ROT

Chapter 2

        I couldn't do anything but leave Ray's body right where it lay. If the soldiers came back their suspicions would be provoked, and that coupled with the fact that I would have to carry him back to Nashton all by myself didn't make for a very compelling argument. But I just wouldn't leave him there, either. I wasn't them.

        Once I was sure the soldiers had left for good, I brushed myself off and emerged from the store cellar. It was getting late already, the sun casting dark golden beams across the tiled floor and sparkling mockingly in Ray's blood. No, I couldn't just leave him here. No matter what happened, I would be back.

        Adjusting the pack only partially filled with food on my shoulder, the only exit that I risked taking was the front door, so I had to step over my fallen comrade to get out. The NDM had done their job: he was striped of everything except for the ragged jeans and olive t-shirt he wore. Even his boots were gone, and I wouldn't be surprised if the metal fillings in his teeth were gone too; it was just too good of a goddamn opportunity for them to pass up. The scrap metal businesses were the cartels of the new world.

        I shoved my hands defiantly in the pockets of my commandeered, pre-Blast military pants and stepped heavily out into the open of the abandoned town. The camouflage of my old uniform bottoms wouldn't help me out here: though this used to be miles of farmland, now it was nothing but a dust bowl. There wasn't any green except for the paint peeling off of the occasional building, but that's how it normally was. Nothing, nothing except for death and destruction. It would take ROT years to fix what the gods sixteen years ago had started, and even longer if the NDM kept stepping in. But I had already discussed this with myself and other members before, and came to the same conclusion every time. If it meant for the civilian's better future, all of the resistance would be worth it. And even not, even for one tiny glimmer of hope, we would fight until the last man standing.

        They deserved at least that.

        The sun was beginning to set fast now, and I knew I had to hurry. You never knew what or who was going to show up near a source of food -humans were just as good to eat as anything else- and I didn't want to find out. Everyone was so preoccupied with themselves that they hadn't yet studied the effect of the radiation on animals, or the effect of what eating radioactive food will do. Maybe we were too afraid to even consider the possibilities to all of that.

        Making sure to tread lightly over the grey-brown dust of the road, so my path would be harder to trace if something or someone did decide to show up, my thoughts were allowed to linger as the grey-black clouds filled with radioactive water vapor drifted lazily across the slowly dimming sky. Ray was gone, they had killed them. My parents were gone, they had killed them. Who would be next after they had killed off all of the civilians that posed a 'threat' to them, or if they managed to shoot or gas every single ROT member? Nobody would be left but themselves and their brainwashed spawn. Would they fight amongst themselves next? Would they start to massacre their comrades, their family, their children? It would be better for everyone then, but no one would be left but themselves anyways. Still, I knew something like that shouldn't happen. I wouldn't allow it.

        A foul-smelling scent, lofted up on the wind, was carried to me. Probably some corpse that the NDM soldiers of course didn't bother to clean up, and with the direction I was walking, I was heading straight for it. As long as it didn't get dark, though, I should be fine. Should.

        My cracked boots drug relentlessly over the dust. I was getting tired, but I needed to hurry, so I forced myself to pick up the pace. The darkness was coming: the golds of the sky were turning to ethereal shades of purple and green, and I knew soon after that would come the grays and blacks. Who knew what would come out of that darkness.