Burning Plains, Pt 1

The trees dwindle significantly the further west you travel. Even the shrubs and bushes become sparser and sparser as the days go by. Despite most of the foliage receding, the grass persists. And with the lack of competitors for sun and rain, the grass grows relatively tall. You can see the blades sway in the breeze, under the moon's light.

It's all beautiful and serene, at least from your point of view from the road.

Of course, the landscape changes as well. It becomes flatter and more even as you travel, and the beautiful rolling hills vanish alongside the diminishing foliage. The last vestiges of your old home are far behind you now, and there's no going back.

It isn't long until you find yourself in a vast valley that seems to stretch on for an eternity ahead of you. The highway itself becomes completely straight, and practically vanishes out into the dark of night. Although you're enhancing your vision through your powers, there's still only so far that you can see.

And from what you can tell, it's going to be a long time until you find any kind of shelter to sleep in.

If you don't find one soon, you're going to end up sleeping in the grass without protection from the sun. That is a scenario you would rather avoid. Without any manner of shade, this beautiful and serene plain will become a deathtrap once morning passes. Even if you're covered up by your poncho, the sheer heat radiating from the ground around you will surely cook you alive. 

Well, it might not quite be that bad, but you're not exactly willing to test out just how true your prediction could be. 

There are certainly still the occasional abandoned cars on the road, but none of those are a good option either. When you peer through some of their windows, you can just make out the sun-bleached and sun-worn interiors. Most plastic and leather surfaces have large cracks in them, and are visibly falling apart. Anything inside of them has become faded and worn, simply through direct sunlight and oppressive heat.

On the outside, the closer the paint is to the roof, the more faded it gets. Plus all the seals around the doors and windows have melted and rehardened time and time again. The rubber wheels themselves have molten over and fused the car to the asphalt to some degree.

It's clear that these have become little more than roadside ovens, and you'd rather avoid sleeping in them if at all possible.

You do your best to heighten your ESP, so that you can see and sense farther than ever before. And by using your Temperance, you're able to gain a powerful catlike night vision. This allows you to truly see much further out than ever before - perhaps half a dozen kilometers out.

Most of it is fuzzy and hard to make out, sure. But you can see, and you can scout.

And from what you can see, most of what's further out are overgrown farmlands. There are rows of overgrown crops in numerous spots, though various weeds and other plants have also taken residence on the extremely fertile soil around them. 

There seems to be an old tractor out in one of the fields, also likely rotting under the oppressive sun as well. 

More critically, you can just make out silos and a barn at the edge of your sight off to the southwest.

Might be better if we travel offroad from this point on, you transmit to Noir over the Network.

You mean crawl through that itchy grass? No thanks, Noir replies. I'd rather stay up on the road here so I can see where I'm going.

Is that so? Well check this out.

You focus your energies into a narrow Scan, and check for life all along the path from where you're standing all the way to the barn. You sense numerous animalistic thoughts and emotions rise up in the tall grass closest to you - and beyond. 

In fact, there's such a dense concentration of critters around the silos that you're certain they're all pillaging whatever's in them.

Noir gasps psionically as your Scan echoes through the Network. The sight of so much prey all over the place causes her little heart to skip a beat.

So yeah, we're gonna need some food, you continue. And water. And a place to sleep. Over there seems… robust with all those needs.

Yeah, yeah, sure, sure, I'm sold, Noir replies almost absentmindedly.

You sense some kind of switch flip inside of her the moment she goes into a stalking mode, then she leaps off into the grass and stalks the nearest critter to her. It only takes her a few seconds to get close enough to strike. 

But instead of physically attacking her prey, she instead flings a lethal Telekinetic claw at it, which slices off its head from the neck cleanly. Its life energies wink out a moment or two later.

Noir doesn't bother to stop to even inspect her kill before she bounds off further towards the farmstead. Clearly, she's excited by the prospect of so much death to deliver. As such, you decide to give her a little extra space and a little extra time to do her homicidal thing before you get off the road and head in after her.

You turn off the asphalt road, which immediately slopes down for a couple meters or so. At the bottom is a wide highway gutter designed to soak up heavy rains. The gutter itself is lined with gravel, presumably to help keep it from getting clogged up by debris.

You're able to leap over it easily onto the other side, where the grass grows right up to the edge of the gutter, and progressively gets thicker and taller towards the farmlands itself.

There's a rickety old wooden fence that marks the edge of the property, which you easily Telekinetically dismantle a portion of to make an entrance for yourself. Then once you pass, you use your Telekinesis to put that fence back in place, just the way it was before.

You then wade through the tall grass which comes up to about your knees. Though it isn't tough to walk through, you can feel each blade hold you back ever so slightly. It's an odd sensation to be able to tell just how much you're slowed down in the grass, even if it's a miniscule amount. You've never been so attuned to your physical self in the past, at least before the end of the world.

Instead of focusing on what's on the ground however, you glance up at the night sky. Particularly at the stars embedded within it. Although they're still alien to you, you've at least begun to notice the patterns in them, and can now navigate with them to some degree.

And perhaps just as importantly, you can also tell the time using them. It's not quite exact, of course. But you're certain that dawn is about two or three hours away. That should be plenty of time for you to get to the farmstead. Even if you take a relatively slow pace, you'll still get there by the time daylight begins to break. 

Not that you're going to take a slow pace - you never know what you'll find over there, and you'd rather have enough time to deal with it before the heat makes such a task impossible.

You check on Noir quickly through the Network only to find that she's already a quarter of the way there. And she has incurred no less than a half dozen kills in the meantime. It's certainly impressive in a violent sort of way.

It takes you about an hour and a half to get close to the first building - one of the two silos. The trip itself is rather uneventful, with most of whatever nearby critters having long since run away. Clearly none want to be slaughtered like their dead compatriots and flee for their lives.

Or at least, that's how you like to think of it.

Noir has since stopped her wanton killing and is circling the whole farmstead. Both of you can sense the numerous critters all around you, perhaps in the hundreds. There are numerous other predators at the outskirts as well, wolves and crags and wildcats. They nip and snack at what they can without disturbing everything else here.

You suppose there's a kind of wisdom in that - no sense in disturbing the whole and interrupting a rich source of food. Which means you're the fool for trampling your way in right to the center, interrupting everything, barging into their pantry, disturbing the peace.

You quickly crouch down into a stealthy position, so as not to alarm any creatures and send them running. At the same time, you minimize your presence psionically as though you're on the hunt. But instead of going after any one critter, you sneak your way around, giving the silos a clear berth.

At their bases are countless rats, mice, and other rodents. Dozens and dozens of them swarm around the opened doors at the bottom of the silos, through which whatever grains inside have spilled out. 

You don't really want to disturb their meal, or become the target of their next, so you give yourself a bit more space and head towards the nearby barn. There's certainly far less critters there, perhaps only a dozen or so at one of the upper corners inside.

The outside is incredibly worn - like with the cars its paint has worn away from the sheer power of the sun. You can still see the remnants of the paint around the edges and close to the ground - it used to be a forest green color. Not only that, but the wood closer to the top has completely grayed out, dried up, and has warped as a result. 

But at least it's still standing solidly.

There are a couple of old, disused farm vehicles parked out front. One is a caddy-like thing with a small truck bed behind it. It's like a golf cart and a pickup truck had a kid… You've never seen anything like it before and are amused at the design.

The vehicle next to it is a 4x4 quad that's half covered in old, dry mud. Like everything else, its paint has been sun-stripped, its seals have melted and fused into the metal, and its leather surfaces are cracked and dry.

Its key is in the ignition, and of course it doesn't turn over. Not just because its battery is dead, but because the ignition itself doesn't budge when you try to turn the key. It has literally rusted over, no doubt a result from the constant rains it has been exposed to.

You note that both their gas caps have been opened up. Whatever they had in there has no doubt been siphoned out a long time ago.

The barn itself is wide open - its large barn doors on one side have been opened up all the way, with one of the doors ripped off its hinges. It lays in the dirt in front of its entrance. You step through the side door, which is also swung out all the way, and peer inside.

A musty and acrid smell assaults your nose - that of old and new excrement and urine. The musk is heavy in the air, and you find yourself ducking back out to avoid getting dizzied.

Clearly, most of the animals have made this barn their communal toilet. Which, honestly, good for them. There's a kind of poetic justice in that, at least for the animals. 

Even better for whatever critters are living on the upper story of the barn. Either they're brave enough to tolerate that smell, or they absolutely love it. No matter what, they're certainly secure up there. Nothing is going to go in there to predate them, that's for sure. 

You leave whatever critters that are in the barn alone, and instead head towards the next closest building - the actual farmhouse. The design is typical country-style, with a porch out front. There's even a rocking chair there, though it's looking incredibly worse for wear. You're sure that it'll collapse if anyone tries to sit on it.

Although you try to peer through the windows into what seems to be the living room, the glass is too smudged and dusty to see completely through.

The front door itself is splayed wide open, with its top half ripped out from its hinges. The frame itself is warped and splintered down close to where the door is still attached from the bottom hinge, which makes the whole thing pretty much useless.

You pay it little mind as you step through, into the darkness of the old farm home.

~ Author's Note ~

Hello everyone!

This chapter marks the beginning of Act 2, when the main character's journey really starts to get going. I hope you all enjoy!

Check out my other work: linktr.ee/CeritusOrbis