At the end of the world. {octo x missedstations}

[missedstations]

They had left the last town when the harvest was done. It would not have done to overstay their welcome. While any farmer needed a couple of extra hands, these two were drifters, and who knew where they had come from, the things they had done, the things that they were, perhaps. Strange stories often came out of the badlands. So they were on the road again.

They travelled together because a traveller alone was asking for trouble. Little else seemed to link them. This close to the badlands, it was not wise to light a fire. But the night was cold, and Alexander worried that having no fire again would be worse. Curling up together at night did not keep them warm enough, and the last time they ate was two days ago. They had been unlucky with supplies: handing them over to bandits instead of handing over their lives. At least they had only taken the food and some of Alexander's ammo.

The boy gathered the firewood automatically, while Alexander did his best to light it. The most they would have was a tea of some bitter herbs, but that was better than nothing. Boiling the water disinfected it, and the herbs covered the taste. Alexander was old enough to remember the time when there were cities, and water could come out of taps. Alexander had been born just before the Cataclysm, before hell came to earth. At forty-something, he was lucky to have lived so long.

When the fire was lit, the boy was making arrows again. Bullets were too rare to waste on hunting – Alexander only used his gun when it was truly necessary. The boy was a fair shot with a bow: sufficient for hunting, and to deter badly equipped raiders. The arrows were simply sharpened and fire hardened sticks. Alexander sometimes wondered who had taught the boy so well, but there was little point in asking. Alexander had never heard him make a sound, not even during the fights they had lost, when the victors slammed him against the wall and, well, better not think about it.

He guessed that the boy was probably seventeen or so, maybe eighteen. They were both thin and lean, but the boy would never be a tall man. A lifetime of malnutrition wasn't exactly the best for physical development. Alexander could guess how someone so incompetent at hand to hand combat stayed alive, and it really wasn't his place to judge. The boy had the black hair and the dark skin of a gypsy, and was pretty enough to get by. It wasn't as if Alexander had not taken advantage himself, he was just curious as to why, even in the light of that, the boy still chose to follow him.

'My mother used to say that before the Cataclysm you couldn't see the stars,' Alexander said, staring upwards.

As always, the boy didn't reply, but he took the cup from Alexander and crouched beside him, sipping the bitter brew. At least their camp was sheltered from the wind.

'The first snow is a month away, we need to find somewhere to stay.' It was like talking to a wall, but Alexander was used to it. Having a person was nice. Maybe none of the boy's responses were verbal, but sometimes – like now – the boy leant against him. It was only for warmth, he knew, but he had missed human contact in all the years he had been alone.

'Shall we go to the city?' No reply, of course, except the growling of their stomachs.

 

[O C T O x p o d]

Ion captured his target a short way out of the town. Their race had left clouds of dirt shimmering in the moonlight, nothing but the thud of boots echoing through the silent valley. He had known that he and the target could have continued the chase clear over the Badlands if he didn't put a stop to it soon and in a sudden burst of energy and grappled the man to the ground.

A rusted sliver of metal, not a real knife but just a scrap with a sharpened edge, appeared in Ion's hand. Digging a knee into the targets back and arching his neck back, Ion dragged the makeshift weapon across the exposed throat. Ion wasn't merciful and had no knowledge of honor, but he did not delight in the pain of others. He just had no compulsion against against killing fellow humans. Well, he assumed he was human. Even before the Cataclysm he hadn't been sure. Ion was built like humans, tall and with the sun blasted dark skin of the Badlands. His eyes, though, were an uncommonly striking shade of bright, falcon like yellow were set deep in his face. He was weathered and could have been anywhere from twenty to fifty, but was stil lean of muscle and strong of thigh.

Dropping the target turned corpse's head he raised himself to a crouch above the body. Unflinchingly he patted down the body, collected valuable items. And unvaluable items. A string of bullets, a lump of hard cheese, a pair of dice, a pair of pliers, a knife, a big handgun and a breasplate all disappeared about Ion's body. He was not a bandit, more a scavenger. The man had already been fairly drunk before a bar brawl fighter had played naughts and crosses on his stomach with a broken bottle. Ion had just collected what wasn't going to be used and put the man out of his misery. It was service, really. Standing fully now, he peered down at the body for a moment, dark blood muddying the sand and eyes peering lifelessly at the horizon. With the nod of a craftsmen at a job well done he turned and walked away, boots silent as the moonlight.

Without thinking he circumnavigated the town and steered for parts unknown. Far off he swore he could smell the faint hint of cooking. Pausing, Ion swiveled his head curiously from side to side. Homing in on the scent, and now spotting the subdued glitter of a distance camp fire, Ion changed direction through the whispy scrub toward it. There was the faintest rustle of cloth against cloth, branches brushed aside, but littler more than that.

Crouching again a several yards from their small clearing, Ion looked at the pair. A young boy, lay comfortabley against an older man and seemingly delicious scents wafted toward Ion. Any food was delicious to him, no matter what or how old it was. Company though... He wasn't overly keen on company, but he'd do nearly anything for food.

With that in mind, he inched forward until he was was nearly in the clearing, the fire dancing eerily over his hawk-like features. He coughed in a surprisingly civilized manner.

 

[missedstations]

It was hard to sneak up on them – even before their guest announced himself, Alexander had reached for his gun, and the boy for his knife. The boy straightened up a little, a tiny hint of tension in his frame. Alexander was better than that, he seemed to show no reaction at all. Still sitting on the ground, wrapped in his coat, with the gun suddenly in his lap. They may not have had anything edible left to steal, but their clothes and equipment could still fetch a decent price. But one man, they could deal with that.

The boy stood up at the cough, setting his cup down, as if it was permission to allow the existence of the stranger in his narrow world. The knife he held was sharp steel, made before the Cataclysm. People had feared climate change, nuclear war, pandemic, but instead reality had simply cracked. Suddenly the weather was unreliable, the winds led nowhere, roads led to strange imaginary places. There were plenty of things less human than Ion: both of them judged the stranger human enough not to attack immediately.

'We have nothing you want, fuck off,' Alexander said. Hospitality was not his strong point. It had taken him months to get used to the boy's presence, and he didn't particularly want more people. If he did, he was sure he could have found a place to stay, to live, to grow old. Instead, he was growing old on the road – his face was wrinkled finely, weatherbeaten, and his dark hair was shot through with grey. He had grown up travelling, survived alone for years, and if necessary he was perfectly willing to fight. Two on one, those were good odds.

The boy, as always, made no reply whatsoever, staring straight at Ion's eyes. In the darkness, his eyes were almost entirely black, expressionless. Strangers tended to mean trouble. He glanced back at Alexander, taking his cues from the older man's behaviour. He pondered. Maybe it would even be good to fight Ion. They had lost much to the bandits, maybe killing this man would help them regain some of it. But he would do what Alexander did, he respected the man.

 

[O C T O x p o d]

Ion's eyes never left the soup. His arms raised from his sides in a sign of good intent, but his harsh yellow eyes remained fixed. He licked dry lips in fast, greedy motion. As if on cue to answer the older man, his stomach growled. Carefully, with exaggerated slowness, he lowered a hand to his pocket. The other went palm out in front of him, like the policemen of old. Still moving with inexorable slowness, he pulled out the lump of cheese as if it were gold. To him it was better than gold.

He proffered it to the pair, croaking out his first words, "Trade? For food?" He voice was harsh and cracked with disuse, but had the discordant tone of a foreign, alien language. His eyes were still focused on the dancing light on the fire, but his body now had a tenseness running through it. He had exposed the secret treasure of cheese and at the first sign of violence or move toward his cheese, his fight or flight meter would point to instant flight.

"Fuck off later..." It was uttered the same of key tone as before. The words might be a sad attempt at humor, or then again not. His eyes were still focused on the fire, but now his entire face was contorted in a hungry lust after food.

 

[missedstations]

'We don't have any food either. Bad hunting,' Alexander replied. It wasn't to say that they had caught nothing at all, just that some of the things they had shot they had no way of telling whether they were edible or not, and so they had left them to the elements.

'This is just a few herbs.' Well, if the man was as hungry as them... Might be nothing wrong in sharing a fire for a night. 'Might make your stomach feel less empty though.'

The boy sheathed the knife and resumed his old position, but Alexander kept hold of his gun. He didn't entirely trust the boy's judgement on these matters, considering the situation in which they had met. Alexander was quite sure that this man wasn't human, but he could not easily tell exactly how inhuman. Worth a risk, perhaps. And maybe, he was just a little bit soft these days. That was why he had let the little whore follow him after all.

He wasn't entirely sure that the boy was human either – after all, nothing normal stayed so conspicuously disease free after being dragged through every hovel, stabbed, violated, exposed to bad weather. That sort of luck could not possibly be luck. So it wasn't really his place to judge these things. Ion would either go or stay, try to fight them or not. He was prepared enough, he thought. And really, after all these years, he was starting to think he had less and less to lose.