#nepoznat

It caused her to slip across the split pavement of the once bustling city streets as she ran. The thing causing her to run was a gang of raiders who spotted her searching for food that had been left behind in houses. The rain was slowing them too but not as much as she hoped. She needed to put some space between her and the gang if she wanted to get back to base since it wasn’t exactly built to withstand the might of angry raiders. Thinking as quickly as she could, she grabbed a lamppost and used her momentum to swing around it and down the next street. A few of the raiders got tripped up as they were going too fast to turn that quickly but there were still a decent amount on her tail.

“Damnit!” She hissed, looking around for any other way to slow the rest down.

Unfortunately, the universe had yet to pity her and instead gave her a giant building in the middle of her path. A quick scan of the area revealed that there wasn’t anywhere else to go. She groaned and reached into the sheaths attached to her legs. Really didn’t want to use these. She thought as she removed the two daggers stored in the sheaths. Hanzel had made them for her as she didn’t have much to defend herself with other than a few sparse self defense tricks.

“Nowhere to run now you little nuisance.” One of the raiders said, signalling the rest to block off the road they came from.

“Good thing I’m no longer in the mood to run then.” She returned.

She clicked a button on the handle of one dagger, causing it to extend while pressing another on the other one that formed a shield around it. The raiders seemed to falter a bit at this before remembering that they had the number advantage they had and charging her. She caught the fist of one, twisting it at a painful angle before kicking them in the stomach before quickly raising her shield to block a blow from another raider's hammer. She made a few swipes at some of them, mostly going for the legs to try and slow them down or incapacitate them. Unfortunately, she didn’t get the same treatment and nearly got a limb or two hacked off.

Still outnumbered and running out of energy, she smacked the base of one dagger's handle and shook out a capsule. It hit the ground with a quiet clink and she stomped on it, causing it to erupt in a cloud of yellow tinted gas. She immediately pulled up her mask, not wanting to inhale whatever dangerous gas that had been packed in there before smashing one of the fallen building's windows and jumping in. She made her way through what appeared to have once been an office, jumping flipped tables and other debris. She eventually reached the other side of the building and shattered the window there before climbing through and finally removing her mask.

The rain still fell in droves and chilled Muffin to the bone but she knew she needed to press on if she wanted to warm up. With that reminder, she set off at a quick pace towards the base.

---

It took her a while but she eventually reached their base which was, in the simplest terms, a glorified treehouse.

Nep had begged them to move out of their old shack that Muffin had built and after some hard work, they put the base together using whatever materials they had.

Speaking of the little gremlin…

“HALT STRANGER!” A voice from the treehouse called, “STATE YOUR NAME AND BUSINESS OR FACE IMMEDIATE PUNISHMENT!”

“It’s me Nep!” Muffin called back, “You don’t need to do this every time!”

“AND WHO MAY THIS ‘ME’ BE?”

Muffin let out an exasperated sigh, “Nep I swear if you don’t let down the ladder RIGHT NOW you are in SO much danger when I get up there!”

“Fine, fine!” Nep responded, “Just chill out on the threats!”

With that, a rope ladder descended from a platform up above the trees which Muffin grabbed and began climbing.

She grabbed the top rung and a gloved hand reached out, “Need a hand there?”

“Finally willing to help, I see?” Muffin responded and grabbed the hand.

She was brought up to face their resident scout and mechanic, Nep. No one really knew what their old name was other than Hanzel but neither of them really talked about their life before the apocalypse so it was never brought up. Nep was helpful when it came to getting into small spaces or climbing up to something the others couldn’t get to. They were nimble and quick witted which gave them an advantage when it came to looking for possible dangers.

“Oh no need to be so grumpy,” Nep responded, “you know I just like messing with you.”

“Put a sock in it shorty.” Muffin said.

“Whatever mom.” They said.

Muffin sighed, “I thought we all agreed to pretend those code names never happened…”

“I don’t remember agreeing to anything.”

Muffin couldn’t help the annoyed groan that escaped her, “I can’t believe I put up with you people.”

“You can ponder your reasons for living in a treehouse with two scientists and a gremlin later, right now you need to get out of those clothes and warm up.” Nep said, shoving Muffin into the treehouse.

“Sitting in front of the fire for a few hours doesn’t sound too bad right now…” Muffin mused, allowing herself to be pushed into their base.

Right as the door opened, it was slammed shut, surprising the two stuck outside.

“The treehouse is currently closed for repairs, come back later!” Someone called from inside before yelping, followed by a loud crash.

“HANZEL WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO?!” Nep shouted, banging on the door, “And open this door! We’re freezing out here!”

“WORKING ON IT!” Hanzel yelled and a few dull thuds were heard before everything fell silent.

After a moment, the door swung open, revealing a very disheveled man.

“Sorry for the delay, “He said, “Millicent and I were just testing out a new invention.”

“How much did you break this time?” Muffin asked.

“Depends on what you consider broken.” He said, gesturing for them to come in.

The inside was a disaster. Broken glass and screws littered the wood floors. Amongst the mess was Millicent, scrambling to pick everything up.

“Before you say anything, I blame Hanzel!” She said.

“HEY!” Said scientist cried indignantly.

They began bickering and Muffin couldn’t help but chuckle slightly. Hanzel and Millicent were the smartest of their group. Eccentric, but certainly smart. Hanzel liked to create devices for the other three and Millicent was drawn more towards chemical related science. They got into a lot of fights but always made up quickly. It was a cycle for them really, get into a fight, explain themselves, and help each other finish some half baked plan as an apology. Currently, they seemed to have gone from apology right back to fighting.

“Knock it off you two.” Muffin cut in before they got too angry, “We can clean it up later, right now we can just have some dinner and ignore the monster storm going on outside.”

“Speaking of outside,” Millicent said, her argument with Hanzel quickly forgotten, “did you happen to find anything?”

Muffin shook her head, “No, raiders got to me before I could find anything. It was a nightmare to get them off my tail but the stuff you guys gave me definitely came in handy.”

“Bummer,” Nep said, “welp, let’s see what we’ve got for dinner tonight.”

Along with being the scout and mechanic, Nep was also the most adept at cooking. Whenever the other three tried to make anything it either came out mushy or burnt. They poked around the fridge a bit before coming out with some meat Muffin salvaged from someone else’s campsite and some random vegetables.

“Soup it is!” They declared and got to work.

“While they do that, I’m gonna go shower and get out of these soaked clothes.” Muffin said, “Honestly, I could almost skip the shower and just stand outside for a couple minutes.”

She walked off towards her room and left the other three to do as they pleased. Hanzel and Millicent began their argument again and Nep resigned to getting dinner prepared. It was honestly quite calm considering their circumstances. In some ways, they all got lucky. In others, their luck failed them. For example, both Hanzel and Nep were essentially ground zero for the infection and they both had the proof. A small portion of Nep’s right side was visibly infected while Hanzel’s leg used to be in a similar state. Unfortunately, his got too bad too fast he lost the leg.

Thankfully however, he managed to fashion a prosthetic with Millicent’s help. It wasn’t anything fancy at first but over time, he made it more effective and surprisingly useful. The two learned to manage the infection in their own ways, one of which being a formula Millicent cooked up that helped make the virus dormant as long as it was taken regularly. Millicent and Muffin didn’t get out unscathed either though. Muffin has more scars than she can count, most of which being from fights with raiders and the occasional wild animal. Millicent has a multitude of chemical burns from experiments gone wrong and an unfortunate encounter with a raider that got ahold of some of her chemicals.

Step.

Step.

Step.

Step.

The cycle became mind numbing AND muscle numbing, causing the escapee to trip multiple times. At one point, they tripped and when they tried to get back up, they didn’t have the energy. They wanted to cry for help but their voice was too scratchy and quiet. At that moment they just accepted that they would either be found by Erin again or die out here in the empty plains, with freedom just on the horizon. Their vision became spotty and blurred as they completely collapsed with a grunt.

And escape slipped through their grasp.

-----

Can’t believe I was stuck with patrol again. Muffin thought, annoyed that her lazy companions couldn’t be bothered to take patrol even once. But she didn’t entirely mind, it gave her a chance to get out of the base and wander. Sure it made her anxious over whether her adopted gremlins would end up in danger but she ignored that. Today, she decided to see if there were any signs of people or just anything out on the plains. It was hard to call scanning the horizon as patrolling but it wasn’t like she’d get in trouble for half-assing her job.

She was about to turn back and go do some actual patrolling before she spotted something off in the distance. It was either an oddly colored small hill or some creature that had collapsed. She figured it was the second option and decided to check it out. She pulled out her daggers and made her way towards the lump. Upon closer inspection, it appeared to be a humanoid creature wearing jeans and a sweater.

“Hey,” She began, nudging the being with her foot, “you alright?”

There was a quiet groan that came from them and Muffin tried nudging them again. This time there was no response and she began to grow worried. Something had obviously happened to this person (She assumed it was human at least) and she didn’t know what to do about it. After a momentary mental debate, she picked the person up and after shifting them a little, found a comfortable position and began traveling back to the base.

-----

Millicent immediately examined the stranger after Muffin got home and explained what happened. She said the problem was most likely dehydration or exhaustion, nothing too bad, nothing some rest couldn't fix. Nep gave up their room for however long it took the new guest to wake up. Hanzel asked them about why they were being surprisingly kind to the stranger and they just ignored him. Eventually, the initial excitement over having another (possible) friend in the base wore off, they all returned to their everyday tasks. Muffin kept an eye on the horizon while Hanzel tinkered and Millicent reread one of her chemistry books for probably the seventeenth time. Nep was probably off climbing something dangerous but Muffin had given up trying to stop them long ago.

Everything was going normally until there was an ear piercing scream from Nep's room. Everyone still in the base ran to see what was happening and upon opening the door saw a rather unexpected sight.

Nep was hanging upside down right outside the tree, their shirt having slid down enough to expose the telltale signs of infection, and the new guest had woken up to that very disturbing sight.

"Hey hey hey it's alright!" Muffin began, trying to calm the new person, "Nep won't hurt you! They're just a little curious, that's all." with that she none too subtly glared at Nep.

"What?!" They responded, "I was just curious about who exactly I agreed to let hang out in my room!"

"Stop stalking people Nep, we've been over this." Hanzel said with the tone of someone who's had to explain this one too many times.

The two began arguing while Muffin struggled to calm down their guest and Millicent watched in mild curiosity.

"EVERYONE OUT!" Muffin finally snapped, getting fed up with the arguing.

There were a few annoyed grumbles but Nep left the tree and Hanzel and Millicent wandered off somewhere else. With the room now clear, Muffin began to explain what happened and once that was done, she started to ask questions.

"So," She began, "what's your name stranger?"

The other person was silent for a moment before quietly responding, "I-I'm Nire. How ab-bout you?"

"My name's Muffin. The one hanging outside the window earlier is Nep, the one arguing with them is Hanzel, and Millicent is the one that just watched."

Nire nodded slowly, processing the new information, "And… where am I?"

"This is our base," Muffin explained, "I found you out on the plains and figured it was best to help out someone in trouble."

She seemed to relax at that, “Oh good, I was worried I had been caught again.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, caught by who?”

Nire momentarily panicked before giving herself a mental pep talk and responding, “It was my... “ she swallowed nervously, “My s-sister…”

Muffin frowned, “Well she doesn’t sound like a good sister that’s for sure.”

Nire gave a dark chuckle at that, “Yeah, we had a testy relationship at best.”

“Well you don’t need to worry about her anymore cuz now you have us to protect you!” Muffin said proudly.