章節 67: Desolate Oasis, Pt 1
The sounds of numerous crowds of people fill your ears as you sit patiently inside of a busy and bustling medical tent. You once again find yourself in the stadium next to Kaja, both being tended to by military medics. But unlike the first time when you were filled with worry and dejectedness, now you're much more eager to be here.
Most of you want to observe the incoming Crag attack in greater detail, to see if you could perhaps sway them to your side in this fight. In that way, you could potentially turn the tides against the Shadow Sweeper.
If you could manage to do that in the dream, then you might have a chance at doing that in reality, too. Well, should the opportunity ever present itself anyway.
Kaja looks at you with mild concern, even as a grin widens on your face. Your heart and mind are both filled with joy, which leaves your partner completely and utterly dumbfounded.
"I know it's nice to be protected by the military and all, but I don't think that's cause for celebration," she says to you, her voice somewhat hushed. "The world's still fucked from where I'm sitting."
"Oh, them?" you reply, perhaps a little more loudly than you would normally. "I'm not happy 'coz of them. They're useless."
You get a few glares from the people around you, clearly angered or upset by your words. Especially from the medics tending to the many other civilians in the tent. The tension is palpable in the air, though most of it was here long before you arrived.
You suppose the end of the world has something to do with their somber moods. Though you note their mood feels heavier than the first time - even the thoughts of the numerous other Telepaths in the stadium feel more muted than usual.
A part of you can't help but wonder why that feels different to you.
"Okay, sorry, not useless," you correct yourself shortly after. "I meant more like… helpless. Yeah, that sounds about right."
Your correction does little to ease the animosity rising up towards you, but you pay little mind to that. This is a dream after all, and these people aren't actually real. These are all projections within your own mind and nothing actually exists here except your near-unflinching memory of the past.
And so you turn back towards Kaja to continue your conversation, completely ignoring the people grumbling all around you.
"Look, no offense, but all that's going to happen to them is get killed by the Sweeper," you explain. But the puzzlement on Kaja's face remains.
"What, that shadow creature thing?" she says. "You're saying it's coming back? But we drove it off earlier… And I even took its weapon thing."
"Oh, definitely. We probably could have killed it back then, which we've been doing for the past couple of times or so. But now I kinda wanna try something different."
"You aren't making any sense, you know that?"
All you can do is nod in response, which causes a little bit of frustration to rise up out of Kaja. She leans back in her seat a bit, and exhales at length.
"I really don't get you," she says after a moment. "It's like this… thing that's happened to the world, forced it to become this… It's changed you, too."
Your smile flattens slightly on hearing her say that. It's all true, of course. The apocalypse has one hundred percent changed the entire world, yourself included.
You look down at your hands, or rather the hands you held back then. They were soft and fleshy, easy to bruise and slice open with any slight contact, like a ripe fruit. Nowadays, in the real world, they're hard and calloused, toned for the wilderness and the harshness of reality.
Of course your whole body has become like that, hardened against the environment, more resilient to cuts and scrapes, and more tolerant of the extremes. You've become tougher than you ever have before, and that's even without your Temperance to strengthen you.
And not to mention your mind, which has become a mind-boggling arsenal filled with razor-sharp powers. Beyond your psyche's growth, so too has your knowledge of all kinds of things. That alone has honed you severely.
All told however, you can't help but realize just how truly capable you have become.
Though you concede it isn't necessarily the end of the world that's caused you to change so drastically - it's losing Kaja in the first place. Her absence is what makes you, you.
"Same change that's happened in me happened to you, too," you tell Kaja. "Or where'd you think all your crazy mind powers have come from?"
This time it's Kaja's frown that flattens and eases into neutrality.
"I suppose you're right," she says. "And I suppose it's good you've changed. You're more… engaged with everything. Happier even. You don't shy from anything, and you're eager to leap into the thick of things… Before you would've just run or done nothing, and honestly that's impressive to me."
"I've always wanted to be more like that anyway," you reply. "More like you. You might not have known that before… and I kinda wish I did tell you before. I suppose now's gonna have to do."
You sense a part of Kaja crumble inside as you speak, as your words cause her to visibly tremble in her seat. At the same time, you feel her heart swell - the sensation is so palpable that you barely need to use any powers to sense it.
Her cheeks turn rosy for a second, and she looks away in embarrassment.
"Ah, I'm just a scrub trying to do my best," she mutters. Then she looks back at you with eyes slightly misty. "And I'm glad you're doing the same, too. In fact, I'm gonna take back how worried I've been about you changing.
"At first I thought maybe you're turning into some bloodthirsty monster, lashing out at everything even looking at us wrong. But now I get it - you just wanna make sure we make it out of this alive. And you had to seriously change who you are to make that happen. That makes you braver than me, and I can't be upset about that at all, in the slightest.
"Honestly, if this is who you wanna be, then I'm with you from now on. If this is what it takes to make you the best you can be, then fuck it. I'm down to help you be the best you can be. The rest of the world is just gonna have to deal with it."
This time it's your turn for your heart to soften. To hear her say that to you is… everything you didn't know you wanted in life. You feel a warmth spread through you, and instinctively take her hand in yours.
The both of you intertwine your fingers and hold each other tightly, even as you look in each others' eyes.
Before either of you can truly enjoy the moment, a blaring alarm wafts through the air, accompanied by some frenzied screams from frightened civilians all around you.
Both of you stand up decisively, ready to take action.
"Is what you've been saying about to start?" Kaja asks you. "The whole attack thing?"
You nod in response.
"Let's go deal with it," you add a second after.
The two of you then sprint out of the tent, across the field, and into the stadium hallways towards the entrance. As you do, panicked groups of people rush past you in the opposite direction, fearful for their lives. When you get to the entrance, you can sense the tension of the defending soldiers thick in the air around you.
Everything's as it always has been in the dream - soldiers are posted up in their armor. They've got their weapons at the ready and on the lookout for incoming Crags. Beyond them are the large Hesco barriers filled with sand, then the razor wire beyond those.
As always, the T-intersection is littered with dead Crags, and the sharp smell of sulfur along with them.
Everything you see is just about the same, except for one thing - you don't see a swarm of Crags headed in your direction. Besides the numerous corpses that trail down the street in front of you, there's nothing. Not even the sweeper.
You're immediately beset with alarm at the sight in front of you, or rather the lack thereof.
"The hells are you two doing here?" shouts the officer in charge. "Get back or you're gonna killed!"
"We're here to help!" Kaja replies. "We heard the alarm, so we came here."
"And what the hell are you two gonna do that we can't?"
Kaja's face flattens, then with a gesture she plucks the semi translucent blade sticking out of the asphalt in the intersection. Then with a few more gestures, she flips it around in the air, then places it defensively in front of the entrance.
All without looking at it.
"Okay, well, dunno what that's gonna do, but…" says the officer after clearing his throat. "At least post up over here so you're not in my team's way."
As the two of you walk towards his position, you can't help but remain utterly stunned at the lack of activity outside. Using your Temperance, you focus your vision to look as far down the street as possible, all the way to the other end of it.
And it's practically empty all the way down - not a living soul in sight.
"So, uh, what's the emergency?" you ask. "I don't see a single Crag out there, much less a stampede."
"Crags? Stampede? No," the officer replies. He points up into the sky above, beyond the city's skyline. "Look at that thing! Have you seen anything like that?"
You turn your vision skyward, toward where he's pointing and note that there's a pair of barely visible but massive disembodied 'eyes' peering down on the city. Both glow an ominous deep red, the light of which just barely pierces through the thick, dark clouds above your heads.
It's then that you realize that the overwhelming change in the atmosphere isn't because of the people around you - it's that thing looking down on everything. This oppressiveness in the air is a result of this Being's psyche, and understanding that causes a shiver to run through you, accompanied by a single heavy heartbeat.
You watch as the massive eyes seem to scour the surface, as they look for… something. You don't know what, nor do you have any guesses.
And then you feel it in the air - it's thick and suffocating and wholly disheartening. Whatever it is channels a vast amount of psionic energy and weaves it into something resembling a Scan. But it's so potent and so complex and so beyond your knowledge that you just barely recognize it as a Scan in the first place.
The very realization frightens you deeply, enough to cause your blood to stop pumping for a moment.
Then all of you are pushed back by the force of those energies sweeping into you, through you, past you. Some of the soldiers tumble down to the ground as a result, leaving you in awe. There's so much energy being channeled that it's enough to disrupt all of you physically.
Of course, you're able to raise a defense quickly enough to protect both you and Kaja, and do your best to Cloak your presence from the Scan. But it hardly matters what you do - the Being's power is far beyond yours, and most of it passes through your Cloak unabated.
You feel the energies push through you regardless, at which point those massive eyes flick in your direction. They brighten in the sky and seem to enlarge, even as your perception of the world shrinks. It seems the Being sees you and Kaja, and you can feel even more complex versions of Scan sweep through you.
It's more than that - you sense the energies of Foresight attached to its Scan, as though it's attempting to see your futures, or potential futures.
Then the Being is beset by surprise, then fear, then rage. Its eyes narrow as it channels a vast amount of Telekinetic energy, causing you to seize up in fear. The very size of the blast it's forming is half as large as the city itself, which you sense coming down onto all of you, right down on your heads.
It presses down on you psionically as it falls, causing your heart to race.
You immediately push up and out with as much of your own Telekinetic energy as you can muster, screaming into the sky in defiance. Even Kaja joins you out of alarm and fear and desperation. But it hardly matters how much energy you use or how powerful either of you are - nothing you do makes the slightest difference.
The ground shakes madly and buildings around you crumble even before the pure Telekinetic blast hits them. Even the stadium itself cracks and breaks all around you, as though you're at the epicenter of one powerful earthquake.
It's a second later that the Telekinetic blast strikes, utterly flattening everything underneath it. The attack is quick and it's absolute. Your vision and your senses wink out as the world around you is pressed into nothingness.
章節 68: Desolate Oasis, Pt 2
You wake with a start and sit up in panic from your nightmare. Your breaths fall heavy and hard while sweat drips down your brow.
You alright? Noir asks Telepathically.
All you can manage to do is mutter and nod slowly, unable to fully process what you've just experienced in your dream. Not only because that Being and its powers far beyond your understanding, but your dream has been altered altogether.
For over three years it has been plaguing you, and not once has it changed. At least not without your direct intervention.
And now, suddenly, this.
I think I'm alright, you reply. Had a rough dream.
All your dreams are rough, Noir counters.
No, all my dreams are constant. This one… this one was different. It changed somehow. And that scares the shit out of me.
You're probably just stressed out, or maybe all these psionic powers you've been learning are affecting your head more than you realize. Maybe all our heads.
You nod half-heartedly at Noir's comment. It's very possible that your powers have something to do with this change, and it might just be a manifestation of your fears. After all, mind-altering powers alter minds, right?
But somehow you think that isn't what's going on. A part of you knows that something, somewhere has altered your dream. No, your reality.
I wish I could explain it, you say after a few moments. Maybe I could project it into your head Telepathically or something… Just so you could see what happened in it.
Look, it's just your dream in the end, right? Noir says. You're still alright. More or less. Just try to look on the bright side of things. I mean, aren't we on this road to do something about your dream in the first place? It changing means that what we're doing is making a difference.
I guess you're right…
If I'm not, well we can deal with it then.
After your harried sleep, you return to your westward travels as quickly as you can, hopping from farmstead to farmstead as you do. The land around you is still oppressively hot even after the Ifrit's death, and much of the earth is still scorched black.
Thankfully the heat and burnt land ebbs away as you travel for the next couple of days, though things don't get significantly better. Instead of seeing green grassland and fertile crops, you're treated to dry, withered, yellowed vegetation all around you.
A Scan reveals very little life out there - certainly more than what's behind you. But not so much more as to be called 'bountiful', not by a long shot.
Behind you is a charred hellscape while in front of you is a barren wasteland.
What's that saying? Out of the pot and into the fire? This certainly seems a bit like that. Especially considering that the farmsteads and ranches become sparser as time goes on. It's nearly a week after your incident with the Ifrit that they stop appearing altogether, and all your choices for shelter all but vanish.
So you end up wandering back to the road to follow it, hoping to find any kind of decent shelter along the way. There's no point in traveling among the plains and grasslands as they can no longer offer you anywhere to stay.
In the darkness you see the silhouettes of some tall hills and plateaus in the distance ahead of you, which brings you some relief. They look rather gray and bleak from where you're standing, though to be fair everything looks gray and bleak in the dead of night, with your enhanced night vision active.
Not that this thought daunts you very much. The very sight of the plateaus means you're about a third of the way to your destination. Or at least, almost halfway. Past those plateaus are the other side of the plains you're on, but beyond that are the mountains and canyons leading to the other side of the country.
It's at that point when you would be close to halfway across the country.
But that would also conclude the easiest part of the journey. The plains are nice and flat, even despite the plateaus in the center. Which means having a fast walking pace isn't a problem at all. Going up those plateaus? Or those mountains?
That's going to be a slog that'll take most of your time. Climbing the mountains especially could be really tough - there's tons of winding uphill roads to contend with, many of which could be covered in ice. You hope that the overall increased heat of the world will stop snow and sleet from falling, which would only make your journey that much harder.
Still, that isn't anything you have to worry about right now. You still have to get past these plateaus, and then the final stretch of plains beyond.
At the very least however, there will be plenty of shade and shelter from the sun while you're traversing the canyons between the plateaus. Problem is that they're still a number of days away. Though you hope that making it there won't be a massive problem, a part of you is keen to take on the challenge.
After all, it's through all kinds of challenges that you've become the person that you are now, and you've only become more capable by overcoming them.
It's just as daylight peeks over the horizon from behind you that you see what appears to be a lone gasoline station in the distance. Seeing as it's the only place to rest for as far as you can see, you and Noir pick up your pace to get there quicker.
Even then it takes almost an hour for you to arrive, during which time the sun rises higher and higher, and along with it comes its oppressive heat. Noir dashes off to the side just as you step into its dusty, empty parking lot, no doubt wanting to scout out the place for herself.
Gonna take a quick look around, she tells you. Grab a meal before bedtime.
You've been sleeping on my backpack all night, you reply.
I meant your bedtime.
Enjoy the slaughter, I suppose.
You perform a quick and shallow Scan, even as she ducks into some dry brush. And although there's some life out here, there's not a whole lot. You can sense the presence of perhaps a dozen or so mice and rats and other scavengers here and there, enough to feed you both.
Large beads of sweat drip down your forehead even as you walk up to the gas station's entrance. But when you tug on it, find that it's locked. And although the large glass windows are heavily smudged with dirt and grime, they're still mostly intact. It's hard to peer through them, but you note that the shelves inside appear to still be filled with goods.
A wave of excitement washes over you, as though you've found some kind of treasure vault that's been untouched over the centuries.
You could easily break the door open, or shatter the glass to get in. But that seems like an excessive thing to do - it's just a gas station. Plus it would feel disrespectful - if this place hasn't been pillaged in the years since the apocalypse, you had better treat it properly.
Instead you walk around back to fully inspect the building - perhaps you'll find another way in.
And back there, you find a skeletonized corpse right next to a large tin trash can. Whoever died here has long since expired, perhaps since the apocalypse started. Since the corpse is outside, it has been picked clean of absolutely everything - even whatever tufts of hair that would still be around have been taken. Perhaps for nests or burrows or something.
Near the trash can is an open back door which has been slightly propped open by a rubber doorstop. Though that doorstop has melted to some degree and fused itself into the door and part of the concrete beneath. You're certain it would take a great deal of effort to budge it.
You don't quite head in yet, as parked behind the gas station is an old car - no doubt the dead person's vehicle.
Like many others you've passed along the road, this one has sun-bleached paint, cracked and peeling interiors, and melted rubber seals and tires. Its windows are all rolled down however, allowing you to peer inside with ease.
Everything is coated in a layer of thick dust, including a crumpled backpack in the front seat. You grab it, dust it off, and open it, but find nothing of interest inside. There's a half-filled notebook, a trashy romance paperback novel whose pages are faded and brown, a bunch of electronic device cables, and a cheap folding knife.
You toss it all back in, dust off your hands, then step into the back of the gas station.
It's rather musty here, despite the door being open. And the smell is rather stale. On top of it all, it's already pretty hot, perhaps owing to the fact that there's no wind flowing in here.
Glancing all around the small back room, you can see numerous robust plastic shelves on the walls, each stacked full with boxes. There are stacks of delivery boxes piled up on the floor near you as well, though when you open one up, you find it pretty much empty.
Or rather, they've been emptied - it looks as though rats and mice have gnawed their way through the cardboard and munched at whatever food was stored inside. And they did this some time ago - there aren't even scraps of food left, only half-eaten wrappers and animal droppings are inside.
When you look at the other cardboard boxes, you find that they've all met similar fates - anything edible in them has been chewed into and eaten then subsequently excreted out.
In the corner of the back room is a kind of open office - there's a desk with an old computer on it, a rickety old wooden chair, and a single filing cabinet. The whole setup looks positively ancient, and also wholly uninteresting.
You decide not to spend much more time in here and open up the door to the shop front, which holds staler, somewhat cooler air.
The first thing you do is head for the front door, unlock it, and swing it open. This allows some measure of wind to blow through the place, cooling it down a bit further. As the whole place becomes a little less stale and a little more airy, you doff your kit and slide your things behind the counter.
They ought to be safe and cool back there while you massage your shoulders and look over the rest of the shop. Not that it's very large - perhaps about ten or twelve square meters in total? There are only a handful of shelves, each one still stocked from years ago.
And because it seems to actually be properly protected from the outside, none of the animal scavengers have been able to get in. Which means all this stuff is all yours for the taking.
Your eyes and your fingers dance and run and leap across the shelves, over all the packages of cookies and chips and candies. There's so much here that you grab a variety of them and place them on the counter - for later study.
You also look through the coolers and find a great deal of drink bottles still in them. There are also things like bottles of alcohol, juice, soda, dairy in there. But of course most are absolutely filled with mold and mildew. In fact one of the coolers looks like it has been completely taken over with black mold, and you shiver at the thought of opening it. Not only that, but you perform a deep Scan on it just to make sure that it hasn't achieved consciousness.
Thankfully, it hasn't.
What scares you equally as much are the drinks that haven't been turned into a mold colony - especially some of the purported "fruit juices". If they've been able to last years without succumbing to some kind of biological takeover, then they aren't something you would want to put inside you. Who knows what it would do to your body once inside it.
Thankfully one of the coolers is filled with water bottles, though most are partially evaporated despite being unopened. Their bottles have also crumpled inwards to some degree, no doubt because of the change in air pressure.
You pop one open and drink it down, even giving it a bit of a swish in your mouth so you can taste it better. It definitely feels a bit stale somehow. But it works and you're not about to throw away water. So you grab as many of the larger bottles as you can and place them on the counter as well.
An idea suddenly strikes you, and you head over to the 'travel' section of the store. It's just another of the shelves, but instead of snacks or food there are all sorts of things here. Folding maps and motor oil and cleaning rags and toothbrushes and charging cables such. Basically, stuff that people traveling by car could use.
Among them are travel sized toothpastes, soaps, and shampoos. Excited by your find, you grab the metal baskets that they're all in, and put them on the counter as well. For later. Not just for your own use, of course, but for selling, too.
Once you're done, you look over your spoils with glee - this has been quite a find. Lots of stuff for you to barter with and trade.
You celebrate by opening up one of the ChoccoBars and chowing down on it with abandon. It's been a while since you've had one, and enjoying it now imparts a nostalgic kind of joy that you rarely feel these days.
As you do so, you watch as the sun bakes the world around you.
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