The fog was so thick we had to wear our respirators or risk drinking the air instead. If we'd had a choice we would have turned back and waited it out but luckily for us we were being pulled through it by Fernsby's dead daughter and she had somewhere important to take us.
Sometimes she blended in so perfectly with the fog that we thought we were walking ourselves through it but she kept turning around to make sure we were still there and hers wasn't a face we'd soon forget. Riddled with bullet holes and a nasty gash across her throat to top it all off- brutal way to go but unfortunately a common one.
We were deep in the woods when dawn came, not that we really noticed it through the fog but we felt its warmth graze us from time to time as young Miss Fernsby led us further still. I couldn't feel my legs at that point and I was glad for it, I'll take numbness over crippling pain any day.
Must have been noon by the time we reached the other side of the woods, out to the other side of town. Neither of us had been there since the amnesty talks had dissolved eight years ago and the whole planet had become more and more divided as countries became states became cities became gangs.
Now we were back and still being pulled towards the old apartment towers, towards a strong stench of decay that pierced through the respirators like nothing else could, towards her end goal we assumed. For all we knew she was taking us to our deaths - we hoped they'd be quicker than hers.
When she stopped leading us, when she stopped and raised both arms up and reached for a gaping hole in one of the towers that had been hit by one hell of a bomb, we saw what she wanted us to see. We saw what the initial war machines had left in their wake.
Nobody wanted to admit to adding radioactive material to their bombs. that would be far more immoral than a regular bomb and would last so much longer with much worse consequences in the long run. Consequences like cancerous mutations of the skin, ones that lingered in bloodlines and soil alike.
The young Miss Fernsby was reaching out through the fog to what initially appeared to be fabric tangled in a weird web that spanned the gaping hole. As we stood, trying to figure out what we wanted us to do about it, the fabric moved in a way fabric shouldn't - a way it can't- and we saw it for what it actually was.
Have you ever heard of a rat king? A whole bunch of rats tangled at the tails, squabbling and clawing at each other, desperately trying to get free. We just found the human equivalent and it wasn't tangled by clothes but by skin fused together so tightly that we couldn't really see where one person ended and another one began.
We slowly started recognising parts of people we used to know, people we left behind when the town split into gangs. We remembered the weird meteor shower we'd seen a few days ago, realising that they weren't meteors at all. They were miniature nukes, ones that were often sent into densely populated areas to wipe them clean for mass invasion.
Fernsby's daughter was giving us a head start - Lord knows we'd need it.
Sometimes she blended in so perfectly with the fog that we thought we were walking ourselves through it but she kept turning around to make sure we were still there and hers wasn't a face we'd soon forget. Riddled with bullet holes and a nasty gash across her throat to top it all off- brutal way to go but unfortunately a common one.
We were deep in the woods when dawn came, not that we really noticed it through the fog but we felt its warmth graze us from time to time as young Miss Fernsby led us further still. I couldn't feel my legs at that point and I was glad for it, I'll take numbness over crippling pain any day.
Must have been noon by the time we reached the other side of the woods, out to the other side of town. Neither of us had been there since the amnesty talks had dissolved eight years ago and the whole planet had become more and more divided as countries became states became cities became gangs.
Now we were back and still being pulled towards the old apartment towers, towards a strong stench of decay that pierced through the respirators like nothing else could, towards her end goal we assumed. For all we knew she was taking us to our deaths - we hoped they'd be quicker than hers.
When she stopped leading us, when she stopped and raised both arms up and reached for a gaping hole in one of the towers that had been hit by one hell of a bomb, we saw what she wanted us to see. We saw what the initial war machines had left in their wake.
Nobody wanted to admit to adding radioactive material to their bombs. that would be far more immoral than a regular bomb and would last so much longer with much worse consequences in the long run. Consequences like cancerous mutations of the skin, ones that lingered in bloodlines and soil alike.
The young Miss Fernsby was reaching out through the fog to what initially appeared to be fabric tangled in a weird web that spanned the gaping hole. As we stood, trying to figure out what we wanted us to do about it, the fabric moved in a way fabric shouldn't - a way it can't- and we saw it for what it actually was.
Have you ever heard of a rat king? A whole bunch of rats tangled at the tails, squabbling and clawing at each other, desperately trying to get free. We just found the human equivalent and it wasn't tangled by clothes but by skin fused together so tightly that we couldn't really see where one person ended and another one began.
We slowly started recognising parts of people we used to know, people we left behind when the town split into gangs. We remembered the weird meteor shower we'd seen a few days ago, realising that they weren't meteors at all. They were miniature nukes, ones that were often sent into densely populated areas to wipe them clean for mass invasion.
Fernsby's daughter was giving us a head start - Lord knows we'd need it.
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