The Crater Chronicles

The Habits of a Scavenger

When had my life turned into the stuff of philosophical debates? Standing there with my spear hovering over the woman's throat, I could hear the bored drunkard droning on about the moral dilemma in front of me, and whether I truly had any say in the actions I was about to take. Would I stab her through the throat, potentially saving some innocent soul from the sort of fate I had faced years ago? Would my upbringing be enough for me to show mercy? Was I truthfully any better a person than the buzzard laying before me in the snow?

They were questions I did not have the answers to. Thus, I contented myself to glaring down at her, trying to keep the shake from my hands. It would only be a matter of time before she addressed me, but I doubted I contained the courage required to stutter out a response. My situation had turned into a life-and-death staring contest, and I'd be damned if I let some buzzard win.

As things occurred, Fortuna had abandoned me once again. In what seemed both a fraction of a second and an eternity, I found myself keeling over. My knees had crumpled, and I found myself sunken up my hips in snow that was undergoing a rapid metamorphosis into reddened sludge. Kneeling with head bowed and weight upon my spear, I must have looked like the statues said to have flanked the castles of old.

"Never circle alone."

I raised my eyes to the woman standing above me, pistol centimeters from my forehead. Our roles had reversed in an almost laughable twist of fate. A click behind me announced her companion's presence, and had my hearing been keener, I would have heard the spent casing crunch into the snow.

"W-what d'you want, b-buzzard?"

The companion laughed, his voice a stone-scraped baritone. "Scared girl?"

I grit my teeth. Ad nauseum repetition of variants of that same question had bittered me towards it, and I could feel what little was left of my logical processing slipping down a frozen cliff.

My revolver was still at my hip, but I doubted I was subtle enough to free it from its holster before being shot through the head. Besides, I had a single bullet left to last me the return trip. Return trip I thought, chastising my own thoughts; there would be no return trip if I did not find a way to free myself from that situation.

"You haven't answered the question," I growled in a desperate bid for time.

It earned me a blow to the head with a rifle butt, which, perhaps, jostled my damaged brain enough to give me an idea. It was an insane idea only fit for someone as asinine as I was.

I could feel the stutter coming on even before I began speaking. "T-that wasn't v-very explanatory now was it."

I let the following strike knock me to the ground, using the motion to mask my grab for the gun holstered at my belt. By the time my fingers closed around its holster, my arm was hidden in the snow. My spear now lay parallel to the sky, though I would be unable to change my grip to one more optimized for stabbing.

My ears were ringing with the intensity of a volcanic explosion, and I could not discern the next words said.

From seemingly nowhere, I was hoisted back to my knees by the collar, the woman's face so close I could feel her breath. She jabbed the gun between my eyes and let the frigid metal press against my skin, sending a shiver down my spine.

By the time she thought to pull the trigger, I had already loosed my last bullet into her chest and spun into a crouch, facing her companion. The bullet whizzed past my head, grazing my ear and dragging a few strands of hair in its trail. The muzzle of the man's rifle was halfway to being trained on my head, and I could only pray the strike from my spear redirected its fire in time for me.

With a dull clatter, wood met steel. A muted roar followed.

Lying on my back, the world spun around me.

Not dead. I was not dead--my opponent, was not dead.

Rolling to my feet sent a razor-sided lance of pain down my side, but I forced my eyes to lock on target through the tears blurring them. Reaching for his gun--mine was still in my hand.

"Don't m-move!" I raised it to bear, praying he failed to notice the empty chambers full of nothing but snow.

Hesitation. All I needed. My boot slammed into his knee, the spikes rimming its edges cutting deep. Ice climbing boots: best investment I ever made.

Screaming in pain, he went down, and I raised my boot once more, aiming this time for his head.

The philosophers could say what they wanted: I knew the truth. Dragging my foot free of his now bloodied head, I came to accept that I was no better than any of them.

Survival. That was the great determination of action out here. Morality had burned in the same volcanic fires as civilization.

-Excerpt from the journal of a "Marin Kitania" found tucked away inside a large backpacking pack containing several other oddities. Undated.