The Wastelander

by Tipsy Wanderer

  There was no way an adult would’ve been able to make it into this opening. Even Cloudhawk’s emaciated form was just barely able to squeeze in. Moments later, he heard a rustling sound as one of the mutabeasts tried to burrow in after him, unwilling to give up the chase!

  The mutabeast was so close that Cloudhawk could smell its foul stench.

  Cloudhawk continued to climb through the opening, only to find that he had already reached the end. There was nowhere else to go and the beast behind him was already growling as it prepared to launch its attack.

  Everything hung on a thread. This was the critical moment, the moment when life or death would be decided.

  Although he was filled with despair, Cloudhawk didn’t hesitate as he turned, metal shard in hand. The dark form was pouncing straight towards him, its blood-red eyes gleaming brutally in the darkness. Its fangs were as sharp as knives. It was about to plunge them into the morsel of a prey that stood before it and tear that morsel to shreds.

  Cloudhawk let out a low, bestial roar as he stabbed wildly. His metal shard just so happened to plunge directly into the creature’s eyes.

  The creature let out an agonized howl as it slammed straight into Cloudhawk. Its sharp claws left several bloody gouges across Cloudhawk’s body, but Cloudhawk managed to press its head down. The opening within the rubble really was quite narrow, giving the creature no way to extricate itself from Cloudhawk’s grip.

  “DIE! DIE!” Cloudhawk had become even more savage than the beast as he used his metal shard to furiously stab more than ten times at the creature’s head. An enormous amount of foul-smelling blood filled the surrounding area, coating his face, hands, and clothes.

  Two of the other beasts circled the opening, but they weren’t able to squeeze in. Upon hearing the miserable howls of the one that had gone in, they immediately turned and left. As for Cloudhawk, he was all but immobilized. He panted furiously, his oxygen-deprived brain causing dizziness for a time. Right now, he truly didn’t even have enough energy to move so much as a pinky.

  After that final frenzied spurt of energy, his body was once more swept up by waves of exhaustion and weakness. He had ignored his body’s exhaustion, and it was now demanding that he repay tenfold what he had just squeezed out of it.

  For the first time, he was able to get a close look at the creature in front of him.

  This creature had sleek, oily black fur, long sharp claws, and terrifyingly red eyes. It almost looked like an enormous mutant rat. Still, that didn’t matter. What mattered was that there had to be over five kilograms of meat on the thing.

  This was food!

  Cloudhawk grew excited. He used his metal shard to tear open the creature’s tough skin and carved out a few gibbets of wonderfully fatty meat that he shoved into his mouth. It was sour, pungent, and crude but to humans who lived in the wastelands, it was the most delicious of delicacies.

  Cloudhawk normally subsisted on ants, beetles, and grass. It had been a long, long time since he had eaten meat. As the food slowly made its way down into his stomach, a warm feeling quickly spread throughout his entire body. The aches and pains in his body seemed to fade, replaced by a sense of satisfaction that was too wonderful to be described with words.

  He ate until his wizened stomach was burgeoning. Only then did he finally come to a halt with a blissful look on his face.

  The mutabeasts outside had long since departed. Cloudhawk dragged the prey he had personally killed with him as he began the trip back to his burrow. He would be able to feast on the five kilograms of meat for many days to come.

  But just as Cloudhawk pulled the corpse out of the opening, a voice that was as rough as a wild beast’s suddenly rang out. “Put the meat down!”

  Four or five adult scavengers blocked his path. The leader looked quite sturdily built, and his face was filled with savage-looking scars, giving him a baleful, ominous look.

  These scavengers had noticed the commotion in this region quite some time ago, and so they hid themselves in the surrounding area, hoping to be able to scavenge a few bones from the dead. In the end, they ran into a child carrying the prey he had killed.

  The luxurious, fatty meat made their mouths water.

  The scar-faced man growled, “Put. The meat. DOWN!”

  Cloudhawk looked at them silently, the look on his face akin to that of a lone wolf’s, a look filled with danger. The two sides stared at each other across the ruins, like a pair of beasts sizing each other up. In truth, in this era, the line between man and beast was a blurry one at best.

  Put it down?

  I nearly traded my life away to get this meat. You want me to put it down!?

  Cloudhawk didn’t waste any time on words. Like an enraged young beast, he threw himself straight forwards and landed a punch directly on the scarred man’s face.

  There was no question as to who would win this battle. In the end, Cloudhawk was nothing more than a half-grown child. How was he supposed to defeat multiple fully-grown adults? In the best-case scenario, the end result would be him suffering multiple beatings and then watching as the meat he had nearly died for be taken away from him.

  ……

  Night finally descended.

  Covered in wounds, the youth slunk back to his burrow like a beaten dog. He didn’t feel any hatred or resentment towards the scavengers who had stolen his prey. As a child who had grown up in the scavenger camps, he had long since grown accustomed to the rules of the wastelands.

  In the wastelands, there were no such things as ”principles”. The only law was the law of the strong!

  The strong would have food, slaves, and women. The weak would be enslaved, abused, and robbed. This was how the wastelands operated. In this world, in this age, in this place, morality didn’t matter. To be weak was a sin in and of itself!

  The light of the moon flowed into his burrow, carrying with it a bone-chilling cold that mere blankets couldn’t ward off. He was so cold that he curled up into a ball, but the wounds covering his body made it impossible for him to fall asleep.

  Instead, Cloudhawk chose to sit up. He picked up a metal box, blew off the layer of dust covering it, lifted it up, and stared at it as though it were the most valuable of treasures. Slowly, gingerly, he withdrew the brightly-colored objects from within.

  He stared raptly at these pictures, his gaze distant and dreamy. These were pictures the old-timer had laboriously collected over the course of many years. They were a testament to the fact that the Ancient Times truly had existed, but the passage of countless years had begun to cause the pictures to fade and become unrecognizable.

  Every time he stared at them, his young heart couldn’t help but quicken its beat.

  Every time he stared at them, the pain, hunger, and injuries he suffered would all recede slightly.

  Every time he stared at them, no matter how much despair he felt or how dark the world seemed, he would feel as though he could still see a few flickers of light.

  The ancient, bygone era of the Ancient Times! What type of a magical, dream-like world had it been?

  Back then, people were clean and handsome. The cities were prosperous and flourishing. There was no danger, no terrifying mutabeasts, no brutally savage mutant humans, and no scavengers who struggled to survive in the desolate wastelands.

  Had that era truly come to an end?

  Did it perhaps still survive and persist in some unknown corner of this world?

  Cloudhawk’s pitch-black eyes blazed with eagerness. He truly wanted to wander the camps and wander the wastelands!

  It was as though a metal seal had long ago been fastened deep within his soul. This desire was one that had sprung up long ago, when he was very young. Back then, the old-timer had asked him: “Why? The camps are dangerous, the ruins are dangerous, and the wastelands are even more dangerous. This path was a path of certain death!”

  “It is because I was born into this world! Since this world chose for me to come into it, I have the right to get a g
ood look at it!”

  “Sooner or later, I will go out searching. I’ll find that utopia, that heaven-like place. If I can so much as catch a glimpse of it, if I can so much as have the chance to press my lips against the ground beneath it… even if I die the very next instant, I will regret nothing!”

  The old-timer had fallen silent.

  From that day forth, he kept the child by his side, sharing his food with him and teaching him how to read. The child had spent many years straddling the line between life and death but not only had that desire not diminished, it had only grown increasingly intense!

  The old-timer had once said that some people were born to be free, much like hawks. They might grow up in a chicken coop, but sooner or later they spread their wings and soar into the skies.

  Would he truly have that chance?

  He wasn’t even able to escape the ruins, much less wander into the endless, unfathomably more dangerous wastelands.

  The old-timer often spoke of destiny. Everyone, he claimed, had his/her own destiny. No one would be able to escape that destiny, no matter how hard he/she tried.

  Is this my destiny? I won’t believe it!

  The youth had eaten his fill of wastelands torments, but he was still filled with an untamed spirit and his eyes still shone with an indescribable, irrepressible flame. He slowly placed the metal box underneath his head, using it as his pillow. Only then did his exhausted body finally fall into a deep slumber.

  2 The Tartarus Mercenaries

  The calm silence of dawn was suddenly disrupted by the engine sounds as a vehicle traveling through the wastelands kicked up storms of sand. Someone hit the brakes as soon as the vehicle entered the ruins, causing it to come to a screeching halt. The vehicle’s rust-covered metal components creaked and moaned ominously, almost as though the entire thing was on the verge of falling apart. It almost sounded like the labored panting of a crouched beast and the visible tubing of the vehicle shuddered before a plume of black smoke finally belched out of the tailpipe.

  The scavengers had never seen something like this before, a metal monstrosity that could move. Looks of amazement and astonishment were plainly visible on their faces.

  The car was built in an almost ridiculously crude manner. Its rusty frame had been cobbled together from seven or eight different types of vehicles and the damn thing was brimming with spikes, making it look like an ornery metal porcupine. It had four ostentatiously large wheels that ground away at the earth like giant gear wheels and the car bumpers had been replaced with savagely sharp blades. Clearly, they were not meant for ”protecting” the car, but rather for ramming opponents. The entire thing looked both deadly and savage and it seemed just as ferocious and unforgiving as the wastelands itself.

  Six large monstrosities chased behind the thing at high speed, galloping forwards on their giant feet. They were split into two groups of three that followed the vehicle on both sides.

  These creatures looked similar to the ostriches of the Ancient Times, but their feet were wider and thicker while their bodies were much firmer and more muscular. Not only could they move across the desert at breakneck speeds, they were also able to carry extremely heavy loads. In the wastelands, they were considered one of the most ideal types of mounts.

  The six monstrosities each had a rider atop them, dressed in strange outfits. Their haphazardly pieced-together outfits were composed of various bits of metal, wood, leather, bone, rocks, and other unknown materials. Most likely, they had collected as many things as they could and used them to fashion a crude composite suit of ”armor”. As a result, each person had a different ”uniform”. One of them who had only one arm had actually grafted a metal gear onto himself as a prosthetic limb. Another person had grafted a jagged sawtooth blade onto himself. In short, all of them were brimming with the aura of the wastelands.

  One of the bigfoot bird riders vaulted off his mount, respectfully opened the car door, and greeted the fat man within.

  The fat man was dressed in a sleeveless leather jacket dripping with machine oil, and was protected by a coarse, exoskeleton-like armor that looked as if a giant spider had crawled over him. His hands were covered with leather gloves and were pressed around the wide belt around his waist, close to a pair of black modified pistols. Even these ancient, improvised firearms emanated the coarse savagery of the wastelands. However, they were a direct testament to his strength and his power.

  Outlandish outfits, ostentatious appearances, bigfoot birds as mounts, and a savage-looking vehicle.

  All of these things loudly proclaimed the status of these men: they were excavators!

  “Fuck me, we finally found some scavs.” The fat man lit a coarse cigar. Two plumes of smoke came out of his nostrils. He reached up and flipped open the protective lenses on his sunglasses, revealing a pair of beady eyes that were scanning the raggedly dressed and emaciated scavengers. “Arrrright. Let ole Slyfox have a look at how many of you poor bastards are still alive.”

  In this chaotic era, fat men were as rare as unicorns! This man in particular was so fat that he had to be nearly 150 kilograms. He looked almost like an exalted king and in fact was as proud as any king ever was. When he looked at the scavengers, he didn’t seem to be looking at fellow human beings at all; rather, he seemed to be looking at cheap beasts of burden waiting to be slaughtered.

  The excavators, colloquially known as ”diggers”, were considered one of the more important groups within the wastelands. They mainly spent their time digging through ancient rubble and retrieving tools and materials from the Ancient Times. They’d conduct some basic repairs on what they found and then connect them to form usable weapons and outfits. Eventually, they’d set up their own organization.

  These people often used food and water as a cheap way to hire the lowly scavengers to work for them. The scavengers would scour the ruins for usable material on their behalf so they were quite familiar with the excavators.

  “I’m willing to work!”

  “I only need half a strip of carrion each day!”

  “I’m stronger than them! Pick me!”

  The shabbily-dressed scavengers all clustered around them, fighting for the chance to be seen and chosen by the lord excavator. They pushed and jostled against one another, eventually beginning to fight amongst themselves.

  “Silence. SILENCE, you dirty fucking scavs! I’m not here to employ your sorry asses. All of you, shut the fuck up right now!”

  The fat man unholstered his pistol, aimed at the sky, and pulled the trigger.

  This coarse, heavily modified pistol let out a thunderous bang, stunning and deafening the scavengers. They immediately slunk back and shut their mouths. Their gazes turned dull and despondent with a hint of fear and cowardice mixed in.

  The fat man, Slyfox, continued to shout at them. “I have credible information that a group of sweepers are active nearby. It is very likely that they might hit this place at any moment. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Looks of utter terror instantly appeared in the numbed eyes of the scavengers.

  The sweepers. They were synonymous with terror. The sweepers were a group of mutant bandits who were incredibly bloodthirsty and delighted in cannibalism. To the sweepers, scavengers were like sheep for slaughter. Whenever the sweepers swept through a place, they brought utter, calamitous annihilation to the local scavengers!

  “If you end up being captured by the sweepers, you’ll be captured and corralled like pigs. They’ll rip the meat off your bones, then smoke it and store it away for later. They’ll break your bones, make decorations out of them, and the pitiful amount of fat you have will be squeezed out of you and used as fuel for their oil lamps.”

  These cruel words were like a cold wind that blew past the scavengers, causing all of them to shudder. This was just how the sweepers were. They swept through everything in their path, sparing nothing and no one.

  Slyfox finally announced the reason he had come here today. “Today, I’m going to ch
oose a few dozen strong scavengers to form a squad with us. We’ll be responsible for providing you with weapons to help you fight back against the sweepers!”

  The scavengers all retreated a few steps. Nobody dared make a sound. The sweepers were legendary for their cruelty and savagery. How would mere scavengers dare challenge them?

  “Useless pieces of crap. You’d rather wait for death than try and make a fight out of it?” When the fat man saw that the scavengers were completely unresponsive, he said in a loud voice, “Who will be the first volunteer? After we beat the sweepers, I’ll take him with me when we leave this place!”

  “I’ll go!” A skinny youth with a bloody nose and a bruised face ran over, his face red as he panted from exertion.

  It was Cloudhawk!

  The wastelands riders who were mounted on the bigfoot birds all roared with laughter. A teenage child was clamoring to go and fight the sweepers? When Slyfox saw the child emerge, he glared at him and bellowed, “Can you even lift our fucking weapons? Just fuck off!”

  “I want to go fight the sweepers!” A steely look was in Cloudhawk’s eyes as he said, “If I can survive the fight, you need to fulfill your promise and take me away from this place!”

  The fat man had a strange look on his face. “Do you really want to leave that much? Staying alive matters more than anything else!”

  Cloudhawk said, “I want to be a digger. I don’t want to be hungry anymore and I don’t want to be taken advantage of by anyone any longer.”

  The wastelands riders all roared with laughter once more. Such juvenile words could only come from the mouths of ignorant children! “Staying alive in a crazy era like this one aint easy. Living with honor and dignity is even harder. D’ya think you’ll never go hungry again or never be taken advantage of again once you become a digger? What a joke!”

  The fat man had been planning on kicking the kid away, but when he saw the look in the kid’s pitch-black eyes, for some reason even he couldn’t explain, he slapped himself on the head and said, “Fuck me. Fine. I’ll give you one chance. If we wipe out the sweepers and you make it out alive, I’ll give you a chance to join us, the Tartarus mercenaries.”