Inside Kathryn's head percolates an increasingly odd dream. Perhaps it's the hunger...or a smidgen of radioactive dust, the sort that still floats around from time to time...or maybe even it has something to do with the patchouli fumes from a nearby campsite.
In any occurrence, she dreams deep.
In Kat's dreams, she is often small-and the world is made of Giants. Equal parts fear and feelings of inadequacy. She finds herself sitting on a field of green tonight, like grass, but not as soft. There is a great ringing and clamor in the air-cries of ecstasy and horror intermixed. Lives won, and lives lost.
It is to her mild consternation, she realizes she is on some sort of gambling table-players, whose faces are shrouded, are taking turns tossing a ball onto a spinning wheel. She knows the usual colors are red/black, but this wheel is ~all black~. Bad luck no matter how you roll. They seem to betting precious, little things. Here goes a baby carriage with a wheel missing. A necklace from a brother, with a bent clasp. A beautifully designed laser pistol, in the simulacrum of a ancient revolver, golden rivets and silver inlay-but, the barrel is plugged with dull lead. There goes a blue china plate with a hairline crack in the center. A strung out, tatted dog collar with the name 'Blue' on it. And a pretty mechanical bird, with wings of silver and silicon, one that no longer sings and no longer flies.
Correction. Precious, broken things. And she is one of them.
Giving in to curiosity, she looks up and sees Harvey Ramos, of course. He's smiling, but not at her-someone in the distance. She feels a moment of bitterness at that, but it passes quickly, like rain in the desert. He's never owned anything he wasn't willing to gamble, Kat thinks in semi-coherent dream philosophy. His giant hand descends like a mountain, pushing her onto the betting table proper with careless effort. He smiles as he tosses his ball, the grin of a winner, one who never loses, a man who will live forever.
The Wheel spins and spins, but Kat knows how it ends. The Black. Always the Black.
Then he's gone, and there's another man, or perhaps it's God. He does not smile. He merely speaks...The House Always Wins...and she believes him, because where she's going next is somewhere up above...perhaps, she thinks, her mother will be there. Or maybe nothing. She think she'll find the place he keeps his broken, little things. And there is where Kat will stay-until the dust of centuries, has erased her memory.
Her dreams ferment and twist all night, but she does not wake. Occasionally she speaks in her sleep, but she only ever says her Mothers name, who was once Carol West-before a high caliber bullet fired by a slaver-man tore through her right temple, right above her pretty, winter green eyes-and...then, all her thoughts and feelings ceased to be on this mortal plain, as her blood cooled black on the desert hardpan, and the mutant-wolves in their twisted revery howled in the night, before coming closer to feed.
~...Mom...please, no...~
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Topic: ~ Fallout: Adventurers of the Wasteland (Dr. Decoy) - [FULL] ~ (Read 11991 times)