Fallout: Fury Blood

Chapter 97: Strangers In A Strange Land

The world was on fire. Everything her eyes touched was cast to the fate of flame, burning away until the twining peaks of fire touched into the skies. There, her fatal will sprawled until those skies became molten rivers of lava, flowing and ebbing with the incandescent rhythm of the winds.

The Red Menace.

"But I don't want to set the world on fire."

The radiation spewed from the maws of the Apocalypse Demons, crawling out from the Dark Deep and into her skin. It fed the Madness. The Bloodhunt could smell it in her.

Through the burning skyscrapers, the dead shaman appeared, dark blood pouring from his tongueless mouth. As he spoke into her mind, his mouth was motionless. "The Lost Voices sing of you; the Red Menace hunts for you. Eyes That Have Seen the Apocalypse, The She-Demon Born in the Fires of War, She Who is Fury in the Blood."

Whispers from the deep grew into the war drums of the Bloodhunt, booming out from the fires, surging out with each heavy beat, growing closer and closer to her radioactive flesh. It burned hotter and hotter, her veins glowing across her naked body like a web of embers.

Power from the sky darkened the fires with an eclipsing shadow, falling over the cityscape in slow succession. It devored the city in bursts of blinding light, leaving the rising mushroom clouds to reign over the wasteland.

The fire in her veins burnt open her skin, giving the radiation entry where it mutated her madness into nuclear wildfire. She touched the power in the sky with her eyes, burning through it's shadow until it's ashes fell over the world.

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Kelly woke with a start, her dream hanging like a thin mesh over the cave. Behind each blink, she could still witness the doom of the dream. She wanted nothing more than to escape it, and fought for the lasting residue of sleep. Though she eventually failed after her senses flooded her with the moreish warmth of a strong chest bracing her slumber. She closed her eyes again and inhaled deeply of Danse's musky scent, picking up the sexy notes of laser ozone, power armor grease, and sweat, all of which she knew well on him. Apparently they couldn't keep away from each other. Every time one of them woke, they ended up closer.

As she shifted her arms from beneath the tight wrap of the bedroll, Danse groaned awake and looked on her as her eyes lifted to his. She watched his pupils fill out the Earthy tones of his brown eyes as he considered the thing on his chest.

They both let the moment linger, but Kelly recognized the troubled look on his face before he sat them forward and doused the sudden flame that writhed between them. Kelly tried in vain to reestablish eye contact as he lifted her from his lap, but she was placed back to the ground and left there in a lonely huddle, while he got to his feet and walked to the back of the cave. She twisted, blinked, and watched the bare muscles of his back play as he shuffled through a meagre pile of food. The white pomade over his burns had dried and crackled in geometric patterns.

"You must be hungry," Danse extended, but his voice was guarded by a practiced monotone. "There's some fresh water for you. Irradiated, but I filtered it through a cloth. It's the best we've got right now until I can set up a campfire and use one of your waterskins to boil water in."

Kelly saw the bottle at her side and slowly reached for it, every joint in her arm aching, even down to her fingers. She sipped absently, thinking of nothing but the cool liquid soothing her dry throat. When she was done, she thought of food again, and her stomach snarled in response. Then more thoughts compounded together, slowly gaining traction with the more that piled up, until they ached and boomed into a breathing mountain of memories.