9 | Clear Chameleon

Bambo was born Rodney Bambon to a conservative family that was little different from the boring American midwest dream. Rodney was a pimple-faced teen who hadn't yet hit his growth spurt. He stood in his grocery store uniform by the cashier's till as products—endless products—rolled slowly down the conveyor. Rodney didn't have much ambition for his post-graduate life—he didn't excel much at anything that he had great passion for. He got middling grades and didn't have much in the way of friends. His adventurous exploits went as far as the pages of his comic book collection. He was by all accounts an everyday nobody who was going to remain at everyday nobody jobs until he just...stopped.

As one of five, the Bambon family stretched thin to provide as equally as they could for each of their children. Unfortunately for Rodney, being the middle child of them all, he didn't seem to get the memo on how to grow up. He needed extra attention—extra care—extra instruction. In a family of sharing, it was only a matter of time until he fell through the cracks and remained the stain on his name. His older sister Brittany was in college studying to be a vet. His younger brother Daniel was in accelerated classes on his way to become valedictorian. Each of his siblings had passion, charisma, and even in the worst case like his youngest sibling, Patrice, she at least had a following online—and a pretty substantial one at that. Rodney was...blank. He was plain, average, unremarkable in every sense of the word.

But he enjoyed helping people, even if that was by bagging their groceries and being the last stop between his job and the outside world. He was a conduit—people had to interact in order to do the things they needed to do outside. They needed him to ensure their food and others were safely transported home. Sometimes he even got to go shopping for them if they weren't up for it. It brought him something that nothing else did. Even if in the grand scheme of things being a cashier was low on the totem pole, he did it with pride.

His coworkers typically avoided talking to him—the ones that were lifers like he was, at least. There was always a revolving door of pre-college freshies that needed summer work that came in and out. Rodney himself had been at his current spot since he was sixteen, and his repellent to the other coworkers developed early when it was clear he didn't share their same apathetic outlook on life in relation to their work. "Capitalist bullshit that needs to get done just so we can get paid."

To Rodney, it was the one thing that was more than what it seemed to be on the outset.

The canned goods rolled down first as he picked them up at a quick pace, dashing the bar-codes across the scanner. He looked up and offered a smile to the young blonde who was finishing setting the rest of her groceries on the line. She offered pleasantries back, but he knew it was only because it would have been rude to not.

Working the line taught you to not take polite conversation as anything but. Rodney had made that mistake early on and has learned through his previous naivety to hold these interactions at arm's length.

He finished scanning her products through and as he was tapping away at a few of the options on the tablet in front of him when a flash of light flooded through the windows. A banshee's scream scorched through the air and Rodney reached his hands up to his ears.

He bent down as the light began to fade. He steadied his breathing as it went completely. He placed his hands on the edge of the counter and pulled himself up. He was shocked to see the counter was the only part of the store that remained. It sat in the middle of a swamp with liquid that glowed a nasty looking neon pink. His heart was pounding out of his chest.

When he stood up he noticed the woman who was checking out in his lane. She was crouching below the counter-top with her hands over her head. She opened her eyes and looked at the bog around them. They were the only two people around. The feeling of fear and surprise rose in equal counts in the both of them.

The two had left the remnants of the store behind and traveled through the bog—the luminescent muck they learned was toxic to the touch. Rodney had lost his shoes as it began eating through them like they were dipped in acid. The woman, a mid-twenties barber's assistant named Kendra Iannacore took the lead to a timid Rodney as they trekked on. After a day and a half of walking in a silence that could best be described by Rodney as "incredibly awkward and painful for everyone involved" they breached what seemed to be the exit. The final decaying trees gave way to a landscape that looked as if it could have been from Rodney's nightmares.

Rolling hills of bone-white stone that had large slabs jutting out of the ground at odd angles. Some scraped up as if they contained a beast underneath who had been reaching through the ground with large claws.

Rodney stared open eyed out at the world as the sun had creased over the horizon line. Kendra had to take charge and convince Rodney to continue forward. The two argued over the merits of staying and waiting for help versus exploring the wasteland. The two of them finally decided to continue through the bonelands when Kendra threatened to go without him. The fear of being left alone was too much a thought to even begin to consider. He latched onto her as a totem for support.

In truth, Kendra feared this. She had been at the grocery store that day to avoid being around her boyfriend back home who had been for the past few weeks exhibiting rather controlling and possessive behaviors. She was fearing the backlash confronting those behaviors would bring, and suddenly in a flash those problems—and the good memories that held her to them—were gone. And yet here she survived the passover to the beginning of the new world with a man—strike that, not even a man. A boy who had exhibited those behaviors ramped up to ten. She yearned to be rid of him after the first hour of walking through the swamp, but this wasn't the life she had before. This was all different, and she was more scared to be alone out here.

They had set up camp in the depths of the bonelands. Nothing more than the place they decided to stop moving marked their camp. Rodney took off the smock that he had been wearing for his job and laid it on the ground. He presented it to Kendra as a kind gesture to have some level if not the most minimal separation from the ground, but it in truth wasn't any sort of comfort. Looking at the sweat that stained the pits of his undershirt meant that the stench carried over to the smock, even seeing the large stain in the front. Rodney had been oblivious to the smell but it pushed her away as the last straw.

She headed off, away from him and into the boneland depths alone. He had a look of sorrow on his face as he moved over toward his smock and curled up onto it like a cat. The sky above had turned a deep violet. The ground below had begun to hum. He felt a slight warmth as he laid to rest. The vibrations underneath made it easier for him to fall asleep to—like a natural lullaby.

When he woke the next morning and the violet had faded to more of a crimson shade he continued out west with his smock around his arm. He walked simply because he had nothing else to do. He was upset over the loss of his job, but in reality...this wasn't the absolute worst thing that could have happened. As he slept he was able to calm down and get over the initial fear. His stride had a little more pep as he continued forward.

This was an entirely new chance for him to find something new for himself. This seedling of hope only grew. If he had taken but a minute's detour out from his path he would have found Kendra's corpse lying stretched out. Her skin was melded to the bone ground—charred black and tearing.

Instead, he continued following his own way, beginning to whistle as the world sprawled out in front of him limitlessly.