Needs Must: a Dystopia Rising concept story

Jayk woke up, and Jayk felt pain, and Jayk knew that very soon he was going to die.  The world was dark, his vision darkened by wet cloth. The pain was numbing, almost freezing on principle and yet he could still feel the ice cold water lapping underneath his back and his legs. All things considered, Jayk did the only sensible thing anyone would do.

Jayk screamed for help.

It was stupid, and Jayk knew it. Being a guard for the caravans as long as he had told him it was a stupid idea. Sure he was dying, sure he had fucked up and deserved it. But noise attracted the Zed. It was either make noise, though, or become one of them.

And needs must when the Devil drives.

Time passed in the wet, cold, and pain. Time that Jayk couldn't even know. Hours? Minutes? Seconds? Why didn't he dissolve into the ground? Why didn't the gravemind claim him? He kept screaming, screaming helped. Screaming meant he was still alive. They weren't words, Lost Boys could mimic words. Scream in pain, pure and without bias and you'll live.

Between the screams, in the bid for air, Jayk heard a counter sound. It was a sweet melody, a soft tune that Jayk couldn't make out the words.

Jayk screamed again, words came to him. "HELP!" He screamed.

The melody stopped abruptly. Jayk stopped his shouting to gauge. Moments passed, heartbeats into eternities. A voice came out from the distance, musical and casual. "Are you alive?"

Jayk had to stop and question that, in this much pain. Was he sure he wasn't already in Hell? He realized he had no time to consider. "Yes! I'm Alive! No, I'm not making this up. Help me please!" The words flowed out of him. Words were always good to passersby when in aid. "I'm not a trap! I'm in help! Help!"

More silence, and then footfalls near him. "I'm going to take the hood off of you, close your eyes."

Relief washed over Jayk, almost making him forget his pain, almost allowing him to pass out. "I'm a Retrograde." he said. "I haven't changed. Don't kill me because of it."

"I don't think that's going to be a problem," The voice said. Jayk's world suddenly exploded in white, brilliant light. The pain of light burned almost as much as the pain in his chest.

"Easy now," said the voice. "Take a moment,"

"Pain." Jayk rasped. "Pain." He realized the person did not run or flee when his face was revealed. Retrogrades tend to get shot because they resemble the shambling hordes of the dead.  This one seemed fine with it.

"Pain will subside," the voice said. "I'd be glad, it means you aren't dead." There was a pause. "Although, death might be preferable."

The light began to lessen, and Jayk could see the blue of the sky with green trees in his peripheral. There was a man in front of him. His clothes were a uniform black, with a faded black denim jacket patched over. He had dark hair, silvering in some places. His eyes weren't the same color, both were hazel, but the left one was noticeably a deeper green and the right a golden brown. There was a casualness about him, as if he wasn't in the Zed and Raider infested end of the world.

"Hey" the man said. It was soft and welcoming. "I'm Walker,"

"J-Jayk," he replied. His teeth chattering once he gave his body some time to adjust.

"Hi Jayk," he said. "You have two options right now. You can look at me and not have to face what's happened to your body or..."

Jayk craned his neck up, looking down. Small tines poked out of his arms, chest and legs, bone white and curved. They blossomed like thorns of a flower.  A groan gurgled from his mouth, bubbling like the stream that was beneath him.

"...or you can look and see what happened." Walker finished. He sucked in a breath, "I'm going to guess from the positioning and the watermask you were wearing, you didn't just slip and fall, right?"

The question shocked Jayk from his pain and his suffering. "Natural Ones....Clan Shrike."

The man raised an eyebrow, "Cannibals?"

Jayk shook his head, the only thing that was free to move. The man eyed him up and down, then snapped his fingers. "You're bait," he said. "They mount you onto this thing, keeping you alive and screaming for the Zed to hear and be attracted. Even dead, the smell of meat and flesh will be potent enough...and since you're not technically touching the ground, you don't get to be taken by the Gravemind. Clever. Sadistic, but clever. "

"Help...me." Jayk said. It was a plea, a cry for help.

The man took in another sharp breath. "I'm no Doctor, but I'm pretty sure those...yeah, those are antlers, are puncturing several major organs...and even if they aren't...pulling you off will most definitely rupture a major organ. " Walker stood silently, looking at his body. "Okay, I'm going to do something incredibly stupid. I'm going to peel you off this thing and then I'm going to pull you to the side and heal you."

"You said you weren't a Doctor?"

"Man doesn't always need medicine to survive."

"Priest?"

Walker shrugged.  "You religious in any way?"

Jayk struggled, "Dad was Fallows Hope. I hung out at the Blue House in Aysea."

Walker laughed, "you probably missed me a couple of times."

Jayk said nothing at first, then looked up at the man. "Can I...do you do confessions?" The man raised an eyebrow, and Jayk explained. "I've died three times...once in a bar brawl in the Aysea...once  when Raiders hit our Caravan, the third time I slipped off a wagon and broke my neck. This is it for me. I die...I won't come back as pretty."

Walker nodded. He clearly knew what happens to Retros when they die all the way. They become Zed, but not just any Zed, stronger Zed.  No shambling horde for them. They get to cause major mayhem. "You want absolution." the young Priest said. "Sure, hit me with your best shot."

Jayk took in a breath. The pain of the Shrike's antler mount was a distant pain. Either he'd gotten used to it, or his body was in so much shock it was pointless to worry about it. "I asked for this. Our caravan was stopped over with the Clan, we traded goods, kept the guns and tech out of the way. I caught the eye of a little thing. Cute. Did this little trick with his...anyways, you know how Hill Folk can be about...intermingling."

"So they crucified you on a pile of antlers to die as Zed bait?"

"I said some nasty words," Jayk said, lying.

If Walker had picked up on the lie, he didn't show it. "And do you feel sorry for this?"

"If I could do things differently, I would have."

Walker nodded, and then grabbed under Jayk's body. "I don't want to alarm you, but this is going to really hurt."

A sudden thought occurred to Jayk as Walker took in a deep breath. "Shouldn't you break off the antlers ffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuc---"

Pain. Pain as blinding and as sharp as the light that stung his eyes. Pain that made his skin want to rip itself off and escape the entire situation all together. He almost wished at that moment to just sink into the ground, join the Gravemind and become one with the Horde.

Soft, firm ground embraced Jayk's back, and he was surprised he did not descend immediately into the ground. Walker rested a hand on the Retro's head, on the roughened face, the bones of his skull practically sticking out of his greying, mottled skin. His chest burned and itched. He imagined the air touching his organs, blood vessels bleeding into the wild.

"Okay," Walker said. His voice was unhurried. "Here goes."

He placed his hands onto Jayk, one on his forehead and the other on the bloody remains of his chest. "I call out to you, those who hear my voice. Guide this man in his darkest moments. Allow him to find the power within. To liberate himself from his shackles."  Walker's tone changed, it wasn't casual and melodic. It was direct and powerful. As if he called on someone. Jayk remembered seeing priests of the King's Court at the Blue House in Aysea. They sang songs, songs of the late Kings and Queens of the world long since claimed by Zed and Radiation.  They spread the messages of their preferred Prophet to others. Their seat in Aysea was the Blue House, where music and religion were one and the same.

This man Walker was not one of them.

The realization flashed on Jayk's face, and Walker caught on. The Priest's hand clasped around the young Retrograde's ghoulish mouth. It moved like a flash, but Jayk saw all he needed to see to prove his fears. A brand beneath the wrist, an eye, and where there should be an iris was a glyph from the old world. It's true meaning was lost, but everyone knew it well enough. It meant the Danger of Rad, the killer of worlds.

Jayk was in the hands of a Final Knight. Devil Worshipers, while the other faiths built for a better day, the Final Knights armed for the hell that was here and more to come.

"Shhh" Walker said calmly. He leaned in conspiratorially, and Jayk wanted to recoil. To fight the hand around his mouth and call out to someone, anyone to help him. "Jayk...JAYK" The last was a command, a bark of order. "You're dying Jayk, you were dying to moment they put you on the rack, you were dying the moment you were born. How old are you Jayk? Eighteen?" Jayk didn't answer. "Younger?" Jayk blinked. And Walker nodded.

"Not even eighteen, and already on your last legs against the infection. How long would you survive before you found yourself in this position again? Weeks? Months? And what would you do in that time? Continue working? Embracing Life? No...you'd probably squander it. I offer you some meaning in your final moments. Some clarity as you face the Gravemind. I offer you the chance for revenge in death that you could never gain in life. To Rise and claim your revenge on Clan Shrike for murdering you. For you are murdered, Jayk. And they have done the deed. Do you accept?"

Jayk knew he would die there. He knew that there was no escape, and he knew deep down that this Damned Priest was right. His life would have no meaning. As the last minutes of his life's blood ebbed out of him, he nodded.

Walker smiled, and took his free hand and placed what felt like the whole thing into one of Jayk's open wounds. When extracted, the fingers were sticky and coated with blood. Walker dabbed the blood on Jayk's head, proving to be cooler than Jayk had thought it'd be. Walker said nothing, and just smiled. The world darkened around Jayk, and his last thoughts were of that smile.

And revenge on Clan Shrike.

---

In the end, the Gravemind took him. The Gravemind always takes them. And they always come back as the shambling dead.

Hell. How could the other Faiths see this as anything less than Hell?

Walker asked this question as Jayk's veins turned green under mottled skin, as his eyes bled black, and as the tendrils of the gravemind claimed his body and took him down through the earth. Jayk, young Retrograde was dead. Life squandered and never being able to fulfill his true power and potential on Hell on Earth.

But was it a complete waste.

Walker sat on the bank of the stream, allowing the sun to warm and dry his soaked black pants. It was ultimately a pleasant day. The Zed hadn't been that numerous, and he was glad for warnings about Clan Shrike. His eyes travelled to the rack Jayk had been stapled to, it was a gruesome way to die. But ultimately an ingenious one. He'd have to remember that when he found a place to stay.

Time past, and the sun was warm. And as bright sun turned into orange sunset, the screaming began. It was distant first, but it soon grew clear. The shout of surprise, combat, anger. Then came other noises, low but clear and distinct. The groans of the shambling horde. The groans, as they often did, followed the screams. The screams, through the forest, sounded at least several miles away to the east.

"May the survivors find enlightenment as those in the old days found enlightenment as they beheld the bombs falling to earth. That this is Hell and we are Damned. May they come to power in their truth, and may they draw strength from that power. May they learn the names of the Infernal Lords and may we join to bring this world to a true understanding." He felt his strength return to him, he felt invigorated by the words and knew that, somewhere, something was listening and approved.

And in the twilight gloom, the man known as Walker Blackforest made his way along the path, now made empty as the zombies and hill folk made war in the east. A song in his heart and on his lips.