#but a couple weeks ago I lost a pet after a very quick deterioration

[imagoddamnonionmason]

Reminder: be kind to yourself. Take each day as it comes. There’s only one you.

[deepseawritings]

I wrote a random short piece to unstuck my brain from the knot in the story I’m currently working in. It’s about Lefty and Mouse, the Freedomers who met Shovel and nobody remembers

Everyone had told her it was a waste of her time, yet Lefty was sure they'd change their tune when the vegetables started to grow. Who wouldn't want some potatoes? Either to eat or to distil some moonshine. It didn't matter much that Lefty had no idea of farming. If she had kept her mother's ferns alive back home, growing potatoes couldn't be that hard.

She was oh so wrong. Preparing the little parcel she had cordoned to be her vegetable garden was exhausting, even with Mouse’s help. Then she threw in the furrows pieces of a pair of inedible potatoes she found somewhere and kept stashed for this very purpose.

Nothing grew in her garden. The potatoes she tried to sow were too deteriorated to be anything but worm food. So she went to Ashot to acquire more potatoes. Her request raised some eyebrows and a few jokes, but Lefty was determined to show them all she could do anything she set her mind to do. And in this case it was to grow potatoes, damn it!

Her second try was more successful, even when she discovered the fruit of her labour was radioactive. Turns out the water she used to water them came from a flow of water coming from the acid lake itself, and was therefore highly radioactive. Mouse proposed to turn them into vodka since everyone knew vodka neutralized the radiation.  However, distilling them didn't solve the problem, and she and Mouse nearly killed themselves with the radioactive moonshine.

Their brew was a smashing hit amongst their fellow freedomers, though. Perhaps this vodka didn't eliminate radiation, but just a swig of it was as intoxicating like drinking half a bottle of the normal vodka. Ideal for when you wanted to get really wasted. Chekhov wasn't amused by how the use of anti-rads suddenly skyrocketed, but Lingov gave his A-ok to the production of the radioactive vodka, so everyone happily adhered to his words.

#

It shouldn't have come as a surprise when Ganja approached her, asking for a favour. It was just a small thing, he assured her, nothing she couldn't handle. And after a lot of praise for her skills and her inventive, Lefty found herself with a handful of mystery seeds she had promised to grow alongside her new batch of radioactive potatoes.

It was weed, of course it was. What else could one expect from Ganja? There had been dudes at her institute who were less obsessed about weed than him.

She had no idea how to properly grow a plant, and while it didn't matter much with the potatoes, her newest additions were a sorry sight. The marihuana plants were slender but lacking in the leaf department. The few leaves they had were droopy and yellowed. And to top it off the snails were eating them. Would the radiation from the water kill the snails? Or would she unwittingly create a new race of mutated snails with an insatiable appetite for weed? She shared her worries with Mouse and he laughed himself sick at her expense, until she informed him he just lost his chance to ever get into her pants.

In the end the plants were true survivors of the Zone. They endured a blowout without much damage, and as a bonus the emission wiped out most of the snail plague. The plants even survived being trampled by boars when one night the mutated beasts burst in the courtyard while one of their lookouts took a nap. It would be a lie to say the plants turned out fine, misshapen and yellowed as they were, but they lived. And Lefty counted it as a great achievement.

Her garden also attracted other animals, like crows and wild cats. Most of them skittered away as soon as someone approached. Except for Felix. The cat was skinny and patchy, with mean eyes and quick claws. Hated everyone but refused to leave. Not even the sounds of shooting practice spooked him. 

And then one day Mouse gave him half a can of Tourist’s Delight and the cat fell in love with him, following Mouse everywhere and rubbing against his legs. The bastard even let Mouse pet him and purred happily. All he did when he saw Lefty every morning was to hiss at her. She only watered him once, and it was a mistake, honestly! She had no idea the cat was napping between her plants.

Mouse named the cat Felix because of his colouring. He sometimes carried Felix in his backpack and, if someone got too close, Felix would stick his paw out and claw the poor unwary soul who hadn’t noticed the eyes peering from under the backpack’s flap.

#

Once the harvest was done, Lefty kept a couple of the marihuana plants for herself. She and Mouse wanted to try making weed infused radioactive moonshine. It sounded badass. The rest she gladly gave to Ganja, who nearly kissed her in his excitement.

It took longer than usual to make their new special vodka, but the results were certainly amazing. There was actually a queue of brave souls volunteering to be the first to try the stuff, which suited Lefty fine because she refused to intoxicate herself again like the last time. The liquor was strong enough to turn your throat numb, and the weed flavour was actually fucking disgusting, but her fellow Freedomers liked it.

Oh well, everyone needs something strong enough to melt their brains once in a while. She preferred to stick to the “normal” moonshine, or better yet, the really normal cheap vodka that could be found everywhere across the Zone.

Little did she suspect than in a few weeks she would be the one looking for something strong enough to melt her brain.

#

A very aggressive group of mercs had settled on the other end of Dark Valley, and they wanted to kick Freedom out to control the whole area.

Lefty was now almost constantly out on patrol, sometimes just with Mouse, sometimes with someone else tagging along. And all days everyone that left for patrol knew some of them wouldn’t come back to the base. Lefty wasn’t much of a believer, but she still prayed it wouldn’t be her group. She supposed her selfishness should horrify her, but she cared more about living another day to be horrified later.

One day she was out on patrol with Mouse and Pavlik, and they were telling him about the rookie they one found near this very same spot, defending herself from a pseudo-dog armed with a broken shovel. Pavlik laughed at Mouse’s description of short woman whacking a mutant hard enoug to break the shovel, and a shot rang in the air. Mouse stopped gesturing and fell backwards dead. Two mercs hopped into view from between the trees and Lefty screamed in murderous rage.

She and Pavlik survived to drag Mouse’s body back to the base, but everything is foggy in her memory. Lefty has a vague recollection of how the mercenaries ended being a red pulp stuck to the asphalt, but she’s happy not remembering it properly. Ever. In fact, she wishes she could erase this whole day from her memory, she decided sitting on her bunk while looking blankly ahead.

It feels surreal to think that just a week ago she finally had sex with Mouse in this same bed, and while it wasn’t spectacular, it was leagues better than her last fling. Even when Felix attacked her feet and they had to stop to bandage her bleeding toe. And now Mouse was getting cold and stiff in a hole in the ground. She needed a drink, the strongest she had, so Lefty got out her special moonshine  and drank until she retched and passed out.

She woke up to a splitting headache and a small weight settled on her chest. The sight of the damned cat curled on top of her was what finally made her cry. In that moment Lefty wished she had never left her home, despite her overbearing parents and the law breathing down her neck after that small robbery. But at least she wouldn’t have seen Mouse die, and she wouldn’t have turned into a bloodthirsty monster that savaged two men until they were paste, and she wouldn’t be pondering on the slim possibilities she had to even reach twenty. Fuck, she should have never left Bratislava. Except that she had always wanted to get out of her city and go adventuring around. Precisely that was why she got into the Zone.

Eventually she composed herself under the judging stare of the cat. This wasn’t the time to fall apart. Her faction was her family now, and they needed her more than ever, since they were at war with the mercenaries. And she needed to have her feet on the ground if she wanted to have a shot at surviving. Alright.

That night she left half a can of Tourist’s Delights for Felix, and for the first time the cat let her pet him while he ate. She still hated his judging stare and he still hissed at her on a daily basis, but Lefty liked to think they tolerated each other to honour Mouse’s memory.

Author’s note: I wrote this in a rush, hope it doesn’t have too many typos. Fun fact of the day: in an early draft Shovel was supposed to join Freedom and befriend Lefty while teaching her how to garden/farm. But somewhere along the line Shovel got attached to Evgenii and decided that joining a Faction she knew nothing about was stupid.