Caught Somewhere in Time

A

Apro

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Original poster
Current Time Period: 2518 CE, Exact Date unknown, Climate suggests nearing Winter.

It's been almost 3 months since I've seen my own time, though last week I came close....or rather as close as I'm starting to think I'll ever get. Time Travel doesn't seem to be rare knowledge, in fact some people are trying to build their own devices from scorched up notes they'd found in old labs and libraries. The Future is bleak.....if you could see this, you might cry..... as far as I can gather there was some sort of Heavy Bombardment of the planet's surface. I still hold the hope that I can successfully return to my own time.

-----Babydoll's Personal Journal.


It was a cold day, snow was lightly powdering the ground and the ruins of a civilization long passed. Alone, a young woman trudged amongst the snow, ruined black sneakers crunching against the cold grey. She shivered slightly as a soft breeze infiltrated the tears in both her tattered jeans and the hooded sweatshirt/tweed jacket combo she was wearing to keep her underprotected torso warm. Her hair had long since been discheveled and restyled, and subsequently simply allowed to do it's own thing, "who gave a shit?" was exactly why she let it happen. What was visible of her skin, was caked with dried blood and dirt, the wasteland offered no showers, no hot tea nor even a hot meal, unless you could find a way to make a fire, and even then, Babydoll would have to drink flavorless hot water she made from greenish grey snow.

As it were, Babydoll's surroundings were almost identical to the surroundings she took note of 10 miles ago, 20 miles, and so forth, if you weren't in an outpost or settlement, all you saw was the evidence of ancient devastation. She was expecting to see the telltale smoke of an encampment, as a map she'd swiped off a dead wanderer showed a settlement as being close by, but instead saw only the dark clouds of the storm and the grey of the snow beneath her feet stretching far from where she trudged, and that told her, that she would have to camp here tonight.

Resigned to her current travel predicament, she laid her jacket down on the snow taking an assessment of what tools she had in her bag. A first aid kit was the first thing she pulled out but upon opening it, noticed it was lacking in some areas. She sighed making a note that she needed antibiotics and pain medication, as well as sutures and bandages. She then extracted a pistol with shivering fingers. Checking the clip she muttered, "Not enough to hunt with....." before thumbing each of her ten rounds back into the clip with an eleventh in the chamber. A knife was next semi-rusted blade, she'd need a new one eventually. Last was a bundle of string ,an old flint lighter with a small amount of fuel and a small bundle of evergreen needles of some unknown tree.

As for the shelter building, it wouldn't be hard, at least, it hadn't been before. Debris was plentiful, and there were plenty of pieces big enough to block wind the hard part was moving them, and for that, she usually used rope or a a makeshift rope made of self adhering bandages to give her leverage. This was not the case this time, as she had traded the rope for a plate of hot food, some sort of cooked meat and some fried onions or what she was going to believe to be onions and a couple of other 'vegetables' and some of the bandages for the lighter and fuel. Not having what she needed she would have use debris that already formed the shelter she needed, and for such a formation she packed back up and searched around the outskirts of what used to be a great city
, the outskirts she just left.

After about 2 hours she found her hovel for the night, and a roll of dirty blue tape she found in an abandoned school, marked it so she'd know which pile of debris it was. With Fire starting equipment already obtained, she started towards a dying forest, looking for something to hunt down, though with low ammo she would only be able to set traps. She took her time placing the traps, setting up deadfalls and a spike rail out of sticks, hopefully something would take the grubs she dug out to use as bait.

Back at her camp, Babydoll was getting her fire started, placing some sticks from the forest on to the pyre formed from lighter fluid and a bundle of string. That's when she heard the screech of an animal, and it was then she knew she had caught dinner. She stood and took her knife, and with as much speed as she could muster in her hungered state, she made her way to yelping animal finding the dying form of some kind of pig writhing with two spikes in it's side. She smiled thinking about the meat, but hated herself for what she was going to do, as she lifted the knife into both hands and after pinning the Pig down, backside up, she brought the knife down into the skull, and began dragging the meal back to her shelter.
 
A lone figure made its way through the remains of what had once been a city of the Old World. If one were to get close enough, they would be able to discern that the figure was indeed female. The only sounds were that of the snow crunching beneath her feet, which echoed loudly throughout the desolate area. Her hair and coat flowed out behind as she was hit by a cold breeze. Clutching her coat closed tighter, and readjusting the strap of her scabbard further onto her shoulder, she pressed onwards. If she was lucky, she would be able to reach the closest settlement within two days at her current place.

Mira shivered slightly as another gust of wind blew through. Despite years of living in the Wilds, she had never fully become accustomed to the cold. While, yes, she could endure the cold for much longer and at far colder temperatures than the normal person, she had grown accustomed to the shelter the settlements provided. She came to a stop suddenly as a feint sound rang through the air. She held her breath for a moment in case it was to sound again. When it didn't, she merely shook her head. It was most likely just a figment of her imagination.

She had managed to make if a few steps when the tranquility of the Wasteland was shattered by a high pitched squeal. Her head snapped in the direction it had originated in, which by her estimation wasn't that far away. The woman took off at a sprit towards where it had come from. Few things lived out in these places, some of which were extremely dangerous. It was for this reason that she choose to check it out as it would be a smart idea to see what had caused such a noise so that she knew whether or not to avoid the area, which too many would have seemed stupid. This was not the case for her. Doing this had managed to save her life on more than one occasion.

The scene in which she had stumbled upon caused her to stop suddenly and duck behind the nearest cover. Before her was a young woman, who was currently pulling a dead pig off to who knows where. Her eyes widened further as she saw the trail of blood that she left behind. That trail would serve a neon sign for any of the carnivores in the area. It took her a fraction of a second to decide as to what to do next.

"Pardon me, but I would highly suggest that you get rid of the blood trail in which you have left, as many of animals would gladly follow it to wherever you are taking that pig in search of a meal." Mira stated as she made her way out from behind her cover and towards the girl.
 
Dulled blueish green eyes in the woman's head shot around to see the woman who'd broken the silence of her trudge 'home'. A woman somewhat visibly older than herself had spoken, telling her to conceal the blood. The expression on her face was of suspicion suspicion she held that the woman was one of the 'animals' she warned of, as it seemed humans have devolved since the world ended. "How would you suggest I do so?" She replied, though he form of speech seemed to aggravate most people, due to a seeming majority of the people in this time being nearly unable to understand proper English as if vocabulary and sentence structure no longer mattered.

This woman seemed more intelligent than the other temporally indigenous, which only served to make Babydoll more suspicious of her, a dumb savage was one thing, an intelligent drifter was another. Her eyes never left the woman, fixated in a cautious stare in case the situation as it often did with others here, got ugly, only this time she wasn't armed very well, and a fight would from the looks of the other woman, most certainly mean her own death.

"You're the one who's been tailing aren't you? I caught on two days ago." She asserted, not knowing for sure or not, though she had known far longer than two days that she had been being followed, "If not maybe you've seen who was, they seem to like keeping a distance. I had to circle around a couple times to know for sure they were doing it...."
 
Mira's face remained unchanged as the woman in front of her made her accusations. She observed the young woman before her. She looked to be fairly young, most likely in her late teens or early twenties. Her hair was unkempt, her skin caked in blood and grim, and her cloths torn and tattered. Suspicion was the most evident emotion that portrayed in posture, voice, and eyes, along with caution and exhaustion.

"I regret to inform you that I am not the one who has been following you nor do I know who, or what, is doing so. I was merely passing through this area. The only reason as to why I stand before you is that I heard the dying squeal of your kill there." She pointed toward the still bleeding corpse. "I am most likely not the only one to hear it as well. Knowing the animal in this area, they will be upon us within the hour, attracted by the stench of fresh blood and the pig's cry. I would highly suggest leaving the corpse here, taking only what you can carry, and getting as far away from it as possible. I, myself, plan to do exactly that."
 
"A few months ago, your warnings would've tempted to leave the pig all together.....however, this world changes people.....and I was not excluded, Humans were once the top of the food chain, I think it's time Humans remembered that fact." She said, the caution almost completely ebbed from her voice, which now sounded more dehydrated, exhausted and cold-hearted. "Your honesty about my accusations is appreciated, however, if we're to leave the guts of this....I suppose it's similar to what a pig....was, with any sort of haste, I'll need a blade with a bit more cutting power, let me use yours you can take half the usable meat, a bargain, since money seems to be useless."

Something about her words were off, it made her seem out of place, and she was, 500 years out of place according to the last read out on her lover's temporal displacement vehicle. She didn't catch on to how odd she sounded, and it didn't occur to her that this woman probably had no idea what a "pig" used to be, as Babydoll had no concrete idea what this animal was called though the woman did call it a pig, nor that woman also most likely had no idea what "money" was.

Something else caught Babydoll's mind, the fact that this woman knew much more about the geography than she did, and this woman could help her find a settlement called Willowshade, so she decided to ask, "I was also wondering, since you're here, if you could help me find a settlement, I got a map, but it's proving to be rather inaccurate."
 
Mira raised an eye brow as the woman before her spoke. Her words seemed strange, almost as if she had not grown up knowing the horrors of the Wasteland. That and there was how she seemed to have the notion that humans should stand above everything else. Her eyes narrowed slightly as she asked to use her blade, her hand unconsciously gripping the strap of the scabbard tighter. "I am sorry, but the only one permitted to use this blade is I." Her words came out colder than she had intended, yet she couldn't bring herself to care. The sword that rested on her back was her most prized possession, the only thing she had left to remember her father by. There was no chance in hell she would let someone else lay a hand on it. "If you wish, I could cut it for you though. You would only have to tell me which parts you would need cut. As for the directions, I could indeed help you, more so than your map there. From what I can tell that map is significantly out of date by around a hundred years if my knowledge of the area is correct. It is no wonder that you seem to be lost. May I ask which of the settlements you are trying to reach?"
 
"Thank you, uhm back legs and some of the belly meat, if you could, since it's similar to a pig or some mutated version of one, I assume I can make bacon and ham from it?" Her question probably seemed odd, she had no idea what people in this period called different cuts of meat, or if the meats even had different names other than simply meat. The woman had agreed to help her find her way, and Babydoll paused for a moment, trying to remember the name one of the traders had given her. "....uhhhhh Willowshade, I think, I heard that there was a man there, who could help me find Bio-enhancements, I'm sorry...." She started catching herself using terms she assumed no longer were known, "chemicals that change the body's abilities." She finished, chewing on an old candy bar she found in what seemed to be a fueling station.

She was silent for a few moments, thinking to herself, weighing the pros and cons of asking the woman what she'd wanted to ask her, an internal monologue playing in her mind, 'I could appear crazy, I could screw up the timeline, but it's the future, damnit! I wish he was here to tell me or let me know something.' She decided she would ask her, and spoke up, "This question might seem, a bit strange, but do you know what happened? To the world? how long ago or anything? to make the world like this?" Though her time in this world had hardened her her voice sometimes still held the traces of Vera, the young woman she would claim Died three months ago upon being stranded, though when the old Babydoll, Vera, did show, and when she asked this woman those last questions Vera did shine through a bit, she sounded possibly like a crazy teenage girl who knew nothing, despite her incredible intelligence.
 
Mira reached over her shoulder and drew her blade. "It is no problem." She said she knelt next to the corpse. Finding the pieces in which she had specified, she began to work. As she did so, she listened to everything else the woman had to say.

"Willowshade?" She asked, taking her attention from what she was doing for a moment and looked at her. She gave a small chuckle. "That was actually where I had been headed when I stumbled upon you. It's about a two day walk from here, maybe more depending on if the weather is favorable. I'm also acquainted with the man in whom you speak. His name is Dr. Vandein." Mira gave a small laugh. "And I am aware as to what Bio-enhancements are. One doesn't spend any amount of time around him without learning something about them." She then turned her attention back to her task at hand.

Her hand froze and her head snapped towards the woman as she heard her latest question. The shear amount of shock in which she felt caused her entire body to seize up and her jaw to drop slightly. "H-h-how could you possibly not know?" She managed to stutter out after a few seconds. 'This isn't possible! Everyone knows what happened, even the most brain dead people know! How can she possibly know?! Who the hell is this person?! Where the hell did she come from?!' She thought. Mira completely stopped what she was doing and stood up. "Four hundred years ago the world was plunged into chaos as the countries of the Old World fought to gain control of a device that would allow them to control the entire world. The fighting went on for nearly thirty years until the Russian government had had enough. They wanted the device so badly that they no longer cared about the measures in which they used. The Russian's began to implement nuclear weapons into the war, destroying city after city. The rest of the countries retaliated in the same manner. The death toll grew exponentially as each country was destroyed by the bombs. Within the course of three years, the Old World was dead." Mira explained, retelling the story in which every knew.
 
"Well a stroke of luck for me to have you happen upon dinnertime." She said, a rough chuckle trickling from her throat. Seeing the woman's reaction to her last questions, she knew the woman thought she was crazy. Hearing the story and about how long this world had been like this, Babydoll didn't blame her. "I'm sorry, you must think I have mental issues, you're probably asking yourself a lot of questions about me, questions like 'Who is this woman' 'Where is she from?' 'what rock has she been hiding under for 400 years?' and I don't blame you, places reversed I'm sure I'd react that way too, I'm afraid all I can say, is that I don't belong here, and that Willowshade may help me find my way home." She said, her speech probably didn't help her case, but from the movies she'd seen of time travel telling people you've traveled through time usually didn't go over well. "By helping me get to Willowshade, you're helping me get home, and I don't think I could ever repay that debt." Vera's words cracking out through the Persona of Babydoll as this exchange reminded her of what she lost three months ago, which was everything but her life, and his pistol.
 
Mira gave a loud sigh as the woman before her asked her for her help. While she may have seemed crazy to her, and her explanation didn't really help to elaborate anything, Mira knew that she would be unable to abandon any one in such a situation. Despite the world in which she had grown up in, she would never turn down an opportunity to help someone, no matter how crazy they were. It was this mind set of hers that had caused many of the raiders and bandits to fear her, as she would not hesitate to kill them if she found them threatening someone. "Well then I guess we'll be traveling together for a time then. My name is Mira Chevelle. It is a pleasure to meet you. May I ask your name?"
 
Her name that's what the woman was asking for, she was torn in two, inside her mind Vera wanted to be known but Babydoll's presence was too strong, the persona forged in this world. "Babydoll, I go by Babydoll....." 'Vera' she thought, 'No, Vera's dead, you know it, she died the day he sent her here.' her thoughts kept trying to kill Babydoll, but the thoughts of a woman she would claim dead weren't going to be vocalized.

"Anyway, it'll be dark soon, I have a shelter, if you'd like to camp with me. I can cook the meat from this, 'pig' thing." She said, pointing to the smoke rising over a pile of debris "I don't travel in the dark, I....lost my glasses a couple months ago...."
 
"It is a pleasure to meet you Babydoll. If it is alright with you, then I would not mind camping with you. These areas are dangerous to traverse alone, much less camp alone in." Mira said as with a small smile. It had to have been years since she had ever traveled with another person. Then again, considering what they had been like, it wasn't really that much of a surprise. 'Bastard should have none better than to try to grab my ass.' She thought to herself. "Anyways, why don't you take the meat you want back to your camp. I'll dispose of the rest of the body, seeing as your allowing me to stay there as well."
 
"Chevelle? Like the car?" She asked, a thought she'd had earlier but had only now thoughtlessly asked, of course it didnt occur to her that the woman now known as 'Mira Chevelle' might not know what a car was, or what kind of vehicles were used just before the devastation. She knelt by the beast and poked at it, noticing two rib cages placed one atop the other. "What the hell kind of animal has two rib cages....." She ended up muttering aloud, of course the answer was obviously mutated descendants of animals from just a generation after her own time. She smacked hard in two spots on the carcass, breaking the double ribs so she tear a rack of rib meat off the animal, doing the same to the other side of the ribs. "Bring some belly meat and a leg when you come to camp, I'll see what I can use to keep the meat from spoiling no reason to let it go to something else, your blade is sharper...." With that she took the rib cages' halves and started trudging back to her camp, to cook some ribs.
 
"Alright." Mira replied before Babydoll left. Once she was gone she grabbed the remained to the carcass and hauled it over her shoulder. It would be best to dispose of it as far from camp as possible. Taking a moment to identify the direction the wind was blowing, she decided to then head down wind. That way if any animals do smell it on some off chance, it wont lead back to them.

Nearly fifteen minutes later she happened upon a small clearing in the rubble. "Well this'll work." She muttered under her breath as she threw the corpse to the ground. It resounded through the area with a loud, yet still muffled, thud. As she bent down in order to remove the additional meat Babydoll had requested she noted a set of foot prints heading in the direction she came from. Her body froze. Those prints were easily twice the size of her own and could only belong to one thing. That thing was to be considered the deadliest thing within this area of the Wasteland.

"Shit!" She yelled, springing up, all thoughts of the dead pig gone. She quickly turned around and ran as fast as she could towards camp, hoping that she wouldn't be to late.
 
Babydoll was struggling, a large hand wrapped around her calf tightly, "BITCH!" She screamed hitting his arm with throwing knives, "Stingers" the man who sold them to her called them. The monster screamed in pain and released his grip as the stingers concentratedly hit the things forearm and hand, taking his arm and slamming it against a wall with great power, enough to crack the ancient concrete. The stingers all fell from the creature's arm and he let out an enraged warcry.

In the few seconds she had reprieve from the assault, Babydoll scrambled to her gun, unconvinced about the effectivity of it against, whatever the hell thing was. As she heard the stomping return to an unacceptably close distance, she whipped around and turned loose a short storm of bullets, and to her surprise and gratitude to the old weapon, the creature fell, though it's shoulder ended up pinning Babydoll's lower half to the gravel that was once a great highway, the weight grinding the rocks against her skin. "YOU DIRTY MOTHER FUCKER SON OF A BITCH!!!" She said, smashing the hilt of her pistol against the monster's already impacted skull, which now included 4 bullet holes, and 2 through the neck. She now only had 4 bullets left.
 
Foot steps echoed loudly throughout the desolate area as Mira made her way through the rubble. The sound of gun shots filled the air suddenly, followed by an ear piercing roar. "Damn it." She growled out as she forced herself to run even faster. She refused to let her new companion die to the hands of one of those things. A shudder ran throughout her body. The horrors in which they left behind after feasting were one of the things she hoped to never see again.

She had managed to make her way into the clearing where she had meet Babydoll when she heard a voice yell, "You dirty mother fucker son of a bitch!" Quickly looking around for the other woman she spotted her not far off to her right, pinned under the creature. Not wasting a second she ran over and pulled it off of Babydoll. "Are you alright?" She questioned, her eyes searching for any visible injury.
 
Babydoll stood quickly as soon as the creature was pulled off of her. She let out her own roar and kicked the creature's corpse repeatedly droplets of blood being thrown from minor wounds on her right leg. As she finished taking her anger out on it, she took a few steps back her voice still holding the growls of rage as she loudly questioned, "WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT THING!!!!?????"
 
"It was a Wraith." Mira replied, giving a small sigh of relief at seeing that Babydoll was fine except for a few small injuries. "They are one of the top five most dangerous things in the Wasteland. They have an insatiable hunger for human flesh and will do anything to get their hands on it. I've seen an entire settlement be torn about by those bastards. The only way to describe the aftermath was that it was Hell." She paused for a moment as she glanced at the dead Wraith. A thoughtful expression formed on her face. "It' s odd for one to be here though. They never enter the Ruins and go out of their way to avoid them. I wonder why it's here?" Realization hit her suddenly. "Its probably what was tracking you." She glanced over at her companion. "Your lucky that this one is only a child by their standards. It it had been an adult you would have been dead long ago."
 
She got an even more enraged expression on her face, "I refuse to die 500 years away from home...." It slipped and normally Babydoll would've caught it, though she was at the moment, too angered and flustered to censor herself. Wanderers and psychos were one thing to her, simple vermin, though to Vera they'd be utterly terrifying, but the creature she came close to getting killed by, this Wraith...she'd have to use Vera's dormant strengths to figure out a better way to bring them down than using ammo she didn't have. "We need to cut it open......Bullets tore straight through it's hide, but it's gotta have other weaknesses, an Achille's heel that is guaranteed to bring it down....." She said with a shaken stutter, and a stern tone, reaching into her bag and pulling out a set of tools, though there was nothing that could've been used to cut into the Wraith. "I'll need your skill with a blade, surgical cut into the ribcage from the collar to the abdomen, I'll take a blood sample...." With that she jabbed a thick needle into the creature's arm and drew the plunger back the syringe filling with a black and red goopy mess. "Hmmmm, high protein and iron levels, obvious from the black chunks, which appear to be corroded coagulate of iron red blood cells and an as of yet unknown elemental metal, reccommend electrical conductivity and fire retardation experiments to test for any exploitable weaknesses....."
 
Mira's entire body froze as she registered the first thing that Babydoll said. '500 years in the future?!' She thought, her eyes wide. 'That can't be right. I must have heard her wrong.' She shook her head. This was neither the time nor the place to worry of such things. She would ask later, after she had time to think of how to approach the subject without frighting her companion. Once she had significantly calmed herself, she drew her blade, making the requested cut. She wouldn't bother asking why as that was not her place and would only serve as a way to confuse her even more. While she may have a far greater vocabulary then many of the other inhabitants of the Wasteland, advanced scientific procedures like the one she was speaking of was completely beyond her. "Anything else you need?" Mira asked while trying to keep her voice as even as possible.