Fan Fiction ❯ Nuclear Winter ❯ Elysium ( Chapter 1 )

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

The howling wind sweeps the wide plateau... dust swirls around small scrub bushes, dancing in the dim light. In the distance, thunder rumbles as a thick cloudbank fills the horizon. A flash of lightning highlights the glow of flames in a far off city, skyscrapers tilted and battered. The dead wind carrying an aura of death along with the dust. The sky darkens a bit more, and snowflakes drift lazily from the clouds, intent on blanketing the bleak and depressing landscape. The wind kicks up, almost growling at the snowfall. As if it were saying, "This is my wasteland... leave it be..." Two lone figures pause at the edge of the plateau, snow whipping around them, fighting to take hold on the soil.
Indigo leans against a rock, scoping out the wide down-slope leading off the plateau. Tilting his head, he focuses on the glow of flames in the distance. "Another city... probably reduced to nothing but ashes and ghosts by now."
Trevelyan doesn't reply at first, her head craned away from the ruined city instead, eyes narrowed against the rising wind to examine the building stormfront. Finally, she tugs the scarf wrapped around her head and the lower half of her face a little higher with short, sharp motions, turning away. "Regardless, it should provide enough shelter if this gets any worse."
Indigo nods slowly, unconciously shifting his weight onto his other leg. "The fires don't bode well for us... we don't know what's in there." He slides a slightly-damaged pair of binoculars from his pocket and peers into them. "There were walls... fragments are scattered..."
Trevelyan makes an impatient sound, hunching her shoulders slightly as she turns her back against the, for now, intermittant gusts of wind and thickening snow. "It's either risk our lives there, or risk our lives here, and we don't have the supplies to make the second choice anything more than foolish."
Indigo grins and pockets the binoculars, turning to his companion at the same time. Playing dumb and speaking in a half-mocking, half-laughing tone of voice, he slaps his cheek, wide eyed. "Wow! I didn't know that... I would have us stay out here until the storm died down... I don't know what I'd do without you!"
Trevelyan turns slowly to pin him with a glare, one gloved hand reaching up reflexively to push up glasses that weren't there, the delicate instrument currently tucked away safely. "With that bad a joke, you might as well take your own advice and save my sense of humor a battering," she retorts before taking the initiative and beginning to move in the direction of the city.
Indigo chuckles softly and follows quickly behind her. "Hey! That's what you have me around for. Look around you, all you can do is laugh. We're out here in the middle of nowhere, god knows what following us from that /last/ hellhole.. wandering straight into another potential deathrap!" He stops in mid-stride, spins around once, and leans back, cackling like a madman. "It's funny as hell, don't you think?"
Trevelyan pauses, then whirls around, what is visible of her face between the edges of the scarf hinting at a sort of stoic, frustrated fury bitten back only be a sheer force of will. But then, as she watches his antics, the tightness around her eyes ease, and her shoulders slump slightly in seeming defeat. "Unfortunately, I'm too tired to laugh right now," she comments tonelessly. Pushing back onto the original track toward the city, she adds half to herself, "Why I ever thought it would be better to hook up with someone than to go on alone..."
Indigo slowly stops laughing, every ounce of humor drained for a moment as he matches his pace to hers and catches up, now side-by-side with her. The tightness of a shoulder strap re-assures him as he tugs on it, the familiar weight of an outdated shotgun acting as a light burden. His footsteps crunch in the gathering snow, the wind giving up the land to it. "What do you think we'll find..?" His voice quiet and concerned, rarely heard unless he was frightened or anxious. "The last place was bad enough, this looks even worse."
"You tell me," Trevelyan says softly, not looking toward him but from her subtle accomodation of her stride with his, still somewhat reassured by his presence. "I just move because I have to, or because someone tells me to. Why are we here, Indigo?"
Indigo continues walking, lost in thought. "I don't know. Many people are content to stay where they are, regardless of the danger. But something has to happen for a person to get up and go like this... the point of desperation that leads a man to risk what little he has left and bail out." He turns his head and makes eye contact through the falling snow. "And then there are those who'll follow for the same reason." Regardless as to whether it answered her question or not, he sighed and turned his head back to the path ahead.
Trevelyan's eyes flick toward him, meeting his gaze, before focusing ahead once more. A wisp of dark hair escapes her head-wrappings to tickle the edge of her cheek until she wipes it away impatiently. "Why are *you* here?" she finally reiterates, breaking the lengthening silence. "I never got a straight answer from you, in between fleeing."
Indigo shrugs, keeping his pace. "Nothing to lose... not much to gain... surviving is better than embracing death. What else can I say? I never put much thought into it... I just followed my instincts and went with my feelings. There's no method to my madness, you could say." He felt like he was talking in circles, the mind-numbing trek away from everything he knew, or what was left of it, was slowly taking its toll.
Far behind them, the plateau disappears under a blanket of whirling snow. Ahead, black skeletons of buildings rise up like tombstones. The scent of fresh snow hides the stench of death and smoke.
Trevelyan shivers once, hunching deeper into her jacket and tucking her hands into the crooks of her elbows. "Madness...do you dream in your madness, then? What do you hope for, what are you looking for? A city that isn't just as much of a deathtrap as the wilds? Do you believe the stories, of places still functioning, left almost untouched, virtual paradises if you can just find them?" Her voice grows alternately strident and wistful as she speaks, weighted with confusion and frustration.
Indigo tugs at the hood of his coat, his hands slowly growing numb even with gloves on. "Don't we all believe them? You would think someplace would have survived the destruction, or would have had the strength to repel the marauders that seem to be ever-present. Maybe there is a place like that, or maybe not. What do I dream of? What do I hope for? I like to see myself live for another day... Deep down, I /know/ a place exists... and if I've gone all the way across this god-forsaken hell and not found it... I'll be damned if I don't try and do it myself..." He whispers under his breath afterwards. "...or die trying."
Trevelyan's eyes flit toward Indigo's face at his last words, the irises made near-black in the gathering gloom, and she draws a deeper breath in than before as she rubs a hand across her eyes wearily, dragging the scarf off altogether in the process. Untangling the cloth, blinking as her hair is immediately whipped across her face, she holds back the worst of the mass as she asks, "How many shells do you have left for that thing?" she asks, tilting her chin in the direction of the weapon's placement. "It looks like we're almost there."
Darkness descends upon the bleak landscape. Now closer than ever, the persistent fires battle the cold, bathing the city in a hellish glow. Fragments of black stone litter the area as they near the remains of the perimeter walls. The smell of charred flesh begins to seep through the icy freshness of the snow.
Slipping the old blue-steel beauty off his shoulder, Indigo digs his other hand into a pants pocket. He loads five shells into the weapon and slides it back over his shoulder. "Five loaded.. two spare... " He pats his hip, a glint of silver peeking out from under his jacket. "And 18 in old reliable..." He gestures to the city. "From the looks of this place.. we might find something more. What about you, do you have anything on you?"
Trevelyan hesitates, before finally admitting, "A knife. And an old revolver. I've used the knife before, but the revolver I got from my - from an old man. He said it was a family heirloom or something. I can probably figure out how to cock and shoot it if given a little preparation time. The only ammunition it has is what's loaded in it. Minus two shots."
Indigo gives it some thought. "A revolver? Six... you've got four shots. Why are two missing?" He stops for a moment, looking over the rubble as he looks over a particularly mangled wall portion. Turning his head he smiles slightly. "That is, if you don't mind my asking."
"Why would I mind?" Trevelyan asks casually, though the flatness of the look in her eyes as she looks toward him belies the words. "There was already one missing. He said that tradition keeps the chamber beneath the hammer empty. The other..." There is a barely noticeable pause which she covers with a searching look over the scene, ostentatiously searching for hidden dangers, before she finishes in the same breath, "The other is currently residing somewhere in the old man's brain pan."
Indigo nods slowly, leaving the subject alone for the time being. Turning back to the wall, he discreetly slips his hand into a coat pocket. "I knew I'd held onto these for some reason..." Pulling his hand out, a small cardboard box with a yellow top and black text is visible. Though the cardboard is weathered and the letters are nearly faded, ".357" and "Magnum" are readable. He pops the top open, inside is room for six bullets, although four empty holes take up most of the inner space. The remaining two he dumps into his hand, extending it to her. "My old Colt rusted a long time back... take care of the one you have."
Trevelyan, cheeks nipped incongruously pink by the cold, biting wind, stares almost incomprehendingly at the offer for a moment when scarce resources has made sharing and gift-giving almost as much of a fantasy as the fabled cities. Then reason returns and she tugs a glove off, slowly reaching out to gingerly take the ammunition. "Are you sure?" she asks reflexively, even as she continues, almost without pause, "Can you show me how to load them?" Shrugging one arm out of the battered backpack holding her meager supplies, she sifts briefly through its contents before pulling out the prized revolver.
Indigo nods and gingerly places the revolver in his hands, looking it over. He plucks a singular bullet from her still-open hand and shuffles closer to her. Giving the chamber a spin, he listens to the well-preserved parts click together before folding it out. "This... is all you have to do. Just pop this open... and slide the bullet in." He slips it into the chamber before snapping it shut and giving it a spin once more. "And that's that... I would suggest keeping it fully loaded... but you probably want to keep with your tradition." Grasping the barrel in his hand, he places the grip into her oustretched palm. "Do you know how to fire it?"
"It isn't my tradition," Trevelyan disclaims, almost reflexively, but she makes no move to load in the last bullet as she tries to find a comfortable grip before examining the gun's visible mechanisms. Finally, she nods slightly, making the approximate movements as she speaks. "Pull this back. It should latch. Then pull the trigger, right? So in principle, yes - I've seen others use one. But I've never fired one myself."
Indigo smiles, lips pale from the cold. He takes her hand- the one the revolver is in and steps right up to her. "Let me show you then." He rotates the chamber and cocks it at the empty spot. "Just put your hands like this.... and pull the trigger." He lets go, moving back a step. "Try it. Just try to get the feel for it."
Trevelyan stiffens when he moves into her personal space, but doesn't say anything and even relaxes slightly again as he continues to instruct her. When he encourages her to try it, she casts him a single, uncertain glance before nodding and performing carefully as he instructed. When the hammer lands, despite her prior knowledge that it is on an empty chamber, she flinches. "Sorry," she mutters quickly, cheeks flushing from more than just the cold. "Just that, the last time the trigger was pulled..." She didn't finish, but implicit in her words is the fact that the last time the gun had been fired had ended with a man dead from it. "I won't jerk it when I shoot next time."
Nodding with an understanding look on his face, Indigo looks down and sighs. "I know how you feel. The first time... It was so long ago too..." Shaking his head, he takes a few steps into the city, through a gaping hole blown out of a wall. "Go ahead and keep practicing with that... just make sure it's on an empty chamber. We may need all we can get." As if to validate his worries, an unearthly howl echoes through the city.
Trevelyan's eyes snap up at the sound, her lips compressing into a thin white line before she nods, hurriedly reshouldering her pack as she follows close behind. One thumb rests on the hammer, ready to cock it at a moment's notice. "Do you know what this place used to be called?" she asks softly, voice hushed by not only caution, but the very feel of the looming, shattered husks of buildings, as if casual chatter was something forbidden.
More howls join the chorus, an intense feeling of gloom hovers over the city. The snow has stopped, as if obeying the creatures' cries. Nearby fires crackle as the sounds die down, their resonance serving some unknown purpose; perhaps to alert each other of the intruders...
Indigo steps lightly through the debris, once in a while staring up at the slowly-parting clouds, or turning his head to the side as if hearing things lurking about in the shadows. Slipping his shotgun from his shoulder, he glances around at the depressing ruins. He answers Trevelyan's question with one word, his tone of voice cold. "Elysium."
Trevelyan's steps falter, a scatter of gravel and crushed concrete loud in the unnatural silence. "That was a joke made in poor taste," she finally hisses, though the lack of true ire gives away her lack of belief in her own words. Seeing him take out his own weapon, she tenses a little more, bringing the gun up to point at the sky, thumb white where it rests, ready to bring the revolver to bear and shoot.
Indigo shakes his head, standing still. Moving ahead a few steps on a relatively intact sidewalk, he kicks something leaning against a wall. The snow cascades off of it and a scorched sign is visible. In cheerful bright lettering, the sign reads "Welcome to Elysium: City of Light," with a backdrop of glistening silver spires meant to represent the city. He lets the sight of the sign sink in for Trev and then kicks it over, craning his neck to see around a corner in this urban jungle of smashed concrete and burnt metal. "No... the fate of the city is a joke in poor taste."
Trevelyan is quiet for a long moment after the sign, staring at the scarred back when she steps past and even peeking back over her shoulder a few times afterwards. She finally gives herself a shake, however, and asks in a more subdued voice, "We should find a reasonably secure place. I don't know about you, but I don't know how much longer I'll last, and we'll need to forage for more supplies."
Indigo nods, slipping the hood from his head. He runs a hand through his matted-down hair, glistening with sweat and the occasional melted snowflake. Still peering around the same corner, he finally steps around it, motioning for Trev to follow. Around the bend, he backs up against a cement pillar; the only sound to be heard is the crackling of fires, feeding off of any fuel around. Other than that, the city is quiet, dead quiet. Indigo shakes his head, beams of moonlight stretching down from the sky. "I don't like this. There is something very wrong here. Hell, even the LAST place had /some/ semblance of life... this... " he just trails off.
"There were the howls," Trevelyan reminds with dark, strained humor, even as she continues monitoring their back trail. Sticking close, she tries to mimic his careful, stealthy movements as best she can. "Can you make out what's feeding the fires? What caused them in the first place?"
Indigo wrinkles his nose, slowly approaching one of the fires. As he gets closer, he brings his shirt over his nose. "The stench... " Squinting, he stands about a yard away from it. He turns around nearly instantly and returns to Trev's side, a look of disgust on his face. "Bonfires... someone set them.. or some-/thing/... " Turning his head one last time, he peers at the fire. "Bodies... are keeping the flames alive..."
Trevelyan's expression doesn't do much more than waver for the length of a heartbeat, though what little color that had touched her face drains away, leaving it nearly as pale as the snow surrounding them. "All of the fires?" she asks slowly, her eyes involuntarily drawn to the deceptively cheerful flames in the dreary setting. "I suppose the next settlement is too far to set out for right now with the reasonable expectation of reaching it before we keel over from exhaustion or hypothermia?"
Indigo's reply, if any, is quickly cut off by another loud set of howls. Only from within the city, the echoes make it seem like the sources are all around them. A low growling, a deep bestial growl can be heard eminating from a particularly dark corner. Off to the side, another growl is audible from behind a pile of rubble. The howling ceases instantly as a sudden gust of wind whistles through the concrete and metal canyon. Within the shadows, the growling stops as a black form emerges. Its face, nearly human, but with rows of sharp fangs, large yellow eyes, and a very unkempt tuft of fur on top resembling hair. On all fours this thing walks... bloody talons *tik* *tik* *tik*-ing on the cement. The rest of its body, scrawny... ribs protrude from a thin layer of skin, nearly poking holes in the leather-like flesh. It cocks its head to the side, a second demon rounding the debris; flanking the two fatigued wanderers. Almost in unison, the two beasts raise their heads to the sky and howl once more. At once, their companions responding with howls of their own, this time, closer, and louder...