Tempest: The Champion

Prologue: The Dead Zone

When they finish the carnage, they stay for a while longer to feast on the fallen enemies. The white pack, now covered in white and red, will survive today. The gray pack is now nothing but a pile of bloodied skeletons on the floor. The winners got their spoils.

Finally, the white leader commands its pack to leave. The group of rats disappears into the debris of a nearby building, leaving only dead bodies of the former gray pack. Some of the Castaways living in the Dead Zone collect these carcasses and eat the remaining meat and viscera, but I could never force myself into that.

With the fight over, my feeling of loneliness strikes me again. All around me are tall, concrete buildings in various stages of destruction. Some of them look like they've been abandoned just recently, but then, some of them are nothing but bones and debris.

There used to be a civilization here. Now we have only its remains - our life usually revolves around fighting for our own survival. The Dead Zone never forgives.

But it's the only home we have.

I keep surviving just because of some strange coincidence. No, who am I kidding, I'm only alive thanks to Isaiah. On my own, I wouldn't be able to make it to this day.

When I look through the rips in my dirty gray tank top, I can see my ribs clearly visible under the skin of my midriff. I'd even be able to count them. There are almost no muscles on my body since the food I receive is barely enough to keep me alive.

Maybe I would be much more helpful to Isaiah if I wasn't born like this. The reason why am I such a burden is sticking out of the shorts I'm wearing. My left leg is nothing but a stump that ends somewhere above the knee. The right leg is whole, but its knee isn't working well and the part under the joint is crooked and atrophied; that means almost useless.

I have to use a cane made of a metal pipe to be even able to walk, and even then, I'm too slow. Besides that, the atrophied leg gets tired easily - that means we have to rest way more often than Isaiah wants to. I have no idea why does he waste time with me while it would be easier for him to just leave me behind and continue on his own. But so far, he stays with me.

And I should be grateful for that since my whole life depends on it.

When Isaiah is gone for too long, I always start to fear. There are millions of things that can kill you in the Dead Zone and even someone as strong as Isaiah cannot fight off a violent enemy Tribe or a wandering mutated bear. I start to shake, wrapping myself into my threadbare black jacket.

It's always the same. Fear. Hunger. Despair.

But also hope.

Hope is the only thing that motivates me into fighting. Because as long as I'm alive, there is a chance for some better life. Life inside a friendly Tribe. Or life outside the Dead Zone.

And as long there is this hope, I'm gonna keep fighting.

Finally, I hear footsteps on the concrete. I look up and the shaking is gone. Isaiah returned.

It can't be said Isaiah is physically attractive in any way. But beauty means nothing here. He towers above me with his almost two-meter height, filling most of the backstreet with his broad shoulders and burly figure. Unlike me, he somehow manages to keep muscles on his bones, and that alone gives him an advantage over thin, malnourished Castaways, which is the majority of them.

His face is rough and unsightly, but his serious dark eyes became a beacon of hope for me. His head is almost perfectly round, only interrupted by a sharp curve of his chin. The nose is crooked, broken many time in numerous fist fights Isaiah has been into. Asymmetrical lips are probably a result of a slight mutation caused by The Radiance. But his most prominent feature is dark red pigment scars covering almost perfectly half of his face. Nearly all Castaways have pigment scars, including me. The red skin defects similar to birthmarks are an expected effect of exposure to The Radiance and they're not painful or dangerous in any way, but Isaiah has so many of them he almost looks like charred.