2024-04-29
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the old woman stands in her fields clutching a jar of salsa with her remaining 
left hand. a massive scar wraps around her wrinkled face, leaving the right 
eye socket fused shut with shiny smooth tissue. as she tells her story, her 
personality alternates between being shy and reserved and brash and confident. 
her eye twinkles in the dappled shade of a straw hat in the dusty noon light.

---

we met sun-woo and her younger sister kitty during a foraging expedition in 
the zone to the south of my home. they just sat down at our picnic suddenly 
out of nowhere. we were all around the same age, fourteen or so. charlie and 
i often came out here because it was a better use of time and more exciting 
than farming, so we were well prepared. 

i was infatuated with her. sun-woo laughed at all my corny jokes, and she was 
so bright and beautiful that it was almost hard to look at, like the glare 
from the sun. somehow charlie had never met her family, despite their farms 
being nearby. sun-woo's place was across the road, nearest to the zone. they 
said they had never been out here before, it was too dangerous. you have to be 
careful when venturing in these places, as they will draw you in and eat you.

we packed up the cheese and tablecloth into our backpacks and continued on the 
hunt with the girls in tow. kitty was a good climber, so occasionally she 
would scramble up some large piece of rubble or overgrown structure and look 
further than we could.

"down there, it's a dam. i see some buildings that are still intact." she 
pointed over the low forest canopy.

crab-walking down the river bank in single file was the easiest way to get 
there, so that's what we did. somehow sun-woo had gotten in the lead and 
continued into the tunnel mouth of the dam. here the river stream had spread 
out over a large flat concrete surface. it was an even shallow flow beneath a 
concrete beam bridge, forming almost a tunnel. the noise of flowing water was 
all around us, echoing off the ceiling as we walked through the shallow water.

"hey wait," i called to the girls, as charlie had stopped to fix his shoe.

they continued walking, not looking back. it must be impossible to hear me 
over the sound of the water.

"hey! stop!" i shouted, louder. no effect. i looked at charlie and he 
understood immediately. letting inexperienced people get separated in a zone 
is dangerous. i pulled the M79 shotgun out of my backpack and charlie did the 
same. we ran down the spillway, splashing with each footstep.

the girls had found an open metal door just after the side of the left bank 
ended, and there was a glass and metal wall leading into a courtyard for the 
dam buildings. they were walking through the door, entranced with the charm of 
discovering something new. the zone finds a way to pull you in.

"sun-woo! hey! wait!" i yelled, but they had already gone through the door. 
somehow we had to get their attention over the sound of the water. 

i loaded a smoke bomb canister into the shotgun, aimed at the door, and fired 
the canister over their heads. it bounced off the door, landed in the 
courtyard and made a distinctive double-crack sound as the canister popped. 
(was that an echo or did charlie also fire a canister at the same time?)

as soon as the canister popped, the girls turned around immediately and ran 
back toward the door. there was a flash of movement behind the glass in the 
hallway beyond the courtyard. as sun-woo and kitty ran through the doorway, 
another door crashed open further down the spillway, and two humanoid 
creatures strode out. they were eight feet tall, and covered in a shiny black 
carapace. a human-like mouth but no eyes, instead the head was an angled piece 
of black armor like a knight's helmet, but made of thick horn material grown 
through the eye socket. the horns / blades extended out past each ear, and the 
chest was likewise armored with angled plates. where a hand would have been 
was a single curved claw, and they walked in an odd fashion on their toes, 
balanced by a thin tapered pointed tail.

the two monsters walked down the spillway quickly toward our position. i moved 
toward sun-woo, trying to get her behind me, and loaded another canister into 
the shotgun, but when i looked up the first monster was already right there. i 
fired at point blank range but the canister just bounced off, and the monster 
slammed a claw into the shotgun, sending it spinning into the moving water. it 
picked me up and looked at my face. i imagined how a mouse must look to a cat.