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Chapter Text

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Chapter Text

The driver cautiously pulled his car into the fortified lot, the heavy metal gates creaking shut behind him. As he parked beside hulking armored vehicles and cargo trucks, he couldn't help but feel out of place in his small, unarmored sedan. Glancing around, he noticed the suspicious stares of the heavily armed warriors and mercenaries milling about, their eyes lingering on his vulnerable vehicle.

As he stepped out into the bustling market square, his gaze was drawn to a group of scantily clad, rough-looking ghetto gang girls loitering near a pile of crates. They eyed him hungrily, their revealing outfits leaving little to the imagination. One of them whistled at him, her tongue piercing glinting as she licked her lips suggestively. "Hey there, handsome," she called out, running her hands over her exposed curves. "Why don't you come over here and show us what you're packing?"

Feeling increasingly uncomfortable, the driver hurried past the catcalling girls, his eyes widening as he took in the strange mix of stalls and shops. Each one was manned by a hooved animal girl of some kind, their voluptuous figures barely contained by skimpy, revealing outfits. There was a curvy cow girl selling exotic fruits, her huge breasts straining against a tight leather corset. Next to her, a buxom horse girl hawked gleaming weapons, her toned ass jiggling as she bent over to grab a sword from a lower rack.

As he wandered further into the market, the driver's eyes were drawn to a group of wealthy-looking nobles, their finery and jewels a stark contrast to the rough-and-tumble atmosphere of the bazaar. At their feet, a group of scantily clad slave girls crawled on all fours, their holes plugged with glinting toys and their mouths gagged with shiny balls. One of the nobles, a sleek panther woman, kicked a slave girl in the ribs, eliciting a muffled yelp of pain.

In the center of the square, the driver's gaze was drawn to a group of onlookers gathered around a set of wooden stocks. Inside, a scantily-clad raider antelope girl was trapped, her legs spread wide as a gleaming guillotine blade hovered inches above her head. A group of futa anthro girls surrounded the stocks, their massive, throbbing erections jutting out obscenely as they rammed into the helpless girl's tight ass. She struggled and writhed, her mouth stretching wide around the guillotine's release cord as she fought to maintain her grip.

Despite himself, the driver found himself transfixed by the depraved scene, his cock hardening in his pants as he watched the futa girls pound into the antelope girl's quivering asshole. As the pace increased, the antelope girl's eyes rolled back in ecstasy, her body convulsing as she came hard on the invading cocks. Unable to resist any longer, the driver pulled out his throbbing erection and began to stroke it feverishly.

Just as he reached his peak, orgasm pulsing through his veins, the antelope girl's grip on the guillotine release finally gave way. The blade flashed down, slicing through her neck in a spray of crimson. Her head toppled to the ground, her body remaining upright for a moment before crumpling to the dirt. The driver's cock erupted, painting his hand and pants with sticky ropes of cum as he watched the antelope girl's lifeless body squirting as it collapsed, her massive breasts jiggling obscenely as cum shots from the futas cock coat her dead body.

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Anon needed to get out of here.

Something was indescribably wrong.

Why were a bunch of weirdos with horns and masks pulling up to his house?

Why did they have a car just like his?

His pulse hammered in his ears. His breath came short and fast. He needed to move. Now.

He rushed to his bag, hands fumbling wildly—but then—noise at the front door.

A shuffle of feet. Voices, faint but unmistakable.

Muffled words seeped through the walls.

"That drive took forever."

"City traffic’s always hell."

"Next time we’re taking the other route—"

"Did you lock the car?"

"Yes, I locked it—"

His fingers searched frantically.

Where’s my gun?

His stomach dropped. It was in the car.

Damn it.

He’d left it there because he’d forgotten it at home so many times before. And now?

Now the house was compromised.

The front door creaked open. More footsteps.

They were already inside.

His mind raced. Window. Get to the window.

He moved fast, too fast, his knee knocking against the desk as he scrambled. Pain shot up his leg, but he barely felt it. One leg up. The other—

A step on the stairs.

Heavy. Slow. Deliberate.

Another step.

The boards groaned under their weight.

"Leave your shoes at the door."

"I am—"

"god, I just wanna sit down—"

The hall. They were in the hall.

The doorknob turned.

Shit.

He launched himself out the window.

Falling.

The night air rushed past his ears, cool and biting against his skin. The world tilted—

CRACK.

White-hot pain ripped through his leg.

"FUCK!"

His hands clawed at the ground, his breath coming in short, shocked bursts. His leg screamed.

He looked down.

A flower pot.

A fucking flower pot.

Who the fuck puts a flower pot in a bush?!

The door beside him swung open.

Light spilled out.

"What’s that noise?"

A girl’s voice.

Shit. Shit. SHIT.

He sucked in a sharp breath, fighting the pain in his leg. Move. Get up.

The pain flared as he pushed himself onto his feet, but there was no time.

Footsteps. Closer.

"Is someone there?"

She was peering outside now. The dim light from the house cut her silhouette against the night.

He darted into the bushes.

No time. Just run.

"Hello?"

Her voice was closer. Hesitant.

Leaves whipped against his arms. Twigs snapped under his feet.

His breath burned in his lungs.

Don’t stop. Don’t look back. Just go.

Bushes. Hedges. Trees. Ferns.

Run run run.

Chapter Text

The daughter’s eyes widened in surprise as she pointed toward the dark figure limping away from the house.

"Wait, but Mom, I think there was a stray boy in our yard just now!" she exclaimed, her voice pitching with a mix of confusion and concern.

Her father scoffed, his expression skeptical as he followed her gaze toward the empty yard.

"Don't be ridiculous," he said dismissively, shaking his head. "Boys are so expensive these days, and far too rare to have them wandering around the countryside unattended. Any responsible parent would know better than to let their son run wild like that."

Her mother stepped forward, peering into the gloom as if trying to spot the elusive figure.

"Are you sure it wasn't just a trick of the light, dear? Sometimes the shadows can play funny games with our eyes, especially at this time of night."

The daughter hesitated, a frown tugging at her lips as she tried to reconcile what she thought she had seen with her father's dismissal.

"I... I don't know. I could have sworn I saw someone, though. A boy, with a bag over his shoulder, limping as he ran away from the house."

Her father waved away her concerns, his expression hardening.

"It was probably just a scarecrow or some homeless vagrant looking for a place to bed down for the night. Nothing for you to worry about, sweetheart."

Her mother nodded in agreement, her voice soothing as she draped an arm around her daughter's shoulders.

"Your father is right, dear. We have to be realistic about these things. Boys, especially antelope boys, are a rare and precious commodity these days. No one would be foolish enough to let one run loose."

The daughter let out a shaky sigh, doubt lingering in her eyes as she continued to stare at the empty yard.

"I guess you're right," she murmured. "It must have been my imagination playing tricks on me."

Her father crossed his arms, regarding her with mild amusement.

"If you're really that hung up about it, you can go check," he offered with a smirk. "Gun’s in the same place it always is. In case it’s an actual boy."

Her mother giggled, eyes glinting with mischief.

"Oh, I remember when I first caught your father," she teased, nuzzling against him and playfully licking his cheek.

Her father blushed, rolling his eyes.

"And remember—" he said, tone turning serious, "the red ones are lethal rounds. The blue ones are bean bag rounds. You don’t want to load the wrong one. Killing a boy is extremely expensive, and all the women will probably hate you forever."

The daughter smiled at her parents.

This could be her chance.

Her heart pounded with excitement.

She rushed to grab the gun and a flashlight.

She was going man-hunting tonight.

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The daughter's heart raced, a wild mix of fear, exhilaration and horny, pounding through her veins as she grabbed the flashlight and the gun from the drawer.

She had never used a weapon before, but she'd seen her father demonstrate enough times to know the basics. Her fingers tightened around the grip as she tucked the flashlight under her arm.

The night air was cool against her fur as she stepped outside, her bare hooves pressing into the dewy grass. The familiar sounds of the countryside filled her ears—the distant chirping of insects, the occasional rustle of leaves, the soft murmur of grazing sheep and cattle. Yet tonight, everything felt different. The darkness seemed heavier, thicker, alive.

She flicked on the flashlight, the beam slicing through the night. Shadows stretched and warped with each step she took. Every time the light bounced, dark shapes flickered in her vision, twisting into eerie figures that disappeared the moment she focused on them.

A sharp crack behind her.

She whipped around, her breath caught in her throat.

Just a twig… just a twig…

She pressed on, forcing her nerves down. She had to know if she had really seen a boy or if it was just her imagination. If it was a real boy…

Her pulse pounded harder.

The underbrush thickened as she moved further from the house, the tall grass clutching at her legs, branches snagging at her arms. The trees above loomed like watchful sentinels, their twisting limbs blocking out the moonlight.

Then—movement.

The flashlight beam caught something ahead.

Her breath hitched.

There! A shadow, a figure—limping, a bag slung over his shoulder.

A boy.

Her whole body froze for a second, eyes locked on the silhouette. The thrill of discovery, of opportunity, sent a jolt through her.

"I was right…"

She snapped the gun up, her hands trembling slightly as she took aim at the fleeing figure.

"Stop!" she called out, her voice cracking with nervousness. "Stop right there or I'll shoot!"

The figure hesitated.

For just a moment.

And in that moment, she saw his face.

Blonde hair. Deep blue eyes.

He looked foreign.

Her stomach flipped.

He was… handsome. Probably the most handsome guy her age she had ever seen.

His wide, frightened eyes met hers.

Then—he bolted.

"No—"

The daughter hesitated, her finger hovering over the trigger.

Could she actually shoot him?

The weight of the gun suddenly felt heavier in her grip.

The moment stretched, her heartbeat thundering in her ears.

Then—her body moved before she could think.

"HEY, WAIT!" she yelled, taking off after him.

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The flashlight beam caught him.

For a split second, he froze.

His breath hitched, and his entire body locked up in sheer, mind-numbing terror as he got his first real look at the thing chasing him.

She was a bipedal antelope.

Tall. Lithe. Her fur glistened under the moonlight, and her large, glassy eyes gleamed with something that sent a sickening chill crawling up his spine.

She was… beautiful.

Not in a way that brought comfort. Not in a human way.

There was something primal about her, something wrong.

Her legs were poised to chase, her ears flicked forward, and in her hands—

The gun.

He barely saw her mouth twitch into a grin before instinct slammed into his body like a lightning strike.

He bolted.

The path beneath his feet was uneven, riddled with loose dirt and jutting roots, forcing him to focus on every frantic step. The underbrush whipped against his legs as he tore through the darkness, heart slamming against his ribs, breath coming in panicked gasps. He ran like an animal that had just seen the jaws of a predator snap shut inches from its face.

"LEAVE ME ALONE!" he screamed, his voice cracking with fear. "I DON'T WANT TO HURT YOU!"

Her laugh rang through the trees, bright. Excited.

"Hurt me?!" she echoed, and the crunch of leaves and twigs behind him told him she was keeping up. "Oh my God, you're actually talking to me! This is insane! You’re real! I thought I was dreaming, but you're actually real!"

The flashlight beam bobbed wildly, nearly catching him again.

"STOP!" she called. "You won't get away! You know that, right? Just give up now!"

His lungs burned.

His legs screamed.

The bag slung over his shoulder felt like it had tripled in weight.

"Please!" he gasped. "I don’t know what you want, but just—just leave me alone!"

"What I want?" she repeated, giggling. It was a sound that made his skin crawl.

"I want to know your name, dummy! I wanna talk to you! You’re the first boy I’ve EVER seen in person!"

He nearly stumbled.

What?

He didn’t have time to process it.

The trees blurred past him, shadows twisting, stretching into things that wanted him dead.

"You’re so FAST!" she shouted breathlessly. "I mean, duh, you’re a boy, of course you are, but wow! This is actually kinda fun!"

Fun.

This was fun for her.

The realization sank into his gut like ice.

"Come onnnn, don’t be like that!" she whined. "You have NO idea how long I’ve waited for this!"

"For WHAT?!" he snapped, trying to shove down the panic threatening to choke him.

Her voice dropped into a breathy whisper.

"To finally have a mate."

His stomach twisted.

She said it like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Like it was already decided.

Like he was already hers.

His vision tunneled.

He had to get away.

"No. NO—" he ran faster.

Her breathless laughter rang out over the sound of their footsteps pounding against the earth. She wasn’t struggling.

She was having fun.

So close.

"You're REALLY making me work for this, huh?" she called, her voice bubbly, breathy, thrilled.

He risked a glance over his shoulder—

She was right there.

Her fur caught the moonlight in flashes as she leapt over obstacles like she had been born to chase. Because she was.

He wasn’t dealing with a person. He was prey.

His foot slammed into a root, and he barely caught himself before falling flat on his face. His hand sank into freezing mud, and the cold bit into his bones. Think. THINK.

He pushed himself up, forcing his legs to move, but his heart plummeted as he saw what lay ahead.

A stream. Too wide to jump.

He skidded to a stop, breath ragged, searching frantically for a way across. His hands shook, his legs burned, and behind him—

Crunch.

Crunch.

She was walking now.

Taking her time.

"I’m actually impressed," she said, giggling. "I didn’t think you’d get this far. You must be SO strong!"

His hands curled into fists. THINK.

The stream was fast-moving, the rocks slick with moss. He could try to cross it, but if he slipped—

She’d be on him.

A sharp inhale. A burst of adrenaline.

He didn’t have a choice.

He ran straight into the water.

The cold slammed into him like a shockwave. His knees buckled, but he forced himself forward, boots slipping against the rocks as the current yanked at his legs.

She gasped. "Wait—HEY! That’s not fair!"

He reached the other side, scrambling up the muddy bank, his hands slipping, his breath coming in ragged gulps. He could hear her behind him, the sound of hooves clattering on stone.

She wasn’t stopping.

"Ugh, okay, FINE," she huffed. "I was gonna be NICE, but if you’re gonna be difficult…"

There was a loud splash.

He didn’t look back.

He ran. Ran like hell.

The terrain grew wilder—sharp inclines, thick hedgerows, gnarled roots that reached up like grasping fingers. He leapt a low stone wall, landed hard on the other side, and staggered forward, vision swimming.

He was running on fumes.

And still, she followed.

Still, she laughed.

"Do you even KNOW where you’re going?" she teased. "You can’t outrun me forever, you know!"

He nearly slammed into a boulder, twisting at the last second to skirt around it. The ground beneath him turned to loose gravel, sloping downward into a shallow ravine, and—

His footing gave out.

He hit the ground hard, skidding down the incline in an uncontrolled tumble, his body bouncing against rock and soil.

Pain exploded across his ribs.

He came to a stop at the bottom, face pressed against damp moss. Everything ached.

For a moment, he just… lay there. Chest heaving. Hands trembling.

Above him—

Soft, deliberate footsteps.

He turned his head, dreading what he’d see.

She stood at the edge of the ravine, the flashlight in one hand, the gun in the other. Her eyes burned in the dark.

And she grinned.

"Gotcha."

Chapter Text

She jumped down next to him.

He tried to get up—but something felt broken.

A sharp, burning pain lanced through his side, making him gasp. His body refused to move.

"Ohhh, poor thing," she cooed.

She chuckled as he squirmed.

And then—

She got on top of him.

Her weight pressed him into the damp earth, her body radiating heat even through the soaked fabric of her clothes. She was heavy. Strong.

Only now did he fully register just how big she was.

A full foot taller.

Her beautiful emerald eyes gleamed with something almost feverish, framed by the sleek yellow fur of her face, her sandy beige hair damp and clinging to her skin.

And then—

She leaned in.

Closer.

Closer.

Her warm breath ghosted across his lips, her snoot brushing against his nose. The sharp scent of rain, sweat, and something else filled his lungs.

She smirked.

She was trembling.

Shaking.

Her pupils were blown wide, her gaze manic, her cheeks flushed beneath her fur.

She looked like she had just won the gold prize.

And she had.

She had him.

She whispered, "My name is Rosamund."

Her eyes flicked to his lips. The grin softened—almost tender.

"Aren't you going to say hello properly?"

He twisted, struggling—

But there was nowhere to go.

Nowhere to escape.

Her strong thighs pinned him down, her hands caging him in, and she knew it.

She knew it.

Her fingers curled under his chin, cupping it, forcing him to meet her gaze.

Her grip was firm. Possessive.

"So, what's your name?" she purred.

He tried to pull away, but she was too strong.

Her hips rolled against him.

A jolt of pain shot through him.

His breath hitched, a whimper slipping past his lips before he could stop it.

Her grin widened.

Her nipples, hard and erect, strained against the wet fabric of her shirt.

His face burned.

He tried to look away, but she caught his gaze, giggling like it was the best day of her life.

"You're so cute," she sighed, shivering with excitement.

"I love your struggling."

She rolled her hips again.

His stomach dropped.

Her panties were drenched.

And not just from the water.

She hummed—

A low, melodic sound, soft and sweet, almost hypnotic.

It was beautiful.

Not like the deep, guttural mating calls he had heard from real antelopes—this one was higher, more feminine, almost… songlike.

More human. it was kinda nice.

Did they sing to seduce?

His pulse thundered.

She leaned in, her lips brushing his ear.

"Kiss me," she whispered.

Her voice was soft.

"Kiss me, and I might go easy on you."

His heart slammed against his ribs.

He saw his reflection in her eyes.

But—

There was something else.

Someone else.

Another antelope.

Wait.

Was that… his face?

Chapter Text

Blood dripped down his forehead.

He winced, lifting a shaky hand to the wound. His fingers came away wet and crimson.

His chest heaved.

His thoughts were a whirlwind, scrambling for clarity, for logic.

And then—

His eyes flicked to the side.

A glossy, jagged rock caught the moonlight, its surface gleaming like polished glass.

He froze.

His breath hitched.

Because staring back at him—

Wasn't his face.

It was an antelope's.

A muzzle.

Ears.

Horns.

His pulse pounded.

He raised his hands, staring at them.

They were animalistic.

Longer. Thicker. The fingers slightly padded, the nails darker, tougher.

And yet—

They still felt the same.

His heart hammered against his ribs.

What—what the hell was happening?!

Before he could react, a warm, wet sensation dragged across his cheek.

A tongue.

His stomach flipped.

A giggle.

"Haaayyy, are you getting distracted already? Or are you just bad at talking to cute girls?"

She winked.

And then—

She pressed the gun right against his forehead.

His whole body locked up.

The metal was cold.

The weight of it, the reality of it—suffocating.

"Now," she murmured, her grin widening, "you're gonna do what I want, okay?"

He swallowed.

His throat felt dry as sand.

He nodded.

Slow. Hesitant.

Her smile blossomed.

"Good boy."

She adjusted her grip on the gun, her other hand curling around his jaw, thumb brushing his trembling lips.

"Okay," she purred. "Tell me you love me."

His stomach knotted.

"A-And—" she tapped the gun against his temple. "Give me a kiss. And call me pretty."

His heart nearly stopped.

His lips parted.

"Uhh…"

The gun pressed harder.

"C'mon," she sighed, "I'm waiting."

His blood roared in his ears.

This was it.

This was his life now.

He exhaled shakily.

The gun was still pressed to his head, the weight of it like a burning brand against his skin.

His mouth felt dry, his tongue thick and useless.

He had no choice.

No escape.

His lips parted, but no sound came.

She tilted her head, her grin widening, her eyes gleaming.

“Awww, are you shy?” she teased, giggling. “That’s so cute! But you don’t have to be nervous! I’ve been waiting for this moment for so, so long…”

She sighed dreamily, pressing her chest against his.

Her body was warm.

Soft.

And so, so heavy.

His breath hitched.

He could feel it—her heartbeat, rapid and excited, her body trembling against him.

She was shaking.

From exhilaration.

From pure, unfiltered joy.

Like she had just been handed the greatest gift in the world.

Him.

He swallowed hard.

His lips moved, barely above a whisper.

“I… I love you.”

Her ears twitched.

Her eyes widened.

Her whole body stiffened.

For a moment, she just stared at him.

And then—

She let out the happiest, most breathless laugh he had ever heard.

"Ohhh, my god, I KNEW you'd sound adorable saying that!"

Her tail flicked wildly, her hands gripping his face like he might disappear.

"Say it again!" she pleaded, bouncing slightly on his lap. "C'mon, say it again! Please, please, please?"

His stomach twisted.

He could barely get it out the first time.

And now she wanted him to repeat it?

"I…"

He forced himself to meet her gaze.

The manic gleam in her eyes.

The pure, undiluted joy.

She had dreamed of this.

Fantasized about it.

Having a boy.

Having him.

And now, she was relishing every second of it.

"I… love you."

She let out a squeal of delight, nuzzling her nose against his.

“You’re soooo cute~”

She was giddy.

Giddy, trembling, overwhelmed.

And then—

She leaned in.

Closer.

Too close.

He could feel her breath against his lips.

"Now kiss me," she whispered, her voice breathy, hungry, desperate.

He hesitated.

Just for a second.

Her smile didn’t waver.

But the gun pressed just a little harder.

His stomach sank.

Slowly—painfully, reluctantly—he closed the distance.

Their lips met.

Soft. Warm. Wet.

She shuddered.

A sound escaped her throat—somewhere between a moan and a whimper.

Her ears drooped slightly, her tail twitching, her grip on his face tightening.

She melted into him.

Like this was the best thing that had ever happened to her.

Like she had just claimed the greatest prize in existence.

Her hips rolled against him again, a shaky breath leaving her lips.

“Ohhh, you’re mine now,” she whispered against his mouth. “My beautiful, perfect boy.”

She pulled back just enough to look at him.

Her cheeks were flushed, her pupils blown wide, her whole body trembling.

She beamed.

“You really think I’m pretty?” she asked softly, biting her lip.

He didn’t answer.

Not fast enough.

The gun tilted slightly.

He swallowed.

“…You’re pretty.”

Her eyes fluttered shut.

She sighed blissfully, nuzzling into his neck, inhaling deeply.

“I knew you’d be perfect.”

Chapter Text

She sighed blissfully, nuzzling into his neck, inhaling deeply.

“I knew you’d be perfect.”

Her arms wrapped around him so tightly it hurt.

She shook against him, trembling like she was barely holding herself together.

Her breath came fast, shuddering.

Then—a sharp, sudden giggle.

And another.

And another.

Until she was laughing hysterically, clutching him like he was a lifeline.

"Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my GOD."

She squeezed him even tighter, rubbing her cheek against his, pressing frantic kisses along his jaw.

"This isn’t real. This—this CAN’T be real. Pinch me. Pinch me right now—"

Her fingers dug into his arms, her tail flicking wildly.

"I have to be dreaming! I HAVE TO BE!"

She let out a high-pitched, breathless laugh, her entire body shuddering.

Her eyes were wide, wild.

Her pupils blown.

Her ears twitched like crazy.

She pulled back just enough to cup his face in her shaking hands, staring at him like he was the most unbelievable thing she had ever seen.

"Look at you—LOOK AT YOU! I caught you all by myself! I CAUGHT YOU!"

She let out a giddy squeal, kicking her legs behind her like an excited schoolgirl.

“I—Oh my God, I fucking WON! I ACTUALLY WON!”

Tears welled in her eyes, her lips stretching into a manic, disbelieving grin.

"All those years—ALL those years of being the loser, the quiet one, the one no one ever looked at—and I was the FIRST! I was the FIRST ONE to get a boyfriend! A real one! ALL TO MYSELF!"

She gasped, clutching at her chest like her heart might burst.

"AND HE’S A FOREIGNER! AN ACTUAL FOREIGN BOY!"

Her fingers tightened in his hair, her breath coming in frantic gasps.

"AND HE'S SO HANDSOME TOO! AAAAAAAAA—!"

She practically screamed in joy, burying her face against his shoulder, shaking with overwhelmed excitement.

Her body rocked against him, grinding instinctively, completely lost in her euphoria.

Her hands gripped at his clothes, his arms, his face, as if terrified he might disappear.

"I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS IS HAPPENING."

She sucked in a trembling breath, biting her lip so hard it nearly bled.

She forced herself to slow down—just barely.

Then, with a breathless, giddy laugh, she hugged him even tighter.

"I—I need to sit down," she panted. "I feel lightheaded—God, I feel like I'm gonna pass out."

She pulled back just enough to look him in the eyes again, grinning so hard it hurt.

"I need to—I need to calm down. Okay. Okay, Rosamund, breathe. Breathe. Hhhh—Okay. I should… I should make dinner. Yes! Let’s get out of the rain! I'll—I’ll cook for you! I’ll take care of you!"

Her fingers laced into his, gripping his hand like a vice.

She stood, pulling him up with her, not even caring when he nearly collapsed from exhaustion.

"Whoa—Careful!"

She caught him easily, strong, steady, and warm.

"Don’t worry—I gotcha~"

She pressed a kiss to his temple, giggling, beaming with unfiltered, overwhelming joy.

"Come on~"

She practically dragged him along, holding him close as he stumbled, barely able to walk.

Through the trees. Through the vines and moss. Through the whispering rain.

She held onto him. Clung to him. Led him deeper.

Toward home.

Chapter Text

Rosamund kicked the door open with a dramatic bang, practically bouncing on her heels with excitement.

"MOM! DAD! I WANT TO INTRODUCE YOU TO SOMEONE!"

She dragged him inside, holding his wrist like a prized trophy.

From the living room, her father barely glanced up from his newspaper.

"Is this why you're home at 1 AM in the morning?" her father asked flatly.

Her mother, on the other hand, gasped, her hands flying to her mouth.

Her dad finally put the paper down, blinking at Anon.

Then, with a small nod of approval, he said, "Wow. You actually got one."

He looked at Rosamund and gave a satisfied smile.

"Good for you, honey. You deserve a boyfriend."

Her mom burst into tears on the spot.

"I'M SO HAPPY FOR YOU!" she sobbed, clutching at her chest like she might faint.

"At such a young age, you already caught your own mate! I had to wait until I was thirty to finally chase your father down and break his legs!"

Anon stared.

Her dad just sighed, shaking his head.

"Yeah… I remember."

He looked off into the distance, like he was reliving a horrible memory.

Then he sighed wistfully.

"Ah… memories."

He turned back to Anon and gave him a once-over.

"It's a good thing our daughter was a lot more gentle with this one than you were with me."

Rosamund giggled, swinging Anon’s arm like they were childhood sweethearts.

"Hehe, Dad! You’re always so funny, telling jokes!"

She looked at Anon, smiling sweetly.

"I mean, I know men just play hard to get. After all, ‘No, please let go of me’ means ‘Yes’ in boy language!"

Her father’s smile dropped instantly.

He slowly turned to his wife, squinting.

"Is that what you’ve been telling her?"

Her mom chuckled, flipping her hair back with a casual shrug.

"Yeah. And I live by those laws."

Anon forced a chuckle.

"Hah. So funny," he said dryly, sarcasm dripping from his voice.

Neither of them caught it.

Rosamund just beamed, squeezing his hand tighter.

"Awww, you’re already adapting so well to the family!"

She hugged him, burying her face against his shoulder.

"I’m so lucky. My dad kept trying to break out of the house when Mom first brought him home."

She pulled back, tilting her head, grinning smugly.

"Oh well~ I guess it’s true, huh? You European boys just suck at running."

She cupped his chin, studying him like he was an exotic specimen.

"Mmm, so soft. So delicate."

Her tail flicked proudly.

"You boys can’t ever fight back against a strong desert Arab-African woman like me."

She leaned in, whispering smugly in his ear.

"You can’t resist. You boys can’t help yourselves but get caught by us."

She pulled back, boasting with a smirk, her cheeks flushed with pride.

Anon stared.

His soul quietly left his body.

Rosamund suddenly clapped her hands together.

"ANYWAYS—go upstairs to my room! First one down the hall!"

She spun him around and gave him a playful push toward the stairs.

"I’m gonna go make you some dinner~!"

Anon, stunned, shuffled forward like a man walking toward his execution.

His steps were slow, hesitant, each one feeling heavier than the last as he climbed the stairs. The hallway looked the same—same length, same layout—but something about it felt... off. Like a dream that almost makes sense until you start paying attention.

He reached the door, hesitated, then turned the knob.

It was his room.

But it wasn’t.

The furniture was in the right spots—the bed, the desk, the TV—but everything else was wrong. Soft pinks and warm beiges covered the walls and bedding, clashing with what he remembered. The air smelled different too, thick with perfume. Something floral, musky, a little too sweet.

His eyes drifted to the dresser.

Lipstick. Makeup.

Tubes scattered across the surface, some left uncapped, their colors smeared onto tissue paper. Foundation bottles lined up neatly, brushes coated in powder. A tiny jewelry box sat beside them, gold bangles and hoop earrings spilling out.

His gaze shifted to the chair by the bed.

Designer clothes.

Silk, lace, expensive brands he barely recognized. Some still had tags on them, others were tossed carelessly over the backrest.

He swallowed.

His bed—or, rather, her bed now—was neatly made, but the pillows were dented, the sheets slightly rumpled. Had she been lying here, waiting for him? Dreaming about this moment? The thought made his stomach twist.

Anon moved toward the TV, almost on autopilot, picking up the remote. His fingers hovered over the buttons before clicking it on.

The news.

His breath caught.

The anchor was an antelope.

A broad-shouldered, well-groomed antelope-man in a navy-blue suit, his horns polished to perfection. His ears twitched as he spoke, voice smooth and authoritative. Beside him, a female antelope in a sleek dress nodded along, her delicate features calm and professional.

The screen flashed to a map.

Africa. The Middle East. But… also Britain and France. Except…

They were connected.

A land bridge.

Anon’s stomach flipped. That’s not right. That’s not how the world looks.

His fingers clenched the remote as he scanned the screen, the headlines scrolling across the bottom. Politics. Weather. Sports. All featuring hoofed animal people.

His breathing slowed.

This wasn’t just some weird town.

This was the whole world.

Chapter Text

The black SUV pulled over to the side of the desolate road, kicking up dust in its wake. Four figures emerged, clad in dark tactical gear adorned with the Union Jack patch, their faces hidden behind ominous masks. They moved with the confident strides of hunters who knew their prey was within reach.

One of the masked men hefted a heavy duffel bag over his shoulder, muffled screams and desperate, ragged breaths emanating from within. The group made their way to a small, run-down house at the end of a long driveway, the paint peeling and the windows dark. It was as if the very building sensed the cruelty about to unfold within its walls.

The leader nodded to his companions, and they quickly breached the front door, boots thudding heavily against the worn floorboards. Without ceremony, he dumped the bag onto the floor of the dimly lit basement, unzipping it to reveal a bound and gagged antelope girl. Her eyes were wide with terror, her body jerking against the ropes that constrained her.

You can't do this to me! she screamed through her gag, voice muffled but filled with defiance. Men should know their place as subservient to women! You fucking meninists won't get away with this! The west will ultimately destroy you for this disobedience against women!

The girl was dragged by her bound limbs, her feet scrabbling uselessly against the dusty ground. The men simply laughed, their accents thick with amusement. Listen up, love. We're gonna kill ya. And rape ya. Maybe rape ya and kill ya. Then we're gonna eat your flesh so we can get out of this shit world you trapped us in. Sound good, yeah?

The antelope girl was tossed into a small, rusted cage filled with other unfortunate souls. Some of the captives sobbed quietly, others lay motionless, their bodies bearing the marks of unspeakable torment. Lashes and bruises covered their skin, some flesh already rotting from neglect and abuse.

No, please, you can't! I'm a strong, empowered woman! I have rights!

Shut it, you dumb bitch, one of the men growled, silencing her tirade. This world's always been run by women, hasn't it? We're just taking back what's rightfully ours.

The girl was shackled to the cage, her cries falling on deaf ears as the men inventoried their grim trophies. Dozens of cells stretched out before them, each one filled with the broken remnants of antelope females in various states of distress and death. Beaten, bound, beheaded, crushed... all lay in heaps, discarded like garbage.

The leader turned to his companions with a dark grin. Bloody hell, we're close to getting one of each species from this genus type. Just a few more hunts like this, and we'll finally be one step closer to going home. Good work, lads.

As the men chuckled and clapped each other on the back, the antelope girl could only watch in horror, realizing the true depravity and violence that awaited her and the other prisoners. In this world, it seemed, females were no longer the dominant ones, but the hunted. And the men were starving for vengeance.

Chapter Text

As the vehicle bounced along the dusty African road, Anon gazed out at the rolling hills and endless golden savanna, where acacia trees stretched towards the horizon like skeletal hands clawing at the sky. The heat shimmered in the distance, warping the landscape into a dreamlike haze.

The tour guide, a grizzled local man with a weathered face and tired, knowing eyes, suddenly raised a hand.

"Pull over here," he said gruffly to the driver. His voice carried a weight that sent a cold shiver up Anon’s spine. "Something’s not right."

The vehicle rumbled to a stop at the edge of what had once been a small village.

Or rather, what was left of it.

Smoke curled lazily from the blackened skeletons of huts. The scent of burnt wood hung heavy in the air, but beneath it, something far worse lingered. Something acrid, something foul.

Anon’s stomach churned.

His uncle, a burly man with a thick beard and a perpetual scowl, leaned forward from his seat. A hunting rifle rested against his shoulder, the metal gleaming dully in the harsh sun.

He sniffed the air, his brow furrowing.

"Damn," he muttered.

Anon inched closer, his pulse quickening as he took in the sight of charred ruins and twisted remnants of a life that had once existed here.

"Uncle," he whispered, his voice barely carrying over the dead silence. "Who could have done this?"

The older man shrugged, his sharp gaze sweeping across the destruction with something that almost resembled boredom.

"Could be any number of people." His voice was indifferent, detached. "Those savages, they’re always burning folks alive with tires. It’s a favorite pastime of theirs."

Anon felt a cold prickle crawl up his spine.

He had heard stories. Dark, whispered things buried beneath layers of sanitized history lessons.

But seeing it, smelling it, standing here where it had happened…

It was real.

He coughed, the air thick with smoke and something else—something he didn’t want to name.

"Uncle…" He hesitated. "I thought… I mean, isn’t this the kind of thing that doesn’t happen anymore? In the modern day?"

His uncle sighed, a wistful look crossing his rugged face.

"Humph. Your generation has no love for adventure anymore." His voice dripped with disdain. "Back in my day, men were men. We didn’t let the savages have their way."

He turned to Anon, his expression shifting, darkening.

His eyes glinted—hungry. Amused. Twisted.

"I’m not allowed to shoot people, though. What a shame."**

A smirk tugged at his lips. "I really wish the animals—excuse me, the people—could fight back. Had their own civilization, for me to lurk in the shadows and pick them off.

Watch their tears. Hear their screams.”

Anon froze.

A sharp, ice-cold chill ran down his spine.

His uncle’s voice was too casual. Too comfortable.

As if he had thought about it before.

As if he had done it before.

"What the fuck, Uncle?" Anon’s voice cracked, the words escaping before he could stop them.

His uncle chuckled, shaking his head.

But the glint in his eyes never faded.

Chapter Text

so ive been thinking? should the story continue. where he isnt an antelope? and just a human. it might change some stuff. like animals not being used to humans or even seeing one. but our mc can remain human and have animals react to seeing him?

i need to know if this is what you prefer. so i can rewrite some of the older chapters. to make this change.

Chapter Text

The television crackled.

An amber haze, flickering and rolling like smoke over the desert, filled the screen. The camera panned low across a frozen wasteland—not sand, but snow-choked dunes now stained grey by the oil-fire skies. A convoy of armor rumbled forward under the cover of ashfall. Not a grain of desert was visible. Only snow, soot, and twisted steel—the great white deserts of what used to be southern Kuwait, now a meat grinder.

"Units of the 8th Armored Hoof of the Babylonian Republican Guard, supported by Chimera Desert Mechanized brigades, have broken through the outer entrenchments surrounding the Emirate-controlled refinery city of Mina al-Ahmadi—"

A tank—sleek and insectoid—hummed past the camera. Babylonian design, pre-Fall, probably a reverse-engineered relic from pre-collapse tataria patterns. Painted with holy glyphs and tribal scrawls, its forward-facing horns glinted in the perpetual twilight. Behind it, rank after rank of conscripts marched through the burning haze. Most were ungulates—horned gazelle, long-limbed oryx, wildebeest, all clad in patched-together power armor, some with exposed synth-hydraulics fizzing from earlier skirmishes. Worn-out eyes under desert scarves.

"...marked as the bloodiest single engagement since the Collapse, with British-backed Emirati forces retreating from the oilfields under heavy shelling from Chimera-backed drone artillery positions along the old Safwan Highway—now dubbed the Meatpath by Republican Guard troops."

Farther down the line, a bulldozer—repurposed civilian tech with bolted armor—cleared a trench of frozen bodies. Limbs snapped like icicles. It pushed through the ice and bone without pausing.

A burst of static jolted the image.

"The Shah of Zagrostan 13th Royal Howler Division is confirmed to be mounting a secondary offensive north of Basra. Our embedded reporter filed this transmission from the trenches near the Zubair Line earlier this morning—"

A cut. The screen dimmed.

Now a new scene: underground. Claustrophobic, flickering with torchlight. Mud brick walls, water trickling from the ceiling, frozen into cruel shapes. Zagrostan soldiers crouched in ice-latticed trenches, rifles cradled in gloved hooves. Behind them, half-buried rocket sleds and thermobaric mortars waited for orders.

One mare—some kind of deer, tall with an officer's red sash—pulled up a tattered old map. Her breath fogged as she pointed out kill zones and support routes, her voice nearly drowned out by the rhythmic roar of distant bombardment.

"We believe Babylon is overstretched. Their push toward Kuwait leaves the flank vulnerable, and with Shah-approved orbital recon from European assets, we have intel on Chimera supply caravans moving south through abandoned urban zones. That's where we hit them."

Suddenly, a screech—gunfire, the deep wet pop of meat struck by hypersonic rounds.

The screen flickered violently.

Dolly dropped her school bag by the door, unzipped her boots with a tired grunt, and kicked them off halfway to the kitchen. Damp wool clung to her uniform sweater—London had been grey, misty, and bone-chilling cold all week. Forever Winter. It seeped into her fleece and bones alike. She rubbed her arms and glanced at the coat rack. Her parents' jackets still hung untouched. No car keys on the tray. Gone for the week again. Business in Berlin. Some ecological summit thing, as if anything mattered outside heat rations and border reports now.

"Oi, Dolly!" her brother shouted from the living room. "It's starting! Come quick, c'mon!"

She barely heard him. The fridge door creaked open. Inside, a wilted cucumber, a half-eaten can of mushroom soup, and a day-old box of pepperoni pizza she shouldn't be eating. She wasn't supposed to eat anything that had once had a face—not after last year's scare—but no one was looking. Her brother didn't count.

"Starting what?" she called back, sliding the box out and popping the lid. Three slices left. She tossed one onto a chipped plate, then pulled a burrito from the freezer. It looked like it had been cryo'd since the Bush years. She didn't care. Food was food.

"The Babylon thing! They're doin' a live special, the whole front, unfiltered! Showin' the liberation! Gun cams and everything!"

Liberation. The word clanged with static in her mind. Dolly let the microwave hum as she walked past the dining room toward the lounge. Her brother sat cross-legged on the rug, a chipped VR headset at his side and a plastic replica of a Union Fed helmet on his curly head. His stubby goat ears poked through holes he'd chewed in it last year. The television screen reflected off his wide eyes.

"…transmission will be graphic. Viewer discretion is advised. The following feed is live from the Gulf Containment Front. For educational purposes, this broadcast has been sanctioned under the Allied Communications Liberty Accord…"

"Sit! Sit!" he urged. "Look—it's real guns this time. Not simulation! That's actual gunners!"

"I'm making dinner," she muttered, but the screen's sudden crack of gunfire caught her spine and pulled.

She sat slowly on the couch, plate balanced on her knees, pizza slice half-bitten. The burrito beeped in the kitchen, forgotten.

The screen shifted from a sterile logo to a gritty, shaky cam view—infrared haze, night vision tint. Then it cut to a news anchor with the wide-eyed, caffeinated expression of someone about to vomit adrenaline and pretend it's poise.

"…broadcasting to all Union territories and protectorates. A historic moment as Babylonian coalition forces—supported by Chimerican logistical command opposed by Euro-Mandate surveillance—launch the long-anticipated Operation Iron Valley, a full-scale push into Gulf separatist strongholds. Our embedded reporters are stationed across multiple FOBs, including Firebase Seraphim and Fort Lejeune-Delta, positioned along the Al-Masra Faultline…"

The footage cut again—this time to a wide drone sweep over scorched terrain. Oil-stained earth cracked in geometric patterns like dried blood. Craters dotted the horizon. Watchtowers jutted from the sand like skeletal teeth. In the distance, power armor trudged forward—slow, methodical, not like in movies. Real-world machines. Heavy. Ugly. Babylon's finest. Some units bore ancient Akkadian script etched onto armor plates. Others dragged jammers and mobile railguns through knee-deep mud and chemical sleet.

"This is Commander Yassin's detachment. You'll notice the Babylonian mechs deploying along the embankment. Mark IVs with fused cockpits, heavily retrofitted with thermal silencers and oxygen recyclers. They're designed for this kind of long-haul attrition push…"

Dolly squinted. The camera shifted to a POV feed from a trooper—an herbivore, judging by the curved antlers just visible in the helmet cam. He clutched a rail rifle that looked like it had been salvaged from four different decades of war. The cam feed jerked as the soldier turned sharply. Muffled shouting. The whirring hum of aerial drones overhead.

Then chaos.

The screen flared white. Explosions along the ridge. Gunfire in tight, punchy bursts. Screams. The POV stumbled. Blood hit the lens—green, not red. lobotomy-based soldiers, mostly. That much she knew. Any mammal bleeding red was high command, or Chimerican, or just unlucky enough to get assigned downrange.

"…we're receiving confirmation that Coalition forward scouts have encountered Gulf State dug-ins—entrenched units likely left behind during the Khuzestan Retreat…"

"Those're Zagrostan?" her brother asked, his voice small under the helmet.

"No," Dolly murmured. "Those are Kuwaitis. Euro-supplied. The Zagrostan are east. In the marshes."

The news shifted to maps—black and white, scrawled over in projected flight paths and movement arrows. European air superiority zones lit up like plague patches. Gulf bunkers marked with crosses. Babylonian refueling tracks outlined with blue.

"…in a coordinated strike, the Coalition used tactical fog agents to break the hardened checkpoints between the Gulf Emirates' artillery platforms and Babylon's central supply highway. We're told the fog is nonlethal to herbivore units, but carries strong paralytics for any unregistered carnivores…"

Dolly swallowed.

The next clip showed one such checkpoint. A camera mounted on a Babylonian half-track captured the aftermath. Dozens of bodies—some twitching, some still. Soldiers in light armor suits, civilian aides, and what looked like declawed wolves in grey muzzles. The carnivores' tongues lolled out from the sides of their cages. Some writhed. Others didn't move at all.

"…chemical agents used in today's liberation effort are part of the United Nations Geneva Amendment Treaty, authorized for subduing non-compliant warbeasts and former service predators. As most viewers know, following the 2011 carnivore insurrections, all combat use of fanged entities was restricted to state-supervised lobotomized units…"

Dolly looked away. She remembered the riots—when two girls in her school went missing after a fox got loose on the Jubilee Line. They never found the bodies. After that, every meat-eater was either chipped or caged. The last time she'd seen one on the street, it was some panther in a thick collar, dragging a city cart through snow.

The screen changed again.

Now a man—Chimerican, Deer—stood in a sandbag nest. He wore ceramic armor, brown and white and scorched to hell. A Babylon flag hung behind him: a black lion, wings outstretched, in front of a golden ziggurat.

"We're proud to stand by our Babylonian allies in this historic moment," he said, voice gravelly. "What we're seeing here is not a war for oil. It's not about religion, or territory, or old grudges. This is about stability. This is about ending the threat posed by rogue foreign elements and their imperialist backers. Babylon fights for peace."

Her brother adjusted the helmet, nodding. "That guy looks badass."

Dolly felt a chill. She didn't believe a word of it.

“Now switching to Field Unit Omega,” the reporter interrupted, “for a look inside the trenches near the Euphrates Green Zone. Omega is comprised mostly of volunteer youths from the North-African protectorates and Chimerican tech-division contractors. What you’re about to see is their first exposure to Zagrostan trench units…”

The next cam feed was darker, wetter. Trenches. Real ones. Deep mud, boardwalks made of broken pallets. Razor-wire tangles. Shadows of figures in torn cloaks rising from below the earth like myth. One lunged from the corner, bayonet high.

Screams.

Gunfire.

One of the soldiers was knocked back into the muck—his helmet rolling into frame. A jackal face appeared on screen, half-shaved, eyes blank. Lobotomized. No emotion. It tore into a downed herbivore’s side before collapsing from a shock burst triggered by its own collar.

“…sources say Zagrostan has continued deploying black-market warbeasts—genetically modified and chemically sedated—for trench disruption tactics. Despite widespread bans, many are captured exiles or defectors from the Caucasus states…”

Dolly’s mouth felt dry. She set the plate aside. She wasn’t hungry anymore.

The anchor returned.

“—and now a word from Union Parliament regarding the rising cost of fuel credits and rationed energy. The surge in refinery sabotage has disrupted the Green Corridor pipelines across southern Anatolia, with food riots already reported in four Euro cities. Union authorities stress that these are isolated, unorganized acts…”

A clip played of riot police clashing with crowds. Someone threw a Molotov. A yak in riot armor got his head cracked by a flying brick. Protest signs read NO BLOOD FOR WINTER and WE STARVE WHILE BABYLON FEASTS.

“…London remains secure,” the voice assured, “with Parliament affirming its loyalty to the Union’s stabilization effort. To all citizens: stay indoors during blackout periods, report any unfamiliar carnivores, and remember your patriotic role in ensuring a safe, herbivore-led future.”

Her brother looked back at her. His eyes were wide with awe. “Do you think they’ll let goats join the mech corps when I’m older?”

Dolly didn’t answer. She just watched the screen as the footage cut again. This time to a crumbled village—once part of the Gulf Emirates, now rubble. A Babylon flag was hoisted over the broken remains of a mosque dome. In the background, women in ragged burqas swept dust off the bodies of fallen militia.

"This morning, Chimera-backed Babylonian forces began a synchronized offensive across both the Zubair Oil Belt and the Kuwaiti northern ridge, with their artificial winter expanding across the whole of Mesopotamia. European atmospheric scrubbers in the Gulf States have failed to repel the blizzards seeded by Babylon’s orbital frostbombs. Temperatures across the warfront have dropped below -40°C, freezing both mechanized columns and civilian refugee lines in place."

"We remind viewers that these frostbombs are classified as non-nuclear weapons under the Post-Geneva Accords, despite their capacity to flash-freeze entire cities within minutes. animanitarian observers from the Oryx League remain barred from entering Kuwait City due to ongoing shelling and the confirmed presence of lobotomized carnivore shock troops deployed by Europa."

A new feed came in.

Europa lines—somewhere outside of Nasiriyah—under siege.

Gas-masked volunteers—most of them rabbits, deer, a few sheep—huddled behind rusted sandbag walls as Babylonian artillery pounded their defenses. No air support. The sky choked with frostfall and ash.

Someone shouted, offscreen.

Then came the roar of engines. Something massive moved through the haze.

A Giant.

Bipedal, armor-plated, fused with ice and scrap—one of the old Menagerie-era biomech. Barely functioning. The kind of war machine people swore were all lost during the Skyfall. But this one marched, its nuclear heart glowing cold blue through the snow.

Dolly’s mouth hung open.

"New intelligence confirms the deployment of pre-collapse Menagerie Giants by Chimera specialists on the Babylonian front. Experts say these are early Universal Century models—likely salvaged from orbital ruins and retrofitted with local parts. Most are still unstable, but as battlefield terror weapons, their psychological effect cannot be overstated."

Her brother turned to her.

“Doll… are we gonna get drafted?”

She stared at the screen.

The Giant moved slow and relentless through the storm, flanked by Babylonian infantry. Shells burst against its armor like firecrackers. It didn’t flinch. Its left arm—a massive cannon, triple-barreled and jury-rigged with Zagrostan cooling coils—glowed bright as it leveled an entire building in a single shot.

And then, finally, a single line of text at the bottom of the screen

“…and so begins the reclamation of the Cradle of Civilization. Babylon rises. Europe resists. Zagrostan watches. And in the icebound cities of the Union, we wait.”

Chapter Text

Behind the Eastern Frontlines — Winter Offensive Phase VI

The sky above Zagrostan was old. Old in the way bone turns yellow under sun, old in the way oil-stained cloth clings to rusting barbed wire. It hung heavy, a sick, blood-crimson canvas streaked with trails of ash and atmospheric flame—the poisoned remnants of high-altitude dogfights and Chimerican firebombing runs. Beneath it, the salt-wind carried the scent of napalm, sulfur, and rotting alfalfa feed left to spoil beside dead pack animals. Every gust scraped frost across the cracked highway where burned-out cars, civilian trucks, rust-worn UN peacekeeper jeeps, and scorched tank husks had fused together into long-dead traffic.

The road was empty, save for a single truck convoy crawling through the mist, its engines muffled by canvas wraps and loose snow. Steel-plated Albion-era haulers, their bodies jury-rigged with colonial-style field guns, sandbags, and pieces of scrap tank armor from the last battle. Each vehicle bore the markings of the Zagrostan Revolutionary Herds—crude, black-hooved insignias hand-painted over the old Persian national flags. Antelope figures of all shapes and sizes huddled in the backs: gazelles, elands, urials, markhors, and a few hard-eyed ibexes—nearly all female, wrapped in woolen cloaks and laminated body armor that looked like it had been torn from museum mannequins.

One of the trucks rumbled past a scorched civilian checkpoint, slowing just long enough to roll over a charred skeleton draped in a Red Crescent sash. In the distance, a single scavenger—some skeletal desert fox, probably neutered and tagged—watched from a burned archway. It darted away as the engines neared.

In the second-to-last truck, crouched near the tailgate, a figure sat completely still. He wasn’t like the others.

He wore a tattered Zagrostan trench coat with faded revolutionary patches that looked sewn on too recently. The rifle in his lap—A MG42—ugly, steel, stripped and refitted with a belt feed winding from an old milk tin—was a clear relic of a different era and continent, maintained with obsessive care. His boots were unmarked, his gloves stitched with non-regimental leather, and his face was hidden behind a wooden antelope mask stained dark by fire and chemicals. The grain of it was warped from heat, and where the muzzle was carved, flakes of blackened blood clung to the edge like barnacles.

The others didn’t speak to him much. Not because they distrusted him—but because they understood he was dangerous, but he was on their side. You didn’t need a species to define loyalty anymore. Not when blood and betrayal spoke louder than tribal horns or crests.

He watched the horizon.

An ammo depot. That was the objective. Chimerican armored divisions had set up a rear resupply node just north of the old uranium mining town of Pahnarak. The depot was manned by conscripts from the occupied Gulf states, backed by chimerican mercenary artillery and Chimerican motor rifle units. Every crate of .30 cal, every jerry can of plasma fuel, every spare barrel of cryo shells—if they made it to the front, more Zagro herds would die.

So the trucks were loaded with satchel charges. Stolen uranium RPGs. One landship-hunter squad packed a barely-functional French-built energy cannon repurposed from an old polar survey rig. It would fire once, maybe twice—then cook its own crew alive. That was the hope anyway.

“—Skyfire on three-zero-seven confirmed,” crackled a voice over a scavenged radio set beside the driver. “Brits are drawing off toward the west ridge. Landships redeploying to chase ghosts.”

It was working. The distraction team had pulled most of the Chamberlains off the line. This was their chance.

In the back, a young gazelle twitched in her seat, eyes still wide from the last artillery burst they’d passed. Her trembling hoof reached into a vest pocket and pulled out a crumpled bar of candy. She offered a piece to the masked man.

He said nothing, but took it.

She whispered, “They said you came from the west. Not the coast. Deeper.”

He didn’t reply.

“They say you walked through the ice fields. That the only reason you ain’t frostbitten is ‘cause your blood ain’t real.”

Still silence.

The driver yelled back. “We pass the temple in sixty seconds. Ready up! Dump the civvie flags—paint and prep!”

Tarps came off, revealing weapons: outdated but hungry for blood. Lee-Enfield energy rifles with homemade optics, Bren guns with shock ammo that looked like they’d been dug out of mass graves, Polish flamethrowers, and antique 6-pounder field cannons mounted on the flanks of the trucks.

One of the markhors beside the masked man grinned at him, holding up a battered British AT rifle. “Hey, ghost-head. This one’s for you.” She tossed him a spare Panzerfaust.

He caught it midair and nodded.

“Try not to get melted before we get to the depot, yeah? I wanna hear what you really sound like under that mask.”

He didn’t answer. But one of the others leaned close. An older ibex with a cybernetic eye and mangled prosthetic horn.

“I heard he’s not even real,” the ibex muttered, “I heard he’s a construct. Flesh grown in the labs under Fallujah Base. That they programmed him with the rage of every tribe that burned. A living weapon.”

The masked man gave no indication he heard.

But inside, his thoughts were a thunderstorm.

He remembered the streets. The screaming. The hellish baptism of napalm raining down on the Zagrostan cities during the First Purge. He remembered faces—not of the enemies, but of those begging for water as their fur caught fire. He remembered dragging a child from the rubble, only for her to die days later from shock-collar shrapnel lodged in her lungs. He remembered Chimerican soldiers laughing.

And now... he remembered purpose.

The truck slowed. The village was in sight.

Dilapidated. Hollowed-out mud homes scarred by shelling. Posters of the Chimerican plantation ceo hung from bullet-pocked walls, his antelope face painted over with symbols of occupation. Women and children crouched in doorways, some pretending not to see the vehicles. One elderly goat reached up and kissed her necklace—three brass bullets on a chain.

The trucks drove through the village and into the orchard beyond. Hidden in its rows, just past the crumbling irrigation trench, was the target.

A former schoolyard turned depot, surrounded by sandbags, Chimerican construction robots, and two quad-mounted autocannon towers. Floodlights scanned the grove. Radio chatter buzzed with high-frequency Gulf-accented voices. Tents bore both the Chimerican tricolor and the British sigil of Albion's Crown.

“Ten seconds!” came the call.

Everyone loaded their weapons. Safety off.

The masked man flicked the MG42’s feed mechanism, the belt falling into place with a mechanical hiss.

A roar shattered the orchard as the energy cannon fired from the rear of the convoy—its beam sheared through one of the turrets instantly, melting the tower and its crew into white-hot slag. Screaming erupted from the depot. Searchlights spasmed.

The trucks accelerated straight into the grove.

Rounds began to tear into the brush. One truck exploded in a blossom of flame as it hit a buried mine. The markhor girl screamed and tumbled out, her leg missing. The masked man jumped off the back of the truck before it swerved and flipped.

He hit the ground running. MG42 in arms. Mask burning red under the glow of the depot fire.

Chimerican conscripts spilled out from tents, firing in bursts. British gunners racked bolt-action rifles from elevated platforms. Plasma bursts hissed through the trees.

The masked man raked a full burst into a group sprinting for the ammo crates—sawdust and limbs exploded together. He moved like smoke—erratic, fast, brutal. He kicked down a barricade and executed a machine gun nest with a panzerfaust round point-blank. The blast killed three, set the fourth on fire. He didn’t look back.

Screams tore through the grove. Grenades detonated inside the prefab barracks. Tracer fire lit up the fog like a sick constellation.

One antelope soldier was on fire, running in circles. The masked man dropped her with a mercy shot.

The depot's radio tower collapsed, bringing down a canopy of cables and antennae. A British artillery spotter tried to crawl away; the masked man put a round through her spine.

The last truck detonated its payload—satchel charges hidden under false floorboards—and the core of the ammo dump vanished in a mushroom of flame and dirt.

Then, silence.

Half the grove burned. Smoke choked the air.

The masked man stood at the edge of the crater, ash falling like snow again, soft and lazy, almost peaceful. The fires still roared behind him, casting long shadows that made the ruins breathe like dying animals. Smoke rolled down the broken buildings like fog over graves. His boots sank into mud mixed with melted snow and blood—red and black, smeared in streaks by shellshock and boot heels.

Around him, the antelope fighters regrouped. Limping. Coughing. One dragged another by the arm. One held her own guts in with a belt. Another, the Markhor girl, her leg gone at the knee, bit down on her own scarf just to stay conscious. But they were alive. Barely. And the depot behind them was gone—ammo, fuel, tower, everything. It lit the sky orange.

One of the younger fighters turned to the man in the mask, shaking, hands still smeared with soot and powder. “What are you?” she asked, voice thin and cracked.

He looked at her.

“A demon,” he replied flatly.

Then he raised the MG42 and opened fire.

She dropped like a sack of meat, body tumbling backward with a red puff where her neck used to be. The other antelopes ducked instantly, screaming, diving for cover.

But the shots weren’t meant for them.

A Chimerican spotter unit had crawled from the edge of the ridge—half-dead, gasping, with a radio clutched in one trembling hand. The rounds shredded him into dust before the call could go through. Silence followed. The masked man lowered the barrel. It hissed in the cold.

Silence again.

Just the hot breath of the barrel ticking like a furnace.

The Gazelle beside him turned, flicking a bit of shrapnel off her thigh, trying to play it cool. Her voice came out flippant but shaky. “So, you ever talk, freakshow? Or you just brood in your little trench coat and shoot things when we point?”

“I just spoke,” he said. “And I said what needed to be said.”

The Gazelle blinked once, opened her mouth, then shut it. She checked her rifle’s mag instead.

Further down the bombed-out corridor of the station wall, the old Oryx was carving something into the rebar-ribbed plaster with his combat knife. Deep, careful lines.

“They’ll run out of fuel before we run out of blood,” he muttered as he sliced the letters into the concrete.

A low rumble echoed overhead—distant gunfire, muffled, but getting closer.

The masked man slung his MG and looked past the bodies, eyes narrowing behind the soot-caked lenses of the mask.

“Looks like we have to move,” the Oryx said, not looking up from his carving. “We have to keep pushing.”

“Can’t we rest?” the Gazelle said, voice thin now, almost a whimper. “Just for an hour. My legs are—”

“Nope,” the Oryx snapped, standing.

He gestured sharply toward a figure leaning against a crumpled electrical box. It was the Markor girl—tall, horned like a spiral tower, one leg torn from the knee down. Blood-soaked cloth was tied around the stump, but her chest still rose and fell. Eyes sharp. No crying. No screaming. Just grit.

“Get her a prosthetic from the salvage,” the old Oryx ordered. “There’s a pack of steel pipe and epoxy in the side trailer. Weld it to the boot plate.”

“She can’t walk,” the Gazelle protested.

“She can still fight.”

The Gazelle turned, biting her lower lip. “What about painkiller? She’s gonna pass out.”

“We can’t spare any,” the Oryx replied. His voice was solid iron. “Not unless it’s a death-wound or you want someone hallucinating next time they try to aim.”

The Gazelle didn’t argue after that. Just helped lift the Markor girl, who hissed through her teeth but didn’t scream. Even when they bolted the makeshift prosthetic on. Just bit down on a ration can lid and nodded when it was done.

The masked man moved last, reloading calmly. The MG42's belt clicked home. He checked the feed. Clean. His fingers lingered for a moment on the side of the weapon, tapping once. Like a habit. Or a prayer.

The Oryx barked, “Get back in the truck before they send a medium mech after us. Or worse...”

He didn’t finish.

Everyone knew what “worse” meant.

A landship.

Everyone piled into the convoy again. No ceremony. No chatter. Just boots on rusted floorboards and hands gripping canvas as the engines revved and the axles groaned.

As they pulled out of the rubble, the townsfolk peeked from alleys and shattered windows. Elders in tattered keffiyehs, kids with soot-smudged fur, mothers still holding empty rifles. They raised their hands as the trucks passed. Some smiled. Others just stared. One boy saluted with a stick shaped like a gun.

The girl with the prosthetic looked down at them and nodded once, her good foot tapping in rhythm with the engine’s growl.

Then they were gone.

The trucks hit the broken road and didn’t stop.

Behind them, the fires still rose. Columns of smoke drifted like funeral banners into the red sky.

And in the far, far distance—blurred by heat shimmer, distorted by the rising sun—came the silhouettes of approaching mechs. Tall things. Hulking, spider-limbed. British design. Chimerican-built. Servo-gutted monsters with shoulder railguns and heat lance ports glowing in the dark.

But they were too late.

The convoy had already vanished down the valley pass, swallowed by Zagrostan’s shattered hills and the blood-hungry sands.

Chapter Text

500 meters.
The truck lights were already shot out. A Chimerican-made anti-tank round tore through the lead vehicle, the shell punching a red-hot fist through the roof. Sparks rained down like hellfire, showering us in molten flakes before the blackout swallowed everything. I brushed off the ember stuck to my coat. My palm sizzled from the burn. Didn’t even flinch.

"Shit," muttered the sergeant next to me, a broad-shouldered blackbuck with a limp from a mine weeks ago. He unbuckled the chest plate from his flak vest. "That thing ain’t gonna stop shit out here. These ain’t street brawls no more. Chimericans got surplus anti-materials and upgraded junk from their old deer lords."

He flung the plate to the floor. The others followed, discarding theirs. Just dead weight now.

Artillery rumbled closer. Not precision strikes, just saturation. Mortars and homemade rockets stitched the sand-heavy horizon. Shockwaves pulsed through the air like giant fists slapping our ears. One of the rear tires hissed and exploded. The trucks staggered forward, some grinding to a halt as black smoke and coolant steamed up their guts.

We dismounted and made for cover. The crumbling remains of a townhome—once luxury, now riddled with bullet holes and Persian graffiti—offered no safety, just temporary shadow.

A police barricade loomed ahead. Local militia mixed with what was left of the Gulf Security Force—privately contracted mercs with thin morals and thick armor. They didn’t see us properly through the wall of grit and smoke, just silhouettes approaching in a broken convoy. They waved us down with flashlights and rifles, shouting in rough Arabic and clipped English. Toll gate lowered, they ordered us to stop.

The gunner didn’t even hesitate. He opened fire.

Heavy .50 tracers stitched their squad cars, shredding the line of vehicles and punching through plate steel like it was boiled tin. Panic overtook the checkpoint. A security officer ducked behind a pylon—too late. The gunner swept the barrel. She crumpled as her partner turned and ran, only to get caught in the fire from the trailing vehicles.

A voice crackled through the command truck.
"Autocannon under tarp, green light when ready."

"Hold it," said the driver, flicking off the coms. "Not yet. Let 'em call for help first."

Sure enough, an old radio unit hidden in the corner of a kebab stall lit up. Someone was calling in a distress code. It only lasted four seconds. A trooper climbed out of the back and raked it with a burst.

The announcer slumped, his face pressed into a bed of shattered hookahs and spilled lentils.

“Incendiary? Really?” a young gazelle medic asked.

“Yeah,” came the reply. “Reinforced electronics. You want a radio, or you want a bomb trigger?”

The driver didn’t wait. "Frag the rest. Tent on the left."

Thunk. Clink.
"Grenade!" someone screamed from inside.

A lone figure ran out, waving her hands—an antelope girl in civilian rags. She barely cleared the flap when the second truck hosed her down. No hesitation.

“Fucking traitor,” spat the sergeant. “Sleeping with one of those velvet-headed deer bastards. Chimerican spawn.”

The driver grinned. "Antlers don’t mean loyalty. Whole town’s probably bent over for them. Look at these stalls. Persian food. Chimerican funding. You think that’s a coincidence?"

I didn’t say anything. Just checked my rifle again. Too many willing to bow for a little diesel and a few sacks of powdered wheat.

400 meters.

The town square unfolded through the dust. A cluttered skeleton of burned-out police vehicles, civilian cars turned barricades, and blown-up delivery trucks littered the road. The buildings were tight here, old colonial stonework updated with concrete balconies and corrugated additions. Pigeons fluttered in broken archways while smoke curled from hookah dens and shuttered corner groceries.

We saw uniformed bodies scattered in alleyways—some with armor, others in Gulf Security green, a few in civvies with guns still in hand.

I thought maybe we had it easy.

Then came the thwump-thwump-thwump from above.

A Chimerican gunship emerged from the storm. Black shape against an ochre sky, slicing the sandstorm like a dagger.

The convoy scattered. Autocannon fire erupted from one of our rear vehicles, punching up toward the hovering death machine. But the first volley already came down—unguided rockets tearing through our left flank. One of the lead trucks veered and crashed into a cooking shop, smashing baklava trays and propane tanks. A second lost control, tipped, and slammed through a stall selling antique radios.

Survivors scattered from the wrecks.

I saw one antelope try to pull a buddy from the wreckage—only to get gunned down by the returning chopper fire.

"Hold it steady!" shouted the gunner. The tarp ripped away from our autocannon, and the steel beast roared to life.

The gunship swerved, took evasive maneuvers—but not fast enough. A solid shot from an old WW2-style QF 6-pounder, retrofitted onto a Leyland armored scout, smashed the bubble canopy. The gunship spiraled and clipped a powerline, crashing into a prayer hall built beside a shopping bazaar.

The explosion rocked the neighborhood. A billboard of a smiling deer soldier promoting "Unity in Oil and Blood" crashed to the street.

The old man—our squad's unofficial prophet—just nodded.

"Civilian refit. Probably Chimerican National Guard. Not proper marines. Armor was thin, flight discipline worse. Their pilots train in simulators, not storms."

Cheers broke out in the convoy. Some lit cigarettes. Someone found an unopened bottle of date liquor and passed it around. We didn’t drink. Not yet.

Another unit joined us—light armored cars with crew sticking their heads out, sand-coated, bleary-eyed. They were from the desert flanking patrols. One waved.

"Smoke?" he asked. "I’m gonna die from withdrawal before a bullet finds me."

One of ours tossed him a single rolled leaf.

"Last one. You owe me."

They shared a laugh. "We heard you cracked a gunship!"

The driver nodded. "We cracked one. You got any news?"

The scout commander leaned close. "Took out a Chimerican tank—had to bounce a shot under the turret. Road kicked it up into its guts. Beautiful."

The driver let out a low whistle. "Damn. We should get medals for shit like that."

I didn’t laugh. Just cleaned the grit off my goggles and tightened my scarf. The wind was picking up. The sandstorm closed in tighter. Every street ahead turned into a blur of gold and gray.

350 meters.

We were flanking the Chimerican force now. They had redeployed to hit the last known position of our stalled trucks. We had a chance—cut off their advance and trap them between two squads.

Our remaining panzers—repurposed British tanks with thickened front plates and high-velocity guns—were supposed to be behind us, still en route. No visual yet.

"Mask up," I said, pulling my own tight. The scarlet skull mask glared through the dirty glass.

I handed the radio to a young addax girl beside me. "You’re comms now. Hold it tight."

He nodded, voice cracking. "Phones off?"

"All off," the driver confirmed. "Good. You know what that means."

He keyed the longwave relay to the engineer detachment.

"You at the substation?"

"Yeah," came the reply. "Security was thin. We’re in the grid room."

"No, please, I have kids!" someone screamed in the background.

Bang.

"Executed survivors. Just in case."

"Good. Fucking collaborators," the driver spat. "Hit the substation on my mark. Keep eyes out for backup."

"Reinforcements on highway," came the engineer's voice. "Want IED?"

"How many can you hit?"

"Maybe twenty percent. They’re moving fast. Might be a heavy unit among 'em."

The truck went quiet.

The old guy looked up from carving a prayer into the dashboard.

"Shit," the driver whispered. "They sent a heavyf? That means there’s a private military enclave out here. Or a training base we missed. Fuck."

"Recon? What kind?"

"Elk, mostly. Heavy rifles. No insignia. Might be corpo security. Local tyrants."

The driver swore again. "Get ready. 200 meters. Flank position. Let’s box 'em in before they hit our other boys."

Comms opened to the house squad holding a defensive building.

"You still up?"

Gunfire buzzed in the background. A young girl answered. "Barely. Took some damage, but we’re good. Took down a light walker."

"Nice job. Watch the southern alley. Reinforcements incoming."

He called the other squad.

"Status?"

"Engaged and pissed," they answered. "Local partisans flanking the enemy from the north. Civvies with old Chimerican rifles. They’re moving too fast for trucks."

The driver snapped his fingers. "Send the armored cars. Now!"

Two Leyland-pattern scout cars peeled off the road, engines roaring, their tires kicking up columns of dust as they screamed toward the advancing enemy formation.

I watched them disappear into the storm, nothing left but shadows and the dull thumping of distant gunfire.

I clicked the safety off my rifle. Checked the chamber. Time to move.

Chapter Text

Zagrostan – Five Klicks Outside District Forty-Nine
Western Chimerican Convoy: Operation Snowbell

“Ugh, why does it smell like piss and charcoal in this whole damn country?” Lina groaned, her antlers thunking against the cold, cracked window. She tucked her tail up under her coat, bundled like a freezing rat. “If I get frostbite on my tail again I’m gonna defect to frickin’ Belize.”

“Belize’s underwater,” muttered Mae from the gunner nest. “Kelp plague. Ocean war, five years ago. You were probably still in middle school, dreaming about bubble tea and fashion porn.”

“I know that, Mae. Let me complain.”

Their truck jolted over a pothole, suspension crying out like a dying mule. Slush sprayed up the side in greasy streaks. Outside, Zagrostan stretched in every direction like a bruised scab. Colorless, sand over snow. The ruins of mudbrick villages slouched against the landscape like collapsed lungs. Shattered archways. Graffiti in six dialects. Hanging laundry caught in razor wire.

“This whole deployment’s a scam,” Lina snapped. “We signed up for pipeline security. Not escorting donor convoys through war-torn outhouses.”

“Scope got changed after that senator’s daughter got jelly-jar’d by a car bomb,” said Rael, the ibex squad lead. Scarred ear. Crooked cigarette. “Now we’re ‘containment support.’ Which means we contain the bleeding and they support us not at all.”

Lina kicked the bulkhead. “I’m nineteen. I could’ve been guarding a warehouse in New Reno. Instead I’m shitting in bags and dodging mines for less than a Starbucks barista.”

Mae laughed darkly. “You get hazard pay? Shit. I got docked for chucking too many smokes.”

From across the bay, Cherie—silver-furred antelope, twin sister to Danni—curled tighter in her coat. “This place smells like rotting cheese and old-man foreskin. I haven’t felt my spine since dawn.”

“You sound like my sister,” Danni groaned.

“I am your sister.”

“Then shut up before I boot you out the hatch.”

Half the squad was curled like fleas in the truck’s belly. Blankets. Coats. Ration bags jammed over hooves. No heater. No sleep. They smelled of stress, rusted rifles, and the ghost of whatever-the-fuck passed for body spray back in New Monterey.

“I miss malls,” muttered Mal, cheek pressed to the wall. “Malls and hot pretzels. And my cat.”

“I miss real plumbing,” said Taryn. Her goggles were fogged with her own breath, lenses slowly icing from the edges inward.

At the back of the convoy, inside the limping mech rig, sat Elissa.

Twenty. First deployment. Eyes bloodshot. Green as algae and twice as wet. She wasn’t military. She was a civilian tech, rerouted through a subcontractor loophole straight into the ass end of a warzone. The mech was ancient—a four-meter mining frame retooled for combat. Nicknamed Can Opener. One arm a recoilless rifle welded to a brace, the other a fused claw. Legs groaned. The spine clicked when she turned.

Her gloves were soaked. Her legs numb from hours in the harness. She gripped the control sticks so tight her knuckles blistered.

She listened to the chatter. Every joke and swear, every bitchy gripe from the girls inside the truck, was another needle in her lungs.

I’m not ready. I’m not a soldier. I’m not even a fucking intern.

Then—
The wind changed.
The air stilled.
The blast hit like a sledgehammer to the gut.

It didn't sound like thunder. It sounded like a slap. A wet, colossal WHOMP. Then silence.

Truck One folded.

It didn’t explode. It folded. Nose crumpled, axle shattered, front cabin crushed like a soda can under a god’s heel. The roof split. Black steam vomited skyward. The windows painted red from inside.

There was no scream from the truck.

Only from the headsets.

“TRUCK ONE’S GONE—OH SHIT—”
“WHO’S HIT—WHO’S HIT—”
“I CAN’T SEE—SMOKE—EVERYWHERE—”

Elissa froze. The camera’s thermal feed went white-hot ahead.

Then the second explosion.

Truck Two.

Rear blast. Less precise. The rig fishtailed, caught a broken planter, and flipped. Screams erupted inside.

Danni – ALIVE. Screaming. Pinned beneath crate.
Cherie – WOUNDED. Left arm shattered. Face cut.
Rico – KIA. Skull split, no response.
Taryn – ALIVE. Bleeding, leg unclear.
Mae – ALIVE. Returning fire.

Rebel gunfire poured in like rain. Every rooftop. Every alley. Every goddamn window.

Mae went first.

One shot. Straight through the gunner hatch. Clean as a knife. Her head snapped back. Blood sprayed Lina.

“MAE!” Lina screamed, half-blind. She ducked—just as a burst chewed through the metal behind her skull.

Mae – KIA.

Elissa choked on air. Hands shaking.

“Can Opener’s hot—advancing now—”

“Don’t shoot unless provoked—just push ‘em back!”

Too late. Already under fire. Her viewport sparkled with tracers. She aimed.

Thoom.

Recoil slammed her spine. The shell arced across the courtyard, detonating uselessly in rubble.

Return fire: Three bursts.

One hit the dirt.
One grazed her hip.
The third—her arm.

She didn’t register it at first. Just saw the arm disintegrate in mid-air. Sparks. Metal. Then the claw crashed through a market stall.

“LEFT ARM GONE! FUCKING GONE!”

Inside her headset, static.

“Hold position—backup’s—” lie.

More bursts. Rebels on the roofs. PIAT teams shouldering launchers.

Another impact. Shell cracked under her cockpit. Viewport split. Coolant sprayed her boots.

“I’m still up—I’m still—”

“LOOK LEFT—LEFT—THEY’RE ON THE ROOFS—”

She twisted. Wrong way.

Final shot:

14.5mm AP.

Through the waist.

She saw it enter.
Felt her lungs catch fire.
White flame ripped through the cockpit.

“WAIT—WAIT—”

Then the ammo cooked off.

KA-WHAM.

The torso vanished. Head snapped back, crashed into a kiosk, and bounced to a stop.

Elissa – KIA. Mech destroyed.

[Status Check – 00:30 Post-Contact]

Rael: Alive. Command. Minor injuries.
Lina: Alive. Shaken. Bloodied.
Danni: Alive. Pinned. Screaming.
Cherie: Wounded. Left arm shattered.
Taryn: Alive. Disoriented. Missing lower leg.
Mal: Alive. Wounded. Crawling.
Mae: KIA. Shot through gunner hatch.
Rico: KIA. Skull trauma.
Elissa: KIA. Mech exploded.

The mech burned. Glass bubbled. Fuel cooked. No one left inside.

Mal was crawling—screaming.

Danni was trapped under the flipped axle.

Cherie bled out beside her.

Cherie – KIA.

Lina scrambled through the roof hatch, covered in blood that wasn’t hers. She ducked behind a planter as more rebels rushed the square.

A doe in tan camo sprinted past her.

Then—pop. Her chest ruptured.

Doe (Unknown Ally) – KIA.

Lina shrieked and hit the dirt. Glass shattered above her. Bullets pinged concrete.

Taryn dragged herself from the flipped truck, leg sheared off below the knee. She screamed for her rifle, oblivious.

Mal reached the wrecked Can Opener. Tried to pry the hatch open with her bare hands.

It was melting.

Taryn – Alive. Critically wounded.
Mal – Alive. Bleeding, disoriented.

Rael’s voice crackled:

“Roll call—every five seconds—SPEAK OR WE LEAVE YOU—”
“This is Rael—Alive—Minor burn left leg—Truck One’s gone—Can’t reach base.”
“Lina—Alive—Lina alive—I’m by the planters—"
“Taryn—still here—I—I think I’m okay—I don’t feel my—OH SHIT—my leg—my LEG—”
“Mal—still breathing—trying to reach Can Opener—everything’s red—I—I don’t know whose blood—”
“Danni—pinned—can’t feel my hips—CHERIE’S DEAD—she’s dead I think—"

Rebels advanced, close now.

Someone popped red smoke. A flare lit the alley.

“Backtrack to the dunes! Anyone mobile—FALL BACK!” Rael barked.

Lina ran.

Taryn dragged herself.

Danni screamed. The rig above her groaned.

Then it fell.

CRUNCH.

Danni – KIA.

[Status Check – 01:10 Post-Contact]

Rael – Alive. Minor injuries.
Lina – Alive. Mobile.
Taryn – Alive. Dragging. Lower leg gone.
Mal – Alive. Shoulder hit. Bleeding.
Cherie – KIA. Blood loss.
Danni – KIA. Crushed.
Elissa – KIA. Mech detonation.
Mae – KIA. Shot.
Rico – KIA. Initial blast.

The final stretch.

Fire licked across the trucks. Fuel tanks popped like party balloons. Someone inside screamed as flames swallowed their lungs.

Rael limped behind the market stalls, covering the retreat.

Lina ducked into a broken doorway, dragged Taryn halfway in.

Taryn howled the whole time, eyes rolling.

“I—I saw her head pop—I saw Elissa’s head pop—there’s nothing left—”

Mal fell ten meters from them. Shoulder hit again. She crawled, sobbing.

Then a rebel stepped out of the smoke behind her.

red mask.

Mal saw him too late.

Pop.
Headshot.

Mal – KIA.

Lina screamed.

Rael threw a grenade.

Boom.

Smoke. Chaos. Screaming.

The last few rebels scattered.

For now.

[Final Status – 02:00 Post-Contact]

Rael – Alive. Minor injuries. MIA.
Lina – Alive. Shaken. Last seen dragging Taryn.
Taryn – Alive. Critical. Leg gone. PTSD onset.
Mal – KIA. Execution.
Cherie – KIA. Bled out.
Danni – KIA. Crushed under wreckage.
Elissa – KIA. Mech detonation.
Mae – KIA. Shot.
Rico – KIA. Skull trauma.

Only three left.

Chapter Text

"fuck me sideways, it's the apocalypse"
— the last thing I said before the vault doors shut.

You’d think when the end of the world came, it’d be big. Fireworks, screaming, people looting Tesco with flaming shopping carts while helicopters crash through the London Eye. Maybe a marching band. At the very least, some doomsday cult guy waving a sign that says THE END IS NIGH in Comic Sans.

Nope. Just heat. A lot of it. And sand. So much sand.

So here’s me: Eurydice Woolgather, seventeen, female, hopelessly single, and—oh yeah—a sheep. A literal sheep. Curly white wool, four hooves, and a family line that smells like lanolin and failure.

And now I'm also apparently a Vault Resident. Yay. Living the dystopian dream.

It started with the nukes.

You remember how school used to have all those “duck and cover” drills, like crouching under a desk was going to stop you from getting atomized? Yeah, turns out, surprise surprise, it doesn’t. When Iraq launched that first nuke at Europe, we all watched it live on telly like it was the goddamn Eurovision finals.

And when it hit... everything changed.

The blast turned the Mediterranean into glass. The Alps? Gone. London? No longer a rainy gray smog-ball of eternal traffic. Now it's a desert. Like, sand-in-your-shoes, mirages-of-Oasis, skeletons-of-double-decker-buses kind of desert. You can practically smell the sizzle of Big Ben frying.

The Thames dried up. Buckingham Palace? Probably buried under a dune somewhere. At least the Queen’s corgis won’t be overheating anymore. Rest in peace, you tiny royal legends.

But let me rewind a little.

I was in my school uniform when the sirens went off. Button-up blouse, navy blue skirt, those itchy wool tights that dig into your thighs like a personal vendetta—completely unprepared for a nuclear meltdown. I’d just been dumped, too. By a ram with a gold nose ring and a skateboard. He said I was “too introspective” and didn’t “get his vibe.” He also spelled existential with a Z, so maybe it was a blessing.

Mum didn’t even pack. She just screamed, grabbed me by the ear (yes, literally), and dragged me to the bunker entrance like I was five again. My brother stayed behind. Said he wanted to “feel the sky one last time.” Translation: he wanted to vape on the roof while the world exploded. Classic Diot.

We ran past heat-glitched streets, all warped and oily-looking, like someone smeared Vaseline over the air. Cars were melting. People too. Not fast, though—that’s the worst part. It was slow. Like watching candles drip.

The Vault doors were already closing when we got there.

I remember turning around one last time. Saw my school. Or what was left of it. St. Augustine’s School for Slightly Gifted Girls—burning like a Tinder date gone wrong. The headmistress was on the lawn, screaming at the apocalypse like she could give it detention.

Then the door slammed shut. Boom. Just like that.

Darkness. A whiff of disinfectant. Some stale air and the low mechanical groan of our new, shiny underground prison.

Welcome to Vault 97. Population: 216 survivors, 142 awkward silences, 63 suppressed mental breakdowns, and 1 sheep girl with a grudge against everything.

Journal Entry 1
Vault 97, Day 3 (I think?) – “Bunker Blues”

If hell had a dentist's office, it would look like this vault.

Everything is off-white. The walls. The floors. Even the food paste comes in a lovely shade of “clinical beige.” And the lights buzz. Constantly. It’s like tinnitus but in LED.

They gave us uniforms—some nasty, one-piece jumpsuit that clings to your ass crack like it’s trying to climb in. I tried tailoring mine with safety pins. Got yelled at by some antelope lady from Engineering. She’s always mad. Probably named after a type of rifle.

We’ve got a schoolroom, a mess hall, and sleeping quarters with bunk beds that squeak even when you breathe. I got top bunk. My roommate’s a blackbuck girl named Anora. She’s got sharp horns, an obsession with romance novels, and the kind of energy that makes me want to punch something soft. Like a pillow. Or a muffin.

The adults are pretending everything’s fine.

They’ve started “Vault Culture Education Classes.” You know, to teach us how to be “productive citizens of our new society.” I guess that’s code for “how to not scream into the air vents every morning.”

They haven’t told us what’s happening up top. But I’ve seen things. Water rationing. Power flickers. People whispering about the sand getting into the ventilation system. And the news stopped broadcasting the second day in.

Anora said she heard scratching outside the outer walls last night.

Said it didn’t sound like animals.

Journal Entry 4 – Day ??? – “They’re Not Dead. Just… Worse.”

Okay. So. Zombies.

Yeah. That’s a thing now. Just when I thought nuclear war and ecological collapse were the worst-case scenario, turns out there’s a secret third option: plague.

It started in the water. Whatever Iraq did, it wasn’t just bombs. It was smart. Cruel, but smart.

Something mutated. Maybe it was rabies. Maybe it was something older. Either way, anyone drinking untreated water started acting... off.

Not brainless moaning undead like the movies. No, these ones remember. Your name. Where you live. The alarm code to your flat. Your birthday.

But they’re not you anymore.

Hyper-violent. Horny. Obsessive. Like all their animal instincts got turned up to eleven and their brains got shoved into the backseat, watching the horror show through a dirty windshield.

My aunt used to be a dentist in Manchester. Her and her wife drank from a filtered spring two weeks after the bomb. We got a vid-call from them a week later.

They’d shaved their horns into spirals, tattooed their gums, and were building an idol made of molars. I wish I was kidding. They started chanting halfway through the call.

Then the signal went dark.

Back to Present Day: Vault 97. Day… too many.

They finally let us out. Kind of.

Recon missions, they said. To “assess post-event terrain conditions.”

Translation: we’re being used as expendable interns with guns.

We went up in teams. Me, Anora, this mute kudu girl named Tali who never talks but always has a flask on her, and a massive eland named Sergeant Gruntha who could probably bench-press a truck.

We stepped out into the ruins of London.

And holy hell, it’s hot.

I mean, my wool practically screamed in protest. I’d been shaving it every week, but still—I was sweating in places I didn’t know had glands.

Everything was dust and bones. Dunes swallowed buildings like forgotten history. You could see the tops of skyscrapers sticking out like crooked teeth.

We saw a group of infected by Tower Bridge. Not shambling. Just… sitting around a fire. Laughing. Making masks out of bones and old bicycle parts.

One of them waved at us.

Then went right back to carving something into the sand.

I still don’t know what it was. But it looked like a map.

Journal Entry 11 – “No One’s Okay”

They’re not attacking us. Not yet. That’s the scary part.

Some of them just watch. Like they’re waiting. Planning. Building.

Tali found a makeshift market near Hyde Park. All infected. All selling junk—old radios, rusty blades, weird carved dolls made from rib bones.

They invited her in. She didn’t go.

But they knew her name.

They offered her a drink. Called it “The River.” We think that’s what they’re calling the infection now.

She smashed the bottle on the ground.

Anora says they’re making art now. Sculptures. Murals. Shrines. Altars to weird things. Not gods. Not really. Just… obsessions. Like fixations turned holy.

We saw one made entirely of car mirrors. All aimed inward, like it was trying to stare at itself forever.

The Sergeant says to report and avoid. Don’t interact.

But I don’t know. They’re not just sick. They’re changing. Evolving.

And honestly?

They look like they’re having more fun than we are.

Journal Entry 14 – “We Don’t Belong Here”

I miss trees. Grass. Rain.

I miss the old world, even though it was shit sometimes.

I miss music that wasn’t piped in through tinny speakers.

I miss warm hands and awkward hugs and bad coffee and the smell of my mum’s cooking, even when it burned.

Sometimes I think about leaving the Vault. For good. Just disappearing into the desert.

Let the infected find me. Maybe I’ll go mad. Maybe I already am.

But maybe madness isn’t so bad when the world’s gone insane.

Maybe it’s freedom.

Or maybe I just need a nap.

[End Entry]
Status: alive. Irritated. Undercaffeinated. Still wearing the same underwear from three days ago. Please send help.

And if you’re reading this from the future, or from a bunker somewhere in what used to be France… congratulations.

You survived the apocalypse.

But you’ve got sand in your socks.

And it never comes out.

Chapter Text

"Dear diary, I'm in hell. Also it's beige."
— Eurydice Woolgather, professional apocalypse victim and emotionally constipated sheep girl.

Eurydice sighed, again, like it was an Olympic sport she was training for. Her curly wool puffed out with each dramatic exhale, frizzing in all the wrong places, but she didn’t care anymore. Day forty-something in Vault 97, and her will to appear presentable had long since died—along with most of Europe, probably.

She sat cross-legged on the edge of her creaky bunk, journal open on her lap, pen scratching angrily across the recycled paper. Her handwriting was starting to tilt at a deranged angle, as if even the letters were losing patience with this place.

All around her, Vault 97 stretched out in its endlessly uninspired glory. Off-white walls, flickering fluorescent lights that buzzed like angry insects, and that smell—not quite sweat, not quite metal, not quite rot. Just… underground. Like someone had Febreezed over a corpse.

It was a prison. A very well-lit, air-conditioned, government-approved prison. And it sucked.

Her eyes flicked down to the hideous jumpsuit clinging to her wooly hips like polyester regret. It was Vault-issued, the same color as wet cardboard, with an elastic waistband that did absolutely nothing for her figure. Every step felt like a slow exfoliation. Eurydice missed her old school uniform. The itchy tights, the blazer with the ink-stained pockets, the tie she never tied properly. She missed it all. Even the skirt that blew up every time a breeze so much as looked at her sideways.

Probably turned to ash now. Like her bedroom. Like her school. Like her vape-addicted brother who thought the nuke was a government hoax until it fried his eyebrows off.

“God,” she muttered, tossing her pen down and flopping backward onto her bed, “I’d give anything for a breeze right now. Even if it smelled like fox piss.”

Anora stirred below, her deer ears twitching from where she lay sprawled out on the bottom bunk. She was knee-deep in a romance novel with a ripped cover and a plot so brain-meltingly dumb it probably counted as a biohazard.

“What now?” Anora murmured, not looking up. “Did your pen run out of ink again?”

“No,” Eurydice replied, sarcasm practically dripping from her wool. “I’m just reflecting on my endless gratitude for this climate-controlled subterranean utopia we’ve been blessed with. Praise the Overlords. May they ration us more food paste.”

“Try being less dramatic,” Anora said, flipping a page. “Or go to the mess hall. Maybe they’ve got a new flavor of slop. Beige with slightly more beige.”

“Riveting,” Eurydice deadpanned. “I bet it tastes like someone chewed up drywall and sneezed it into a bowl.”

She rolled off the bed, hooves hitting the floor with a soft clunk, grabbed her journal, and trudged out into the hall. The lights flickered again—because of course they did. Vault 97: now with bonus horror movie ambiance.

The mess hall was already halfway full, a bunch of half-asleep herbivore girls lining up like depressed cafeteria zombies. Eurydice joined the queue, arms crossed, watching as today’s mystery sludge was slopped onto trays with the enthusiasm of a DMV worker on a Monday.

“Bon appétit,” said the doe behind the counter, handing over Eurydice’s tray like it was a biohazard. It probably was.

She sat down at a table next to a klipspringer girl picking mold off the corner of her bread and a rabbit who looked one bad day away from gnawing through the wall.

No one talked.

Well, not exactly true. The adults were murmuring in the corner, huddled like conspirators at a funeral.

“—ventilation filters are clogged again—”

“—ration packs won’t last another month—”

“—no word from Vault 42, it’s gone dark—”

“—maybe it’s the infection—”

Eurydice stopped chewing. Infection?

She pushed her tray away, the slop jiggling ominously. Her stomach clenched—not with hunger, but dread.

That word had been floating around lately. Infection. Rumors about what was happening in the other vaults. About people changing. Acting weird. Too weird.

She stood up, too fast, and grabbed her journal like it was a lifeline.

Anora didn’t even look up when she stormed past.

“Save me a spot in therapy!” Eurydice called, sarcasm on autopilot now.

“Only if they let me bring wine,” Anora called back.

The schoolroom was empty, thank God. A couple rows of beat-up desks, a chalkboard with half-erased formulas from the last mandatory lesson, and that one window—the only one in the vault. Not to the outside, obviously. Just a thick pane of reinforced glass pointed at the loading chamber, where the giant gear-shaped vault door loomed like a monster’s mouth.

Eurydice plopped down at a desk near the window and stared. Beyond that door was London. Or what was left of it. She didn’t know for sure. No one did. The last satellite image they'd seen before the signal dropped showed a desert stretching from France to Denmark. The English Channel? Gone. Just dunes now. Like Europe had been picked up and shaken like an Etch-A-Sketch.

And the water—the real problem. It hadn’t just disappeared. It had left. The ocean receded, pulled back by something massive. A weapon. A second wave. No one knew for sure. But the scientists—what few remained—said something about ice walls. The sea frozen around the continent, trapping what water was left. And the rest? Evaporated. Replaced by heat. Dryness. Fire.

There was talk of fresh water rivers now—scarce, guarded, hoarded. It was the new currency. Bottled water was gold. And the real kicker? Iraq had made it worse.

Not just nukes. No. That would’ve been too easy.

They’d released something into the remaining water. A virus. Mutated rabies. Slow-burning. Not enough to rot you. Just enough to make you something else.

You didn’t lose your memories. You just stopped caring. About rules. About morals. About anything except dopamine.

They said infected people became... obsessed. With anything. Guns. Sex. Carving religious idols out of goat bones. Some turned violent. Some turned manic. Some just turned into walking addictions. Junkie cultists with too much energy and not enough impulse control.

They still knew how to use doors. Still knew your face. Your name. How to smile.

And then they’d bite your throat out.

Eurydice flipped open her journal. Pages and pages of spiraling ink stared back at her. She didn’t read any of it. She just started writing.

"Journal Entry: Day ??? of This Shitty Underground Life"

Today’s flavor of existential dread is brought to you by Vault-brand protein paste and flickering trauma lights. I think I saw mold on someone’s jumpsuit today. Either that, or the fungus has gained sentience and is trying to start a democracy.

Anora says I should try “positive visualization.” So here’s mine:

Imagine a beach. The sand is hot, the sky is blue, and no one is infected with hyper-horny rage disease. There’s a breeze. I’m wearing sunglasses. The sun is gently roasting me alive, but in a good way. Also I’m eating a popsicle. Probably raspberry.

Then I wake up and realize the beach is London, the sand is radioactive, and my popsicle is made of powdered lentils.

I’m fine. Totally. Completely. FINE.

Someone knocked on the door earlier. Three taps. Pause. Two taps. Not a vault pattern. Tali says she hears them every night. Someone scratching. Not with claws. With fingernails. Like they remember how doors work.

I told her to go to therapy.

Then she said the scratching stopped once she whispered her name back.

I didn’t ask what name.

Anyway. Time to go wash my wool in the communal showers with fifty other girls who all pretend they’re not crying. If anyone reads this and I’ve become a rabid sex-zombie who worships broken air conditioners, please have the decency to put a bullet in my head.

Or at least give me a cool name. Something like “Blood Muffin.” Or “Queen of the Sand.”

Signing off.

— Eurydice

(P.S. This pen sucks. It keeps leaking ink and now I have black spots on my face and everyone thinks it’s mold.)

The lights buzzed louder. She paused, pen hovering.

Then a voice over the intercom:

“All vault residents please report to the atrium. This is a routine wellness assembly.”

Routine. Right.

Eurydice sighed, slamming her journal shut. Another propaganda speech from Overseer Whitetail about “preserving morale” and “vault integrity.” She couldn't wait.

She stood up, tucked her journal into the waistband of her itchy jumpsuit, and walked out, head high, sarcasm locked and loaded.

Whatever this world was turning into, she’d face it like she faced everything else: with eye rolls, internal screaming, and enough eyeliner to survive nuclear winter.

Maybe one day she’d make it to the surface. See the sand dunes for herself. See what the infected had built.

Or maybe she’d die down here.

Chapter Text

Diary of Eurydice – Date: Some Blasted Day After the End of the World

So, guess what? I finally got out. Out of Vault 97. The vault that smelled like wet socks and mechanical depression. The place where dreams went to die under flickering lights and state-mandated cafeteria slop.

And let me just say—freedom? It sucks. It’s hot. It's full of dust and the distant, lingering flavor of apocalypse. Also, zombies. Sexy, violent, plague-ridden zombies with zero sense of personal space or hygiene.

Let me start from the top.

Today, the vault door opened. Like, for real. That big circle of doom finally unlatched with the groan of a thousand mechanical regrets. It was like the world saying, “Come on out, kids. The trauma buffet is open.”

The light hit me like a goddamn freight train. I blinked and staggered and nearly fell face-first onto the sun-baked sand. My eyes were NOT ready. I don’t think they ever will be. Who knew nuclear winter came with this much brightness? Like, tone it down, sun. You’re not that special.

We stood in line, a little parade of idiots in bulky olive-green combat armor that someone in the pre-war government thought was a good idea. Spoiler: it’s not. It’s basically a sauna for your entire body, with the added bonus of being chafe city. Like, I could feel the sweat pooling in places sweat was never meant to go. It was sticky, loud, and every movement felt like dragging a fridge behind you.

Helmet sealed? Check. Rifle slung over shoulder? Check. Helmet filter already clogged with sand and probable corpse dust? You bet your sweet radioactive ass.

Behind the group stood Sergeant Thundertree (not his real name, but I refuse to learn it because he’s a dick). He’s a giant eland with shoulders like a tank and the emotional range of a tax return. His armor has all these stripes and badges like anyone gives a shit about vault ranks out here in the post-society inferno.

He raised one hoofed hand and barked, “Eyes open. No engaging unless fired upon. This is recon only.”

Right. Recon. Just a peaceful stroll through the decaying corpse of civilization while mutant freaks play poker with each other's jawbones. Sounds great, Sarge.

We moved out, boots and hooves crunching against sand, glass, and what I hope was just shattered pavement. The ruined remains of London lay ahead, jagged and skeletal. Where there were once fancy old buildings and cafés serving overpriced tea, now there’s just ash, twisted steel, and rubble stacked like doomsday Lego.

The Thames? Yeah, remember that famous river? Now it’s just a long, thirsty scar, cracked like an old dish and completely, absolutely dry. Not even a mud puddle left. Not even a frog carcass.

Everything was coated in grey. Like someone shook a powdered sugar shaker filled with death over the entire skyline. Cars were melted into the ground. Skeletons of buildings reached for the sky like burnt fingers. I stepped over a shopping cart fused to a bicycle and tried not to think about what happened to the people who left them behind.

As we pushed deeper into the city, the smell hit. Even with the helmet filters doing their thing, there was no escaping it. Rot. Mold. Dried blood. And something I can only describe as ‘fermented foot.’ Probably some mix of dead people and decomposing rats with bodybuilder complexes.

I was already drenched in sweat by the time we hit mile two. My thighs were burning from the armor, my rifle strap kept pinching my neck wool, and my lower back felt like it was hosting a rave for cramps. Anora trotted beside me, her deer ears flicking every time she caught a sound. She was quiet, focused—so not helping with my spiraling anxiety.

Behind us was Tali, our resident silent badass with an alcohol problem and a knife collection that probably included her ex-boyfriends. I’d ask how she keeps so calm, but she’d probably just blink at me and pull out a machete with my name on it.

Then came the stop.

Sergeant “I-don’t-know-what-hugs-are” raised his fist. We froze.

Ahead, in a ruined roundabout surrounded by crumbling storefronts, sat a group. Figures hunched over a fire. Not moving. Not talking. Just… existing in the creepiest way possible.

Infected.

I’d seen the tapes. Glowing eyes. Black veins. That weird way they moved like their joints were loose screws and rage was the only thing keeping them upright. But these? They were just sitting. Around the fire. One was fiddling with something in the sand.

Then one looked up. Saw us. And waved.

No joke. Waved.

I swear, if he had said “hey girl” I would have peed in my armor.

The Sergeant whispered into his comm. No movement. No engagement. Just observe and retreat.

So we backed away. Real slow. I didn’t blink the entire time, just in case one of them twitched. And when we were out of their sightline, I booked it. As much as you can in seventy pounds of steel and regret.

I don’t even know how they’re still alive out here. What do they eat? Each other? Scorpions? The dreams of high school valedictorians?

Anyway, the vibe didn’t get better. As we made our way back, every ruin felt like a stage for something waiting to lunge out. Every broken window had eyes. I just knew it. I kept scanning the shadows, expecting someone to scream or for my visor to suddenly flash RED and that’d be the end of me. Game over. Roll credits.

We got back to the vault without anyone dying. Which, considering the state of the world, is probably a miracle. I half-expected the door not to open, like it’d sense my trauma and be like, “Sorry, babe, this ride’s over.”

But it did. The big circle of metal groaned open again, welcoming us back into its damp embrace. I practically kissed the airlock floor.

You ever miss stale air? Like, miss it? Vault air is recycled farts and moldy oatmeal at best, but I gulped it down like it was spring water. I didn’t even care that my socks were soaked and my helmet had a spider in it (WHERE DID THAT EVEN COME FROM). I was just glad to not be someone’s late lunch.

Now I’m back in my bunk. My thighs still hurt. My armor gave me a rash. I found a cactus thorn in my bra, don’t ask how. I’m starving, but I also never want to eat again because I saw a crow eating a possum that was eating another possum and now food is canceled forever.

Anora is already asleep, curled up like we didn’t just witness the downfall of civilization for the fifth time. Tali’s probably cleaning her knives and thinking about setting the world on fire. The Sergeant is… somewhere, probably arguing with a generator.

And me? I’m writing this. Because if I don’t, I think I’ll scream.

I saw the world today. The real world. The after world. And it’s worse than anything I imagined. Worse than the stories. Worse than the warning posters in the vault.

But I also saw something else.

I saw that the infected aren’t just mindless husks. They’re… aware. They waved. They mocked us. They’re organizing. Plotting.

Whatever’s out there isn’t done with us. And we’re definitely not ready.

So, diary, here’s to nightmares, mild dehydration, and whatever fresh hell tomorrow brings. I’ll be ready.

Kind of.

Maybe.

Okay, probably not, but I’ll pretend really hard.

– Eurydice.
End of entry.

P.S. If I die out there, someone better publish this. Like, don’t let all this sarcasm go to waste.

Chapter Text

Diary of Eurydice – Date: "Sunburned to Hell and Back"

I miss fluorescent lights. I miss stale oxygen. I miss the ever-present sound of a thousand overworked fans whining inside the vault like they were on the edge of a nervous breakdown. I even miss the suspicious vat-grown meat chunks they served on Tuesdays.

Because outside? Outside is a flaming hellscape. And this is officially my second field mission out in it. Yay me.

So here’s the setup: Vault 97, in its infinite wisdom (read: desperation), has decided to reestablish contact with the nearby vaults—Vault 96, 98, or 99. Apparently, it doesn’t matter which one we reach first. They just want us to pick a direction and hope we don’t die before someone opens a door. The plan is: bring food, shiny rocks, and look like we know what the hell we’re doing.

We were given trade goods to lug around like post-apocalyptic Girl Scouts: preserved rations (made from probably-legal protein sources), jars of genetically modified herbs and weeds (yay salad), some gold and silver coins that honestly look like stage props from a school play, and a weird electronic brick that supposedly turns crap water into drinkable water. Emphasis on supposedly. Vault Tech’s finest garbage. Apparently it only works if you place it at the source of a stream or in a small pond. So like…two places on this dead Earth. Great.

The sun is relentless. It’s not even midday and I’m melting like a sad candle. I swear I felt my brain boil inside my helmet. The desert wind keeps slapping us with sand and despair, and I’ve had to stop four times already to dig gravel out of my boots. My thighs are already chafed to oblivion, and my shoulders feel like they’re being slowly crushed by the weight of the pack strapped to me like some cruel joke. There is no good way to carry twenty pounds of dried grass and sparkly metal. I look like a radioactive Christmas donkey.

We’re heading toward the ruins of what used to be a village. Anora’s up front again, doing that scouty, competent thing she does—eyes scanning every shadow, ears flicking like she’s picking up signals from Mars. Tali’s bringing up the rear, still silent, probably wishing she could stab the sun.

Then there’s me. Eurydice. Vault 97’s official emotional baggage handler and reluctant ambassador to the end of the world. Also the one carrying the water purifier brick because "you're the smallest and lightest." Screw them.

We’re still not sure which vault is closest, so the plan is to ask around. You know. Ask the locals.

By locals, I mean the infected.

Yup. Zombies. Technically not zombies, but tell that to my anxiety.

Remember those guys we saw around the campfire last time? The chill ones who waved at us like they were hosting a camp counselor meeting from hell? Turns out they’re one of two types of infected.

Meet the Frolickers. That’s what we’re calling them. They're like…weirdly calm. They don’t attack, they don’t scream, they don’t try to rip your face off. Some of them even seem to talk in broken phrases, if you catch them on a good day. They’re all gaunt and twitchy, like cracked-out ballet dancers in rags, but they don’t seem aggressive. They just wander, collect shiny things, and hum to themselves while stacking bricks in little pyramid shapes.

I was starting to think maybe this apocalypse wouldn’t be so bad. Like maybe we could work with them.

And then we met the Ravagers.

Holy shit.

I don’t know how to describe them without screaming.

Imagine if Mad Max had a goat with a bottle of LSD and a chainsaw. Now imagine that goat is wearing a bikini made of car parts and blood, and it's coming to eat your intestines. That’s a Ravager.

They showed up just as we were trying to talk to a Frolicker group near a collapsed playground. The Frolickers were humming and stacking old soda cans into a little tower, and one of them pointed us toward what we think might be Vault 99. It was… almost peaceful.

Then the Ravagers came out of nowhere.

They burst out of the rubble like exploding meatbags—covered in spikes, bones, chains, and engine grease. One of them had a tire strapped to her back. Another was dragging a rake turned into a spiked flail. They howled like animals, all manic glee and horrible makeup.

The Frolickers didn’t run. That was the worst part.

They just froze. Like prey.

And the Ravagers? They tore into them. No hesitation. No warning.

One poor Frolicker was yanked off the ground, ripped apart like pulled pork. They didn’t even kill him cleanly. They dragged him around, laughing, biting, chewing, then impaled him on a piece of rebar like it was an art project. And then, I swear to everything holy, they lit a fire and started roasting what was left.

They danced around it. Danced. Cheered. Sang. One of them was wearing a skull like a hat and shaking a bottle of something flammable like a party streamer.

I threw up inside my helmet. Yeah. Real professional.

We ducked behind a wrecked van, holding our breath while Tali whispered something about flanking if they got close. But they didn’t notice us. They were too busy playing zombie Iron Chef with Frolicker meat.

And that’s when we realized something horrible.

The infected aren’t just one type. There’s a split.

Frolickers = the passive, prey-like infected. They’re kind of sweet, in a broken, haunted way. They’re drawn to shiny stuff. They seem to remember things—like towns, buildings, maybe even people. One tried to show me a picture. Of a dog girl, i think its her ex, I cried. A little.

Ravagers = predators. Murder clowns. The end result of the same infection, but twisted by aggression and insanity. They hunt Frolickers. They eat them. Even though they’re all technically herbivores. We don’t know how. Or why. But the infection? It doesn’t care about biology. It just wants chaos.

And now we’re stuck between the two. One side might help us. The other will turn us into flaming jerky without blinking.

We waited for hours before the Ravagers moved on, dragging bones and metal scraps behind them like kids after a shopping spree. When the coast was clear, we checked on what was left.

There was one Frolicker still alive. Barely.

She looked like a goat, pale and bloodied, with half her face torn off. But she was breathing. Barely. She reached for us. I hesitated. Tali tried to stop me, but I went to her.

She gasped something. It sounded like "river" and "north." She pointed. Then she died in my arms.

I don’t know what the hell is up north, but that’s our new direction. If she was trying to help us, we owe her that much.

So here we are, marching north through scorched ruins, avoiding Ravager hunting packs and looking for Vault 96 or 99 or literally anyone who hasn’t turned cannibal yet.

Our supplies are holding. Barely. We’ve traded a few gold coins with some Frolickers in exchange for old batteries and maps scratched into pavement with bottle caps. One Frolicker even led us to a small pond—probably a busted water treatment plant. We dropped the purification brick in it, and miracle of miracles, it worked. Crystal-clear water. First drink I’ve had that didn’t taste like plastic and metal.

So we set up camp there. Tonight, the stars are out. I can see them through the crack in my tent. They’re sharp and cold and distant. Just like this world.

Tali is cleaning her knives again. She hasn’t spoken since the Frolicker girl died. Anora is scribbling notes into her journal, the one she keeps hidden from the Sarge. I think she’s trying to figure out the infection. Or map out the Frolicker territories. Or just trying to understand.

And me? I’m writing this. Because someone has to. Because I need to get this out before it eats me alive like those Ravagers ate that poor goat girl.

I don’t know if we’ll make it to the next vault. I don’t even know if there is a next vault. But I know one thing for sure:

The world ended. And then it got weird.

And now? Now it’s ours to survive. One muddy step at a time.

Wish me luck, diary.

– Eurydice
End of Entry

P.S. If I die out here, someone better read this. I swear to god, if I get impaled on a garden rake and no one remembers my witty sas, I will haunt every one of you.

Chapter Text

Diary of Eurydice – Entry #38: “Rotten Fruit, Shiny Coins, and One Seriously Creepy Trash Queen”

After burying the poor Frolicker girl under a heap of rubble (no one said we were sentimental, just not complete monsters), we packed up and continued in the direction she pointed. We had no idea what we were heading into—could be a vault, could be a meat grinder—but she died to give us that tip, so, guilt-tripping ourselves into following it seemed like the morally correct trauma response.

So here we are again. Still alive, somehow. Still heading north. Still wondering what kind of karma debt I must've racked up in a past life to be spending this life stepping over desiccated corpses and trying to make small talk with diseased cannibal deer in the ruins of civilization. Neat.

Anyway. After marching under the searing sun and tripping over way too many half-buried femurs, we stumbled across something… promising. And by promising, I mean it only stank like a landfill, instead of an actual open grave. That’s a step up in this economy.

It was a grocery store. Or what was left of one.

The top half was basically melted—like someone took a blowtorch to it and said “Good enough.” The sign out front was a melted plastic blob that probably used to say "Sunnyfresh" or "Meat-Mart" or something, but now looked like it was spelling out "SUFFER." Honestly fitting.

The roof had collapsed in several places, leaving huge holes where the sun poured in like God himself was trying to spotlight just how sad this place was. The upper windows were blown out, and the paint on the walls had peeled back like burnt skin. Whatever color this place used to be, it had now become a palette of dust, mildew, and dried bloodstains.

But the lower levels?

Intact.

Fortified.

Smelled like hot garbage and trauma, but power was still running. We heard it: a low hum, pulsing through the silence like a heartbeat from hell. Something was alive in there. Maybe not a person, but something. Something with a working generator.

Naturally, we decided to break in.

Because of course we did.

I signaled the others to hang back—Anora by a rusted-out minivan, Tali crouched behind what I’m pretty sure was a fridge full of fossilized rats—and crept closer with my rifle up. The front doors were barricaded like someone had tried to survive very hard: metal shelving welded together with scrap, old shopping carts turned into a murder maze, wood planks nailed at insane angles like whoever built it didn’t believe in straight lines. It looked like someone had rage-quit architecture and decided “apocalyptic Jenga tower” was a good substitute for doors.

I found a jagged hole in the side of the barricade and peeked in. It was dark—too dark—but sunlight bled through the shattered ceiling in dusty rays that revealed the rot and decay inside. The shelves were stripped bare, but scattered everywhere were—get this—sculptures.

Of antelope girls.

Like, dozens of them. Made entirely from junk: soda cans, plastic tubing, chicken wire, broken fans, and bike parts. But somehow, they were…beautiful? Not in a "this belongs in a gallery" kind of way. More like "this belongs in the corner of my room watching me sleep while sharpening a fork." Still, the shapes were surprisingly elegant—wide hips, graceful limbs, proud horns. I tried not to stare at one that looked particularly stacked.

Their poses? Coy. Flirty. One was even bending over a display of canned peaches like she was trying to seduce the ghosts. I couldn’t stop staring. I tried. Honest.

I wanted to be disgusted. I wanted to make fun of it. But part of me—traitorous little part—was like, damn, these curves are mathematically flawless.

Listen, I’m a sheep, okay? It's hardwired into my genes to get distracted by a nice rack.

Anyway. I stepped inside, my boots crunching over shattered glass and crusty lettuce. The smell hit me like a bus. A combination of dead fruit, stagnant air, mildew, and something sweetly metallic—like someone was slow-cooking pennies and death.

That humming noise pulled me deeper into the store.

I followed it past toppled freezer aisles, past overturned carts with ancient diaper boxes inside, past a wall covered in handprints made from what I really hope was tomato paste. At the back of the store was a door marked “Employees Only” with another sign duct-taped below that said “Authorized Personnel Only – No Sheep.”

Cool. Love that.

I opened the door.

The noise intensified—an engine struggling not to die in a room that smelled like an old wound. In the far corner, flickering under a rigged ceiling light, was a beat-to-hell generator. It chugged and sputtered like a dying old man on a respirator, but it was alive. Barely.

That’s when I saw her.

A woman.

Hunched over a workbench.

She didn’t move at first, and for a second I thought maybe she was dead. Then she turned, twitchy and robotic, and holy mother of static cling—she was infected.

A Frolicker.

Antelope-shaped, like Tali. Her fur was patchy, and her limbs too thin, too tense. Her eyes locked on mine—big, glassy, wrong—and a gurgling hiss left her throat. She stepped forward, hands twitching like she didn’t know what they were anymore.

I almost shot her.

Sweat poured down my back, and I could feel my heartbeat in my teeth. She wasn’t charging. Not yet. Just… watching.

I whispered, "Hello. I mean you no harm. Do you need any help?"

Her answer? A growl.

Awesome.

I should’ve called Anora. Should’ve backed up. But then Tali, in a move I can only describe as "brilliantly suicidal," stepped into the room, ripped off her helmet, and walked right past me.

"She’s an antelope," she said, "maybe I can talk to her."

Tali approached slowly, calm and poised like she wasn’t staring into the eyes of a creature that had probably eaten someone last week.

She smiled, opened her satchel, and began her pitch like a goddamn post-apocalyptic girlboss.

“We’re from Vault 97. We carry fast-growing food crop seeds. If you’re willing to cooperate, we can share.”

The Frolicker blinked slowly.

“There’s clean water nearby,” Tali continued, “we purified a ditch a couple houses back. Looks gross, but it's safe. We’ve got genetically modified herbs, starter kits for crops, and some vault-made fertilizer packets that don’t explode—usually.”

She pulled out a bag of shiny coins—actual gold and silver from Vault 97’s trade vault—and held them out like a shiny lure for a very scary raccoon.

“Your position here is defensible. Structurally sound. And with the generator, it can be a perfect waystation for future expeditions. If you let us use it, we can supply you with better weapons—vault-sidearms, not junk machetes.”

She gestured at the trash sculptures.

“Also,” she added, “you could use the rotting food and empty shelves to grow things. Cans for planters, busted produce for compost. This could work.”

I stared at her, stunned. Not just because Tali somehow managed to not piss herself in the presence of a twitchy zombie woman with a vendetta against sheep, but because she sounded like… a diplomat.

A sexy, tactical, seed-wielding diplomat.

The Frolicker stared at her. Then looked at me. Then growled again.

But softer this time.

She tilted her head, blinking like she’d just woken up from a bad dream. She didn’t say anything. But she backed up. Sat down on a milk crate. Let us stay.

Anora joined us later and secured the entrances while I wandered into what used to be the store’s office and found a stash of dried beans and a mummified mouse in a manager’s chair. Cozy.

We spent the night here. For the first time in days, I slept on something that wasn’t dirt. The generator kept purring, and the lights stayed on. The Frolicker didn’t kill us in our sleep.

She didn’t talk either. But she sat near Tali all night, just watching her. Staring.

I don’t think she liked me. Something about being a sheep rubs infected antelope the wrong way. Might have something to do with history or instinct or maybe I just have one of those "punchable" faces.

Tali thinks we can make this place work. Turn it into an outpost. A real trade stop. Maybe even a tiny farm.

She named the Frolicker “tincan.” Because why the hell not.

So now I’m journaling in the manager’s office, surrounded by broken cameras, old shopping lists, and the smell of moldy spaghetti sauce. The others are checking supply caches, and I’m trying not to cry from sheer exhaustion.

This world is still terrifying. The Ravagers are out there—somewhere. Waiting. But today, we built something.

Not much.

But something.

And it didn’t involve dismemberment.

Progress.

– Eurydice
End of Entry

P.S. If tincan ends up snapping and stabbing us in our sleep, I just want it on the record that I was right to be scared of her. Also, Tali is way too good at negotiating with plague monsters.

Chapter Text

Diary of Eurydice – Entry #39: “Ravagers, Rust Buckets, and Oh Shit Moments”

P.S. If Tin Can ends up snapping and stabbing us in our sleep, I just want it on the record that I was right to be scared of her. Also, Tali is way too good at negotiating with plague monsters. Starting to think she’s the real boss out here.

Woke up this morning.

Wasn’t stabbed.

Wasn’t eaten.

Didn’t get throat-hissed to death by a trash-art-making plague deer.

So yeah, today’s off to a phenomenal start by post-apocalyptic standards.

Tin Can—yes, I’m calling her that because of the way she clanks when she walks and the fact she literally smells like aluminum and mildew—was curled up in a nest of rags and wires. Still breathing. Still twitchy. Still 100% giving me the heebie-jeebies. But she didn’t murder us in our sleep, and in this world, that’s basically the same as a love letter and a box of chocolates.

We packed up quick. Tali left behind some seeds and a scratched-up tablet loaded with farming instructions. Honestly, I think she pities Tin Can. Probably sees her as some kind of tragic leftover. Which is cute, I guess. Delusional, but cute.

I left her a note:

"Thanks for not eating us. Hope you enjoy the squash seeds. Please don’t make another sculpture of me. The last one had weird boobs. –E."

Anora made sure the perimeter was clean.

We packed our crap. Left her a few more of the seed packets, some ammo for the side arm, a bag of powdered stew mix, and a Vault 97 sticker—because even in the end of the world, you gotta leave your brand. Tali wrote “Be safe” on it like she wasn’t leaving behind a potential sociopathic art goblin with cannibal tendencies.

Then we left.

Back to the road. Northward. Always northward.

More ash. More collapsed buildings. More long-dead animals curled up in places they thought were safe. More nothing.

Until it wasn’t nothing anymore.

Until we saw the vault door.

It was tucked into the side of a cliff. Like someone had punched a perfect, metallic coin slot into a rock face the size of a parking garage. There it was: the iconic gear-shaped steel monster, rust-streaked and dented, half-covered in vines and soot.

But that wasn’t what stopped our hearts.

It was the ravagers.

They were all around it.

Dozens. Maybe more.

Some clustered near old military trucks that were half-melted into the pavement. Others were climbing up scaffolding, hammering at the vault door with road-digging equipment. Sledgehammers, drills, industrial saws, makeshift battering rams. The door had taken a beating—dented like a soda can at the hands of an angry god. But it was still closed. Still holding.

Barely.

Tali and I hit the dirt fast, crawling up behind a dead log and peeking out through the brush. Anora scouted to the side, climbing a tree like it owed her rent.

The trucks had faded white lettering on them:
PINDAR CITADEL COMPLEX.
Big, serious, all-caps typeface. Military vibes.

The thing is… Pindar? That’s not Vault-Tec. That’s British government stuff. Pre-war elite bunkers. Ultra-secret, deep-sublevel shelters that weren’t part of the big smiling Vault-Tec cartoon campaign. The ones that were only for generals, top scientists, cabinet members, and war planners.

Which begged the question:

What the actual hell were they doing here?

And why did they look like that?

They weren’t like the frolickers. Not twitchy and loose-limbed and murmuring nursery rhymes to invisible birds. These guys were armored up. Wearing shredded remnants of military uniforms and tech gear—some of it rusted, some of it jury-rigged. Helmets with wires dangling out. Boots that had been melted onto their legs. And weapons. Big ones. Rifles that were still oiled. Grenade launchers. A rail-drill the size of a car door.

But the way they moved?

Not right.

Too synced.

Too… animal.

I watched one of them sniff the air like a hunting dog, yellow-tinted eyes flicking side to side like a machine scanning for prey. The pupils were off—slit-like, glowing faintly in the shadows beneath their helmets. Their heads jerked like birds, but their bodies moved like wolves.

And then there was the cage.

It hung from a scaffolding rig just to the right of the vault door. Three bodies. Not moving.

No—wait. One of them was moving. Weakly. A twitch in the leg. A shudder in the ribs.

Scouts.

Vault scouts.

Tattered uniforms. Vault 96 patches still visible—torn, bloodied, but there. Not ours. A neighboring vault. Another outpost sent to check out surface conditions. Probably left around the same time as us.

Now they were hanging upside-down like meat in a butcher’s window, guarded by two nightmare hulks in scavenged power armor. Old T-51 frames, repainted with black tar and chalk symbols I didn’t recognize. Looked like something a drunk caveman would carve into a bathroom stall. These guys weren’t just guarding the door.

They were claiming it.

Tali mouthed “shit” and I nodded. Quietest agreement we’ve ever had.

We watched them for a while. Long enough to realize they weren’t just a random raider gang that got lucky with some ex-military gear. These guys knew what they were doing. Positions were tight. Equipment was kept up. Perimeter shifts were regular. This was organized.

Just corrupted.

Weirdly… organized.

The realization hit like a punch to the gut: What if their bunker got infected? What if the virus, or whatever the hell turned people into frolickers and ravagers, somehow made it into the Pindar complex? What if the elite military force designed to reclaim the surface—when the time came—had already fallen?

But not the way we expected.

They weren’t gibbering freaks. Not like Tin Can.

They were disciplined freaks.

Which is arguably worse.

One of them barked something in a guttural, clipped language—half-coded, half-beast. Another responded by slamming his hammer into the vault door like it owed him a pay raise. The metal rang. Echoed like a funeral bell.

Anora slid back down the tree and whispered, “We’re outside our operating range. These guys have armor. Heavy weapons. They’ve been here a while. And they’re not frolickers. Not fully.”

“No,” Tali said, staring through her scope. “They’re something else.”

I kept my rifle tight to my chest, not that it would’ve done much good against a guy in power armor with blood rage and a mining drill.

We had a choice.

A very stupid choice.

Try to save the Vault 96 scouts and probably get turned into interior decorations?

Or fall back. Regroup. Maybe live long enough to do something smart.

Guess what we picked.

We retreated.

Fast.

Back into the underbrush, skirting the tree line, taking the long way around to avoid their patrol routes. We didn’t talk until we were miles away, breathing hard and soaking wet from crossing some foul-smelling creek that probably had more STDs than water molecules.

Eventually, we found a place to rest—under an overturned bus full of stuffed animals. Which sounds cute until you realize most of them were melted to the seats and a few still had human teeth stuck in them.

So yeah.

We’re gonna head back.

Vault 97 needs to know about this.

We’ve officially identified a new threat.

Not just random plague carriers or lone scavvers gone wild.

Not just broken people.

But broken soldiers.

Organized. Tactical. Hostile. Maybe still smart enough to follow orders—just not the kind of orders we’d want them to.

And they’re trying to crack open that vault like a can of soup.

god knows what’s inside. Civilians? Scientists? Families?

Or maybe just another wave of people not prepared for what’s out here.

Either way, this is above our clearance level.

We’re gonna need heavier weapons. Plasma, maybe. Something more serious than Tali’s vaultsidearm and my increasingly sarcastic diary entries. And we need permission to act. Or at least a team with more bullets than feelings.

End of entry.
I need a nap and maybe a therapist.

—Eurydice

P.S. If Vault 97 doesn’t believe us, I’m shoving Anora’s helmet cam footage so far up the Overseer’s—

(Pen trails off here. Might’ve fallen asleep mid-threat.)

P.S.S If we go back there, I’m not wearing blue again. Vault suits make you a target. I’m sewing myself a poncho out of scrap metal and nihilism.

(This one is from last night, but it didn't happen.)
P.S. If anyone finds this diary after I’m dead: yes, I told you so. Again. Also tell Tali to stop adopting weird infected girls. And give Anora back her flask. I did not drink the last of it. Probably.

P.S.S. Tali’s gonna get us all killed.

Chapter Text

Diary of Eurydice – Entry #40: “Vault Sweet Vault (and Passive Aggressive Species Drama)”

If anyone ever tells you “it’s about the journey, not the destination,” I’d like to personally slap them across the face with my muddy, blistered boot and then shove them into a week-long hike through the scorched, corpse-littered husks of old gas stations just to prove a point.

Because sometimes? It’s definitely about the damn destination.

And today, for once, that destination was home.

We’d been walking for hours. Or maybe days. Time gets weird when your legs ache and every building looks like a melted cake someone sat on. The ruins blur together after a while—burnt husks of office buildings, skeletal fast food joints with the signs half-blown off (still said “Taco Be—”, which was honestly just sad), and the occasional pre-war billboard screaming at you to “Buy War Bonds, Be a Hero!” while a family of charred mannequins posed underneath it like they were still waiting for the bus.

Classic apocalypse vibes.

Every now and then we saw signs of movement—shadows flicking behind broken glass, something sniffing around a crumpled vending machine. But nothing brave (or stupid) enough to approach us. Maybe we looked tough. Maybe Tali’s “I don’t care if you’re my cousin, I will shoot you” face was finally paying off.

Or maybe they could smell the Vault on us.

Clean-ish clothes. Proper boots. Guns that still fired. Some of the surface scavs probably thought we were the boogeymen. “Vaulties coming up to take your bullets and your secrets.”

Not that they’re wrong. I’d take a bullet and a secret if I thought it’d make me less tired.

But eventually—finally—we saw it.

Vault 97.

Our giant steel pancake of salvation. Dug into the base of an old granite ridge, half-concealed by broken terrain and shrub-covered bunkers. The big door was closed when we arrived, which, okay, fair. Last thing we need is another plague-mutated ex-military hammer squad trying to wander in.

We stepped onto the pressure plate. It hissed. Beeped. Buzzed.

And then that beautiful groan of steel and gears grinding into motion.

The vault door unsealed with a gasp of air that smelled like stale coffee and detergent. A warm, slightly musty scent that I’m pretty sure is now permanently tattooed on my soul as “safe.”

Tali and Anora let out matching groans of relief as the door rolled aside, revealing the welcoming glow of Vault lighting and the shapes of our friends waiting for us just inside the threshold.

“Hey, they’re back!”

“Holy crap, they made it!”

“Where’s the third body? You always come back with a third body!”

“I told you they weren’t dead!”

“Oh my God, they don’t look dead!”

Vaults make you weird. Instead of running up and hugging you, everyone just kind of shouted from a safe distance and then slowly wandered over with cautious optimism, like we were haunted dolls instead of tired-ass girls with mud in our boots and radiation in our bones.

Security let us through without incident, although one of the sheep boys did eyeball Anora’s blood-smeared shoulder a little too long until she growled at him and he vanished like a magician’s assistant in a box.

The Overseer’s assistant handed us water bottles, radiation de-scrubbers, and fresh vault ponchos that smelled like bleach and policy compliance. We got patted down for spores. Then we got waved through.

And just like that, we were home.

We went straight to debrief.

Which is just a nice way of saying “sit in a windowless office while five over-caffeinated bureaucrats ask if the giant plague army of hammer freaks is technically a ‘threat’ or just a misunderstood cultural militia.”

Tali did most of the talking, because of course she did. She lives for this stuff. Diplomacy, field reports, being taken seriously.

Anora mostly leaned on a filing cabinet, arms crossed, probably imagining herself punching every clipboard in the room.

I sat in the corner, picking radioactive lint off my hoodie and mentally composing a breakup letter to my legs.

Eventually, they said we could go.

"Good work out there," said one of the deer in a lab coat who hadn’t even looked up from his screen the entire time. "You’re all cleared for resupply, rest, and standard cooldown period."

Thanks, Mr. Emotionless Clipboard Man.

Now here’s where it gets real:
Vault 97 finally gave us our own rooms.

Well, not just because we’re cool. They recently started separating the sheep and deer into different housing halls, probably to cut down on the tension (read: passive-aggressive communal showers and “accidental” shampoo sabotage).

So now we each have our own little metal shoebox with a door that locks and everything.

It’s not much, but it’s mine.

Room 4B — Eurydice the Doomed, Scared Emo Girl Edition

My room has a bed, a shelf, a desk, and a closet I immediately named The Closet of Emotional Denial.
I decorated the walls with torn magazine pages and hand-drawn posters of pre-war bands that probably only existed in local ad flyers. One of them’s called “Velvet Banquet” and I’m pretending they were huge in their time.

I lit my weird little aromatherapy lamp (thanks Tali) and plugged in my bootleg vault-record player. Music’s the only thing keeping me from melting into the floor.

Also, I hung up my coat like a real person. That counts as maturity, right?

I spent the first hour organizing my ammo and ration wrappers, then started sewing up the tears in my hoodie. Which I am never replacing, by the way. It’s got way too much tragic survival energy now. Like, if this hoodie could talk? It’d just sigh dramatically and stare out a rainy window.

Room 3C — Tali’s Kingdom of Control Freakness

Tali unpacked with military precision. First the weapons. Then the gear. Then her personal hygiene kits, organized by expiration date. She even scrubbed her boots before touching her mattress. Who does that?

Her shelves are lined with vault-approved educational materials, and her datapad is already charging in its little cradle like it’s her child. I’m pretty sure she’s got her Vault merit badges pressed under glass.

She has two posters: one of the Vault-Tec logo and another of some pre-war constitutional quote about strength through unity.

Her pillow is fluffed. Her sheets are tucked. Her knife is polished and placed next to her toothpaste.

Honestly, she’s terrifying. But in a competent way.

Room 5A — Anora’s Den of Antlered Alienation

Anora, our resident antelope badass, isn’t adjusting as well.

Her room’s dark, curtains drawn (yes, she installed curtains somehow), and she’s already torn down the deer-provided wall calendar and replaced it with a sheet of metal with tally marks carved into it.

She hasn’t said much since we got back. Just grunted, unpacked her axes, and curled up with a worn-out graphic novel about post-apocalyptic biker gangs.

She doesn’t talk to the other girls in the hall. Deer or sheep.

And they don’t talk to her either.

I see it happen—those looks. The silence when she walks past. The way conversations pause just long enough to be awkward when she opens her door. The sheep girls clutching their towels a little tighter in the hallway. The deer girls pretending she’s not there.

She doesn’t care. Or pretends not to.

But I see it.

She’s not like the rest of them.

Tali doesn’t notice. She’s too busy being professional.

But I do.

Dinner was weird.

The cafeteria was buzzing with post-mission energy. Deer girls talking about ration swaps, sheep girls gossiping about someone’s closet sex tape getting found (again), and a couple of the techs betting on which of us would cry first in the shower.

I took my tray and sat with Tali, who was reading field reports between bites of synthetic pasta.

Anora sat alone. As always.

I thought about joining her, but she was busy stabbing her green cube of protein mash with a spork like it was an insult.

Later that night, I heard footsteps.

Someone pacing. Someone crying. Someone laughing way too quietly for comfort.

Anyway, I'm gonna crash. My boots are still wet. My fingers are sore. And there’s a bloodstain on my desk that I don’t remember putting there.

But hey—

Another day made it back okay.

And for now?

That’s fine, but i want more out of life.

—Eurydice 🖤

P.S. If I catch another deer girl calling Anora “desert rat” under her breath, I’m gonna accidentally spill beet stew on her bed. No regrets.