Chapter Text
Tommy wakes up to the sound of chirping birds, a sound he doesn’t hear very often anymore.
He cracks an eye open then immediately closes it when the sun rays filtering through the leaves nearly blind him.
Groaning and throwing an arm over his eyes, he smacks his lips. His back is killing him, which is no surprise considering he’d slept on the unforgivably hard ground.
Tommy rolls over and sits up slowly, barely awake, but immediately starting his routine of checking his body for injuries and bites. Before he starts, he listens.
He stares at the rock in front of him as he strains his ears to listen for the crunching of leaves, for hushed whispers, or for the cocking of a gun.
In the forest there is no such thing as silence. You can hide all you want, but that’s the only way the forest will protect you. Tommy knew this well, so he’d spent weeks learning how to step correctly in a forest. There really was no proper way, he’d found out. You either crunch a leaf or you don’t.
When he grows satisfied with the natural silence Tommy starts patting his body.
He starts from the bottom up, first with his legs, patting them and shaking them a bit to make sure he can feel them and that nothing hurts.
Then he works his way up to his chest and arms. Tommy removes his jacket and begins examining his arms and wrists. He’s specifically looking for little red dots, indicators of a syringe being injected into skin.
He’s been injected enough to know what waking up after an injection feels like, but he’s been taught to be overly cautious when it comes to potions and injections, so even though he knows there aren’t any foreign substances coursing through his veins, he still looks for those little dots.
As expected, there are none.
Once satisfied with his examinations he reaches for his backpack. He sticks his hand in to grab a granola bar but is met with air. I should have some in here, he thinks. Except there is none.
Fine, he’ll just have to conserve his energy more than usual. Tommy stands and brushes off the dirt from his jeans. It’s time to move.
He’d spent the night huddled by a large bush that was surrounded by trees and thick branches. He had arranged some of the branches to curve in so they would cocoon around him, not only protecting him, but his stuff too.
The protection was less for wild animals, though Tommy hadn’t really seen any bears or snakes or even spiders. It was protection from people.
Shrugging his jacket back on, he grabs his backpack and bat, swinging the backpack over his shoulder and gripping the bat tightly in his right hand.
He steps out of the cocoon of branches and again, listens for the crunching of leaves, ones that wouldn’t be his own.
He needs to get to the city, or at least to the outskirts of it where he'd be able to find abandoned houses. He’s running low on food and bandages, and he desperately needs to find a new knife, his previous one left pierced in the chest of the man who’d tried to bash his head in one night. Tommy had ran off before he could take it back
Tommy walks deeper into the forest, pushing leaves out of his way. He swings his bat as he walks, listening to the hushed noises of the forest. He quite likes the swoosh sound the leaves make as they brush against each other.
Occasionally Tommy would find a stream of water and he’d stop to take a sip of water or to rinse the dirt off his face. He didn’t know if drinking the stream water would kill him, but if it was going to it sure was taking its sweet time.
Tommy walks past a tree then does a double take when he sees the symbol on it. OS .
This is dangerous territory. The symbol indicates that the land and buildings past it belong to the OS, the Other Side, the organization currently in power. Tommy has had more than a few run-ins with them and the experiences have been less than pleasant.
Tommy considers turning around but up ahead he can see a cabin, and it looks untouched, the glass on the windows intact.
He slowly approaches it, sneaking by the trees and keeping his head down, scanning the area around it for people, people he doesn’t want to deal with.
The cabin is small, only one story, and from where he’s standing Tommy can see the blinds on the two front windows are shut. The front door is scratched and a bit beaten up but its forest green stands out against the brown logs.
Tommy slowly creeps up to the porch and puts his ear up to the door, listening for shuffling inside. Tommy decides that if the door is locked he’s immediately running.
The doorknob is cold and difficult to twist, but Tommy gets it open. As quietly as he can he pushes it open slowly, but the door still creaks loudly. Tommy peeks over his shoulder quickly and when he sees nothing he turns back to the door.
Tommy lets himself in and takes in the inside, shutting the door. He steps into an open room that’s empty save for the sole couch pressed against the left wall. The couch is dirty and slightly torn, but there’s no blood on it. To his right is a kitchen, a small one with very few appliances, but there is quite a lot of storage.
Past the living room is a hallway that leads to two rooms. Tommy heads straight to the kitchen first.
He opens the fridge and nearly gags at the smell. He can see something that resembles cheese except its green and blue, moldy. There’s also meat products still in their containers, but they’re also all green.
Tommy shuts the fridge and turns to the cupboards next to it. The cupboards are full of pots and pans that look shiny and completely unused.
Letting out a frustrated huff Tommy opens the top cupboards. He pushes aside the near empty sauce bottles to look in the back but there’s nothing. The pantry is left and Tommy prays that there’s something there.
He quickly peeks out the window to check if he’s alone. He is, and he moves to the pantry. He closes his eyes and sends a quick prayer up to anyone listening. He opens it and it’s… not empty.
Well, it’s mostly empty save for a few items. Tommy smiles and lets out a quick thank you as he starts grabbing the items. There’s a small jar of honey, which he considers leaving, but decides against it, stuffing it into his backpack. He grabs the box of granola bars and looks inside. There’s only 3 but it’s better than nothing.
There are 2 cans of beans and 3 cans of chicken noodle soup. Tommy doesn’t have a can opener but he’ll find a way to get them open. He quickly stuffs everything into his backpack.
Tommy quickly walks towards the two rooms he has yet to scour through, and he realizes he needs to hurry. He’s been here far too long.
He opens the door on the right and enters a bathroom. The sink is right next to the door and Tommy makes quick work of it, opening the mirror cabinets and grabbing the half empty neosporin that lies there. He opens the bottom cabinets and grabs the box of bandaids, shaking it. It’s not empty so he stuffs it in his backpack.
Tommy leaves the bathroom and opens the door across from it, entering a bedroom. The bed is made, which Tommy finds odd, but pays no mind to it as he walks towards the nightstand. There’s a notepad and pen atop it and he grabs both. He doesn’t need them but Tommy’s learned to grab everything he finds.
He opens the drawer and shuffles the papers around, looking for matches and batteries, of which he finds none.
The second nightstand is no better, only full of photographs of some family and old receipts.
There’s a dresser across the bed and Tommy figures that if there’s clothes he’ll take some of it. He opens the first drawer and finds it empty, moving onto the second one, which is also empty.
The 3rd and 4th drawers are full of undergarments, some of which Tommy pointedly does not touch, but he does grab some of the socks.
The closet is half open, hangers left there and some on the floor. Tommy steps over to it and opens it fully. It’s empty but the few boxes on the floor have caught his attention. He crouches down to open one of them.
He’s halfway through opening the envelopes in the box when he hears a noise. It’s the sound of a door slamming open. Tommy’s head shoots up and he stands quietly, gripping his bat tight.
The bedroom door is closed but he can clearly hear the heavy footsteps of someone walking around.
There’s a distant shout and the person inside the house shouts back, their voice loud and aggressive.
Tommy quickly looks around the room in fear, his brain going blank.
The footsteps start walking faster and they get louder as they approach the bedroom.
Tommy turns to the window and hopes to god it isn’t jammed. He unhooks the latch and lifts it open, the window sliding easily.
With no time to mentally prepare Tommy throws himself out the window just as the door slams open.
“Hey!” Someone shouts at him. “There’s someone here, around the back!”
Tommy stands up and starts fucking sprinting. He runs as fast as he can. There’s blood rushing to his ears as he runs, and it sounds a lot like crashing waves.
He jumps over the fence, nearly tripping. He can just barely hear the pounding footsteps behind him. The men haven’t fired at him so Tommy assumes they don’t have guns but he’d rather not risk it.
He runs into the woods, taking a sharp left, hoping he’ll throw the men off his trail. Tommy runs straight ahead, deeper into the woods, into an area that’s dense. He runs into the bushes and crouches down, trying to quiet his breathing.
The footsteps don’t follow him but he can still hear them. Tommy’s rush of adrenaline slowly dissipates and he suddenly feels his body ache. He pushes his sleeve up, twisting his arm to look at the underside of it, and finds his arm an angry red, a sign a bruise is in the process of forming.
He’s gotten himself into a pickle here, Tommy realizes, because now that the men know he’s around they aren’t going to leave the area, which is gonna make his escape a pain in the ass. He can either go back the way he came from and risk death, or make his way through the forest and end up in a new area.
Any sane person would’ve gone with the latter, but Tommy is different. He stands slowly and grabs the largest rock he could find. He steps out from the bushes, his feet crushing the leaves on the ground, the sound loud in the uncharacteristically quiet forest.
Mustering up as much strength as he can, Tommy hurls the rock behind him, the rock whipping through leaves and landing with a thump noise a few feet behind him.
Immediately, he hears shouting and pounding footsteps. They near him and he bolts in the opposite direction.
There’s a pounding in his ears, adrenaline coursing through his veins once more, not even being phased by the twigs that graze his cheeks.
He runs out of the forest, his feet thumping, and jumps the fence, nearly tripping over it again. He sprints past the house, going around it, and doesn’t stop until he passes the OS symbol on the tree.
Tommy slowly comes to a stop, leaning against a tree, panting hard, one hand on his chest, the other on his knee. For a moment he thinks he’s going to hurl.
He hopes he’s far enough away from the men and the cabin that they won’t be able to find him.
Sweat is dripping from his face, and maybe he shouldn’t have gone into that cabin in the first place, or stayed as long as he did, but he made it out.
Pride blooms in his chest at yet another successful “mission.” Sure, he was incredibly annoyed that it’d been cut short by two fuckers, but he left the cabin with more than he’d started with, so yes, it was successful.
Tommy looks up to the sky and watches a helicopter pass overhead, a strange feeling coming over him. The helicopter is white and quite big, an OS symbol painted on its side, a clear indicator of what it’s carrying and where it’s going.
Tommy rolls his eyes. More supplies for the people who don’t deserve them.
With a quiet huff he pushes himself off the tree and starts walking. He doesn’t need to go into the city anymore but at the moment Tommy is without a map and he has zero clue where he is or where he needs to go.
There’s a low grumble, Tommy freezing suddenly, before realizing it’s his stomach. Duh, he hasn’t eaten since he woke up. He pulls his backpack forward and pulls out a granola bar, chewing on it as he walks.
In the distance he can see a graying sky and he mumbles to himself, knowing what he’s walking towards.
-
As Tommy approaches the edge of the woods he suddenly doesn’t really want to enter the middle of the city. Without his knife there’s no way he’d be able to fend off the dwellers, and this area tended to be patrolled by Other Side guards and Tommy didn’t particularly feel like being struck by a stray bullet.
Instead he decides to walk around the edge of the woods until he reaches the more deserted part of the city, by the warehouses.
As he walks, hidden by bushes and tall grass, he scans the city, watching for movement and potential OS leaders who roamed the city.
The Other Side leaders didn’t often come into the city, but Tommy had seen one once, a man dressed in a black suit with a booming voice. He stood confidently in the middle of the street with his hands behind his back.
Tommy had watched the scene unfold from behind a tree.
In front of the man was another man, on his knees, with his hands folded behind his back. There was a small child behind the man being held back by an OS guard. The kid was crying and Tommy knew exactly what was going to happen.
The scene reminded him too much of something and he had run off before he could see it happen. He didn’t need to stick around to watch though because just a few seconds later the sound of a gunshot rang through his ears, the sound loud enough to set a flock of birds flying off in the opposite direction.
Tommy had fallen to the ground in schock and covered his head. He hadn’t meant to start crying, but the sound had filled him with something close to anguish, and he had laid there, half of his body wet from the puddle he’d fallen into, sobbing quietly.
Executions like those didn’t typically happen in the city and Tommy felt lucky to have only seen one. And maybe lucky wasn’t the right word, because he’d have preferred to never have seen any, but it’d only been once.
Since that day Tommy had never seen an OS leader in the city, but if he ever did he would be running in the opposite direction.
Today there were no leaders in the city and that felt like a relief. It meant security wouldn’t be as tight, which meant Tommy wouldn’t have to watch over his shoulder constantly.
Tommy passes multiple stores, many reminiscent of the state of the world: burned, shattered windows, walls splattered with dry blood, empty. Occasionally he would see people moving around in those stores, taking the things that remained.
When they’d make eye contact with him Tommy would slowly raise his hand in greeting, it was a way to tell someone you wouldn’t hurt them if they didn’t hurt you. The people wouldn’t raise their hands back, but it didn’t matter because all it took was one person to do it first for peace to be established.
Tommy continued walking along the edge of the forest when it started thinning out as he reached a residential area. Here there was no forest, no trees for him to hide behind. He’d either have to walk behind the houses and climb over the fences, or walk in front of them, out in the open.
The area was quiet and Tommy couldn’t see any symbols on any houses so he felt a little better walking in front of them. He moves away from the last tree and walks towards a little blue house.
It’s the smallest house on the street, only one story and lacking a garage. But it had clearly been well loved, judging by the remaining fairy lights hanging from the porch and the colored handprints on the left side of the smashed front door.
Tommy grimaces at the blood on the sidewalk, some of it leaving trails, as if people had been dragged. He wonders what had happened here for there to be so much blood.
For a moment he considers going into the houses to look for knives, but being all by himself, that was a death wish.
Tommy hears a twig snap behind him and he whips around, looking in the direction of the sound. He grips the bat tight as he walks backwards. Rather than speaking up and asking “who’s there?” Tommy stays quiet.
Part of him wants to investigate around the houses, to look for people, but he knows better.
Tommy decides to run. He runs past the houses, all becoming a blur to him, and turns left towards a bridge that leads to a detached area of the city, where the storage warehouses and factories had been built.
Tommy slows and looks over his shoulder. Mayne no one was following him to begin with, it was probably just paranoia. He sighs and relaxes his shoulders a bit.
Tommy turns back to the bridge and feels a strange sadness come over him. He walks slowly.
The bridge is big, its towers feeling like a million feet high, and it’s a rusty red color, though much of the surface is corroded. The bridge provides a crossing over what is now basically a canyon, with only a thin river running through it, the stream moving calmly and drying out, although before the river used to move more violently and wasn’t as thin.
Tommy had crossed this bridge a few times and he remembers sitting with his legs dangling and watching the water slam into the rocks and create powerful splashes. The water always looked deep enough to drown him and now it looks shallow enough for him to walk through.
Tommy walks slowly along the edge of the bridge. From up here he can’t hear the stream so he's left alone to his thoughts and the sound of his steps on the metal deck.
The bridge connects two separate areas of the city, and being on the bridge all by himself, it’s easy for Tommy to feel like he doesn’t belong, like there’s nowhere that’s made for him. He used to feel like he belonged, a while ago, but he’d lost that person, and now all he did was wander.
There’s a light breeze in the air, Tommy’s hair ruffling and getting in his eyes. He brushes it away and sighs. He feels so small on this bridge.
Up ahead there’s a dirt path, bumpy and uninviting and with lots of litter.
Upon seeing the bridge meet new ground Tommy jogs towards it. The area here is mainly cleared of trees, save for the ones that create a border.
Tommy walks forward towards the old warehouses that had once been used to store the metal needed to build the bridge. He’s still on the hunt for a knife but now he’s mostly just exploring.
The warehouses are arranged in a line, each one clearly closed off. Tommy didn't want to go into those warehouses so he continued walking past them, walking along the path that used to be a street.
By now it was getting significantly darker, and Tommy didn’t want to be out here at night. He didn’t know the area well and he didn’t want to be the fool that got caught in a net trap and got left hanging.
In the distance he can see another warehouse, this one more secluded and hidden, hidden by a few trees along the path he was walking on. Tommy thought, I’ll go to that one. If he finds it abandoned and free of dangerous strangers, he’ll spend the night there.
Walking determinedly, he moves towards it. He can see that the windows lack glass and that the door is slightly ajar. The wind is picking up so Tommy figures he’ll blame it on that.
Tommy slows and creeps up to the door. The door is large and rustic, Tommy pushing it open, the door groaning loudly.
Tommy cringes. He peeks his head in and looks around. The room is spacious and is separated into two levels, the upper level dark enough that Tommy can’t make anything out besides shadows.
Slowly, he walks in, shutting the door behind him. The concrete floor is full of dirt and a few metal scraps. He avoids stepping on the metal as he steps further into the room. Without a flashlight Tommy can’t see shit. The room is dark and he has to strain his eyes to make out basic shapes. Everything looks like the boogieman.
Tommy walks into the only room on the bottom level and finds it empty. Relieved, he makes his way towards the staircase, looking above at the upper level. This level is sectioned off into 4 rooms, Tommy walking into the first one and nearly slipping on a metal scrap. It slides across the floor, making a scraping sound.
Suddenly a floorboard creaks. A creak Tommy didn’t cause. Slowly Tommy reaches down for the metal scrap and examines it quickly under the light that shines through the window. It’s a small rectangular piece. He runs his finger over the corner edge to test the sharpness.
With his back to the door he listens intently.
A creak.
Then another.
Tommy stares ahead and holds the scrap in his hand.
Then, just as he hears the door creak open he turns and shoves the person against the wall, keeping them there with his arm. He holds the scrap against their throat.
He hears them gasp and cough, pushing at his chest roughly.
Running on pure adrenaline Tommy shouts at them, “Who the fuck are you?!”