My thighs and calves were burning like someone had been jabbing flaming knives into them. Tony and I had been on the run what I would guess two months, but it felt like ten years of constant fearing for our lives.

"C'mon Tony we have to keep going, they can find us any moment now." I said in between breaths.

I glanced down at Dominik. He was running sore-footedly. I could tell his pads were torn from all the running, because there was a trail of little blotches of blood going back on the sand behind us. Tony was drained of all energy like I was, but yet I felt excited for some reason, but there was no reason to. There is nothing to be happy about running for your lives, constantly thinking that a bullet can come whizzing by and plant itself in the back of your head at any time. I must be at the breaking point of insanity. At this point, with all the shit we have all been through, I am surprised any of us have any emotions at all.

I told Tony to stop for the night and make camp in the cluster of trees ahead of us. We both got our bedrolls out and I got Dominik's blanket out and placed it between our bedrolls. We finally got to relax knowing we were ahead of the Enclave enough to get a few hours of sleep.

We never should have joined the Enclave, we thought we were helping everyone. When really we were destroying what was left of this fucked up world. How could we not have known? I thought to myself as I laid down on my bedroll.

"Vox, I can't keep going like this, I just can't." Tony said in a low tone, his emotion breaking through his strong British accent.

"There is nothing more we can do Tony. We are low on everything. We don't have enough food to last another day. We have two combat knives and enough ammo for a few shots with our guns." I said dreadfully.

"Yeah, I guess yo- *bark* *growl*"

"Shit, Dominik sees something, I'll get my knife, you wait back here with your rifle." I whispered to Tony.

Dominik ran off into the darkness, with me following close behind. I crouched down and slowed my pace. The only thing I could hear was the crunch of the gritty sand and the occasional crack of a rock that broke under my weight. He began growling again and stopped abruptly staring off in the distance, causing me to bump into him with my knee. I scanned all around and saw what Dominik was growling at, a large figure about thirty yards away. I could only see the gleam of two yellow eyes from the moonlight and a silhouette of a figure around eight or nine feet tall.

"Dominik, come here buddy." I said quietly.

He slowly walked back to me but never did look me in the eyes. His attention was on whatever the hell was out there in front of us. His hair on his back was standing, and his lips were in a snarl. He was ready to fight but I didn't allow him to attack, not against something of that size that could surely kill him. I got his attention and began walking back to the camp. He kept glancing at the figure every few seconds while looking at me. I patted my thigh to get him to come to me and he slicked his ears back and slowly came back to me, still glancing at the figure. I made my way back to our makeshift camp and explained to Tony what Dominik and I had seen.

"So it was that tall?" Tony said with a shocked look on his face.

"Pretty sure, I know it was taller than us."

"Should we go after it?" Tony asked "I mean, to make sure it doesn't come after us."

"We can't afford to, or not to." I said "We need our ammo, but we don't want to be food for that fucking thing."

"I say we take half our ammo and our knives; Only use ammo as a last resort." Tony said.

"I guess that's what we will have to do." I sighed. "That thing is much, much bigger than us, we will have to be careful and not rush into a fight."

I got my .44 magnum and three bullets. Tony picked up his assault rifle and one of his two clips. We decided to flank it instead of going directly into a fight to try to catch it off guard. I was leading with Tony behind me and Dominik to our left. I kept at a slow pace for a while watching for it. I accidentally kicked something metallic, and it caused me to stumble over it into a cold puddle of something.

"Vox, get up man." Tony said grabbing my arm and pulling me up.

"Fuck! What did you fall in?" Tony exclaimed, wiping his hand on his pants.

"I have no idea. I think we are still far away from it, let me turn on my light." I said.

*Click*

"Son of a fucking bitch! Its fucking blood, mother fucker! I hate fucking blood, so fucking bad." Tony said with a disgusted look, not even looking at what the blood was coming from.

The blood was coming from a mutilated Enclave soldier. His arm was completely gone all the way to his shoulder and there was a mix of bodily fluids everywhere. His helmet was near his body and his face was torn to, literally, shreds of flesh. His bottom jaw was a few feet behind what was left of his body. His power armor was broken off at the stomach, with intestines strewn everywhere, torn and with feces leaking out of them. You could smell the death in the air. The smell was so putrid and rancid that it was debilitating. Tony started gagging and I was at the point of passing out. My vision started going black and I could barely hear anything. I sat down for a second, making sure not to sit in anything I didn't want to. After regaining my senses I scanned the area for other victims and found four more dead soldiers, two scientists, and two officers, one still clinging to life. I walked up to the officer. He was a young male with short black hair and a large scar starting at the end of his face going down past his neck. He was clutching his right arm and had severe lacerations on his chest and legs. I noticed a smeared streak of blood leading up to his near lifeless body, presumably the officer pushing himself away from the massacre. His breathing was labored and he showed no emotion when I appeared, as if he had already accepted his death. I began feeling the weight in the back of my throat, and my vision started going blurry from the tears. I pitied these people, even though they were coming to kill me, that didn't prevent me from pitying them as human beings. It was the work of sadistic savages, or a horrible creature derived from demons themselves.

"It had t- *cough* to have been that thing out there..." I said, holding back the hot bile in the back of my throat.

Tony grunted in reply.

I turned my attention back to the officer.

"We need to take him out of his misery. There is no use in keeping him in pain." I said.

"Hell, you do it. I don't want any more fucking blood on me." Tony said pointing at the blood on his hand and pants.

"Fine. But I can't afford to use any of our ammo."

I just couldn't make my self use a knife on him, I wanted him dead as quick as possible. I started reviewing all of the fighting techniques the Enclave had taught me. I remembered a move that could instantly kill any unprotected human being if done properly. I took a deep breath.

"Sorry kid." I unhappily said.

I readied my fist and swung with all my might. The back of my hand and all of my knuckles landed right on his throat, and feeling almost everything in his throat give completely, I slowly took my hand back. It was done.