You might be absorbing more rads than usual now, but heading to the city would just be retarded. You’d probably die of cancer just going near the place; everything there would be contaminated anyway. You don’t even want to see the survivors what the survivors might look like assuming there were any. You head for the general store, that’s at least a safer bet.

You drive your Van to the general store not very far from your house. You remember the old guy who ran the place; Billy. He was always alright with you. Whenever you went in to buy food, he was always talking about how bad the state of world was getting and how he was going to be  prepared for when the nukes started flying. You’re guessing he probably invested in one of those Ground Zero Survival Shelters you always saw for sale on TV and took himself and his wife to it. The last time you saw the place it was all boarded up and looked closed up for good, still it’s a start.

You arrive at the store which is still all boarded up like the last time you’ve seen it. You always found it weird that Billy bothered to board the place up, if he was going to abandon it. Surely he couldn’t have thought things would be restored so quickly after a nuclear exchange that he’d be able to return some day.

You get out of your van and study the store more closely which you never bothered to do before, the windows are boarded up from the outside, but upon closer inspection the door hasn’t been boarded up at all. You try the door, but it’s firmly locked. Nothing else for it, but to bash it down. You begin prying, slamming, kicking and everything else to the door, but its not budging and you only succeed in bruising your shoulder. In frustration you pull out your pistol and finally just shoot at the lock and then try to open it, which it does slightly, something else is barring the door from the inside though. You’re going to have to start ramming the thing again to shove it open enough to get inside.

Suddenly you hear some noise from inside and the click of a shotgun, it’s also only just then you realize that Billy’s pick up truck is still parked by the side of his store. He’s obviously still here and you were oblivious to the fact.

“Goddamn it Martha, hasn’t been a month yet an’ we already got scum tryin’ ta loot the place!”

It’s Billy. You thought he left, but apparently not. He just made it look like he did and barricaded himself inside.

“Alright you looting shit stain, you better just get the fuck outta here right now, ‘fore you find yourself with a new hole in your chest!” Billy says from inside.
“Whoa Billy it’s me! I used to shop here! Come on open up, I’m not a looter!” you reply.
“…(sigh) hold on, and back away from the goddamn door.”

You back away as Billy presumably moves whatever was still blocking the door. When he finally opens it up, he stands in the doorway still pointing his shotgun at you.

“Damnation boy, I coulda blown your head off! You fuckin’ destroyed my lock! What the hell are you wearin’?” Billy asks looking at your silly form of protection.
“I’m sorry; I thought you abandoned this place.”
“Oh and that gave you the excuse to break in? What’re you think yer doin’ anyway? Why aren’t you in your shelter or something?”
“Cause I don’t have one that’s why! I was going to see if this place had any supplies and maybe stay here, if it wasn’t in bad condition.”
“Oh. Well, sorry to crush yer dreams, but this place is still occupied and OWNED by me. You’re gonna have to skedaddle. Just enough supplies for me and my wife.”
“But…”
“No buts! Now you were a good customer an’ all, but this is a new world and the rules have severely changed! It’s all about survival now. And it’s not my fault your ass didn’t prepare for somethin’ that was comin’ for a long time! Now if you don’t leave now I’m gonna be less understanding about this lack of judgment on your part. Bye and good luck.”
“No wait!”

At this point Billy slams the door shut mumbling about the lock being destroyed and going to have to fix it. Billy must have some sort of private bomb shelter of his own, if he barricaded himself inside his own store. One that must be stocked pretty well to sustain him and his wife for a good amount of time.

An idea races through your head that you never thought you’d consider, well not before the nukes hit anyway, but Billy’s statement of “This is about survival” rings true. It IS about survival, and not just his.

You don’t really want to do this, but you feel like you have no other choice.

Billy is still trying to barricade the door, when you take another forceful charge into it.
Your attempt is successful this time as it flies open causing Billy to fall and drop the heavy box he was going to place in front of it. The box half lands on Billy causing him crushing pain while he struggles to grab his shotgun from the floor. You’re quicker though and point your own pistol at him.

“Don’t grab that shotgun Billy…I don’t want to kill you.” you say
“Goddamn sonofabitch, you ain’t taking this…”
“Billy what’s… OH MY GOD!”

When you hear Martha’s outburst, it startles you during this already tense moment, you end up turning around and firing. You hit Martha square in the chest; she looks down briefly in shock before falling over dead. You’re a little in shock yourself.

“MARTHA!” Billy screams, causing you to face him once more, he’s now actually grabbed the shotgun, and you begin babbling.

“Oh God! Oh man! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to do that! She came up and…Billy don’t do that…I don’t want to…please…”

You fire again, hitting Billy in the head, splattering his brains all over the floor and killing him instantly.

You feel sick and promptly run outside to vomit. You’ve never killed anyone before, though you don’t think it was that, that made you sick. It was the fact you murdered two people who were really innocent. You were the trespasser and when you couldn’t get what you wanted, you took it by force. You acted like a criminal even if there’s no such thing as “law” anymore. You sit down in a daze for a few minute trying to take all this in, before realizing you have to take care of some clean up first.

You remove the bodies of Billy and Martha from the store. (You also remove your silly “protection wear”, well except the dishwashing gloves for moving the bodies) You wonder where you’re going put them, but eventually you decide to just dump them in the wilderness nearby, you figure nature will take its course.

You go back to the store and re-barricade it. The store itself is empty, but in a back room, you discover a trapdoor. You descend and discover a large shelter with a treasure of food and water supplies, along with other useful items like first aid kits. Looks like Billy was more prepared than you could’ve imagined. One necessity you’re glad to find is a bathroom facility with a sink and toilet, there’s a little bit of water seeping from the cracks of the walls. Billy must’ve hit the jackpot and found an underground water source and built a crude plumbing system. He’s also installed a small hydro generator which would explain how come there’s dim lighting down here.

Finally you see some survivalist books Billy had on a small bookshelf by a bed and a couple of hunting rifles along with ammunition for them and the shotgun you’ve recently acquired as well.

Well you’re certainly set up, and all you had to do was kill an old couple. As you lie down on the bed you think about your actions in greater depth now. You’re not sure how to feel. Part of you wants to feel bad, but somehow you can’t make yourself feel as bad as you probably should. In fact you’re already starting to rationalize your actions. The first murder was a mistake, and the second one was self-defense.

“And this is survival.” You say and fall asleep.

The next day you wake up, you feel the most refreshed than you have in a long time.

Something has changed within you. You don’t recognize immediately, but as a few months go by you begin to.

Granted you were never a big one for human contact, anti-social and reclusive even, but this “line” you’ve crossed recently, your continued isolation, and the absence of civilization have made you become a little unhinged.

You also start becoming paranoid, about other people stumbling across your new place and attempt to break in and take it like you did. Using the knowledge you’ve been getting from the survivalist books, you start setting up traps, inside and outside the store. One time, you spend just about a whole day doing that. When the darkness approaches you go back to your underground haven to descend further into quiet madness, before you fall asleep.

Suddenly in the middle of the night you hear a noise and a scream from above. Sounds like it’s coming from outside and from more than one person. You immediately grab your shotgun and head upstairs.

After going through the typical routine of taking down the barricades, you open the door and see a family in panic. A man is lying on the ground yelling in pain from the snap trap that has obviously broken his leg. A woman and a little boy are screaming frantically and totally clueless of what to do in this situation.

Looks like your traps work.

The family hasn’t seen you yet and don’t know your intentions, come to think of it, you aren’t even sure of your intentions…
> You help them
You haven’t completely given up on your conscience. These people didn’t do anything to you; they were probably just trying to find some place to be.

“Hold on! I got a medical kit!” you shout and run to go fetch it along with small wooden plank and some rope. When you come back the entire family seems to have calmed down a bit, you remove the trap from his leg and look at it. You didn’t use anything with blades, so its just broken, not punctured in any way.

“Damn, it’s a good thing I didn’t use that bear trap I found, your leg would’ve been completely severed! Now if I remember reading this right, I have to reset the leg…”
“Wait! You mean you’ve never done this before?” the man shouts.
“Well no, but I’ve been reading! Now brace yourself!”
“No Wait! AAAAAAAAGH! SHIT! That hurt!”
“There now I just have to tie this splint thing around your leg, and you’ll be all set, well more or less. What the hell are you people doing out here anyway? Shouldn’t you be in a shelter or something?”

The woman answers your question.

“We were supposed to, but when we got to the GZS shelter we bought it wouldn’t let us in! It just ate our debit card and said error! We tried like hell to get in, but the elevator door just wouldn’t budge. When the bombs hit, we were in the shelter entrance foyer, and stayed there for a few days, but we realized we couldn’t stay there forever, so we left and tried to find a nearby town that we might try to continue life as usual, but the one we found was quite unfriendly, they wouldn’t even let us stay! This catastrophic event has made people paranoid and hostile!”
“Huh. People were like that before the bombs; did you think they’d be different afterwards?” you say.

Now the man speaks again, as he attempts to sit up

“Well I’d at least expect some hospitality. When we got there, they looked at us like we were going to loot the entire town.”
“Probably thought you were, you know its going to take a while before most folks become trusting again. People are going to barely trust people they know. Hell, I heard they were rioting in the city before the bombs dropped. So I’d imagine there are lots of bad types out there willing to kill people over supplies as simple as fresh water.”
“But you helped us.”
“Yeah, I guess I did…”
“Is this your store? Looks like you were better prepared than we were.”
“Uh…yeah, okay well I guess you guys can stay out here for awhile until you’re ready to move on. Good luck.”

As you turn to leave the woman speaks again.

“Hey wait! You mean you’re not going to let us in? You’d just leave us out here? We told you, we were low on gas! And now my husband Jonathan has a broken leg! How are we going to get by?”
“So, you can drive can’t you? Look, this isn’t my problem. I helped out, because I realized you guys weren’t bandits or some shit, but I’m not here to take care of you. I have my own concerns.”
“But…”
“Let it go Doris, I guess we should be grateful he fixed my leg and didn’t kill us.”
“Are we going to be okay Dad?” the boy asks, speaking up for the first time without yelling.
“We’ll see Tyler, we’ll see.”

Ah fuck, you started to give shit and now it’s coming back at you.

You turn around, and give in.

“Alright, you can come in, but you’re staying in the topside of the store, you can even stay until your leg heals, but after that, you gotta go. I don’t have supplies to sustain all of you indefinitely.”

The family is very grateful, and moves in immediately.

Over the months you all get to know each other a little better though you still don’t exactly tell them how you “acquired” this place. You just say your “Uncle Billy” gave it to you when he died.

Soon Jonathan’s leg is much better, but you’re wondering if you shouldn’t let them stay on a more permanent basis; however as it turns out, that’s exactly what Jonathan had in mind for his family except YOU weren’t included.

This treachery for your good graces comes as a surprise one night, when Doris suddenly wakes you up by banging on the trap door, yelling about how she thinks there’s someone out side and how Jonathan went to check, but she thinks he’s in trouble. You immediately grab your shotgun and go see what’s wrong.

You barely get out the front door, and you’re suddenly hit in the head, knocking you to the ground. Jonathan grabs your shotgun and points it at you. Doris and Tyler come to the doorway.

“Doris, take Tyler down into the underground…this’ll be over soon I hope.” Jonathan replies grimly.

Doris nods and then looks at you, with a sad expression.

“We’re sorry about this…we really are…” she says and then takes her son away leaving just you and Jonathan. You stand up and brush yourself off.

“So, were you planning this all along or what?”
“Well…I dunno…nowadays, you don’t really plan anything, it just sort of happens y’know?”
“Oh yeah, I know.”
“Well you can understand that this is a good place for me and my family, and I can’t allow you to just kick us out.”
“Stupid bastard, I was just thinking about letting you all stay on a more permanent basis.” you laugh. This response surprises Jonathan, and it almost looks like he’s going to change his mind, but he doesn’t.

“…It’s too late now. You’d never trust me now, and I’d always think you’d try to get revenge. You have to leave. Besides you said it yourself one time, there aren’t an indefinite amount of supplies, to sustain all of us.”
“Well you might as well pull that goddamn trigger John, because I’m not leaving.”
“Come on, man I’m serious! I’ll do it. I don’t want to, but  I got a family to think about and there’s nothing that’s gonna make me change my mind…look I’ll let you leave with some supplies. How about that? I mean you can take one of these vehicles or even mine! Just you gotta leave, we’re taking this place now. I’m sorry.”

Well it’s not much of a choice, but it may be more preferable than death. Though you can’t help but think of the irony that how you tried to do the right thing and got fucked in the ass big time, while when you murdered Billy and his wife, you hit the damn jackpot.
> You insist on staying
“Fuck you John, I’m not making it that easy for ya. You think it’s really that easy to kill someone? You go right ahead.”

You’re hoping that you’re just calling his bluff and he really won’t shoot you, whether he was or not, he hesitates long enough for you to take advantage of the situation.

You dive into Jonathan’s legs as hard as you can, causing the both of you to fall to the ground, he attempts to get you off by smashing you in the head with the shotgun butt, however you knock it from his hands and re-break his leg, this time so the bone comes through. He bellows in pain, and then you kick him in the face.

You pick up the shotgun and point it at him.

“You stupid motherfucker! I woulda let you stay here! If you’d just…bah! You’re right, it’s too late now, and you fucked…ARGH!”

A shot rings out and a sharp pain shoots into your side, causing you to fall. You look over in the direction of the store and its Doris holding one of the hunting rifles, though it seems she’s not entirely comfortable with it and her second shot misses, giving you time to retaliate.

“Bitch!” you say and swing the shotgun in her direction blowing a hole in her side as well, though hers is instantly fatal.

“DORIS!” Jonathan screams before he crawls in your direction in some vain attempt for revenge.

“Told ya, it’s not that easy to kill someone, unless you’ve done it before…” you remark and finish off Jonathan.

You’re bleeding profusely and in a lot of pain, and you briefly wonder if you’re going to survive your wounds, but that wonder comes to an end, when another shot rings out, hitting your upper body dropping you. It’s Tyler holding your pistol, silent, with tears in his eyes upon seeing his dead parents.

You give up, even if you had the strength to pick up your shotgun, you’re not going to kill a kid. In fact you figure you probably deserve to die anyway given that you’ve killed two couples now who didn’t really deserve it. You decide to give some last minute advice to this newly orphaned lad, who’s going to surely have a hard time of it now, but still he might survive if he listens to your words…

“Don’t trust anyone kid…nobody.”


You haven’t completely given up on your conscience. These people didn’t do anything to you; they were probably just trying to find some place to be.

“Hold on! I got a medical kit!” you shout and run to go fetch it along with small wooden plank and some rope. When you come back the entire family seems to have calmed down a bit, you remove the trap from his leg and look at it. You didn’t use anything with blades, so its just broken, not punctured in any way.

“Damn, it’s a good thing I didn’t use that bear trap I found, your leg would’ve been completely severed! Now if I remember reading this right, I have to reset the leg…”
“Wait! You mean you’ve never done this before?” the man shouts.
“Well no, but I’ve been reading! Now brace yourself!”
“No Wait! AAAAAAAAGH! SHIT! That hurt!”
“There now I just have to tie this splint thing around your leg, and you’ll be all set, well more or less. What the hell are you people doing out here anyway? Shouldn’t you be in a shelter or something?”

The woman answers your question.

“We were supposed to, but when we got to the GZS shelter we bought it wouldn’t let us in! It just ate our debit card and said error! We tried like hell to get in, but the elevator door just wouldn’t budge. When the bombs hit, we were in the shelter entrance foyer, and stayed there for a few days, but we realized we couldn’t stay there forever, so we left and tried to find a nearby town that we might try to continue life as usual, but the one we found was quite unfriendly, they wouldn’t even let us stay! This catastrophic event has made people paranoid and hostile!”
“Huh. People were like that before the bombs; did you think they’d be different afterwards?” you say.

Now the man speaks again, as he attempts to sit up

“Well I’d at least expect some hospitality. When we got there, they looked at us like we were going to loot the entire town.”
“Probably thought you were, you know its going to take a while before most folks become trusting again. People are going to barely trust people they know. Hell, I heard they were rioting in the city before the bombs dropped. So I’d imagine there are lots of bad types out there willing to kill people over supplies as simple as fresh water.”
“But you helped us.”
“Yeah, I guess I did…”
“Is this your store? Looks like you were better prepared than we were.”
“Uh…yeah, okay well I guess you guys can stay out here for awhile until you’re ready to move on. Good luck.”

As you turn to leave the woman speaks again.

“Hey wait! You mean you’re not going to let us in? You’d just leave us out here? We told you, we were low on gas! And now my husband Jonathan has a broken leg! How are we going to get by?”
“So, you can drive can’t you? Look, this isn’t my problem. I helped out, because I realized you guys weren’t bandits or some shit, but I’m not here to take care of you. I have my own concerns.”
“But…”
“Let it go Doris, I guess we should be grateful he fixed my leg and didn’t kill us.”
“Are we going to be okay Dad?” the boy asks, speaking up for the first time without yelling.
“We’ll see Tyler, we’ll see.”

Ah fuck, you started to give shit and now it’s coming back at you.

You turn around, and give in.

“Alright, you can come in, but you’re staying in the topside of the store, you can even stay until your leg heals, but after that, you gotta go. I don’t have supplies to sustain all of you indefinitely.”

The family is very grateful, and moves in immediately.

Over the months you all get to know each other a little better though you still don’t exactly tell them how you “acquired” this place. You just say your “Uncle Billy” gave it to you when he died.

Soon Jonathan’s leg is much better, but you’re wondering if you shouldn’t let them stay on a more permanent basis; however as it turns out, that’s exactly what Jonathan had in mind for his family except YOU weren’t included.

This treachery for your good graces comes as a surprise one night, when Doris suddenly wakes you up by banging on the trap door, yelling about how she thinks there’s someone out side and how Jonathan went to check, but she thinks he’s in trouble. You immediately grab your shotgun and go see what’s wrong.

You barely get out the front door, and you’re suddenly hit in the head, knocking you to the ground. Jonathan grabs your shotgun and points it at you. Doris and Tyler come to the doorway.

“Doris, take Tyler down into the underground…this’ll be over soon I hope.” Jonathan replies grimly.

Doris nods and then looks at you, with a sad expression.

“We’re sorry about this…we really are…” she says and then takes her son away leaving just you and Jonathan. You stand up and brush yourself off.

“So, were you planning this all along or what?”
“Well…I dunno…nowadays, you don’t really plan anything, it just sort of happens y’know?”
“Oh yeah, I know.”
“Well you can understand that this is a good place for me and my family, and I can’t allow you to just kick us out.”
“Stupid bastard, I was just thinking about letting you all stay on a more permanent basis.” you laugh. This response surprises Jonathan, and it almost looks like he’s going to change his mind, but he doesn’t.

“…It’s too late now. You’d never trust me now, and I’d always think you’d try to get revenge. You have to leave. Besides you said it yourself one time, there aren’t an indefinite amount of supplies, to sustain all of us.”
“Well you might as well pull that goddamn trigger John, because I’m not leaving.”
“Come on, man I’m serious! I’ll do it. I don’t want to, but  I got a family to think about and there’s nothing that’s gonna make me change my mind…look I’ll let you leave with some supplies. How about that? I mean you can take one of these vehicles or even mine! Just you gotta leave, we’re taking this place now. I’m sorry.”

Well it’s not much of a choice, but it may be more preferable than death. Though you can’t help but think of the irony that how you tried to do the right thing and got fucked in the ass big time, while when you murdered Billy and his wife, you hit the damn jackpot.
> You leave
“Alright, fine I’ll leave…but you know this isn’t right.” You say backing away.
“…I know…I know…” he replies.

Jonathan calls his wife to get you few days supply of water, and some food. She soon returns with both which are throw at your feet, you take them and head to your van. They aren’t going to give you a weapon though for obvious reasons. They tell you that maybe the town they stopped at before will be friendlier to you and you could try to live there.

You don’t say anything else, you just go to start up your van and drive off, you aren’t sure where you’re heading, but you figure you’ll take the “friendly advice” of Doris and Jonathan and go to the town they told you about.

 You get a few miles and then your van decides to die on you. Nothing’s going your way. After futile attempts to fix it, kicks, and threats, you realize you’re walking now, which wouldn’t be completely bad if you weren’t without some sort of weapon.

While walking along the desolate road, a dog like creature appears in the distance, then another, then more. They look like wolves, but something is obviously different about them, like they’re deformed in some way, either way they don’t look friendly, but they do look very hungry.

You attempt to outrun them, but the mutant wolves are faster, and they ultimately catch you and rip you apart.


It’s always been like you to do things at the last minute.

After grabbing your pistol and all the food and drink you can, then heading down in the basement with it, you think that things probably won’t be that bad. After all you don’t live in the city, or even by an important city, surely not EVERY place will get bombed. It’s not like you live on the east or west coast, now those people are going to be fucked.

No, all you have to do is wait this out, and then things will get back to normal…okay well maybe not normal, but surely the government will restore order of some sort, you’re sure they have a complex plan for this kind of thing.

Eventually you hear a very loud noise; whatever light you had on in the basement immediately goes out as you can hear your house being hit by a powerful force. You curl up in a ball and hold your ears half expecting the entire house to collapse in on you, but it doesn’t happen.

You stay in the basement, for what you guess to be a week. You mostly stumble around in the darkness as reality begins to set in and destroy your previous delusions. You mainly think about how you should’ve planned things out better, especially since your food and drink are running out. The only thing you know really know about nuclear attacks is what you’ve learned from movies, video games and comic books. You can only hope some of that shit was helpful, as you have little choice, but to leave your basement, the bucket you were using to relieve yourself down there was really starting to stink anyway.

You open up your basement door, which remarkably stayed intact, along with most of your house. The windows and other glass objects have all broke, and there’s no power, but that’s about it. You can only guess that whatever it was that hit, was far enough away and probably very low yield. You don’t really want to think about the radioactivity factor though; you’ll know if you’re catching a lethal dose soon enough if your hair and teeth start falling out and you begin vomiting blood.

Damn you wish you bought that bomb shelter…

You check the refrigerator again for more food, but there won’t be enough to last you one day. You wonder if the water is still working and turn on the faucet, of course it doesn’t, you don’t think you’d want to risk drinking any of it anyway. Well it looks like you can’t stay in your house either; you’re going to have to leave to find food and some sort of drinkable liquid.

Damn you wish you bought that bomb shelter…

Well if you’re going to leave, you decide some sort of protection is in order; you grab some dishwashing gloves underneath the sink, some safety goggles you’ve had since you college chemistry class, a winter coat and finally a scarf your grandmother knit you for one of your birthdays to wrap over your mouth. You look somewhat silly in this getup and it probably won’t protect you at all, but you’re back to deluding yourself again which is probably a good thing since your relapses into fantasy are keeping you from breaking down completely.

You open your dented garage door and get in your old van expecting it not to work, surprisingly it does. You thought it wouldn’t due to all that stuff you remember hearing about EMP waves or something, then again your car was built in a year before they started mounting entire computers in the fucking things, so maybe that’s why it still works. You don’t know, you’re just glad its one of the things you still have that functions, you didn’t want to be riding that bike you bought and hardly ever used. You throw your backpack of useful items (flashlight, small tool set, first aid kit, etc) into the van and ponder where to go.

You’ve got two choices that immediately come to mind assuming both still exist; one is that “Mom & Pop” General Store that was abandoned at least a month ago. You can’t imagine they took everything from the place. The other choice is to risk going to the city and finding something there. Despite all the looting and mass exodus that was going on there before any of this went down, the city’s still a big place and there’s probably lots of useful stuff there, the problem is wondering if you’ll be heading into a death zone. That radioactivity concern is still in the back of your mind.

Damn you wish you bought that bomb shelter…
> You head to the city
You have no real idea where to go so you head to the City.

You might live in the boonies, but you aren’t an outdoorsman. You aren’t some survivalist that’s been training yourself for this “moment” so it’s not like you can just start living off the land, and unless the City was completely flattened by a nuclear bomb, you’ll probably still find something there.

As for the radiation factor, you’re probably receiving a lethal dose of radiation right now. It’s not like you were so far away from blasts that you wouldn’t be receiving it, though you try to think back to your Grandfather who was in the army and had to witness some nuclear test blasts back in the old days. He was certainly in the danger zone, and lived a fairly long time. One of the few though.

Hopefully you’ve inherited that level of resistance, or at least that level of luck.

But unless you find food and water supplies you aren’t going to be living long enough to die of the radiation.

You continue your drive to the city, watching the surroundings getting progressively worse looking, You then see the shattered “skeletal” remains of skyscrapers looming in the distance. The city got hit, but apparently by something “small” and probably exploded high in the air. Of course that doesn’t make you feel any better. You make a mental note of all the “useful” locations you used to do your shopping. You goal is to go in and grab what you can to sustain you for a long time and leave for some place else.

When you finally reach the city, it feels a little creepy. Everything seems so empty and dead. You have the windows up, but it’s not like you wouldn’t be able to hear noises if there were any, which there aren’t. Just the silent remains of destroyed buildings and vehicle husks. You wonder if any people survived, though you’re guessing if they did they won’t be in great condition. In fact it’s been a week since the attack; survivors might’ve died by now without medical attention.

Your first stop is the supermarket. You don’t have high hopes of finding anything though. You know looting was going on in the city even before the bombs hit, still this IS the reason why you came here, so you enter through one of the big broken floor windows. No lighting inside of course, but the sunlight from outside is providing enough, plus you have your flashlight if you need it. The entire place has an unpleasant odor, but you’re guessing it might be rotten food from the meat section and diary section, assuming those sections even have any of those items left.

Oddly you do find that the aisles aren’t completely empty. Most of the canned food gone, but there’s still a ton of cereal and nothing says you have to eat it with milk! Beef Jerky survives anything as well. You can’t believe people didn’t take that stuff. There are some soft drinks left in the now non-working freezers. Probably flat and warm as fuck, but again you hardly care at this point. You get yourself a hand basket and start loading up on what you can.

When you get back to your van you finally hear something besides the crunch of debris underneath your own feet and the blowing wind. Its footsteps…several of them.

You then see something you only thought existed in horror movies. These must be the bomb victims you though were dead by now, but it seems they’re not dead, or at least you’re guessing they’re not. A group of them staggers towards youMany of them have a half-crazed appearance and severe radiation burns. Apparently their minds have damaged along with their bodies. Some of them are armed with blunt instruments.

As they approach you, they just looking at you menacingly and start growling, until one of them points at you and shouts in raspy voice.

“MEEEEEEAAAT!”
“Shit! Die motherfuckers!” you shout back, shooting and quickly getting in your van as they hasten their pace towards you.

You manage to drive off, but not before they manage to smash your windshield and both of your side windows. You think you killed a few of them, you saw a few go down when you shot at them, and you know you ran that one over. Of course it’s not like you hung around to see if they got back up, but you’re pretty sure now they aren’t reanimated corpses. Of course that doesn’t make this situation any less fucked up or them any less dangerous, since they seemed intent on eating you. You need to get out of the City, but now what appeared previously empty, now appears to be more inhabited then you thought as more of these…things come out of woodwork.

You haven’t gotten far, when your van is bombarded by bricks and even fired upon! Some of those bullets hit the wheels causing you to skid out of control. You attempt to regain control of the van, but fail and smash into nearby building. Attempts to restart it also fail, though you don’t have that much time anyway as some of these freaks are fast approaching on your position.

You get out of the van with your supply bag and start running. You don’t even know where you are right now; you were in such a hurry to get the hell out that you didn’t realize you took the wrong streets, now you’re in unfamiliar territory and the fact that all the landmarks have been blown to shit doesn’t help. Though this looks like some sort of industrial district. You duck into one of the warehouses hoping to lose the freaks.

The place has destroyed sections of the roof. Pallets and empty boxes of varying sizes lie all over the place. You look for someplace more secure to hide just in case, but all you can find that looks suitable is what looks to be a manager’s office.

When you enter, the office is also in disarray. You decide to wait here awhile to consider what to do next, during which time you inspect the various papers on the ground. You also remove the silly “protection wear”, you’re getting hot and it’s not going to protect you from anything anyway.

After scanning through many of the documents, most have the insignia of “GZS” on them or Ground Zero Survival, that corporation that was trying to sell people bomb shelters before the war. (One you still wish you bought right now) You didn’t even know they had any holdings in the City. Looks like this place shipped a lot of equipment to said Shelters during their building process. No map locations though unfortunately, just a bunch of random shelter numbers. You end up kicking the desk in frustration only to succeed in hurting your foot, and making another discovery.

When your foot moved the desk, you notice it was hiding a trapdoor! Though you wonder what the hell one is doing here. This seems a little weird, but then again the whole situation is weird, so you open it up and climb down.

The first thing you notice is what a long climb it is, the second thing you notice is there’s lighting when you reach the bottom, dim, but lighting. The corridor leads to a heavy duty door not to far ahead, so you head that way, but when you go to open the door you find it locked. Before you can shoot the lock you hear a voice on the other side.

“Lisa is that you?” the voice says.
> You tell the truth
“Uh, no.” you reply
“Who the fuck are you?”
“I’m a survivor like you, I came to the City to get supplies, but I got attacked by some sort of mutant things or something, and I got temporarily trapped here.”
“Ha ha! You are one stupid motherfucker then! Why the hell would you come BACK to a bombed out city for ANY reason?” the voice mocks.
“Well why the hell are you here?”
“Business.”
“What kind of business?”
“That’s for me to know and for you not to know. Now get the fuck outta here, you don’t belong here. This is GZS property an’ you obviously aren’t an employee in any shape or form.”
“Can’t you let me in?”
“NO!”
“Fuck you! There’s a bunch of cannibalistic mutants up there!”
“Shoulda though about that before your stupid ass came to the city.”
“Oh fuck this, I’ll just blow the handle off the door and...”
“You blow the handle off and I’ll blow your head off as soon as you enter through door, though I doubt you will since it’s also barricaded and deadbolted from the inside. You ain’t getting in here unless you’re packing some serious firepower. Better just go away and try to get out of the City before it gets dark.”

You shout a few more things at the voice behind the door, but it doesn’t reply back, you think about shooting at the door, but you’ll probably only be wasting bullets that you’ll undoubtly need.

Having no other options you head back to the surface where after making a quick check to see if the coast is clear which it is so you continue your attempt at escape from the city as night begins to fall.

Unfortunately you don’t get far before the roving gangs of mutants stumble upon you again; these ones seem even more vicious and organized though. After a short game of shoot and run, eventually they manage to surround and trap you. Sensing that your death is near, you shoot yourself in the head to save yourself the pain of being eaten alive.

The mutants seem disappointed, but they eat you anyway.


You have no real idea where to go so you head to the City.

You might live in the boonies, but you aren’t an outdoorsman. You aren’t some survivalist that’s been training yourself for this “moment” so it’s not like you can just start living off the land, and unless the City was completely flattened by a nuclear bomb, you’ll probably still find something there.

As for the radiation factor, you’re probably receiving a lethal dose of radiation right now. It’s not like you were so far away from blasts that you wouldn’t be receiving it, though you try to think back to your Grandfather who was in the army and had to witness some nuclear test blasts back in the old days. He was certainly in the danger zone, and lived a fairly long time. One of the few though.

Hopefully you’ve inherited that level of resistance, or at least that level of luck.

But unless you find food and water supplies you aren’t going to be living long enough to die of the radiation.

You continue your drive to the city, watching the surroundings getting progressively worse looking, You then see the shattered “skeletal” remains of skyscrapers looming in the distance. The city got hit, but apparently by something “small” and probably exploded high in the air. Of course that doesn’t make you feel any better. You make a mental note of all the “useful” locations you used to do your shopping. You goal is to go in and grab what you can to sustain you for a long time and leave for some place else.

When you finally reach the city, it feels a little creepy. Everything seems so empty and dead. You have the windows up, but it’s not like you wouldn’t be able to hear noises if there were any, which there aren’t. Just the silent remains of destroyed buildings and vehicle husks. You wonder if any people survived, though you’re guessing if they did they won’t be in great condition. In fact it’s been a week since the attack; survivors might’ve died by now without medical attention.

Your first stop is the supermarket. You don’t have high hopes of finding anything though. You know looting was going on in the city even before the bombs hit, still this IS the reason why you came here, so you enter through one of the big broken floor windows. No lighting inside of course, but the sunlight from outside is providing enough, plus you have your flashlight if you need it. The entire place has an unpleasant odor, but you’re guessing it might be rotten food from the meat section and diary section, assuming those sections even have any of those items left.

Oddly you do find that the aisles aren’t completely empty. Most of the canned food gone, but there’s still a ton of cereal and nothing says you have to eat it with milk! Beef Jerky survives anything as well. You can’t believe people didn’t take that stuff. There are some soft drinks left in the now non-working freezers. Probably flat and warm as fuck, but again you hardly care at this point. You get yourself a hand basket and start loading up on what you can.

When you get back to your van you finally hear something besides the crunch of debris underneath your own feet and the blowing wind. Its footsteps…several of them.

You then see something you only thought existed in horror movies. These must be the bomb victims you though were dead by now, but it seems they’re not dead, or at least you’re guessing they’re not. A group of them staggers towards youMany of them have a half-crazed appearance and severe radiation burns. Apparently their minds have damaged along with their bodies. Some of them are armed with blunt instruments.

As they approach you, they just looking at you menacingly and start growling, until one of them points at you and shouts in raspy voice.

“MEEEEEEAAAT!”
“Shit! Die motherfuckers!” you shout back, shooting and quickly getting in your van as they hasten their pace towards you.

You manage to drive off, but not before they manage to smash your windshield and both of your side windows. You think you killed a few of them, you saw a few go down when you shot at them, and you know you ran that one over. Of course it’s not like you hung around to see if they got back up, but you’re pretty sure now they aren’t reanimated corpses. Of course that doesn’t make this situation any less fucked up or them any less dangerous, since they seemed intent on eating you. You need to get out of the City, but now what appeared previously empty, now appears to be more inhabited then you thought as more of these…things come out of woodwork.

You haven’t gotten far, when your van is bombarded by bricks and even fired upon! Some of those bullets hit the wheels causing you to skid out of control. You attempt to regain control of the van, but fail and smash into nearby building. Attempts to restart it also fail, though you don’t have that much time anyway as some of these freaks are fast approaching on your position.

You get out of the van with your supply bag and start running. You don’t even know where you are right now; you were in such a hurry to get the hell out that you didn’t realize you took the wrong streets, now you’re in unfamiliar territory and the fact that all the landmarks have been blown to shit doesn’t help. Though this looks like some sort of industrial district. You duck into one of the warehouses hoping to lose the freaks.

The place has destroyed sections of the roof. Pallets and empty boxes of varying sizes lie all over the place. You look for someplace more secure to hide just in case, but all you can find that looks suitable is what looks to be a manager’s office.

When you enter, the office is also in disarray. You decide to wait here awhile to consider what to do next, during which time you inspect the various papers on the ground. You also remove the silly “protection wear”, you’re getting hot and it’s not going to protect you from anything anyway.

After scanning through many of the documents, most have the insignia of “GZS” on them or Ground Zero Survival, that corporation that was trying to sell people bomb shelters before the war. (One you still wish you bought right now) You didn’t even know they had any holdings in the City. Looks like this place shipped a lot of equipment to said Shelters during their building process. No map locations though unfortunately, just a bunch of random shelter numbers. You end up kicking the desk in frustration only to succeed in hurting your foot, and making another discovery.

When your foot moved the desk, you notice it was hiding a trapdoor! Though you wonder what the hell one is doing here. This seems a little weird, but then again the whole situation is weird, so you open it up and climb down.

The first thing you notice is what a long climb it is, the second thing you notice is there’s lighting when you reach the bottom, dim, but lighting. The corridor leads to a heavy duty door not to far ahead, so you head that way, but when you go to open the door you find it locked. Before you can shoot the lock you hear a voice on the other side.

“Lisa is that you?” the voice says.
> You make up a story
Given the whole suspicious nature of this set up you have a feeling the truth will not help you here; you’ll have to bullshit your way it. You try to remember some of the stuff you were reading on the documents upstairs.

“No, I’m from GZS Headquarters, Shipping Division. And I hope you got some answers because there’s been a bunch of fucking mistakes in where things were getting transported! Who are YOU?”
“…I’m Owen! What the fuck? I ain’t in charge of that! I’m just security!”
“I don’t give a shit WHO you are! Where’s your supervisor?”
“…I..uh…I guess Lisa is my supervisor, but she’s not here!”
“Oh? And where the hell is she? GZS Headquarters is VERY displeased!”
“I don’t understand, Lisa wasn’t in charge of any kind of shipping. She was an egghead! A researcher! We were down here for…other reasons…but you should know that!”
“LOOK! I work in a cramped fucking office with boring paper work all goddamn day, I don’t have a window, someone keeps stealing my stapler, and they don’t tell me shit unless it’s to scream at my fucking face. I don’t care WHY you’re here! All I know is; I got my ass chewed out by HQ for someone else’s fuck ups! We got Shelters all over the goddamn tri-state area with mixed up equipment during the building process and we’re only NOW just finding out about it! You know how BAD that makes us look to our customers? I got sent down here to see if I could find out anything and all I’ve found out is the goddamn City is crawling with fucking cannibalistic mutants! Now that I’ve FOUND someone who might have some answers for me, I’m not just gonna dismiss that! So open up the goddamn door and let me in!”

Your act and tone is very convincing of someone who’s had to deal with red tape and silly corporate orders. (Though you do know something of them having had to deal with them at your own job in your “old life”) obviously the security guard knows about them as well, because he lets you in.

When the door opens up, you see a surprisingly scrawny man. You were expecting someone a little more burly, but he still wields an assault rifle slung around his shoulder making the need for physical strength unnecessary.

“You…you don’t look like a GZS employee…shouldn’t you be in a suit and tie or something?”
“I’m not gonna be running all over the nuclear wasteland in a hot ass suit and tie! Shit, I swear we hire dumber and dumber security guards each year. Just goes to show even natural selection fails sometimes in the face of near mass extinction. So where the hell is this Lisa?” you ask walking past him and noticing the well lit room and its sterile appearance. Some sort of generator sits in a corner giving off a low hum.

“I told you she’s not here; she went to the surface again. She should be back soon.” The security guard says still eyeing you suspiciously.
“Again? Why’s she going up there in the first place? Ain’t nothing left up there.”
“You’re telling me. I went up once and nearly got myself killed. Since then Lisa says she’d rather me stay guard here and not get in the way of here so called research. Fine by me.”
“I still don’t understand, what’s this research?”
“Uh…well…um…it’s supposed to be a secret. I’m really surprised you being from HQ that you don’t know about it…”
“I told you, I get BURIED in paperwork, and they don’t tell me shit. I mean I’ve heard things here and there, but I don’t know what else was going on here.”
“Well…I guess it really doesn’t matter now…I mean what’s done is done and HQ probably should know anyway…okay well you know how GZS has dealings with the military and the government and shit right?”
“Sure.”
“Well it’s something like that going on, but I don’t know the intricate details about it, just what I know from Lisa, but I guess GZS was trying to develop some sort of radiation drug, y’know something to make the body immune to the shit.”
“That does sound pretty useful, but this place doesn’t exactly look like a complex lab for doing something like that.”
“Oh, its not. This is just a research outpost as it were. The real drug was made somewhere else, but it needed to be tested right? So they decided to test it here, a batch of it got dumped in the water supply months before the bombs hit. The idea is that the survivors of the initial blast would still be able to live and not get cancer, sterility or tumors and all that other bad shit that radiation causes. So even people caught in the cities would survive and be able to eventually rebuild and get civilization up and running again. I think they wanted to dump the drug into ALL the major cities, but it looks like world war three happened sooner than they though eh?”

What you just heard sounds like some sort of science fiction tale! Then again being the cynic you are, you can’t say you’re completely surprised by it. Though now you have a more important question.

“Okay, but if that was the intention…what’s with all the mutants in the City trying to eat me?”
“Uh…well…I guess it didn’t work the way it should’ve? That’s sort of why Lisa and me were still here. Lisa was supposed to record the results of the drug after the bombs hit and that’s what she’s been doing. Lisa says the drugs are affecting people’s minds, and combined with the already fucked up situation I’d say it probably explains a lot already. Though I gotta say there was some pretty bad rioting even before the bombs dropped so I wonder if the drug was starting to affect the minds of people even then…but that’s silly I mean me and Lisa haven’t been affected by it at all, I dunno.”
“YOU and her drank the water too?”
“Well yeah, our personal water recycling system has it. I mean if we were going to be here, we damn well had to be pretty resistant to radiation…wait a minute I just realized something… you mean GZS sent you down here without this knowledge? Oh shit! You realize how many rads you’ve probably soaked up without the drug’s protection? Oh man, you were right! They must hate your guts at HQ! Ha ha ha ha ha! Sucks to be you!” Owen laughs uncontrollably
“Yeah, yeah…”
“Man, I mean shit! They pretty much sent you to die!  I mean really why the hell would they worry about whether shelters got the right equipment shipments now for anyway? GZS already got their money, did you actually think they were going to go send someone personally to each shelter correct the mistakes? They were already built man! Use your head!”
“Uh huh, so…”
“Ha ha ha ha! I mean damn, you work in shipping, GZS fucking up shouldn’t even be news to you! Look at what happened with this goddamn anti-radiation drug! I mean what asshole fucking moron thought up those shelter elevator designs?”
“Why what’s wrong with the elevator designs?” you ask innocently, which suddenly puts Owen in a less jovial mood, he begins to get suspicious again.

“Something ain’t right here…anyone who works for GZS knows how idiotic the computerized shelter elevator set up is. People got fired for that one. Why hell why do you think WE have a ladder? You claim you’re from HQ and you don’t know? I don’t care HOW much you say you’re out of the loop… I’m a lowly security guard and even I heard about the fucked up elevator designs!”

Owen goes for his assault rifle slung on his shoulder, and you charge slamming him into the wall with an elbow to his face. You then pistol whip him a couple times before taking his rifle away from him. He holds on to his bloody face looking at you.

“Ughhhh, shit…my face…” he groans.
“Okay look, I was probably wrong for lying about working for GZS and…”
“Fuck you…you goddamn piece of shit…”
“HEY! Asshole! I’m the one with the gun here! Now I don’t want to kill you, but…”

Owen unsuccessfully tries to grab his rifle back, you kick him back down.

“Are you fuckin’ kiddin’ me? I nearly shot you, dumb fuck! I’d probably be able to kick your ass even without these guns, so you better just calm…”

Owen once again attempts to attack you, this time you butt him with the rifle hard, and kick him out the door then lock it.

“Fuck you then asshole! Let the mutants eat you!” you shout, you expect to hear banging on the door, or even pleading, but you don’t hear anything. After a few hours pass, you open up the door, and Owen is gone. You close the door back up and explore your surroundings a bit more.

There’s not much to explore though, just two simple bedrooms, an eating area, bathroom and the “living area” which you’re already familiar with. The generator provides power, and a water recycling system provides water. Looks like there’s some sort of food dispensing system as well, though what it dispenses isn’t particularly tasty. You could be set up here for awhile if you wanted to be, though perhaps you just want somewhere to rest first before getting out of the city.
> You leave the city
You don’t really want to stick around here any longer than you have to, so as soon as you’re rested up, you’re going to leave in the morning.

You think about what Owen said about the water supply and the anti-radiation drugs in it then you think about what happened to a majority of the survivors. It didn’t seem to do them any good, so you decide not to risk drinking any of the water or taking any with you. You also wonder about Owen’s supervisor Lisa. He did say she was supposed to return soon, you form some ideas on how to handle the situation, but as it turns out, she never does. Probably got killed no doubt.

The next morning you leave. You half expect Owen to be waiting to ambush you, but he’s completely gone. After making sure the coast is clear you get your bearings again, and make haste for leaving the City. Luckily you have no further encounters, and you’re just a little bit safer for leaving the City of course now there’s the problem of find another stretch of civilization, but you think you have enough supplies.

A few days go by and you eventually do stumble upon a small town. Its more like a ghost town actually, barely anyone lives there, but that suits you just fine after having to deal with mutant cannibals.

You take residence in one of the abandoned houses, you figure it’s going to be temporary before you move on in the future, but you’re starting not to feel too well so you stick around. About a month passes and you feel tired all the time, you get the shakes pretty bad, and soon, you start vomiting blood, then there’s the hair loss…

You lie on the dirty bed in the house lamenting how ill prepared you really were for all this and the bad decisions you chose that made it worse.

You can’t go on waiting for the end, you’re in hell right now, and a quick death would be a welcome release. You get the idea to shoot yourself, but you’re so weak now that you merely collapse when you try to reach for your pistol, however as it turns out your wish is shortly granted during this time when you also fall unconsciousness and lapse into a coma.

Death soon follows.


Given the whole suspicious nature of this set up you have a feeling the truth will not help you here; you’ll have to bullshit your way it. You try to remember some of the stuff you were reading on the documents upstairs.

“No, I’m from GZS Headquarters, Shipping Division. And I hope you got some answers because there’s been a bunch of fucking mistakes in where things were getting transported! Who are YOU?”
“…I’m Owen! What the fuck? I ain’t in charge of that! I’m just security!”
“I don’t give a shit WHO you are! Where’s your supervisor?”
“…I..uh…I guess Lisa is my supervisor, but she’s not here!”
“Oh? And where the hell is she? GZS Headquarters is VERY displeased!”
“I don’t understand, Lisa wasn’t in charge of any kind of shipping. She was an egghead! A researcher! We were down here for…other reasons…but you should know that!”
“LOOK! I work in a cramped fucking office with boring paper work all goddamn day, I don’t have a window, someone keeps stealing my stapler, and they don’t tell me shit unless it’s to scream at my fucking face. I don’t care WHY you’re here! All I know is; I got my ass chewed out by HQ for someone else’s fuck ups! We got Shelters all over the goddamn tri-state area with mixed up equipment during the building process and we’re only NOW just finding out about it! You know how BAD that makes us look to our customers? I got sent down here to see if I could find out anything and all I’ve found out is the goddamn City is crawling with fucking cannibalistic mutants! Now that I’ve FOUND someone who might have some answers for me, I’m not just gonna dismiss that! So open up the goddamn door and let me in!”

Your act and tone is very convincing of someone who’s had to deal with red tape and silly corporate orders. (Though you do know something of them having had to deal with them at your own job in your “old life”) obviously the security guard knows about them as well, because he lets you in.

When the door opens up, you see a surprisingly scrawny man. You were expecting someone a little more burly, but he still wields an assault rifle slung around his shoulder making the need for physical strength unnecessary.

“You…you don’t look like a GZS employee…shouldn’t you be in a suit and tie or something?”
“I’m not gonna be running all over the nuclear wasteland in a hot ass suit and tie! Shit, I swear we hire dumber and dumber security guards each year. Just goes to show even natural selection fails sometimes in the face of near mass extinction. So where the hell is this Lisa?” you ask walking past him and noticing the well lit room and its sterile appearance. Some sort of generator sits in a corner giving off a low hum.

“I told you she’s not here; she went to the surface again. She should be back soon.” The security guard says still eyeing you suspiciously.
“Again? Why’s she going up there in the first place? Ain’t nothing left up there.”
“You’re telling me. I went up once and nearly got myself killed. Since then Lisa says she’d rather me stay guard here and not get in the way of here so called research. Fine by me.”
“I still don’t understand, what’s this research?”
“Uh…well…um…it’s supposed to be a secret. I’m really surprised you being from HQ that you don’t know about it…”
“I told you, I get BURIED in paperwork, and they don’t tell me shit. I mean I’ve heard things here and there, but I don’t know what else was going on here.”
“Well…I guess it really doesn’t matter now…I mean what’s done is done and HQ probably should know anyway…okay well you know how GZS has dealings with the military and the government and shit right?”
“Sure.”
“Well it’s something like that going on, but I don’t know the intricate details about it, just what I know from Lisa, but I guess GZS was trying to develop some sort of radiation drug, y’know something to make the body immune to the shit.”
“That does sound pretty useful, but this place doesn’t exactly look like a complex lab for doing something like that.”
“Oh, its not. This is just a research outpost as it were. The real drug was made somewhere else, but it needed to be tested right? So they decided to test it here, a batch of it got dumped in the water supply months before the bombs hit. The idea is that the survivors of the initial blast would still be able to live and not get cancer, sterility or tumors and all that other bad shit that radiation causes. So even people caught in the cities would survive and be able to eventually rebuild and get civilization up and running again. I think they wanted to dump the drug into ALL the major cities, but it looks like world war three happened sooner than they though eh?”

What you just heard sounds like some sort of science fiction tale! Then again being the cynic you are, you can’t say you’re completely surprised by it. Though now you have a more important question.

“Okay, but if that was the intention…what’s with all the mutants in the City trying to eat me?”
“Uh…well…I guess it didn’t work the way it should’ve? That’s sort of why Lisa and me were still here. Lisa was supposed to record the results of the drug after the bombs hit and that’s what she’s been doing. Lisa says the drugs are affecting people’s minds, and combined with the already fucked up situation I’d say it probably explains a lot already. Though I gotta say there was some pretty bad rioting even before the bombs dropped so I wonder if the drug was starting to affect the minds of people even then…but that’s silly I mean me and Lisa haven’t been affected by it at all, I dunno.”
“YOU and her drank the water too?”
“Well yeah, our personal water recycling system has it. I mean if we were going to be here, we damn well had to be pretty resistant to radiation…wait a minute I just realized something… you mean GZS sent you down here without this knowledge? Oh shit! You realize how many rads you’ve probably soaked up without the drug’s protection? Oh man, you were right! They must hate your guts at HQ! Ha ha ha ha ha! Sucks to be you!” Owen laughs uncontrollably
“Yeah, yeah…”
“Man, I mean shit! They pretty much sent you to die!  I mean really why the hell would they worry about whether shelters got the right equipment shipments now for anyway? GZS already got their money, did you actually think they were going to go send someone personally to each shelter correct the mistakes? They were already built man! Use your head!”
“Uh huh, so…”
“Ha ha ha ha! I mean damn, you work in shipping, GZS fucking up shouldn’t even be news to you! Look at what happened with this goddamn anti-radiation drug! I mean what asshole fucking moron thought up those shelter elevator designs?”
“Why what’s wrong with the elevator designs?” you ask innocently, which suddenly puts Owen in a less jovial mood, he begins to get suspicious again.

“Something ain’t right here…anyone who works for GZS knows how idiotic the computerized shelter elevator set up is. People got fired for that one. Why hell why do you think WE have a ladder? You claim you’re from HQ and you don’t know? I don’t care HOW much you say you’re out of the loop… I’m a lowly security guard and even I heard about the fucked up elevator designs!”

Owen goes for his assault rifle slung on his shoulder, and you charge slamming him into the wall with an elbow to his face. You then pistol whip him a couple times before taking his rifle away from him. He holds on to his bloody face looking at you.

“Ughhhh, shit…my face…” he groans.
“Okay look, I was probably wrong for lying about working for GZS and…”
“Fuck you…you goddamn piece of shit…”
“HEY! Asshole! I’m the one with the gun here! Now I don’t want to kill you, but…”

Owen unsuccessfully tries to grab his rifle back, you kick him back down.

“Are you fuckin’ kiddin’ me? I nearly shot you, dumb fuck! I’d probably be able to kick your ass even without these guns, so you better just calm…”

Owen once again attempts to attack you, this time you butt him with the rifle hard, and kick him out the door then lock it.

“Fuck you then asshole! Let the mutants eat you!” you shout, you expect to hear banging on the door, or even pleading, but you don’t hear anything. After a few hours pass, you open up the door, and Owen is gone. You close the door back up and explore your surroundings a bit more.

There’s not much to explore though, just two simple bedrooms, an eating area, bathroom and the “living area” which you’re already familiar with. The generator provides power, and a water recycling system provides water. Looks like there’s some sort of food dispensing system as well, though what it dispenses isn’t particularly tasty. You could be set up here for awhile if you wanted to be, though perhaps you just want somewhere to rest first before getting out of the city.
> You stay
You decide to stay, and think about what Owen said about the water supply and the anti-radiation drugs in it then you think about what happened to a majority of the survivors. It didn’t seem to do them any good, but he was right; it WAS stupid to come here! You can’t really do much about it now, but you’re hoping that water can keep you from dying a slow horrible death, though you don’t know how it works exactly since you weren’t drinking it before you absorbed rads. Still, you’ll try anything now.

The first thing you do is start drinking the water, and a lot of it. You also wonder about Owen’s supervisor Lisa. He did say she was supposed to return soon, and you form some ideas on how to handle the situation when it arises (to keep your mind occupied), but as it turns out, she never does. Probably got killed no doubt.

A few days go by and there’s not much to do for entertainment purposes and you’re reluctant to leave your “safe haven” now. There are some books in what is Lisa’s room that you peruse through. You also look for maybe some notes on her research since the stuff Owen told you about did sound interesting. Maybe even ideas on what the drugs in the water supply might’ve done to people (Something ELSE you’re starting to worry about) but unfortunately you don’t find anything. She must’ve taken those with her. Owen’s room has an old TV set which amusingly has an equally as old game console hooked up to it. You spend a lot of time shooting different colored circular objects with your white triangle on the screen.

After a week you start feeling weird. Like mildly delirious. You start lying in bed a lot, only getting up to quench your thirst since you don’t have much of an appetite.

After a month you start feeling sick. You begin throwing up and having diarrhea even though you’ve barely been eating anything. You have the shakes and you often just lie on the floor aching all over you body. You drink the water in the steadily failing hopes that it will miraculously cure you.

When patches of your hair start falling out, and cough up bits of blood, you really start to lose all hope.

“Oh fuck…I don’t wanna die like this…shit…” you sob.

You begin thinking about suicide, but you’re so weak that the one time you seriously attempt it; you collapse on the floor when reaching for your pistol and fall unconscious for a full day.

When you wake up, you feel a little better physically, but not much. However your mind is a little warped. As it turns out this is somewhat fortunate as you don’t worry about dying so much anymore. You do start talking to yourself at great lengths though. You begin having bizarre thoughts about things in general. Sometimes you go into a fit and start ranting until you’re hoarse.

Another month passes and you’re completely better physically, in fact you feel stronger than you ever did before. Your mind is still in la la land though. You begin to get very violent. You begin punching the walls (and even doing some damage to them) and ripping up books. What temporarily “sobers” you up is when you smash the food dispenser, breaking it completely. While you still have real food left you’ve just destroyed your only means of food-substitute when the real stuff runs out.

“SHIT!” you yell. “I gotta get a fuckin…grip…I gotta get fuckin’ food!”

You grab your pistol and assault rifle and throw open the door in search of food.

After climbing back up to the surface, you notice that you can see pretty well in the dark warehouse. It would appear you’ve developed some minor “dark vision”. In the darkness you also notice that the warehouse has lots of rats and roaches crawling around in it.

Those could be food…
> You eat the rats and roaches
Something you wouldn’t ever consider eating before suddenly makes a lot of sense to you. You start off by grabbing the nearest crawling roaches you see and start popping them in your mouth and chew.

They taste terrible, somehow though you don’t suffer a gag reflex though. You just find them unpleasant, like eating something bitter rather than disgusting. After having had enough of eating bugs you try to catch a rat. It takes awhile, but eventually you stomp on one severely crippling it and then stomp once more to kill it.

Eating a raw rat doesn’t particularly taste any better, but again you don’t suffer any sort of natural revulsion during this act. It would seem you’ve gone through a change of some sort, one that has put you in a better frame of mind for survival. One that has also put your body in better condition for survival as well since you suffer no ill effects from eating such unclean creatures under equally unclean conditions. You temporarily have some problems with lice and fleas you catch from the rats, but even that doesn’t really become a problem considering the rest hair has fallen out now. (Well you have a few wisps left)  You skin also begins to harden in time, making fleas no longer a problem. Whatever internal parasites any of these might’ve carried also have no effect as it seems your resistance and immunity system has increased quite a bit.

You look in the bathroom mirror one day and see that you’ve changed alright. Changed into something better. You aren’t going to win any beauty contests, but you’re going to live…

A year passes…

You’ve been living a relatively simple life of eating and sleeping and it’s basically been enough. For the past year your mind hasn’t really been the most stable, so you haven’t really thought about anything other than your immediate survival, and given you have a water supply and the rats and roaches for food, you haven’t ventured outside of the GZS warehouse since you entered.

That’s starting to change.

Lately your mind seems to have a little more clarity. Indeed you’re starting to feel like “yourself” before the change. Not entirely like yourself, but you don’t go shithouse rat crazy screaming at the walls like you used to.

You’ve been getting a little curious about the rest of the City. If you’re mostly sane now, maybe other survivors are as well. Maybe even some things have been fixed; it would be nice if they were, as its getting boring where you’re currently staying. Taking your weapons with you, you leave your new home to explore. (Making sure to hide the trapdoor before leaving of course)

The City streets are still as desolate as you remember them, and mostly empty as well. You expect to run into gangs of mutants though. You suddenly stop and think about that for a moment and realize that YOU are also a mutant now!

Still, that doesn’t necessarily mean mutantism is a club. You’re sure there’s a lot of fighting for resources. In fact you come across some fighting, though in a different way than you’d imagine. While you’re walking through a neighborhood by a corner store that has all its windows boarded up, you hear voices inside. You step through the open doorway to investigate. It’s dark inside, but some candles light up the place.

“Ted, what do you mean you won’t gimme anything for this? This is a solid gold watch man!” a skinny mutant asks an exceptionally ugly one eyed mutant he has pistol strapped to his side.
“Goddamn it Carl, would you fuckin’ think? What the hell am I gonna do with a gold piece of shit that doesn’t even work anymore in the first place?”
“Well can’t you trade it for something? I mean gold’s gotta be worth something to someone! It’s not like I gave you a sack of dollar bills!”
“Didn’t stop you from trying though did it? Look Carl, unless it’s something useful you know damn well I ain’t taking it. Bring back some batteries, a first aid kit, hell some canned corn would be a welcome change of pace than watery roach soup! Just stop bringing me shit I have no use for!”
“But Carl! I need some bullets! You can’t expect me to do any scavenging downtown without bullets for my pistol! How will I defend myself against the Ferals or how about at night when the Shadow Horde comes out?”
“Cry me a river Carl, you’re a fast guy I’m sure you can outrun the roving gangs of Ferals, ain’t that hard. And second of all you shouldn’t even BE out at night! If you get caught out at night I got no sympathy for what happens to you! Now…” suddenly Ted’s one good eye catches sight of you.

“Who the fuck are you pretty boy?” Ted asks, Carl just backs off when he sees the assault rifle strapped to your back.

“Pretty boy? Have you seen my face?” you retort.
“Yeah, I see your fucking face an’ you’re a fuckin’ pretty boy as far as I’m concerned. Shit you ain’t even got any scars. So what the hell do you want, I ain’t seen you before. Ain’t seen too many here with an assault rifle either. You part of the Zeropolis Guard? Then again you don’t wear the uniform…maybe you just killed one of them then? Heh heh.”
“Who are the Zeropolis Guard?”
“You ain’t heard of them? Huh, well they’ve only just been making scouting missions in this area. Basically a collection of ex-National Guardsmen that insisted on staying here to the very end. They got the best hardware as far as I know, but the delusional fuckers think it’s STILL their job to keep peace in the damn City. Ain’t no peace in Zeropolis!”
“What’s Zeropolis exactly?” you ask feeling completely out of the loop, which only gets you some mighty strange stares by Carl and Ted.

“Uh, Zeropolis, y’know…The City? That’s what this place is called now.” Carl says.
“Holy shit pretty boy, you been livin’ under a damn rock or something?”
“Well, uh sort of…”
“I guess so! Where the hell ARE you from?
“Er…I never actually lived in the City...I guess you can kind of say I got trapped here and then shortly after went mad for a little while and I’m only just now starting to feel like myself.” You explain without giving too much information out.
“Hmm, well that might explain some things. I think we all know about that madness you’re speaking of. Think it happened to everyone after this place got nuked, still going on for most people. You get that hunger craving and violent thoughts pervade your mind…though the first one I killed and ate was my wife so it wasn’t ALL bad har har har!” Ted laughs. “Hey how many people did you eat during that time?”
“Uh, none actually.”
“None? Ah, you must be like Carl here. He just ate roaches and rats because even when the madness hit him he still was a big pussy!”
“Fuck you Ted! I’M the one going out risking my ass scavenging, not YOU! I…just didn’t want to eat anybody…I guess I just never suffered the madness as much as the rest.”
“Yeah, well anyway what do you guys actually sell here?” you ask.
“Well Carl doesn’t sell shit, because he doesn’t own this place, I do. And as you can probably tell we run on the barter system here that being the only real way to do business anymore. However I have a wide variety of items, but not obviously not right here, since this part of the store ain’t the most secure as you can see, but bring me something I might find useful and maybe we can do business; just don’t bring fuckin’ broken gold watches!” Ted exclaims looking back at Carl.

“There’s a lot of stuff downtown to scavenge, hey…maybe you could come with me?” Carl suddenly asks hopefully.
> You go with Carl
You don’t really have anything better to do, and you are sort of interested in learning more about your surroundings. You are living here now after all.

“Uh sure I’ll go with you. What do I do exactly?”
“You’ll go? Great! You don’t really have to do too much really, I just need someone to help with the whole protection thing while I search, since Ted here is being a jackass and not giving me any bullets!”
“Hey those are in damn scarce supply in the first place! In fact, you better start finding them on your own soon, because I don’t have too many to spare anymore anyway. I need something to defend my shop with. Here!” Ted pulls out three bullets from his ragged pockets and gives them to Carl. “That’s coming out anything you bring back too, and if you guys are going downtown, you better do it now, before nightfall. See you later.”

You and Carl set off, while you’re walking you notice other mutants wandering in the neighborhood, but they don’t attack, in fact many of them are just watching the both of you or going about their business. (Like catching a rat to eat)

“So is this area safe or something? Nobody’s attacking us.” You ask.
“Of course it’s safe, well safe as anything can be in this place. I mean there’s still always the Ferals that roam around, but not so much around here anymore. The people around here in the Dust District don’t even try to eat one another. Probably due to the fact that a lot of people used to live here and work together in the factory and warehouses nearby, so I guess there’s that sense of unity as it were. Though I’m sure most of them did attack each other at one time. Still, this is a severely new situation, you can’t blame TOO much on what happened during people’s madness. Weird what happened though, I mean do you think the enemy dropped some sort of nuclear nerve agent combo on this place? Or did we all just go temporarily insane in the face of the shear devastation?”
“I really couldn’t tell you, Carl. Maybe the second one I guess.” You say keeping your secret information on the reasons to yourself.
“Yeah, doesn’t take much for us to fall apart I suppose. The Zeropolis Guard have also claimed they’re going to make this place even safer when they set up a new base here, though I sort of wish they’d just leave us alone. I get the impression they’ll be trying to tell us all what to do and conscripting us to fight the Shadow Horde.”
“What is the Shadow Horde anyway?”
“Man, you don’t know who THEY are? Then again you didn’t know the city name either! Anyway The Shadow Horde is a group of mutants who primarily live in the sewers, though they do come out at night and attack anyone who isn’t part their group. They’re sort of like the Ferals, except they are a lot more organized and even more vicious. I’ve heard they have a leader of some sort; I’ve only heard rumors though; ranging from a giant abomination, to a beautiful priestess of some sort. Have a hard time believing a lot of them, the only thing I do know is you don’t want to get outside at night, let alone even enter the sewers!”

Carl continues to about various things of Zeropolis on your way Downtown. As fucked up as things are, you can’t help but be fascinated by it all. You feel like you’re actually living in some sort of 80s low budget post apocalyptic movie. You ask him if anyone actually leaves Zeropolis, but he says it’s rare. The Ferals and other more territorial mutants seem content on staying in the City, and as for the other “normal” ones, it’s happened, but it seems mutation isn’t a common theme outside Zeropolis. Most mutants are shot on sight or at least chased off. At least those are the stories he’s heard from a couple of people he knows that have left only to come back.

The closer you get to Downtown the more Carl stops talking only telling you to keep a look out and to be quiet. Lots of Ferals fight each other in the Downtown area and will obviously attack anyone else. Plus there are other scavengers here that will try to bushwhack each other as well. Carl pulls out a large bag and you and he start going into various devastated buildings where he grabs things of varying interest.

A few instance you see large groups of Ferals in the street, but Carl tells you not to fire, since they’re all fighting each other at the time. Another instance when you’re on the second floor of an apartment store, another mutant clobbers Carl with a lead pipe and tries to make off with the bag of goodies, but a couple of shots put the thief down.

“Thanks. Oh fuck, I think the shots caught the attention of the Ferals outside, we better get out of here!”

You and Carl rush out the building and after you fire a few more shots at the Ferals you both make a beeline back the Dust District, unfortunately you and Carl have to retreat and backtrack several times to avoid large groups of Ferals, until finally when you get out of the area, its twilight and you still haven’t gotten back to the Dust District yet.

You and Carl hear a nearby sewer manhole opening up…

“Oh shit we’re gonna die!” Carl yells and starts running. He’s in such a hurry to getaway he trips and dumps his bag with all the contents inside! He frantically starts putting everything back in, but already you can see the Shadow Horde starting to come out, and yeah they do look a hell of a lot meaner than the typical Ferals, which is pretty hard to do. The fact that they start shouting

“CARL GET YOUR ASS UP, WE GOTTA GET OUTTA HERE!” you yell and start blasting Horde members with your assault rifle, picking your shots, but when they fire back, you can’t stand your ground for long and run leaving Carl behind.

You hear Carl trying to catch up with you, but you soon hear more shots, yell of pain followed by the collapsing of a body. You turn around to see one of the Horde trying to finish Carl off with a spiked bat, but he blasts the mutant in the head with his pistol twice killing it. He’s wounded and even if you went back to get him, the rest of the Horde is closing in and you’d never outrun them if you carried Carl on your back.

Sensing the end is near; Carl uses his last bullet to save himself a torturous death by the hands of the Horde. Of course now you have worry about yourself.
> You continue a straight forward run
No time for fancy shit, you just have to RUN! You run and don’t look back, though you can still hear them chasing you, and other Horde members start popping out of other sewer gratings.

Eventually you get to the Dust District, but they’re still chasing you, that’s when you hear shouting coming from in front and above you as well.

“ALRIGHT START THROWING AND FIRING!”

Suddenly from up high bottles crash to the ground releasing gouts of fire. Molotovs. Next comes the sounds and flash of machine gun fire from everywhere.

“OH SHIT!” you shout and duck down and roll into a nearby building. The Horde was still chasing you, but most of them got burned by the Molotovs, the shrieking is unnatural sounding, but it’s soon put to an end when the flaming flailing bodies are shot by the machine guns. After it’s all over you pick yourself up only to get kicked in the ribs and a rifle shoved in your face.

“Don’t fuckin’ move Shadow scum!” a uniformed mutant orders.
“I’m not…”
“Silence!” another kick, this time to the nuts. While you hold your crotch in pain, another uniformed mutant arrives, but this one has a higher rank.

“Alright Private, that’ll do for now, let’s see what this fucker has to say about his buddies…what the fuck? This ain’t no Shadow! He’s too fuckin’ pretty for one thing, and not nearly muscular enough.”
“(Groan) I’m not, I live in this area! I was scavenging Downtown with another and we got caught after dark…he’s dead.” You say picking yourself up.
“Yeah, that’s usually what happens. Woulda happened to you too had we not set up base here in the Dust District. This place will be completely safe from now on as it is officially under direct protection by the Zeropolis Guard. I’m Captain Salazar.”

Well that explains the uniforms.

“…yeah I heard of you guys. I also heard you only had scouts in the area though.”
“Well we move fast, and we needed a new base camp. Our last position was steadily being overrun by Ferals during the day and the Shadow Horde at night. But I think here is a good position to make a stand. This area doesn’t have as many sewer entrances, Feral activity is low, and best of all there’s the abandoned factory and plant nearby. Maybe one day we can power up the entire City again, but for right now we’re trying to just get power to this district, though even that will take awhile. The Zeropolis Guard is dedicated to bringing order to this city and I think this is the best place to start.”
“Hey that’s great, okay I’ve had a hard day; I think I’ll just go home now…”

Captain Salazar suddenly stops you.

“While you’re free to go back home citizen, I can’t help but notice your weapons…now while I certainly understand the need for personal protection, especially given this unstable situation and your current choice of profession, so you may keep your pistol. However, your assault rifle would be of great use to us. We need all the maximum firepower we can get to better defend this area.”
“Well it doesn’t have many bullets left though.” You say, but Salazar merely smiles at your attempt to keep your rifle. The private who kicked you looks at you like he’s anxious for you to try something.
“That’s alright; we have plenty of ammo suitable for it. However, if you wish to actively join the Zeropolis Guard, then you certainly would have need for such a weapon… do you wish to join?”
“Uh no. That’s okay.” You say helplessly handing over you weapon. Salazar takes it.
“Pity, you seem like you’d make an excellent solider. Still, our offer is always open and I’m sure you’ll be able to easily find us. You may return to your home.”

You make you way back home, in fact you’ll be really glad to get home, today wasn’t very fun, reminds you of why you always preferred your own company. You sort of wonder though about how things might change with the Guard messing around in the area. While this warehouse is sort of in an isolated part of the Dust District, you can only imagine that it’s a matter of time before the Guard start snooping around here and given you have a generator and water recycler, they’ll probably want this place for themselves and you’d have to go live in one of the crappy neighborhoods like everyone else.

Of course you might be able to swing things to your benefit if you did join the Zeropolis Guard, though that might mean they’ll be sending you on missions where you can get yourself killed.

Before you fall asleep, you think about the future and how you’re going to deal with this situation.
> You join the Zeropolis Guard
You see where this is going; the Zeropolis Guard is fully intent on their delusional plan and they’re going to be the top assholes in this area, so you might as well join them to reap the benefits. It’s better than being at their complete mercy and it’s certainly better than living in fear of the Shadow Horde, at least the Guard seems to want to restore order.

The next day you go find Captain Salazar who is pretty easy to find since he’s currently giving speeches in the streets to the Dust District inhabitants of how they should actively join the Zeropolis Guard. Not too many takers, but none of them are in any position to argue with the occupation. When you go up to Salazar to tell him you’re interested in joining, he’s pleased to just have someone taking him up on his offer.

Of course he wants to know more about you and where you’re currently staying, and you do tell him about the warehouse, just not about the secret GZS rooms underneath. He’s a little bewildered of why you’re staying there rather than a proper house in one of the neighborhoods, or even your own house. To this you reply that you used to live in one of the Downtown apartments, and couldn’t live there anymore due to the danger. You mention during your time of madness you ended up wandering this way and just took up residence there and now even though you’re better, you’ve made it your home and feel comfortable at that place. You also go on to say that you prefer to be away from large crowds of people.

Captain Salazar frowns at that last statement.

“Y’know we are a military unit, teamwork is encouraged here…though I suppose we need all the help we can get right now, so I guess you’ll be on scouting duty. Maybe if you prove yourself, I’ll put you on sniper duty. As for your living arrangements…I guess you can stay there. That area is pretty empty and there isn’t anything there except a few warehouses, we’re more interested in the plant and factory. However it’s the perfect place where the Shadow Horde might stage a sneak attack from due to its remoteness. So consider yourself the sentry in that area. I wish we could use our radios, but the radiation levels here…well are sort of screwing up the signals. We’ve been trying to train messenger rats, but so far the little furry bastards just run off to the nearest source of food, so you’ll be reporting to me personally every two days where I’ll either give you new instructions or tell you to continue what you’re doing. Unless I hear otherwise and you don’t report, I’ll give you one more day and then I’ll assume you’re either dead or have deserted. If you’re dead then you’re dead, but if I find out you’ve deserted, my wrath will be terrible, and you’ll wish you were dead.”
“Okay, but what if I was captured?”
“Ha ha ha ha! You’re joking right? Not really much of a chance of that happening. Ferals just kill, and the Shadow Horde might capture you, but they won’t let you live afterwards. I trust you won’t let yourself get captured then right?”
“Guess not.”
“Good. Let’s see, what can you do…I got everyone else working on other things, right now we’re tracking down all the sewer manholes in the area and shoving the remains of cars on top of them. Others have been sent to raid nearby police stations in the hopes of finding more weapons and ammo. Okay what you’ll be doing is scouting and clearing out the factory; we’ve discovered that all the Feral activity in the area has been coming from those places. At least that’s where we’ve seen them all run off to, you can go retrieve your assault rifle seeing as I haven’t given it to anyone else yet.”
“Am I working by myself, or with others?”
“Well from the impression of getting, you’d probably prefer working alone, but that’s simply too dangerous for what I’m sending you in to do, you’ll need someone watching your back, so I’m sure you’re familiar with Private Ackman here…”

You then see the soldier who kicked you yesterday. He doesn’t look any friendlier and just nods at you.

“There will be other small detachments exploring various parts of the factory as well so more ground can be covered, but for the most part you two are on your own. Dimissed.”

You and Ackman go carry out the mission in relative silence. Private Ackman doesn’t seem to care for you, or at best he doesn’t want talk to you unless it’s absolutely necessary. This doesn’t really bother you though since he is a good fighter, and is making this mission a lot easier. The factory is a huge place though even in its current devastated state; there are several sections, multiple levels and it covers a lot of land. It’s going to take awhile.

After a few months of factory clearing you and Ackman have the highest Feral body count so far, and their attacks on the Dust District are becoming non-existent. Due to this accomplishment, many of the inhabitants have a little more confidence in the Zeropolis Guard and as a result more people have volunteer to help, either by joining directly or by attempting to fix the power plant. Shadow Horde attacks occur sometimes, but even those aren’t as frequent. Zeropolis is a big place, and presumably they’ve turned their attention to easier areas.

Four years pass…

It’s been five years since you set foot in Zeropolis, and the place has changed quite a bit, well in your area anyway.

Most of the factory has been safely stripped to help rebuild the district. The nearby plant has parts of it fixed and partial electricity has been restored to the district as well. Feral attacks are completely unheard of in the area now, they’ve either all been killed, or in a few cases, managed to retain their sanity again.

The Zeropolis Guard has firm control of the area and has been attempting to restore a few old vehicles to work again mainly using jury-rigged steam engines, though the many stills created to make hooch certainly serve the same purpose to create “Garbage fuel” as it were for vehicles. Oddly one thing that has surprised everyone is that new mutants are actually being born! Not many, but it still came as a surprise when one of the female mutants found out she was pregnant, when it was assumed everyone would’ve been sterile due to the radiation, but then again the fact that you’re all still alive is proving that you’re all working on a different biological level now.

You’ve risen in rank with your superior sniping skills, and saving others you’ve effectively become second in command. You’re looked upon as sort of a “hero” figure among the Dust District.

The Shadow Horde is still around, but attacks have less frequent. This perpetual war with them is basically at a standstill. The Zeropolis Guard has many more resources, but not nearly enough people. Captain Salazar is irritated by this fact, but there’s not much he can do about it. His big idea of bringing order to the entire City is slowly being crushed as he realizes this might never be possible. In desperation he’s sent a few people OUT of Zeropolis in the hopes of somehow getting help, but so far all his efforts have resulted in failure. People don’t like or trust mutant, and it’s mainly due to another organization attempting to “tame the wasteland” known as The Combine. With most of the outside towns under their control, they’ve developed “a shoot mutants from the City on sight” policy. Salazar’s behavior which was at one time just pleasantly dedicated is now becoming obsessively totalitarian.

However, you’re standing by your warehouse home one day when you see some outsiders visit Zeropolis. They aren’t entirely human though, they look like cyborgs. Which would explain why they have no rad suits.

There have been reports of The Combine currently at war with their own enemy called the Cybernetic Evolution. You’re not sure what it’s all about, but you’re guessing they probably see themselves as superior to humans. (You’ve seen enough movies in the past to know that’s always the case!)

You can’t imagine what they’d be doing here, unless they intend on proving themselves superior to mutants as well. There aren’t many of them, but most of them are heavily armed.
> You open fire immediately
The Cybernetic Evolution’s opinion of mutants probably isn’t much better than their opinion of humans. This is probably a scouting force to assess the defenses and resistance level here, well to hell with that you aren’t going to let them report shit. You immediately open fire. You kill the smaller one in the center with relative ease, but the others go into battle mode and start laying down the firepower. You nearly get yourself killed before managing to take cover.

Other mutants hear the sounds of battle and rush to the area to help you, and soon the metal interlopers are a pile of sparking scrap.

“What the hell, you find new enemies for us?” one of the mutants asks you.
“Nah, I don’t think we’ll be having any more problems with them. They’re busy with a war with the Combine; I doubt an army of cyborgs will be coming here anytime soon. Better go report this to the Captain though.”

Soon after the cyborg diversion a lot of rumors start flying around that the Cybernetic Evolution will be attempting to invade Zeropolis or even that they’ve somehow allied with the Shadow Horde, but none of these rumors even come true. Though it does make Captain Salazar paranoid enough to take the current war with the Shadow Horde more on the offensive, of course this doesn’t pan out too well.

When Salazar starts sending troops into the actual sewers they’re at a severe disadvantage and the losses on your side are terrible, yet the Captain insists on carrying out this plan.

A few years go by and the Dust District’s defenses are nearly completely destroyed. You’re one of last defenders left and the Zeropolis Guard no longer exists as you know it. After Captain Salazar was struck down by an assassin the organization dissolved and it just became a bunch of armed mutants trying to defend their homes.

It’s a futile endeavor though the Shadow Horde is relentless and as much as you might hate it, you have to leave; it’s just simply not safe to stay where you are anymore. The question is where to go?

There are probably other places in the City where the Shadow Horde isn’t as strong or even in control, but that might just be a temporary solution and it might not be any safer. The only other option is to leave the City which is certainly going to be dangerous as you know mutants aren’t looked upon too kindly.
> You go to a different part of the City
You gather your belongings and leave as quickly as possible to another part of Zeropolis. It’s a big city after all; surely you can find some place to be.

Eventually you do find a place to settle down. It isn’t the safest, but it’s better than where you currently were. Though in time, it begins to get dangerous once again as the Shadow Horde turns its attention to other parts of the City, and you have to move again, you continue this routine for a few more years until one day your luck runs out and you fail to leave in time and you finally become a victim to the ever growing Shadow Horde.