Crossing the Still

Date: 9.4.2224
Location: San Jacinto Bay | Approaching Baytown

I left the warehouse at first light. Dawn was a haze of orange and steel, the sun slicing the mist over San Jacinto Bay. The smell of salt, rust, and old oil hit first. Then the stillness.

The bridge ahead is half-remembered, half-claimed by water and decay. I can see the span, cables frayed, concrete cracked, but it’s the only line forward. Every step counts. Every sound registers. 

Between me and the Baytown Medical Center, everything is awake. Fires flare in broken lots. Gunshots snap across empty streets. Scavengers move with intent...  Many armored like they’ve taken lessons from the machines we left behind. And still, I tread lightly. 

Vehicles lie frozen in place. As if an EMP, swept through, killing engines without bodies, leaving shells in perfect mid-motion. Trucks, cars, bikes, all locked in place, ghosts of commerce and escape. The streets look like a graveyard where time forgot to continue.

I pass low to the shadows. Pip-Boy humming softly, reading radiation spikes, pulse patterns, and the faint vibrations of distant movement. Every step is a calculation. Every sight a signal. Even the smoke from those fires tells a story: scavenger territory. Possible Signs of a camp or settlement.

The bridge looms closer. One wrong move could put me on the open, a target for any who roam. I check the wind, the weight of my pack, the balance of my boots on steel.

Ahead, Baytown waits. The Medical Center is a beacon, priority, not optional. Its windows might be shattered, but its halls could still hold what I need: medicine, tech, and memory.

— Big Chief