War of The Worlds.

The absence of a routine was still novel. Kuba could wander wherever he wanted, drift wherever his whim took him, his hands held loosely around the crowbar he’d found in a Ukranian mechanic’s shop. Without the militia he felt cast adrift; cut loose. There had been safety in numbers – that was why he’d joined in the first place, at only age thirteen – which accentuated his newfound vulnerability. Just last week he’d cut himself on a piece of rusted tin, and had been at a loss as to how to fix it. He still remembered standing in the middle of someone’s long-gone garage, frowning at his oozing thumb, quite perplexed. It was like having to cook when his mother had always done it. 

He felt young, and foolish, but restlessly, brutishly free in a way somehow made up for the inconvenience of being alone.

An inconvenience he now felt keenly.

The startled yell pierced the otherwise silent forest. Kuba dropped to the ground, heart racing. Crouching behind a log, he strained his ears for things his superiors whad drilled into him: other soldiers, walkers, mutated animals. There was no rhythmic marching; no grunting or snuffling; and no distant scent of old, slightly damp fur. He was quite alone. Then came a groan, so quiet and pathetic it stirred his childish desire to turn heel and run.

Kuba frowned, straining to focus.

Whatever or whoever it was groaned again. This time it was still more than an exhale, as if its owner were running out of fumes. Kuba wrestled with himself. If they were hurt, he couldn’t do anything. His thumb still throbbed against the badly applied bandaids he’d scavenged. If they were dangerous, all he could do was escape. And that was supposing they wouldn’t barbecue him first.

Kuba steeled himself. Then he lifted up slightly and peered over the top of the log. He scanned the copse swiftly: nothing but endlessly bare trees, blackened trunks, and the scant undergrowth. The ground was a carpet of ashen autumnal leaves, still fallen from some long-gone seasonal change. Decay lingered in the slightly smoky air.

There! Kuba stiffened and listened. The whimper came again. 

Curiosity overcame him. Whoever it was might have supplies – and Kuba’s bag was feeling especially light. With any luck they were in enough pain to not register being robbed. Kuba exhaled steadily. He held his crowbar in two hands and emerged from behind the log.

He walked forward for a ten meters or so, eyes darting all over the ground, the trees, the skeletal boughs high above. There was nothing but leaves, and ash, and this was a waste of time. Pursing his lips, Kuba lowered his crowbar. Then he saw it.

The boy was tangled on the ground. His clothing was ripped suggestively, glinting scarlet with dark blood. An animal? Kuba wondered in fear, creeping closer despite himself. A human? The slashes looked… well, he didn’t know what they looked like. And that sent a bolt of white-hot terror right through him.

“Oh shit,” he muttered in Polish, crowbar lowering, eyes skipping all over the mangled body in front of him. “Fuck. Oh shit.”

The Frenchman, once so keen to run and quick on his wit was withering on the open Earth, the decay around him adding so much more to the devastating scene. Elliot's ribs expanded as he twisted himself, trying with such pitiful actions to hold up his body high - but it stumbled again and all he could do was sputter out saliva and whimpers. Death was not a premise he wanted to explore and this felt obviously too painful to be that final stage of his life. 

His fingernails dug harshly against mud and dirt, snaking their way until they had a solid grasp to heave his body up. Arching slowly, the boy craned his neck - only now realizing that he was not alone. A shot of fleshy pain crawled menacingly up his spine as he curled back in primal fear; he may have been incredibly weak, but trepidation always sauntered in the darkest of corners.

That last sliver of hope diminished rather oddly when tears poured from thick lashes, what was he thinking to rile his body up when it barely had enough willpower to even move? He caught sight of the boy, towering like a building and in his own state of shock. Elliot lowered himself again and curled his shoulders in an awkward symbolism of submission, more of, I have nothing to give - please .... spare me. 

His words, they were Polish, and in realizing that, Elliot began to cry out, 'please don't kill me,' he repeated this phrase in French, German, and even switching it to English to try and best himself as much as he could. The woman's body flashed in his mind and it sent his already paralyzing pain into a numbed shock, 'I hurt...' he finally spoke in German between sad sobs, 'please...I don't want to die...' 

I don't want to die. 

There was no denying how many times he taught himself to say that, thought that, even after the guilt ate his immunity to bits. Her mangled body still fresh and broken; probably still in early stages of decay at this point. That tight tug of sin etched on his face, the point a boy becomes a man in all the wrong ways, and it was a dealing he would have to associate with for the rest of his life. The world was turned to ash and shit, and crime was odd and warped, yet his heart was as young as the day he had fallen to the war.

Good lord the kid was skittish, she thought, as she watched him step back and stammer his way through his offer. Christ, she was an old woman who could barely make her way down a ladder, what did he think she was going to do to him? Lecture him to death? Strangle him with her arthritic fingers? 

Oui he said, and oui was French, that was alright, she knew a little bit of French, still, had done her exams in French back fifty some odd years ago and done a holiday in the south of France after finishing up her degree to celebrate, she could probably still string together a few words, with little regard for grammar or her thick accent, which made any other language still sound bloody incomprehensible. 

      ‘Oui, oui,’ she said, hoping the pathetic French would calm the kid down a little bit as he rummaged through his bag and came back up for air with a handful of batteries. If they weren’t already dead, they’d be a welcome addition to her slowly growing pile; there was never enough power when you were trying to run the kind of heat lamps and UV spectrum lights she needed to keep things growing. ‘No harm, yeah?

She held her hands up, indicating that she had no weapon, that she meant him no harm. She couldn’t have harmed him if she tried, probably; with no gun, the closest thing she had to  weapon was the gardening shears she’d left up on top of the roof, and he’d get away long before she made her way up that ladder. Either way, she wasn’t in the practice of injuring people who came to her in good faith looking to trade. 

     ‘What are you looking for?’ she asked, not sure how he wanted her to prove trust, but wanting the batteries in his hands. ‘Ahh, shite, qu'est-ce que vous avez besoin?’

The French sat heavy and thick on her tongue, an unpleasant sounding string of words that she wasn’t entirely sure had any real meaning, except that they probably vaguely meant what she wanted them to mean. Hopefully it was enough, hopefully he’d understand, and even more hopefully, he wouldn’t just start speaking fluent French and expecting her to follow along with his meaning.

Anyone could be of anything, in this world, Elliot refused to second guess if someone was foul or not; everyone was dangerous right from the start to the fellow. The colour of his face remained as ghostly as it had been, even when she spoke in his own native tongue. In the long dismissal, it would have brought a shroud of relief, some sort of biblical answer among many others - but the fear stayed fresh. 

'No harm, I mean it,' the Frenchman felt sheepish, the rough attitude so blatantly coming off his tongue - almost foreign to him.  Stiffly, he replied to his own comment, 'sorry.'  It was distasteful, but the scenery had grown on him again, making the mood even more pessimistic and the anxiety heighten. 

'Herbe,' Elliot responded, eyeing her carefully, batteries still fidgeting in his hand, 'eh...la graine - pour la médecine.’ Seeds, for medicine. He added, shuffling to the side tucking his coat into his small frame. Maybe German could help too, he was not sure, ‘Ich spreche auch Deutsch, wenn das hilft.’ I also speak German, if that helps. If not, it was a try worth doing.

She was quite well with her French, and now those moments have passed, the anxiety diminished only a little. There had been no weapon on her (he finally noticed), and his shoulders sagged, realizing that the upbringing of fear was fast and unneeded. Elliot felt horrid for being so forced in the beginning, but people had changed in the last five years and trust was earned like money; hard to get, easy to burn. 

He was positive that the station was remote of people; soldiers left with vacancy and done with the area. Elliot let air shakily escape his throat, hues never leaving the rubble of the long forgotten catacombs once called a home. Um Gottes Willen! The fellow thought, crouching gingerly against dishevelled rubble and earth. How such a guess could leave him without a few fingers, or worse, his own life. Was it truly a risk so bold to make? 

Elliot began to sly along the edge of the premises; letting his boots make as less noise as possible. Hues were trained on the campus, large and still well intact, even from how far the lad had been. He desired medical supplies, it was a medical university, of course they should have some. It was a well thought out idea, but still, the trepidation lingered, someone could be inside - and he was alone. 

He ducts down again, pulling out a rather large piece of concrete, shaped and meddled to look like a tip of a kitchen knife. The Frenchman rarely ever tries to use such a tactic against another human being. The world has gone bonkers and he did not need to be apart of it, there were barely people as is. The fellow was about to begin his trek, then he freezes, that sound. 

Feet are crumbling beneath rock and earth, they were heavy - not minding how much noise they made. Left, then right, stumble back, then left again. Their owner, so distant from the urgency of sound and motion. The clouds above even whipped and whirled to tell them to hush!  The knees went next, bone hitting the ground and dust dancing gingerly around his face. 

Pale physique now snow-like from the distant ache of running, sweat and blood trimming the once so smooth skin. He whimpered, like a child scraping his shin. A soft moan, barely even audible as the final stage of his collapse ensued. The Frenchman's lip tugged in pain, the spirit of a once so fragile child now weighted with a pencil tear. His heart fractured in even tinier pieces, the last straw of change withering his forsaken hope. There was no place he could go that would escape such a nightmare raking through his soul. 

Murdering someone, it was not like in the movies, how they pretended it was all screaming and squirts of red dye; it was painful and silent. There was no emotion, not when you went for the brain, and Elliot indeed did. Her hues were wide and then dilated, no humane sound, just a steadfast GUSH of blood - and just like that, a wonderful miracle of life, fell; and it was all his fault. 

The fellow's eyes were thick and dark, a sheet of dry skin cast over his lips and the rose-coloured cheeks stained with dark matter no man should need on his being. A full blown sob, roaring out as he curled into a protective fetal position - 'Warum,'  he bellowed in German. Elliot's shoulders hunched up, feeble in the prime of such an hour. The boy's frame decided not to move another inch, the floor of the area beckoned him, whispered profanities and lies, just like your mother, you took her life. Evil.

HEADCANONS + WORD │ @jakubzietek   //  FAMILY. 

his birth mother.  Elizabeth Daunt, 27, was a nurse practitioner, only being several years in the force before being pregnant with Elliot. There was a brief time of grief that the fellow went through after he discovered the death of his mother, and it only went for so long when his father scolded him the first time they met, saying, ‘ you killed her’. The lad does not have any true bonding with his mother, except that he would have loved her if she had still been alive. There was no solid picture that was given to him of her, so he only guesses that he gets his eye color from Elizabeth.

his father. There is only one person on this entire planet that he hates more than himself, and that is Yves Mosse, a thirty year old prick, in Elliot's mind. His father was a lawyer, mostly for civil defense and had moved to Paris after the divorce. Elliot barely dislikes anyone but after realizing that his father left him to rot in a child-home, lying about his lack of care and finances - with a new wife and child; it hurt him far beyond what anyone has ever done to him.  The first time he met Yves, the man looked almost identical to the fellow, of course the eyes were a pale blue and not brown (but Elliot cares less now, disgusted that he has to be associated with such a being). When confronting him about who she was and why he had left him there, all he could angrily say was that the boy murdered his mother because she could barely stay alive to give birth to him. 

ruth. Ruth Walter, His adoptive mother was his world and will always be, even after she was killed. Ruth, at the primed age of forty-nine, adopted him when he was five. Her growing want for a child returned to her years following the move to France.  She had taught him all that she knew - made sure he had taken good care of himself even with how small he was. Comforted him after his confession of his bi-curiousty, held the boy close when he would have night terrors, taught him how to do the waltz and how to hold a note. SHE WAS HIS EVERYTHING and it proved to him blood did not mean as much as others lead it on to be. Elliot actually carries around her family incrested ring; almost losing it once to some lowly thief on the west side of Belarus. 

The figure making its way out of the trees and into the small clearing her greenhouse occupied was small, and the voice that came from it – heavily accented English, nervous stammering, either not a threat of a very goo actor – sounded young. She set her water bottle down on a flat pane of glass, setting the top in place so it wouldn’t spill while she trued to maneuver herself around. 

She peeked over the edge of the roof to get a better look at him, squinting slightly to make out his features. Her distance vision was going, she’d started to notice lately; it wasn’t an ideal situation, when something like glasses were hard to come by, let alone ones in a correct prescription. He was young – about as young as he sounded, and thin, a teenager, a teenager. Christ, she couldn’t imagine having been a kid when the world went to shit, couldn’t imagine what that did to someone still growing up and learning how to navigate the world. 

     ‘I’m nae going t’ hurt ye,’ she grumbled, just loud enough for him to be able to hear her, and then set her shears and duct tape down as well, making her way back to the ladder that was propped against the side of the greenhouse, slowly easing herself onto it to begin the long journey down to the ground. For anyone else, she was sure, the greenhouse was no taller than an average one story house. For her, climbing up and down the ladder far more frequently these days than she would’ve liked, it felt like the tallest building left in the world. 

Just a normal trade, most likely. He’d probably been sent in her direction by someone else who had traded with her at some point or another. Most of the time, these days, that was the story. Word got around, when you had the resources people need, and surprisingly, most were considerate to at least attempt to trade for it if they knew you were willing to strike a fair deal for it. 

Her joints creaked and groaned on the way down, and it felt like it took a bloody lifetime before she reached the last step, made her way back onto solid ground and turned back to where they boy was standing.

     ‘There we go,’ she exhaled, brushing her hands together and standing her ground to look him up and down. ‘What can I do for ye, then? Food? Herbs? Who sent ye?’

     He saw the woman arch herself amongst the roof to peer down at  the lad and the simple action made him feel even smaller than he seemed. Awkwardly, Elliot took another step back - placing slender digits against the fabric of his jacket; colored pale and blue with a small tear near the left elbow.  The boy snuggled further into it in a sense of security, though diminished and tiny. He regretted being so urgent to seek some sort of advantage over the greenhouse, let his mind slip that there might be something alive protecting it. 

     There is a stiff ache that takes ahold of the Frenchman, hues are the only thing moving as he watched her maneuver her way down.  The stranger's accent made it difficult to understand her English, but he tried to be respectful (a gentle reminder to be kind to everyone, there was no need to get personal when death could be around the corner). It took him a few times to remember what words meant which in French, and he stuttered a 'thank you'. 

     Herb meant herbe, yes? It sounded closer to the French than it did to the German pronunciation, the fellow thought this as he watched her eye him, putting him on an unneeded edge. 'I have offer,' Elliot added shakily, taking another uncertain step back, 'but no offer if you harm.' The unnecessary words left his mouth, hinting that he was indeed alone. It took a few seconds to register what such a comment could condemn, causing his features to grow ghostly. Idiot, he mused. 

     There was no likely way that anything offered would be free; it was the pessimistic side (grown evidently) of himself that made such a guess, though Elliot could be wrong - all courage went to staying his ground instead of speaking up. There had to be some sort of clustered hope subsided somewhere that he could grasp on to, a smidge of faith could not truly hurt the boy, could it? ' Euh, how about the trade? Trade is good, Oui?'  

HEADCANON + WORD │@karosyrek

THE                                DEER.  

character memory // Ruth’s message.

Dec. 22 1994. Home phonebox.  ‘ Elliot, Elliot, please, I’m so frightened, where are you? You know very well that I love you; those boys do not matter, they should not. They do not know you like I do, know you for your soul.  Elliot, come home - please come back to me.’

location: the greenhouse, northern belarus time: several months ago, late afternoon      ( @elliotmosse· )

She was on the roof, when she saw him.

It had been windy, the night before, a low and constant howl as she tossed and turned in the cot deep within the greenhouse’s depths, and while the sturdy glass walls had kept the worst of the cold out, the tarp that covered one of the larger holes in the roof had not fared quite so well. A small branch from a nearby tree had come down onto it, its sharp points catching one corner of the tarp and shredding it, its weight just enough to tug that corner down from where it was taped, so that when Donna had awoken, she found the whole thing, branch and tarp and all, collapsed inwards and hanging by an edge from the shattered glass above. 

It had been the second thing on her list for the day. Caring for the plants had to come first – some of them needed pruning, some watering, and they were her livelihood and her lifeblood and so the hole in the ceiling would have to wait. But by mid-afternoon, she’d steeled herself, pulled her makeshift ladder into place, and clambered up onto the roof with a roll of duct tape between her teeth and a pair of shears tucked into her back pocket. Unsteady on her feet, she’d found a sturdy place on which to sit, and had set about the arduous task of paring the destroyed tarp away from the part of it which was salvageable, so that she could tape the entire thing back into place without jeopardizing its structural integrity. What good was a ceiling, after all, if it wasn’t sturdy? 

She was just taking a break, a quick one, to have a sip of water from the small steel bottle she carried, when movement on the horizon caught her eye, a small shape making its way through the trees around the rear of the greenhouse, from the direction of the nearest road. 

     ‘Up here,’ she called out, at the sight, her voice gruff and harsh. Half warning that if whoever it was planned to steal from her, she wasn’t out of sight, and half attempt to not startle whoever it was into panicking and shooting her, if they happened to have a gun. Both of those things had happened before, and she wasn’t exactly looking to see either of them happen again any time soon.

   The fellow had been quite nimble by his trepidation, the very breath escaping his lips was weak and full of sound. Dreadful! The structure of his being, aching to improve and yet it could not climb further from its ailments. Elliot needed provisions, ones he knew would take time to manage. The quick access to man-made medication was scarce and now with radiation, he knew, it would be even more distrustful.  

    The Frenchman journeyed up north again, farther this time; perhaps now the soldiers would have scattered and the small clutter of anomie groups he had surpassed in the last several months decided to take up territory east. It had been days since the last time he had seen the medical university in his sight, which meant his rather ugly drawn-out map was working more accurately than he had assumed. 

    His pack was indenting on pale shoulders, substituting as a rather odd distraction from his morbid anxiety. Though, in the distant, what was that? It stood not like the many monoliths that crumbled with its empire, a beacon to his trembling mind. A blur, but there was a small scene of green inside! Gott! Elliot scrambled towards the area, with caution - indeed, but so much buzzing thrill.