Hey guys, its been a while and I'm sorry. I've got a lot of projects to do and with other parts of life I just end up tired and have little motivation to write. But i'll be doing it because I enjoy it and as an author, I live to please. I'll continue with our memoirs and ask you a question at the end.
"It is your road, and yours alone. Others may walk it with you, but no one may walk it for you." -Rumi
I don't know how long I was out there in the wilderness. I thought I was going north. The great planes appeared and the tumbleweeds disappeared so I assumed I was going in the right direction. But when you're out there surviving in the wasteland... There is an animal in every one of us. When man fails to supply himself with sensible means, this great beast pushes mans mind down and crawls forth in is horror. This beast pushes man to eat one another in hunger situations and to fight beasts of much greater strength as equal or greater, and it is this beast that possess parents when their children face danger.
I managed to eventually find the red river and the towns that sprang up upon it. Somehow, the Red river became cleaner in the absence of man during the apocalypse. The people living on it fished and traded with each other by going up and down the river. You could drink the water but you could taste the earth and, even if it was cleaner, it would still turn you into a ghoul, even if after a longer period. This was a welcome sight to me. I hadn't seen water in two days days and I could feel myself withering inside and out. I ran to the shore and dunked my entire head in the water. I drank all i could in gulps and I swear, that was the best tasting drink I've ever had in my entire life. The only reason I pulled my head up to take a gulp of air. Thats when I noticed that I was next to 7 male and female rad-stags with their fawns. They were drinking and looking at me peculiarly. I returned their gaze. I then looked at my reflection in the water. I seemed 2 years older than I did when I set off. This concerned me a small bit in the back of my mind. Apparently I had been out there in the waste for two years. Too busy wandering to actually pick up an affinity for the land. I had dust, mud, and scratches covering my face and then I looked at my own body. It seemed that I had completely lost my clothes over the previous days. I was naked and covered in dried blood, mud, and dust.
I looked back to the rad-stags and then went back to drinking. The Stags did the same.
Interesting thing about Rad-stags. I've heard out east that Rad-stags have two heads and extra legs. But out here, a few hundred years of pure primal natural selection has breeded traits like that out. The ones out here are tough and tall. They have solid smoke grey, solid Jet black, or solid blood red eyes and, like the Ma-Siwangs, their heads look skeletal with burnt skin clinging to it and no cheeks. The males antlers grow out in strange and sometimes terrifying ways and they fight each other or ram trees to break them because they never stop growing. The females have strong legs for running... or trampling... When their young are threatened, those mamas will flatten you. The ballsiest of hunters will stick out a spear or bayonet towards a charging mother to bring her down. If it doesn't go through her heart, they still die, or wish she killed them.
Rad-stag hides out here are tough. Stack a few together and you've got some bulletproof armor. Relatively speaking. Nothings invincible. But back to my story.
I pulled myself out of the mud and stood up. The stags must have gotten a little antsy and started their young who'd sated their thirst back into the forest about 7 meters behind me. I realized how famished I was. I traded my switch for a canteen of water a few weeks back. I was seeing shit and I felt like the wind could blow me over so I reasoned living was better than the small protection that knife gave me. A wandering trader was kind enough to take me up on the conclusion for a canteen of water. It was worth the knife. Tasted like brahmin piss because he cleaned it with chlorine tablets but I didn't realize that until I'd hit the bottom of the canteen, 3 rationed days later.
I started walking through along the muddy bank towards what I believed to be a fishing town down the river. It was about a mile. A small distance. I saw some jackal-berries on my way. No matter how hungry I was, I'd never eat a jackal-berry. They're these little purple berries that once ingested, they give you terrible hallucinations and then you'll start laughing hysterically and convulsing violently until you hit your head or die of asphyxiation. You know those laughing noises Jackals make? Thats the kind of laughing you start to do 5 minutes before you die. Thus the name. The animals out here stay away from them so you can crush them and sprinkle the juice and pulp around your camp and most things will keep a respectable distance. You can also coat your skin in them and even terror birds and death-claws will find you too unappetizing to attack. I wasn't so starved I was going to shove some of those in my mouth.
The mud beneath my feet was cool, despite the searing heat. My peeled, burned, tanned body didn't notice that anymore. I stared at the ground, watching my feet leave prints in the mud. I was about a quarter mile from the town when I saw some fishermen out with their nets cast in the river. I started towards them and they noticed me coming towards them. I couldn't read their expressions but I think that it was shocked and confused. They staked their nets and watched me. I was about 7 meters from them when I fell to my knees. I bowed my head closed mt eyes. I exhaled deeply and couldn't help but feel a long journey was coming to an end. They yelled and ran towards me,
if a little hesitantly. I fell forward into the mud and passed out.
I woke up in a small shack on a bed with a wooden frame with pelts and straw. There was a small table against the wall. I groggily came to and wondered how I'd gotten here. Then I remembered the fishermen and prayed that this had no connection to raiders. The door opened and I was too weak to bolt upright. A girl in rad-stag clothes walked in. She seemed to be a little older than me. Maybe by 2 or 3 years. Her skin was a lovely dark olive. She had sizable breasts and long hair that draped over her shoulders like long, black curtains.
Her body was fit and her hips curved away from her to reveal strong, toned legs that the pelts covered like a long loin-cloth down to the middle of her thighs. She wore rad-stag moccasins. Her face seemed gentle but stern with medium lips and a small nose. Her eyes... I'll never forget them... They were a luscious earthy red like clay.
She was carrying a wooden bucket with a rag hanging out of it. "Look who's awake. That saves me the trouble." She set the bucket on the table.
"Who are you? Where am I?" I mustered out.
"You're in clay. And my name is Onyx." She said. "Vox and Lionel said you just showed up naked and dirty and collapsed. You're still naked and dirty but you're safe now. No bandasnatches near here. So tell me, who are you, and where are you from?" The girl who I'd just learned was Onyx put her hands on her hips and frowned.
"M-Maxim..." I choked out. "I don't know where I'm from. My parents were traders."
"And where are they now?" Onyx asked with an appeared feeling that she already knew the answer.
"Dead. Or ones dead and the other one probably wishing they were..."
"Raiders?" She asked.
"Worse..."
"Well, damn. It doesn't get much worse than raiders. What was it?"
"Some guys called "Caesars Legion". They're conquering a lot of land to the south. I've been running from them. I think for 2 years... I don't know..."
"Two whole fucking years?" She furrowed her eyebrows in concern.
I looked down at my naked form. Caked in dirt, sand, and surface scars. I sighed. I was exhausted.
"Well, as long as you behave yourself, you can stay here. We make a decent living for a small town and trade with the other settlements along the red river." She looked over to the bucket and then moved to my bed side. "Clean yourself up and go see the spinners. They'll have clothes for you, but not until you're clean. You stink like fish carcasses and look like deathclaw food. I'll be waiting outside if you need me." She then proceeded outside of the shack.
I spent some time cleaning myself up, it was hard as I had dirt and dried blood caking everywhere, including my privates. Which were extremely sensitive when all of the natural protection was removed. I wasn't squeaky clean but it was as clean as I had ever been, save the day I was born. I walked outside, slightly self conscious.
There was a tanner across from the building, on his wooden porch, pursuing his craft. I heard a blacksmith beating his hammer on metal in the background. 100 feet away was the red river, with people fishing and children playing on the bank. There were people moving about their daily lives. Down a path from my diverted one, there was a town square with salesmen screaming their products to the town. A tailor here, a baker there, a gunsmith alone, a man selling statues of clay and stone. Onyx walked around the corner of the building and looked me over. I blushed.
"Don't blush, you have nothing to be embarrassed about." She motioned to my toned torso and muscular lower parts. "Seems two years in the wastes did wonders for your complexion and... yeah... Well, the spinners are this way." I followed her into the square and walked past stores. There were other people, men and women, who scarcely wore more than me. Tribesman too who were covered in paint and wore varying degrees of clothing. There was a man who wore nothing but a yao-guai pelt. I decided to put him on my list of "people not to fuck with". She led me down a street, loose creek stones made up the road in this place. We walked past a two story building I made the assumption to be a brothel, with scarcely clad women with slightly exaggerated extremities seductively enticing men to stop by. One muscular, handsome man did the same to passing women. There was a woman with... larger bosoms and backside who was quite tan like she was from old India who caught my attention. She wore old linen bandages over her body to exaggerate her curves, she had a white smile and beautiful coffee eyes. I was enticed, "maybe another time" I whispered to myself. I was a teenager,
my sexual prime, none could have expected me to be an abstinence crusader. In fact none I've ever met has been one.
Onyx led me to a store with an open window(no glass) and a shaded front porch. Clothes hung from the ceiling in sight of the window. We went inside and met elderly women who appeared quite friendly.
"Hello, Diana." Onyx said to the woman behind the counter inside. I looked around and there were clothes hanging from the ceiling and walls.
"Hello deary, who is your new friend?" the woman replied.
"This is Maxim. He's new around here and has a lack of clothing. I brought him here because I know you're the best in clay." She smiled.
The old woman smiled back. "You don't need to butter me up. Let me just get a look at him." She looked me up and down. I felt slightly violated. "Yes, radstag will work... Measurements...
Yes, that should be right from the proportions. She went into a back room behind the counter and came back a moment later with 7 radstag shirts, pants, and sewn linen bandage underwear. "Will these do?"
"Yes, these will do fine." Onyx said, examining them. "How about 14 bass in return?"
"No, onyx. You can just have them. Radstag is out of style, we were just going to burn them, but this will put them to good use."
"Thank you so much, Diana!"
"Don't mention it. I'm glad to help. And I appreciate the eye candy at times." She chuckled.
I blushed severely and Onyx burst out laughing.
We left and I clothed as soon as possible. We meandered about and she showed me the sights of Clay. It was thriving. This is what humanity built from absolutely nothing.
Now that's determination. That is glorious.
I said to myself, I think I can make a home here. So I did, for 4 years. You may turn your back on the past, but the past never turns its back on you.
