Alysa Cotrac

SATURDAY JULY 10, 7642

ARCHEBES, SURFACERS CAMP

6 YEARS AFTER FALLOUT

I walked, I say walked but it was more of a limp brought on by the pain in my ankle with each step, back to camp seething and mortified. I'm not sure what stings worse the humiliation or the animosity. I went to my room at camp despite the fact I'd rather be off hunting in the woods. I reached the door labeled, 4239 and 2771, the number we were selected as, I say we because as the label suggests I have a roommate.

I opened the door and just as I suspected, my roommate, Alysa Cotrac, was sitting on her bed along the far left wall, buried in a book. She normally reads fiction rather than historical things. At one time I read one of her books, it wasn't bad, although at the time it was written the book was considered science fiction. But now it's just realistic to a shocking degree.

I saw Alysa's bright blue hair peeking over, to my surprise, one of my books. In fact, it's one of my favorites, about the organization with the crow, Atomic Prevention Agency, or APA. She poked her head up from the book her gray eye shimmering with pain. I thought she might cry, in all honesty, it was a depressing book.

"Are you ok?" I asked suddenly, causing Alysa to jump. I limped over towards my bed on the right side of the room, the force of the pain coming up with a vengeance. I winced a bit as I sat down, slowly taking off my boots. I wasn't prepared for what was underneath, my ankle was swelling and slightly purple. My fingers grazed the skin gingerly, grimacing every now and then.

Upon seeing this, Alysa gasped asking, "What happened?" she set the book down, turning her full attention to me and my grotesque ankle. "Why are you asking if I'm ok when you're the one with that...?" she trailed off, the concern in her tone turning to panic. Alysa's concern isn't unfounded either as medical treatment is hard to come by up here. Hell even in The Hub citizens had allotted emergency supplies and if it ran out there was no more.

"I'm fine, Fynn just...pulled me down the hill in Scrap Yard S4," I said hesitantly, knowing Alysa's relationship with Fynn was rough. Actually no, rough is being too kind, it's more like a trainwreck. I'm talking murderous levels of disdain.

"WHAT?!" Alysa yelled, as expected, she's pissed. "That's it where's that Son of a bit---"

"Hey," I cut her off, "It's fine Darven's handling it," I grabbed her wrist, forcing her to sit down. Her nostrils flared, the once pained look in her pale grey eyes was replaced with anger. Alysa's breath came in ragged, rage-filled gulps, as clenched and unclenched her fists.

Eventually, she calmed down enough to help treat my ankle, which we deemed was twisted, we wrapped it, and Alysa said I should off it for a week. This meant no going to hunt or scrap, so I pretty much spent the past week in my room reading or organizing my bomb fragments.

Alysa went out to find some medicinal plants that grow in the woods, it took maybe three hours for her to finally get nailed down which ones were safe and which were poison. When she got back I double checked everything just in case. And yes she was momentarily offended.

Finally, after one exhaustingly long week, I was able to leave and at first light, I was halfway up the hill in Scrap Yard S4. My bow and quiver strung across my back, my scrap bag across my torso, and I was ready to finally use them again. I most likely won't use the bow given that most animals veer a safe distance from the Scrap Yards because to them there's no value in a couple 100 square kilometers of metal.

I crested the hill and was met with Fynn about 2 meters away. I felt my face drop to a scowl immediately as his blue eyes met my almost black ones. The tension between us was rivaling that of when he and Alysa are within 20 meters of each other. Its weight bore into me as neither of us backed down, that is till Fynn cracked a sly smile.

"Ah c'mon Vess what's that look for?" He asked a bit too cheery for my taste. Big mistake, Bud. I sauntered over to him, occasionally wincing from a misstep. I tried my best to smile but I doubt it's convinced him.

"Hmm..."I trailed off in response, "I don't know, maybe crippling me you jackass," I continued, and I was like his presence was an irritant because I found myself getting increasingly pissed.

"Oh...your not still mad about that are you?" Fynn asked I opened my mouth to responded when he added, "And you were only stuck in bed for a week," his arrogant tone awarded him a go swift slap in the face, to which Fynn responded, "What the hell was that for," his anger rising. Good.

"You know what, and of course I'm still mad about that, it was humiliating," I said before adding "I should've let Alysa go beat your ass," under my breath.

I started walking away to search for scraps, ignoring Fynn calling for me to stop. If anything I'd speed up, happy to hear his voice fade in the distance. The only problem was the direction I'm going, east, is more unstable in terms of radiation. I pulled my gas mask from my belt where I always keep it just in case and put it on my face.

Turns out east is a great place to find bomb fragments given I've found 7 in the last hour along with a couple more APA relics, whether it be a crow painted on the side of metal or embroidered into a flag. The flags are particularly rare because of the wind inedibility so when I found one I immediately stuffed it in my jacket pocket to avoid anything ripping on the scraps in my bag.

I was heading back southwest when I felt it, hum or buzz all around me. At first, I panicked and started running, but as I did the humming grew softer, but picked up again when I near camp. 'What the hell' I thought, I was so beyond confused I'd almost forgot my own name. Why is this happening, and why won't it stop.

All that processed in my head was that over and over, Why? Why...Why? Suddenly everything went black and I collapsed.