If I Go

We live in a very nice house, large and comfortable, which suffers from lack of maintenance. I do my best to keep it without leaking pipes and electric problems but there is little material to work with. Too many factories closed for good, not enough new ones opened. About all market is black market now, and about all items available are stolen. Neither my uncle nor my aunt stay home much, they work a lot just to keep food on our table.

During most the time since the Big Change I have tried to avoid leave home, as much as possible. That gave me a reputation of fragile mental health in the family, but there is nothing to be done about that. Besides, sanity is not a cheap commodity those days, must people have some eccentric behaviour than could probably count as disease before, but now is just being a person.

Super strength, and additional advantages, made the surviving men more heroic, in the sense of more violent and inclined to risk. On average. I think.

Hard to say for sure, since no one is collecting data and doing academic research about such matters. Hard to keep academic curiosity when people are dying from starvation!

At least the part of starvation is walking fast to became history, in the region.

When my mother died she had 35, aunt Sidra had 24, I was 10 years old, and my elder sister had 14. Now Valeria has 22, aunt Sidra 32. The two women don’t see eye to eye, and because of that Valeria seldom visits us nowadays.

Was extremely generous of our aunt to raise four children from her dead sister in the chaos of falling civilization. With generalized starvation, given to the catastrophe caused by space radiation. Almost half the population dead in few hours, disrupted supply chains, opportunistic crimes, all the insanity you can well imagine. However, Valeria does not see things quite in the same way. To her aunt Sidra just stole our mother’s house, and what should have been our heritage. By the old laws she may even be right, but those laws are no more.

In theory they still apply, but theories do not shield children from starvation, cold, or gang ****. In practice there are no more cops doing patrols anywhere, that I know about. Gangs became the new cops for so long that they are now respected as such by almost everyone.

Uncle Joll is a police detective, but the city does not pay him since those first years after the fall. He keeps working, thanks to local business association contribution. Crime lords are behind the association, and keep the delegacy running because it gives the region its atmosphere of relative order. Goes without saying, no detective will cross the interests of any important local warlord without first secure the support of enough of his rivals.

Because uncle Joll is a detective, and indirectly serves the interest of organized crime in the community, we have a relative tranquillity. No one targets our house, or our family. Without reason.

Aunt Sidra was an art student, she became a nurse in an emergency curse when things fall apart, and transitioned from that to tattoo artist after things calmed down a bit.

Uncle Joll is a slim, jumpy, middle-sized man. Red hair, green eyes constantly searching for a fight. Short tempered, he looks dangerous and probably is. Sleeps with a pistol hidden behind his head, and has dozens of grenades hidden in the house. Never leaves house without one.

He could be a beautiful man, matching the beauty of his wife even, if was not for the low-right quarter of his face, and the neck and shoulder below. Burned and disfigured by some “micro-wave gun” prototype invented by some mad serial-killer. A burn like than would have killed any man if it had happened before the Big Change, but now men are harder to put down for good. And he is a stubborn type.

He beats aunt Sidra sometimes, and she fears him a lot. However, he never beats her too hard, never broke any bone or leaves bruises that would last for more than a couple days. He never apologises either, or pretends he will not do it again, and I thing a lot of my respect for him came from that, initially. He is what he is, and he is not right in his actions, necessarily, but he will risk to die for his family. And most certainly has killed for us already, even if the never speaks about.

Aunt Sidra is almost as tall as her husband is. She has light brown skin, and a face like some Indian princess from paintings, except for the eyes which are more Japanese than Indian. Her dark hair looks gorgeous in the pictures but now she keeps her head shaved, what is a shame in my opinion. Helps the professional look of tattoo artist, I suppose.

Since she will not cover herself in tattoos, I suppose that’s a good enough compromise.

Valeria has the painfully blue eyes of our dead father, in the same shape of mother eyes. More Indian than Japanese. She is a little smaller than aunt Sidra, her hips are a bit more narrow, her breast a little bigger. In temperament the two women are very alike, and could be that the reason why they cannot share a room for five minutes without star screaming at each other. Before mother die, they were good friends, Valeria used to admire Sidra .

Victoria is one year older than me, but she is the sister who less tolerates me. Possibly because I insisted in stay home, instead of scavenger with her and Valeria for supplies during the early years after the Big Change. She considers me a weak and a coward, and she has no place for people like that in her life. I suppose it is fair, enough.

Because she had to walk around for too long without a brother to look for her Vic got into many fights. Mainly against other women. And acquired the bad habit of working out too much, and use supplements, to create excessive muscles and intimidate her adversaries. The big boobs must make her life harder in a fight, but there is nothing anyone can do about that.

The more you walk the streets more likely you will be to be selected to a random genetic test. I cannot afford that risk. However, I never explained this to my sister.

Vanessa is our half-sister. She is the daughter of our father with his second wife, and is with us since the Big Change, because her mother disappeared. She is the only person in the family who don’t take sides in the conflict between Valeria and aunt Sidra. Also, the person I like the most. Smart, sharp in her comments, but kind most the time.

Vanessa has red hair and freckles. She had that crazy smile that made you ask yourself if she wasn’t a fairy children exchanged by father’s true one in the crib as baby. Now that is growing into a gorgeous young woman’s face. In another couple of years she will probably be the most beautiful woman in the family.

To not became entirely useless I got the habit to repair whatever gadget my sisters managed to bring from her exploratory adventures. Now I do that as a job for the neighbours.

This day I had to leave home because the restaurant above aunt Sidra studio had some problem with the water pipes, and it needed to be solved for aunt Sidra’s best interest of keep her work place dry and functional. It was a long day of work, and after the problem was as fixed as it could be without new pipes I saw myself **** to clean aunt Sidra’s studio. There was mod on two walls and on the ceiling, and I had to do “something” about.

She managed to get me the materials, despite the hour, and insisted that I continued the work trough the night. Because she needed the place restored to normality as soon as possible.

Her friend and client, Moara, decided to stay and help me. Without ask my opinion on the matter.

Moara is the daughter of a well know mercenary assassin, and her mother own the restaurant where I had been working all day. She has 22, is a very beautiful small woman how favours clothes that leave her back exposed. To exhibit my aunt work. A complex tribal tapestry covers her back, neck to waist, and disappears under the belt.

She is more solid than voluptuous, but without the evident muscles of Victoria. And she smells very nice. Probably an effect of working preparing food all day. Her hair smells bacon and spices.

We worked for a few hours in the closed studio, before she make clear that she was not really planning on help me. Least that was not her main goal for the night.

First she smiled, and touched my back and my hands as if by accident. However, when I pretended not to understand what was going on she tried to kiss my mouth.

I had to move away, for obvious reasons. So, she took her shirt off.

She had small boobs, very small, with big nipples. No tattoo in the front, but a smoot brow skin. I felt lightheaded looking at her, unable to avoid the image of her body, and she may have noticed that I was not entirely uninterested. Because some clues probably could be seen, suggesting she had picked my (let’s say) curiosity.

You will not believe me if I say I don’t know how that happened. Still, I will say that, because that is the true: her tong found its way into my mouth. Or mine into her. Possibly both. Somehow. Do not ask me.

Men are rare in this world. Many woman want to have children, and don’t have the money or the contacts to buy semen. Possibly, some also would like to have physical contact with men, for the sake of sexual gratification. Make sense. However, the only thing I could think about by this point was how dangerous that was to me. How it would destroy my live completely, if I didn’t stopped and escaped. I would not be able to hide anymore.

Even that, was hard to think. With her hand around my penis.

Add more this mystery to the situation. How my sexual organ came out my pants and in her hand? I don’t remember that happening.

In any case, her mouth was going from my neck to my belly bottom, and even in that uncomfortable fuzzy state I made the Math. To guess what would come next.

**** to retake control over my mental process, and prevent catastrophe, I pushed Moara’s face back to mine, and away.

_Stop! _I said. Looking in her eyes.

In saying that I felt a power that was never before present in my voice. And saw a change in her face, as if she had forgotten what she was doing and where she was.

I put myself together, and considered the opportunity in from of me. She was a gorgeous woman, and she could in a moment make herself mine. My **** in mind and body, willingly doing everything I wanted from her.

Using her help I could build myself an fortress of secrets. Hiding in the neighbourhood, where I knew everybody.

However, my family was in this neighbourhood. They would not fail to notice my growing control over Moara, or her fall into submission. What I could do about that?

Realizing the necessary steps to follow this path, I understood that there was no real chance to me in this situation.

I run away from the studio, leaving Moara locked there for the night.

Next morning my aunt could free her, and she would tell her how the shy virgin boy panicked and escaped like a coward. The coward everyone knows I am.

I did not run back home. No chance to say farewell to my sisters, that would be too risky. Instead I run in the opposite direction. Past Downton, where Valeria lives. Sunrise to sundown I run south, until put the city behind me, and then I kept walking. Past the farms, to the east, there are the ruins of an ancient city. Destroyed by nukes during Nuclear War 2.

Onis supposedly live in those ruins. Beyond the reach of human authorities.

The countryside had changed a lot since I was a child, and our family stayed in a farm or another. My father was a veterinarian, how worked with genetic improvement of cattle in farms on all parts of Brasil, also Uruguay and Paraguay. Was common for us to stay in the farms of his clients as guests, playing with the children, making friends, exploring.

I was nine years old, or eight perhaps, and somehow I got lost exploring the woods in the property. During one of those visits to a farm, during school vacations.

Huge reforestation projects had happened after the Nuclear Wars. Priority for the genetic engineering and gardener drones was farming, to produce food, but some forests had been recuperated as well. Enough of them for a young boy to get lost for two days and three nights. During some of those nights, when no one knew if I was alive or not, and my family was **** searching the woods, I got this really strange dream. Or hallucination.

I saw this huge man, 3 meters high, with four arms and a head that was three times larger than it should be. This “alien demon” had an extra eye in the middle of his head, and fangs like a dog.

He took me from the ground without any effort, and looked right in my eyes.

_Lissen to me, boy! I am dying. You must avoid the mistakes I made, so that does not happen. You must hide yourself. When the Great Change arrive, DO NOT MAKE ANY EXPERIMENT IN YOURSELF! Let time pass, observe the mistakes of others. HIDE YOUR TRUE NATURE! The Change will come. AVOID UNECESSARY FIGHTS, stay hidden. Don’t trust anyone!

I was frozen by fear, and it was impossibly strong. Like a **** of nature. His words sculped the urgency of his warning deep in me. I saw images of a destroyed world, demons fighting for **** woman and eating the weaker among them.

_YOU MUST MAKE YOURSELF STRONG. YOU MUST LEARN HOW TO FIGHT. BUT, ABOVE ALL, YOU MUST NOT SHOW YOUR TRUE NATURE DURING THE FIRST TWELVE YEARS!! KEEP YOUR HEAD DOWN! WATCH, LEARN, THINK. HIDE YOUSELF!!

I don’t know if the monster walked away or just disappeared. Or if I woke up. In my memories after that he was gone. I never found any sign to prove it was real.

_You will be one of the gifted ones! Others will expose themselves, do not share their mistake. KEEP YOU HEAD DOWN! If you do that, you will have time to choose you way, and grow.

My life continued, after that traumatic experience, undisturbed. My days in the wood where something to boast about. However, I never mentioned the giant monster to anyone. Not even to Vanessa

Everything was different now, as the city was.

Cars with strongly armed men patrolled the roads and they would shot anyone walking outside the main roads during the night. Was easy to avoid the cars, but less easy to avoid the drones controlled by AIs. Those machines had night vision, and were equipped to big rifles, intended to scare away or slow down the onis who dared to invade the region.

There were few drones, for patrol a large territory. But after avoid one, more thanks to luck than anything else, I slowed my pace considerably.

Some of those fields and woods are full of explosive mines, but I decided that was best to take my chances in the eucalyptus plantations than stay in the road. From there I would move through the tallest grass I could find, and only go through open field when I had no other option.