By Now

(This is just a quick thing I whipped up 'cause I just got unbanned. If ya like it, great. If you don't... uh... i.... .. ..)

By now, we’ve learned the ways of the wild. The world just ain’t what it used to be. I remember the days when we weren’t so absolved in surviving. The world was a quieter, more peaceful place. And when the fun of going down to the clubs and casinos to waste both yourself and your money never seemed to die.

But by now, the world will never be what it once was. Some may have called my home town a hell. Just a roadside town in a dustbowl. Nobody appreciated the rest of our state. It was all because of our crown jewel that we were even on the map. Other than that, there wasn’t much to see. You’d stop in at a roadside tavern for a drink, chat a bit with the locals, and then leave. Nothing much to it. Life was simple.

But that was before the war. The war that plunged us all into chaos. And let me tell you we had NO fucking idea what to make of what was going on outside. Most of us were just crammed into lead containers and were told to wait it out. The people who were inside survived. The ones who were outside weren’t so lucky. But by now, they’re forgotten. In these times, memories don’t mean anything anymore. Feelings weren’t always everything but they were never just nothing. Like they are now. The soft and the emotional were left to die at the hands of mother nature, or someone else’s revolver. But the strong… The strong didn’t just survive… They turned into savages. War machines, almost everybody who had the mindset of survival and had a weapon in hand were turned into killers. Killers who followed their own rules. The morals of others were nothing more than a minor inconvenience to them. They’d storm into a town of innocent survivors, destroy the whole damn thing and claim it was for purity. Others kill for sport, some kill for cash. Life didn’t matter to them unless it was theirs. By now, mercenaries were as rare as rocks. You’d have to be tougher than steel to survive on your own. But by now there were people who could pull it off. People who could get shot straight in the head, and in the end turn out alright. And the groups of rich and powerful people formed pitiful governments. A new republic would spring up and claim that the slaughter of others was done to protect. That it was done for the greater good. At first we believed them.

But by now, we know better.

And if you thought the humans were bad, the rest of the world is a wasteland. Filled with creatures that wouldn’t end up being any more than an inconvenience before the world went to shit. But the war changed everything. By now, there are things as tiny as lizards and scorpions that were turned into giants. Bigger than humans, and some not even Pre-War creatures. And we thought that life was tough before. A petty couple’s breakup could be the absolute worst thing before the war. But by now, we see how much the word ‘worst’ has lost it’s meaning. We didn’t know what the ‘worst thing that can possibly happen’ was until it happened. It happened to all of us. And now every day we walk a tightrope of life and death, and yes some of us fell. But if I could… I’d like to tell them that their life was not in vain. They’ve pushed forward long enough for us to say that they’ve did. And it didn’t matter if life threw the worst at us. From mutated gecko’s to scorpions to even ourselves… By now we’ve learned… By now we know…

That we WILL survive the Fallout.