The attack was sudden, all consuming, inescapable. Smoke grenades burst through the windows and skittered across the dirt floor that she slept on with her family, instantly choking them with thick clouds of gray gas. Disoriented, the little group was unable to find their way to the exit and instead screamed and grabbed for each other as a heavy boot kicked in the rickety front door. It was overkill. The shack was ramshackle at best, and yet these men were attacking as if it were a siege on a well-defended fort. Heart pounding, the girl clung to what she thought was her mother with such force that her fingers began to ache, but seconds later there was a deafening pop of semi-automatic gunfire and she struggled to keep hold of her parent's arm as the older woman plummeted to the floor with a heavy thud. Still unable to see, she spun in circles and screamed for her father, for anyone, to help, and she heard him call out to her as well until his voice was also cut short by the same ear-ringing shots as before. Another shriek escaped her lips almost without her realizing it; the longer the terror went on the more she felt like an audience watching the events transpire in front of her. It began to feel as if these atrocities were happening to someone else in another universe who happened to share her face. It wasn't real, couldn't be. These attacks happened to other settlements farther out in the wastes, not to her and her family who lived only a few miles from the nearest town. Raiders weren't brave enough to attack folks who had help nearby, everyone knew that. Her own screaming was cut soon short by two hard impacts of a rifle stock against her skull, and the smoky darkness that had consumed her seconds before gave way to something much more inky and unavoidable.
Boom.
Boom.
Gone.
Being knocked out isn't like how it's described in the comics she used to read, and this is a fact she found out firsthand when she came to a few minutes later with a splitting pain in her head and a mouth that tasted like battery acid. There were no blissful hours or days of darkness to keep her safe from the fear of what came next, only a few minutes of nothing and then a painful awakening. Vision blurry, the girl cried out for help once again and tried to move up onto her arms in an effort to stand, only to find her hands bound and useless behind her back. They were already going numb from her weight resting directly on them and the pressure on her spine of her fists pressing into her back only added to the discomfort. An enormous weight pressed her lower half down and, blinking rapidly, the bleary image of her childhood home engulfed in twenty foot flames materialized into view along with the shadow of her captor lingering over her body, his hands working at her pajama pants. Reality seemed to warp in and out of existence, the only thing anchoring her to the earth being the taste of acid and blood and dirt in her mouth and the sharp, hot pain in her scalp. No longer possessing the faculties to defend herself even in any minor way, she felt her body go limp as she plopped flat onto her back again. The moon was bright, stars twinkling overhead with indifference as the stranger atop her yanked her clothes every which way and groped at her body. He slid inside her with a grunt and the sharp twinge in her center was quickly lost in the sea of larger agonies that consumed her battered flesh. Her head lolled to the side wearily, saliva dripping from the corner of her mouth; the young woman could absently hear laughter and the shuffle of many feet around them as the stranger took her but she was unable to care. Blue eyes fixed on the flame-engulfed corpse of her home, she did not even have the presence of mind to cry.
Soon enough, he was finished with her. The weight on her lower half drifted away and a warm ache grew between her legs, though try as she might she couldn't muster the energy to feel any particular way about it. A loud, rough voice called out in the sea of ringing in her ears, asking 'who's next?!', and though that was frightening enough to send a spurt of adrenaline into her veins and send her wriggling weakly onto her stomach in an effort to stand, she was still too weak to do anything but yelp quietly when the next man pushed her flat onto the baked dirt with his boot and sank to his knees behind her. The effects of the blows to her head had begun to loosen their grip on her, but only slightly. Just enough for her to let out a long, wordless scream as the second, third, fourth, man claimed her body. Her hands struggled weakly in their bonds, just enough to rub the skin on her wrists to the point of bleeding, tears soaked into the dirt beneath her and her once shiny auburn hair turned to a matted nest around her shoulders and stuck to her face. It didn't deter any of them. Eventually, they grew tired of her wailing and there was a distant, shouted command to shut her up; a new pair of boots clomped into her vision and she struggled to look up at the man without much success until he again silenced her with the butt of his rifle.
This time, the trauma was too great for the girl's brain to bounce back within moments. It wasn't until the radiating warmth of the wasteland sun began to beat down on her face that she woke up again, slowly and with much hesitation. Her eyes were swollen and dry, lips so chapped that they had already both bled and crusted over with scabs in the hours before her awakening, hair matted to the sides of her head with blood, tongue thick and uncooperative. Her hands were still bound, but this time in front of her belly so she could lie flat in the back of the wagon with the spoils of the raid arranged all around her like a weird little shrine. Eyes bouncing from each artifact, there was no longer any significance to any of it. Hunting rifles that her father cherished, liquor that her mother had kept stored away for special occasions, none of it rang a bell. Her eyes fluttered shut again, exhausted from the effort it had taken to focus her gaze on even the objects just inches from her, and her mind instead focused on the soft jingling of the harness that kept the pack brahmin hitched to the cart as they trundled along.
"Hey boss, I saw her move!" A strange voice shouted, sending her heart pounding into her ears. She was so disoriented it hadn't occurred to her that there might be someone driving the cart and watching to see if she woke up. Her world had insofar been reduced to tinkling bottles of whiskey, the feeling of warm planks of wood under her back and the hot sun on her face, nothing more or less. Another voice drifted on the wind from several yards ahead of them and She got the notion that she should recognize it, but alas there was nothing when she tried to probe her memory for it.
"Stim 'er and get 'er some water! We gotta keep her going til we get to Boston!"
The man driving the cart dropped the reins beside him and climbed over the back of the seat, stepping around the sides of her head carefully so as not to trip over her. Her eyes remained shut, the effort of looking at him too insurmountable to consider. There was some shuffling around her, probably digging around in various bags to get the necessary items gathered, and then a hand gently tapped her dirt-streaked cheek.
"Hey, I know you're awake. C'mon." Said the man, and she was forced to pry her eyes open again at last. Everything was cloudy, shaky, her vision unfocused and drifting without her permission. She tried to speak, to ask what happened, but her mouth wouldn't sync up with the words generated in her mind and she finally stopped mumbling at the stranger when he screwed up his face in confusion at her. Shaking his head slightly, he lifted her tied hands and gently turned one of her arms just enough to expose the crook of her elbow and the thick blue vein there. He uncapped a large needle and she tried to watch him tap the side of it with his fingernail, getting rid of the air bubbles, but finally she settled on closing her eyes again and pretending she was elsewhere.
"Wassat?" She finally managed to choke out, feeling the sharp prick in her skin as he injected her. He didn't answer at first and she began to think he didn't hear her, but he eventually responded and by the time she managed to try and look at him again he was already working on opening a second needle.
"First one was a Stim, this one's a homebrew mixed up by yours truly. It's a mix of Psycho and Mentats. Gives you energy but it's like, a chiller high, ya know?"
She nodded, pretending she understood what any of that meant. Language comprehension was escaping her at the moment, and instead the girl focused on the warmth that spread from the injection in her arm and into her chest. It felt good. The first pleasant sensation she could remember having since...ever. He patted her arm after the second injection as if to hurry the drugs along, and then gently propped her up against the back of the cart and shoved an uncapped bottle of water into her still-tied hands, quickly making his way back toward the driver's seat to redirect the brahmin as it headed toward a patch of grass just off the road.
After a few minutes, she practically felt brand new. Well, as brand new as one could feel in the situation. She drank the water so quickly it cramped her stomach and while her face was still sunburnt and the open cuts on her head had begun weeping again, it was a major improvement. Even though her body felt too weak to actually do anything, energy coursed through her veins and she felt like she might crawl out of her skin. The various aches and pains she'd accumulated from the previous night seemed inconsequential, and she stiffly turned her head to try and call over her shoulder at the cart driver.
"S'goodstuff!" Her words were jumbled and slurred but he must have understood, because the man laughed hoarsely back at her and urged the brahmin on to keep up with the others.
As the hours ticked away, she drifted in and out of consciousness. The driver occasionally leaned over to poke her and make sure she hadn't suddenly died, but each time she'd slowly raise her head to look blearily at him. Over the course of the day, they stopped only twice to rob travellers on the deserted road; each time the gang would follow the same script and eventually the girl began to find it kind of funny.
"Put your guns down, kick 'em over to me and drop your bags!" Was how the robberies began, and while she figured there was another script for if the travellers decided to fight back she never got to hear that because they never did.
"Cooperate and you'll live, it's that simple." The leader's voice would call out as she sat in the back of the cart, too weak to stand up and watch the events transpire. Mostly it was that line that she found humorous, because the people always believed him and he always shot them dead the second they handed over their stuff. The stockpile in the brahmin cart began to grow, piles of random shit leaning into her space and wobbling precariously as they made their way down the road, but luckily the sun began to set and there was a barked command from ahead to pull over and make camp.
Once they were stationed under a copse of ragged looking trees, the driver climbed over the seat again to try and help her stand. It was very gentlemanly of him, she decided, the way he gently grabbed her elbows and hauled her to her feet, though she didn't have the presence of mind to thank him at the time. Instead, the only thing she could come up with was, "Gottapiss!" because, well, she did. Her legs were wobbly when the man sat her down on the dirt next to the cart, but she steadied herself against his shoulder and he guided her to a tree a little ways away from the camp and helped her pull her ripped pants down to urinate. Again, very gracious of him.
"You stink." He said, thus removing any brownie points she had previously assigned him. She struggled to look him in the eye for a moment and nodded silently, because she was sure she did stink even though that's not a nice thing to say to someone. "S'd'you!" She murmured back at him, although she didn't really seem to have a sense of smell at all and she couldn't remember if she ever had. He rolled his eyes and pointed at a little creek a few yards away, and then again guided her to it just as he had brought her to the trees to pee. How kind, she thought, to help an injured woman in her time of need.
Except getting to the creek to wash up was exhausting and by the time they made it to the edge of the water she was panting and nearly ready to collapse, a fierce pounding in her head sending waves of nausea through her stomach. "Sorry," he said, not looking very sorry at all as he undressed her limp body and dunked the clothes in the water until the dirty water ran clean off them. The man used the wadded up ball of cloth that was once her shirt to scrub the crust of blood, sweat and whatever sticky fluid had glued itself to the inside of her thighs away, then rinsed it again and hung it over a tree branch. Painfully, he even rubbed away the thick layer of crusted blood from her scalp and used his hands to cup water over the festering cuts there in an effort to keep them from getting infected. By the end of it, her skin felt raw from the scrubbing and the radiation in the water, and tears streamed silently down her face. He gave her a once over and nodded to himself, jogging back to the cart and producing a set of clothes that neither fit or matched, forcing them onto her wobbly and uncooperative body.
"What's your name?" He said, trying to distract her as he pulled her off the ground again and urged her back towards camp. She racked her brain, staring down at her feet as they half walked, half dragged her toward their destination. Finally, without any sadness, she said "Dunno." It didn't register quite yet that it was not normal to forget one's own name, but if he seemed surprised or concerned he didn't show it. Instead he nodded once as if that answer made all the sense in the world and gave her a once-over with his eyes. She noticed they were brown, with flecks of gold in the irises.
"I'll call ya Cherry then. Y'know, 'cause of the hair." He said, gesturing toward her as if she didn't know what her own hair looked like. Admittedly, she hadn't considered her appearance at all yet. Her hair hung in wet, limp chunks around her shoulders and the setting sun glinted across the strands to make them appear a dark, fiery red. Exactly the shade of an overripe cherry. She shrugged and let him help her back up in the wagon to settle in for the night, 'Okay.'
He seemed pleased, and after she settled onto the hard wooden floor of the cart he disappeared for a moment and returned with another couple syringes, a bottle of water, and an open can of miscellaneous sludge with an ancient label on the side that read Ol Roy. Her eyes went to the syringes first, her heart quickening with anticipation. The man must have noted her excitement because he allowed a smile, wrapping a large hand around her arm again just as he did before.
"Easy there, don't get up." He injected her with just as much care as the first time, and he must have mixed up a different concoction for this set of injections because she instantly felt so euphoric she could cry, and then managed to get a spoonful of the brown, meat-scented sludge halfway to her mouth before passing out into a black, dreamless sleep.