Chapter Text
She was weak. There was no other way to put it. Prison broke her in more ways than one. She was a day away from that hell, and she knew it was not enough. There was a dark cloud chasing her, and there was nothing she could do, but drag her body forward. If she was to die, she rather die in the desert, as the approaching thunderstorm shredded her skin from bones. Anything was better than dying in a cell.
It's already night when she sees the approaching lights of a settlement. Dead trees of petrified bark frame a narrow path down to the stream that crosses the area. She vaguely remembers it, from when she got dragged to prison a little more than ten years ago. It looked like a graveyard in broad daylight. Under the overcast moon, it looks like they were almost alive, looming over her, watching and waiting.
A noise ahead slows her down. A strangled shout, and then the distinct sound of flesh being hit. It was a loud smack, being repeated over and over. She bites back a sob, fear crawls over her skin. The only way was forward. She grips the single pistol she stole during her escape and the confusion of the riot.
Tears start to flow when she reaches the clearing. Her fingers tremble on the trigger of the 9mm. In front of her, is something that was so common in prison, that it causes her backlash. A small group circle a person on the ground, lashing them with a wooden stick, that almost curled around their torso when they were struck.
She wanted to do something. To step up. To fight. To stop this. She could barely breathe. They all seem to wear a mixture of NCR and prison guards garb. If she were in her right mind, she would have noticed how weird those clothes fit them, and how they looked more like raiders and tribals than NCR. But at the moment, she was too afraid to even notice, when one of them started to drag their prisoner to a nearby tree.
She sees the noose though. Almost feels it around her neck. She was supposed to die by it, before they forgot they had her locked up in prison. Their own prisoner is hoisted up the nose, and they looked already dead. They're not even fighting for air. She was hyperventilating, and that might have tipped them off about her.
Maybe it was divine intervention, or just the last taste of her infamous luck. Because when they turn against her, she pulls the trigger, her aim true. In her old NCR days, a 9mm was the same as a bb gun against jacked up raiders. But the bullets seem to find their way straight into their eyes, one after the other. When she comes back to herself, she's the only one standing, and she is rushing towards the hanged one, tripping on the corpses of her assailants and then on her own legs.
The hanged prisoner is a dead weight, as she struggles to cut the hope off the tree. They hit the ground with a thud. She knows they are dead, and that makes her shake in silent rage. This felt like a nightmare, like all the time she was forced to watch the guards hang the small times that didn't deserve to be there in prison with her and the other criminals.
The corpse on the floor, is of a pitiful looking man, his face was covered with bruises, cuts and a burn that covered a great part of his face. Her hand touches the scarring that stretched over his scalp, and she silently prays for the hanged man. This wasn't right, this brutal violence wasn't right. Even in her deep fear of being captured and brought back to prison, she makes the decision of laying him to rest, even if she has to dig his grave with her own hands.
She moves to close his milky blue eyes. In her desperation, she must have forgotten to do so. As a strong hand moves to size her wrist, she is paralyzed. The corpse in front of her turn his dead eyes towards her, and a horrible choking noise. A scream echoes among the dead trees. The corpse screams a broken scream, like a dying man, like a dead man.
There is no energy to scream back. All her energy is put on pulling her wrist free and taking off towards the dead trees. Her mouth is open, her lungs burn, her stomach cramp. She is dead. Dead. Dead. This was hell. She would've never survived with 9mm. She would never be able to escape prison. She was dead in her cell. The radroaches must be eating her already. She was dead.
Something collides against her with enough force to make her skull bounce on the hard ground. Even in this limbo hell, she feels the pain of having her hair yanked back, and the pressure of a hand over her mouth.
"You'll kill us" the voice at her ear, is the voice of the dead, of the hanged man that managed to capture her. "You'll bring the whole Fort Abandon on us" she swears she can feel his teeth against her ear, and she chokes in her fear, but has no energy to rage against the hold she is in.
The hold on her hair doesn't relent, as the hanged man stands up, and drags her away from the lights over the horizon. His hand leaves her mouth, but she doesn't think about screaming. She was weak. And prison broke her in more ways than one.
"Come, savior. Let me repay your kindness." the raspy voice was low, and polite. But she clearly has no choice whether to accept his kindness .
They walk past the corpse of the ones who tried to hang him. The hand on her scalp relents its hold, and it comes around her shoulder, to pull her against him. How broken she had to be, to feel warmth for the first time in years, and it's all thanks to the corpse next to her. She cries, but there is a firm hold keeping her upright.