape of his cheeks and jawline, giving him the appearance of a crude hand-puppet. His skin had paled beyond its natural color, much like his eyes and hair, but it could be gleaned that all had been a much more vibrant and healthy brown back in the day. In composure he was stifling, and in presentation he was lacking, but it wasn’t the state of his hygiene nor the clear evidence of poor health that drew Shaun’s attention the most; it was the semi-white lab coat he wore, and the yellow medical tin he carried with him.

From what he understood, doctors were a rare and dying breed outside of the Institute, and even those few could at best be called “amateur practitioners” under the most forgiving of circ*mstance; but the man that stood before him could hardly be called something so conciliatory. His haggardness made him nearly indistinguishable from the average scavenger; his coat more of a suggestion of ability rather than an indicator of actual competency. If this truly was the accepted standard here, then it was no wonder why the Commonwealth never evolved beyond a desolate, backwards wasteland.

The sight of those unkept clothes and unwashed hands was enough to have his heart racing, that natural caution against the diseased maturing into a full-fledged phobia as his mind filled with grim premonition; but curiously enough, his own fears had paled in comparison to what the “doctor” appeared to feel towards him.

Both had been overcome with anticipatory dread from the moment they had locked eyes, but this man’s shock upon seeing him there seemed to border on profound disbelief. What little fire still burned within him had suddenly ignited to the extreme, the dull vacancy of his gaze sharpening with intense concentration as he stared at the boy with something akin to horror in his eyes. He was trembling, shaking the contents of the medical tin with reckless abandon so that they rattled obnoxiously, but it was clear that he acknowledged nothing but the boy before him.

Despite the guards growing agitation at the doctor’s hesitance, it was Shaun that first broke the ice between them.

“Hello; are you here for a vision?”

At the sound of his voice the poor man was snapped out of his stupor, practically leaping away from the bars as if he might suddenly turn tail and run, but something kept him in place, his eyes refusing to tear themselves away.

“N- no….” he gasped. “You’re… the new prophet?”

His voice was withered, but not dry, settling within his throat like a wet cough and most likely seldom used; It would have been deeper if fear had not heighten his pitch. Traces of an accent lingered within his words, though not prominent enough to be all that distinguishable, and possibly just a result of a mild stutter.

His reaction was strange though, especially considering the inflamed atmosphere of the Slop Shop when Shaun had been unveiled. Jared had been so electrifyingly ecstatic that his goons were quite literally bouncing off the walls in the aftermath of their success; how did it escape anyone that they managed to find another “prophet,” and why did he seem so terrified that they had?

Questions best suited for a better time; the poor doctor seems close to fainting, and Shaun needed to keep him here no matter what.

“Indeed, I am sir,” he said, putting on a mask of innocent intent. “What can I do for you today?”

But his best attempt at submissive civility was futile, and somehow only seemed to frighten the poor man even more. Baring his teeth in a horrific grimace, the doctor jerked his head from side to side, backing further away from the bars as if facing down some sort of fearsome beast. It made quite the spectacle for the guard, who side-eyed the two of them curiously and with some impatience; yet, in spite of the obvious troubled behavior displayed before him, he had thus far refrained from asking any questions. Perhaps it was simply out of plain disinterest, or maybe this kind of intense anxiety was nothing out of ordinary, despite of how suspicious it should have appeared.

The doctor must have sensed this too, for he quickly flicked his sights over towards the guard with a sense of desperate futility, wordlessly pleading for something to happen. His lip quivered, fear slowly bubbling on his tongue in anticipation to burst, yet Shaun saw defeat settle in, and in the end, he allowed for nothing in his mind to spill over. Instead, he braced himself, a tight white-knuckle grip showing his resolve, and with stiff, almost robotic-like movements, he finally forced himself to enter the cell.

Unsurprisingly, the doctor made an immediate dash to Cait’s bedside, an action which seemed intentionally dismissive towards his other responsibly, but which Shaun accepted without comment. It would be pointless to demand answers from him now, but even without interrogation there was still much to be learned simply by observing, and Shaun embraced the opportunity to study both doctor and patient in such intimate detail. Cait was already a scientific marvel to behold, the kind of specimen that enticed and excited the mind just as much as it repulsed it, and bearing witness to the complexities required just to keep her alive was a fascinating experience.

Her entire body had lost its ability to function without outsider intervention, and everything, from the circulation of her blood to the filtration of her kidneys, had to be done through the use of machinery or physical labor; impressive, considering that it had all been accomplished through non-optimal methods and materials. The medical devices were outdated, barely operable, patched together with duct tape like a bandage plastered over an open wound; which said nothing about her own open wounds. Flesh and metal were married together abstractly, colliding with each other like the crashing waves against a cliffside; her nakedness was pale, withered skin stretched over top lolling hills of bone, her heartbeat was a steady, controlled rhythm displayed on a computer screen.

Whether she was more machine than human at this point was honestly hard to argue, though the doctor seemed to regard her as both.

Though his hands were shaking, he was at the very least professional and thorough with the examination, but it was obvious he regarded his patient with a bit of contempt. Her comfort, it seemed, was not a priority, and he just as quickly disregarded her opinion on the matter whenever she tried to resist. He worked diligently and ruthlessly, pulling, measuring, scraping, inserting, and practically flaying her alive while she laid there, limp and groaning under his touch. It was enough to make his stomach churn.

“Hey,” he spoke out, and the doctor instantly reeled back as though he’d been shocked. Shaun winced a little, uncertain if he should even bother, but the doctor was looking at him now with those absurdly wide eyes, and he figured he might as well take a chance while he could.

“Isn’t there something you can give her for the pain?” he asked, “You’re hurting her…”

The doctor ground his teeth, forcing himself to awkwardly smile.

“Oh… of course! I- I’d almost… forgotten…”

He might have had an easier time trying to convince someone that the world was actually flat, but he left no room for commentary. With unbridled haste he quickly snatched up his yellow medical tin and ripped open the lid, revealing a number of horrifically dirty syringes inside. He selected one with an acutely fat barrel filled to burst with a strange pinkish liquid, and with a moment of hesitance, almost regret, he finally plunged it into Cait’s arm, forcefully silencing her.

Out of the corner of his eye, Shaun saw the guard shake his head in disgust, and if Cait were capable of it, she might have done so as well.

But even with the added ease of having his patient doped, the doctor seemed to be have stalled in his progress, endlessly measuring and retaking statistics he already gathered, as if he could keep taking her blood pressure over and over again and never have to face the being behind him. It made Shaun want to reach out a friendly hand, just so that these doubts towards his character could be corrected, but doing so might paint him into a particularly controversial corner, though being feared by any of these men could just as equally f*ck him over in the end.

Quite a peculiar decision, one that the doctor certainly didn’t make it any easier by quivering in his coat like that, but he hardly garnered any sympathy from Shaun;

Especially when he brandished a rather grimy looking needle in his direction.

Shaun couldn’t claim to enjoy needles at the best of times, but seeing one in such a deplorable state was enough to send him into a panic, benevolent demeanor be damned. Tolerance for filth wasn’t something he had in bulk, and the last ounces of his patience were quickly diminished as the doctor took a slow, indecisive step in his direction.

“Wait,” he blurted out. “How clean is that needle?”

Once again, the doctor blanched, so taken aback by his speech that he seemed liable to either faint or flee, and yet something forced him to remain rooted to the spot. He looked down at the syringe with desperation shining in his eyes.

“I-… it’s as clean as it can possibly be. G- given the circ*mstances….”

He couldn’t look Shaun in the eye as he spoke, nervously shuffling his feet forward as if to sneak up on him undetected. Shaun only stood his ground, keeping his tone firm but far from angry or insulting.

“That’s not clean enough.”

The doctor was sweating now, his eyes shifting about the room restlessly.

“It’s no different than what you used before… I promise. Please- just…”

He was pleading now, holding the needle forward as if begging him to take it from his hand, and yet Shaun only crossed his arms in defiance, fixing the pitiable man with an unimpressed look.

The guard, who had been idle to this strange back-and-forth up until now, had finally reached his own breaking point.

“Kid,” he grumbled out. “Just let the doc do his f*cking thing already. If I gotta hold you down, I will.”

Now it was Shaun’s turn to feel the hot flush of intimation wash over him, his heart racing as he fought against his own composure. Perhaps a bit too bold, he dared believe for a moment that he had even an ounce of control over this situation, but it was obvious he was toeing the line of acceptability rather precariously now. The doctor’s meekness was a rarity, and not one easily exploitable when other, more dangerous individuals were at his beck and call. He couldn’t push the issue, so that left no other option but to grin and bear it like the good little boy he was.

But the moment he accepted that fate and extended his bare, scarred forearm, the doctor flew into a panic so pronounced that he instantly turned and bolted out of the cell, leaving his patients to gawk at his sudden disappearance. The guard seemed unsure in how to act, looking between Shaun and the empty hallway with a look of extreme perplexity and agitation, but ultimately took off after the doctor.

An awkward stillness remained in their stead, like a glass just barely maintaining its balance along the edge of a table, and Shaun waited with bated anticipation for everything to come crashing down around him; but the empty hallway only echoed the sounds of a distant argument, and he was left to mellow in the aftermath of that strange encounter without any sense of closure. He felt his own hands begin to shake, and he was filled with the odd compulsion to voraciously dig his fingernails into whatever patch of skin he could find, but he managed to fight back against these sudden, anxious tics, and instead found purchase against the cool, cement wall at his back.

Deep, steady breaths kept him calm, but his mind was spinning. Not far from him, Cait’s rhythmic beeping was a comforting familiarity, soothing in a way that others might find strange, and he felt as though the time was now right for him to return the sentiment.

He approached her rather casually, frowning at the horrid condition in which the doctor left her, and before he even said a word to her, he grasped her thin, soiled blanket and draped it back across her shoulders.

But there was no gratitude towards his gesture, and none for his presence here with her, and she was quick to let it be known.

“Quite a bloody good job you did back there,” she said, her sarcasm punctuated with a ferocious glare. “Almost enough to bring a tear to my eye.”

Shaun had to bite back his tongue, though in truth he felt more shame than anger at her words. Even with her assistance, which he had done nothing to earn in the first place, he still wasn’t able to make his escape, and now he stood before her an embarrassingly failure.

If the world swallowed him up right at this moment, he would be grateful for it.

“It… wasn’t what I was prepared for,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

And without a doubt he truly was, more than she could ever glean from his soft eyes and tender voice. He didn’t have the words to express just how sorry he was for the chance he had squandered, or for the things he couldn’t do to help her, and he didn’t have the time to lament them either. This moment alone would be a rarity, and he needed to make the most of it while he could.

“I got outside, I think? But… Cait, are we underground?”

She rolled her eye at his assessment, but it was honestly the best guess he could come up with given what he’d seen. The looming darkness above him, the earthy gravel at his feet; he felt trapped out there in the open, and the thought sent a chill through his body. He could only hope that he was mistaken, overwhelmed by blindness and fear so that he only imagined such an impossible scenario.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t; but more than that-

“We’re in a vault?”

“Something like that, I think,” she muttered out. “I don’t really remember it so good anymore.”

To say he felt incredulous was an understatement, but dread overpowered everything else. With a quick glimpse towards the bars, he dutifully procured his map, squinting at its hastily made landmarks in the faint darkness; but the only vault he had known of was to the extreme northwest of the Commonwealth, and a feeling of worming anxiety squirmed uncomfortably in his gut.

He hid the map back in his pocket, cursing its uselessness.

“Cait,” he gasped out. “Do you know how to get out of this place?”

She huffed at him, doing everything in her power in express her disgust.

“Why should I bother telling you anything? You’ll just spit in back in face like everyone else; you worthless- dogsh*t, f*cking-“

And she trailed off in her obscenities, muffling her distraught and frustration into the dirty mattress. No matter what he said or how much he pleaded, she simply refused to answer him anymore; and he was too disappointed in himself to believe that was wrong to do so. Shaun went to place a tender hand along her back but pulled away before any contact could be made, uncertain as to what she needed from him and what he was even willing to do for her. He hung his head in despair, trying to make sense of everything and only further distressing himself with hypothetical disasters.

He saw a deep and mighty pit opening before him, a thin rope stretched across its endless chasm, tempting him towards freedom. Like a gaping mouth, that pit called to him, intimidating him, making him feel small and dense and so, so easy to swallow up.

The only thing that could make it worse would be if something were to suddenly push him.

And that’s when Jared came back.

Out from the inky shadows of the vault he sauntered with an eager grin and a light step, approaching the bars of the cell like an excited child running up to the window of a toy shop; but his intentions were far from demure. He seemed a perpetually jittery man, always urged into some kind of pointless action or movement by the chems he rotted his brain with; but in this moment he seemed far more restless than usual. His walk was almost like a dance without joy or celebration, shuffling on his feet as if the ground were scorching beneath him. His fingers curled and wiggled, his head bounced between his shoulders; but his gaze sharp, focusing entirely on Shaun with clarity and purpose.

Jared smiled wickedly, squeezing the iron bars in a fearsome grip.

“My boy…” he cooed, and Shaun felt himself crumple beneath that unyielding glare.

But still, he could not will himself to turn away, forcing himself to hold steady as he swallowed back his terror and offered a polite nod towards his new master; and yet, despite the present circ*mstances, Jared seemed far less angry than he had anticipated.

It was obvious he had taken the threat of an intruder with upmost severity and had run himself ragged trying to keep the situation under control. He carried a tension in his shoulders that seemed to weigh him down, as if barely managing to keep himself together. The whitish grease he painted himself with was ruined by sweat, rivulets of washed-out color running down his face without care or concern, even when it dripped into his open mouth between heavy, panting breaths. Had it been any lesser man, it would have been a shock to see them still standing at attention, but Jared was fueled by an almost supernatural determination, far greater than any of the drugs he took, and it was that incredible resilience that Shaun had come to fear the most from him.

He watched transfixed as Jared began to pull uselessly at the bars, shaking them fiercely so that they filled the air with a dreadfully piercing rattle, but the door to the did not yield to his aggression, and he frowned. Confusion was brief, and with a beastly snarl he whipped his head around, staring deeply into the darkness behind him and seeing nothing. It was enough to have him actually growl in frustration.

He turned his sights back to Shaun, his teeth grinding against each other in a painful grimace.

“Where’s the guard?” He demanded. “Why is he not here!?”

To be trapped beneath the glare of that fearsome beast was enough to crush the spirit and weaken the heart, and yet Shaun’s heart was filled with a tiny morsel of sympathy, and it urged him not to tell him the truth. He knew well the price of disobedience, had lived in fear of the wrath of his superiors for an achingly long time, and for a moment it seemed that even in this terrible place with all these terrible people, he still had no desire to see them suffer, not even for his own safety.

Shaun felt himself wither, and he hung his head down as if the shield himself from the consequences of his words.

“He… he went looking for the doctor.”

Jared co*cked his head sideways like a curious dog, not so much taken aback by this statement as he was confused by it.

“Carrington?” he asked. “How come? Did he not already come by? It’s not like him to forget important things like this.”

Shaun swallowed, a hard lump forming in his throat.

“Well… he did, but-“

But what, exactly? That was what he couldn’t decide on. What could he possibly rationalize from that encounter that would placate the man before him? He felt that he could not attest to the doctor’s odd behavior without bringing trouble towards him, and though he had displayed a rather fretful disposition towards him, it could not be said that he was above retaliation or revenge if someone were to cross him.

That only left Shaun with one other option, and given his justification for submitting himself towards higher authority, it seemed inevitable that he would take the blame.

And so, Shaun confessed to a half-truth in which the fault laid entirely on himself, emphasizing his own mistakes with grand verbose and a quivering lip. He started with the very real disobedience he enacted, despite knowing better than to resist and demand in such circ*mstances, and ended with a recount of the doctor’s calm departure from the cell, gone to search for better supplies at Shaun’s insistence. He left nothing to the imagination but his own unruliness, adverting his eyes and picking at the fabric of his sleeve in a picturesque display of shameful guilt.

It should have been more than enough to indict himself, and he expected a sudden burst of hellfire to come raining down upon him; but Jared only fixed him with a strange look, and didn’t say anything for a long time. Gone was any sense of clarity in his gaze, his eyes wide and owlish as he flicked his sights from Shaun to Cait and back again repeatedly, as if struggling to understand what was right in front of him. His jaw was tight, and he huffed out hard, bellowing breaths through his nose, but anger never settled within those hardened features.

Slowly he opened his mouth, his tongue lolling out in a thick, awkward lump, as he mumbled to himself.

“Yeah…. Yeah, you… need things to be clean. Cause of health and all that…”

He licked his lips, filling his mouth with runny grease paint, but he didn’t seem to care or even notice.

“Ok…yeah. Yeah, we will do that then.”

He grinned slightly, an unconscious reflex that seemed unnatural for his disposition, and seemed to let the matter be settled as it were.

Shaun was greatly taken aback by this surprisingly placid response, and he instinctively held his breath in anticipation for Jared’s demeanor to deviate back to its typical ruthlessness, but for some reason it never did. He only stared back at Shaun with that crude, open gaze of incomprehension, unblinking, unflinching, letting the seconds tick by without further comment.

Shaun could feel cold sweat dripping down his back.

“T-thank you, sir,” he choked out.

Jared viciously bobbed his head up and down, humming gleefully.

“Yeah… gotta make sure you’re healthy… to fulfill your purpose.”

He spoke languidly enough, but hidden within that easy tone was a hint of admiration that had him bubbling with newfound excitement. Something that might have been hope glistened in his eyes as his mouth stretched open into a wicked smile. His words carried an intense weight, one that itched the tip of his touch with an unspoken promise for something great, but he said nothing more on the subject. He let his fantasies take hold of him, his gaze growing bleary as he turned away from Shaun, intent on disappearing back into the darkness from whence he came.

In any other circ*mstance it would have been a mercy to finally be rid of that foul demon’s presence, but there was a tightness in his chest, like Jared had knowingly curled his fingers around his heart and lightly squeezed it just to taunt him, and he struggled to take in his next breath.

“Wait!” He shouted after him. “Please, could you stay here for a moment and talk to me a little?”

Jared paused abruptly in his retreat, slowly careening his head back to stare at Shaun with narrow eyes.

“Talk…” he mumbled. “Why?”

Shaun felt a lump form in his throat, and it took tremendous effort not to let it choke him as he spoke, but he still held steady with a knowing smirk playing on his lips.

“I know you want to ask me questions,” he said. “And now is the best time to indulge in your curiosity while the others are busy. Nobody else has to know but you.”

His voice had sounded level enough, but within himself he was falling apart, vibrating with urgency and panic and the need to scream out like the frightened child he was; but Jared saw none of it. Instead, he saw opportunity, the chance to bring his delusions to life once again, and his expression lit up with excitement. With a bounding leap he quickly took his place back at the cell door, taking hold of its bars and shaking them in his grasp.

“Ok!” he nearly shouted. “Ok! I want to ask questions!”

He paused for a moment as he hummed to himself, deep in thought but never taking his eyes off of the boy before him.

“Ok! I got it!” He aggressively cleared his throat before suddenly dropping his expression into a neutral, contemplative look.

“What is your name, boy?”

Shaun instinctively made to answer with the false name he had been using as of late, but then hesitated. While he had crafted this identity as a means of which to cover his affiliation with the Institute, there was now a number of people that knew “Issac” as an associate of some very questionable people as well, and he dreaded the thought of these two paths crossing one another.

He answered that his name was Danny, and trembled when Jared gave a hearty laugh in response.

“Ok then, Danny, how long have you had ‘The Sight’?”

“Only a couple years,” he said. “I used to have these little… flashes when I was younger. Like a feeling that something was going to happen, but it was never clear to me what it was. Nobody understood when I told them; most of the time they just didn’t believe me at all.”

He wasn’t entirely sure what he was even saying, but when he looked up, he saw Jared staring at him with rapt attention, his jaw slacked in awe as he soaked up every word. A faint smiling was etched across his face, for once a peaceful and natural expression that made him look almost normal, and he when Shaun fell silent, he quickly urged for him to continue.

Shaun recognized an opportunity for himself in the making, and so he dutifully he lied through his teeth, rambling about nonsense and make-believe scenarios, and watched intrigued as Jared consumed everything without question. With quick wit he carefully constructed himself a past with the hopes of a better future in store: tales about his childhood that would leave nothing to be uncovered, limitations in his ability that would impede his master’s usage of it; all of it was accepted as absolute truth by that idiot bobbing his head along to his story.

It left a sour taste in his mouth, but at the same time it made him feel clever, dastardly, so far above this crazed individual that gradually the fear had ebbed away to almost nothing, and he answered every question with great confidence. He recognized in Jared the sins of the absolute faithful, the willingness to wholeheartedly believe their own realities in spite of impossibilities or proof that existed outside of it, and so he poured Immaculate details from his mouth like honey, turning his absurdities into reality and leaving no room for doubt of any kind.

Though he was careful never to push him farther than what could indeed be believable (all things considered), always cautious of his susceptibility, never daring to shake his faith least this web of lies collapse around him. Still, there was something about how agreeable he was that tempted him in other ways, the gnawing ache of his empty stomach urging him make outrageous demands just to see if he could get away with it, but his own nervous disposition kept him from asking for the time being.

It wasn’t until the guard came back that he actually formed a rather devious idea, and steeling himself, he fixed Jared with a stern expression.

“Sir,” he started, “Can I please have something to eat? Something that’s not human, if you have it. I won’t eat human.”

Just as he had expected the guard couldn’t help but openly scoff at his audaciousness, snorting to himself in amusem*nt as he looked to his boss expectantly.

“Not human?” Jared asked. “That’s not something that’s easy to get hold of anymore.”

“And I understand that completely, but you must understand that I cannot, under any circ*mstances, consume human flesh. Doing so can inflict the body with dangerous diseases, the effect it would have on my health would be… catastrophic.”

He made a show of turning his sights towards Cait, watching from the corner of his eyes as Jared lingered on her yellow-tinged skin and protruding bones. The guard spat at him.

“A little meat isn’t gonna kill ya’, and besides, we don’t have anything else on offer.”

The man took a step forward, squaring up his shoulders so that his lean muscles looked larger in the faint shadows.

“You’ll take what you’re given and you’ll be thankful for it, alright?”

Shaun only nodded his head, not bothering to even look up at the man as Jared immediately set himself upon him viciously, his outrage punctuated by offense on his prophet’s behalf.

“Shut the f*ck up!” he screamed. “If it’s for his health it must be done, he’s more promising than any I have ever seen, and I’m not risking him getting sick now!

“The kid has only been here for a few days, boss, that’s no-“

The guard was stopped by a gruesome blow to the stomach, his words cut off in a gargling moan as he collapsed to the floor.

“But nothing! Don’t forget what this is all about! This kid is more important to us than a few cans of cram and beans; do you understand that?”

And it was evident that he did, straining his neck with the effort to bow his head before his master, humbled back into submission like a whipped dog. It was a sickening sight to bear witness to, the higher echelons of his ethical reasoning demanding his compassion for someone trapped in the same position he was; but rather than beg for this punishment to cease, he instead kept his mouth shut, and watched in awe the power that his words held. He felt queasy, his skin hot and itchy beneath the crude bandages he was still wrapped in, uncomfortable and anxious with the events playing out as they were; but when Jared left, only to return with food, he couldn’t help but smile a little.

He let his gratitude show with nimble, quick fingers eagerly grasping at the can, tearing open its contents to reveal prepackaged, non-human meat still fit for consumption, and all for him at his request. His first bite was oil and salt, abrasive on the tongue but wonderfully filling for the stomach, and he wasted no time in scouring its contents in full view of guard, savoring each morsel with a happy grin and a disgusted curl of shame hidden deep within his heart.