Campfire
They buried the trader just before midnight. Not because anyone asked them to, but because leaving him half-eaten beside the road felt wrong. The rescued woman, Mara, barely spoke while they worked.
Shock, Adrian recognized it immediately. Movies always portrayed trauma with screaming, crying, and dramatic breakdowns. Real shock was quieter. It looked like pieces of a person shutting down one by one. The trader's name had been Ellis, he and Mara had been traveling toward the Hub with medical supplies and salvage contracts when the raiders ambushed them near sunset.
Just another wasteland tragedy, another grave beside another forgotten road. Adrian helped dig with a rusted shovel they found in the caravan. Cassandra stood nearby, silently watching the darkness beyond the firelight.
The ground fought every shovel strike. Hard-packed earth. Dry clay. Each impact sent dull vibrations through Adrian's sore arms. His shoulder still burned where the bullet had grazed him, nothing serious, but painful enough that he noticed it every time he lifted the shovel. Mostly he ignored it.
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When he finally paused to catch his breath, his eyes drifted upward. The night sky stretched forever. Without city lights to drown them out, the stars looked impossibly bright. No aircraft and no satellites creeping across the darkness. Just an endless sea of cold light.
Back home... people barely looked up anymore. Out here, the sky demanded attention. It felt less like looking into space... and more like the universe quietly watching the wasteland decay.
Eventually the grave was deep enough. Mara whispered a prayer Adrian didn't recognize as they lowered Ellis into the ground, wrapped in an old caravan blanket. Neither Adrian nor Cassandra interrupted, some moments deserved silence.
Cassandra stood beside him through the burial, still and watchful. One hand rested near the shotgun slung across her shoulder… always ready. Adrian found himself wondering if she even remembered how to relax, probably not.
When the grave had been filled, Mara settled beside the campfire with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She stared into the flames without really seeing them.
Adrian approached slowly. "You should try to get some sleep."
Mara barely shook her head. "Every time I close my eyes..." Her voice cracked. "I still hear them."
There wasn't a good answer to that, because Adrian still heard them too. The gunshots and the screaming. He could feel the heavy recoil of the shotgun. Blood hitting the dirt. Bodies collapsing. The dead raider falling against him. It replayed behind his eyes every time he blinked, too vivid and too real and beneath all the horror... part of him still remembered the rush.
Not from killing, from surviving. From being completely alive in a way the old world had never demanded. That contradiction unsettled him more than the violence itself.
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Across the fire, Cassandra slowly sharpened her combat knife. Steel whispered against the whetstone.
SHHK.
SHHK.
SHHK.
"You're staring." She never looked up.
Adrian blinked. "I didn't realize I was breaking any rules."
"I never said it was a problem."
He let out a tired snort before lowering himself onto an overturned crate near the fire. Every muscle in his body ached now that the adrenaline was finally gone. The exhaustion settled deep in his bones.
"So..." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Today's been weird."
That finally earned him a glance. "Weird?"
"Yesterday I had internet."
She frowned slightly. "What's internet?"
Adrian opened his mouth, thought about where to even begin. Then closed it again. "You know what?" He shook his head. "Never mind." Trying to explain modern technology to a post-war wasteland survivor at two in the morning felt like a shortcut to insanity.
The campfire crackled softly between them, Mara had finally fallen asleep beside the wagon wheel, wrapped tightly in her blanket. Across the fire, Cassandra continued sharpening her knife.
SHHK.
SHHK.
SHHK.
Adrian watched for a while, every stroke was identical. Controlled and deliberate. "You do that to relax?"
"Yes."
"That feels a little concerning."
"It should."
Same deadpan delivery, Adrian smiled despite himself. There was something strangely reassuring about her calmness, even when it bordered on mildly terrifying.
"You know," he said after a moment, "most people start with small talk before surviving multiple life-threatening experiences together."
"We had small talk."
"You criticized my shooting."
"You criticized mole rats."
"They earned it."
That drew the faintest shake of her head, the firelight softened the harder lines of her face. For the first time since they'd met, she looked less like a soldier... and more like a young woman who'd simply spent too many years surviving.
Which was, admittedly, dangerous for Adrian's concentration. Dark hair, sharp eyes and quiet confidence. He realized a little too late that he'd started staring again. Naturally... she noticed.
"You're doing it again."
"I'm appreciating the scenery."
"We're sitting in the middle of a burned-out highway graveyard."
"Not the scenery I meant."
That finally broke through. A faint flush colored her cheeks before disappearing almost as quickly as it came. "You flirt a lot for someone who almost died twice today."
"Near-death experiences build confidence."
"That's not how psychology works."
"Depends how attractive the person saving you is."
Cassandra held his gaze for several seconds, then she quietly returned to sharpening the knife. But Adrian caught it, he corner of her mouth had betrayed her.
Tiny victory, he leaned back against the crate and looked up at the stars again. The whole day still felt surreal. The wasteland. The gunfight. Cassandra. The strange black Pip-Boy resting on his arm.
His eyes drifted toward it, the screen pulsed faintly. Just once, then steadied. Adrian frowned.
Not again… he tapped the casing lightly.
Cassandra noticed. "Does it do that often?"
He hesitated, that felt like an important question. He barely knew her, but lying outright suddenly felt like a mistake. "Sometimes…"
"How often is sometimes?"
He glanced down at the glowing display. "Since I got it? A few times." Not exactly a lie.
Cassandra studied the Pip-Boy more carefully now. Not with casual curiosity, with recognition.
Adrian noticed… there it is. He kept his voice casual. "You know much about Pip-Boys?"
"Enough." Too controlled, too quick. He filed that answer away… interesting.
Cassandra finally sheathed the knife and leaned back slightly. "For a Vault dweller..." She watched him carefully. "You don't act like one."
He smiled. "You've mentioned."
"You look at ruins like you remember them." That landed a little too close to the truth. "And you fight strangely."
"I fight badly."
"Not the same thing."
The fire crackled softly between them, Adrian thought carefully before answering. This conversation suddenly mattered. Every instinct he had told him Cassandra was hiding far more than she admitted. "I guess," Adrian said slowly, "I expected the wasteland to feel different."
Her eyes narrowed. "Expected?"
Damn… he recovered as naturally as he could. "I mean... old Vault recordings." He shrugged. "Stories… the way people talked about it." Even to him, the explanation sounded thin.
Cassandra let it pass, for now. Instead, she looked back into the darkness beyond the fire. "The wasteland has a habit of breaking expectations."
There was experience in that sentence. Maybe pain, probably both.
Adrian watched her for a long moment before asking the question that had been sitting in the back of his mind since she'd blown a mole rat apart. "So, what are you really doing out here, Cassandra?"
Silence, wind swept across the ruined highway. Somewhere in the darkness, an animal cried out. For a moment he thought she wasn't going to answer. Finally... "I'm looking for something."
"What kind of something?"
Her eyes met his across the fire. Calm, measured and guarded. "The kind people kill over."
Well... that narrowed absolutely nothing down. Adrian smiled anyway. "Good." He settled back against the crate. "I was starting to worry this place might be dangerous."
For the first time that night... Cassandra rolled her eyes.
"So…" Adrian asked, his voice quieter now, "is every day out here completely insane?"
She actually considered the question, then answered. "No." A beat passed. "Some are worse."