I live, I die, I live again (Mad Max: Fury Road fanfiction)

Chapter 2 - The gates of Valhalla

That noise, again. Long. Endless. A squeak. The scraping of the hull against the cliff, again and again. Forever, perhaps. The flames died, replaced by dust. Dust everywhere. Tin everywhere. Rocks everywhere. The buzzing of blood flow, the crunching, long, long. Darkness. And that pain, like no other. Like nothing, never, and yet. Where are the Gates? The bloody smegging Gates? Did they open for the other War Boys? For Rictus? Are there any Gates at the end? No, there aren't. Only this buzzing. Only pain. And the squealing, again, again, again.

Suddenly the War Boy opens his eyes and feels the dust. Under his eyelids, in his mouth, in his nostrils. The fucking dust. And that orange light. From the returning flames? No, they didn't come back. It's just the sun, so low. Sand. Rocks. Cliffs. The Pass. The War-rig close to him, on the top of him. Everywhere too. And the pain again. Mediocre? What does it matter if there are no Gates?

Breathe. Several more times, and he doesn't care about Larry and Barry. In the end, it also doesn't matter the dust even if it makes him cough. Cough. Coughing hurts more than usual. And that squeak, will it stop? The War-rig isn't moving anymore, so why is it still scraping the canyon? Why is it squealing? This must stop. IT MUST.

— STOP!

The scraping disappears and only the bumblebee remains at the drums of his ears. He needs to cough again. Air in the windpipe, in, out, several times. Behind the buzzing is silence now. Have the others passed through? Before he turned the rig down. Before darkness. How long ago? Now the sun is low. Have they been caught up? Maybe they -

— If you get up, you'll empty faster, durachit'.

Up there, someone is looking at him. A small shape. Brown. Fuzzy. With his blackened hand – the one not in the War-rig's metal fractals – the haggard War Boy is looking for something to throw at her. Anything. Durachit'. Not slang, but soviet.

— You're a buzzard, he whispers as one would utter an umpteenth misfortune, and he hears her laugh.

He gropes again and he knows what she's thinking. She's thinking that he can't threaten her. A randomly picked up doorknob crashes miserably into the side of the tank and she's laughs again very low. Another thing: rod, bone, this time it's the gearshift lever with a selector sharpened like a blade that goes towards her boot and finally ricochets off. He counter-steers quickly, so as not to be dazed on top of everything else. He says a Black Thumb swearword from the Citadel, and she crouches down, ready to dodge the next projectile. But he can't anymore. Stalled, dry. And that pain, again. He falls back and just breathes. And again. And again.

— Damn, she whispers, you're really made of hard-bending wires.

She disappears and the screeching comes back. Shears? A scraper? The War-rig. It's the War-rig she's cutting out. He pulls on his arm and something dislodges from his shoulder as he pulls it away from the hull. Another pain. He breathes, also ignoring that leg that doesn't respond. The buzzard cuts, she cuts, and suddenly he understands as the vision of the red metal pulls his entrails back. Red and shiny, so shiny, more chrome than any other colour. Copper. His vision almost blurs again. It is the inside of the tank that she's peeling off.

Suddenly, there are two more voices and he hides there. More Buzzards. She tells them she's going to stay. They call her Volta. She wants to get all copper? As much as possible? Night's coming and the breeze is up. Russian words again. She doesn't want their circular saw and he gets a silly relief. They're leaving. One engine, traction, 11 hp. One of those damn raiders' Barbacons. It's heading far away towards the Badlands. To the edge of the Storm Dunes. And further, there is the Citadel.

All of a sudden, he feels this eagerness, similar to the greed that arise at the moment of taking the Road. While waiting for the Day. Once an act of blind devotion, of despair maybe, but know things have changed. He's got to go. To the Citadel. He wants to know. To know if they're there. And the Wives. He pushes on his hip, but his leg is a painful injection when he tries. There's blood down there, and it's not the War-rig's. This time, the squeal that repeats makes him turn his head with a different look. Back to himself, he figures out he'ss a motionless, crumpled thing while this Volta is motorized and armed. Threatening her to force her to take him would be most effective, but she has already laughed at his shots. He would need a weapon. There was a Webbley left in the cabin. And a Smith & Wesson, and... but now the cabin merges with rock. For a moment, his head still sways a little on the sand. Then it stops.

— One night in the canyon, he forces himself to say, checking if his voice still exists. Just for scavenging shotgun.

The squealing stops but she doesn't answer him.

— The welds on the FDK, on the Doof Wagon : they're mad of lead, some of tin. In the grenades, boom, that would make a good sifting. Would be easier to cut than-

— You talk too much. Die in silence.

He won't talk for a while. The tool resumes its work and the War Boy forces himself to turn in her direction, behind the wall of the tanker. He pulls himself up like dead weight and his leg spins. He coughs again, just as if it had anything to do with it.

— Lead, in organics, he says, it spits toxic when it's ingrained. The copper is shiny but for your shotgun-

— This copper is not for shotgun, now shut up.

Something in the Buzzard's voice seems sorry to slash the rig, and he is silent for a moment. But now he feels like he's come to his senses. If he can't threaten her, he knows now, he knows what he still can do.

— It's for the batteries.

— No.

— It's for the inside of the catalytic converters.

— No. No, it's not.

Her exasperation can be heard through the rig's metal. But if she kills him, so what? Leaving him there would be worse. He breathes in again.

— It's for the spikes, the ones on the hoods of your fuckin' car-

A step in the water, the sound of her boots. Within a second she's on him, just where the V8 has been rammed. He's moaning as her tool points at his head and no more at copper. Her other hand is thrust into his shoulder. Loose, limp as if the strap of it had snapped, and the pain makes him clench his teeth. Her chin is buried in her windproof scarf but he can guess. At least she's looking at him now, and her eyes are black.

— Before being a Driver, I worked at the Garages, I know the-

— Blin, ZATKNIS' !

He doesn't understand, but he gets the idea. So she raises her shears and presses a little more on his shoulder: she noticed that it's an efficient spot. One kick and she tackles him. How can he do better, anyway? But suddenly she stops. One breath, another, and she looks around. At the rig. At the Immortan Howling Skull hammered on the old ceiling of the cabin. The old, torn leather of the back sits. She's figured something out.

— It was you, she says, pressing the tool on his forehead and the blade scraps his skin. It was you who drove that tanker.

That's absurd. Of course she knows. A War Boy would never drive a loaded War-rig. He can see she doesn't get it. But who would understand what all this madness is about? Explaining wouldn't help, and he has to hurry. He's moved. Like she said, he's moved too much. Blood in the sand. It's her fault even if he went looking for it. But now his eyesight is blurred and he must finish what he started.

— Take me back.

Under the pressure of the tool, his neck collapses. He won't be able to hold on.

— Take me back to the Citadel and you can ask for much more than copper.

The tool goes a little deeper. Maybe she's killing him. Maybe the War-rig falls apart, the War Boy doesn't know anymore. Darkness is coming from the sides, from the center, with this loud, loud hum. He's sliding again. And now he knows there are no Gates to Valhalla.