The Veil of Crimson Dust: Part 4.

   The Veil of Crimson Dust: Part 4/4

A Solarpunk Story.

By Dylan “Clockwork” Thomas

Link to Part 3/4

It took a few days for them to contact Arya again. She said she’d thought about it and decided she couldn’t leave. Erik was just grateful that she looked ok. During the next few weeks, whenever they visited Arya, Erik would show her exactly what plant he’d grabbed, how it was used and where it could be found. Wayland watched this with considerable interest; he'd even downloaded all of the app’s video-call data to show other people in town. A few of the surviving kids in town actually had a passing interest. When Wayland told Erik, it made him the happiest that he’d seen in a year. But there was one thing that could even top that.

During early spring, sometime after the bulk of the early planting had been done, the mayor decided to throw a party. Turns out a few of the local hobby farms had survived the winter and trade was picking back up. Within a week the mood in town changed dramatically. A few people came by from the local winery to trade for two of Wayland’s ad hoc wind turbines. In exchange for showing them how to maintain and work them, the town received as much wine as they could find containers for. If it wasn’t for a few rain barrels being repurposed, Wayland half thought that him and the rest of the town would have hiked to the vineyard and drank it there. 

Erik was still recovering while this happened, but a local rancher on the edge of the town mentioned there was food to hunt. Erik was going to complain that he was too weak to hunt, until he found out it was an entire herd of North American buffalo. The folks at the volunteer fire department had been hearing about them for a while on the CB, some kind of restoration project that had gotten loose. There might have been a hundred of them, each with enough meat to feed the whole town for a few days if the library's encyclopedia was to be trusted. Problem was, there was next to no unspent ammo in town, and definitely nothing that could confidently take down something like a thousand pound slab of muscle. Erik had to get crafty. It took a day of looking around, another 4 of messing around and testing the contraption. But Erik managed to rig a winch to his bow and created a small ballista he could drag around on a gardening cart. After three days of repeated firings, Erik started getting dangerous with his contraction. When it came time to drag it out to the buffalo and take aim, he managed to fell the beast in one hit. Unfortunately he then forgot about the other 99 buffalo and had to run for his life. If it wasn’t for an abandoned truck he managed to run and climb inside of, that would have been it for Erik. 

Due to fears the meat would go bad quickly, the feast was held the day after the buffalo fell. The whole town gathered on mainstreet including most of the people from the little hobby farms and a few wandering people who were just in town to trade or beg for help. The mayor declared it Easter Supper (although Easter wasn’t for another month) and decided to make a speech.

“Everyone here has faced hardship, everyone here has lost someone. A year ago when we took in the proud workers of Prospero Springs, I was told I was a moron. I am, but not for that reason.”

A few people gave rounds of laughter, the wine had been gotten into early and quite a few people were hitting the bottle hard.

“I want everyone to know that everyone here has built the town up into being something to be proud of. Everyone here has worked harder than I’ve ever seen before, and done things I’d never thought possible. This town is here because you’re all the toughest humans I’ve ever seen, everyone here made this town great. Story may well go down to being the capital of Wyoming at this rate. And after what we’ve faced this year, there’s nothing this town can’t take. Thank you all.”

There was a round of cheering at this point. The mayor tried to break out another speech thanking individual people for the hard work, but the sheriff shut him up by loudly declaring “let’s eat.” 

Erik and Wayland completely gorged themselves. People ate until their stomachs bulged, then they drank till they fell out of their chairs. Quite a few people even made themselves sick due to having little in their stomachs for the past few months. If it wasn’t for the fact that nobody had any gas, the sheriff would have confiscated people’s keys. As it stood there were a few people who fell off old bicycles, and an out of town rancher had to have his horse carry him home by memory. Erik practically passed out in a food coma, so Wayland dragged him to the garage to sleep off the effects.

“We did good,” Erik mumbled.

“You think so?”

“Can I crash on the couch?”

“I mean I usually sleep there,” Wayland reasoned. “But sure go for it.”

Both of them slept till noon, even though Wayland slept on his welcome mat. The next few days were a blur of Erik preserving meat and Wayland showing people how to use heaters to make jerky driers. By the time they made it back to Arya, it had been nearly two weeks.

“Where the heck have you guys been?” Arya asked. “Figured the plague got you..”

“Well it didn’t,” Wayland said. “Also Erik already got the plague.”

“... oh yea,” Arya said. “Anyway, what'd you find recently?”

“Buffalo meat!”

Erik then got into explaining the whole story of how they got the buffalo, everything it took to get without guns. Wayland brought up the wine trade and at that Arya seemed outraged.

“You meant you found freaking gallons of wine?”

“Yea, it was great!” Erik exclaimed. “We would’ve brought you some, but the whole town drained that barrel pretty fast.”

“That's…” Arya sat back thinking for a minute. “So you bought it?”

“Traded,” Wayland explained. “Gave them some cheap wind turbines, I feel like I got a good deal.”

“One minute,” Arya turned her screen off for a few minutes before reappearing. 

“Think she’s mad we didn’t give her any wine?” Wayland asked. “She’s never been much of a drinker, doesn’t really take after dad.”

“Wish I could say the same,” Erik joked.

“Alright I’m back,” Arya said. “I have a complete mountain of people on my end who will offer an insane amount of money for a barrel of wine.”

“Ok what are you going to trade for it?” Wayland asked.

“Money!”

“... what are they really going to give for it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Arya you know what I mean,” Wayland argued. “Nobody uses money anymore. I’m pretty sure I saw someone turning it into coasters not too long ago.”

“These people want to give a lot of money,” Arya reassured.

“So they can get a lot of coasters?” Wayland joked.

“You’ve worked for money before, what are you talking about?” Arya fumed.

“Yea back when money could be exchanged for goods and services,” Erik pointed out. “You’d have better luck trading a regular mattress nowadays than a mattress full of money. I know because someone tried to trade me that mattress for a pound of amaranth seed.”

“How much money was in it?” Arya inquired.

“Aw shit I don’t know,” Erik yawned. “Wayland you were there how much do you think was stuffed in there.”

“Depends on if it was hundreds or ones to be fair,” Wayland pondered. “Either way it was some dude’s life savings.” 

“Yea I’d rather have a decent mattress,” Erik admitted. “I’ve been sleeping on some dude’s couch cushions for most of the year, and I only got those because the guy who was sleeping on them died.”

“Was this your weed smoking roommate or the guy with all the model soldier toys?” Wayland asked?”

“Toy soldier guy,” Erik replied. “Shame honestly, I really got along with him. And he let me borrow his old Gameboy occasionally.” 

“Oh yea, he was cool.”

“I’d like to buy this mattress,” Arya responded, looking confused at both of them. 

“So did I, we didn’t have any of the stuff he wanted,” Erik replied. “So what do you want to trade him?”

“I have checks!”

“Since when do you use checks?” Wayland asked. “The dude wants seeds, it’s still early spring. You guys are probably producing excess from the hydroponics bay.”

“We need those, they’re not for sale.”

“Then the mattress isn’t,” Erik replied. “Look what else do you guys have for trade down there? Mainstreet is starting to look like it’s permanently the town yard sale day. I even saw someone trading their cut hair the other day.”

“Can you buy wine?”

“Sure!”

“Great, we'll leave some cash outside!”

“Unless it’s a brick of 100s I’d give up,” Wayland replied. “I’m betting the trace amounts of cocaine on the money is worth more than the paper.”

“I’ve got someone on my side offering me their life savings for a gallon of wine.” Arya growled.

“Is it you?” Erik asked.

Arya stared at him for a minute before responding. “Sure, I have all the accounts somewhere.”

“Arya, you gave your life savings to Erik a while ago,” Wayland said. “I know cause he gave me the keys to your car.”

Off camera there was a piercing screaming noise. Arya quickly shutoff the camera feed and the video went offline.

“The hell?” Erik asked.

“Try sending her a message?” Wayland wondered.

“Already doing it.”

After a few minutes of waiting around Erik got a reply back that left a lot to the imagination.

“Can’t talk, had some kind of error back here, please find some wine, leave stuff at the door, love you.”

“What the hell is this?” Erik wondered.

“Don’t know.”

They left their food by the door and headed out. Wayland and Erik were both fairly quiet on the way back. It wasn’t until they got to Wayland’s garage that Erik began to speak.

“Ok, something is definitely going on down there,” Erik stated. “What is it, what can we do?”

“You were right from the beginning,” Wayland admitted. “We should’ve gone with your gut. You were right about this job two years ago, you were right about the lottery a year ago. Whatever’s going on down can’t be good.”

“Yea then I’d just be down there.” Erik claimed. “Don’t be too hard on yourself, you did your best.”

“No, think about it,” Wayland added. “I mean Christ, I heard about this job from a friend of a friend of our dealer. How the hell was any of this supposed to be a good idea. Going down into some millionaires' mega basement. Get a bed if you help build it. I mean how stupid am I?”

“I mean we did get paid,” Erik replied. “Do you honestly think if we stayed in Chicago things would have gotten any better? I mean shit, half our block caught on fire when the first dust storms hit.”

“We could have made it though as a family,” Wayland cried. “We could have stayed with Dad and Slade.”

“Mom’s already died, did you want to lose the whole family?” Erik shouted back.

“I don't know,” Wayland wept. “I’m just sorry, ok, I’m sorry about all of this. I’m sorry I led Arya into that thing. I’m sorry about your foot. I’m sorry we’re stuck here and probably going to starve to death when the dust takes what’s left.”

Wayland grabbed a hammer and began pounding it against every part of his garage. Bottles broke, tools flew off into the corner, projects destroyed, the garage door shook with every swing. Erik wasn’t sure what to do. He hadn’t seen Wayland cry in years, not even when they lost Mom. He waited until Erik stopped swinging his hammer and went  to grab it. Wayland didn’t even seem to notice. The welder just stood there in his pile of broken scrap and scavenged tools, tears streaming down his cheeks as the past year of stress caught up with him.

“Get up,” Erik said.

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” Erik replied. “You just can’t sit in a pit of your own misery. Do something.”

“No point.”

“There is every point,” Erik argued. “Look, there's either admitting defeat or trying something, anything to help. You told me that when you told me about this stupid bunker. We can either do our best to fix the problem or let it roll over us.”

“I can’t fix the dust.”

“Fix something then, anything,” Erik reasoned. “You think I haven’t woken up every morning without the energy to do anything. People starve if I don’t do my job. Arya might have died a while ago without it. Everything I did, I did it for her. For us, as much of a shitty fucked up family we are, we’re still a family and I want us all alive at the end of the day.”

Wayland sighed, “Yea, yea you’re probably right.”

“Besides, Arya is at least alive,” Erik pointed out. “We might not be together, but we did a lot better than we probably would have waiting around for Dad's place to burn down.”

“...yea.”

“I mean hell if anything at least Arya didn’t nearly starve to death like us,” Erik said pulling out his phone. “I mean take a look, here’s her in month one or something of being in the bunker and… here’s last week. Looks like she’s doing fine, hasn’t lost too much weight.”

“Yea,” Wayland replied. “Plus at least she hasn’t lost a limb or anything.”

“Screw you, those are my jokes,” Erik teased.

Wayland stared at Erik’s device for a minute, he grabbed it and began swiping through all the content.

“Yea alot of pics of plants I know,” Erik stated. “When I don’t know what something is I take a picture and bring it back to someone who knows for certain.”

“Not that,” Wayland stated. “Can you filter these to the video calls between you and Arya?”

“I mean yea, I deleted a lot of them to make space though.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

Erik messed around with his device for a minute before handing it back. Wayland looks at the videos in confusion.

“What is it?”

“A scar.”

“She’s had that forever.”

“No she hasn’t, take a look.”

Both Wayland and Erik started flipping through old videos and pictures of themselves with Arya. Roughly a week before they held the lottery to go inside, Arya had scratched her face on a piece of rebar she was helping Erik move into place. For the first few video call feeds the scar had gradually healed over the weeks. Then a few months ago, the scar reappeared and never healed. It was the exact same as the scar she had when the lottery took place.”

“What the fuck?” Erik blurted.

There were more unusual things as well. The fact that Earlier videos had her hair change length fairly often, how she never seemed to change clothes in later videos. The way she talked seemed a little odd as well.

“The hell is this?” Wayland asked.

“You think… Is that really Arya?”

“I don’t know, how would they do that?”

It took another minute of them looking through video feed before they had to do something. It was late in the day at that point but Wayland practically started sprinting for the vault door. Erik did his best to keep up, he had to remind Wayland to slow down often as he was still missing a foot. Wayland kept running.

When Erik caught up with Wayland at the door, he found his brother banging on the center of the door with his hammer.

“Outsider, please vacate the premises,” A nearby loudspeaker blurted.

“Open this goddamn door or let me talk to Arya.”

“Stop trying to break this door or we’ll take action,” the loudspeaker responded.

When Erik saw this he whipped out his phone and dialed Arya. He noticed it seemed to always take a while for the call to respond, unlike the beginning where she always picked up immediately. 

“Hey, why is there a security guy telling me that Wayland is going insane outside?” Arya asked.

“This isn’t easy but we have some questions for you.” Erik asked.

“I have a lot more for you guys, what the hell is going on out there?”

“This is important,” Erik stated. “When was Mom’s birthday?”

“Uhh…” Arya scratched at her head a bit and hesitated. “November 15th, you brought me a corn cake to celebrate?”

Wayland stopped banging on the door at this point and looked over at their conversation.

“So what’s going on out there Erik, what’s wrong with Wayland?”

“He’s stressed about what’s going on in there,” Erik responded. “Now this is really important. What did we do to get the gas to drive out here?”

“...” Arya paused. “Can I get back to you later?”

“NO,” Wayland shouted. “We do this now.”

“What’s going on out there?” Arya asked. “Are you guys ok?”

“I really don’t want to say that, there’s people listening in on this call.”

“You have to say it.”

“No I don’t.”

“Arya what did we do with Snoopy when he died?” Wayland asked.

“...”

“What was the combination to get into Dad’s house?” Erik asked.

“...”

“What did we blame Slade for everyday that wasn’t his fault?”

“.. guys you know me.”

“What was the last thing Mom said to us before she died?”

“I love you?”

Wayland gripped his hammer. Erik resisted the urge to throw his phone into the dust.

“Who are we talking to?” Erik asked.

“Arya!”

“I’m going to ask you again,” Erik instructed. “You tell me what’s going on or I’ll start leaving poison in the food I bring.”

“... One moment.”

There was a shuffling in the background, the call dropped. A few minutes later a new incoming call came over Erik’s phone. 

“You better have answers,” Erik stated.

“I have a lot more than that,” the voice stated.

“Who are you?”

“Nastrond I built this place,” Nastrond announced. “I own Prospero Springs.”

“Were you the person impersonating Arya?”

“The person you were talking to was someone of roughly the same voice and frame of your sister,” Nastrond replied. “A simple deepfake took care of the rest.”

Wayland looked at the cracked screen that showed Nastrond. It showed a raggedy older man with grown out hair and fingernails. Around him there was only darkness. When he opened his mouth to speak it revealed crooked and jagged teeth.

“Before you start asking ‘why’ and ‘how could you’ and all of that, I’m going to tell you that she died by your hand.”

“WHAT?” Wayland shouted.

“Yes,” Nastrond snarled. “That plague you brought in here, the one that nearly did your town in affected us as well. An entire shelter full of nothing but half starved refugees with nowhere to run were affected quickly. We lost ten percent of our population within a week. A plague you and only you could have brought in.”

“We were bringing you guys food, hoping you wouldn’t starve.” Wayland seethed. “Our sister died and you just let us think she was alive this whole time.”

“Of course we did,” Nastrond stated. “It was your responsibility that she died. We kept up the charade so you would continue to pay penance and be happy about it.”

“Penance?” Erik fumed.

“Of course,” Nastrond shot back. “Because you couldn’t obey any sort of safety precautions, we lost over fifty people. People who knew how to man the hydroponics, and fix the shelter.”

“How are you blaming us?” Wayland snarled.

“Oh don’t act like you’re not responsible either,” Nastrond shouted. “I have half a mind to order you down here and fix all the problems you’ve caused at gunpoint. We have entire rooms that are flooding from leaky pipes and shoddy drains.”

“What?”

“Shoddy contractors and day laborers like you have caused dozens of problems,” Nastrond scolded. “One of the lower levels have practically turned into a beach, the last person we sent down to fix your issues died. Now we have a polluted shoreline intersecting the shelter with some sludger’s corpse clogging the drain. We’ve lost another twenty people to dysentery all due to problems you and your associates caused.”

“I’m a welder,” Wayland shot back.

“I’m sure I’ve had problems with your lot as well,” Nastrond sneered. “I have a laundry list of problems your class has caused.”

“Where’s Arya’s body?” Erik asked.

“In the freezer, there’s not much of it left,” Nastrond stated. “It’s not like we have a spot for the dead. That was never finished.”

“Let us take it,” Erik stated. “I’ll bury her with the rest of the dead in town.”

“That’s not going to happen.” Nastrond huffed.

“Let her go,” Wayland pressed.

“You seem to be under the impression that you’re in control here,” Nastrond began. “Nothing could be further from the truth. This bunker belongs to me, I control it, I built it, It’s mine. The people inside listen to me and obey. If I say you’re not getting that rotting corpse, it won’t happen, get that into your head.”

“What do you have to gain out of any of this?” Wayland questioned.

“Obviously the rest of your penance,” Nastrond replied.

“What?” Erik shouted.

“Yes obviously,” Nastrond lectured. “Your lot have caused these issues and we’re outright demanding reparations. They’ll start tomorrow morning.”

“Why the fuck would we help someone like you?”

“Because I know what's going on in your town,” Nastrond revealed. “You have what? Two, maybe three hundred people on your side. None of you have any weapons, or at least any with ammunition. All of you are impoverished and battered by the winter, famine, and plagues. Meanwhile I have four hundred people here ready to fight, guns to outfit them with and enough ammunition to take over Texas. It’s not going to be much of a fight.”

Erik and Wayland both stood agape for a minute while they processed all of this. It was Erik who wound up breaking the silence. 

“Why don’t you just go out and forage like the rest of the town,” Erik pleaded. “I’ve shown you how, it’s not hard.”

“And risk another plague cutting us down?” Nastrond asked. “No, I think it’s best we make you work for the problems you’ve caused. Soon enough the dust will end and the world can go back to normal. Until then you’ll work for us.”

Wayland stared at the tiny video of Nastrond sitting at his desk. Never before in his life had he wanted to destroy something as bad as that moment. 

“Tomorrow you will bring us your tribute,” Nastrond instructed. “Hint hint, that wine would go a long way towards smoothing things over.”

“... I’ll think about it,” Erik said.

They closed the app and began walking back. Out of the loudspeakers in the back they heard Nastrond saying, “Come back anytime now, just never come empty handed.”

By the time they got back it was nearly sundown. Both of them collapsed on Wayland’s couch and didn’t say anything for the longest time.

“Think I should give them rotten food or something?” Erik asked.

“...”

“Maybe I could slip some poison in there?”

“...” Wayland continued to stare at the wall. Silently he got up and began to pick up his tools.

“I mean I can’t really remember how many guns we dragged in there,” Erik wondered. “Maybe we could get with the sheriff and arm people? Maybe someone has a stash of bullets?”

Wayland silently checked a few things on some of his barely working power tools. There were still a few with some flashes of battery life or gas in them.

“We could always just give them a bag of corn everyday and call it done,” Erik suggested. “I could probably get enough that they wouldn’t want to come out and see how well we’re actually doing. I mean it really doesn’t seem like they want to leave anyways.”

“Yes,” Wayland agreed.

“...” Erik stared at Wayland for a moment “What do you think?”

“Not sure,” Wayland replied. 

Erik read Wayland's face carefully.

“You have an idea?”

“Maybe a bad one,” Wayland replied. “Know where we can get a shopping cart?”

***

The next morning, Wayland and Erik began walking to the bunker. They had with them a shopping cart with a few bags of food, forage and seeds spilling out of the top. When they arrived the loudspeaker told them to stop and show the contents of the cart. Erik got out his phone and called Nastrond.

“Good to see you arrived, any trouble getting everything,” Nastrond inquired.

“We brought some forage and some seedcorn,” Erik replied.

“No wine?”

“That takes a while to brew,” Erik replied.

“Hmm, well what’d you bring?”

“Yea that’s actually a little complicated,” Erik started. “See I brought some elderberries and I need to explain how to prepare them so you don’t get sick.”

“I’m not sending anyone out with you guys around,” Nastrond replied.

Erik sighed and explained, “we can do this over the phone.”

While Erik started explaining how cyanide in elderberries could be cooked off a few different ways. Wayland got to work. The massive shelter door in front of him must have been a few tons easy and was made out of good iron, it reminded him of a bank vault. The lock was on the inside of the door in this case, but it still had massive hinges on the outside. Quickly and quietly, Wayland placed wedges in the crack of the door and got out his welder. 

“Seems relatively straightforward, honestly I don’t think I need to know twelve different ways of preparing this,” Nastrond stated out of Erik’s phone. 

“Allright, can I talk to whoever the cook is so they can get all of this?” Erik asked.

“No no I’ll just send them the video,” Nastrond stated.

“Well alright then,” Erik replied silently, giving Wayland a gesture to hurry up. “We’ll walk back in a minute then.” 

Wayland welded the door together, taking care to wipe away any dust that had settled there. The metal was oxidized a bit, but the crack between the door and the frame still merged into one continuous piece. There was a creak that could be heard on the other side, someone was trying to open the door and having a hard time.

“What the hell’s going on out there?”

Wayland silently kept working.

“Need a hand?” Erik asked.

“Spool me more wire,” Wayland stated.

The massive door was designed so that it could only be opened on one side. Wayland didn’t have the tools to open it, but he certainly had the tools to make sure it would remain shut. By the time Wayland and Erik had welded the door to the frame in a direct circle, there was a familiar voice on the loudspeaker.

“What are you two doing out there?” Nastrond shouted.

Wayland quietly got out his blowtorch and got to work on the next portion. There were visible casters and hinges on the left hand side of the door to ensure it would open properly. Wayland got out a pile of flux he’d made from pinesap and limestone to apply to the area and began melting.

“Do you honestly think that you can stop this door from opening?” Nastrond shouted from the loudspeaker. “This is my fortress, I command it.”

Wayland melted the hinges, they didn’t have the heat or gas required to completely reduce them into a puddle, but it was enough to deform them a bit. Wayland suspected that the door had casters on the inside. If they got deformed in any way it'd be nearly impossible to get the door to swing open. Or if the flux just caused everything to fuse and weld together, that would also work.

“Goddamn you,” The speakers shouted.

While Erik and Wayland grabbed more supplies, they heard the inside of the door begin to groan. Then gunshots, Wayland suspected they were trying to shoot their way out. This went on for several minutes while Wayland considered part to work on next.

“Listen here, I’ve made some mistakes,” Nastrond echoed over the speakers. “You don’t have to pay us anything, and in fact if you're this resourceful… Come on inside! We could use someone of your talents. You can wait out the dust inside, in luxury. We have plenty of space now with the others dead. You can even keep their investments, once the world recovers, you could both be very rich men.”

Wayland got started on the locking mechanisms. On the edge there were holes where massive deadbolts were meant to go through, Wayland and Erik began filling them with scrap and began to melt them as well, it was another place they could keep the door from moving.

“Listen here,” Nastrond pleaded. “I’m just an old man trying not to die in my old age. We’re practically living off spinach, rice, pondscum, I think even some people are resorting to cannibalism. They’re going to eat me alive here unless I can keep the food flowing. There’s no real hope of getting through a year without you. We have bags of money, cryptocurrency, stocks, whatever you could imagine. It’s enough that when the world goes back to normal, we could change it for the better.”

The door itself wasn’t moving anytime soon. Between grunts of pain Erik and Wayland began to push one of the remaining rustbucket cars up to the front of the door. Once that was complete, they let the air out of the tires and placed rocks around the wheels.

“You’re not listening are you…” Nastrond cried. “Oh god we’re going to die down here. We never built another way out, we ran out of time. Maybe the air vents… no I was worried someone could climb down them, they’re only a foot wide. This is it, isn't it?”

Satisfied the car was in place, Wayland got out a hacksaw and began cutting down the overhang to the door. It was mainly to keep the dust off the door, and Wayland figured without it the dust would begin to bury the door. Give it a few years or even just a minor landslide, pretty soon this place would go from hard to impossible to find.

“I want you to know something,” Nastrond stated over the loudspeaker. “I’m going to die here, and I’m going to haunt you, welder. I will give you no solace, no rest, and no sanity. I will reduce you to a pile of nerves. You’ve the most evil person I’ve ever met for causing all of this, and hell is too good a place for what you deserve.

The overhand broke off and Erik dragged it away from the parking lot. Wayland gathered up his tools and both of them got ready to leave.

“Die a bad death, both of you,” Nastrond stated. 

Erik picked up one of Wayland’s screwdrivers and jammed it in the loudspeaker, the voices stopped. The two brothers began walking back into town, it was a while before either said anything.

“Did we do the right thing?” Erik asked. 

“Probably not,” Wayland answered. “I told you I was doing it anyway though, you can blame me.”

“... Maybe I should have just given them some food and called it even.”

“It wasn’t going to end there.”

“Hmm,” Erik mumbled. “So what now?”

“You know what?” Wayland sighed. “I haven’t really thought about it, survive I guess.”

“I wanna do more than just exist.” 

“You should, you deserve more than this.”

“... Can you build me a foot?”

“Have someone you want to go?”

“Maybe back home?” Erik sighed. “I’m not sure”

“Well we’ll figure something out.”

“Got a bad idea?” Erik asked.

“Plenty,” Wayland replied. “First on the list is to find someone with a stiff drink. I think we both need one.”