The Shade

The World As We Know It 1

Mr Day stood at attention at the barracks as his CO told him about his assignment to recruitment detail. Now, before the war this would've been easy and relaxing, but in reality its one of the hardest things to do out here. Finding folks who aren't murderers, rapists, both, and or deranged from the Shade or otherwise. That, "small camp" Mr Day lives in is actually an old millitary base that his legal guardian lived at. You see, his father was a specialist of sorts, and died in a, mostly unrelated manner, but thats another story entirely. Mr Day wasn't particularly happy about his new job, he much preferred guard duty, which he shirked in favour of playing with the engineers, he had heard his father was one, and wanted very badly to be more than what he was. I digress... 

This would be the first time Mr Day had left the camp in over a year, in that time a aeries of bandits began banding together and forcing each other to embrace the darkness in slight degrees. If they took it willingly the darkness wouldn't immediately kill them, but erase their fear and push them into suicide missions. The more of these one survived the more respect they earned, but the less human in made them. Mr Day had only heard rumours of these "tainted men" as the recon  teams called them, but very little was known to him, as the fear bread by these tainted men spread the darkness, so talking, or even thinking about them had a noticeable affect on their states of mind. Mr Day was foolishly excited about his change of pace, despite his enjoyment of his simple life. I may sound critical of this man, but he was significantly above average by anyone's standards, but wasn't outwardly special.  His recruitment detail consisted of him, the second in command, a Lieutenant he had never met before, who always seemed to know everything. Four irrelevant peons, and Mr Days friend, a quiet man who hadn't spoken since his last recruitment drive 8 months earlier. This one is called Elric Landglands. They  head into the city right away, they're on the outskirts, but its not a long trek.

Lieutenant Rogers spoke, "Warrant Officer."

Mr Day responds, slowly, "Yes sir. You can just call me James, we only really get formal around the science guys".

"Alright. Don't let your guard down kid. If this goes fubar think about something that makes you happy. Its the only real way to keep alive".

"Good to know sir. Is it really that rough out here?" says Mr Day, sweeping his sight line for any tracks or survivors. They're about nine blocks into the industrial district at this point.

"Sometimes... You can go weeks without seeing anything living... Other times we get dozens of baddies and nutters with a few recruits. Its all luck".

They stay quiet for nearly an hour after that. They see no one, but do find a single man with a knife thrust up through his mouth, body totally scavenged.

It's here that they realize they're being watched.