NationStates Jolt Archive

Infernal

It's 2011. Layarteb is a land ravaged by internal war, strife, panic, and chaos. Four years have killed over 5,000,000 people, all Layartebian citizens. The revolution that brought about the Empire brought about a demise too. Disorder, chaos, and a dystopian passion, that is what's left. The outer realms of society have risen through, spoke up and drawn fourth from the shadows. They stalk the graveyards at night, linger in the tunnels during the day. The evil fear evil, evil that will be their own undoing. Evil hunts in them, hunts for them, and hunts to them. The blackened skies of the abyss change from storm to storm bringing lightning, thunder, turbulence. Times have changed...

Lastly, before you read please do not pass any judgement that this will be a pathetic post. If you must have a reference, please go to to the list below and you will see the abilities of me to tell a story. I am a writer.
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Legend
All text in red type is top secret classified. It is unknown to the normal reader and even anyone else other than those present in the text. All are loyal to the government so please none of that, "We had spies" nonsense because I'm going to ignore it.

Italic text is text that is speech. It is italic to differentiate from normal text.

Italic underlined text is thought.

Orange text is a memory.

Green text is documents, communications, etc.

Small text is a translation.

Bold, blue text is a service announcement meant in OOC form

Small, bold text is OOC.
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Notes

This will be updated on a irregular basis. If you see a lapse then by all means, bump the topic. Pictures may be included with horrible images of death. The RP will be R-rated. I will not delve into the realm of sexual acts such as rape and the like because they are just unnecessary but there may be elusions to horrid acts. There will be profanity and there will be gore. I am warning you of all of this because I feel that if you do not like it then this is your chance to avoid reading it. There won't be any surprises. If there is ever something that violates NS rules (and no nothing illegal will be had here) please inform me and I'll take care of it. If you are offended don't read! Simple as that, I know, what a concept, actually not reading something you're offended by instead of protesting like a sissy whimp.
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Other Role-Playing Stories

Against All Enemies (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=512803)
Ascensión (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=509447)
Down with the Sickness (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=432254)
Isla del Enfermo (Earth II) (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=398102)
La Guerra que no Hombre Debe Saber (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=434657)
Ride the Lightning (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=448866)
Sehnsucht für das Glück (http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=386920)
Tale of the Time: Ancient Secrets Found in Yucatán... (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=409829)
Tale of the Wicked: An Empire Within... (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=486764)
The Decayed (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=474683)
The Forsaken Island (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=442286)
The Kingdom of Forgotten Warriors (Earth II) (http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=380343)
The Knight of Dark Chaos (http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=384906)
The Layartebian Chronicles (http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=384916)
The Praetorian Project (http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=450228)

Table of Contents


Chapter I: False Promises & Honest Lies (Page 1)
Chapter II: Untold Secrets & Silver Bullets

Fate, fate is so unkind
Now I should have known
Blind leading the blind
Reaping what I've sown
If it all amounts to nothing
Why, why then am I standing in this line?

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Infernal/01-presenting.gif

Hell is still overburdened
I must stand and wait in line
I may never know for certain when will be my time
How was I considered evil?
Measures taken in this life
Someone granted me repreival
Decades spent in strife

Led to nothing
Repeat it in mind
Led to nothing
If only I was born another time

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Infernal/02-production.gif

Hell is still overburdened
I must stand and wait in line
Hell is still overburdened
Now I find that some take turn in the line

It's the closing of the curtain
In the play that was my life
Now this chapter's left all open tragedies inside
I was fighting for a reason
Holy blessed homicide
Seems I have committed treason
All I've sacrificed

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Infernal/03-infernal.gif

Led to nothing
Repeat it in mind
Led to nothing
If only I was born another time

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Infernal/04-wasteland.jpg

Hell is still overburdened
I must stand and wait in line
Hell is still overburdened
Now I find that that some take turn in the line
Hell is still overburdened
I must stand and wait in line
Hell is still overburdened
Now I find that that some take turn in the line

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Infernal/05-explosion.jpg

Fate is so unkind
Now I should have known
Blind leading the blind
Reaping what I've sown
If it all amounts to nothing
Why then am I standing in this line?

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Infernal/06-post-blast.jpg

"Yes. Fate is so unkind. Too unkind. It felt like the fire of a thousand suns that day it all came to an end. What a wasteland we're left with, created by our own misgivings. We created this place. Fate is unkind to let us survive it, to let us roam the Earth. To roam this place. Hell is too overburdened and I wait in line. For now. I've been waiting since the day it all ended, since my life collapsed through, into an oblivion to which I know not. Now I must stand here. Waiting in line. I watch others around me and they take turns. I take turns. I wasn't evil. Not then...Now? Now is a different story...My story..."

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Infernal/07-tfo.jpg

Hell is still overburdened
I must stand and wait in line
Hell is still overburdened
Now I find that some take turn in the line
Hell is still overburdened
I must stand and wait in line
Hell is still overburdened
Now I find that some take turn in the line

The wind swept through the air peacefully but violently turned up dust a few feet behind the figure. He stood on the barren, cracked, and dried ground, staring off, to the west. The sun was setting and smoke was billowing. The temperature had gone down by forty degrees since the beginning of the day and it was barely above freezing now. He shivered slightly as he looked around. Where am I. He thought to himself as he lifted a cigarette to his mouth. He held it there for a moment, scanning the horizon as the wind kicked up again. The chilling breeze of the wind cut through his bones and turned his skin to leather. He waited a moment, cuped his hand over the cigarette and pulled out a box of matches from his vest pocket. They were wooden and he didn't have many of them left. He looked down as he opened the box and saw just four left. I need more. He pulled out one and turned around, to avoid the wind. Quickly, he struck the match against the side of the box and watched as the tip of it flared up and sizzled in the air. The smell of the match wafted up, into his nostrils and he held the cigarette tight to his lips. He put the match flame to the cigarette end and inhaled as the thin paper end of the cigarette caught fire and the tobacco inside began to burn. He had ripped off the filter long ago but kept them, just in case they proved to be useful. He had no home and no safety deposit box. All of his possessions he took with him, inside his rucksack. He had gotten it when he first walked into the wasteland and now that he was there, he had it filled to the brim. He had camped for the night in the middle of the wasteland, against a wrecked shack that had once been the tin garage of a house. The house was a skelton now but the tin shack still stood. Its roof and sides had rusted almost clean through. He had barely slept the night. He built a fire in the small shack just before sundown and sat down against one of the corners after it was fully going. He found parts of the house still suitable to be burned and tossed them into the fire. It was all he could do to keep warm. As he had sat down against the corners of the shack, he pulled his pistol from his upper leg holster and put it on the ground next to him, the suppressor still attached. The pistol was a Layartebian military model and he had used it since he arrived in the zone, when he got the rucksack. He got it from someone but where he was going, he wouldn't need them. The figure had killed him, quickly and skillfully, with his bare hands for it was all that he had. The man died slowly and it was a fight and a half.

The figure came up behind him in the middle of the night, during a horrific thunderstorm. Lightning flashed all around as he came up behind the man. Rain danced all around him and aside from the rain and the thunderstorm, it was silent. Even through the storm, he could hear the man's heart beating. He stood there, in the wasteland, eating a loaf of bread and drinking a bottle of vodka. Half drunk from the night before, the man stood there, unbeknownst to the threat behind him. The figured crept up on him like an animal creeping up on its prey. The man was the figure's prey. He was a hunter, a villain. He kept his body low and his hands in front of him as he moved, careful not to make any noise. The water that hit him rolled off his clothes and onto the ground below. He could hear, through the rain, the heartbeat of the man and he listened to it, rhythmically. He had no weapons and no armor to protect him but the man he stalked he had a pistol and a shotgun. His back was dominated by a heavy rucksack and he wore a suit that provided ballistic protection. It was a highly effective combination of a light military bulletproof vest and of a rubberized fabric suit. Reinforced with ceramic and Kevlar plates it could protect against a few rounds of gunfire. The man he stalked had all of those and more.

With his hands out and body low he got close enough to hear the man's breaths. Stay still... He thought as he moved clsoer and closer, ready to strike. When he got close enough, he stopped and stood there, watching the man for a second. What are you going to do? He thought again as he lifted his body up and moved another step forward. The man coughed and took a long swig of vodka, nearly finishing the remainder of the bottle. Now or never. He thought once more as he lunged forward and upwards. He had jumped into the air and propelled himself forward, his hands out, ready to strike like a falcon coming down from the heavens. Without a sound he neared the man and when he reached him, he made sure that he was hitting him with full force. It was enough to throw the man down, into the muddy ground, shake the pistol away, and cause him to drop hold of the shotgun. The figure drove his knee into the man's back and pinned him, face down, against the ground. With a yell and a grunt, he pushed his face straight into the muddy terrain, trying to drown him but the man kicked and fought, hard. With a valiant effort, he threw the figure free and stood up, his face covered in mud. The figure bounced along the ground and skidded to a stop in the mud himself. He was quick to recover himself but not quick enough, the man was almost on top of him, a large knife in his hand. The figure was facing certain death and he threw his legs out and forward. He caught the man as he flew through the air towards him and gave him a powerful push, sending the man through the air and back to where he came from, this time skidding along the ground on his back.

He let go of the knife but quickly grabbed it again as he and figure bore down on each other. He came down with the knife next and soon they were locked in a grasp. The figure held his wrist and swung forward only to have his own fist caught. They struggled against each other, enormous amounts of strength within the two of them. Their feet dug into the muddy ground and they sank and slipped. Their boots dug down, into the ground as they locked themselves there, in the struggle. The figure broke free first, kicking his leg out and sweeping the man down, to the ground. In the struggle the man release the knife again but neither of them were able to grab it as it pierced into the muddy ground and both of them toppled over. The figure lay on top and pushed, with all of his might, against the man's chin, trying to break his neck but it wouldn't work. The man kicked and fought and managed to roll the figure over the top of him and onto his back, a wrestling move it seemed. The figure kept rolling though, long enough to get himself slightly further away, far enough that he could recover his footing. The man came after him, with his hands out, forgetting the knife. They struggled again, fists raging against each other, kicking as hard as they could. The figure scored blow after blow but, inebriated, the man didn't feel them for what they were. He roared around again and pushed the man over, face first, into the mud. Lightning flashed and thunder cracked throughout the fight and the man screamed again as his head was pushed into the mud. He continued to try to drown the man but he wasn't successful again. The man flung him away and, for the second time, threw him onto the ground. The figure dashed around and grabbed the man's knife. With a powerful throw he sent it airborne and towards the man. It was a futile attempt, the knife missed. He struggled around again and sent himself flying through the air with a drop kick to the man's chest, pushing him over again, back first. He lunged ontop of him again and pressed down on his head and his neck. He tried to break his neck but it wouldn't work either. The man was just too strong and he flung the figure off again and, with a grunt, picked up his knife from the ground. He lunged forward but didn't get far. The figure went low and grappled him down, grabbing his right wrist, holding the knife at bay. He pushed down, into the man's chest with his knee and man sure to push as hard as he could.

With the man on the ground again and the figure with the upper hand, he banged his hand hard, trying to loosen his grip on the knife. The man reached around with his other arm but the figure grabbed his arm and locked it around. With a powerful shift of his weight, he managed to break the man's arm at his elbow, the crack of his bones louder than the thunder in the air. The man screamed in pain but it did him no good. The figure rolled him around and threw his arm around his neck and held him on the ground. He used his legs to hold the man's legs and torso down and held the man's good arm down. His arm was around his neck and as much as the man tried to fling him off it wasn't working and slowly, he was losing air. He had him in a lateral vascular neck restraint and it was aimed at stopping blood flow to his brain by compressing both the carotid arteries and the jugular veins without closing off his airway. It was effective and in twelve seconds, the man was beginning to lose consciousness. By fourteen, he was old cold but he could regain consciousness in just ten to twenty seconds. The figure used it to his advantage and grabbed him again around the neck but this time twisted violently and with brute force. With a quick snap, he broke the man's neck around his fourth vertebrae. It didn't kill him though and he flung the man against the ground. When he regained consciousness he found that he was still alive but completely paralyzed. The figure, once again, pushed his head, into the mud below and within minutes he had drowned the man, causing him to ingest enough water and mud to fill his lungs enough that he couldn't breathe anymore. The man died shortly thereafter and the figure, muddy, bloody, and in pain, stood over the man. He took his possessions next.

That was a long time ago, before he got to this point in his life. When he put his M33A2 Pistol down, he had put it right by his leg. He wanted to grab it if he needed it and he put his shotgun across his lap. It was a powerful weapon but a slow weapon and it weighed a small ton. It had two barrels and was breech loaded. Each barrel could hold one twelve gauge round, either a slug or buckshot. When he took the shotgun it carried buckshot but, since then, he got his hands on two dozen shot rounds. He rarely used them though. The weapon weighed seven and a quarter pounds, unloaded, with a beautiful wooden buttstock and twenty-eight inch barrel. Overall it was just under forty-six inches long. He was lucky, he picked it up with a rubber recoil pad on the buttstock but it still kicked like a mule. He had almost lost it a week earlier when his vehicle was stolen from him. His wounds were still sore from the fight and he fought six men for his vehicle, killing one of them in the process. He had killed him with a powerful shotgun blast to the man's chest but it was too late, they had gotten away with his vehicle, a four by four enclosed jeep. Now he hunted for his car back. Gasoline was hard to find in the wasteland but he had managed to keep the truck running for some time. He heard rumors about the cannibals walking around so when he laid down for sleep, he was too cautious to fully fall asleep, lest he be caught by them, in the dead of slumber. When the sun rose, so did he and the fire continued to smolder. He hadn't left yet...

He looked down at the shotgun and bent down to pick it up as he saw a dust cloud kick up on the edge of the horizon. Who could that be. He thought to himself as he opened up the breech to look into the barrels. He had two rounds loaded, both of them 00 buckshot, meaning for every ounce there were eight pellets. Inside each shell there were a total of 9 pellets inside each shell and, with a single shot, he could render anyone deadmeat, at close range. He had his pistol already in the holster and he removed the strap that held it down as the dust cloud got bigger and closer. As it got closer, he could hear an echo. The terrain was largely flat and the dirt road that the cloud travelled down was about the best way to get anywhere. There was grass all around the area but the skeleton of the house itself was on a dirt patch, a dry and cracked dirt patch. He couldn't remember the last time it rained. His back ached as he straightened up and looked around the side of the tin shack. He had a pair of binoculars but they were taken with the jeep. Rotten bastards. He thought to himself as he looked at the dust cloud approach. It was definitely a dirt bike and he thought he might be able to use it, depending on who rode it. If it was someone he didn't need any help from he would waste them and take the bike. The cigarette continued to burn in his mouth but it was nearing its own end.

"Your path is at its end, come to me human, I can see your wish, only one will claim the price, come you will get what you deserve." He said to himself, under his breath as the dirt cloud got even closer. The echo of the dirt bike had become much louder now and was crescendoing as it got closer. He could, almost, make out the rider of the bike. There was only one and whoever he or she was, they were alone. Would they stop at the house? He asked himself that very question as he looked down at the long-since extinguished fire. It had burned well enough throughout the night to keep him warm but now, as the sun went down again, he would need to build another one. He hoped to be able to stay at the house another night, just to recooperate from the savage beating he received when his jeep was stolen. He still wanted it back, even though it wasn't, technically, his. He had stolen it too but he had stolen it from a lesser lifeform than he was, someone who wasn't even human. That was a story he knew he'd never forget. Still, he had to be prepared. He had to clear his mind.

A thin veil of sunset hid a plume of rising smoke in the ground, smoke that had to be ten, fifteen miles away but reached ten or fifteen miles into the air. Whatever was burning was big and it didn't look like it was going anywhere. He had watched the smoke billow all morning, afternoon, and evening long. The sun set to the west and the smoke continued to rise, thick, black smoke, belching noxious fumes as it rose into the air. It was caustic, he imagined and he felt a dryness in his throat everytime he thought of the word. He used his tongue to scratch his throat, just thinking about the acrid smoke that lay ahead of him. The purple, red, orange, and blue sky above was singed and tormented, violated by the darkness cast upon it from the smoke. It could have, otherwise, been a beautiful sunset, one that photographers would have flocked to see and possibly even killed each other for the right angles. A sense of peace and tranquility lay over the land but this wasn't a land of meadows, flowering pastured, frolicking bunnies, or sanctity. This was a land that was charred, blackened, and soiled by the nature of humanity. Trees still stood. Grass still grew. Animals still grazed. That wasn't all either. People lived there, in a zone that was more or less a wasteland. It was twenty miles across and stretched out like a big Bulls-eye on a map. It was a circle with a twenty mile diameter, a total of three hundred and fourteen square miles of wasteland. At the center was the scariest thing that had ever happened in their lifetime and there they were at the very edge. They were sealed in, sealed in by an imaginary border that, somehow, managed to remain protected. One could flow into the border but never out of it. If you came to this ravaged land, you stayed there, forever, for the rest of your nature life, however short that was.

Everywhere people and animals hide in the shadows of death, where law ruled not and outcomes weren't determined by "better" or "bigger" men. They were determined by wit and the cold, rifled barrel of a gun. A simple disagreement here could turn bloody and it always seemed that there were too many people in too small of an area. Yet, few lived in the abode of a metaphorically scorched Earth. There was water. There was planet life. There was animal life. There was even human life, if one could even call it that though. Civility had gone out the window years earlier. Out here there was no "Social Contract" to speak of, no government, no equality. Out here there were two things: freedom and nature. It was anarchy, per say. These three hundred and fourteen square miles were ruled by anarchy not by rule of law or good men. It was every man and woman for themselves and it was a big game of "King of the Hill." Unlike the schoolyards though, a simple tag didn't remove you from the hill. You had to die to get removed and to get so far as to get near the hill, you had to shed blood, lots of it. The strongest survived the longest and even the smartest found themselves unmatched without the technologies of the real world. Out here it was brawn. It was a state of nature and there was little change that could be affected upon anything.

As he watched the dust cloud get to within a half mile, he released the safety on the shotgun and made sure that it was armed and ready. If need be, he would draw, fire, and clean up the mess afterwards. Bikers were known to carry submachine guns, giving them a distinct advantage in terms of firepower volume. However, little could match the awesome power of the twelve gauge shotgun that he wielded. This was a broadsword, meant to inflict the largest amount of damage possible with the least amount of blows. Instead of forged steel, this was gunpowder at its finest. The shotgun he held was no match for a submachine gun, when it came to the amount of rounds one could put on a target or even the range but, when close enough, a single blast from a shotgun could render an opponent harmless, even if the aim of the shot was "off" whereas a submachine gun didn't have any pattern effects. Most of the bikers carried either Uzis, MAC-10s, or MP7s. The Uzi was a notoriously inaccurate weapon and the MAC-10 uncontrollable. The MP7, on the other hand, was small, controllable, deadly accurate, and could rip through body armor without effort and it carried a total of forty rounds, enough to kill anyone a few times over. Easily wielded from a dirt bike, it was the weapon of choice but it was a rare find and most bikers were stuck with Uzis and, despite their flaws, the Uzi was a potent weapon, especially at close range. He didn't plan on finding out though, if it came to it, he would put two 12 gauge rounds in the air as fast as he could and draw his pistol, which was a .45ACP weapon. He had enough firepower between the two to annihilate anyone, even if they carried an Uzi.

"Come closer..." He implored the air as the dirt bike came even closer. The rider began to slow down and the high-pitched echo of the engine began to lighten as it slowed down. "Yes...Come closer..." He hid in the shack, standing up, back against the tin wall. He was peaking through a hole in the wall, leaving the rest of his body hidden. With the shotgun in his hands it was only a matter of time before the rider stumbled upon him and it would be decision time. The biker turned off the road and he was ready. "That's it. Come into my trap." He continued to mutter underneath his breath but the rider didn't. Instead, he rode around the shack, from behind it, and stopped his bike behind the skeleton of the house. "What the hell are you doing..." He moved now to the other side of the shack but kept his guard up, looking through another hole. The rider dismounted the bike and walked onto the rubble but then, almost magically, vanished into the ground for a moment. He emerged just a few seconds later and soon him and the bike both disappeared into the ground. Basement! The thought went through his head like an atomic bomb. There was a basement underneath the rubble and whoever this was, he or she lived here. Not only did he have a mode of transportation, he had a shelter that was infinitely better than the exposed shack. He kept the shotgun close to him and walked out, into the open, towards the rubble pile, towards where the rider vanished. Carefully, he moved to the one area of the rubble he never search, the area that the rider used to get to the basement. There was a ramp there, a makeshift one, built from wooden planks that had to have been scavenged. It had notches, to let someone walk up the ramp but it could easily be scaled by a dirt bike. "Now I got you."

He held the shotgun close to his shoulder and walked onto the skeleton of the house. The biker had gone into the shadows of the basement and was long out of view but that didn't stop him. The large weapon hung in the air, suspended and held up by his own strength. He carefully walked slowly towards where the biker had dropped away, careful not to let his guard down, should the biker come out of the hole and up to the surface. He couldn't see what the biker was carrying but he knew tha tit would be something potent enough that if he was caught off guard, he could be easily killed. The weak body armor that he wore wouldn't withstand more than a couple of bullets and with the rapid rate of fire from a submachine gun, his vest could be easily punctured by even the weakest rounds. He was hunting again and hunting was like a second notion to him. He hunted people before and he hunted animals before. It didn't matter what he was hunting though, the end was always the same and that was their defeat and eventual death. The shotgun hung out almost four feet in front of him and he quickly approached the basement entrance and looked down, from the top, careful not to expose too much of himself. It was narrow and the basement door was a wide one, definitely wide enough to fit a dirt bike. It wasn't wide enough for him to fit through the door with the shotgun out in front of him sideways. "Alright. Too big for this." He said to himself as he looked down at the wooden ramp. He slung his shotgun around his back and pulled out his pistol.

The clip was full and all twelve rounds were ready. With the safety off, he moved around, carefully, to the top of the ramp. All the time he kept the pistol pointed at the door and his finger on the trigger. He maintained the sight bridge throughout the entire time but, at such a close range, it wouldn't matter if the shot was perfectly lined up, he couldn't miss. Carefully, he took his first steps onto the top of the ramp and carefully balanced himself. He was on a 30° decline and, as such, his center of gravity was way off but he corrected it properly. He took slow and careful steps towards the door knowing full well that if the biker were to appear it would be trouble for him. A million things raced through his head such as what he would do if the biker appeared, if the biker was armed, if he had to escape, if someone crept up behind him. He analyzed almost every possible thing to do while he walked down the slope. Killing was a part of him as was stalking his victims but he could never be too careful.

When he got to the bottom, he leaned against the steel wall, next to the door. With his right hand on the gun, pointed forward, he reached around with his left, and put his hand on the handle. He gave it a light tug and pulled it towards him. The door budged and opened a crack without a sound. He smiled and pulled it more towards himself. The door slid further and further open, just enough that he could fit through. The whole time he was pulling the door towards himself, using it as a shield against the biker, should he notice anything and open fire through the door or come out of the door. It's game time. He thought as he let go and slid towards the opening, his pistol in both hands again. He carefully moved to the edge of the door and leaned to his right, keeping the pistol out in front of him. Anyone home? He thought to himself as he looked in and saw the glow of a lamp. The room was an "L" shape and the long end was to the left. With a sadistic, sinister, bloodlust, he moved into the basement carefully, quietly, and slowly. He could hear a radio echoing off the concrete walls, which were falling apart it seemed. Chunks of concrete acted as wallbase molding and dust made for a great liner against the decorative wallbase.

In the immediate area of the room wasn't much. Straight ahead was a beat up couch that extended into the other part of the "L" and to the right, in the far corner was a wooden crate, acting as a makeshift end table. Cigarette butts lined the area and he could see tons of them on top of the crate. The couch was in poor shape. Chunks of padding was coming out of the fabric and a spring was sticking out of the right side. On the right wall, his right, was another couch, in the same condition, perhaps a little better. Another crate was on the side of the couch, closer to him. Cigarette butts decorated it too. The radio echoed some sort of acoustic guitar music and he could tell it was a radio and not a recording since it was full of static and definitely not stereo but rather mono. It echoed inside the small underground and he could hear the biker singing along. It sounded like a female's voice at first but he couldn't tell, he couldn't be too sure, his mind was focused on the kill not the voice. He moved towards the left turn, sweat rolling down his head and his face. As he got closer he could see the biker's weapon on the couch. It was an MP7, designated as the M75A1 SMG in the Layartebian military. It fired a small, 4.6 millimeter wide bullet that had a range of about a hundred meters, at best. Forty rounds were loaded into its magazine and the bullets could rip through body armor as well as, if not better than, the powerful 5.7 x 28mm round. He was pleased to see it on the couch and as he got closer to the turn, he could see the biker's shadow. The biker was sitting down and facing away from him, perfect for him to make a sneak up on him or her, he still couldn't tell. Smoke wafted into the air and he could smell the cigarette as he sidestepped out of the corner, pistol raised, pointing at the back of the biker's head. It was a woman. "Who are you?" She spun around with a knife in her hand. Her gun was too far away and she eyed it as she stared at the barrel of his pistol.

"Put down the knife." He spoke, his voice echoing in the basement. "Now!" She complied but still eyed her gun, which was right next to him. Carefully, he bent down, to the side, keeping his vision, and the pistol pointed forward where she was, sitting on the bed that was against the right wall, after more crates. The lamp that glowed in the basement was on the left far corner of the basement. It was a kerosene lamp and he could see a big bucket of it on the ground. He bike was against the left wall too. "Who are you?" She asked again, sweating herself at the sight of the pistol.

He picked up the gun and put it around his shoulder but kept the pistol in front of him. The pistol would be enough to splatter her all around the room with a single shot. "Please. Don't shoot me." Tears rolled down her cheeks and towards the ground. "Please..." She begged as she stared at him, the knife on the ground, out of her reach. "Please. I'm just here to start anew. Please don't shoot me."

"Why are you here? Don't you know this place is cursed?"

"I needed to escape. I had to get away from the police. Are you the police?"

"No. Why did you come here? It's too dangerous for a girl."

"I can handle myself."

"Apparently not."

"Please. Let me go. What do you want, take it all. I just want to live." He looked forward as she cried. The pistol held firm in his hands but he hadn't pulled the trigger yet. "Please. Mister. Let me go. I don't mean you any harm. Please..." Her whole face was contorted as the pain of her tears tore through her cheeks and into her bones. "Please..." She continued to beg.

Beggars. He thought to himself. He hated when people begged for their lives and refused to accept the fate that was about to hit them. Women did it. Men did it. It didn't matter they all begged and he hated it. He wanted people to accept their fate, to make it easier for them. It didn't matter to him either way, they were going to die but begging was just pathetic. He fought and killed people before and most of them begged. Some of them didn't, those were the really good foes that he faced, the ones he respected. "I despise people who beg for their lives. Accept your fate."

"Change your mind. Please. I don't have anything to offer you. Do you want the bike? You can have it. This place? My money? My food? Have it all. I just want to live," she hit the ground, on her knees, close to the knife and begged more.

"Nice try. Get up. And leave the knife." He back stepped and she stood up, slowly, her hand so close to the knife. "Get over here..." He said as he stepped back further. "There. Sit down on the couch. Give me a reason to shoot you. I dare you."

"I won't. Please. Just let me live." She sat down on the couch. No weapon was near her except her two hands. "Please. Let me live. I beg you. Please."

"Stop begging!" He inched back to the otherside and looked at the door, which was still open. "Shut the door and lock it." He ordered her, the pistol still pointed at her the whole time. "Don't try to run. I'm a good shot."

"I won't. Please. Don't shoot me."

"Lock it."

"Please. Stop..."

"Good. Sit back down!"

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to kill you."

"Why? What did I do to you?"

"This place. This place is hell. Don't you know that? It's hell and I'm here to give people a reprieve."

"What reprieve?"

"That's a nice machine gun you have."

"Keep it. Please. Let me go."

"No. I won't."

"You aren't going to..."

"No. I'm not an animal." She sort of breathed a sigh of relief but she knew that she was about to be killed. Little else changed in her demeanor. She was still begging, crying, and her entire insides were wrenched out of position. She felt queasy and was turning pale.

"Oh God no!" She doubled over onto the ground, right over a drain, and turned as white as a ghost. She threw up right there, the entire contents of her stomach, which included some bread, some alcohol of some sort, possibly vodka, and a pair of candy bars that she had eaten. It stunk more of alcohol than anything else and though it drained down, into the hole, it still stunk up the whole place. He looked over to his left to see the cigarette burning on the wooden crate. It wouldn't light it on fire but it was nearly burned out. "See..." She puked again, her eyes and face red now, the color flushing back into her as she let out her stomach on the floor, the acids too. "Please...Don't kill me..." She sat up, against the couch, her knees drawn into her chest, her face red, her eyes tearing still, her eyes blood shot, and the smell wafting in her nose. "Please don't kill me." She mumbled.

He felt sorry for her a little bit; she was pathetic. She wouldn't stop begging and bargaining. Anything she could give, she would give, just to live. "I'm not going to take anything from you." He put away the pistol. He had little humanity left in him and what was left had been torn to shreds and the few shreds that still existed had suddenly shone through his tough exterior. She wasn't a killer. He began to wonder if she could even use the submachine gun that she carried or the knife that she had dropped. "Get up. I'm not going to kill you."

"But you said..."

"I changed my mind." Anger filled her body instead of relief. She had been taken to the brink of her emotions, she threw up into the floor drain, and she had never been so scared in her entire life. "Maybe you can help me."

"Help you? You sick fuck. Help you? After that?" She lunged into the air at him, violently and without a warning. He didn't wait around to find out what she would do though and countered with a quick adjustment of his feet. He reached out with his hands and grabbed her by the neck and by the torso. With a sudden movement of his arms he took all of her momentum away from her and changed its direction. She went from flying towards him towards to flying down, onto the sofa, in less than a second. She hit the couch hard and stared up at him, his right hand on her neck, holding her windpipe. She reached up to try to grab his face but he grabbed her hand too and immediately countered by grabbing her hand. With his knee he held down her other hand and though she tried to kick, she was completely pinned. "Let me go..." She said, barely able to breath.

"You going to be calm?" Her face was changing color again as the air stopping getting to her. Her kicking ebbed and her eyes began to shift around, her inability to focus becoming evident. As she turned a shade of purple, he left go. She drew in a deep breath of air and coughed as it filled her lungs and go to her red blood cells. "Relax. I'm sorry. I made a big mistake." He said it completely nonchalantly and it annoyed her even more but she had no fight left in her. She fell onto the floor, still coughing as the air rushed into her body. "Breathe girl. You're going to pass out if you don't."

"Fuck you..." Her coughing stopped as she pulled herself to her feet again and sat down on the sofa. He was seated across from her, on the other couch, his pistol away but her knife in his hands. He used its sharp blade to clean underneath his fingernails. "Get out of here..."

"No. I need your help."

"Kiss my ass."

"No. Sit there and don't move or I swear I will kill you and I'll make it real slow. You know a stomach wound is the most painful wound you can get from a gunshot?"

"Oh so I'm supposed to believe you now?"

"You'd better. Just sit there. What's your name?"

"Larisa."

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Infernal/larisa.jpg

"Larisa. I like that name. I need your help. You're here to escape the law. Whatever you did in the past. Right?"

"Yes." She answered suspiciously.

"Well I came here to find someone. To find someone that took every last bit of humanity that I have left in me. Well almost every last bit. Whatever I have left it isn't much. That much I hold onto and that much is why you're alive right now. If you help me I'll help you."

"How? You're not the law."

"No. I'm not. But if you tell me who's hunting you I might kill them."

"How will that solve my problem?"

"We'll get to that. If the people that are hunting you are dead. How can you be hunted?"

"There will be more."

"Perhaps. But we'll kill them all. You see I am here for one person. One person only. He's somewhere here."

"What'd he do?"

"Took everything away from me. Everything."

"Like what?"

"Don't worry about it. I just need your help. How long have you been here?"

"A year and a half."

"I've been here. Actually I don't remember. It's been so long. Longer than that."

"Longer?"

"Yeah. I need your help."

"Fine. Fine. I'll help you on one condition."

"What is that?"

"You never threaten me again."

"Done. You want me to fix your problem?"

"Maybe."

"So will you help?"

"Will you agree?"

"Yes."

"Then yes."

"Alright. My name is..."

Hours had passed and it was the dead of night when they finally found words to say to each other. Larisa still shook a little and was still in disbelief about what happened. The man was different. He was calm and sat on the couch, his pistol in his lap, still untrusting of her, and stared up, to the ceiling. It was almost as if he were asleep and, for a while, it seemed he was. She was reading on the bed, reading a book that looked as if it had survived every battle of the war. Pages were torn out and stuffed back in, the cover was nearly torn off, water stained every page, and there were a few burn marks. "What are you reading?" The man asked, startling her. She expected him to be asleep. "Is it good?"

"It's an old book. Really old. I found it a week ago in a dumpster near the outer rim city." Her voice shook a little but she dared not look up from the book. "Why?"

"Curiosity."

"Are you really curious or just trying to kill the uncomfortable silence?" She folded the book shut and looked up, her peircing brown eyes tore through the thick air in the basement bunker and into his own eyes as he levelled them off at her.

"A little bit of both. You see I made a terrible mistake earlier. First off, I thought you were a man. That would have made it easier. You see all I wanted was the bike and the weapon. Maybe the place too. I hadn't decided. I was afraid you would kill me too. You see I've stayed up top for two nights, with this shotgun in my lap. I don't have a home. I had a jeep. That was stolen. I had to fend out a half dozen people for it."

"You were mugged?" She laughed slightly. "Isn't that irony."

"It is. You see I'm sorry. I need someone's help. You need help to. It's a barter system. We help each other."

"And what promise do I have that I'm not just being used?"

"My word. That's all I can give." He stood up from the crappy sofa. "I'm here for revenge. You could say. Somewhere in this realm of hell is a man who took everything away from me. My heart. My soul. Whatever humanity I have left is a shred of what I used to have. You saw all that I have left. I need this man in my hands. I need to take from him as he's taken from me."

"Seems Biblical."

"You could say that. It's pure revenge Larisa. I'm not here to make a living or to hide from the law. I'm here to hunt. I won't stop until I find him. You realize?"

"What did he take from you? Specifically?"

"All that a man has. Twice."

"I'm sorry."

"So why are you running?"

"I killed my boyfriend." She said as she hung her head low. It was tough to admit the truth. "I killed him."

"Why?"

"Because he abused me. He threw me against the wall. He beat me. He spit on me. He treated me like an animal." Tears, once again, rolled down her face as she remembered all of the bad times. "He trapped me with him. I couldn't get away. He locked me in a cage a few times. I couldn't get help. I was too scared. So one day, I got out. When he came home I put a steak knife through his neck. He fought still. Stabbed me and almost shot me. But I won. Sort of. I'm still scared on my shoulder from the knife. But I had to."

"I can't disagree."

"No? You shouldn't. You ever treat a woman like that?"

"No. No I haven't. To be honest, I've never saw the need to."

"Good." Her eyes, though covered with tears, shone a sort of demand towards him. If he didn't agree, her eyes said, he would have to die as well. "But I had to. You understand?"

"It's tough to take a life. Isn't it?"

"I regret it still."

"Why? If he beat you he deserved it."

"I know. I've been told. But I still killed someone."

"You will have to live with that I cannot help you there. But I can alleviate those who seek you out. Why do they? Just because you skipped bail?"

"He was a cop." Everything suddenly made sense. "I never made it to the jail. They pulled off on the side of the road. They were going to shoot me there but a trucker. Someone. He stopped to help. Distracted them while I ran off. I wound up here but they're looking for me. They might even be here. I don't know."

"Cops?"

"Two of them. His partners. They want their own 'justice' but the truth is they're just as bad as he is."

"I can protect you from them."

"How?"

"In my past I was a soldier. I enforced the law sometimes." She curled out at the words he uttered. Suddenly she felt alone and trapped again. "I'm not here to arrest you. I'm here because I need your help."

"You're going to kill me in my sleep. Won't you?"

"No."

"You're lying."

"If I was going to kill you I would have done it already. I've resigned that thought." He had to build her trust and with the early events that wouldn't be easy. Not in the least bit. "Listen to me." He sat down on the edge of the bed but she shot away, scared of him. "I'm sorry about earlier. I won't harm you. I promise you." He looked into her eyes but he didn't know if she was looking back at him or just staring into oblivion, clouded by her own repressed memories and fear. "Do you hear me?"

"Yes." She whispered. "I do."

"Then you can have this back." He handed her the submachine gun and, almost instantly, she brought it up and pointed it right at him. "What are you doing?" He calmly asked. He wasn't afraid to die. That would at least give him a reprieve from the hell he suffered. "If you shoot me. I can't help you. I can't get who I came for. Don't deprive me of that. Please."

"You're going to kill me."

"No. I'm not. Why would I give you the gun?"

"Because you want to 'hunt' me."

"Because it's yours. I have my own."

"Get up. Turn around. Against the wall."

"No."

"Then I'll shoot you."

"You won't."

"How do you know that?"

"Because you aren't a killer. If you were you wouldn't feel bad about killing your ex-boyfriend."

"I was lying."

"No. You weren't. Go ahead. Shoot me. I dare you."

"Don't. I will!" Anger filled her face but the flow of tears didn't stop. She was red and trying her hardest. Her arm began to shake and the submachine gun shook violently. "I will!"

"You can't do it." He stood up and turned around. "Here. You don't have to look me in the face. It's easier that way."

"Shut up!"

"No. If you're going to kill me then just do it. What are you waiting for? I could have taken the gun from you forty times already."

"Shut up!" The tension inside of her built up to astronomical levels. "I will."

"Go ahead." Those were the last words he would say as she raised the gun and pulled the trigger. Silence filled the bunker as the bolt clicked. Well I'll be... He thought to himself. She looked at the gun and threw it on the ground. It didn't go off, just clicked. He turned back around and looked at her. She was crying her eyes out on the bed. "It isn't easy. Is it?"

"No..."

"Good. I want you to learn that. I don't want you to help me to kill people. I want one person. I want to find him."

"Okay..."

"Will you help me?"

"Okay..."

"Will you try to kill me in my sleep?"

"No..."

"The gun was empty. I wouldn't be stupid to give you a loaded gun like that."

"I guess... You're going to kill me now aren't you?"

"No..."

"Then why are you here?"

"I told you. Listen to me. Listen to what I've told you. I'm here for one man. That's it." He sat back down on the sofa and laid down. "Just one man. Not you..."

"Please don't kill me..." Her eyelids were too heavy to keep open and she had, effectively, cried herself to sleep. The man smirked and shut his own eyes. The sofa was beyond uncomfortable but it beat the ground. His pistol was on his leg holster and his shotgun was beside him. He was facing the door, just in case anyone tried to sneak into the bunker during the night. And so, over eighteen months after he first stepped foot into the lawless abode of hell, the man's story finally began...

Chapter I
False Promises & Honest Lies

"It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it."

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Rain danced on the roof and on the ground. It turned the dry, cracked, lifeless dirt and straw ridden fields to rivers and lakes, muddy and brown, stained and soiled with filth. It would bring life where it was already dying but, at the same time, it would kill life on its own. It was the brutal cycle of nature and it took as much as it gave whereas mankind merely took. The forbidden land was just another example of mankind's taking. Each and every day, mankind took more and more, feeding on the planet like a virus, a virus with only one cure, utter annihilation. The world nearly came to it as the corners of the Empire crumbled away and the walls of its borders shattered into pieces. Its effects far reached even the dirtiest, most remote crevaces in the world. Life halted for those moments when everything seemed to come undone. After it unravelled, life would never retain the semblance of normalcy it once had. That was the brutal truth in 2011, three years after the hell bore through the crust and to the surface of the earth.

The man dreamed as his eyes flickered underneath their closed lids. He saw the horrific images of his past. He saw what he unleashed and what had been unleashed on him. He saw his prey, the man he hunted, the man who took everything away from him, twice. He saw the people he once knew. He saw the people he once killed. Their souls haunted him now and karma caught up to him, twice. He wasn't a deep sleeper, no hunter was. The sound of roaches crawling along the dimly lit floor arose an eye and a head move. There was no clock in the basement and he didn't know what time of day or night it was. Larisa was asleep, machine gun in her hands, fearful that the man was going to kill her in the night. Likewise, he gripped his shotgun, wary that she could do the same. He was groggy but he didn't think more into it and shut his eye, back to the restless slumber and painful memories of the past. They drove him. They provided the fire within that pushed him day in and day out and drove his revenge. The fire burned within, hotter than the core of the Earth, hotter than the core of the Sun. Everything about him screamed revenge and his body yearned for it. "Revenge..." He whispered in his sleep. "Revenge..." Vengeance was his only will to life anymore. He needed revenge more than he need air, food, water, or even shelter. He hungered for it and he wouldn't stop until he had it.

He barely moved on the uncomfortable, filth-ridden sofa until a startling noise echoed into the bunker, right into his ears. His eyes shot open and his body lurched off the couch, to the right, faster than light itself. His shotgun was shouldered and the sound didn't startle Larisa at all. She barely heard it. The man, on the other hand, keen to his senses, bolted up before the sound could cease its echo. It was the sound of metal against metal and only one thing could make that sound. Someone was at the door and someone was trying to get into the sealed bunker. A deadbolt ensured that there was no getting in or out but who knew what the person on the other side had. His breathing elevated and his heart echoed in his cavernous chest. Come on...Come to me! He willed the interloper as he steadied his aim at the door.

The jostling continued but quietly. The person wasn't a professional but neither were they an amateur. The man was a professional and now he was going to end whomever was trying to get into the bunker. He didn't want to startle Larisa and wake her. She could shoot him, after all he had a twelve gauge, shotgun in his hands and his face was not smiling. Then again, she could just be a hindrance if someone did get into the bunker. He decided to let her lie, it was safer that way, for everyone. Then the bunker echoed again and he heard a "CLICK" sound. That was bad news. He would have to reinforce the locking mechanism on the doors. He didn't need to be startled like this once a night. He enjoyed his sleep as much as anyone could who didn't sleep. The door creaked open and no light cast in, it still being nightime. That's it... He saw a pistol poke through the door but he could not make out if there was someone behind it yet. The door was opening slowly and carefully and the person was armed although with a weak weapon, a nine millimeter pistol. He almost laughed at it as he held his shotgun close to his shoulder.

With a sinister smile, he sidestepped to the right a little and leaned around the corner, leaving very little of his body exposed, the shotgun flat against his shoulder, ready to let loose. He had two rounds loaded and both of them, at the range from the corner to the door, would turn anything short of an elephant into a fine, red mist. He saw a hand land on the side of the door as it slid open further. It was barely six inches open already and the person was working really slowly. They wanted in and they weren't sure if someone was armed inside. The man was careful not to move. He stayed completely still, using the shadows of the bunker to hide himself. He could see out but he couldn't be seen. That was how the light danced off the concrete walls. There were no voices to be heard and certainly, as the door slid further and further open, each inch seeming like an hour, he could feel the impending doom that would befall the interloper.

The hand stopped as the door was about a foot open. The door stopped too and now the hand vanished back into the darkness of the night. The pistol fell back and then he could see an eyeball reach around, just one eyeball. It was surreal. He could see its detail. It was a blue eye, that was well adjusted to the low-light of the night but not the eye of someone who knew what they were doing or was still an amateur. He revised his original assumption that it was somebody mediocre. This was definitely an amateur. The eye looked around but didn't see him and didn't see with any depth perception whatsoever. This bunker was situated knee-deep in Hades, the abode of the devil but that didn't stop all sorts of creatures of the night from wandering around, poking their heads where they didn't belong. The man stood perfectly still, waiting to squeeze the shotgun trigger. He waited and waited and the eye eventually drew back. Whomever it was, they hadn't seen him or the shotgun that was going to be staring them in the face. Then the figure appeared, a lonely, shadowy figure with a pistol in one hand, the right hand.

The figure sidestepped through the hole and into the bunker, the barrel of the pistol pointed at the ceiling. He didn't recognize the person, who was definitely a man nor did he recognize anything else about the situation. The shotgun sights had landed on his chest, right about his heart, and he waited. Patience was his game and he relished in the failures of his enemies. They were opportunities, he always said. The figure stopped after he had moved into the bunker, sidestepped to the left, in front of the closed door, and now put his back against the metal door. The opening was cleared and the man kept a close eye on it, should anyone else come into the bunker that wasn't supposed to be there. The interloper held the pistol out, straight and took three small steps forward. His eyes fixed on the shotgun but it was evident he couldn't tell what it was, not in the darkness. Three steps were all he needed and they were all he was going to get. The man squeezed the trigger a moment later, sending the 00 buckshot pellets flying at the man at over 1,400 feet per second. They didn't even have to go fourteen feet. The blast of the shotgun echoed so loudly in the bunker that his and Larisa's ears instantly began ringing. As the barrels rocked upwards, smoke coming from the muzzle, Larisa jumped out of the bed, her submachine gun in her hands. "Don't shoot me! I'll shoot back!" She yelled, before she could open her eyes.

The interloper didn't stand a chance. The rounds bore into his chest, in a tight circle around his heart, removing it and half of the rest of his organs. The pellets and the force of them tore through his weak, chainmail-type armor, continued through his thick, leathery skin, through his organs, and out of his back. They blew out a hole big enough to stand in and blasted, against the back of the door, a red ooze of blood, organs, and spinal bone. His spine was severed from the shot and his heart had been nearly dislodged from his body. It hung out of the hole in his back, still beating, miraculously. The trauma made sure that it didn't matter. The next step was the concussion of the shot, which pushed the interloper backwards and slammed his mortally wounded carcass into the door. He slid down it, landing on the floor, sitting down with his back against the door and his legs out forward. His heart stopped beating by then and lay there. Blood was smeared all over the metal door and pooled on the ground. The splatter effect made sure that the walls, ceiling, floor, and door were decorated in reddish ooze. The man recoiled from the shot but recovered the barrel immediately and trained it to the opening of the door. He listened, as best as he could, for echoes, for voices, for foot steps, for something that would indicate that the interloper wasn't alone. Surely, the noise of the blast could be heard outside. It had echoed for over a mile away, bouncing off everything there was to bounce off of, hiding within the raindrops and thunderclaps along the way.

For two minutes nothing changed. Larisa recovered herself and looked forward of her to see the man's figure, staring towards the door, the shotgun against his left shoulder. It was an uncomfortable and unnatural pose, she noted but he wasn't pointed the barrel at her. She didn't lower her weapon but she did inch closer. "What happened?" She asked. Her own voice was drowned out in the ringing and it sounded as if she was underwater. He didn't hear her at all for two reasons: the blast and his attention was focused on the open door. He waited for someone else to come but nobody came. After several minutes, he lowered his weapon and turned his head, to see Larisa, standing just a few feet away, the barrel of her submachine gun pointed right at him. "I asked what happened?" She said though he could still barely hear her. He tried to read her lips but he couldn't so he just gave her a head nod to come to where he was.

"I want to show you something..." He said himself but to her it was just lips moving. She read them and moved closer, slowly, the submachine raised the whole time. "Interlopers." He mouthed again, which she understood. She looked at the mess on the floor and at the corpse of the interloper. The door was still opened but nobody came in and nobody would. He was alone, a loner in the forbidden realm. Their hearing came back a few minutes later, after the ringing began to subside. "Know him?"

"Yeah." She said as her eyes were fixated on the gaping hole in the man's chest. "I know of him. He's a bad man."

"What do you mean?"

"He breaks into peoples' homes. Well if this can be called a home. Well, into their shelters. Her prefers women to men and the younger the better. He's an escaped convict. The chaos of the revolution set him free. Along with the rest."

"I see. Well the prison wasn't far from the epicenter."

"No. It wasn't. Not at all. He was coming for me." She said somberly. "He was coming for me..." She lowered her submachine gun, finally, tears swelling up in her eyes. It seemed that she spent her whole day crying. "He was coming for me..." She turned around and looked at the man, clear in the eyes. He was much taller than her, by at least six or seven inches but she still looked up at him. "He was coming for me..."

He couldn't help but feel bad for her and so he did, putting his arms around her as she clung to him for dear life. "It's okay. He's gone now. You're safe."

"Am I?"

"You are. I promise you that I won't let anything bad happen to you."

"You won't?"

"No."

"You mean that?"

"I do. Please. Don't look it's terrible."

"It's okay. I've seen death before. Worse than that."

"Go back to bed. I'm going to get rid of the body."

"No. I can't."

"Why?"

"I can't have that blood there."

"Got a bucket and a sponge?"

"A bucket. Rags. I think."

"I'll get rid of the body. I'll collect some rainwater too. It'll be muddy probably. But it could work."

"It's all we have." He let go of her and put his shotgun on his back. Then he took a few steps towards the body and looked down at it. He smiled, opened the breech of the shotgun, and used his nails to pull out the spent, plastic shell casing. He dropped it on the floor and loaded another one. With a snap, the shotgun was ready with two rounds again. Carefully, he peered around the door, up and out, to the right, and to the left. Nobody was there. He stepped out, the shotgun in front of him and it went where his eyes went. He carefully stepped up the plank and to the surface where he looked around, through the monsoon of rain coming down from the darkened heavens. Lightning flashed in the distance.

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Infernal/lightning.jpg

He took a quick look around, throughout the rubble, into the shack where he had slept. Nobody was around and so he walked back to the bunker, never once lowered his weapon. He walked back down the wooden plank, which became unbearably slippery and nearly lost his footing, twice. When he got to the door, he put the weapon on his back and dragged the body free. The blood followed it and he pulled it up the ramp, making it even more slippery. On the surface, the water from the rain had drowned the ground already and he stepped in puddles everywhere. He wasn't going to bury it, not yet at least and probably not at all but he would take it far enough away from the bunker that the smell wouldn't seep in as it rotted away. On the surface, the body became heavier, the rain getting into its clothes. That didn't stop him and he dragged it to a small, rain lake about four hundred feet away from the bunker entrance. He dropped it on the ground, face up, a look of unsurpassed horror on the corpses face stared up at him.

Before he disposed of it he dug through the pockets. The interloper wasn't wearing a knapsack so there was nothing to take there. In his pockets was ammunition, a map, a compass, and other odds and ends. He took all of it and looked for jewelry but there was none. With a kick and a roll, the body fell onto the lake and was imersed in brown, muddy water, which turned red as the blood continued to leak out of the corpse, draining from the gaping wound that killed him. Upon returning back to the bunker, he was handed the bucket by Larisa, who was still visibly shaken. He put it on top of the ground and left it there for a few minutes, while the rainwater began to fill it up and began to splash all around it. "Thank you." She said as she looked up at him once more. "I'm sorry."

"It's alright. Listen let's just clean this up and go back to sleep."

"Okay." She pulled out the rags and he began wiping up the blood, using the rainwater outside to wet them and drain them although they would be stained forever. Oil had stained them already so it wasn't as if they were new rags. It took a while to clean up the blood but when he was done he got most of it up and out. There was going to be a stain there, always but it wouldn't rot away with the corpse. He locked the door again and fell back asleep within a few minutes of laying down on the sofa. Larisa, on the other hand, shook on her bed, afraid to shut her eyes again.

Dawn came and the sun peaked its head over the horizon at first, checking to see if the coast was clear. As the darkness ebbed, the light bathed the ground. The rains had stopped just a few minutes before first light and now the ground could dry out as it baked in the sunlight. The clouds had cleared the area and left a clear, blue sky above, a sky out of a children's fairytale. It was too bad that the ground was an adult's nightmare. Animals awoke and went about their instinct filled days as the people awoke in the forbidden area just to go about their meaningless, fear-driven lives.

Larisa awoke first but was barely asleep. She stood up in the bunker and looked around in the total darkness. The light had burned out just as her eyes grew too heavy to stay open. Gravity won against her about twenty minutes before first light. Four hours later, she awoke, although she had never really gotten to sleep even after she shut her eyes. Her slumber was shallow and she seemingly kept one eye open. For the man, who sat still on the sofa, it was all the same, a story that he knew too well except that he almost did sleep with one eye open, all the time. As she stirred, he awoke too. They both looked at each other in the dark although neither of them knew it and both of them were wary that the other was awake. It was eerie, in a way.

"Why are you staring at me?" The man asked, his eyes almost perfectly adjusted, picking her's up in the darkness. A tinge of light crept underneath the doorway and gave a slight indication that it was morning or at least day time. "I can see you." He looked at the doorway.

"I wasn't sure if you're awake."

"I am. We have work to do today."

"What work?"

"You're helping me."

"How. You don't have a vehicle?"

"We're not taking the bike. We're walking."

"Where?"

"There's a camp and a small farm a little over a mile from here. They may have some answers."

"Have you ever been there?"

"No. They're loners and they aren't too friendly."

"So why are we going there?"

"Because I want answers."

"Is it safe?"

"Nothing here is safe. But we'll be fine."

"We'd better."

"Just lock up tight."

"Yeah. I will."

"I'm fixing this lock before tonight. I don't want any more surprises." He lit a cigarette, which glowed in the darkness. The match flared up his whole face, giving it an echo in the darkness that could haunt even the most relentless killer. As he did, she lit the kerosene lamp and bathed the whole bunker in a soft glow of light. "We need more kerosene."

"Yeah. We do."

"Got money?"

"A little. Why?"

"How do you think we're getting the fuel?"

"I steal it."

"You're a thief now?" He laughed. "From where?"

"Drifters. They're usually drunk and passed out by three in the morning. I take it then. From their bikes."

"And you don't get caught?"

"When I said drunk and passed out I meant unconscious. They couldn't hear me if I stepped on their chest."

"Good. Get ready we're leaving in a few minutes."

"In a rush?"

"Yes."

"Fine. Well on the way maybe you can tell me what the hell happened here. Nobody seems to know anything."

"Nobody knows anything because nothing, officially, happened here. This place isn't even on maps anymore."

"I found it." She added, "By accident." She looked around and picked up some extra magazines for her submachine gun. "I'm ready."

"Fine. We'll go. I'll tell you what happened. It's about a half hour maybe forty minutes to the place."

"Okay. What happens when we get there?"

"Let me do the talking and if you see me worried, pull out that gun and blast away."

"Do you ever get worried?"

"No."

"Good."

"But to err on the side of caution." He dropped the cigarette on the floor and stomped it out as he left the bunker ahead of Larisa. They chained the door shut behind themselves and carefully looked around before coming out of the hole. Drifters loved to hide by bunkers and attack people as they came out of them. Lucky for any drifters, none were there waiting to die. "Let's go. It's that way. To the east." He had a small compass that he used to get his bearing and that was enough. After a few steps, he turned to her. "So what do you want to know?"

"What happened? Why is this whole place forbidden?"

"It's not really forbidden. Per say."

"Then what's wrong with it? Why does the army seal it off from the world?"

"To keep what's within from getting out."

"What's within?"

"The worst of humanity. You see. In here. There is no rule of law, no state of government, no social contract. It's everyone for themselves. It's brutal in here. We're like animals here. We hunger. We kill. We want something. We kill and take it. You see. In here, in this area and the closer you get to the center, the worse it is. It's like descending through the nine levels of hell."

"What's in the center?"

"You don't know?"

"Nobody knows. Nobody's been there."

"I have."

"You have?"

"Yes. I've been to the center."

"So what's there?"

"Ruins."

"Ruins?"

"Ruins. That's it. There's nothing there worth seeing. It's decimated."

"So what happened?"

"During the revolution..."

"During the revolution," he began as they crossed over the road and into more wilderness. "Well let me start out before the revolution. This city was home to almost four million people and was a major center for business, industry, and even education. Many of the advances in education came from within the limits of the city in the center of the forbidden area. There was one of the finest universities in the Empire and the finest for education. Then the revolution happened and its control became equally vital to both Imperial and anti-Imperial forces."

"The city in the center?"

"Yes. Well it's ruins now. It used to be a city. A big one a major one. Like I said." The wind howled through the grass in front of them, which was overgrown and infested with bugs. Their clothes would provide the best defense against ticks, fleas, and other miniscule bugs that feasted on the flesh and blood of all that walked through their domain. Animals had it the worst, especially wild dogs, which were a major threat to humans. Dogs feasted on flesh of the living and flesh of the dead. They had tasted blood and they craved more and more of it. There were always stories floating around the drifter camps about a pack of wild dogs devouring someone, alive, before they could fend them off with their weapons. Dogs were particularly ferocious and unrelenting and that made everyone wary when they travelled outside of the camps. People were encouraged to go in pairs or more for the dogs and for the other drifters out there. They were encouraged to bring arms, and whenever possible, they were encouraged to kill any dogs they saw. The dogs were a dangerous enemy though, they were silent and excellent stalkers. They could follow you for a half mile before you'd know they were there and when you did, they were in the air, their teeth out, your neck being their target.

"So who won?"

"I'm getting to that. The city was one of the first major battles fought between Imperial and anti-Imperial forces. Layarteb City was the last one. Caracas was one of the first ones but it didn't go so well for the anti-Imperialist forces. That was back in April 2007 when Layartebian authority was questioned in Venezuela with open rebellion. They lost. Brutally."

"I remember that."

"Everyone who is alive remembers that. A lot of the people I knew went there and some didn't come home."

"You were a soldier?"

"We all were at one time."

"The conscription?"

"Yes. The conscription. But I did my duty and now I'm collecting on old debts."

"You told. So come on, what happened?"

"Alright. For the first two days it was give and take. Both sides gained massive ground against the other side. Then, on the third day, all hell broke loose with a major offensive by Imperialist forces. It continued into the sixth day and it was a massive success. Imperialist forces routed out at least half to three quarters of the anti-Imperialist forces and stood to control the whole city. Their offensive slowed on the seventh when anti-Imperialist forces staged a successful flank attack that did some major damage but not nearly enough. The eighth day brought on stalemate, which continued through the tenth day. Then, on the eleventh day, as the Imperialist forces were getting ready for their final push, all hell broke loose.

"I'm not sure which side used it or why but it was the second time a nuclear weapon was used by anti-Imperialist forces, the first being Saint Georges. The missile was a top-secret, tactical-strike missile. They called it the Falcon. It used an eighty kiloton fusion warhead, pretty weak by most standards. Other versions had one hundred and fifty, five hundred kilotons. Big ass warheads."

"Yes I'm familiar with kiloton."

"Good. Well you know eighty is small but still massive. So it was fired from the south. They never knew who launched it but neither side won that battle. It detonated in mid-air, creating a massive fireball that took the entire city center with it and most of the surrounding areas. Casualties were in the millions and the radius of damage extends out pretty far. It detonated a little over eight hundred feet in the air making a fireball that was more than an eighth of a mile wide. Everything for two miles was gone, including big buildings, which were wiped out by the epicenter. Out to three miles, the damage was so extensive that it looked as if an F6 tornado rolled through the area and stayed for a week! Some glass windows broke as far away as ten miles although after five miles the damage was pretty weak, just the effects of a minor earthquake there. I estimate we're about eight miles from the epicenter here. Maybe a little more.

"So that's what happened."

"Wow. Pretty bad."

"You're telling me. I lost friends there too."

"Yeah. I never knew what happened. I got caught up in the revolution and sort of faded away."

"Where did you go?"

"Cuba."

"Why there?"

"It seemed the safest place."

"Until..."

"I was there."

"I can tell. Come on. Let's get there. It's just on the other side of these railroad tracks. You see those train cars there, all pushed around?"

"Yeah."

"The blast did that."

"Did it?"

"Yes. After it everyone feared radiation although there wasn't much of it."

"Alright."

"Just stay close. This place is pretty rowdy and I'm sure they'd find a female very well."

"I understand."

They continued through the wilderness for another few minutes, walking through a small area of thick shubbery and trees. Thorns stuck out everywhere and it seemed as if they were walking into a death trap from the way it was set up. Above them, a few birds chirped and a few others stood silent on branches, looking down at the two people who now moved through their makeshift world. It was a few hundred feet through the small forest area and the path was barely wide enough for one person, let alone two. They had to moved through it single-file with him leading, it was safer that way. She kept close though and they feel as eeriely silent as the area around them. Bugs crawled underneath their feet and a few cats stopped and looked straight at them as they moved along the dirt and rock path. "Careful." He said as he stepped over a rock that jutted out from the ground. She barely noticed and immediately caught it with her foot and lost both her footing and her balance. She tumbled forward, with a look of surprise on her face but, lucky for her, he heard her foot catch the rock, which echoed in a sort of dull fashion in the vacinity. He caught her quickly and righted her up again. "I told you to watch out." Her scream came as she was falling and stopped just as he grabbed onto her. It echoed loudly enough to scare the cats away. "Be quiet. You never knew what's out here."

"Sorry." She whispered. They moved forward again and crossed through the shadowy area. "Hear that?" She whispered again as the sound of cracking branches rolled through their ears. He heard it and stopped immediately, crouching down and, with his hand, telling her to do the same. He drew his pistol and turned to look at her and with a finger over his mouth he told her to be quiet. Then he told her to stay there, the entire time not uttering a word out of his mouth. He took a few more steps to the right and then vanished around the other side of a tree, leaving her alone, on the path, with whatever else was out there. Where did he go? She asked herself as she began to worry. The sound echoed only once but when it did it a second time she stopped second guessing whether she heard it or not. She had and so did he and that was why he had ordered her to the ground, as quickly as he did. Someone or something was out there, hunting them perhaps.

Larisa didn't have much time to think on the ground as a figure lunged towards her in the shadows. She screamed and it echoed across the vacinity again, bouncing off every rock and tree that her shrill scream touched. She tried to move out of the way but found herself paralyzed as some sort of beast-man thing came flying at her. She could see it coming right at her and she had a split second to react and think. The only thought in her head was why he left her and the only reaction she had was to be like a "deer caught in headlights." She froze and helplessly watched as time slowed down around her and impending doom lurched fourth.

It was then, out of the corner of her right eye, that she saw some respite of hope. The man appeared and with his pistol pointed forward. She couldn't see much more than him and the pistol, it was off to her peripheral vision, which wasn't that detailed. By nature she couldn't distinguish much out of her peripheral vision, just that something was there, not color nor shape really except what she saw was a gun and she did sort of see the man there as well. Peripheral vision, by nature, was good for detecting motion and the motion of him appearing with the gun was enough to trigger her vision. She was still screaming and though only tenths of a second had passed since she first saw the thing lunge at her, it seemed like minutes. She tried to focus on the man who was there to save her but she didn't see much before a bright flash of light bombarded her eyes. The loud bang echoed shortly thereafter, splitting into her eardrums, which were sort of muted anyway from her screaming. The figure that was lunging at her took a sorry turn for the side and its facial expression changed from a sort of sinister "attack" to unrelenting defeat. The figure doubled over, to her left, set off course, and slammed into the ground, head first. The body skidded a little bit and landed against a tree. She was still screaming and she didn't even know it anymore.

The man grabbed her quickly and put his hand over her mouth. "I said be quiet!" He whispered again to her, his eyes as wide as they could be, the gun still in his hand. He let go of her mouth and as she sucked in air through her nose and mouth, her heart rate highly elevated, she turned to see him go over to the body and kick it. It didn't move but he kept his pistol pointed at it the whole time. He kicked it again and rolled it over so that it was face up and she could see the devestating reason why it didn't move the first time. Half of its head was missing and the red ooze all over the bushes to her left was what came out of the figure's head. The bullet ripped through the left ear of the attacker and exited the right, taking half of the brain with it. With the eyes wide open, staring up in horrow, the man put his pistol away and bent down, to look at the corpse. "He must have been following us for a while."

"Why?"

"Because this is an ambush spot. Why else would it be so confined?"

"Ambush for what? That's not a person is it?"

"Not in the sense that you and I are. This is one of the 'Forgotten.'"

"Huh?"

"The Forgotten are a group of people that roam the forbidden lands. They're savages. As you can see."

"Yeah but what do you mean?"

"I'll tell you about it later. They hunt in pairs so another isn't too far away."

"Another one?"

"Let's move it. He might be onto us. Who knows." He carefully looked around and both of them ran the rest of the way out of the ambush zone, which had been carefully set up sometime in the past six months. "Come on." He yelled as she lagged behind a little on the way out. She kept up though and both of them slowed down when they were back out in the open. "There's another one around. I know it. We'll just have to wait."

"What if he's armed?"

"They aren't armed."

"They aren't? Who isn't armed here?"

"They are."

"Why?"

"They don't need guns. Sometimes they have knives but only for carving up their prey."

"Why?"

"Because they are cannibals."

"Cannibals? You mean they eat people?"

"Yes. They're skilled hunters and really good if you ask me. They sneak up and attack usually loners. They rarely go after groups. And they always attack in twos to give them numerical superiority."

"I've never seen one."

"You're lucky."

"I am."

"They're the ones that took my car."

"Cannibals?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"Who knows. I didn't ask they beat the shit out of me."

"Why didn't they eat you?"

"I don't know."

"Sounds strange."

"Want to ask them?"

"No."

"Alright then. Come on. See those buildings over there?" He was pointing to a small farmhouse that looked as if it were falling apart, some grain silos in the distance, and an overturned van. "That's where we have to go."

"It's a farm?"

"Underground."

"Underground?"

"The farm is built on top of a Republic-era bunker that was built to house nuclear missiles. It was decommissioned in 1988."

"Why?"

"To build bigger missile bases."

"Oh. So people occupy it?"

"Yes."

"Alright. Okay." The farmhouse got closer and closer but it seemed empty from the outside. White sheets hung in the windows and blew with the breezes. Spray paint was all over the front of it as they got closer, including a saying that was written in red. They couldn't see it until they got closer but when they could read it, they really learned just where they were. "Here lies the souls of the departed." Larisa began to read. "Who died for a cause not their own. Who died for a death that they didn't choose. And who haunt this land seeking revenge upon those who defile it." She looked back at him. "What's that mean?"

"It means we're in 'God-country' that's what it means."

"God country?"

"Come on. I'll explain that after we leave. We get in through that grain silo over there. Try to watch where you walk, there's bound to be landmines here or something."

"Landmines?" She took a big gulp and slowly inched forward, behind him, stepping everywhere that he stepped.

They inched forward but he carefully stopped and avoided putting his foot down on a landmine. "That was a close one." He said as he stepped a few inches in front of it. "This isn't necessarily going to be the quickest walk we've ever done. Well. Until I can find the path," he said, jokingly. "Are you alright? Just step where I step. Okay?"

"Yeah. I'm just a little scared."

"I don't blame you." He stepped again, carefully maintaining his balance as she followed behind him. Where's the fucking path...? He thought to himself as he stepped again. "You're quiet?"

"I'm scared. I don't know…"

"Alright. Listen. This'll be a lot easier if we just talk to each other."

"Are you scared?"

"No."

"Why not?" She said in disbelief. "L-a-n-d-m-i-n-e-s." She emphasized each part of the word. "They don't scare you?"

"No. Landmines are just annoying obstacles."

"Annoying?" They were moving a little quicker now that he had found the edge of the path. They were still about fifty feet from where they had to go but that wasn't stopping either of them. "Annoying!"

"Yes. Annoying. We could have been there already."

"We could be blown up too." She was sweating. Just step where he steps. You'll be fine. She told herself, although it did little good. "Blown up!"

"Don't worry about it. Listen. I got a joke."

"A joke? Now?"

"It'll ease the tension."

"For who?"

"You."

"Me? I'm eased! I'm walking through a goddamn minefield!"

"Hence the reason for the joke. Now shush and listen."

"Fine. Go ahead!" They took a few more steps in rapid succession and she began to lag behind a little but quickly caught up as he balanced himself in a very awkward position, his feet crossed and his arms keeping him from falling clean over as his base of support shrunk.

"A man walks into a bar and says, 'Ouch.'" He laughed a little, realizing just how corny the joke really was.

"That? That's it? I think I've heard that four thousand times."

"Four thousand and one." She laughed a little and they took their final steps into the silo. "See. You made it." He said as he helped her into the silo and both of them look at the wall in front of them. A huge, black flag hung on the wall. "Black flag."

"What's that mean?"

"Anarchists. Really seedy people and they don't believe or respect any laws whatsoever. They're the most powerful influence here."

"I bet. But I thought you said there were 'God' people around here? Aren't anarchists atheists?"

"Not really. They just are against the whole, religion controlling life stuff. They are just a bunch of whiners really but they've got guns so let's ignore the whines. Come on. It's bound to be huge downstairs from the looks of it."

"Yeah." They both took a few steps towards a concrete staircase that led downward. They would have held onto the railing but it was jagged, rusty, and falling to pieces and neither of them wanted tetanus, especially not in this place. Medical treatment existed only if you were carrying a first-aide kit and, if you were, it was contingent on you people able to use it or someone else being generous enough to help you, which, in most situations, meant that you were completely out of luck.

The staircase was a winding one that led down at least eight stories. There was lighting the whole way down by way of wall lights, caged in to prevent people from taking or getting to the bulbs but some were still missing. The base had been decommissioned for over two decades but, yet, it was still very active. When they got to the bottom of the staircase, the both of them stepped up to a large, red, solid, steel door. It was banged up and looked as if it had been through a world war itself. Dents and ding were all over its surface and half of the paint was either chipped off or chipping off. "Here goes nothing." He said as he banged the bottom of his fist against the door four times. The knocks echoed throughout the area they were in and on the other side as well. They waited a few moments before any response.

"Who comes here," said a voice from a speaker that was just to the right of the door. It was barely staying on the wall. "Identify yourselves."

"Just drifters. Looking for someone." The man said as he looked up at a camera that he wasn't sure worked anymore.

"What's your loyalty?"

"None. Come on."

"One more question."

"Go ahead."

"Have you been to the center?"

"No. Nobody has. Come on you know that shit. Let us in already."

"Enter."

The door slid open with the shrilly sound of metal against metal, a sound that clearly indicated that the door track and wheels had not been oiled or greased in years. In front of him stood two men, both twice his size, one holding a sawed-off, double-barrel shotgun and the other a large wrench. "You've never been here before." The man with the wrench said in a deeply baritone voice. "There are a few rules here."

"Go ahead there…" He followed with a simple thought, Ape.

"First. There are no rules!"

"A little melodramatic, don't you think?" An anarchist base with rules was a hard concept for him or anyone with a logical frame of thought to understand so, when the oaf revealed that there were none, he relaxed his face and agreed with him. "Good. We're wasting time out here."

"Go in." Both of them eyed him and the girl as they entered. They looked at Larisa with a sort of disdain that she was walking around with him and it was easily seen as a quick glance of envy. The entrance, like everything else, was a concrete palace and they continued onward, over metal grates that covered up wiring and piping. The corridors alternated between light and dark and most of the base was occupied in some way or another but, they kept walking. They were going for the main area, which was the galley of the base but had been retrofitted into a sort of lounge/bar/restaurant/gallery area. It was a tough thing to explain but it lay ahead of them, just a few more turns away.

"Why did they look at me like that?"

"Because they're oafs."

"Oafs?"

"Larisa," he stopped. "I don't know how much of this place you've explored or how many people you've come in contact with but out here, if people want something, they'll take it. I'm sorry to tell you and I know this is chauvinistic but this place is no place for a woman! At all! Not here. These people are beasts. They don't have consciousnesses and neither do they follow any sort of code of ethics or morality. To them, you'd be a good squeeze for a couple of minutes."

"Yeah. I gather that. I can handle myself though," she said, slightly miffed at how he spoke. "I can!"

"Alright. Let's find out." They kept walking and rounded the last corner before they entered the area, which was full of people, no fewer than sixty, at first count. There was music playing, people drinking and eating, others playing cards, others sleeping, others arguing, a few smoking on a hookah, and several reading. It was, all at once, the most chaotic and unorganized place in the world and, at the same time, the most peaceful place in the world. It was more than a paradox; it was a step into the twilight zone. Twilight Zone. He thought as he scanned the room, quickly. Then, he found who he was looking for, and he found him sitting in the corner, playing cards with two other men. There was an open chair and he smirked. "Come on." He said as both of them stepped down from the landing and waded through the people. A woman, filthy and ragged, was serving drinks to two other men and both of them were yanking on her shirt.

"Come on baby. Have a drink with me." One of them laughed. "You can sit on my lap baby." The other laughed.

"Come on. Give us a break." She hated it and, it looked like she wanted to rip their eyes out with the mugs but ignored them.

She got that routine fourteen times a day it seemed. As she turned around, her eyes came right into the man's eyes and he stopped abruptly. His eyes shifted to both of them and his facial expression never changed from total indifference but, at the same time, she saw something in him. "I hate this place," she said with smirk as she looked down at the floor and got out of the way. The man turned his head to see her leave and continued on his path. He walked up to the chair, spun it around, and sat down.

All three men at the table stopped playing cards and looked at him. Two of them had cigarettes in their mouth and one of them exhaled a long stream of smoke into the air. "Sergeant. I've been looking for you for a while."

"How'd you find me?"

"Where else would you be?" He took out his knife and stuck it into the wooden table, which was really just a wire spool. "We need to talk."

"Gentlemen. I want you to meet."

"My name is of no consequence."

"Oh. I think it is. You see. These two gentlemen were with me when you tried to put me in jail."

"So that's where I recognize them."[i] He laughed and took a sniff. [i]"Haven't bathed since have they?"

"You still think this is all a joke."

"You killed her right in front of my eyes."

"It had to be done you asshole!"

"No it didn't. You could have avoided it. Now it's time."

"So what. You're with the government now? Whatever's left of it?"

"No. I'm here on my own."

"Who's she? She looks tasty."

"Knock it off. She's with me." Larisa stayed silent but looked worried as she scanned the room and realized that out of the sixty-eight people, only twenty-eight of them were women and three of them looked like prostitutes. "Now. You going to talk to me or what?"

"Yeah. We'll talk. All four of us. Five. Bring the girl. I like her lips."

"I'm warning you!" He pointed his finger right at him as the four of them stood up. "Lead the way." He said as the three of them turned around and walked off, towards a door in the back of the room. "Just follow me and keep your mouth shut. This is bad news." He whispered. "I'd tell you to stay here but you aren't any safer."

"Okay." He followed the three of them towards the door, lifting the knife out of the table as he stood up. When they got to the door, the Sergeant led the way with one of the men behind him, then it was the man and Larisa, and the final man with the Sergeant.

"So. Where are we going?"

"Down a few levels."

"Goody. Is there an elevator? I hate stairs."

"Yeah. There's one. I call it the Elevator to Hell."

"Just where we'll end up. You first though."

"Not really." He smiled as they reached the end of another concrete corridor and stepped onto an industrial elevator, one that was made of metal and wide open. Hold the knife in his hand, the man positioned himself between the two bodyguards and watched as the Sergeant locked the doors to the elevator and pushed a button. With a jolt, it began to move. Then, with sudden speed, the man drove the knife to his right, directly into the bodyguard's face, slicing through his left eye and going deep, into his brain. With his left hand, he grabbed the other one, digging his fingers into the man's eyes and yanked him downward. With another fluid and quick motion, he pulled the knife out and jabbed it down, into the other bodyguard's skull, just underneath the base of it, putting the knife right through the most important part of his brain. He pulled it out quickly and wheeled around to smack the Sergeant with the back of the knife, knocking a tooth loose. Larisa stopped screaming somewhere in the middle of it as the two bodyguard's lay dead, on the floor, both of them killed instantly from the wounds they suffered. The blood didn't pool though as the floor of the elevator was metal grating. Instead, it dripped down to the bottom of the shaft, another six stories below them.

"Alright Sergeant. Now it's your turn." He pulled his pistol and pointed it right at him. "Get his weapons and I swear if you so much as smell her hair I'm shooting you in the balls!"

"Tough bargain."

"You bet." She got the assault rifle from his back and the knife that he had around his waist. It was a big one and she held them. "Hold them for now." She nodded, still scared from what happened. They went down, the rest of the way, in total silence. When they got to the bottom, the elevator slammed down and they stood there, the three of them. "Open the door. Move!" He escorted him down the corridor. "Who else is down here?"

"Nobody."

"Good. Where are we going?"

"Around the corner."

"Let's go then!" He led them to a small room that was a bed room. There was a rickety bed against the far wall with a thin mattress. A beat-up love seat sat in the corner and there was a desk with a radio. There was also a locker set of three lockers against the wall and a few things here and there. The Sergeant opened it with a key and they entered. He was careful not to do anything. "Alright. Search it for guns. Check under the mattress. Pillows. Locker. Desk. Everywhere. I'll keep him out here." He flung the Sergeant against the concrete wall and flung him hard enough that he was nearly knocked unconscious. "Hurt? That's just the beginning shit face!"

OOC: This is absolutely graphic and it is absolutely not for minors or those are weak and do not like to read things of such a nature. I've given the warning so please, if you aren't a fan, just keep it moving.

As Larisa searched for any weapons, the man held his pistol to the Sergeant's temple, begging him to act so that he could put a bullet through his skull. Come on. Just do it. He thought to himself but resisted the urge. When Larisa emerged, she had a look on her face that he'd never forget. "What'd you find?"

"What'd I find? How about a machete, a shotgun, and some grenades?"

"Good. Is that all?"

"Yeah."

"You're lying. But we don't have time. Take them over there and toss them underneath the bed. Find any rope or wire?"

"There's some rope but I don't see wire."

"Alright. Fine. Get that chair, put it in the middle of the room. Good. Yeah. Alright pumpkin, let's go!" He threw the Sergeant into the chair and pointed the gun at him. "Here. Hold this on him." He handed it to her and she kept a safe distance back, just in case he got up and tried to fight back. Then, with the rope, he restrained the Sergeant to the chair, using knots that only tightened on them whenever he tried to struggle or get free. They would be safe. "Alright. Now let's do some questions and answers. Shall we?" He asked the Sergeant as he released the hammer back to its safety position. He put the pistol in the holster and sat down on the bed, facing the Sergeant. "So Sergeant. I want some answers."

"What about? You didn't have to go through all of this did you?"

"Yes."

"Is this still about the woman?"

"It is. A little."

"She had to go."

"No. She didn't. What you did was wrong."

"And like you never did anything wrong. You're a hypocrite to sit there and lecture me on right and wrong. You killed for the bloodlust too."

"I had reasons. You did it for whatever." They were screaming at the top of their lungs at each other and Larisa was having trouble keeping up as their faces turned red.

"Stop! Enough!" She yelled, loud enough to silence both of them. "My head fucking hurts listening to you two idiots!"

"You want to know what he did?"

"Why?"

"I think you should know. Before you want to stop us."

"Fine. What did he do?"

He began to explain as the Sergeant showed absolutely no signs of remorse. "Sergeant Daily here has an obsession with kids. A strange one."

"What do you mean?"

"You see he and I were in a special task force during the revolution. Fighting for the government. Sort of. So we come into a town we knew to be crawling with anti-Imperial forces."

"Yeah?"

"We're going house to house, looking for guns and weapons. We come across these two women, scared shitless, obviously not soldiers or even guerillas. Well. Sergeant Daily here has a sick obsession with kids. One of them was pregnant. So he cuts her stomach open. Sick twisted fuck that he is. Smiling the whole time. Then he shoots both of them clear in the head."

"The kid would have died anyway."

"That's not the point. You held that baby up there, for her to see. So now you're going to cooperate with me or suffer the same fate. Do you want me to feed you your own kidneys?"

"You're just as sick as I am. You've killed kids too."

"Never like that."

"No? You shot them in cold blood. In front of their parents. A few times."

"That's not the point." He slammed his hand down on the bed and then punched him square in the face. "You know why I'm here?"

"You're looking for him?"

"I am."

"What makes you think he's here?"

"He's here. He fled the Emperor when the plot became evident. He's here. Him and his unholy creation. He's here! He wouldn't be anywhere else."

"And you think I know where he is?"

"I do."

"You must be joking." He laughed. "First you come in here. Kill my friends. Then you disrespect me. Lecture me on something you, yourself, did in retrospect. Now you want my help?"

"I want nothing. Either you give it to me or I begin to cut you apart, piece by piece."

"I'm scared."

"I would be." Larisa said from her quiet corner. "He scares me."

"A mouse would scare you little lady." He scoffed at her as he received another wrap against his face. "My point." She jumped back when he swung towards Sergeant Daily.

"Go wait outside."

"Why?"

"Go wait outside."

"No."

"You can't see this. Go wait outside."

"No! I said I'm staying!"

"You're staying? Fine." He stood up and walked over to her, looked her right in the eyes. "You're staying?" He whispered. "You can handle this?"

"Yes." She looked at him unflinching. "I can."

"Fine." He walked back over to the captive and pulled out his knife. "Where do I start first?" He looked around with his knife in his hand. "Ah. How about the ear?" He reached over and grabbed Sergeant Daily's head. He brought the knife down and tore into the top of his ear. The Sergeant screamed loud enough to echo throughout the basement area of the missile base and soon enough his right ear had been cut off and the burning feeling of it ripped through his head and his veins and blood began to pour out of the wound. "Here? Want it?" He held the severed ear up and tossed it at him, it landed in his lap. "What next?"

"Fuck you!"

"Where is he?"

"How would I know? Why would I protect him?"

"The same reason you protected him before. The same reason you got in here yourself. Because he's the only reason you're still alive. Now where is he?"

"Still this foolish quest. What'd he tell you? This man? He took everything from him. Twice."

"Something like that."

"It's his own fault!"

"Enough! Where the fuck is he?"

"I don't know."

"Fine. How about a finger? Maybe two? What about a chunk of your hand?" He put the knife to his hand and made a slice right through the center of his palm, a deep enough slice that dark, red blood came out immediately. He looked up at him. "Hurt enough yet?"

"Fuck off!" He yelled again as the knife cut deep, into his hand again, this time severing his pinky finger. He sliced it down to the bone and kept sawing through, cutting the bone clean through and then tossed it across the room too. "Fuck you!" He yelled as sweat poured out of his forehead and pain overcame his body.

He slapped him a couple of times in the face. "Come on. Where is he? I know he's here. I know you know. It took me a year and a half to know but I know. I was coming for you and now I found you. So where is he? Come on. Before I have to cut more pieces of you off and force them to you."

"Why?" He gasped for air in between pulses of pain that tore through his bones, ligaments, and tendons. "Why are you looking for him so bad? Why can't you leave the past in the past? Why are you dredging it up? Only to torture yourself? What do you want? Some misguided quest for revenge? He'll take you down with him. How do you think he ended up here? He's running. Just like me. Just like you. Just like everyone." The man backhanded him against his jaw, cracking it loose and knocking out a tooth. Sergeant Daily spat out a chunk of blood against the wall and looked up through a bloody mouth and a bleeding ear. "He'll take you down with him." He gasped once more as he lowered his head, a bruise developing on his right cheek.

"What's he talking about?"

"Nonsense. That's what he's talking about. Now. Tell me where the fuck he is!"

"Fine. You want to go to your death. Go ahead. It'll be a slow death. I guarantee it. You want him? He's here. He's here in the past. Where you are. He's here embellishing in the death around us. You see this land? It's barren."

"Where the fuck is he! I've had enough of this shit!"

"He's in the center. In the ruins. Where else would he be?"

"I've been to the center!"

"And you didn't find him." He chuckled. "Of course you wouldn't. The ruins are just on the surface. You have to go down. Down in the depths of hell."

"How?"

"I don't know. I only know that's where he is. Somewhere underneath."

"How?"

"Like you said. I'm here at his behest. Who do you think presides over this? You thought it was anarchy? It is. It truly is. But there's still some over watch. Who do you think that is?"

"Him."

"Yes. Him."

"Fine. The ruins. Underneath."

"Well. It isn't that simple."

"No. I imagine not. What's there?"

"A small army."

"Who?"

"Remnants of special forces, black forces. The guards of the Emperor. Some Falcon squad. They're all there. Protecting him."

"Why?"

"They rebelled against the Emperor too. Now they're all banished there. This is their country now."

"Not for long. They're all going down. All of them!"

"If you think so. You'll fail. I promise you."

"Then I'll fail. But you won't live to see it. We're done here."

"Yes. We are." Sergeant Daily smiled once more at Larisa and looked right into her eyes. "Her soul is tainted."

"You don't have one to know…"

"No. I know." He interrupted him. "Her soul isn't black like yours. Yours is black. Me. I have none. That's fine for me. I'd rather not have one than have a blackened one. At least I know what awaits me. You. You've got nothing ahead but your own misery. That's what you have."

"Shut up!" Larisa yelled. "Just shut him up!"

"She's tainted her soul is. Listen sweetie. He'll take you with him. He's not going to heaven. He isn't going to hell. He isn't going anywhere."

"What is this shit?"

"He's pagan. He believes in a middle world."

"Is he serious?"

"Yes I am." He smiled once more. "You drop him. If you want to live. He's taking you with him. Trust me. Why do you think I'm here? He tried to put me in jail for crimes that he did just as much as I did. Now he's here."

"Shut up!" The man threw a plastic bag over his head and tightened up on the bag. He gasped for air as he sucked in only carbon dioxide, which he exhaled. Oxygen within the tightened bag quickly ran out and he began to change colors as his brain became oxygen starved. The man held the bag tight, real tight, watching Sergeant Daily suffocate to death until a few moments before it looked as if he was going to pass out, which was when he ripped the bag clean off his head. Sergeant Daily gasped for air as his lungs, starved of oxygen, suddenly became flooded with fresh air, rich with oxygen. "Hurt?"

"Fuck…you…" He said between gasps. He was barely conscious anymore. He lost a lot of blood between his ear, his face, and his hand but he was still alive. His body ached and hurt and his insides ached from the pain and torture that he had experienced.

"You didn't think that was it? No. That's too soon. You have to pay for what you did."

"What I did. What you did too."

"What you think…" He laughed and tossed the bag aside, then looked around the room for something else to use. He saw a guitar and picked it up. "Nice guitar." He held it up in the air and ripped off the thinnest string on the guitar and held it up. "No. Too thin." He tossed it on the ground and ripped off the next one, which was still thin but thicker. He dropped the acoustic guitar and wrapped the two string ends around his glove-protected hands and still had a lot of string left. "What you did to that kid!" He threw the string around his neck and wrapped it twice around and then yanked, hard. He didn't know his own strength and as he tightened up on the metal string, it cut right into his neck, tearing through the skin without effort. He kicked over the chair so that Sergeant Daily was looking right at the ground, choking to death as the wire cut through his neck. He tightened up further, the wire pressure hurting his own hands as he yanked hard. He leaned down and yanked upwards. The sound of cutting flesh echoed in the room and his screams were muffled now as the wire had sliced through his voice box. The man began to gurgle on his own blood, which drained both on the floor and into his own lungs and stomach as the wire cut deeper into his throat. Then there was a grotesque crunching sound as the wire began to cut through his spinal column. Larisa couldn't look anymore and she had gone into the hallway midway through the procedure. The blood poured out and as the Sergeant's head came off, he let it fall to the floor and looked down at the headless corpse as he let go of the wire. "That's what you get!" Unfazed, he stood upright and looked at his gloves. The wire had not cut through but it left and indentation and as he pulled them off he could see two red marks across his palms. He had pulled that hard on the wire as he killed the Sergeant. In the hall, Larisa was crying and looking pale. "I told you to wait outside."

"Couldn't you have just shot him?" She said.

"No."

"Why? Because of the baby? Because of the woman?"

"Yes."

"You killed kids too."

"Not like that."

"What have you done that's so bad?"

"Lots."

"And yet you lectured him?"

"I'm already dead," he came close to her and lowered his voice significantly. "I'm already dead!"

Chapter II
Untold Secrets & Silver Bullets

"Lying is done with words and also with silence."

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Infernal/09-chapter02.jpg

"Come on. Let's hide those bodies." He walked around the corner and to the elevator and looked down at the two dead bodies. He wanted to get both of them hidden as soon as possible so he had only one choice. He bent down and picked up the one whom he stabbed first and slung him over his shoulder. He stood up with a grunt as the limp body was nothing but dead weight. Then he looked at Larisa and motioned for her to come over there.

"You're not going to make me drag a body?"

"No. Give me his arm so I don't have to bend down again."

"He's dead…"

"Yeah? Come on. He won't bite you," he laughed. "Just do it fast." She did and he took his arm and realized all of the weight he was carrying. "Alright." He began to walk forward and he wasn't going to be moving too fast either. He dragged the one body as he carried the other and slowly walked down the corridor, leaving a trail of blood behind him. The corridor was pretty dark and there was dirt everywhere, which could work to some sort of advantage. As he neared the corner, an idea hit him, "See if you can find a broom or shovel or something." She nodded and began looking around. He approached the door now and let go of the other body's arm while he opened the door. Inside, he dropped the body onto the bed and then he return to the door with another grunt and dragged the other body inside. He left them there, where they sat in the room and turned around. Blood and fire rose in his eyes as he looked at Larisa. "Go ahead. Say it."

"Say what?" Tears rolled down her cheeks and her body nearly curled up on her as she collapsed the floor in a ball. The shock wore off and now it hit her, what he had done; what she had seen; what she helped him hide. "What do you want me to say?" She cried. "What?" She stared up at him, her knees drawn to her chest, here hands holding her ankles, her face buried.

"I'm sorry you saw that."

"No you're not. You're a monster."

"So I am." He looked down at her, towering over her like the monster that he was. "So I am."

"That's all you have to say? Look what you did to them? Three of them. You don't even care."

"No. You're right. I don't."

"Why?"

"Because they were evil men."

"You aren't?"

"I am. I am an evil man. Larisa. Here. Stand up." He offered her his hand but she didn't take it and neither did she stand. A voice echoed from a distant corridor. "Stand up!" He whispered as he heard the voice. "Keep your voice down." It was too late, whoever it was, they were coming closer and there were two of them. "Damnit!" He looked down at her. "Get up now!" She looked up at him and took his hand, fearing for her life herself. "Now just playing along." He put her up against the wall and pretended to have been making out with her as the two figures came around the corridor. "Shit. Come on guys. Can't I get some privacy?" He yelled, annoyed. They laughed.

"Sure thing man. When you're done. Let me get her."

"Fat chance! Keep walking." He held Larisa in place, who wanted nothing more than to dart across the room and punch him for saying that but she couldn't move under the strength of the man. The two guys walked to the lift and ascended, unaware of the blood that had been carefully but haphazardly covered with dirt and dust. "Try that again and I'll kill you myself. Let's get the fuck out of here now!"

"Fine! Fine!" She said as she wiped the tears and led him away, towards the lift herself. They had to wait for it to come back down and they waited in silence. She was too annoyed to speak and he was trying to plan his next move. With a thump and a loud rattle, the lift landed back in front of them after a few minutes. It made more noise than a rickety old truck as they stepped onto it and he pushed the "UP" button. When they got to the surface, they left the establishment as quickly as they had come. "Where are we going?" She asked when they got back outside. The rain was coming again and the sky was agitated with gray clouds. "Where are we going?" He didn't answer the first time.

"To the center."

"Why? Why are we going to the center?"

"To find him. To end this."

"Who are you trying to find?"

"You know who."

"No. All I know is he wronged you twice. That's it. Tell me or else I'm not coming with you."

"You aren't coming with me. You're going back to your bunker and living the rest of your life there."

"Huh?" She thought, for sure, that he would ask her to come along.

"It's too dangerous for you. Come on. You don't really want to come. Not after that speech."

"So what if I do?"

"It's too dangerous." They began walking as the winds kicked up, "Make sure you don't step on a mine." For a moment there she forgot there were mines and she quickly jumped behind him, scared and shaking.

"Mines. I forgot."

"Don't. You aren't coming with me."

"I want to come."

"A moment ago you wouldn't come unless I told you."

"I want to go."

"You want or you're curious?"

"Both. I don't have any friends here. Isn't that obvious?"

"It is. So you think I'm your friend?"

"No. In fact a part of me detests you." He stepped on a footprint that he made before, careful not to wander from the path that he took the previous time. "But I want to see the center."

"It's ruins. I told you. I'll send you a postcard."

"Fat chance." She laughed. "I'm coming. You don't have a choice. Besides you need my help."

"How? All you've done is given me headache."

"Another gun? And I know a way."

"You know a way? I've been there girlie."

"So you have. I know a different way."

"How?"

"Curiosity."

"You just wandered that way once? By mistake?" They exited the path and turned back towards her basement abode. "You really think I'd believe that?"


"It's true but it wasn't a mistake."

"Then what was it?"

"A mission."

"A mission?" He stopped and turned around. "For what? Tiger-lilies?"

"No." She stared him down. "To find something."

"What? The Garden of Eden?"

"Enough of this condescending shit! And I'll tell you."

"Fine. Tell me." The sky above crackled and lightning flashed. "I'm waiting?"

"Let's walk."

"No. If we get rained on we get rained on but I want to know."

"Alright. Fine. Remember I told you I killed my boyfriend? That he was a cop?"

"Yes. Is that untrue?"

"No. It's true. There's more though. You know the trucker? The one who saved me. I guessed he was my guardian angel. I remembered something on his truck that I saw. It was some sort of photograph. I remember seeing it because the trucker got me here. I didn't get here myself. You see," the sky cracked again. Thunder shook the ground and the rain drops began. "You see, he stopped. He had a weapon too and he shot both of them before I could run. Then he picked me up from the ground and looked at me. He said something about 'Jesus' loving me or something to that effect, I was too scared to remember.

"So he put me inside his truck and asked me what I did, why two cops were going to shoot me on the road. So I told him. He told me that though I committed a sin, 'Jesus would forgive me' and that I would be safe. He also told me that someone told him to stop, someone I don't know, maybe a vision or something. He could have been on drugs for all I know but he stopped right. He took me in his truck and we left. He told me he knew where I would be safe since the cops, the police, all those, wanted to kill me now. I wouldn't be safe anywhere. Well. Inside his truck was a photograph of a place near the center. It was a cabin or something.

"He took me to his house and told me about it when I asked him. He said it was a cabin in the center, well near the center, of this unholy place." The downpour began and both of them were soaking wet within seconds. "He told me that the cabin was a safe place. The safest place I could ever be and that it was here. He told me how to get there and I tried once. The time that I got near the center but I got stopped along the way. Some of those cannibal vampire people? They tried to kill me but again, someone helped me. Since then I've been too afraid to go that way. But with you I can be safe. You can bring me there and you can show me where the cabin is and I could be safe forever."

"You're serious?"

"Yes."

The man nodded to her and they kept walking, walking towards some sort of oblivion that the two of them were hell-bent on achieving. They walked in silence until they got back to the bunker, where the man carefully checked everything out before they both entered. He held his pistol in the air as he moved through the small, quiet, and dark bunker and when he was satisfied that it was empty, he called up to her and both of them retreated into it as the rain battered the outside on them. Despite having ponchos, they were sufficiently waterlogged from their hair to their toes. Every inch of them was soaking wet when they entered the bunker. "You got a change of clothes?" She asked him as she reached down into a makeshift cabinet underneath her bed. "I don't have many myself but I have enough that I can go a few days and change when I need to each day or when it rains. I have to clean my clothes the old fashioned way but I don't mind." He nodded at her. "You don't do you? All you have is on your back isn't it?" She asked. He didn't verbally answer her but from his expression she knew that the answer was "yes." She looked back at him. "Turn around or go over there and don't look." She said as she put her eyes back on the cabinet below her, her hair dripping wet. He nodded again and, honestly, walked back towards the door and sat down on the ground. Though he couldn't see her he could see her shadow off the wall and she looked as beautiful as ever but that wasn't why he was there. He was there because he needed help, as much as he refused to admit it even to himself. There was quiet for a little bit while she changed although halfway through pulling up her pants she yelled out to him, "You aren't peaking are you?"

"No. I'm not." He answered with a smirk as he watched her shadow dance on the wall in front of him. "I'm not." He answered her back, because he said it too low for her to hear him.

"Good. Because if you are…" She was smiling herself. A part of her wanted him to be peaking but another part was glad he wasn't. "Alright. I'm dressed." She sat down on the bed, wearing a t-shirt and a ripped pair of jeans. "Here." She threw him a pair of pants and a shirt. He caught them, "They look like they'll fit you. I picked them up off a trader about a month ago. I was hoping they would fit me at least but the idiot gave me the wrong clothes and I didn't pay attention to them."

"Thanks." He walked over into the shadows himself and changed, the pants fitting him. Unlike when Larissa changed, he couldn't be seen since there was no light by the door, where he changed, his pistol on the floor, well within reach. Moments later he too emerged around the other side. "I'm hungry. You got anything to eat? All I have is a can of beans."

"I got a can opener."

"We need a fire."

"Yeah." She moved over to another cabinet underneath the bed and pulled out a burner, "Or a hot plate." She put it down on the ground and poured in some kerosene from a bottle in the same cabinet. Immediately, the plate heated up, glowing red with heat as he placed the can on top, slicing open the top of it to ensure that it didn't explode from the pressure. "I have food but we'll use that for now. What do you eat?"

"I usually just kill an animal or rob someone." He sat down on the couch, watching the beans, careful to notice if it boiled over. It was a big enough can for the two of them, not necessarily a meal at all but it would suffice. "What do you do?"

"Trade."

"What?"

"Stuff I find."

"Like what?"

"Don't worry," she picked up a book she had been reading. "You ever read this book?"

"What book is it?"

"It's called Brave New World written by Aldous Huxley." He stood up to stir the can. "Spoon?" He had stuck his finger in and she looked at him with a bit disappointment.

"Yeah." She handed him a silver spoon she had found months prior. "What's it about?"

"A dystopian society."

"Sounds familiar."

"Humanity is sort of weird. People don't give birth; they're made in a factory. Then they're conditioned from birth and segregated into certain classes based on their making process. Sex is all over the place. There's no marriages or anything. People are weird too."

"Sounds like a good place," he said with a snicker as he sat back down on the couch. "Maybe ten minutes more."

"It's real hedonistic. Lots of drugs too. Something called," she couldn't remember the world.

"Soma."

"Soma. Hey you read it?"

"Cover to cover. Three times." He added after a pause.

"I love this book."

"It's one of my favorites."

"It's the only one I have."

"That's a pity."

"Why?"

"Because I know of a place where you can find dozens more."

"Where?" Her eyes beamed and opened wide with the prospect of more books to read. "Where?"

"Not far from here. Maybe a mile. In the opposite direction."

"Where?"

"There's a library far away from here. I don't know what's left though."

"Why?"

"People that live there use them to burn. For heat."

"No! Please don't tell me that! I need books. It keeps my mind from going insane. It's lonely here."
"It is."

"We can go there tomorrow?"

"Yes. When the rain stops." She returned to the books, unable to suppress the smile on her face as she thought of the prospect of reading more and more books. If only she knew what it would take to get them, maybe she wouldn't have suggested the idea to go get them.

The next morning both of them woke up at the instance of Larissa who beamed with the idea that she could get more books. "Wake up!" She yelled with a smile from ear to ear. The man stirred groggily and turned over on the couch so that he faced the back of it and not her. "Wake up!" He didn't move again and this time she jumped out of bed and moved across the bunker. She loomed over her and the shadow cast its darkness over his face but he still didn't move. "Wake up!" She yelled again and this time he opened his eyes and looked up at her blurry face.

"What do you want?"

"Books."

"Go back to bed."

"Books."

"You're worse than a kid. Fine." He turned over and sat himself upright, his feet touching the cold ground below them. "It's too early."

"You don't even know what time it is. It's light out. I can see it come through the cracks in the door."

"Who cares what time it is, it's too early."

"Let's go."

"Fine." He stood up and walked over to the door where his boots were. He put them on and lifted his backpack onto his body as well as he opened the door, his pistol in his hands. Water had leaked in throughout the night but was sopped up by a grotesque bath math lying in front of the door that was so full of mold on its underside that it could grow penicillin. The door opened and the light flooded in, temporarily blinding him until he put on a pair of sunglasses he forgot he had. "That's better." They stepped out of the bunker and up towards the surface. "It's about a mile that way."

"In town?"

"In town." The town he was referring to was a sort of makeshift town that was established well before the war but had been abandoned during it. It was big enough to have a school, a post office, and a small library, a couple of dozen shops, houses here and there, and that was about it. It had no movie theater and it certainly had no hospital. It was a remote town, at best, home to a few hundred, if that many. Now it was a refuge for scared travelers who entered the forbidden lands and wanted to get out but couldn't. As many said, "Safety in numbers." It didn't help them though. Roving bandits and cannibals preyed on them like lions on a herd of zebras. "Come on." They began walking towards the town as the sun beat down on them. It was warm out and they would work up a mild sweat on the way there.

"I've been there before. But never in the library. Or the school."

"Why not?"

"Too afraid."

"You've been there but afraid?"

"Yeah. Too many people there who might hurt me."

"So where did you go?" He emphasized.

"The post office. There's a trader in there."

"What do you trade?"

"Kerosene, food, sometimes clothes. Whatever I find. I do a lot of rummaging."

"And nobody hurts you?"

"Sometimes they try but I have the gun." She pointed to the submachine gun around her neck. "If they try anything I just shoot them."

"And have you ever?"

"No. I'm too afraid to use it."

"You have a gun that you're afraid to use?"

"Yeah." She looked slightly grim as she said that but it didn't bother her too much. She didn't want him to harp on the idea though. "I'm not a killer."

"No?"

"No. I did what I had to. To survive. But here. I am not a killer."

"Why not? This is the perfect place to kill."

"Because. I'm not a killer."

"So why carry the gun at all?"

"A bluff. Listen, I don't want to talk about it. Okay?"

"Fine. Fine. You win. But tell me something. If you've been there then why did you never ask about the idea of books?"

"I don't know. I guess it always just slipped by mind."

"You're lonely aren't you?"

She blushed and looked at him. "Of course I am. You aren't? Look at this place!"

"So then tell me why you live out there alone and not in a camp or something? There are a ton of them."

"I guess. Well I did. At first. But then I left."

"Why?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Something bad happen? Someone try to hurt you?"

"I said I don't want to fucking talk about it!" She yelled at him as her face turned instantly seriously, her eyes widened, and her skin turned red. Obviously something had happened to her and she didn't want to relive it although she already was, in her mind, which was what set her off in the first place.

"I'm sorry. Listen. I don't mean to. I just. I don't know. Nevermind." She seemingly didn't hear him, too busy looking at what happened the last time she was in a camp. What is her deal? He asked himself in his own thoughts as they trounced through a field.

"What's that?" She stopped and pointed to something in the distance, a sort of gray thing in the fields about a hundred meters in front of them. "See that?" He didn't stop for a few feet and then turned around to her pointing. "That. Over there? Something's there. Running around."

"Where?"

"There."

"I don't see anything."

"It was there. Something gray."

"It's not there now. You sure you're not seeing something?" He turned around to face her and she pointed again. "What?"

"You missed it."

"Well come on. Whatever it is, it obviously isn't big enough to be a problem."

"It's something."

"I bet." He rolled his eyes and walked forward a few steps but realized she wasn't following him. "Are you coming? I thought you wanted books? Don't tell me you see ghosts now."

"No. Something really is there."

"Fine. I'll go look." He threw his arms in the air and walked towards where she pointed but he didn't see anything at all or any sign that there was something there. He tapped his pistol and looked back at her. "Nothing here." He yelled to her and she didn't look convinced. He turned around and began walking back towards her but he only got a dozen steps before he saw a flash out of the corner of his left eye. It was a gray flash but this was his peripheral vision, which wasn't necessarily good at distinguishing what objects really were there, only that something was there. Instinctively, he dropped his shoulder and ducked around, grabbing his knife from his belt, and throwing up his left hand. He was lucky that he did. The force of the animal attacking him knocked him right down to the ground and he quickly and soon enough realized what she had seen. It was a wild dog and it was on top of him, drooling and barking at him, its wolf-like teeth staring him in the face as it tried to attack his neck. "What the!" He yelled and he drove the knife hard into the dog's neck. It yelped but didn't stop yet as the blood poured down the blade of the knife over his hands. He made a quick slice and cut the dog's throat wide up and flung it off him. It continued to yelp and stood up after he flung it but it didn't stay up for more than a few seconds. It collapsed back down on the ground and died as Larissa ran up to him.

"See I told you I saw something."

"Thanks. I wish I did."

"You did. Just too late. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. He didn't break the skin." He put away his knife and examined his arm. "Weird though. Usually they are quicker than that."

"I don't know what to tell you about that he came out of nowhere. You killed it?"

"I did. It's dead."

"Good. Good. C'mon let's go, I'm getting a little scared about this field."

"Good idea."

The dog had startled Larisa but had not done much to the man who walked alongside her, his pistol away. The sky overhead began to gray as they crossed through the field. "See that out there?" He asked, pointing to a tower far in the distance. It was barely over the horizon but it was obviously visible and identifiable as a water tower. It had to be miles off in the distance, far enough that they could walk there but not before a storm rolled overhead, which seemed to be a near constant occurrence.

"Yeah. That's the water tower."

"That's where we're going."

"No shit. I told you I was there already."

"You did. Alright. Fine. No small talk. Still annoyed about before?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry," he said with a smile. It was one of the few times she ever saw a smile grace his face and she thought it was rather natural. She wondered why he didn't smile all the time; she thought he looked a lot better when he smiled. He still scared her though. Inside of her she could remember her first encounter with him. He still frightened her, despite his pledges and all of the times he saved her from impending doom. He stopped and looked at her and her scrunched face, still obvious that she was upset from the earlier conversation. He moved closer to her to put his hand on her shoulder but she jumped away, an instinct that she didn't mean. "Alright. Listen. I'm sorry. I didn't know how much it bothered you."

"It's okay. It's just a bad thought."

"Well. Not that I'm going to ask alright but if someone did hurt you and we get there and that someone is there and you see that someone let me know."

"Alright," she said with a half false, half sincere smile. He turned back forward and started walking again as the wind kicked up on them. "Storms, all the time."

"Yes. You know why?"

"No."

"When the bomb went off in the center of the city it did something to the weather patterns here. You see we're in a valley, a sort of weather phenomenon. Before the bomb there were a lot of storms, almost all the time. Like Florida, storms every day but only for a couple of minutes sometimes. Now, after the bomb something changed in the patterns. We get storms a little less frequently now, not every day but they last a lot longer, sometimes a few days at a time.

"Like with Virginia. You know Norfolk is covered in fog a lot of the time?"

"No. How do you know so much about this place?"

"I did my homework."

"That's it? You worked for the government didn't you?"

"I told you I was a soldier."

"Yeah. Who wasn't though?"

"True. All males were soldiers at one time. I did more than my conscription."

"That's it?"

"That's all I'm saying about that."

"Alright," she said with a similar smile as before. "So you really went to the center?"

"Yes. I guess I have to go back though."

"Yeah. So what types of books you think I can find?"

"I don't know. Maybe some classics. It depends. They like to burn them there if they run out of wood to burn."

"Shame."

"Yeah. Sometimes they get too drunk or stoned to cut down wood. Just easier to burn a book."

"Yeah." Her face turned to a frown at the idea of possible reading material going away from her. "Did you go to college?"

"No. I went into my service and never got out before the revolution. Then the revolution happened and I'm out of service. Did you?"

"Yes."

"What did you study?"

"English literature."

"Well. I didn't see that one coming," he laughed. "I guess it makes sense now. And you never read Brave New World?"

"No."

"Strange. That's why you want to go to the library isn't it?"

"It is. Listen, I want to get as many as I can."

"We'll get a bag somewhere."

"Good." They continued walking towards the water tower in the distance. Soon they would be in a group of trees and they were nearing a set of train tracks to their right. "Hey. What's that?" She said, pointing slightly off to the distance, on the other side of the train tracks. "Looks like walls."

"Yeah. It's a small army compound."

"Is it?"

"Not active anymore. Probably taken over by bandits."

"Probably." She walked a little bit off to the left, away from the tracks and away from the compound. "Let's steer clear of it."

"Well there's a problem there."

"How?"

"Well when were you here last? A long time ago?"

"Yes."

"The only way in is through a tunnel at the end of those train tracks."

"So we have to follow them?"

"Yes." He nodded over at the compound. "See those watch towers?"

"Yeah. They're empty?"

"I don't know. Here. Get down." They were close to the compound now, just a few hundred meters away, four hundred at the most. They were lucky though, standing in high grass amongst the trees around them, which were thin where they were, near the edge, not far from the train tracks. Larisa laid down in the grass, to hide herself as he crouched down himself. "I got binoculars in my bag," he said as he pulled his bag off and laid it down in front of him. He opened up a pouch and removed them. He zipped the pouch back up and put them up to his eyes. He looked out, over the train tracks, towards the army compound. It was blurry and he had to adjust the focus, carefully turning the dial above the top of the binoculars until the blurriness went away and clarity showed him the whole compound in his single field of view. "Alright," he said as he zoomed in slightly on the two towers, one at each corner. There were two other towers but they were out of his field of view. "Well, one of them is manned. The other isn't." He said. "He's got a scoped rifle. It looks a lot like a Mark 12 rifle. Nice weapon. NATO 5.56mm round. Pretty accurate for 550 meters. He's got a bipod on it and a scope too. I don't. Wait. Yes he has a suppressor on the front of it. He's professional."

"Professional?"

"Yes. Professional."

"There are professional soldiers here?"

"No. Not from the army."

"Then from what? A special forces group?"

"No. Not really. A mercenary group that exists in here solely for profit."

"Pretty capable assholes."

"Sergeant Daily he belonged to them."

"You too?"

"No. He joined them when we got here."

"So you know about them?"

"Yes. Not that they had the compound though."

"Is it big?"

"Not really. Big enough for about a few hundred men, if that. No armor there though."

"Armor? We have to worry about that?"

"No. Trucks yes."

"What can we do against them?"

"Trucks? Blow them up."

"How?"

"Rockets. Mines. Grenades."

"Which you have none of."

"No. I don't. I got the sarcasm. Listen, we'll be alright."

"How do you figure? Won't they shoot us?"

"Maybe. To rob us."

"So then how are we going to be okay?"

"Because, we're going to stay away from them." He put the binoculars in his pack and put it on his back. "Come on." He said as he stayed low and moved towards the trees. "Stay low, we'll take a detour."

"We will?"

"Yes. Come on." He had his pistol in his hands now and she was holding the submachine gun in her hands as well, although neither would work at all for the range that was between them and the army compound. They moved through the trees quickly, using them for cover every so often and made their way towards the edge of the small patch of trees. Their goal, once they got to the end of the trees was to make their way to the train tracks. The tracks went into a small ravine further from the compound and they could jump into the ravine to hide from the compound and then make their way through the tunnel.

"So why can we only get in through the tunnel?"

"The mercenaries."

"What'd they do?"

"They get paid for protection of the settlement and help push the drugs that they make there. So they made it so that the only way in and out of the settlement was through the tunnel."

"What drugs?"

"A couple."

"What do you mean?"

"Well they make PCP there and they make meth there. They sell it throughout the zone and even outside of it. The mercenaries get sixty percent of the profits and the makers get the other forty. It would be higher but the mercenaries are the ones with the guns."

"That explains," she said but immediately cut herself off before she continued.

"Stumbled on something didn't you?"

"Nevermind." They kept walking and eventually reached the train tracks and the ravine. Both of them stayed as quiet as they could as they walked down the tracks, towards the tunnel at the other end. They moved quickly but extremely quietly until they knew they were far out of range of both sight and sound from the compound. When they finally reached the tunnel, they both stopped.

"Listen. The tunnel is going to be real dark in there. There might be some fires by some bandits and wanderers but that's about it. Keep close to me, stay as quiet as you can, and keep that gun in your hands."

"Okay," she whispered and they entered the tunnel. Above the tunnel, in yellow spray paint, was a saying that she looked at and commented it to herself. At World's End. She didn't know what it meant but when they entered the tunnel and she was cast into total blackness, she knew what it meant. She was within arms reach of her guardian but she could barely see him. She kept her submachine gun close to her and she knew he had his pistol in his hands. They didn't find any fires in there but they certainly saw plenty of burned out fire sites along the way, although they saw them only because they stumbled on a few of them. Light inside of the tunnel was barely anything, especially as it wound around and snaked through a small mountainside. Eventually, after quite a while of walking, they came towards the end of it. They could see as the light poured into the other side of the tunnel that this was definitely not going to be a friendly place.

At the end of the tunnel was a car frame, burned out and vandalized. Behind it was a large, metal gate with armed men standing around it, smoking, drinking, and talking. Their voices carried and echoed into the tunnel. "Stop," he whispered to her and both of them moved behind a mattress and a few crates. "Can you hear them?"

"A little." She whispered back, taking the hint.

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Infernal/settlement-01.jpg

"Alright. Listen. Let's just get one thing between us. Alright. You don't have to say much to me but I want to know. If we walk in there are we going to get shot?"

"No. I doubt they'll remember me."

"Good. Good. Alright. Stay calm and cool alright. Put away the gun and we'll just act completely non-threatening alright? Stay close to me and please don't get too angry when they start whistling?"

"Why? It's degrading."

"Because I don't want to have to shoot my way out of here."

"Fine!" They walked around the corner of the crates and began walking towards the gate. As they got closer, a red, brick, tall building appeared in front of them. It was obvious that they were definitely entering some sort of wolf's den.

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Infernal/settlement-02.jpg

"Why are you here?" A voice called out as both of them stepped past a parked and obviously useless train car. Someone had definitely made it their home inside because he could hear a radio playing some somber country music but at the same time, the exterior was covered in graffiti. They were definitely treading on someone's territory. "You? Over there! Don't move!" The voice called again and he looked up to a see a tower to the right, which had been obscured by the train car. He never knew it was there, a nearly fatal mistake. When he looked up he saw a masked man with an assault rifle staring down at him. He stopped and put up both of his hands. "State your business!"

"We're here to trade. No harm."

"You're armed?"

"Yes. One pistol and one submachine gun. They're away. We aren't here to start trouble."

"Alright. Proceed to the building! One false move and you're both dead!" The man called out as they stepped forward, slowly at first, keeping their hands up, until they got to the gate where two men stood on either side of a brick wall. The men at the gate had moved off to the side and readied their weapons to open fire, in case.

http://www.theforsakenoutlaw.com/Graphics/Nation-States/Role-Playing/Infernal/settlement-03.jpg

"Why are you here?"

"To trade."

"What are you trading?" They asked, alternating, firing questions like an automatic weapon.

"We're here to trade for some kerosene."

"Alright. Go to the post office."

"Alright."

"Do you know where to find it?"

"We'll make due."

"Alright. One rule while you're here."

"What is that?"

"Don't steal."

"You got it." The man said as both of them entered the main structure that led into the settlement. It was, at one time, a train station, a small one just for freight purposes but had since become a refuge for drifters. There weren't many people inside and there was a guitar being played in one of the far corners of the building. A train was parked inside on one of the loading tracks and a corner of the building was missing from where another tower had collapsed into it, probably during the war. A dilapidated crane on the side of the grounds had been converted into a watch tower but nobody was on top of it. The crane itself was falling to pieces and he imagined that the way up to the platforms was rusted away. That left just the one tower, manned by a bandit with an assault rifle.

After the structure, there was a town, a small town, nothing too large. It was sparsely populated and there were a few buildings out in the open but the post office, the building that they wanted, was far off in the distance of the settlement. He and Larisa walked through quietly, his hand near his pistol holster but he never had to draw it, a good thing.

"Smell that?" He asked her as they exited the train station and entered the main street, a street that was empty. There were sheet metal panels and sandbags here and there but none of them were occupied by men. A strange, caustic smell was in the air and smoke puffed from one of the buildings nearest to them.

"Yeah. What is that? It almost make my eyes burn."

"That's drugs."

"They smell like that?"

"When they make them."

"It's terrible. Come on."

"Yeah." They walked off towards the library, which wasn't too far away from the train station, midway between the post office and the train station. The streets were cluttered with debris and the whole town was more of a ghost town than a bandit refuge. Lucky for them, they had no allegiances in the forbidden lands and they could just go where they pleased without having to worry about revenge following them but they did have to be careful. "When I came through here last, I shot a guy. I hope they don't remember."

"Why did you shoot someone?"

"He tried to steal from me."

"So you shot him?"

"Yes. Right in the hand. If he's around I hope he doesn't recognize me. He was pretty high. That's why I didn't kill him."

"Lucky him," she pointed to a large, windowed, white building in the near distance. "That's it?"

"It is. You knew?"

"No. Not because it's a library. I just know to avoid that building."

"Someone told you that?"

"The trader."

"Well. Yeah. Women go in there and don't come back out."

"And we're going in there?"

"We are."

"And women don't come out?"

"You'll be safe. You're with me."

"That isn't too comforting at this moment in time."

"It isn't?" Her voice was shaky and both of them walked up to the library and stood there, looking into the building. Half of the windows were broken and the other half that remained were cracked, painted, and blood stained. Claw marks were even on some of the Plexiglas ones. The building stunk and they could smell its odor from outside of it. It was three floors high with the highest floor definitely the scariest. Smoke puffed from one of its windows and the caustic odor that burned their eyes walking in began to emanate from the top floor. Other odors stunk from the library, odors that they couldn't categorize; odors that nearly made them sick to their stomachs. "Alright," she was ready to turn around and run.

"No. We're going in. You want books. We're getting books." He stepped over the remains of a wooden desk that had been set ablaze. The doorway was slightly blocked by its charred remains and he stepped into the main room. He could hear voices and the smell of marijuana wafted into the air around him. He tied a piece of cloth around his face to avoid breathing it in and he advised Larisa to do the same. After passing through what used to be the vestibule, he saw a few men sitting around a burning fire. The shelves were a mess. Some of them were empty, others toppled over, others broken and torn apart, and others still had books on them. "Evening guys," the man said as he stepped over more broken glass, it crunching beneath his boots.

"What do you want?" One of the men demanded, his eyes bloodshot and his face weathered. He was old and wrinkled, somewhere in his mid-60s but he had a cigarette in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other. The three others were all in a similar state but much younger. Some hungered for some sort of relief to them. Whether it was food, sex, or drugs, he couldn't tell. They were all emaciated and they were all stoned.

"We're here to take some books."

"Why? We use them for burning." One of the other men said, eyeing Larisa, nearly drooling over her. "Who's she?"

"None of your business. We're taking some."

"Like hell you are," one of the other men stood up and toppled over before getting to his feet.

"You can't even stand up. Sit there. Get stoned and we'll be in and out. Or maybe there's something we could trade."

"Trade us her." The old man said with a twisted smile that revealed half of his missing teeth and rotting gums. He took a swig of the beer and his eyes nearly rolled to the back of his head, he was so gone.

"Not going to happen. What else do you want? Money? Drugs? Booze?"

"Booze. Yeah. You get us all a bottle of whiskey from the trader and you can have your books."

"Alright. That's fair. Four of you?"

"Yeah," the older man said, counting six times to make sure the number was right.

"Fine then," he turned around to Larisa. "Let's go get them some whiskey."

"We haven't got anything to trade," she whispered.

"Don't worry about that." He said with a smile as they exited the wretched library.