October, 2068, 13 years before end of humanity.

Mal dashed into their base, an abandoned security building like the kind at a toll booth, and slammed the door behind them. Shortly after, scratching could be heard from the outside. Sliding against the wall Mal checked out their goods from their latest loot run.

The run had been bountiful, with more rations, a first aid kit, skateboard knee pads which they equipped to protect themselves from charlie horses because "tony learns from their mistakes" and other knee injuries, a sewing kit, a fishing knife, and most importantly/unfortunately a gun.

Yes, a gun, Mal found a gun, a P147 Susbak .22 pocket guardian, a small hammerless .22 caliber pistol with a vented barrel that looks similar to a 1903 colt pocket hammerless. Mal had found this gun on the corpse of a dead guy who decided he wasn't going to deal with this shit, so he gave himself a new orifice in the head. The gun had seven rounds left in the mag, none in the chamber, and had found a new home on Mal’s belt.

But despite the good haul, Mal wasn't feeling too good. Actually, not feeling too good was an understatement, Mal had found some the medications they used to take before the happening in a pharmacy a couple months back, and ran out two days ago and now was going into withdrawal. It seems that Mal didn't know that taking medication at full dose out of the blue without weaning onto it is a very bad idea. So with these factors, instead of helping, Mal’s mental health got worse. Hence, the reason that Mal began to hyperventilate as their hands shook violently as that sat against the wall. Now they were currently having a mental breakdown.

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After a painful hour, the brunt of the breakdown had subsided, and now Mal only felt like shit as thoughts raced through their head. ‘Why don’t they think things through?’ They thought ‘what were they thinking, taking that medication?’ Fun fact, Mal was thinking about how a hotdog isn’t a sandwich because there’s only one bread, but that’s beside the point

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it was stupid, this was stupid, ‘why am I doing this?’

ok, breakdown over, time to go over their plans in their notebook.

fact: a gate must be broken, paths were mentioned

fact: they got a message that stated that they started on a path after they got blamed for the settlement dooming themselves.

theory: the path they started upon leads to the gate

theory: doing bad things makes them further the path.

theory: that admin guy is a loser important figure

hypothesis: if they further the path, then they would get another message.

hypothesis: if the admin guy leaves another message, then it could answer questions.

next steps: crime time

note: don’t get caught.

The plan seemed simple enough for them. ‘Now what is there to cause trouble?’ Mal thought to themself. After drawing a blank, Mal decided to just build preparations,

Mal plotted out the equipment, they needed a mask to hide their features and hair, something to cover their eyes, gloves, pouches for carrying stuff, some protection, new clothes, and an insignia to make people think they’re part of an organization instead of a solo act, people are a lot less likely to attack a group than a single person. Plus design points.

The next day they set out to Richard’s sports stuff, and bordermart super store to gather the supplies. After getting everything they needed, plus an additional gain of a flak jacket from a dead survivor.

Sewing the insignia onto the outfit, an angry cat patch from a coldfad store, they sat up, it was time.