The Ruins

Chapter 1

Mal fully awakes; dreadful sweat soaked her shirt, the heavy breathing made her panic as she tries to take deep and calming breaths. She leans over, cowering herself- nightmares again.

They're getting more violent than ever; she ponders why being away from the Tradepost will give a relief of being scared, being too vulnerable, and have a good night sleep. It's been awhile since she had a good sleep. Her eyes are sunken, dark under eyes formed. But than again, she knows nightmares are not real, but her's are real. She hates it so much, awaking up to a frail position, waiting for him to be presence at her side, waiting for the brutal darkness to take her back again.

She will not go back there, will not be punished. She is damned to flee as far away . . . if only she knew where to go.

She takes her time, her body stop shivering and her mind found a point to relax itself. She's been trying to let these nightmares go into her, seize in the pain, and fight off it, even if it tortures her state. Mal tries to fight and let the pain in, never to show any weakness.

Being weak is being a coward.

Being weak can get her killed in The Ruins.

Stretching out her sore muscles, she gets to look at the tinted window covered in moss around the edgings, seeing anything coming across the highway. Just people doing nothing but searching for scraps in the streets -as usual in this place. She scans for a moment to see her target; she had one job from the Tradepost of going a couple miles away to an abandon trademark of the Flyer Frontiers, finding a man invading and stubbornly stole important supplies that almost cost the Tradepost to be abrupt.

The Tradepost is the most important place, a special treatment, a key of surviving. It's been standing for twenty years and became a stable place with a quantity of supplies for thousands of people: live stock, real and healthy gardens grown, parts of tools, gas, ammunition, everything you find and/or need. Mal depends on it, the Tradepost lived for many years and it should continue to live on for a couple of years longer. However, there's rumors of the people leaving, abandon their stations and she has one guess of why.

Rolling up her sleeping bag and tying it up to the top of her bag, she grabs her hand-made leather jacket that hangs on the door handle. She remotely gets calm as the leather jacket slides against her fair skin, a sense of a coolness of who she is, the danger of being exhaust from the blazing sun but there's a power that drives her to the bone, and also gives a protection from her enemies. She walks over the rugged living room: abandon. Ancient -in her mind. Boards rotting as the windows became tinted with dirt and grease, and the kitchen is not the cleanest place to eat from the dust and grime it had been.

The rickety door creaks, Mal reaches for her memorable .357 caliber Colt Python out of her holster and raise it at the poor fragile man forehead. More sweat greased his red hair. "Sorry, Edward."

"It's alright," he wipes the sweat off his his bulky forehead, "I should've knocked first." Edward was just an acquaintances, another survivor who comes three times of month to collect only a quarter of supplies -actually very little stuff so Mal didn't had to warn anybody that the supplies are declining.

She uncocks the hammer back and puts the Python back into her holster. "It's a force of habit." She leads him into a chair across the dinning table and both sat before Mal brings her pack back to reach out her pistol gun cleaning kit. "So, do we have the deal?" She said while screwing a rod.

He contemplates the questions. "Mal, it's complicated-"

"Complicated?" She polishes the inside of the barrel, glancing at the rag covered in dirt and she replaces the old rag and puts a clean rag on the tip of the rod.

"Our people are struggling. When the Flyer Frontiers broke down, we barely lived. We were starving, women and children almost killed and I know it was a mistake to take some supplies but-"

"What women and children?" She interrupted abruptly, finished with the gun and puts the clip back on with a flick of a wrist. She frowns in disapproval, almost giving her lip a curl. "Last time you came to the Tradepost, there were no women or children, just men. And some of you people were Flyer Frontiers; this was your small compound before. The markings on each place, and those tattoos or pins you have on. I know you are starving but you stole a lot of medicine and food which that food was almost destroyed by a fire by your cowardly man. I came here for only one reason, Edward. Where is Fitzgerald?"

Edward get ups gingerly, bewared of Mal's fury. She grabs her stuff, pulling the red handle machete out, swinging it to feel the weight and the sharpness biting into the air. They head downstairs before Mal checks her gun to clip on six bullets.

She prepares every day and night, ready for her to cock the hammer and pull the trigger if necessary. But, Mal lives in The Ruins, born in The Ruins, and in The Ruins, included herself, always pull the trigger.

That's how The Ruins work.