Theophany

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...Safety in numbers...

...Must work together...

...Pride in the species...

...Let us multiply and conquer the weak.

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They bound the newcomer to one of the posts holding up the compound from inside. The area was kind of a mess hall, featuring a huge freezer where they stored various meats and also a makeshift kitchen, which was always dirty given no one cleaned it, where you could prepare something for yourself when you were hungry.

In a corner, near the prisoner's post, was a huge crank that needed to be turned for a while, in order to continue generating electricity for the place. So the Boss had people work there for four hours a day, sometimes longer if you pissed him off. It was hard and monotonous. And today was Scope's unlucky day. It had been three days since he acquired his injuries and this place had acquired a prisoner. Since his shooting skills weren't as steady yet, he was on crank duty.

Turn... turn... turn... His rib area hurt, and it was still hard to breathe, but he'd gotten painkillers from Severity. Half an hour passed.

The man tied to the post looked destitute, a bowl of half-eaten spitter insides by his feet, where he managed to shimmy down and sit. He was dressed peculiarly, and it made Scope so very curious. Actually, everything about the man's situation made him curious.

An hour passed and the boy on the crank couldn't take it anymore. "Hey... why are you?... umm... what happened to you?" He asked gingerly, unsure of how the man would react.

The man seemed to be jolted away from whatever he was thinking about. "Well, I was told to wait while your Boss guy decided what to do with the info I gave them. So now...," he sighed, "I am rotting in this smelly place, eating intestines."

"It could be worse," Scope pointed to himself, bandaged ribs and stitches and still some bruises. "So anyway, what's the info?"

The man looked at him, almost incredulously, a silent 'why-should-I-tell-this-kid' look on his face.

Scope read it immediately, "Look, I'm here for another three hours. You're going to be strapped there, for probably longer than that. If I were you, I'd take this opportunity for human interaction." he reasoned slyly, "Consider it... story time. Just tell me whatever."

The man shook his head, a smile creeping its way on his haggard face. He thought for a while, then started, "A long time ago, in a land far far away, the whole world was filled with people."

"I've read that in the database. Next story." Scope didn't want to hear about how good they use to have it. It just made him angry.

"No wait, this is gonna be different, guaranteed. Anyway, there was a people who built an underground city just in case the world died. These people were rich, so they could afford it."

Scope had to interrupt, "You mean that they had a lot of stuff right? That's what the database said about rich people."

"Uhh sure. It just means they had so much stuff, they could build an underground city with it." he answered, "But anyway, so really big bombs would fall and kill people, right? So the rich people hid underground in their city, to avoid being blown to bits. But the poor people," Scope was about to clarify what that meant but the man kept going, "People without much stuff. They weren't allowed, because they didn't have much stuff."

Scope didn't like where this story was going to.

"These people had to stay outside. Most of them died, some of them turned into really gross looking nocturnals, but some managed to survive, like some of the older people here. Err... like your parents, I guess" he said matter-of-factly, realizing his approximate age.

Scope had a sudden flashback of someone carrying him. They were running away from a nighty, but this nighty looked familiar. It growled with its nasty teeth and scratched at them with over-sized, pointed fingers, while the woman carrying him cried, running away. He realized with a shudder that the nighty was his Dad.

"So after things calmed down a bit. The city people had an argument amongst themselves. Some wanted to go outside and some people wanted to stay. The argument got so huge that these city people became divided," He didn't even realize Scope had turned pale.

"The ones that wanted out, called themselves the Roamers, made a living somewhere east of the city, while the Protected, made outposts surrounding my city." The man was absorbed in his own story, not realizing it had triggered a memory in Scope.

"Now, these outposts are getting attacked. We're pretty sure it's the Roamers since the easternmost outposts are going down first." The shift of the story being told in his point of view snapped Scope back from whatever that memory was.

Scope calculated the situation the man just said and concluded, "Ahhh, so you're one of the Protected and you want to find more people on your side, huh... Because the Roamers want to take back the city and there's probably more of them now."

The man opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again. Finally he said, "Yeah, that pretty much sums up why I'm here." He looked at the boy with renewed interest, "There's an academy back in the city. A place where people can learn about anything they want. You'd like it there."

Scope smiled, this time more genuine. "I'd like that."

Over the next two days, Scope would come back to the man called Reaper, sometimes on crank duty, at other times to feed him something else besides intestines, or help him stay relatively clean when he had to relieve himself.

Reaper didn't seem to mind his company, and Scope loved hearing about all the things they had at the place where he could be going, if the Boss decided to help.

Then, one day, he came back and the post was empty.