Badlands

The deaf dog barks to arouse it peers - Tilom [Scholar of Ukbub Post]

“Promise, I won’t touch non if ya give me your goodies,” declared the unattractive raggedly dressed vagabond raising his hand in a pledge. Innocence lodged on his scared face drawing trust the way they slid out his tongue. Behind him, a group in attendance with untidiness and ill-sorted outfit snickered at the man’s virtuous claim.

The covenant? Before him were six individuals, four men, and limited women who wore a frightening expression. They were foragers, a group that travels the waste in search of ruins of the old world to scavenge for materials. They made their living through trading these materials for necessary items to accommodate whatever is missing in another. Usually, they move in groups never settling in one location and are historically known to be at the forefront of civilization, both old and new.

This particular group had just successfully dug up a good haul and had been celebrating and cheering their ascendant when they encountered these men. They cursed their mouth when they understood their current peril, the forager’s leader step forward, an aged man he was

“Fuck off. You think we would believe your sultry lie you little shit? Non ya get’in shit,” this was someone who had scale the badlands far too long to inveigle for such an underhanded tactic.

Behind the scared man, his hoodlum followers burst into laughter, knocking their heads and feet in an uproar. “Shut the fuck up!” He barked. Turning to the foragers, “Fuck! Old man, I was being nice an’ em, and you embarrassed me in front of my mates? Now you have to give us those women,” licking his lips lasciviously, he pointed to the two freighted women who shrieked in fear and disgust.

Clearly, this was his aim from the beginning. Sex was a primitive and sparse activity in the waste. Particularly to vagabonds, who scored low on the food chain and never knew a base of operation and accommodation.

Struggling and digging through rubbles in search of a meal that wasn't frequent was their daily routine. In contrast, most badlanders could hunt a beast or two for a feast, vagabond struggle against even the smallest of prey. How can such a person find women? These people are usually used as meatshie—Ahem mercenaries who labor for a pretty penny in an excavation of ruins on behalf of foragers.

Resolute and steadfast should be the old man’s epithet for he remained equable even in the face of such a large disparity in numbers “As I said, you ain’t getting shit,” his reply drawing a wave of complaints from his little group.

“Please just let them have it.”

“Are you try’an have us all killed?”

“I don’t want to die, please just give it to em”

Fear was evident in the group's voice. What the fuck was the old man trying to prove? If he doesn’t give them what they want, they will be killed, and the women would be raped until they are no more than sleeves for pleasure.

Fury took the vagabond’s leader’s face “I’m done being nice. Kill them! And leave the women to me. I want to have a taste first” roaring in jubilant, his lackeys pressed forth licking the nose of their machete wildly in blatant provocation and promise of violence. The foragers pleaded in fear, but that only invigorate the men of the violence to come.

When they got closer and prepared to chop the group down, everything suddenly took a turn. The mask of fear on the forager’s face suddenly transformed into a cruel smile. Simultaneously, they pulled out guns from somewhere, pointing it at the vagabonds who weren’t expecting such a turn.

“Fuck! We got played. Split!” The vagabond leader roared, but it was too late.

Bang! Bang! Bullet dispersed wildly into the group, ripping off their meat to exit on the other side.

“You can’t outrun a bullet, you fucking cunt. You thought I was easy? Huh? And you wanted to fuck me with this shrimp, Huh!? Huh!?” One of the women roared angrily, repeatedly stepping on the breathing vagabond leader’s penis till the poor bastard eggs pop.

“Ah! You fucking bitch, I will— “

-Bang!

“Peh! Pack em up, the butcher would grind em nicely for a feast. Let’s go” packing their sacks of trophies, they loaded the remains of the vagabonds and continued their journey leaving reeks of carnage and blood painting the land unholy.

This was the badlands—a land barren of nature for rain was a foreigner. Where ruins, desolation, savagery, and cruelty prevailed over any other action. It deemed negative emotion worthy, for if one showed otherwise, it raises ammunition to be used against.

A land encompassing ninety-five percent desert and ruin with the remaining five percent unexplored, where the residue of prosperity was naught for dilapidated walls, worthless rubbles of buildings and scarps of corpse awaiting the wash of the badland’s sand of time.

Which was why when a mountain abundant in lushes and forestation rose from literally nothing in the badlands, many rushed to expedite its riches only to be discouraged by the weird formation that prevents entry. Many questioned the illogical beauty with the arousal of the unimaginable riches it endowed. They yearned for the land with silvery saliva edged by their lips, how such a thing could exist? They would camp the borders awaiting change, which never occurred. Crestfallen, they left with heads tucked to their stomach. Another group would come, and the same script followed.

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Eventually, the badlanders conceded, they couldn’t continue wasting their days awaiting the barrier to wither. Tomorrow was an extravagant concept in these lands, so why not consume it scaling for ruins? Or other treasures and resources in demand and abundant if one only took the time to look. Yet the visage of that mountain never left their thoughts, and they would tell tales of it to other badlanders on their journey. Though they are selfish and savage pricks—the barrier foiled trespassers anyways so they wouldn’t be able to take shit, was their thought.

However, looking over on the mountain now, a blaze uproots all of nature, kicking clouds of dust and an ashen-orange sky that seems intent on devouring all things. Shock acquired the onlooker’s faces as their pedestaled infatuation crumbled before them. Fire glazed on all paths killing trees kicking up sands that resounded with crisp roaring.

Astonishment closer to an electrical current bonded into their dumbfounded expression, a badlander struck by the cooking sand noise aroused himself first. Precariousness in his gait, he proceeded towards the barrier's border as he raised his hand, searching. “It, it's gone?”

Uncertainty edged in his tone. He inched forward

“The blockage is gone!” his roar stirred the stupefied crowd, they followed his example, trying their hand in the same curiosity,

“...It’s really gone.”

“Fuck me! The bar is really gone!”

“That means we can enter now!”

They all turn to each other, guarded with the same membrane of competition and declaration—Chop em! Kill em! Whatever exists on this island is fucking mine! The flames were thick and emanated danger but weren’t persuasive enough to induce caution, yet despite their enthusiastic thoughts, they remained unmoved in anticipation of the deaf dog.

If one questioned a badlander of the deaf dog, they would respond with ‘The hungriest motherfucker to eat shit’ Of course, they are all hungry for exploration and wealth the mountain wields however, one them was a bastard who succumbs to the greed and introduces the prelude of their advent. After all, these were people in a constant cradle with death but adhered closely to survival. They were savages, not idiots.

“Fucking pussies” saying so, a man rushed headlong towards the tongues. Adrenaline boosting his movement, yet as he dove past the preexisting barrier, a tide of heat suddenly came upon him hotter than balls in the heat. His cheeks flapped according to the will of the stream triggering aerosol steam that rose from his body like a burst boiler. It licked his face reducing his skin into discoloration of red as sizzling blisters appeared on his exposed flesh.

Several layers of skin began to peel off. Hair, eyebrows, and lashes evaporated into nothing, sculpting their faces into a clean sheen of bright crimson bald reflecting keener than a mirror within the sun. He was burning!

Panic gripped him, shuffling, in an attempt to exit the hazard, unfortunately, he was too late. Like a firefly, the flames stuck close to his tail, readily embracing him. He screamed mindlessly, rushing forward with a burning skull, crashing into a burning tree that added more spice to his agony. The poor bastard tumbled to the floor, rolling about in hopes of dissuading the flames; however, they stuck close to him like glue.

From the badlander’s position, he mimicked a torch swaying at the core of a storm. Dread crept up their spines like a trail of spider' silk, and they hastily retreated further back in freight and horror as they watched the pioneer’s shivered corpse break down like twig then nothing before the wind swept it away.

This is a deaf dog.

“Fucking idiot.”

In conjunction, they decided to await the cooling period. No one put forward a demurrer. At the edge, they stood, tense and in clear observation of one another waiting for the flames to cool off.

=-=-=-=-=-=

Meanwhile, Art found himself in a familiar place.

A place out of time, with no light, no matter, nor energy. All that is retained was darkness like a grand drape of the theatre, a place swallowed by blackness with no perception of dept. A place his father called [Astral Plane]

In here, he was but a hazel dim ball of light the size of bocce floating in the void. He’d been told this was his soul an incomplete one, yet his was naturally brighter than others for some don’t glow at all. His father had told him that when the time comes, stars would penetrate the darkness revealing all things within.

Currently, it was lonely, quiet, and isolated, but Lyor knew this was not true, he knew of the iniquitous dwellers, those residing in the darkness with tongues of promise like the world before dawn, beyond the sight yet looming on the horizon in waiting. They whispered seductive allure of their capability, but his father had told him of the fallacy in their words. They were nothing but darkness formed from some primeval hatred, and the collective despair tainting the emptiness with their murky inveigles. They are supernatural, inexistent yet somehow, they knew of all things.

Here they come again, worming their way into the black matter of his brain, “I can bring them back, just come closer.”

“If you want to see them again, come to me.”

“You seek revenge, don’t you?”

Intimacy with the consequences of their offer dwells within Art, yet he couldn’t help but be drawn to their sweltry charms. His heart blistered with the darkness they offered.

Hatred, vengeance and though his father had warned him never to heed their calls or that resonating with his heart, but after everything, he really wanted to know. Can they bring them back? Would they assist his vengeance? Art quibbled. “Can you bring them back?”

Kikikike. Collectively, croaked laughter pierced the darkness, it sounded like an old door in constant grind with the walls, “Yes…yess.yesss come closer boy. I will help you.”

“It’s here, come here.”

“Kikikki you can own it, come to me.”

Excitedly they responded to his wishes, slithering temptation into his ears with persuasive claims. Captivated by vengeance, the ball that was Art inch closer towards the void, his mind in a trance by their claims, his thoughts clouded by one aim, to find that bastard, and kill him regardless of what form or construct it contained. As he drew closer, his luminance begins to wane, drowning with their humane laughter.

Thump! But right then, a strange, subtle feeling prod towards his consciousness, Art’s soul stuttered from the propagandize. Reflexively, he heeded the direction however, like before, nothing can be perceived within the gloom.

Art’s soul resigned back. With the intervention of that feeling, the voices had resigned, but he cares not for all he wanted now was peace, a place to recharge, to sort out the craziness and what better place to achieve that than this stillness.

There, his soul resides drifting aimlessly, strayed in thoughts and feelings. The darkness stole his presence, and he was content with letting his soul plunge into the void unbridled. No other presence conformed him. Just a dim soul, existing, being, breathing, hoping that the dawn would bring the colors back to its fragile presence.