Survival
Chapter Three: Change and Survival
Relk sat in the chair, it was red yacow leather and comfortable, it had been chosen to be reassuring, just as the paint of the walls was chosen to be calming. The man sitting opposite him was a psychologist, and for the past two and a half hours they had talked about the orphanage, the war and his attempt to kill himself. He would have many such sessions as time passed.
And time did pass; now it was now six months since Jak had achieved victory in Kraz. An old ally had come and offered to take custardy of him, less than a week after the first conversation with the physiologist, but Relk had chosen to stay, and then after seven months of treatment he made a decision...
The walking stick made a gentle patting sound. In Haven it would have made a sharp clack or clang as it struck concrete or metal but here it was muffled by grass and leaf mould. Relk had left the city as soon as he was judged stable and headed out beyond where any Guard patrolled and past where the Wastelanders hunted. Now the only civilization he saw were occasional Lurker villages and traces of the precursor's former dominance. The constant walking and the many times he had to fight off metal heads had made him still better at surviving in the wilds. He ate what he could gather, and he used what shelter he could make.
His appearance had changed since he had planned to end his own life, his hair was longer and a beard (made uneven by his scar) had grown from the stubble he had formerly sported. He carried a new dirk on his back alongside an axe which was more used as a tool than a weapon. He was more tanned, more sure and most of all here he looked right, this was where he was meant to be and it showed. The slight frown that had been his usual expression was replaced with a look of determined confidence.
Relk was out here because he had realised the truth about himself, he was not a man for civilisation, not a man for safety. He needed to walk in the rain, to feel the glare of the animal that would try to kill him, to know that no help would come. He might visit the city from time to time, to see if anything was worth staying for, but he saw his life in front of him. Walk over the land seeing new sights every day, kill metalheads, eat what he found, and then die much younger than he would in the city.
Life was violent. Life would be short. Life was exactly as it should be.
End
