Precious Metals

"So, what crawled up your ass this fine morning?" Ray jabbed at my ribs, smiling before going back to watching the perimeter. Lucky for us, we got the night shifts on the Wall. It was all so quiet, boring even, on Tower Eight, far from the real wars. The real struggles where the gates and sheet metal was almost falling apart. The stories were horrific...

I sighed, looking through the scope on my rifle. Ash and smoke still blew in from the wasted cities. Still burning, like nothing more than piles of trash that used to be the heaping masses of our lives. Of millions of lives... "Nothing man, just shit from before...You know, before everything..." The wind made the sheets of metal beneath me ripple, it still scared me. That I would go tumbling down....down....down.....And Gee wouldn't be there to catch me this time.

A sharp slap on the back had reality crashing back. My finger had already fired a round, breaking the silence, I recoiled, ears ringing after hearing nothing but the wind for what seemed like hours

Ray tore the gun from my hands, scowling. "Fucking hell, man." He shook his head in disapproval. "You trying to get us in trouble or what?"

I sighed, resting my head against the railing. "No..." I mumbled. "It was an accident, just drop it already."

"That's the tenth accident this month dude. Ten bullets." I heard him reloading the bullet lost. I didn't understand why he always did that... It was one bullet. Not the whole magazine (if you don't know what that is, its basically all of the bullets in the gun....).

"Its just one fucking bullet... Why bother reloading it?" I muttered, slinking back for my gun. I grabbed it roughly out of his hands, retraining it out to the Abyss.

"Because dumb fuck, haven't you heard The stories from Tower One?" He was annoyed. I seriously can't believe how he can stand gossiping about all the....violence. It made me too sick to my stomach to hear about men getting their faces torn off and limbs shredded...

I rolled my eyes, still scanning the grey planes of sand. "What's the new bedtime story this time Ray..."

"They started up with some new recruits, and this guy- What's his name again....Uh Josh! Yeah, well Josh was new so he fucked up a few times, so they ended up putting him on Tower Two instead... He really didn't take his job seriously, so he came on duty late and stuff, didn't think anything of it, started shooting at random shit past the Wall. Wasted all of his ammo, except for one bullet. Got his whole fucking team killed, all because he wasn't prepared." I took my eyes away from the vacant dunes. Ray had a look of complete seriousness on his face.

I quirked an eyebrow It sounds like complete bullshit to me. "What happened to Josh? He must've gotten pretty fucked up, only having one bullet."

"He went completely fucking nuts. The team from Three had to leave their base. He was half dead when they got him.... Stitched him up, brought him back to his family." He stayed quiet for the longest time, just staring out into the distance with his binoculars. "Every bullet counts. Especially when you're up against those-those things."

It felt like days, sitting in the rickety shelter of the tower. It felt peaceful, even. I grabbed up a pair of night vision goggles, seeing as it was already night. The only difference between the night and day this close to the outside was how devoid of light things were. The day was a sludge grey, but night time was pitch black. Starless. A small flicker blurred past me. What the hell? I zoomed in as much as I could, training my eyes to find whatever it was. Probably just nothing....

"Hey Frank." I pointed my gun to the person who walked up behind me. "Woah. It's just me, your shift is over..." I slid the goggles off my face, and sure enough, it was Matt. I rubbed at my eyes, shoving Ray awake. I shoved the gun into Matt's hands. Jesse, Ray's replacement, should be here soon enough. But as long as I was free to go, I was getting the hell out of here. I almost jumped from the tower instead of taking the long ladder that brought me down into the safety of the community. Time to go visit Mikey, get drunk.

It was completely quiet, still. The housing buildings were just old apartment buildings, luckily situated away from the real conflict. Nothing ever happened near Tower Eight. Ever. The most that it had ever seen was the after shocks of the long battles, and distant gunshots. Mikes lived on the nicer, less crumbling parts of the community. Smashed between the ghetto and the live part. The sliver of skyscrapers that didn't reflect in the slightest that the whole world had gone dark. That we were the only cluster of lights left on Earth. It was where they had clubs, and people boozed it up until they couldn't even stand. The distant sound of music was evident, and the worn sidewalks became nicer, and kept up with.

Mikey's house was the only one lit up at this hour, vibrating to the base of some old CD he had saved. It made me feel human. Like I wasn't one of the last people. Like I was just some teenager, sneaking over to his friend's house to party and get shit faced. But that wasn't the case.... Without him I can't ever just forget, and live obliviously, if only for one night..... My heart clenched painfully as I opened up the door into a house full of swaying bodies. The smell of alcohol stung my senses immediately, it was almost enough to get drunk off by itself. Almost...

Notes

Hey everyone, I finally got up the inspiration to create this piece. Can you guys tell me your thoughts on this? I think it is kinda going slow, but I didn't want to speed it up too much. Trust me, shit will be going down soon enough. What do you think of Frank's personality in this one? Shy? Rude? Bad ass? Scared? I want to hear from all of my lovely readers, so don't just be an invisible reader. Tell me what you want to see, hell, say anything :)