@EldritchHorror-Davadio health_and_safety emoji_events
@CaseyJ @ScotchTapeWorm (Sorry, forgot to @ either of you last time. Hope this is all ok!) (Also @ShadeStar was heading to the Forest as well. Dunno if you wanna meet up or something)
Chet reached the Forest as twilight was approaching. It was roughly 3 hours from the Refuge to the Forest, and he'd been moving slower than normal so he could keep an eye on the kid behind him.
He approached the dense shapes of the Forest. The oasis always smelled strange after he'd been away awhile.
The Forest was just strange, in general.
The same war that had wiped out so much of the population and turned the world into an irradiated Desert had spawned mutant plants and animals of all kinds. Chet remembered normal plants; they were beautiful and delicate and green.
He'd been little when the war had ended, and the last normal plant had died.
Sure, greenhouses were a thing, but the plant life had absorbed so much nuclear radiation in the fighting that what survived was… monstrous. Trees growing abnormally huge and dense, plants glowing blue in the tree shade instead of a healthy green, and all of them sporting ugly growths and tumors.
And the animals were no better.
Strange mutant hybrids of the normal forest animals. Rats as big as rottweilers. Foxes the size of horses. Lynxes standing 8 feet at the shoulder.
Everything bigger had been hunted to extinction, to protect the people. The critters had developed razor sharp claws, long fangs, weird venoms and strange powers. And the whole Forest seemed angry.
Chet didn't stay here very long at a time for good reason.
He couldn't imagine being one of the people in the Forest villages. Living here all the time. It would have driven him insane.
However, there was a lot of good meat in the Forest, if you knew how to cook it so it wouldn't give you radiation sickness. And the water, after 25 years, was clean. Finally.
So he headed in and hunted down a rabbit. A single rabbit would feed him for a week, if he was careful.
Or he could share with his guest for a couple of days.
He kept an eye towards the direction of the Refuge. Unless the kid circled around, he'd come in at the same place Chet always did. Through the clearing to the west. Chet had built an open fire that would be visible from there.
He hated to admit it, but he was looking forward to asking some questions.
"Been too long since you talked to anybody…" He rasped to himself, his voice crunchy with disuse. He sat, staring into the fire, watching the meat cook, just waiting.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As he sat there, Chet fidgeted with a small object. It was a bullet, just one, well worn from being handled so much, but still functional. For Chet, it held a special significance.
This bullet had somebody's numbers on it.
Chet hadn't always been alone. He'd had a brother, once. A little brother, named Danny. Danny had come to him by accident, fleeing the city after the Guv's had taken over. He'd taken Danny under his wing, and for 15 years they'd been a team. From age 8 to 23, Chet had taken care of his little brother. Danny had only been a year younger, but he'd looked up to Chet in so many ways. Chet had taught him how to shoot, how to build weapons, how to hide in plain sight, and so many other things. Danny had reminded Chet how to laugh, how to smile easily and gently.
And then some Guv sniper had shot him.
They'd been salvaging from an old tank, crashed in the desert, and Chet was so excited, he hadn't paid attention to their surroundings as closely as he should have. Danny had been pointing out some loose MRE's, when the bullet had exited his chest in a puff of red.
Chet still had nightmares about the confused look on Danny's face as he toppled and died.
Chet had screamed and pulled his revolver, firing 5 of the 6 shots in the direction the shot had come from. He had sprinted that way, watching as a young teen, just a kid, sprinted away from him, creating puffs of dust in the sand.
He'd tracked the kid back to the city, and at one point had gotten close enough to make out the numbers, those cursed numbers, on his arm.
He'd never forget them: 3110.
He couldn't hunt the guy down once they were in the city, but for the last 6 years, Chet had watched and waited for the sniper to reappear. He'd never fired that 6th revolver bullet, and he only would when he found Danny's killer. It was just a matter of waiting.
Just like he was doing now. Staring into the flames. Waiting.
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