Breaking Point

The short trail ends at the overturned burnt and rusted wreckage of an old world truck. I stay crouched behind it a time, listening closely. I hear some bird call and the buzz of nearby flying insects, other than that...nothing.

Carefully I stand to peer out around the wreck. Beyond I see twisted dead trees and scraggly shrubs, the past evening's rain had brought out tiny whitish yellow flowers among the chalky green underbrush. I am relieved to see that there is no movement or signs of recent passage.

A great creaking six foot wide twisting brownish purple branch of a Giant Creeping Sycamore had wended its way around and through the existing vegetation like the petrified corpse of a gigantic serpent. These titanic blights never rose to more than fifty or sixty feet high, but their roots and branches could spread out for up to a mile from the enormous central trunk. Few of its red leaves grew off of the huge branches, and those that did were rough as sandpaper with sharp serrated edges. I look at it's scaly bark. It was such a familiar sight. If you had the balance and skill the branches of these great trees could be used as pathways. It was a trick I often used to get around quickly when traveling alone and on foot. I could see the bushy end of the limb stretching off about a hundred yards to my left. By next year that outer tip would be another hundred yards distant.

As the Sycamore branch reminded me, it was not just animal life that had mutated when the world changed all those years ago. When the effects of the mutagen agent began to emerge in a chaotic war torn America it was the microorganisms that showed the first signs of change. New aggressive diseases and incurable infections sprung up seemingly overnight. A battered and beaten world had neither the resources nor the facilities to fight such a threat anymore. Millions died in those initial few years. The first visible deviance showed up in insect and fungal life. Strange alien forms the likes of which had never been seen before. Fish and amphibians soon followed. By this point it was obvious that the mutagen had found its way into the cells of all life on Earth. No living species was safe from its touch. Within a year the first mutated humans began to be born. The first Orc among the earliest arrivals. Such was the fervor of public insanity at that time that even while humanity was being decimated by a changing twisting world, the wars continued to rage. The arrival of mutant babies only adding to the hysteria already gripping an insane population. Every side blaming another for what was happening. The wars continued until there simply wasn't enough soldiers to send out anymore. Only then did humanity truly turn its attention to the real challenge facing them. Survival.

Looking at the massive mutant invasive branch next to the remnants of the straight slender old world trees I can't help but think of Gabby's small perfectly human looking hand held in mine. My green hued fingers dwarfing hers. My nails thicker and stronger. The skin of my palms tougher. Like the Creeping Sycamore I was a product of this new world. Ugly and rough but built for the challenges of the Wastes. Looking over the dead trees, standing like skeletal monuments to a different time, I wondered how long the pure bloods really had left in this world. They were safe in their colonies for now, but how long could they really hold out in a world that wasn't theirs. They had been masters of all creation, but that place didn't exist anymore. They were the like the last holdouts of a crumbling empire. A worry rises in me, a worry about my new friend. How long could she last out here?

My eyes slowly drift back down to the milky little yellow flowers. The delicate looking yet flourishing hardy shrubs that grew in and around both the old dead trunks as well as the great mutant branch...and a smile comes to my face. Gabriela wasn't a pure blood. She was a product of this world as much as me. She might not be able to enjoy the comparative comfort and security behind the walls and old world weaponry of the pure blood settlements, but maybe she would be able to find something even better. A future.

It is then I hear a sound behind me. Spinning back with my spear at the ready I twist my bad ankle hard and grunt as I collapse awkwardly down to one knee. Gabby rushes forward to help me to my feet. As I take her arm to let her help me up I realize that I had been far too overconfident in my abilities before. It was probably a good thing I wasn't out there trying to hunt down someone armed with a gun. I test my leg again, then slowly settle my weight back onto it.

“You okay?” She whispers. I see that she was wearing her shirt again, a hasty few rough stitches held the holes closed at her shoulder.

I nod, though I look at her with annoyance. “You hide.” I say and urgently wave her back the way she came.

She shakes her head. I could see in her tense body language that something was bothering her. “I-I was thinking...um, we should stay together Willow. It's safer that way.” She says uncertainly. “I'll be quiet, I-I won't get in your way.”

I am about to argue with her as I wanted her as far from harm's way as possible, but I soon realize she was absolutely right. There were threats everywhere around here. Better to be together to face them side by side than to get picked off alone. Besides, it was so much more pleasant this way.

I finally nod. I rasp a hushed joke. “Pure blood...smarter...than I...grmmm...expected.”

Gabby blushes at hearing her own words used back against her. Her look of guilt showing me that she now realized how wrong her preconceptions had been about me and my kind. She nods sadly. “Maybe not as smart as I once thought.” I can see the playful quip had been taken to heart. I give her hand a supportive squeeze. She smiles bashfully then whispers. “Anyone out there?” She heads back to pick up the bottle and the plastic jug she had dropped when she had rushed forward to help me.

“All clear.” I reply. “We wait...ahummm...nother hour...or so.”

She nods in agreement. I note once more the tension in her. Her eyes were darting here and there, mostly downward looking, never looking at me directly. She was probably just scared.

Moving out to the front end of the ruined vehicle I sit on the already nearly dry earth and keep watch. Gabby moves up right in behind me and squats down. As usual she sits unusually close to me, her shoulder practically rubbing against my back.

I sit there a while, watching and listening and feeling Gabby occasionally shift her weight behind me. I knew that if we didn't need to be quiet right now she's probably be talking my ear off. I would have liked that a lot, though just sitting with her in silence was pretty nice too.

She shifts and squirms more than usual and I feel her getting ever closer to me. Eventually she comes to press herself fully against me. Her hands together against the middle of my back, her head slowly coming to rest higher up. Her knees pushing against my butt. I feel her very tentatively begin to stroke my long red braided hair, then reach out and feel the bare flesh just under the back of my armpit. I knew from previous comments that she was marveling at how “human” I felt. I stayed absolutely still, curious as to what this was about and where it was leading. Generally while on watch I wouldn't like being crowded and pawed at like this, but Gabby was an exception.

It is then I hear a sniffle and light sob escape my companion. Her hands clasp lightly on my back and I feel her face push into me. Another soft sob, followed soon by another. I can feel her hands shake as the continue to hold desperately onto my shirt. Gradually I turn myself ninety degrees, sitting so that I could still turn my head to keep an eye out at the area beyond while also being able to see Gabriela.

I look over to see her chin trembling and tears flowing down her perfect cheeks. She sucked in a breath of air and let it out and tiny sobs, trying her very best to stay quiet. She wasn't looking up at me, her big eyes staring down at the ground instead. Fat tears fall to the earth below.

As I turn she backs up a bit and balls up, trembling uncontrollably as she cried in wretched whimpers. My heart breaks as I watch my tiny savior curl up and cry just two feet away from me. I carefully lay down my cane then reach out and gently place my hand on her hunched shoulders. “Shhhh, come here. It's okay.” I say. I wasn't used to dealing with this sort of thing, but if it was possible for me to have maternal instincts I was feeling them now like never before. My friend had a wound as deep as the bite from the Gore Rat, and no mutant healing ability could help her now.

She doesn't hesitate a second at the invitation. She hurries forward and buries her head into the side of my upper chest. Her thin arms hug me around the body. Her shoulders heave and release in powerful sobs. Holding me tight she weeps and weeps and weeps. A deep shuddering soul wrenching cry of despair and agony. Her warm tears wet the bare skin of my shoulder. I hold her tight, letting her burrow into my encompassing embrace.

As I hold her I wonder how long she'd been out here alone. Alone and scared. Scared of everything and everyone with no one to turn to. Even us raiders knew the value of someone having your back. Having someone to talk with when you really needed to, to share things with, or even just be around when you didn't want to be alone. But Gabby... How long could someone endure such a lonely frightened existence? Had she trusted anyone before this? Had that trust been betrayed? How many times had she experienced what she had at the hands of Blitz? Given her healing abilities, what physical traumas had she suffered through and survived? How many times had she prayed to her god for mercy, only to have those prayers ignored?

I hold her tight. She was a frightened girl who had done the best she could to get by on her own. But now, having a friend she felt she could truly trust, she had finally reached her breaking point. The timing wasn't ideal, but when it came to human emotions I knew that was the norm. You just never knew when something like this might hit you.

My back resting against the warped rusted fender of the ruined truck, with the soft sounds of a gentle breeze blowing through the shrubs and the creaking of the giant branch, I hold my broken angel tight in my strong arms and let her cry for as long as she needed.