The broadcast shouldn't have been possible and yet somewhere out in the Dead Zone someone was trying to reach us, at least we thought they might be. Every day they asked varying numbers to report to "scanner control" or "upper bay doors" with no context as to who, what or where the messages were intended for.
It was only a matter of time before people began traversing the Dead Zone to try and find the broadcaster. There were too many unanswered questions, too many theories flittering about for the intensely curious to resist heading towards certain death for answers.
The only person to make it past the clouds of radioactive gas, the half-starved/half-deranged remnants of local wildlife and the unpredictable migratory sinkholes only managed to text a few sentences out before their atmo-suit stopped registering any life signs.
They found the station tucked away inside an old army van that was in the process of being slowly smothered by the flesh-like vines that grew from the corpses of whatever creatures were unfortunate enough to die en masse. After cutting their way inside they found themselves face to... microphone with the broadcaster themself.
There wasn't much left of them, not after the toxic atmosphere had all but obliterated their organic form. Unfortunately for them, life adapts and so too did they until their body became little more than a perfectly formed mouth that was slowly fusing itself to the microphone. Beneath it were the lungs, useless pulsating things that writhed about on the blood drenched swivel chair.
They never stopped reading the numbers,not even as their lungs sprouted microscopically thin tendrils that reach out to their new host and began to absorb as much of their biomass as they possibly could. By the time this was noticed, they had already lost all motor function and before the broadcast had ended for the day they were another clump of flesh tied to the broadcaster.
They would sustain it for a while longer but another curious soul would be there before it ran out.
There was always another curious soul.
Always something else to eat.
It was only a matter of time before people began traversing the Dead Zone to try and find the broadcaster. There were too many unanswered questions, too many theories flittering about for the intensely curious to resist heading towards certain death for answers.
The only person to make it past the clouds of radioactive gas, the half-starved/half-deranged remnants of local wildlife and the unpredictable migratory sinkholes only managed to text a few sentences out before their atmo-suit stopped registering any life signs.
They found the station tucked away inside an old army van that was in the process of being slowly smothered by the flesh-like vines that grew from the corpses of whatever creatures were unfortunate enough to die en masse. After cutting their way inside they found themselves face to... microphone with the broadcaster themself.
There wasn't much left of them, not after the toxic atmosphere had all but obliterated their organic form. Unfortunately for them, life adapts and so too did they until their body became little more than a perfectly formed mouth that was slowly fusing itself to the microphone. Beneath it were the lungs, useless pulsating things that writhed about on the blood drenched swivel chair.
They never stopped reading the numbers,not even as their lungs sprouted microscopically thin tendrils that reach out to their new host and began to absorb as much of their biomass as they possibly could. By the time this was noticed, they had already lost all motor function and before the broadcast had ended for the day they were another clump of flesh tied to the broadcaster.
They would sustain it for a while longer but another curious soul would be there before it ran out.
There was always another curious soul.
Always something else to eat.
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