Into The Wasteland - a dystopian journey

Chapter 1

"I will show you fear in a handful of dust."

-- T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land

I blink my eyes. The hallway is narrow, clinically clean, and crowded with an undulating line of men and women extending ahead and behind. We are uniformly garbed in tangerine-orange cotton outfits with short sleeves and long legs reaching down to sturdy leather boots. The cloth's color reminds me of Buddhist monks, peaceful, seeking alms along a quiet dirt roadway. But here the bodies are burly and scarred. Muscular arms are tattooed with swastikas and rough symbols I do not recognize.

The heavy-set man before me turns and glares; I take a step back. His small eyes skewer me for a moment longer before he settles into place again, shuffling forward beneath the glare of the fluorescent lights.

A reedy voice behind me pipes into my awareness.

"Hey there, young lady. Careful, now, he's a repeat."

I turn in confusion, my eyes sweeping down until I find him. He's perhaps five foot, rail-thin, his large eyes deep-set in a wasted skull. He nods to make his point, his gaze darting forward to the hulking form before us. "He's been here before," he insists.

"Been where?"

The hunched figure shudders, then glances ahead with trepidation. "Nodo."

The word means nothing to me, and I stare at him blankly.

An awareness brightens his eyes, and he looks me over with pity. "Chute blindness got to you? I've heard it happens. Well, your memory might come back eventually. Or it might not." The corner of his mouth quirks up. "Or the locals will blast a hole through you before you get a chance to find out."

There's a harsh voice to my left. "Strap on your belt. Your hand touches the grip before the doors open, and you die."

I look up in surprise. There's a sheet of safety glass to my left, a momentary disruption in the long wall of alabaster, and behind it sits an officer in full riot gear. A metal drawer pushes open toward me, and within it is a leather belt with a holster holding a Ruger double-action revolver.

I lift it out of the drawer, popping open the cylinder with reflexive action.

Fully loaded. Six rounds.

I strap it on my hip, my fingers settling the buckle with practiced ease.

I take a step forward, and behind me the thin voice bubbles in nervousness. "I've never used one of these before," he argues. "I don't know how –"

I turn, and the drawer is sliding shut, the gun and belt still within. I reach for it, snagging it out, holding it toward him.

My voice is tight. "What do we need these for?"

His eyes dart forward again. "For the wasteland," he mutters. "But I have never shot one of those. It won't do me no good."

I look down at the holster. It's a reversible unit. I flop it to the other side, then strap it on my left hip, overlapping the other. "Stay behind me," I instruct him.

He scurries closer to me, glancing around in nervousness. After a moment his voice comes, low, quiet.

"I'm Ragnor."

My mouth tweaks into a wry smile. "That makes one of us that knows who he is."

He gives a short bark. "It'll come to you," he promises. "In the meantime, we just have to survive these next twenty minutes. Tales tell that a full quarter don't make it past this first part."