Ten days…. Thirst….
Atkin groaned. He muffled the noise into his tattered shirt, bit the cloth and pinched his eyes shut as a wave of hammering throbs exploded at his temples. He wouldn't cry aloud again. Not after what the savages did to him. Not after witnessing the torture the other captives suffered. His ribs were still tender to the touch, but he could breathe much easier than before.
Atkin considered himself lucky in retrospect. He had begged for water once, and only once. For his punishment they chained him upright, his arms latched above his head, openly exposing his torso, and threw boiling water against his skin. They focused their aim on his back and armpits. The sensitive cluster of nerve endings exploded in scorching agony. Blisters bubbled up like tiny oozing eggs, enlarging with each consecutive scalding splash.
Atkin begged them, blubbering between his gasp for air, sobbing for them to stop…
The blisters were well formed by the time they had ran out of boiled water. From there they proceeded to use his chest and ribs, whipping branches across his soft flesh until each swing sprayed blood droplets like a fine mist. The lacerations would undoubtedly leave him marked forever, but then again, it could have been worse as he had come to see first-hand.
Night after night, as Atkin healed from his wounds, men and women who shared space within the crudely constructed cages were selected at the whims of drunken doped up raiders. They found new and terrifying methods to inflict the prisoners with pain. Just like the dozens of other caged inhabitants, he was forced to listen to the sounds of horror. The wailing and screams of people brought to the farthest limits of suffering.
The beatings were often quick. Raiders suffering from withdrawal were quick to deliver a few, yet powerful punches and kicks. Bleeding and bruised faces were the most common feature amongst the captives. Trapped in their cages, many of the people curled in a ball and attempted to lay low as though they could avoid detection or disappear all together if they held still enough. Anything to not draw attention to themselves.
At first, Atkin believed there was little to no rhyme or reason in their selection process. He thought it was based upon who looked the healthiest or strongest even. But as days and nights passed, he couldn't help but recognize, in some instances, that the same person was selected multiple times. The people selected to suffer more than the rest tended to be the ones who screamed the loudest. The ones who flailed the most. Cried and begged the fiercest. Who ever could offer the most entertainment for the audience because that is all it was most nights. Entertainment. But there was a difference in the type of torture, depending on time of day and who was administering it.
When the raiders wanted to celebrate, some poor soul, perhaps someone who appeared the least afflicted, was dragged kicking and screaming over the crusted mud to the center of what Atkin could only describe as a kicking circle. Hooting and howling like wild beast, the raiders would rain down a relentless whirlwind of kicks and punches strong enough to rupture organs, dislocate joints, fracture and break bones, open wounds and even kill when the victim had lost all functionality of their limbs. Of the three circle beatings observed, only yards from where the remaining captives fearfully watched, only one survived. The other two were dragged away under gales of laughter. Beaten long after they had gone limp and breathless. The one survivor was caged only feet away from Atkin's cage and as far as Atkin could tell, he was still alive or the raiders would have probably done something with his corpse. From time to time Atkin could hear raspy breathing from his direction even though the body seemed to never really move. It had only been one night for him to recover, and Atkin was skeptical if he ever would.
Some people were chosen more carefully. Before they were pulled from the cage, there seemed to be a careful evaluation that would take place. A couple of raiders would slowly walk through and peak into the cages. They would speak amongst themselves and Atkin could pick up on their broken English. Some words were completely alien to him, but the majority were clear enough to be understood. They were looking and evaluating the condition of their prisoners features. Atkin found himself praying to some unknown entity as they would move from cage to cage, slowly closing in to where he laid, begging with all his soul they would find what they were looking for before getting to him. He had seen enough of what they did to the people they wanted something from.
On one occasion there was no evaluation and the victim had been chosen as though it had been an obvious choice from the moment they were dragged into the camp. Three large men marched directly to a tall slender man with long gold hair and aggressively pulled him out of his cage. They broke his arms and legs with precise and experienced efficiency. The man roared like a wild beast, vomiting in an uncontrollable response to the unprecedented pain as they lifted him from the ground and carried him to a table darkened with the dried blood of hundreds, if not thousands of previous victims. They broke his jaw carelessly as they dug into his mouth with tools and pulled teeth as roughly as they would pull a twisted nail from wood. They scalped him without a trace of shame or doubt, pulling and skinning his hair and flesh from the skull, tossing it to the side where they later retrieved it once the man laid motionless and quiet.
And that's how it was. Some people were tortured for entertainment. As for others…. If you had a set of teeth or long hair, clean skin or distinctive bone shape that was at all admirable or distinct, they took it from you. it was to be adorned over a nightmarish garb that harmonized with the rest of the rustic metal and death worshiping armor and attire worn throughout their tribe. For them, the ones chosen for such features, death couldn't come quick enough. Their cries… screams… the sounds of hell that carried far in the open fields. Always awake. Always aware. Sometimes given adrenaline shots so they could witness their very body parts being cut, torn, broken and removed without the mercy of blacking out.
As for the raiders. What was truly horrifying was their lack of human response. Their complete opposite human behavior. A clear infatuation with the suffering and agony they surrounded themselves with. Pain was treated with religious respect. They were delighted by its presence. Blessed by its presence. They gathered with wide eyed glee and soaked in its omnipresence. The look in their eyes was madness as they lusted for its companionship. They were administers of death. Without shame, guilt, sympathy or mercy. They were fanatical zealots in their way of life and their way of life was nothing but blood craving lunacy.
Atkin had never known fear like this. They weren't men. They couldn't be.
From the vault, Atkin was taught that the world had changed. The society he thrived in while in the vault was a semblance of what was once on the surface. But the world had changed. It had become crueler. More dangerous. More about staying alive and less about living your life. The Vault Tec courses covered the basics of genetic mutation and the long term effects of radiation, but in his worst nightmares he couldn't imagine what was really prowling just above. Nothing could prepare him for the types of beast scavenging the wasteland. This was not the world he learned about. It couldn't be. And these couldn't be men like him.
The people of the vault were the hope for the future and they would bring civilization back to the world. It was the idea planted in his mind ever since he could remember. Repeated daily like an unconscious spasm of the mind. Vault dwellers were the best and brightest. Vault dwellers were the perfect collection of minds and bodies of the old world. Vault dwellers were carefully selected, for they were the few who would rise once more from the vaults and rebuild a better brighter future.
Atkin coughed some phlegm onto the ground. It tasted like iron and dust. The raiders fed them the very minimum portions of food. Water was a little more frequent but not by much. His head had been throbbing for days due to dehydration. It was obvious to Atkin now just how ill prepared they were to reclaim the new world. While they lived in relative safety and warmth, the world above them had become hard and cold. Where they had been raised with soft understanding, taught polite civility, those on the surface learned to survive through harsh conditions and grew wise through experience.
Nothing in his books could compare with the life lesson obtained through face to face encounters with wild beast, haywire robots, super mutant caravans and feral ghouls. No one explained to him the change in human behavior of even the most civilized individual when confronted with starvation and self preservation. No one knew so many people had learned to survive on the surface by turning on their own kind and becoming more like the monsters around them.
He emerged from the vault a naïve young man who believed he was pioneering a new frontier. They all believed it. It was the only way they could imagine the world above. They stepped into the sun light holding hands in some grand gesture of solidarity. Tools in hand with a notion of farming and creating communities where civilization would be born again and through the ages, progress would find ways to a bright and promising future. The warmth of sunlight kissed their skin and a sense of opportunity and hope washed over them, cleansing away the doubt and anticipation. Their time had come.
For a moment, Atkin remembered what it was like… He remembered the vault. He didn't know what the night would hold for him, but at least he had this moment to slightly comfort him. He closed his eyes and remembered better days, waiting for sleep to take him away. A large part of him hoping he wouldn't wake up.