song: grandson - Stigmata

I shouldn't have been as surprised as I was when it happened. For about two weeks I kept working as usual, but I kept seeing Bloodwing fly by occasionally. It was like she was watching me and it did keep me thinking at times, but I didn't really expect anything to happen.

So when a huge crowd of bandits suddenly attacked from all sides, it did kind of take me by surprise. Everyone was just doing their normal daily slaving, when all of a sudden there were screams and gunshots and shouting, and our dumping site was basically stormed by bandits.

Which was great on the one hand, because it caused enough confusion to possibly get away unnoticed, but it was also pretty annoying, because I neither had a gun nor the keys to open my cuffs. That was, until I heard the all too familiar cawing of my favourite bird in the whole damn universe. Bloodwing.

The guards were busy trying to fight off the bandits coming in and causing mayhem, so I looked up just in time to see her drop something down to me and disappearing again. I ran towards whatever she had dropped down for me as quick as I could, but one of the guards must have noticed me, as I was quickly shuffling over. He came running at me and tackled me to the ground, beating me and shouting at me.

"Where do you think you're going, huh?" he growled. I tried kicking him and somehow managed to knee him in the balls which incapacitated him for long enough, so I could strangle him with the chain that was connecting my cuffs. I never killed anyone this close and I felt myself panicking a little as he was struggling to get the chain away from his neck, trying to catch some breath.

I just kept the chain tight, while he was making strange gurgling sounds. His face became red and the veins on his forehead were protruding. I just held onto the chain tightly, trying not to think about what I was doing, until he stopped struggling. No idea if he was dead or not and I didn't have time to care.

I got up quickly and ran over to the little gift Bloodwing dropped for me. It was a small dark brown pouch. When I opened it, I found a small handgun, some ammunition and a small key. Was that...? I sat down and tried the key on the cuffs on my ankles... it worked! It was the key for my cuffs. I quickly undid the ones on my hands as well, loaded the gun and put my extra ammunition in my pocket.

When I stood up it looked fairly bad for the bandits that had stormed the camp. A lot of them were down on the ground and so were a lot of my fellow prisoners. I really had to hurry.

"Get out, girl. You've obviously got someone waiting for you." I heard a voice behind me. I turned around. It was my prisoner friend, the guy I had been talking to for a good while after I saw Bloodwing for the first time.

"Yeah, I should go. Here, take this." I said and gave him the key. I had no idea if it would work on other people's cuffs as well, but it was well worth a try. He looked at the key and back at me.

"Thanks, girl. Name's Carson, by the way. Maybe we'll see each other again." he said. I nodded.

"I'd sure hope so." I replied, turning around again and legging it with my new gun in my hand. Once I had gotten a good bit away from the dumping site I slowed down. I could feel how much I was out of shape. I felt as if I was going to break down any second now. I needed to find some sort of water quickly. And food. And I needed sleep. But first I needed to get away.

I kept walking as fast as possible. At this stage I couldn't even see the labour camp anymore, but ahead of me I could see a Catch-A-Ride station. I hoped that it was still functional, even though I doubted I could actually focus well enough to drive a car. But maybe I could find some food or something to drink there. I definitely couldn't stay in this area, not with all the Hyperion people all over the place.

Once I reached the Catch-A-Ride, I raided all the little safes that were there. I even found a half-empty bottle of water, which I downed all at once. I almost cried when I found an old chocolate bar, no matter how disgusting it looked. Unfortunately that was the only food I could find and I still felt very dizzy. I needed to get further away, maybe I could find one of Zed's vending machines somewhere.

I couldn't risk driving in my current state. I had to walk and probably at a good brisk speed, if I wanted to survive. In this moment I wished I had an ECHO device, so I could at least see where I was going on the map and how far I was from everywhere else. I could really only hope I wouldn't get ambushed on the way.

It took me maybe about an hour of walking until I stumbled upon a big bounty board and also some vending machines. Never in my life had I been so happy to see one of Zed's vending machines. I probably wouldn't be able to afford much, but a healing kit or even an insta health vial should be possible. And with the bounty board usually came a map, so I could hopefully see where I needed to go.

I ran (or rather limped) to the vending machines as fast as I could. I would be barely able to afford a single health vial, but I was sure it would be worth it. With a health vial I should be good enough to drive and that would get me to safety way quicker. With shaking hands I reached for the vial and injected it. It took a moment until it kicked in, but I felt so much better in just a few seconds.

I made my way over to the bounty board and was able to find out where I was fairly quickly - I was way too close to the dust and the Gulag than I would have liked. To get anywhere close to New Haven I needed to get into the Badlands first. It seemed to be a really long way off. But with a car I should be able to get there within a day or two. With my constitution at the moment, maybe a few more days than that. But it should be doable. I had a good chance.

I decided to finally get a move on and get myself that car, so I could at least get out of this hub of Hyperion activity. If I could make it to Fyrestone today, that was good. I could see Zed, he could probably help me up on my feet again. And then it shouldn't be too difficult to get to New Haven after that.

I still couldn't believe my luck. A few weeks ago I thought I was going to slowly rot away in this Hyperion prison and now I was a free woman again. Fair enough, I was pretty starved and dehydrated and sleep-deprived still, but at least I had the possibility to get back on my feet again.

I wondered how Carson was doing. I never thought much of the rest of the prisoners, but he seemed to be somewhat decent. And his name sounded kinda familiar, too. But I figured anyone who spent some time in this hell hole would seem decent after a while. I did kind of hope he and maybe a few others managed to escape. In the end we were all just some poor sods trying to get by.

As I looked out through the dry wasteland around me, I felt somewhat sick. All this had been my home for years and yes, it was a total shithole, but now it seemed like it was absolutely ruined because of Hyperion. And they had only just started to mine Eridium around here.

Thinking about how this area would probably get a lot worse was terrible. It made me feel completely powerless, especially thinking back to how many people had probably been displaced while I was gone. I could barely recognize some parts that I was driving through. And all this time I could still only hope that my vault hunter friends were doing okay and that Hyperion hadn't found them yet.

I had no recollection of how long it took me to get to Fyrestone, but it invovled a wild car chase with a bandit patrol. I had passed through a part of the badlands where some pipelines were already being constructed, I was lucky that it was night and there were no workers there at the moment.

I was already falling asleep on the wheel more than I liked, when I finally reached the gate to Fyrestone. The town looked almost exactly like I remembered it and it seemed like Hyperion hadn't spread that far yet. At least that was some good news. I jumped out of the car and dragged myself through the little graveyard until I finally reached Zed's little shelter.

There was some light inside, so I knocked on the door as loud as I could. It wasn't very loud, because I was completely weakened, but then again Zed's place was only small. He should be hearing it. I knocked again, when nothing happened after a while. I heard some rumbling inside.

"Who's there?" Zed's voice came from the other side of the door. I sighed with relief. He was there. Good.

"It's me, Nova. Please let me in, I might be dying." I answered. Might be dying was an understatement. The automatic door opened and I stumbled inside. Zed was there, thankfully, holding onto me and keeping me from falling. I was dizzy and everything was spinning.

"Good God, what happened to you?"