Dusty Moonlight

[Oki W. Nanda]

The moon hung low and the dust was thick, it was just the right time to stroll in quick. She went at night, seemed the best time. The woman and the boat oar, messenger bag slung round and confidence wary. Tonight she'd prayed for mercy if caught, swift feet for evasion and for the information she'd been given to be not as dire as it had been laid out.

Oki didn't like working or looking around in the dark, too much could go wrong far too quickly. But she had to look, needed to see. And looking from afar had only gotten a raised alarm and more foot traffic. Long hours in the sun and she'd memorized the patrol. Robots on parade, they rarely deviated. Military pets?

She sighed softly, skirting the edges were various tags had been played- even here they fought over territory. Stupid, child mentality. They should be banded together with a council, not separate tribes. Pooling their resources not fighting over space. It was foolish.

Children warring over a tattered sandbox.

Paddle hissed a warning and she ducked down as feet passed overhead. She was happy she had chosen night time to come here. Sad that she had too. Oki swallowed, waiting for the patrol to carry on. She moved further in, testing edges and looking about.

[Marcus Prasad]

To bend a people so used to celebrating individuality as fiercely as the American people, to the point where it burned itself into the nations psyche, into cogs for ones own nefarious purposes one has to break them first. Noone knew this better than Barker and he had set his people to that task with almost childish glee.

The examples were everywhere. Sagging burnt houses, destroyed families. Barely any of the houses had running water or proper sanitation so the streets smelled of shit, piss and the fear musk of a brutalized and cowed people. The only signs of life beyond the patrols Oki would see this night were hooded flickering lamps behind broken windows within ruined houses in the suburbs and half burned Hardware stores and other strip mall blocks out once you hit the streets proper, the mournful howls of wild and not so wild dogs, hunched and furtive humanoid shapes moving in the shadows casted by said lamps and the trashcan bonfires that lined the streets in sporadic rows, ducking out of sight the second she would come near, keeping still and watching with wary fear filled eyes if she stayed her distance. Dressed in rags they were, great heaping rags over their bodies, heads and faces till they resembled dirty laundry piles instead of people.

The place had misery soaked all the way into it's bones. But almost in mockery to the misery, a sound could be heard wafting on the winds, so quiet that one would have to strain to hear it, but once caught it would become distinct until it could not be mistaken for anything else.

It was the sound of Children laughing.

[Oki W. Nanda]

She watched the broken souls with worry and anger. Beaten down mongrels to the beauties they'd once been. Patrol passed and she continued on. Paddle leaned towards caught, if they approached with anything but their hands seen they were aggressive. Oki shook her head, there was no bite left in them, those were bodies broken rather than bent. Paddle warned that even a broken man can carry a heavy blow. Oki nodded, she understood and knew that very well.

Her grip tightened on Paddle, the howls of dogs not a comfort in a place as this. Oki liked dogs, if they weren't completely feral they could turned tame again. She hoped no one needed or wanted such a thing, she did not like being bit. Well. Not with the intent to kill at least. Or from dogs. A small grin, there was a pair of teeth she missed. Paddle sighed, reminding her that now was not the time for tomfoolery, and she bit her lip. That beautiful smile was long since gone, it broke her heart. It'd been a while, sew her. Paddle assured her that in the event of requiring stitches Oki was on her own.

Despite her want to move to tattered homes, knowing there could be something salvageable beyond the wreckage and previous visitors. People always leave behind small things, easily missed and manipulated. Spoons for example.

A deep breath, she followed the sound of giggling souls.

[Marcus Prasad]

As Oki walked, The avenues of the Suburbs would give way to open streets where shanty towns made from scrap metal, dumpsters and other refuse competed with dilapidated discount hardware and tire stores for space. The area was virtualy devoid of life save the heaps of rags that hugged the dark alleyways, shuddering and snorting from cold and sleep.

Or sometimes not moving at all as the flies made thier home within the dead flesh beneath.

The sounds of Laughter would lead Oki to the rear of one such Amalgamation of Masonry and Metal. One parts Parking lot to One parts cluster of ramshackle cots. Sitting atop of one of these cots were a pair of girls, twins by the looks of them dressed in clothes that one would expect a little girl to wear on her first day of school, just grimey with Rags and old blankets wrapped around thier shoulders, covering thier brown curly haired heads like a shawl.

One sister had her eyes skyward, singing an old lullabye her mother used to sing before the great fall, while the other sister had her gaze casted downwards, giggling to herself with an absent minded smile and eyes that stared at nothing in particular. They looked to be about Ten years old and held hands as thier feet dangled over the edge. Nearby, clad in a patched up trenchcoat a good few sizes too big, a Scrawny lad around the same age sat off to the side, hugging his knee's to his chest as he looked nervously to the shadows as if expecting something predatory to be drawn by the twins. Re-adjusting his broken glasses on his freckled face as he tried in vain to shush the twin girls with a sharp hiss.

All in all, they seemed to be waiting for something, or someone while trying to keep out of sight.

[Oki W. Nanda]

Oki stood just out of sight, peering in only at the edges. Watching those children with interest. Young ducklings waiting for their mother or father? As of yet, Oki had not seen anything to suggest any of these people were employed. Only broken souls shuffling about, cowering under a child kicking sand in a box. Her distaste for this man grew, there was a reason she'd wasted... no used a perfectly good hot tea on the monster's lap. Things like this. If she'd known... didn't matter. This was now and no reason to worry on the past.

At this distance the looked but dirty, better taken care of than those lost to their sorrows. The boy looked worse off... perhaps stress from tending the other two. Oki had to wait and see, she crouched a little lower and looked out. Scanning for any trouble.

OOC: I'm sorry this is a little short!

[Marcus Prasad]

As Oki Observed, the scrawny young boy continued his sullen vigil of the area as the young girl finished her lullaby and casted her eyes, now filled with a tired anxiety, to her twin who had lost her distant smile in place of a neutral mask, hiding herself within herself. The Lullaby was a song of memories, of happier times. Of a mothers warm embrace, a fathers amused laughter and hot food on the table. With the music gone, so to were those memories and all that remained was pain.

Suddenly, a sound. Nails furtively scratching on glass. The children jolt and look to the cluster of bric a brac just as a window was forced open, vomiting out a frayed knapsack and a moment after, an older boy close behind.
Immediatly the other children were on thier feet, and in one case pulled to thier feet, swarming the young fourteen year old boy in the ratty olive drabe combat jacket and black baseball cap. His jeans were torn at the knees and baggy, more due to his shrunk figure than by fashion design.

"Well Pious?"
The filthy young songstress asked with trepidation. The youth answered with a nod of his head as he collected the knapsack and opened it up for the others to see. Inside were what looked like a few cans of food and a water bottle or two along with some shiney things that glittered in the pale moonlight.
"It's enough."
Pious spoke in a quiet and uncertain voice.
"For now. But when we pick up the rest of the kids we're gonna need more. Now common, we gotta get out of here quick."

Zipping the bag back up and throwing it over his shoulder, Pious would begin moving through the dark, away from the scene of the crime and unknowingly towards a young asian woman with a bizzare manner of speach and a paddle.

[Oki W. Nanda]

The children needed nourishment, possibly vaccinations. The longer she watched, the more of their thinned features she caught. The singing girls seemed yellowed, the boy needed his eyes checked and the new one who'd entered needed what they all did. They all needed a solid meal, someone to tend to them and smother them in cornbread, ham and vegetables. Poor things.

She could feed them for a week on what she had stocked but then she'd have nothing and they'd be back to square one.

Oki's hiding option were limited, but there was a corner she could go around. She stepped out of the way of the eldest boy, she would follow behind them and find out just what they were up to.