Chapter Four

“The Darkness of Remembrance”

All was silent. It wasn’t a peaceful silence; it was a heavy, almost loud silence. I slowly came out of my stupor. I was on the dirt and rock of the ground, that much I could tell, and I tried to remember what had happened. All I could remember was the sound of explosions, and a bright light, a bright heat, fire. I tried to move, when a sharp pain went up my left side, as well as my right foreleg. It hurt. I had been shot before, but this was different. My skin of my leg felt like it was melting. I was sure that I had broken, if not shattered some bones. I noticed a sound, breathing. I bit through the pain, and looked towards the sound, I saw Very Merry. I turned back, and tried to bring my memories together.

CLICK

The sound was followed by a thud against the ground. I had just enough time to shout a warning before the area lit up in an explosion, throwing us back. I hit the ground, letting out gasp as the wind was knocked out of me. It was an ambush. The alleyway erupted in a hail of gunfire. The pain throughout my body was excruciating. I don’t know how, but I managed to bring up my shield. I floated out a healing potion, and passed it to Verma, who had managed to get up. I searched for another one, with no results. I floated out my rifle, and began taking shots, although I missed most of them in my state. Two of the five bandits had some of those battle saddles. I managed to hit one of them, knocking him off his feet.

“Just give up!” one of the bandits yelled, her voice cracking.

I responded by pumping a few rounds at her, she hit the ground with a thud. One of them made a mistake; they threw a grenade.

The memories reached me, and I realized what had happened. The grenade had been cooking, and when they threw it, it exploded in mid-air. It had been a concussion grenade, instead of fragmentation. I struggled to my feet, my leg exploding in pain. I let out a groan. Only two of the bandits were left, knocked out, and I limped over to them, and sat down, while pulling out my SMG. I didn’t want to kill them while they were sleeping, and I thought I might give them a second chance. They weren’t raiders, as I, they didn’t want to kill us just for the sake of killing us and mutilating our bodies. They didn’t want to kill us, just take our things, but, taking our stuff would be just the same as killing us. One of them started to stir; she was a light brown mare with dark green hair. She first looked at the other bandit, and then, slowly, her eyes went to me. I could see the fear in them. I had on my best poker face, not betraying any emotions. I, honestly, didn’t care at that point about what would happen. I’d let her go peacefully, or, if she tried to attack me, I would kill her.

“A-are you g-going t-t-to kill m-me?” she asked, shaken.

“Depends on whether or not you are going to leave peacefully.” I answered.

She got the point and woke the other bandit, he shot up, but she whispered something to him, and he nodded. They turned and left.

“I didn’t expect you’d let them go,” Verma said, startling me.

“I didn’t either,” I responded truthfully.

“Oh hell,” she said, concerned, “you’re bleeding out!”

“I’ll be fi-,” I managed to get out, before passing out.

I awoke later, on the ground, and an overwhelming sense of Déjà vu came over me. I looked around, and saw Verma by a fire.

“You’re not a very friendly person, are you?” she asked. It was a completely logical question, all things considered.

“I suppose not, I’ve been a loner most of my life.” I realized that hadn’t had much social interaction since I lost my wife. The thought sent me back into my memories.

It had started off as an ordinary day in the Stable. I walked to the security station, got my things, read my jobs for the day, and walked off on patrol. Probably three hours in to my duties, a quake shook the Stable. I assumed it was just an earthquake. Several minutes later my radio buzzed to life and the voice of Officer Redgin came out.

“Vocal? We need you to come to the Security Station,” he said, a slight falter in his voice.

“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” I responded, wondering what was wrong that would make Redgin sound like that.

I snapped back to the real world. I tried to push the thoughts out of my mind, with some success. Verma had a concerned, almost sad look on her face. I wondered how often I actually spaced out. I looked at my leg, the one that was broken, it was in a brace, and I am pretty sure that I had gotten a healing potion. I counted the days I had been out here; I realized it had been nine. I had known Verma for five of them. I wondered why I had trusted her so easily that day I had met her. Maybe it had been since she had the chance to kill me and didn’t. Maybe it was only since I just wished that it was true. It seemed like my hope had rung true, and I felt like I could trust her quite well. I brought up my Pipbuck and scrolled through it to the maps section. I was outside of a place called “Appleloosa.” I flipped to my radio section, and saw that emergency broadcast was still playing. Apparently, it had a really strong signal. I wondered if it might be a good idea to help (assuming Verma would be willing to jump right into danger for no reason whatsoever) or if we should just leave it be. I took a moment to look at our surroundings. We weren’t in the alley where we were ambushed, but instead, we were in the ruins of an old building. The walls, while still standing, were blasted apart, only seeming to be held up by small fragments of drywall. There was no ceiling, and I wondered where the wood for the fire had come from. I filed it in the ‘Unimportant Questions’ part of my brain.

The itch was back. I tried to stop thinking, but the memories rushed back anyways. I heard the high pitched whirring of the drill, the warm and steady trickle of blood going down the back of my head. No, I couldn’t, wouldn’t think about that. I needed to forget, or the itch would turn into a pain. But I couldn’t stop thinking, I was back in the lab, the harsh lights were burning down on me, they were like eyes, glad of my suffering. I screamed, the pain drilling into my mind itself, and the only thing I think of was the torture. The whirring changed pitch and – I came back, hearing a gunshot. I looked up and saw Very Merry right in front of me, a pistol floating by her, the barrel pointed up.

“Wha- what happened?” I asked, shaken from my memories.

“You blanked out and started screaming, I couldn’t get through to you,” she said, quite panicked, “What the hell happened?”

“I,” I trailed off. I didn’t want to tell her, I just wanted to forget, “It’s… nothing, I just…”

“It’s obviously not nothing Vocal,” she responded, “You scared the living hell out of me!” she let out a sigh, “Okay, if you don’t want to tell me, I can understand,” she paused, “But just try not to let that happen again!”

“I-I’m sorry Verma,” I replied, “And thanks for understanding, it’s just… something I’d rather not talk about.”

“Well I can understand where you’re coming from, but, you’re going to have to tell me sometime, alright?” she said. I nodded back, unsure of whether or not it would be a lie. Looking back, I still am not sure whether or not I should have told her outright at that moment. ‘go on, tell her,’ the voice in my head pestered, ‘Go to hell,’ I retorted, having conversations with myself, that seems like a sure sign of insanity, or was it just split personality disorder? Or are they both in the same category? Ooh! Having conversations with myself, what does that chalk our number up to? Wait, getting off track again.

“Okay, so - ” Very Merry began, getting cut off by a rumbling sound, she let out one word “Run!” and I didn’t hesitate. It wasn’t easy with my leg in a brace, but I managed to use three legs to move. I still had my saddlebags on, and I telekinetically grabbed Verma’s from the ground as we started to run. A plume of dirt erupted where we were.

“What was that?!” I yelled out, practically screaming.

“I’ll tell you later!” she screamed back.

I heard the sound of beating hoof steps – no, paw steps, gaining on us. The creature let out a, for lack of a better word, bark, and I put it together. This was a canine, so it was probably a diamond dog. I looked back. I was greeted with the sight of probably the meanest, ugliest, most terrifying fucker I had ever seen. So that’s why we needed to run. The thing was gaining on me, my cast impairing me. So, flight was tried and out, so that meant I would need to, “Fight!” I yelled out, not even noticing it. I dropped Verma’s bags, and sent a bolt of my electricity into him, the bastard barely flinched. I hadn’t even noticed my rifle floating at my side, I had taken it out subconsciously, and I managed to send three rounds into him, two above the ribcage, and one in head. Amazingly, he didn’t fall. He had cleared the distance rather quickly, and was only a few meters away.

I heard a shot to the right of me, the shell of Very Merry’s shotgun burying itself into its lungs, the power of the blast causing it to stagger. I reloaded my rifle and started firing.

1...

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Reload.

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Reload.

It had to be dead; its head was just a mush of blood and gore. The crimson liquid was flowing around it in small pools. The sight made me want to retch, and I turned to the side and let out the contents of my stomach.

“Now, then, what the fuck was that?” I said between heavy breaths.

“That is a hellhound. Looks like a young one,” She replied, equally out of breath.

“Well,” I said, “Fan – fucking – tastic,”

“Yeah well, it could have been worse,” she began, “It could’ve been a pack of them. You don’t have a very strong stomach, do you?”  

“I’m not very used to seeing the liquefied insides of something’s head.” I flatly responded.

“I can see, well, it doesn’t seem very safe out here, maybe we should head for some civilization.” She said

I nodded, and we started walking. On the way Very Merry told me about Hellhounds, how they used magical energy weapons, and burrowed underground. The news was scary, to say the least. I hoped that it was the worst that the wasteland had to throw at us. But, I somehow knew that it wouldn’t be.