Beastie

They had never known anything beyond walls. Not in the way older people spoke about it, with distant looks and quiet voices, like the memory of open sky had weight to it. For them, the city had always been everything. Steel, concrete, bodies packed too close together, air thick with sweat and smoke and something sour that never quite went away. Noise at all hours. Voices bleeding through thin walls. The constant hum of too many people surviving in too little space. They had been born into that. Raised in it. Shaped by it. The lower districts weren’t kind. They weren’t meant to be. They were where the unwanted ended up, where rules were loose unless someone important decided they mattered again. Food was inconsistent. Safety was conditional. Privacy didn’t exist. They learned early how to disappear without leaving. How to stay quiet when they needed to. How to ignore what was happening around them. How to sleep through shouting, through bodies moving in the same room, through hands that didn’t ask permission. Survival wasn’t about fighting. It was about enduring. About knowing when to make yourself small and when to make yourself useful. They grew into something... noticeable. Not large. Never strong. But pretty in a way that drew eyes whether they wanted it to or not. Soft features, expressive face, that strange mismatch of eyes that made people look twice. It didn’t take long before they realized what that meant for them in a place like that. So they adapted. Clothes became a statement before they were protection. They learned how to take scraps and turn them into something that caught attention on purpose. Cropped tops from worn shirts, chains threaded through fabric, low-cut jeans that hugged where they needed to. If people were going to look, they would control how they looked. It became a kind of armor. A dangerous one. They learned how to smile when they didn’t want to. How to laugh just enough. How to lean into attention when it kept them fed, and how to pull back before it turned into something worse. It didn’t always work. Sometimes it never worked at all. But it gave them a sense of control, even if it was thin and fragile. They stayed fed that way. Not full. Never full. But alive. They learned to ration instinctively. To hide things. To keep small stashes tucked away where no one else would think to look. Food, scraps, anything useful. Sharing wasn’t survival. Not there. Not for someone like them. Despite everything, the city had one thing the wastes didn’t. Predictability. They knew how it worked. Knew the rhythms of it. When soldiers came through and when they didn’t. Which corners were safer. Which people to avoid. Which ones might trade instead of take. Even the danger had a pattern. It was a cage. But it was a familiar one. The day it broke was sudden. No warning. No slow lead-up. Just hands grabbing, voices raised, accusations thrown like stones. It didn’t matter if they were true. It didn’t matter if they were false. People like them didn’t get the benefit of questions. They begged. Of course they did. Pleaded, clawed, tried to anchor themselves to anything that would keep them inside those walls. Promises spilled out of them, desperate and raw. They offered themself the only way they knew how, the only way that had ever worked before. It didn’t matter. They dragged them anyway. The tunnel felt longer than it should have. Every step heavier than the last. The insults bit deeper than they usually did, maybe because this time there was no going back. No chance to slip back into the crowd and disappear again. The rifle to their face had been the final punctuation. Pain. White-hot and blinding. Then the world outside. It was too open. Too quiet. Too much sky. They didn’t know where to look. Didn’t know how to be without walls pressing in on them. Even the air felt wrong—cleaner, thinner, unfamiliar in their lungs. They walked because they had to. Because standing still felt worse. The first stretch had been nothing but bare ground and exposed space. Every step felt like stepping into something that could see them from miles away. Their body stayed tight, waiting for something to happen. Something to come for them. When the trees finally came, it wasn’t relief. It was a different kind of fear. Everything moved differently out there. The sounds didn’t mean anything yet. Leaves shifting, branches creaking, distant calls—none of it translated into something they understood. It made sleep difficult. Made rest shallow and tense. They learned quickly, though. Stayed quiet. Stayed low. Watched more than they moved. They found shelter where they could. A fallen tree. The hollow between roots. Eventually the abandoned buildings along the road. Each one picked over, empty of anything obvious, but still worth checking. Always worth checking. They learned what not to touch. The sardines had taught them that. The smell alone had been enough to make their stomach twist, but hunger had pushed them to try anyway. They didn’t make that mistake twice. They rationed what they had. Counted it. Measured it without thinking. Every sip of water, every bite of food weighed against how long it might have to last. The first real break came with the pack. Clothes that fit loosely but warm. A blanket that still smelled clean. Tools. Supplies. Things that meant survival instead of just delay. It had felt like a miracle at the time. Like someone, somewhere, had decided they were worth a chance. They held onto that. Even when things were uncertain. Even when the nights were too quiet. They started to build small routines. Checking buildings. Sorting what they found. Keeping what mattered. Learning, slowly, what was useful and what wasn’t. The farm came like something out of a different life. Open land. Grass instead of concrete. A house that still stood, even if it was falling apart. It wasn’t safe—not really—but it was still. Quiet in a way that didn’t feel immediately threatening. They stayed. Longer than they should have. Because for the first time, they could breathe without someone else’s breath mixing with theirs. Could sleep without expecting to be shaken awake or used or shoved aside. They made a space for themself. The bathtub, padded and enclosed, became a nest of sorts. Something contained. Something that felt protected even if it wasn’t truly secure. They blocked the door, not because it would stop anything serious, but because it made their mind settle. They explored. The barn had been a turning point. Tools meant options. Weapons meant a chance. The wagon meant they didn’t have to choose between survival and movement. For the first time, they weren’t just surviving moment to moment. They were planning. Thinking ahead. Cooking had been clumsy, but it had worked. The pasta had been plain, barely flavored, but warm and filling in a way that almost felt unreal. It reminded them, faintly, of something they’d never actually had—a proper meal, made without desperation. They allowed themself to imagine. A place like that, but better. Safer. Theirs. It didn’t last. It couldn’t. Because the truth had always been there, sitting just under the surface. They didn’t know how to hunt. Didn’t know how to forage. Didn’t know how to sustain themself long-term. The food would run out. It always did. So they packed. Sorted what they would keep, what they might trade, what they could carry. They made the wagon work, even if it strained them. Even if every step dragged against their muscles and pulled at their ribs. They left anyway. Because staying meant starving. And they hadn’t come this far just to die quietly in a place that had almost felt like home. --------- My Post ------- The next was the day. They had finished separating, cleaning, and sharpening their new treasures. Using one of the larger feed bins from the barn, they put it on the wagon and started to fill it with the various items they knew they would be keeping. The metal pitchfork, scythe, and sickles were attached to the pack they carried with some of the leather straps connected to the pack. They kept their main resources and necessities in the pack, however. In case they needed to run and ditch the wagon, they wouldn't be left with nothing. Their canteen was filled and their hair pulled up by the scrunchie, they started walking, straining a bit as they pulled the wagon. It was not easy, but they weren't about to leave those things behind either. Once the metal wheels got to the pavement of a main road, it got easier, but they were already drenched in sweat, grateful for the light breeze that cooled that sweat as they walked. What they didn't know was that a small group of nomadic raiders was traveling the same road, and could hear the grating of metal as they pulled the wagon along.

The sound reached them first. Not loud. Not obvious. Just... wrong. A shift in the rhythm of the road. The faint crunch of something that wasn’t their own steps. The kind of noise that didn’t belong to wind or settling metal or distant wildlife. It threaded in between the scrape of the wagon wheels, subtle enough to miss if they weren’t already listening for danger. They were. Out beyond the tree line, something moved. Low. Careful. Not hiding well enough from something that knew how to watch. It had been tracking them for a while now. Not closely. Not enough to be seen. But enough. The creature lingered in the deeper brush, where the light fractured into broken pieces across its body. Long limbs folded in strange, patient angles. Its head tilted slightly as it listened, as it watched the slow, dragging movement of the wagon and the smaller, softer thing pulling it. Alive. Still moving. Still trying. There was a quiet sort of interest in that. It did not understand the wagon. Did not understand the objects piled within it. But it understood effort. Understood the strain in their body. The way they conserved movement. The way they hesitated at every unfamiliar sound. It had seen creatures like this before. Most didn’t last long. This one had. That was... interesting. Its attention shifted. Something else had entered the space. They stepped out onto the road like they belonged there. Five of them. Not rushed. Not aggressive. Just... present. Casual in a way that felt practiced. Weapons were visible, but not raised. Carried like tools rather than threats. Slung across backs, resting against shoulders, held loose in hands that didn’t look tense at all. Their clothes were mismatched but functional, worn in a way that suggested long use rather than desperation. One of them smiled. It didn’t reach their eyes. “Well now,” the tallest one called, voice easy, almost warm. “Didn’t expect to see anyone else out this way.” They spread out without seeming to. Not obvious. Not immediate. Just small shifts. A step here. A drift there. Enough that the road didn’t feel quite as open anymore. Enough that the space around them began to close in without ever snapping shut. Another one circled slightly behind, boots scuffing softly against the pavement. Not hiding it. Not quite announcing it either. “Rough pull you’ve got there,” a second voice chimed in, lighter, almost sympathetic. “Must be tiring, dragging all that on your own.” Their gaze lingered. On the wagon. On the tools. On them. Assessing. Measuring. The first one took a step closer, hands raised just slightly, palms open in a gesture that tried very hard to look harmless. “No need to get nervous,” they added, tone smoothing out like oil over water. “We’re just travelers. Same as you.” A pause. Then, softer— “World’s hard enough out here without people making it harder on each other, yeah?” Behind them, one of the others shifted again. Just enough to close another angle. Just enough that if they ran, there would be something in the way. Not blocking. Not yet. Just... there. In the brush, the creature watched. Still. Silent. Its head tilted again, slower this time. These ones were different. Not like the lone stragglers it had seen. Not like the desperate or the dying. These moved with purpose. With coordination. With something closer to intent than instinct. Predators. But not the simple kind. They spoke before they struck. Circled before they closed. Its gaze flicked back to them. Small. Alone. Surrounded. The creature did not move. Not yet. But something in its posture shifted, tension threading through its limbs like a drawn wire. Not aggression. Not quite. Awareness. Waiting. Watching to see what they would do next.

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