Green Fields (Hunger, Part Two)

[thehonorablebat]

Summary: The second story I ever posted.

Before XCOM's victory over ADVENT, there was twenty years of struggle. Bradford isn't sure how he survived it.

A loose collection of snippets, pre-X2.

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Bradford did a head count every night after lights out. By January, they were missing four people. A nineteen year old man who had broken his leg, a teenage girl with asthma, and an old couple who had been the local historians. No one could adequately explain their absence. If one more person went missing without a trace he fully expected a full-blown panic to breakout.

So he headed outside armed with only a rifle, a local map, and a compass.

There were plenty of caves in the area. There was no feasible way to hike out to check them all in the current climate. But he figured anyone carrying or dragging a corpse with them couldn’t go very far.

In the forest he found small rudimentary shelters like the kind they teach you to build in the scouts on the off chance you ever get lost in a forest. With them he found the remnants of campfires under the fresh snow, and snares for animals. Some he only narrowly avoided himself.

When he did eventually catch up with his quarry it nearly cost Bradford his life. He had knelt down to examine a set of tracks when a bolt from a crossbow sailed where his chest would have been. It embedded itself into the trunk of a nearby tree instead.

Bradford simply turned, located his target, and shot the man. That was it.

He recognized him as the one who used to do maintenance on the old generator in town. Bradford took everything of value off the man and went back to town, freezing and exhausted.

The next day Bradford found the cave where the man had set up shop. He found what was left of the missing people stored away in the freezing temperature like you would deer parts. There was dry wood scavenged from furniture in town and stolen from their own stock, and hunting tools. Some of which were brand new, made from sharpened bones.

He wished he hadn’t gone looking for the cave.

All he could think to do was bury the remains of the missing people, and get rid of the rest of it. The only thing he brought back was some of the wood.

There was no sleeping that night, or at any point else during the winter. Best he could do was eventually crash. What alcohol they had was kept only for medical purposes. He spent until spring painfully sober. By the end of it, all he wanted was absolute oblivion.

The minute he could, he hiked south and swore he’d never go anywhere it snowed again. And he wouldn’t…for awhile, at least.