Open Apocalypse

[Gangsta Moll Deactivated]

 

A post-apocalyptic scenario that is unspecified but gritty, hard, with very few survivors who might eventually meet and work or at least journey together, where characters build their own stories and the back story to the world as they write.

No rules, no formal posting format, just players writing a story that develops through their interaction.

Characters may join without introduction - building their character through their posts and interactions.

Bad actors might also join but I see the players creating those as third parties (non-player characters) to the story, mostly.

To be clear, I do see this as wide open, including with sex, but the aim is to build a world together not to indulge in a quick fling.

[Gangsta Moll Deactivated]

The trail is cold, long forgotten: but the legends are not.

They came this way, and they were survivors: lost, maybe, but not forgotten.

The dust drifts across the trail, the Sun beats down, my bare arms and legs are coated with its fine grey dirt: but I know where they went, and I am following....

Where I come from, everything is lost: the hope that sprung from despair, the resistance: all gone, lost, defeated, destroyed.

Nothing remains: only the legends - those who went East.

So east I trudge, into the morning sun.

Eyes watch but I no longer care: I can outrun them and they know that so an uneasy truce holds - born of mutual exhaustion, of weariness, of despair: apocalypse, now and forever?

[DoctoroMindbender]

I tie the stained bandana across my face to keep out the choking dust, squinting against the sun. The silence of the slow march is safety, but it grinds on me. Silence leaves a man with nothing but his own thoughts for company, forcing him to reckon with himself.

I don't believe in legends, anymore. They're just fairy stories we tell kids. The world is a simple place. Survive another day, tomorrow is a problem for later. No matter what. Take what ya gotta take. Hurt who ya gotta hurt. Kill what ya gotta kill. Try to sleep peacefully at night, if you can. If you can't, at least waking up covered in cold sweat means you are alive. The only thing worse then death is fear. Fear is just death drawn out. Don't get me wrong. There are monsters hiding in the darkness. But why should I be afraid? I am one of them. On this long lonesome road, where I have to much time inside my own skull, I wonder if there is any man left underneath the monster. I swallow my doubts, pushing them deep inside. Humanity is a luxury. Survival is not.

[WritesNaughtyStories]

"The east is a lie!" He roared in rhythm with the rest of his sermon, "It draws the weak to temptation, to doom and away from the Tribe."

Watermaker had railed against the lies since he'd peeled the plastic and leather mask off the old Watermaker. Myths and lies were separated by little more than intent. Some might say faith but Watermaker knew  better. Faith didn't care about intent.

What Watermaker cared about was the flock. It was hard to tell if that was the lie he told himself or the truth of it - and at some point they became indistinguishable. 

Who actually made the water traps was lost to time, imperfect memory and the power of myth, but now it was the Watermaker. The role was timeless and ageless. The Watermaker was the mask, the ancient talking machine, the man of wire and metal. Watermaker knew he would die and his successor would peel the mask off, render him to the extractor and don the mantle.

In the meantime the faithless, the impure and the ambitious would feed the water extractors. The Tribe would fetch the faithless and ensure there was water to nourish it.

And so he sang the sermon, whipping the Tribe to fury, in their secret canyons amid the bitter gray ash. And the 10 of the Chosen set out after those who who flee the Gray Lands for the lie of the east, each with a liter of water in whatever they could carry it in, 5 bullets, a long sharp knife and a large water skin so they'd be able to return as much water as possible.

While they, with water and rest, could chase down the blasphemers by moving faster, Watermaker and his Tenders would work the water traps, evaporators and extractors to recover the 10L the Tribe had invested.

[Gangsta Moll Deactivated]

When the few survivors drifted west, it was already all falling apart: spared the horrors of the original catastrophe we - they - created their own. Infighting, savagery, tribal gangs forming and morphing in a growing chaos of selfish self destruction. The survivors' stories were perhaps the trigger that ended it: no hope left, every man for himself - and for us women, every man wanting us.

The cage fighters told me where to go, how to find them, if any still lived. Strangers bearing news of lost hope, true warriors in a world where war had turned in on us, degraded into a greedy fight for whatever was left, that is how they made their place, fighting for money, for savage entertainment. It is they who taught me how to fight: and the legend-bearers who taught me to fight in earnest, to win in the cages but also to protect myself as the world disintegrated. Senseis: guides and mentors, carrying and teaching the old ways, the formal forms, respect and courtesy that shape the total focus, commitment, to merciless fighting - and killing, if need be -  that has brought me ... not safe, as safety no longer exists here .. but alive, out of the death and destruction of the collapse of what we thought was a new civilization built from the ruins of the old, heading east now, into and with luck beyond the glass wastelands of ground zero to wherever the legends say they went.

The needle gun nestles snug in my belt pouch but its value makes me a target as much as its efficacy may protect - if I am far enough away to use it, I can outrun them, and to use it advertises that I have it: a poisoned chalice, indeed.

The township is ruined: both by neglect and by evident pillaging and wanton destruction: heaped sand walls and hastily built shacks tell of a brief - but doomed - survival. The zombies here are furtive and slow: sick, or simply malnourished? No sign of human life though: neither feral nor normal: though normal does not apply any more, does it? There may be water, though, and even food: but streets have dead ends - literally - and buildings are death traps, so I scout around carefully watching for opportunity. The zombies pose little threat: and their very presence in its way offers some protection - or at least warning - of others who might appear.

[DoctoroMindbender]

As I approach the town, I crouch low, finding cover behind the rusted out husk of some pre-catastrophe machine whose original design or purpose has been blasted away by time and the sands. With a seasoned eye, I scan the sight lines of the buildings. This place is the perfect place for an ambush. In my peripheral I see movement. Brushing back the long, light weight coat that protects me from the sun, I put my hand on the pistol worn in my belt. It's a primitive  thing, hand crafted from salvaged material no doubt in one of the slave workshops out West. Why, when mankind started to rebuild, did it rebuild the evil things first?

I see the wretched form, of something that used to be human. I shutter. The dead the haunt my dreams are bad enough, I don't need the ones that crawl the through the battered remains of the world before ... I won't give it the dignity of the word "Civilization". The smart move, the prudent move would be to go around and avoid this death trap. But I am desperate for food, water, bullets. Guess I have to go in. Cautiously, I sneak my way through the town, using the smashed concrete walls and burnt out village buildings to hide from any watching eyes, living or dead.

Something, or someone, is standing in the street. They aren't the dead. They don't looked like a marauder, but a lot of marauders want you to think that. I weigh my options. From here, I could get a round off, drop them. They'd never see it coming. But I don't have the bullet to waste. Of course, they're just standing in the open road. I could catch them unaware, one swift clean stroke my knife and they'd be dead ... I force myself to stop that line of thought. That's not what I am anymore. Or maybe it is, and I'm lying to myself. But I won't shed blood for blood's sake. At least not today. Besides, trying to scavenge the ruins alone is a sure way to get yourself killed. I maneuver around, through the ruins, careful of any of the feral creatures crawling within. I step out, where @Gangsta Moll can see me, but I keep my distance. If this goes bad, I would prefer not to brawl it out in the streets. My arms hang at my side, by my fingers twitch nervously, reflexively. "Hello, stranger. I'm just a peaceful traveler. But if you mean to start trouble friend, you will find more then your share."

[Gangsta Moll Deactivated]

I see him, I think, at the same time he sees me: watch him, without moving, from the corner of my eye - note his careful tension, his cautious movements.

I have been stupid: incautious, careless. If he acts, then I am dead: and I welcome that, almost hunger for it - an end to this grim dreadful ... life isn't the word, this is more like a ... twilight existence ... enduring, not living.

It is so long since I have seen a real survivor - one who moves like a human, not like a shambling half dead corpse, or rushes with fingers like claws, or lurks like the feral humans ready to take what they want - who they want.

I stand, very still: and he too performs that careful slow stance that says, between humans, that we present no threat.

Words - coherent words - sound strange after so long. And despite the verbal challenge, one word stands out - a word I have not heard in so long that I almost feel the tears well up in my dusty dry eyes: "...friend.."

Carefully, cautiously, I form my own words in response - they feel rough and dusty in my mouth: "I'll take just 'friend' and 'share' from that, if you will ... 'peaceful' stranger..."

 

[DoctoroMindbender]

I'm not bleeding out in the dust. So this wasn't a trap. That, or a would be bandit figured everything I own isn't worth the bullet. Cautiously, I take a step forward, keeping my hands visible.

"Fair enough. But I've got a proposition."

[Gangsta Moll Deactivated]

As he steps towards me I instinctively step back with one foot, bracing myself - for fight or flight. It is hard not to raise my hands into a fighting stance but he seems careful to show that he is not ... yet ... a threat.

I realise that the simple words .. friend ... peace ... have disarmed me, distracted me - and I remember how my Sensei would have berated me for letting my guard down: "trust no-one, not even yourself" - but I am tired.

Guardedly, I answer: "go on..."

[DoctoroMindbender]

I was once a man with words. But words don't mean shit in these desolate wastelands. Instead, I lay it out straight.

"We're both tapped out. If either of us try to resupply here, we'll be supper for a dead man. But if we work together, we might both make it through another night."

[WritesNaughtyStories]

In the ramshackle, doomed ruins of houses and buildings, The Chosen moved. They ignored the desiccated husks of the dead. The living held water. The living has value.

The ten Chosen moved like a dust cloud - rolling silently into the empty places without effort. They peered from shadowed windows, devoid of glass since the old world ended, watching the strangers square off in the street like ancient gunfighters they'd never heard of.

The Tribe, Watermaker, thirsted and The Chosen preyed.

2 hours ago, DoctoroMindbender said:

"We're both tapped out. If either of us try to resupply here, we'll be supper for a dead man. But if we work together, we might both make it through another night."

Around the pair The Chosen rose, caked in the gray ash, knives and pistols drawn. "Watermaker calls." Said one, his face concealed behind a mask of greasy brown leather, eyes shaded behind mesh scavenged before anyone present was born, his mouth visible through a ragged, vicious gash in the leather.

"Watermaker calls." The others echoed. Their masks were similar - so eyes behind coarser mesh, some behind mismatched sunglass lens, all their mouths exposed so they might drink.

[Gangsta Moll Deactivated]

Something is wrong: the hairs on the back of my neck prickle, my senses tingle with wary alert. Movement in the periphery of my vision: I avoid looking, show no sign of my awareness. Three of them: moving with stealth, not at all like the weary shambling horrors stumbling about the shadows - but not normal human, either - an awkward stiffness to their movement, despite their worrying agility as they creep closer.

I clasp my hands in the traditional way, like a prayer: and instinctively do offer a silent prayer for the souls of those who will not survive the next few minutes - with an earnest wish that mine not be one of them. I make the move seem to be a formal salute - a greeting - to my new found - and perhaps temporary - friend: surprise is a powerful weapon, but now it is mine and not theirs - their first mistake, to lose it. I picture in my mind every rock, each brick, every loose pebble:  I recall the words of my First Sensei, now gone: "everything is a weapon if you use it as such". My eyes signal to my new 'friend': flicking left, and right, towards the silent shapes in the shadows.

They rush me, at the last, and that is their second mistake because an enemy's haste is a weapon too. I dodge the first, leaning to one side, catching his arm as he falls past me: the crack of the bone breaking is dry but the arm holds, and my body lifts, spinning, using his falling weight to fling my feet full into the face of the second, smashing sideways in a crunching blow. The third sees my feint, grins as he steps to the left in anticipation: and the small rock trips him, he stumbles and I use the moment to grasp a metal pole by the very edge of the street: wrapping myself around it in a sinuous movement - I smile ruefully, reflecting how useful the pole dancing fitness craze has proven to be in unexpected ways - and collect my thoughts as I use the spiral tension to unwind, my body flying like a flag, horizontal, to slash a foot so hard into the side of his neck that I feel it break.

In the periphery of my vision I catch a glimpse of my new 'friend', in a whirl of motion: but there are more than enough for me to handle.

A brick to the head of the first finishes him off with a gruesome gurgle, and I stand, breathing hard, as the last brute faces me: big, strong, powerful. These are not the skeletal wasted zombies of before: they are fit, well nourished: well fed - and the horror of that realisation makes me shudder: they must have a source of ... food..... water .... and I suddenly know, what they are.

He knows his advantage in strength and power, and he is wary now, and confident: the outcome of what is to come is far from assured, and the balance lies with him. Time seems to stand still: in my head past Sensei whispers: "when defeat is certain, give in to the blood lust: it is not the strong who survive, but the bloodthirsty" - and the blood lust takes me - channelled rage, primal violence unchained, reckless total commitment: his crotch takes most of the force of my upward kick - I swear I feel it literally crack - but it drives upwards so that his body lifts a little, making his head droop forward - and my hands wrap around his head, slamming it down at the same moment as my knee lifts, so that my knee slams into his face with a sickening crack. A 'friendly' rock completes the job.

It has taken only moments: a frenzy of violence, with me both its focus and its source. There are others - cautious now - and I hear the sounds of violence close by: but for now, I stand alone, alive, thinking.

[DoctoroMindbender]

I curse myself. I have setup so many ambushes, that not spotting this one was a rookie mistake. The copper taste of adrenaline fills my mouth. Muscle memory takes over. Turning to engage those behind us, I casually draw my pistol with one hand line up the shot, and fire. Casual for me at least. Years of violence have honed it into a single motion, it is over in a flash, before the muttering fanatic even realizes that the shot has been fired, they're dead. I'm not even looking when their body hits the ground, blood bubbling from the whole in their chest. Instead my attention is turned to their compatriot. Screaming, I charge. They don't see it coming. They never do. This one has managed to draw his gun, barely, but fires blindly, with no time to aim. It goes wide, and I ram my body into the fanatic, knocking them off balance. Grabbing for whatever I can I bring my gun butt down on their head. Slamming it again, and again, until they stop moving. Strong, hands grab me from behind. I manage to flip them on their back, forcing my boot heel into their throat. Their gurgling is a too familiar sound.

I should cut @Gangsta Moll loose and never look back. Instead I turn back to the remaining attackers. With smooth practiced motions, I open the breach of my gun - smoke lazily floating out - and dump the expended brass casing on the ground. I load another. My last. I stand beside them, my gun raised, counting the remaining attackers through my sights.
 

[WritesNaughtyStories]

A gunshot sounds. One of The Chosen has the sense to waste no more water and fires a clean, well placed shot at the dervish who has felled his comrades. Her blood can be collected to even that water is recovered.

[Gangsta Moll Deactivated]

The pain is searing: and familiar - the heat of the bullet drives through my upper arm, an agony whose impact knocks me sideways so I almost fall.

Sensei's words whisper in my ear: "Pain is life: as long as you hurt, you live"

The needle gun slips easily into my hand: one, two, three, four - its darts flash, nano technology guiding them to their targets, silent, deadly, their poison's effect immediate.

A fifth pull at the trigger, and I realise my mistake: a rookie error, stupid - fatal - the two long-ago expended darts no longer in the magazine - it clicks, flashes, but no dart emerges. And the last, tenth, watermaker stands unharmed, ready to rush us.

[DoctoroMindbender]

I don't know what just happened. And at this point I don't care. There will be time for caring later. I train my sights on the last ambusher. Low guttural groaning sounds echo through the ruins. The glint of dead eyes can be seen approaching. From either end of the road the dead appear, shuffling towards us. More are clawing their way out of demolished buildings, over the crumbling husks of concrete and masonry. Noise attracts the shamblers. The echoing gun fire got their attention. Blood makes 'em hungry, and there's plenty of that, spilled in the dust now.

I lower my aim, making sure that he last attacker knows that my gun is pointed at his leg. "You gonna help us, or I am I gonna leave you for them?"

[DoctoroMindbender]

He holds up his hands. Smart. Or stupid. I'm more dangerous then the horde of zombies. I reach out an empty hand "Your piece. Now".

He hesitates. The hordes of on either end of the street grow closer. More pull themselves through the abandoned windows, wall breeches, and empty doorways.  Their horrible, rattling groans multiply, growing ever close.

Finally, the defeated cultist tosses me his gun. Its old, predating the catastrophe. But poorly maintained, just as likely to blow up in the user's hand as fire. I shove it my pocket, and stow my own pistol. I point to @Gangsta Moll
"Come on". We dash over, bending down, trying to assist @Gangsta Moll to their feet.

[Gangsta Moll Deactivated]

My arm hurts like the blazes: even more when they clumsily pull me to my feet. But the twisted girders of a high tower are close by - too sheer and high for zombies to climb: but can I, with one arm hanging in agony at my side?

[DoctoroMindbender]

The arm. Not spurting, so it missed the main artery. I know that hurts like hell, but at least they can walk and won't die of blood loss before we get to safety. Probably.

I pull a large knife, holstered at my side. Little more then a piece of sheet steel, cut and sharpened, with a rough leather strap wrapped around the grip. I motion to the mangled wreck of steel that used to be a building. I take point. With the zombies awakened, I move quickly, and quietly, trying to stay just ahead of the others to take care of any unexpected surprises that might await us. Staying low to the ground, in case any more of those maniacs raving about the "Watermaker" are watching, I weave between the shattered buildings, the sun bleached shacks built in their footprints, and whatever other cover I can find. I may not have, what ever training my ally of fate does, but I move with the smooth grace and coiled tension of a predator. I don't need fancy moves or fancy toys to kill.

I come to the last bit of cover before the wide street leading to our sanctuary. I survey the last dash. The approaching zombies on either side make me feel claustrophobic, but I shake it off. There is still plenty of time for people who know what they are doing. From my position, I can see that a dumbwaiter has been rigged into the ruin. It's a way up, and hopefully it means someone poor bastard setup shelter at the other end. There's one zombie, though, waiting just inside. A pale, naked thing.

I approach it quickly and quietly.  I spring up, grabbing it's long golden hair, holding it at arms reach. It tries to claw at me with bony fingers, but I have the reach advantage. Whoever this was, they haven't been dead long. Save for the blank expression on their face it could be mistaken for human. The small swell of breasts on it's emaciated form reveal that it was a woman, or teenage girl. The sound they make as I jab my knife upwards, under the jaw, is almost human. She convulses wildly, whatever simulacrum of life she has fading. It has, I correct myself.

I toss the corpse aside, and wait for the others.

[Gangsta Moll Deactivated]

I hate guns.

I'm not stupid: I know their value.

They even the odds, outweigh the skills and training and practice of years: and they deal death at a distance, against which the only protection is to hide or flee.

But most of all I hate guns because I can't fight them. In the cages guns were never used - not just because a weapon of such rare value would never be wasted on entertainment, no matter how high the stake money, but also because there is no sport in it. I can fight up close, hand to hand, face to face - though in truth my strength is easily outmatched, my speed bested, my agility overwhelmed  - but I can't fight at a distance.

I think he hates guns too: holds his almost with distaste, a necessary evil: and from his tired tension and grumpy grace perhaps mostly unnecessary - I can recognise a man who can kill, who survives, who needs no more than his own self.

An intriguing mercy to him, too - or perhaps a pragmatic calculation - in his sparing of the watermaker cultist. A risky choice: but a cult clings to a personality - to a person - and I can see how even if he does not intend it his weary war-worn wariness emanates character to which I could myself easily cling.

It feels strange to lean for support on one who inflicted this injury upon me. I hate him more than the gun, with a vengeance: but no more so than a cage opponent having bested me:

"Your worst enemy could be your best friend: and your best friend could be your worst enemy" - as Sensei would sometimes sing in that odd reggae style, to make us laugh but also think, and fear.

[DoctoroMindbender]

Violence is short and brutal. It is perfectly fitted for this fallen word. There is no art in it, nor should there be. Violence is a bestial thing. All that matters is walking away when it's done. No matter what it takes. Fist, gun or knife, the choice is the same: Kill or be killed. But eventually, death comes for us all and we have our last fight. Life just as short, and just as brutal. It brings to mind words, drilled into me by rote so long ago: all who draw the sword will die by the sword.

I scan the line of rubble on the opposite side of the street. Checking the corners, for any zombies I missed, and checking the dust for any movement that might indicate more fanatics laying in wait. Convinced, that it is safe, I motion for the others to cross.

[Gangsta Moll Deactivated]

He is focused, controlled, wearing command with an ease that belies the weight of responsibility he has taken upon his shoulders: an injured stranger, a cowed but fanatic enemy. We limp to the tower, his watchful gaze scanning protectively: and bundled unceremoniously into the tiny crude elevator cage I am hoisted up to the relative safety of a makeshift shelter. My two ... allies? ...friends? ... companions?... climb up to join me.

[DoctoroMindbender]

The follower of the "Watermaker" is a fanatic. I know that glassy intensity in his eyes. I used to see it staring back in the mirror. That's why I don't trust him. He's forced to go along with us by his fear of being eaten alive. I have no doubt that as soon as he has the chance he'll try to render us back to water, or whatever nonsense his cult is spouting. But for now, I have more pressing issues, and I need his help. I kneel where @Gangsta Moll has collapsed on the floor, looking for the signs of shock. "We need to take off this", I say, touching a finger to her outer layer of clothing, "to get at your arm. Do you understand?"

[Gangsta Moll Deactivated]

I feel faint.

Blood soaks the short sleeve of my t shirt.

I nod my acquiescence   my understanding - and steel myself for the sharp pain I know lifting my arm and slipping off the t-shirt will bring.

[DoctoroMindbender]

I don't bother to tell you it's going to hurt. You damn well know. With help, we lift your arm, and peel off your t-shirt. Our press ganged assistant folds your shirt up, pressing it against the wound to stop the flowing of sacred water. I'm not a doctor, but do I know how to patch a bullet wound. My pack is mostly empty as I rummage through it for what I need. I may not have food, water or ammunition, but it does have some thread meant for mending clothes and the remains of a bottle of oily looking alcohol. It's to impure to drink, but it'll do for cleaning guns - or cleaning the wounds they cause. Cutting out the bullet is an olds wives tale, that has taken more lives then I ever will. Instead, I pour the foul liquid on the wound, wincing as your body twitches from the burning of the liquid fire. With callused, fumbling fingers I suture up the wound as best as I can. It's not great, but it will hold.

With that settled, I return to the issue of our attacker, here with us.  His guard down, he doesn't see the pistol but coming down for the back of his head until it's too late. He slumps to the floor, unconscious. Methodically, with a speed born of practice, I strip him of his clothes, searching for valuables. There are none, save two skins full of water. Coiled up here with us is strong hemp rope, the same kind of rope used on the contraption that brought us up here. With that I bind his hands tightly, suspending him from a rafter overhead, letting his feet dangle unable to touch the floor. At least I'm not worried about him reprocessing our water in the night, which sounds more unpleasant then a clean slicing of the threat.

All of the urgent business done, the rush of danger fades. I feel tired. I walk to @Gangsta Moll, bringing the water with me. I slump down beside them. This is usually where one gives a name. I've had so many over the years, I struggle with which one to use. Certainly not the one my father gave me. It feels like ash on my tongue, and the people who know it want me dead. Nor the one I carved a path of destruction across the wasteland with. The people who know that one are dead. Finally, a choice is made and I hand over one of the water-skins "Name's Elijah".