Hello hello! I just wanted to make myself known, I hope to keep this updated regularly, I'm kind of flighty so that could be too much of a stretch. Preemptive apologies if that's the case. Anyway, I just wanted to ask if any of the wonderful readers that are out there could take it upon themselves to try an critique my writing. I've noticed I've got a real issue with being adverb happy and repeating words. But I can't catch them all! Of course, anything you notice would also be appreciated critique. It helps if you tell me how awesome I am, but it's not something I'm going to require. Thanks a bunch!

She stood there awkwardly with bloodied knees and skinned palms, they had almost stopped bleeding but she still looked like carnage unleashed. She could feel the trembling of withdrawal, the Jet was wearing off, it didn't matter though, she had almost mastered the art of numbing her brain while sober. She did feel a pinch of regret that they had found people here among the oasis, some of them had offered her water when she had fallen onto their trail, offered it like it was nothing to them. She was too exhausted to accept, too exhausted to warn them of Mal. Her lips had started to form the words but there was no voice behind them.

He had shot one of them square in the face, he dropped like an axed tree and spilled blood into the sand. The other guard had been a woman, Mal didn't like to waste women, so she had just been raped and beaten by the men as a reward for their find. She sat nearby Anya now, with a vacant look on her face and blood dribbling from her nose and mouth, a purple bruise starting to form around her left eye. Anya had no words of comfort for her, it was only going to get worse. The other guard had probably been lucky, hell, the other one had been lucky. Swift death on bullet wings was something she dreamed of sometimes.

"Oy!" One of the men shouted for her startling her out of her vacancy. He was short, pot bellied and smelled like rotten eggs at all times. His greasy beard matched his greasy balding head, but he looked almost nervous now. "Get over 'ere!"

She felt her feet move of their own volition, she hadn't really wanted to follow orders, but somewhere in her jumbled mind she didn't want to end the day covered in bruises either. Death was a brave thing to wish for, but it would take actual courage to make it happen, courage Anya doubted she had.

"Go check for people down there. Looks like it's a water cave or something." He nudged her along. "You're the water witch, you'll be alright." He grinned as if he were doing her a favor. It looked like it had been a sink hole at one point, but now it had filled almost completely with water. There was the slightest glow, a point of light that suggested that maybe there was a hole in the back somewhere. Vines and roots dangled from the ceiling and drifted in the water. It would be easy to drown in a place like this, she almost smiled as she walked deeper and deeper into the water until it was up to her nose. The water burned her open wounds but it felt nice to be fully submerged in water, she had baths before, but they were usually lots of scrubbing and less water involved. She started to float a little, she could feel herself bob every so slightly up to the surface, she couldn't hold her feet flat to the ground.

It occurred to her that she didn't know how she was supposed to get herself deeper and toward the light. She knew the term, she had read it in a book about Olympic swimmers that one of the traders had brought into town. Phil had helped her read it and explained the pictures. He hadn't known how to swim either, but he had a pretty wide knowledge base of things that had happened before the war. It sounded like he knew what he was saying. She hadn't thought about Phil in a long time and she found it still hurt just as badly as the fresh wounds in her knees.

She took a deep breath and tried to push herself under the surface with her hands flapping wildly at the water. She opened her eyes to the murky world beneath, it was hard to see anything clearly but there was definitely more light the further down she went, there was a tunnel. She gave up on pushing the water around and gripped herself along the rocky walls. Her face puffed out as she tried to hold the air in her lungs, she pulled faster, knowing that there probably wasn't any air for her to breath down here.

She was finally floating free again with nothing to grip onto, she pushed at the water with her arms and legs ineffectively, still she felt herself slowly floating to the top, she rallied at the water as she could feel her lungs failing, bubbles escaped from her nose and lips as she churned the water uselessly. She finally had to let the air go, but her body compulsively sucked in a mouthful of water to replace it. Her face broke the surface, she gasped and choked and sputtered out what water she could while trying to stay afloat, she flung her arms sideways at the water to try and propel herself to a wall. Her feet finally bumped ground and she gripped firmly with her toes, taking steps to the shallower areas.

When she reached a dry bank she knelt still half in the water, gagging and coughing water up from her lungs, her kneels and palms ached but her struggle to catch her breath was more urgent.

When she finally looked up and was able to wipe the water from her eyes she was surprised to see and end to the cave. It looked to be a grove, separate from the rest of the oasis as she couldn't hear any voices aside from one.

"You swim funny." A little girl stood on the bank looking down at her strangely.

Anya looked up at her miserably wet. "I can't swim at all."

"That explains it. You know there's a path down from the hill you could have walked on." The girl sounded quite smug in her knowledge.

"I'll try and use that next time." She gave another wracking cough trying to clear out was left. Her voice cracked a little as she spoke. " Is that path hidden? Because there's some bad men here that want to find you. They'll come here and hurt you."

"Why would they do that?" The girl sounded genuinely confused.

"I have taken care of the path." A deep gravelly voice spoke somewhere in the grove.

"Who was that?" Anya asked carefully, she didn't recognize the voice from anyone in her group, but that didn't mean it couldn't be one of them.

"That's Harold." The little girl smiled and stuck her thumb in her mouth. "Come on, I'll show you." Anya lifted herself on wobbly knees and allowed herself to be pulled behind the girl along a wide pillar to the open air. As they rounded to the far side the little girl stopped, Anya nearly stumbled into her. She turned to look at what she was staring at and nearly screamed at what she saw.

A face was what she had to call it, but it had few recognizable features as one. There were eyes, protruding and grotesque they lolled around to look at her, and a mouth that looked as though it might have been a knot but what lips it had were peeled back to reveal extraordinary gums and a set of human teeth. It was a tree, the giant pillar in front of the cave was a tree, with a face.

"I'm Harold. Sorry to frightened you. "

Anya struggled for words but found she couldn't speak in the presence of a tree that was speaking to her.

"I'm Yew." The little girl said next to her.

"Are…are trees supposed to talk? I mean, did they? Before the war?" Anya managed to stutter out the only thing she could think.

Harold laughed heartily, she wasn't sure what was so incredibly funny but it was weird to see a tree shake with laughter. She started to wonder if maybe she hadn't overdosed on the jet this time and was having some really strange hallucinations. "No, no I don't think they did. I'm a casualty of war, I was a person once, now I'm a tree too. This is Bob."

Anya waited a little apprehensively but no one else appeared, she opened her mouth to talk but was interrupted.

"Bob is the tree. I call him Herbert." The treeman laughed at his own joke.

"Oh." She said very carefully, mindful that she had backed away several paces without quite realizing it.

"We sprouted here and created this oasis, that's why those treeminders stay." He continued.

"Are you safe here? Is she safe here? Because I brought people here that are not…good." She finished lamely, not wanting to explain the level of criminal these men really were.

"She can hide here with me. I can make sure of that. Still got some control of these roots." She was pretty sure he had nodded.

Anya smiled politely at the tree, which was unnerving in itself. "Then I need to go. If I stay, they will come find all of us. I don't think they're partial to, talking trees."

"What's your name anyway?" He spoke like he had forgotten the joys of small talk.

"I'm Anya." She said very aware that she was still talking to a tree. "I am sorry for whatever else may happen here. Good luck little one." She patted Yew's head and felt sufficiently awkward. She didn't say anything else to the tree, she wasn't sure how you said goodbye. She also felt that her apology was going to be meaningless pretty soon. If the men felt like they should investigate further, roots probably weren't going to stop them for very long.

"Go like this!" Yew jumped into the air with her hands in a point and then brought them swiftly to her sides as she landed. "To swim." She nodded encouragingly.

Anya had almost forgotten there would be a swim back, her lungs still ached a little from her last encounter with the water. She walked into the water again and put her hands above her head, pushing down until her hands slapped into the water. She felt like an idiot.

"In the direction you want to go dummy!" Yew called after her, she turned back and gave a curt nod, being watched didn't help her feel any less like an idiot. She dipped her hands in the water again, this time in front of her, when she pushed her hands against the water she felt herself tugged slightly forward. She allowed herself a small smile, it had been a long time since she had learned something other than how to shut down. She got to the end of the cave and took a deep breath and bobbed her head beneath the water, her fingers pushed the water around her, pulling her forward into the tunnel.

She kicked with her legs as she used the walls again to pull her along. She briefly thought about stopping right there. She didn't have to go back, she could just stay here and breath deep of the water. She could just die right here and it would all be over. The fear was still there, but it was subsided in this silent murky place.

It was a short lived plan though, she knew Mal needed her, maybe not so much now, but caps were caps to him, you could never have enough of them. They would come looking for her, they would find Yew, and the tree. And then they'd destroy this whole place.

They might do it anyway, but she wasn't going to be the cause of it any more than she already was. She pulled herself along faster, her legs helped propel her forward now. When she reached the open pool she used her hands to cup the water behind her and broke the surface before she had to breath in any water. She took a deep gasp of fresh air with relief. She didn't think drowning would be an easy death to have.

Mal broke her sense of calm by dragging her out of the water by her hair.

"Just where the fuck 'ave you been?" He shook her violently, Anya noticed that the short man who had sent her down was standing very deliberately behind others.

"He sent me to look for people. I am the water witch after all. I only nearly drowned." She pointed at the man spitefully, he was a coward and she wanted everyone to know. Mal dropped her momentarily and turned on the man who was suddenly visible to everyone as they were all quick to create a distance between them and him. Mal closed the gap before the man could decide if he was better off making a run for it into the wastes. He didn't say anything at all, the man opened his mouth to come up with some excuse, began to beg as he saw Mal pull out his pistol. He didn't fire it though, he flipped it around in his hand and brought the heavy butt end down on the man's balding skull. The sound was a sick hollow thud and the man screamed and tried to duck behind his hands. Mal pushed his arms down and clubbed him over and over again with the gun. He continued to hit him when he finally fell to the ground and finally stopped moving. He continued as the man lay there still as a corpse, Mal's face was a mask of rage and blood that was now flying up from the end of the gun. He brought his arm down harder now that there was no mistake of missing his head until there was a very distinct crunch and crack of the skull collapsing under the bludgeoning. Mal continued to club the lifeless man until blood had sprayed all up his arms and onto his face, until he was just beating pulp into the ground.

No one spoke or moved to stop him, many of the men had stopped watching. Anya found she couldn't look away from Mal's face. It was contorted into such an ugly look of anger, his teeth gnashed together and spittle flew from his lips. His veins bulged out of his neck and the crimson coated most of him now.

He was panting when he finally stopped, he wiped the blood soaked gun with part of the dead mans shirt that still looked somewhat clean. He stuffed it back in his belt and stood up slowly daring anyone to make eye contact with him. His body was covered in blood and bits of the man, he looked like the madman he really was. Anya felt her stomach twist a little, she was part of that massacre, a deeper part of her was glad the man had suffered; the rest of her felt shaken with horror, she knew Mal was a cruel man, but she didn't know how truly psychotic he was. It frightened her to see what he was capable of, frightened her for the people who they had just found.

"If any one of ya want to let me now that you're a fucking moron," He looked carefully at each of the men who had backed into a wide circle and stared fiercely at the sky or their feet. "Now would be a good time to do it, just so's I don't have to wash again." His voice was dangerously low, Anya felt herself tremble uncontrollably.

Only silence and deathly still followed his question. He wiped his face with a cleaner side of his shirt doing little more than smearing the blood and stomped off. "Find somewhere to tie down the rest of em!" He shouted over his shoulder.

His search of the camp had been successful, he had managed to find a little more than a dozen people living in the grove. Some of them looked the worse for wear, but Anya didn't see any more bodies, she thought that was a promising sign. They were all shuffled into the trees and lashed together, someone dragged away the man who now had pulp where his head used to be and kicked dirt over the pool of blood.

Mal returned shortly with what was left of their booze with a big grin on his face. "Let's celebrate!" He shouted, all the men cheered with him, the horror they had seen instantly forgotten. They made a huge bonfire in the center of the oasis where there was no foliage to burn and drank until the stars in the sky swam. A few of the woman were released to be toyed with, Anya heard some of the screams from deeper in the trees. She found herself some Jet and dosed herself into oblivion. She lay back in the grass nearby and focused on breathing. She trembled on the ground, wishing she could erase the image of Mal covered in blood, wishing she didn't see how he had enjoyed doing it. Eventually the drug came to her rescue pulsing through her blood and erasing any real thoughts from her mind. Her limbs felt like they couldn't stop twitching but that didn't matter, all that mattered was the not thinking.

Mal found her just as her buzz came to a plateau and her limbs didn't feel like they were going to fly off anymore. She could smell how strongly he smelled of liquor, it choked the fresh air in the oasis before he was within ten paces of her.

"There ya are. Been lookin all over." He loomed over her in the dark, his features just barely visible in the orange flickering light. How she had first met him her brain hummed mockingly. He slurred his words and collapsed onto the grass next to her. His calloused hands roamed over her body, touching and squeezing, she felt so much hate for him, it pulsed in her blood along with the Jet. She could see where some of the blood was still crusted on his face. Hate and so much fear, she was powerless with this man, this monster. The hate powered through her but she couldn't focus at all, only wait for the inevitable. He fumbled with his pants as he climbed on top of her and grunted with effort. It was all over in a minute. He slumped half off of her and passed out with his arm stretched possessively across her stomach.

What was left of her sober mind screamed to strangle him while they were alone, murder him and leave them all behind. But the Jet had settled in nicely, letting the trance take over. She didn't have the strength or the courage to kill him. She fumbled in the grass instead, finding the Jet inhaler was a slow process for her muddled mind. She finally found it and took what was left in the canister unconcerned with how much that might be, stars danced in her eyes and she sighed a small sigh into oblivion.