DISCLAIMER: I do not own Mad Max franchise. Only the mad genius would dress people in black leather at post-nuclear wasteland setting so they could ride cars very fast and extremly furious.
A/N: I've just started the game. I really love (so far) this iteration of Max. He's obviously a broken man, but appears to be less insane and more just... seasoned by the wasteland. Maybe due the fact that the misticism aspect of Mad Max was delegated upon his interactions with Griffa?
A QUIET PLACE
It was a bad day. Hot day. Sweaty day. More Scrotus' men on the dusty roads than usual. Rusty doors. Jammed doors. Chumbucket's more whiny than usual. The scavenge was yealding almost no resources. The Bad Day.
With one angry swoop, Max rammed the enemy's head into the to rusty, jagged crenel of the hideout's fortification.
The body immadiately went limp as the blood splurged down the battlement. If not for the bloody river Max wouldn't have notice a cache. Hopeful, the road warrior forced the lock open with pliers. Max cursed. It wasn't a succesful loot. Just few bits and bobs, odds and ends, few scraps of cloth. Not worthy of that bullet from a sniper rifle. But then amongst the
filth and misery, he found something he hasn't seen in ages. With shaking hands Max held a small, silver cuboid. He recognized the slightly dented but otherwise undamaged packadging immidiatly. The wave of emotions, memories, voices rushed over the stray's head.
Soft bed, loving wife, early morning, still few hours till his shift. Smell of-
Then - there was it again, the whiny plea of his companion, urging him to come back to the Magnum Opus. Yes, the car -They have to come back to the Sanctuary immidiately!
Of course the best laid plans were jus that – a plan. It was The Bad Day afterall. Max was driving fast and furious – each escape from Scroutus' henchmen was more roudabout than the previous one. They came back to their lair as the sun was slowly setting. Fortunately the sandstorm stared right when they were just outside the hideout. Wind roared angrily as it wasn't able to swallow them up in it's windy belly. It was barely audiable inside the metal bowels of the half sunken ship. There was a tension in the air - as with every sandstorm. But Dinki-Di's warm, tail-wagging welcome was enough to set the both scavengers at ease.
After setting his precious cargo on the workbench, Max immidiately rushed toward the heap of scrap. He saw the right contraption... pot? It was a pot of a special kind. He forgot the full name, but he remembered them being there in that pile earlier this week. Alluminium wasn't that useful for the Blackfinger after all, or- or maybe Chumbucket, just like him, might have hoped for a return of the old days? Or maybe his mechanic was so far gone that he might have just apprecitate the pot's exoctic shape, thinking it was some sacret representation of one of his Piston Angels?
Max grunted triumphally – here they were! Two of them - just like he remembered. One was missing a handle, the other a knob but it was a minor set-back that could be fixed with pliers and screws.
As the night set, the tempreture dropped significally. At this time, Chumbucket and he would huddle near a fireplace - the only source of warmth – to roast lizards or warm up some dog food.
This evening would be much different!
Max opened the cargo with a combat knife, the pressured package immadiately released the bitter smell of the past. The driver carefully mesured the dark powder with his combat knife into the small funnels, the bottom chambers of both pots were already filled with water.
Chumbucket was watching him with curiosity from his tire-hammock. With Dinki-Di by his side, the hunchback was swinging the whole contraption like a child.
The preparation was almost like a celebration - Max scrubbed two cans clean with sand when the pots were placed on the far ends of the fireplace – right on the incandescent coal. Few munutes later there was sizzling and bubbling of boiling water and that smell! Max closed his eyes as he took a lungfull of it, failing to supress a content smile. When the brew was ready, he got up from the stack of tires that he was using as his seat, and carefully poured two serving of the brew.
There was a glipse of lucidity in the deformed face of the mechanic as he took the hot can from the mad driver. They both sat in silence, each trying to piece their own shattered memories. Max took a sip first, almost burning his tongue. He glanced at his companion – the grotesque face looked almost human as giant tears were streaming down the droopy face.
Dinki-Di must have sensed it's master's anguish, Max was aware the dog was more the machanic's than his, as it lifted it's head to lick it's master's cheek. The black fingers patted the dog's head in appreciation then absentmindly stroked the dog's fur as the animal curled next to him.
It was a bitter, both literally and figuratively, moment, but the one that Max could live in forever if he was given a chance.