The muzzle felt oddly cold against my forehead, though it had been there so long I'd thought it be warm.

"Keep breathin'. You know, that thing ya do? To live?"

I tried that, but my breaths came in and out all shaky, and the last thing I wanted to do now was shake.

Trying to ungrit my teeth, I whispered hoarsely, "How much longe-"

Jericho, sitting across the shack from me, was servicing his AKS-74U, not even looking at me. "Get used to the trigger weight. To the point where it's less'n a hair. Know your fuckin' gun, kid."

I pulled the C96 away with a sharp breath, setting it down hard on the table, making it wobble on its three legs. "Fuck it, Jericho," I groaned. "No one can do that for ten minutes straight. No one-"

In a second, had had crossed the room, loaded his carbine, and placed the barrel under his chin, and pulled the trigger.

A little more than halfway.

"Fuck!" I gasped, reaching out to pull the gun away from him, but he slapped my hands away.

"Know. Your. Gun," Jericho growled at me, grabbing my pistol and hitting me across the face with it.

God fucking dammit. This was survival? I already felt dead.

"Break's over, kid."

I mumbled something incoherent about five minutes as I lazily rolled over, wriggling into a more comfortably position in the wreckage, sighing sleepily. I promptly got a mouthful of sand, coughed and hacked like a dying man, and rolled onto my back. "Fuck," I groaned, blinking and rubbing the grit out of my eyes.

Jericho grabbed me roughly by the bandoleer across my chest- fuck it all, did I have to sleep with that damn thing on? Comfortable as a board of nails- and pulled me into a sitting position. My head swam with the rush of blood, and in the first light of dawn, Jericho's face was more nightmarish than usual, the shadows beneath his eyes bottomless. "Day's drainin'." Day? Fuck's sake, there were still stars out. I watched, filled with groggy awe as he clambered up the side of the bombed-out ruin, surprisingly spry for his age.

Stars. They were beautiful, if... different than I had imagined. I had expected the five-pointed point of light we had drawn again and again back in my younger vault days. But these- these were burning, raging eyes. They had nothing but scorn for the planet that, not long ago for them, but so long ago for us- had tried to be the brightest in the sky.

Earth paid for its arrogance.

Skidding back down in a cloud of dust and debris,Jericho handed a tattered rag to me- cool and moist. With a nod of gratitude, I wrung out the scrap over my mouth- only enough for a gulp, really, but shit, that was nothing to shake an AK at. "Thanks," I said, surprised at how the gravel had washed away from my voice.

Squeezing the night's condensation from his rag, he looked at me sidelong as he drank, not wasting a drop. "Thank me once the shit's shat." He tossed the patchwork handtowel to me, and I scrubbed at the festering insect bites that dotted my face, neck and wrists. I sniffed, finding my nose a tad clogged- little as they were, those bastards had mandibles like beartraps and carried every disease you could think of- and watched as Jericho crawled up onto what used to be a rooftop's chimney and scanned the land around us, AKS-74U gripped tight in his hands.

I wanted to call up and ask, "What do you see?" but I'd probably earn a punch in the jaw for making noise, giving away our position, all that. As if reading my mind, Jericho looked down at me, his once-tired eyes suddenly alive and glinting. His nightmarish mask had fallen, revealing a grinning, deranged face that made the damp rags in my hands feel so much colder.

"Fresh meat," he mouthed. My stomach growled. I felt sick, but differently than usual.

It really didn't get much easier than that. Not in the wasteland.

We laid prone at the edge of the ridge, watching the three shapes below slowly move along the morning-misted road. Squinting through that hazy gray twilight, that rare space in time where the sand's glare wouldn't blind you, I could tell that one had a rifle- an assault or battle rifle, from the way he held it- and led the other two, which from what I could tell, had their guns holstered or hanging.

My Mauser C96 was tight in my grip as I glanced over at Jericho. I had no idea what he was thinking, making us use pistols as this range, especially only 9mm- I mean, yeah, sure, there were only three, and it was less than a hundred feet- but I always thought it was best to overestimate your enemy, as opposed to being, say, dead.

Jericho looked over at me, our eyes locking, and nodded slowly. He side-crawled over a bit to where a small stack of rocks and rubble had been piled near the lip of the ridge- a little cover, Jericho had explained, for our gunfire. The sound of buildings and bridges collapsing was commonplace in the wasteland (thought I still jumped whenever a ten story building crashed over in front of me), but gunshots would always bring unwanted attention.

He placed his left hand on the piece of rebar acting as a lever, and his right held his Makarov PM. He nodded to me, and mouthed the words:

One.

I looked down the sights of my pistol, until it was lined up with the leader's head. Why aren't my hands shaking?

Two.

I shouldn't feel this calm.

Three.

Jericho pushed down on the metal bar, forcing the rubble tumbling over the side of the ridge. I didn't even wait for the rocks to start rolling before I unloaded into the leading shape- five bullets, rapid. Three missed, but two counted- he clutched at his chest only to suddenly go rigid and hit the ground, one arm clawing for his dropped rifle, the other pinned beneath his body. The other two shapes froze for a tenth of a second before they sprang back, attempting to duck into cover of the rocks that lined the other side of the road.

But Jericho wouldn't have that.

Three shots. That was all it took. The two shapes flopped to the ground. One was still, while another curled over into a ball.

We had to act fast before any bonepickers showed up on the scene. Without giving each other a glance, Jericho and I half-skidded, half-ran down the small ridge, shaking off the last of the sand and stinking garbage we had camouflaged ourselves in, dashing over to secure our kills.

Two of them, anyway.

The lead, to Jericho's curt satisfaction, had carried a conditioned G3, four spare magazines, and had two RGD-5 grenades clipped to his belt- jackpot. The rifle and its ammo would make good caps 'round these parts- 7.62x51mm NATO was a round in high demand, after all. He had a Makarov PM as his sidearm- Jericho helped himself to two new magazines, looking over the body as he did.

"Steady your shots," Jericho scolded quietly as he clipped the grenades onto his leather flak vest. One bullet had shattered the lead scav's breatbone, the other had entered just above the throat. I was surprised he had kicked for so long, with wounds like those.

I moved on as Jericho dug through the tracker's backpack. The second scav to go down had... nothing, really. Just a hatchet at his waist, dull and nicked, the wood worn and splintering- not worth shit. Even so, I tugged off the dead bastard's shirt and pants (surprisingly good quality), putting them on under my duster and being grateful for the warmth. His dead, staring eyes didn't seem to mind- his new third eye was a little creepy, though, it being so red and dark.

The third... the third wasn't so good.

Another scav, this one a woman, only with a skinning knife clutched in her hands that had seen better days. I wondered why Jericho had taken two shots- could he tell she had armor, even in this light? She had been moving slower, after all- until I pulled at the folds of her jacket to get at her pockets, and realized she wasn't wearing armor.

I ran my gloveless hand over her bulging belly, still warm, though her eyes were glazed and her breath was gone. Her stomach twitched and thumped under my fingers, as if demanding freedom.

So that was it. That explained the tracker-scav acting as bodyguard. That explained the slow pace- why it was so easy to hunt them down.

I bit my lip as I pulled my combat knife from its sheath, holding a hand against the dead woman's stomach to steady myself. I could see Jericho watching out of the corner of my eye, but that meant nothing right now.

Sorry, little guy. It'll be over soon. Real Quick.

One hard stab was all it took. I felt the skin and flesh and growing cartilage give way under the merciless, jagged teeth of my knife, twisting deep as the hilt. Hot blood spurted up, as if under pressure, washing my arm and front. There was sudden twitch- one that ran through the blade, the grip, my hand- one last pathetic twitch, and then my knife grew still.

I took a deep breath and wiggled the blade out, wiping it off on the woman's ragged jacket. Jericho, his pouches loaded with the tracker scav's loot, shook his head. "Wastin' your time, kid."

Couldn't say anything to that. Couldn't say anything at all. I felt vomit bubbling in my throat, something hot behind my eyes. I just closed my eyes and shook my head in turn.

"Whatever. Got what we came for." Jericho reached into one of his pouches and pulled out a bloody ear, waving it back and forth in my face. "Let's go get paid," he said, turning on his heel and melting into the dusty gray fog like a bad dream walking.

It was only four days later I broke down in the Megaton men's washroom, sobbing like a little bitch.

What made it so much worse was that without the caps from that hit, I wouldn't have the water in me to sob.

No one likes flashback-montage chapters, but aren't all necessities evil?