Barrenlands: An Odyssey (Old Work)

Chapter One.

1

THE sky stretched towards land and eyes end, dotted with tufts of white cloud fluff and tinged with a hint of brown from the blown-around sand. The heat was a bitter heat, with little hint of liquid and moisture in the air. The whipping breeze nipped at the exposed corners of the wanderer's eyes, and the carried sand particles felt like coarse, gritty sandpaper against its dry, cracking skin. The Engineer paused in its tracks, its well-worn boots filled with small, annoying grains of the stuff. This had to be the first pause it had taken after so many days; days that had blurred to weeks and weeks to years. Time had started slow, but quickened as it progressed. Now the Engineer lost track.

It raised its sheathed, gloved hands but rather than taking the particle-filled shoes off, it reached up and removed the flimsy cloth piece that covered its face. Years of roaming the Barren Lands had meant that it grew well accustomed and well-rehearsed to these sorts of conditions. The skin had adapted to the harsh climates over time. It was thick; hide-like and rough. The material fell away from its face and flapped in the heaving gusts, exposing flaking, colourless lips. They were cracked and seized to bleed a long time ago. An attempt to lick them had failed. The wanderer's tongue was all dry; a shrivelled piece of meat kept inside an equally dry and parched throat. This was not unusual.

With its head and mind growing faint and its body thirsted of water, the Engineer grasped at the water container that dangled at its side. It was discerningly light and if weight was anything to go by, there may be two good swigs left, maybe three. It was barely enough to keep it steadily traversing across the vast landscape for maybe but a day. The wanderer grasped the metal lid of the container, and held the container to its lips. Gently, it titled so the water touched its dried out skin. Although warm, it was the most heavenly touch it had felt for a long period of time, and the wanderer treated it as a godsend from the heavenly  father itself. The liquid was a welcome reprieve to its aching body, if only temporary. Careful to not get carried away, the Engineer capped the flagon and dropped it back to its side, the strap lightly pressuring onto the pads of its shoulders.

The landscape was vast before it, and showed no signs of impending change. The fabled grass and trees that were spoken about by Elders had long come to pass, and plenty of civilisations had fallen and turned to bones; to ash and dust. Occasionally - once every two or three days, it guessed, by the movement of the sun - the wanderer would stumble upon crumbling ruins however, it didn't always guarantee replenishment of dwindling supplies. Most often than not, they were ghosts. And by no way were they of the glory of the past. Although almost a lie, signs of vegetation did remain and the Engineer was very quick to learn not to touch the skeleton of branches or leaves. They would disintegrate at first touch, and that could mean the destruction of the only remaining evidence of greenery having existed.

Scoping out its travel, the wanderer held a gloved hand to its eyebrows, shielding its eyes from the beating rays of the sun. Scanning the flat terrain, the Engineers attention was immediately caught on a deviation in the landscape; a deviation that wasn't as brutally flat as the land. There, in the faltering distance, was an outcrop of sorts. And being the only sign of a trickle of hope in the distance for supplies, the outcrop would have to be the next destination.

2

The shadow of the ruined building was cool, cooler than the beating rays of the sun. The Engineer took a step up onto a crumbling wall, and surveyed its new surroundings, quickly removing the cloth that covered its face and stifled its breathing. It must have been a larger outpost in its prime, a layover for travellers and labour workers. Several buildings formed part of the cluster, but the one that the wanderer now bathed in the shade of was the least destructed. The walls had a series of spider-like cracks running through the material, and the roof appeared to have holes from where rust had satisfied its hunger. The Engineer jumped from its perch and crouched within the empty door frame, its hand hovering near its waistline. Hearing nothing but the feedback of silence and the whistling, sing-song gusts outside, the wanderer took a step into the building, its hands never dropping from their positions.

It was a cavernous room, although the furniture had long since disintegrated into fine particles of dust and debris. The air was somewhat stale, the wind outside being held up by the surrounding walls. Coming to its senses, the Engineer could feel its nose prickle and flare outwards, the response of an assault on its senses. It could detect something - a stench - of the decaying sort. But what would the decaying be at an outpost like this?

Flanking with an air of caution and an alert spring in its feet like that of a cat, the Engineer shifted ever slightly into the room. There was something that seemed off; something that seemed not quite right to fit this setting. The room appeared empty, but was it really? It could feel eyes piercing into the back of its head, as if something was watching - waiting - in the shadows. The wanderer pivoted on its heel, catching a dark, massive blur shift in the corner of its eyes.

"Lurker. Make yourself known," the Engineer said. Its voice was raspy and defiant; the words of a hardened drifter. Much to its chagrin, the shadowed blur didn't reappear. There was a silent moment as the wanderer stood alone and at attention in the centre of the seemingly quite room. It didn't tremble, nor did it shake.

And that was when the blur passed the Engineer again, this time to the left and scaling along the wall near the roof joints. It appeared bigger, and boy did it move quickly. In the blink of an eye, the Engineer plunged its hands into the folded drapes of its clothes and withdrew a rectangular contraption of sorts. With a single finger, it pushed back a switch and the device immediately began to glow blue before dying away and becoming dark. Another flick of the switch, and the contraption began to glow blue once more, and hummed insolently in its gloved hand at full power. The Engineer lifted the machine in the direction where the shadow was last seen, a pop-up crosshair acting as an approximate guide.

Come forth ye maggot, the Engineer thought to itself, its arm at the ready. Almost in response, the wanderer felt something rush from behind, attempting to catch the wanderer off-guard. Instinctively, the Engineer darted to the side before turning on its heel and pulling the trigger of the device twice. Pulses of blue erupted at the end of the contraption, and the company fell into a crumpled heap at the Engineers boots. A plume of dust erupted in its wake, slowly settling on the body of the creature. The Engineer had drifted the land and encountered mutants enough times to compensate for the crooked sight of the weapon. With its heart pounding in its ears, the Engineer kicked the fallen monster with the utmost tip of its boot, a sickening fluorescent green substance staining its shoes. Its small, pig-like eyes were milky-pale in colour and its long, sabre-like teeth were rotted through and through. Its humanesque body was contorted into a closed fetal positon, the green-tinged colour quickly draining out of its pasty skin.

Dead.

Stepping over the mutated body with no by-thoughts and a quick prayer to the almighty father for saving its hide, the Engineer exited the ruins, deciding it be safer to follow the outside of the building where there were no blind and entrapping walls. Turning the final corner, the wanderer almost fell to its chapped-knees at the sight that had met its eyes. There stood another gift - another blessing unto itself. An old-style pump handle, the pipe intact and burrowed deep down into the land beneath. Did it pump water and was it safe, the Engineer didn't know. But it was a beacon of hope all the same and in this world, everything had a reason to exist.