Midnight in Baytown

Date: 9.5.2224

Location: Baytown | Red Rocket Outskirts

Electric hum still clings to the Red Rocket. Someone, or something... is close enough to keep the lights alive. I can’t see them, but the energy says presence,

The road beyond is chaos made permanent. Collapsed homes lie half-swallowed by the floodplain, water creeping where streets once lived. My Pip-Boy reads 56 degrees. I barely notice. After days on the road, the numbers matter less than what the air is trying to tell me] Every step smell of filth, decay, and the tang of rabid dogs circling in the dark. The beasts are slow, persistent, gnawing at instinct. I move careful. Quiet.

Ahead, the Pip-Boy hints at a hospital—or maybe what used to be emergency services—but coordinates are scrambled, fractured, almost like the city itself is hiding from me. I have a sense of direction: North. That will do.

The Red Rocket gave me a small mercy. Fresh water, RadAway, some scraps of stability in a world gone sideways. Hunger gnaws; I’m out of carrots, the trail of provision thinning faster than the road.

I spotted a few row houses, still on stilts, still holding themselves against time. Looks habitable. I’ll take refuge there. 

The houses don't look abandoned. Not entirely. A curtain moves where there shouldn't be wind. A porch light flickers once, then dies. Out here, occupied doesn't always mean welcoming. I'll know soon enough.

Tomorrow, I move again. North. Hope to find value in the bones of the Old World. And maybe, just maybe, a sign of someone—or something—that makes this stretch more than just shadows.

— Big Chief