The Blackened | ONC 2022

「Chapter 1: Selfishness」

Once again, scouting week is upon the camp before the harsh winter sets in. Our amateur meteorologist predicted that within the next few days, the snow would begin to flutter down, covering the camp in white. Unfortunately, last year's tarp attempt failed. While we had resorted to using them as a blanket to keep our walled domain warm from the hailstorm of snow, they were all but ripped to shreds. No amount of patching from the seamstresses when we put the tarps up would make them reusable this year.

As I was saying, scouting week has crept upon us. No matter how far we set the boundary line for our scavengers, it's never enough. Canned food was never going to last forever, and overhunting would get us nowhere. Besides, no matter how much the little ones in our camp need meat, we can't give them every ration we have. We give them what we can afford, and it's not more than what our adult members get.

We can't expand the borders either. We marked off all the safe zones from the known outbreaks of Decay. And beyond the borders who knows how many of the Blackened have risen? We'll be lucky if we don't have to condense our established territory. For our civilization to work, we need to keep up the land we have.

On the bright side, after so many failed attempts, our agricultural team finally got our farm sustainable and able to produce an influx of food for the people. As long as our scouts can supplement the additional food, we'll be able to keep the people fed. Keeping them healthy, on the other hand, now that's the real chore. I can't say our medical team is the best in the world. Retired doctors and hardly trained nurses may provide the greatest medical care in times like this, but without a properly trained doctor and the right medical instruments and medicine? It's a miracle we haven't suffered major casualties from medical malpractice.

Yet from all my complaining, I can't say I contribute more than any of the mouths to feed around here. What use is a historian when every day is just another day in the survival game? The total number of cadavers we've tried to experiment on or just had to burn exceeds the number of people we have left to help out. I'm fortunate that the numbers on my obituary list haven't grown exponentially since the last scouting season. Nearly everyone we have lost has been accounted for on my list. Except for the names which Death has yet to claim from the medical tent. I can't be hopeful enough to expect anyone to make a full recovery anymore.

As I worked to finish off the obituary list, I listened to the rustling of tent flaps around the town square. With any luck, the director would start setting out scouts to find an actual city for us to move a base of operations to.

Unlike being in the romanticized zombie apocalypse movies from long ago, we aren't moving through the Decay with plot armor. We can't afford to be stupid enough to start trouble in the face of the Blackened. The director specified any sightings needed to be reported and steered away at all costs. Getting away from those things was far more difficult than using a can or rock as a distraction. Once you're targeted, you better hope your stamina will keep up long enough to save your skin.

The flap of my tent rustled as I mused over the idea of having to clear out a city to make a new hideaway. It's not impossible, just tedious.

"Ravina, are you still working on those lists?"

The director entered, making a line for the papers on my cot. I could tell something was bothering him. And like any normal reaction, he was making a play to pass the subject off by circumventing the issue.

"Of course I am, McCall," I conceded. "The dead at least deserve a proper remembrance," I relented. "Y'know, for when the best of us is gone and the future generations want to make fun of the losers who died simple deaths."

He chuckled, making a neat pile of papers on the cot before sitting. "Sheila told me we were running out of meds." McCall ran his hands through his hair before setting his eyes to the floor.

"As mundane as it seems, flu season is already hitting us hard. All the little natural remedies we've been trying aren't cutting it. Parents have been coming to me, saying Sheila won't give them the meds they need for their kids."

I never envied McCall. He was the face of all the tough decisions. Every scouting mission ends in a setback? Are lives being lost as a result of our attempts to expand beyond our borders? He had to take the fall for it all. Otherwise, no one else would set up and take the blame; people always needed to find someone to blame.

I set my journal down, "We can't afford to give out every single pill or medical necessity for a little cough that could go down with sleep. Hasn't Sheila already explained that to everyone a hundred times over?"

McCall's silence spoke louder than a gunshot in a crowd. Of course, everyone already knew the drill; they just wanted to circumvent the protocol by putting pressure on McCall. The whole charade of knowing your kid will live if you take care of them, but wanting the easy way out of it with a few pills. We're all selfish by nature.

"So what did Andrew say about it?"

"What can we say about it? Another huge spiel won't get us anywhere. More scouting missions won't somehow summon more meds to keep everyone happy. No amount of planting seeds is going to keep everyone fed! I can't make everyone happy!" McCall threw himself back onto the cot. If we weren't so worried about someone overhearing us from the outside, I knew he would have yelled out his frustrations.

For a moment, we sat in silence. Every decision we made to move forward only put us further into a checkmate position. It's a naive hope that we will see the end of this catastrophe anytime soon, or at all, really.

The human race would have to be extinct for this to be resolved.

McCall sat up, his hand sliding through his hair before coming to rest on his neck. The director got up and made a move to the tent flap. "I better get back to it. I'll leave you to your record-keeping, Ravina."

"Hey, McCall," I called behind him. "You don't have to do it all alone. Tell me when and I'll shoulder the work too."

He snorted, "Like Andrew would be a big fan of that one."

"I'll shove my books in his mouth if Andrew can't handle it."

"I'll see you at rations tonight," McCall left off before heading back out. For a moment, an odd silence hung in the air. But I knew McCall was going to take all of the burden himself, and even if I worked behind the scenes to help the issue move along, none of this would pass quietly.

I know better than to believe words over what their faces say. As much as McCall tries to hide it, his expressions are a dead giveaway of what he's thinking. That's why he'd rather lie behind me than meet me eye-to-eye.

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