Chapter Text
Man, these Voldsoy bandits packed a punch. With the strong arms of a miner, maybe he would’ve been able to fight back. If only he had been born like that.
Clancy was doing his damnedest to clean the wounds he had suffered at the hands of a couple rowdy vagabonds, softly rubbing an alcohol-soaked cloth against scrapes on his arms and his face. He thought the little cut on his left cheekbone gave him some character. It was unusual to him, not having been much of a fighter when life was different.
The cuts stung like a motherfucker, too, pinpricks against thin flesh - but that made him feel alive. In a dead world like this one, it was necessary to feel alive at all costs.
Between swipes, Clancy looked through the window of his shack, a rusted iron steel frame bordering thick, dirty glass. Through the window stains he hadn’t bothered cleaning, he could see it far away: Dema. Thick blankets of leaves and creeping vines lined intimidating walls of concrete, the greenery softening the brutality of the gray material it crowned. Even higher than the walls was a tree, standing tall in the middle of the city. In Dema, it was a beacon of life, a source of riches and vitality. Outside of the city’s walls, it was another matter entirely. Bitterness, hopelessness, envy, a now-unreachable symbol of times long gone.
After the rubbing alcohol came the antibiotic ointment. Clancy rationed it the best he could, knowing that it cost a pretty penny at the general store despite how important it was. In Voldsoy, you couldn’t allow yourself to get hurt: things were scarce. The problem is that Clancy would get hurt with the reckless nature of his “job”, or rather his way to make ends meet. Sweet-talking and swindling people could go from 0 to 100 real quick.
He squeezed out a glob of the transparent gel and spread a light coat over the cuts he had just cleaned, making sure they wouldn’t get infected. Between the dirt, the sand, and the dangerous critters that roamed the roads, it was too easy for bacteria to spread. Or to lose a limb.
His house, if we could call it that, was a mess. Scraps of metal, a mattress with less springs than what should be socially acceptable, basic kitchenware and not much else. The thing most precious to him wasn’t something used for basic human functions, such as cooking or sleeping: it was his radio. Kept him connected to the news in what was left of the world, and played sweet music from places where such a thing could still be produced. The Bishops liked hypnotic percussion with ritualistic throat chants, and so it rang in Clancy’s ears nonstop. It’s not that he liked it himself - in fact, that was a painful reminder of everything taken away from him - but silence drove him insane, so he got used to it.
It’s after cleaning himself up and bandaging the final wound that the sweet tribalistic rhythm playing on the radio turned into one of Voldsoy’s rare clandestine broadcasts. The more intrepid, driven types living on the island would sometimes hijack towers. They wanted to send messages of revolution, inspire Voldsoy’s people to take back what they once had.
The bold voice of a woman echoed out of the radio, Clancy’s ears perking up in curiosity like a cat’s.
“What is our existence without nature? Were we not born out of a seed? Though they may have stripped us of our leaves with their selfishness and drained us of our resources, we will fight to the last drop. Even if it means death.”
Her voice betrayed both determination and despair. Something Clancy couldn’t quite grasp anymore, as he had lost the energy for emotions like these long ago.
The broadcast wasn’t over, and the woman continued her rallying cry:
“Oh, people of Ørken! Though our wells may be dry, our spirit is not yet extinguished. Mothers, miners, scavengers: let us walk in the street as a people united. For they are few, and we are many."
As the speech ended, clamor erupted outside of Clancy’s shack. Though he had no interest in participating in a revolution or whatever this was, he quickly put on his black and red balaclava and headed out into the streets.
The moment he stepped out of the door and into the alley, he was buoyed into a large moving crowd, revolutionaries in black and green buzzing around like a swarm of flies. As if the city wasn’t hot enough already, thousands of humans walking in unison on cracked concrete during another endless summer day could’ve made Clancy pass out from the heat.
Stuck between a few burly men with sweat sticking to their limbs, folks screaming with old megaphones and people brandishing signs they’d crafted with sheet metal and wood, he felt as if he was drowning in a sea of legs and arms, doing his best to follow the rapid pace of the people marching around him. There were so many people outside and so much noise that it was dizzying, and frankly overwhelming to Clancy. He was never the type to like crowds.
And unfortunately, no amount of strangers in public could keep him from panicking. It was as if time stopped: trembling limbs and quickening breaths made him as still as a statue in the crowd, until a man bumped into him. “Jeez, my bad.”
He turned around to look at the guy, ready to snap at him due to his heightened emotions, but upon seeing his frame he refrained. A green tank top, or rather a t-shirt with chopped sleeves, revealed developed biceps and tan skin. Large features and a strong nose gave him a somewhat intimidating appearance, one that Clancy himself would never have, no matter how much he tried to eat more, put on muscle, and hide his face to conceal his boyish features. Even if the guy was smaller than Clancy was, he was scarier than Clancy could ever be.
Maybe with a build like this, he wouldn’t need to waste his precious antibiotic ointment so often.
But even though the man had an intimidating build, his eyes…they betrayed softness and kindness, a sharp contrast to everything else about him.
Clancy gulped. “It’s fine,” he said, snapping back to reality after being on the verge of panic for a few seconds. He turned around to look straight ahead, and fell back into the same marching beat as the revolutionary crowd.
“You sure?” murmured the guy behind him. He was too polite, thought Clancy. He’ll get eaten up on the roads outside of Ørken soon enough.
“Yeah.”
“I mean, you don’t seem like the type to march a lot.”
Clancy paused and stepped aside so the guy could catch up to him, and gave him a suspicious look behind his balaclava as they walked next to each other. “How do you know that?”
“You’re marching under this sun, in the middle of June, wearing a jacket, a mask, and you’re in black from head to toe. You’re a night dweller, aren’t you?”
Clancy’s face dropped. Fuck, this guy was observant. Most of his life had been spent in enclosed, aerated spaces where time didn’t matter, working night and day. No need to be strong or equipped for the heat of the wilderness, until now...Old habits did die hard.
“...Yeah,” Clancy mumbled again, defeat obvious in his tone. The faintest hint of rosy cheeks could be seen in the sliver of skin shown through the opening of his balaclava.
"Well, it's nice to have you here," said the guy. "We're fighting for a good cause, and it's not so dangerous to be in these—"
A gunshot cut through his sentence, and the crowd began hollering in hysteria. In the shadowy mass of people, it was hard to figure out how the threat came to be and where it was coming from, but the jumble of bodies made way for three figures clad in red, a dark veil concealing most of their faces. They had the luxury of wielding guns from the old world—the finest tech there was—and white motorcycles to roam the broken-down streets and deserted highways freely.
Clancy's brown eyes could've turned green at the sight of the ones who had taken away everything from him and the rest of the continent: the Bishops. To these priests, the only religion in the world was power and opulence. In a never-ending quest for riches, they'd hoarded everything for themselves and bled the rest of the land dry.
Except for Dema, of course. Their natural green paradise.
The three Bishops cut through the crowd, bullet wounds and musket slashes leaving a trail of dead bodies in their wake. Clancy covered his ears as the shrill screams of children, women and grown men flooded the streets, and the other man pulled him away to the sides and into an alley while the three continued their rampage.
"How foolish!" exclaimed one of the Bishops clad in red, a feminine voice instilling doom in the hearts of the protestors. "You fled to Voldsoy to escape us? Very well. But that doesn't mean you're free here either. No insurrections or obnoxious radio hijacks will be tolerated. Go home, if you value your lives."
The woman's little speech ended, but several of the more courageous civilians were not dissuaded and stayed put in front of the three Bishops on their motorcycles. Clancy watched them with a mix of distress and surprise, unable to believe that someone could still care this much. But something in him couldn’t help but be impressed, too. They still had the energy to fight.
"We'll get back what's ours," sneered a young woman who stood in front of the Bishops. With fiery eyes and her back straight, it was obvious she’d seen a fair share of fights in her life. But she was wise, too, so she turned around and left, folding under the Bishop’s threat.
"Lisden?" asked the female Bishop to her fellowman, seeming quite disinterested by the protestors' little comment. Her voice was low enough for Clancy and the other man to hear her from the small alley, but the protesting young woman was too far away to realize something was about to happen.
"Yes, Sacarver?" said Lisden, fidgeting fingers tapping against the handlebars of his motorcycle. The killings earlier hadn’t been enough to excise all his pent-up energy.
"Kill her."
Lisden cocked his gun and aimed straight for the woman's head: bullseye.
That poor soul, brave enough to say something but not stupid enough to stay right there. Still too brave and too stupid by the Bishop's standards, though.
Her body fell to the ground with a large thunk, blood seeping onto the hot concrete of the streets of Ørken.
By now, the protest had dispersed itself, lucky survivors slithering into nearby streets as the three Bishops were proudly parked in the middle of dead corpses. "Leave them here. Soon enough the maggots will come and the stench will fill the roads. It'll be a warning sign for these fools," announced Sacarver.
All three Bishops revved their motorcycle engines and left for the highway, straight into the blistering sun of the Voldsoy summer.
Clancy's eye twitched as he stared at the results of the protest. Entrails, reminiscent of brush strokes, painted the street red while lifeless bodies in black were splayed like abstract shapes. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!" he screamed, finding the sight of this all too familiar. "Again!"
Clancy stormed off into the alley without hesitation, and the other man followed him.
Even if the man sized him up pretty well upon meeting Clancy, it's not like they knew each other before this afternoon. But after witnessing an atrocity that could’ve very well made them victims, he felt as if they shared a sort of bond.
Clancy felt the same too, though he wouldn't admit it. He didn’t appreciate opening up that way, especially to a stranger.
"Where are you going, uh…" began the guy, realizing he didn't know the masked man's name.
Clancy noted his awkwardness quite quickly. "Clancy. Name's Clancy," he said, looking back to the big guy he had just met. "And you…?"
"Just call me Torchie," said the guy. "I mean, Torchbearer."
Torchie? Man, that guy really is soft, thought Clancy.
"Okay…Torchbearer. Anyway, I'm going back home."
"Wait! I'll…go with you."
Clancy wasn't sure why the hell a guy he’d met after witnessing a bunch of people being killed in the streets wanted to join him…But he couldn't be alone right now. His brain played bloody images of his past on repeat, and the last thing he wanted was to succumb to them.
"Oh, uh…Sure," Clancy said in a purposely disinterested tone. He didn't want to seem feeble, but he also really needed company. Torchbearer scooted over right next to him and they began walking back in silence to Clancy's shack.
Neither of them knew what to expect past that point. But every time they looked into each other's eyes, it felt as if they had known each other their whole lives, as if an invisible thread linked them.
Though they were unaware of it, their fates were much more intertwined than they could've ever believed.