The main character is inspired by the main character in the Dresden Files. An awesome series of books if I may say so, I strongly recomend them. On to the first chapter of the novel~ish thing -->Chapter 1
Year 2220, Day 136
I fled through the ankle-deep sand. The heat crept through the soles of my boots, the faint odor of burning rubber lingering in my wake. My airy trousers billowed in the howling wind as I raced for the cover of a nearby dune. The bullets whizzed past my ears, so close that I could feel them screech their way into the desert floor. A red welt was starting to form on my left leg where the butt of my rifle was digging into the muscle. Legs screaming in protest, I took the last few strides and leaped over the ledge of the dune. I landed hard, my knees buckling from the impact.
“Shit!” I cursed and got a mouthful of sand in return.
I coughed, took a breath, swallowed bad tasting water and slowly raised my face out of the sad-excuse-for-a-puddle, taking my bearings. I shook my head and retrieved my rifle. A hastily performed check informed me that at least the powder was dry. Then, on my hands and knees, I painstakingly crawled over to the ledge, and ever so slowly lifted my rifle out from underneath me. Any sudden movement could be, and almost certainly would be, fatal. I risked a peek over the ledge, my vision partly clouded due to the desert brown scarf I had tied over my head and face.
Three men, two on foot and the third on a motorcycle. The one on the motorcycle was the head honcho, the boss; his presence left me with no doubt. He wore unquestionable authority like a cape around his heavy-set shoulders. He wore, and not just metaphorically, full black clothes embedded with the symbol of R'Shnisha - a flailing pigeon in the beak of an eagle. This particular patrol had been after me for 6 days, night and day. In the first few days they had underestimated me and I had gotten off a few lucky shots - four to be exact.
Now as I watched the leader roar orders to the two others, he sort of reminded me of the leaders of the 22nd century, not caring about anything or anyone but themselves, even when facing total destruction of the world. And hell, do I hate those bastards. They raped a perfectly beautiful world and molded it into the barren wasteland it is now. No food or resource to spare; a dog-eat-dog world. The survival of the strongest and... however the saying went. Well you get it, life was shit.
My parents had told me about the world before the Acid-Rain, or the Blight, or the End-of-the-World-Thing-a-Magigy; the disaster has many names. Anyway, the world where my great-great-grandparents had lived. It was mostly rubbish. Supposedly there were cars that moved by gasoline, toxin-free air, stuff like that. The only thing I believe in the stories is the piece of man-made magic cradled in my arms; gun-powder rifles.
Sure you have your average laser-rifles, but they just aren't the same thing. The paralyzing kick-back of the rifle, the acrid smell, the damn mechanisms that jam every thirty shots... Now that is the gun-powder rifle. The fact that laser-rifles cost some serious bucks - and me being broke - could have biased my opinion though... Well, life can't be too easy. Life would be boring without pain and sorrow and death, and--
I was interrupted from my cheerful thoughts by a messenger of death, in the form of a bullet. I quickly drew my head back into cover and rolled down the side of the dune.
Guess it's straight to plan B, I thought, spitting sand from between my clenched teeth. "Run fat boy, run!"
Not that I'm fat, as a side remark.
So then I ran for the better of the afternoon, dodging bullets here and there, watching out for the motorcycle all the time. I couldn't keep my jaw from dropping when I got a closer look at the 'cycle as I almost ran into it while clearing the corner of a boulder. I didn't know you could get the killing-machine attachment for only $19.99 extra. Twin Gatling-guns mounted under the hand bars; not to mention the rocket launcher on the side. I could use one, that's for sure. I faintly realized I was standing still, gaping at the 20-ton killing machine roaring towards me. Fortunately my instincts took over and I continued running for my life.
***
“Okay, I've had enough of this cat-and-mouse game,” I growled under my breath, as I ran under a protruding ledge, some thirty feet high, for the 2nd hour straight.
I pulled out my secondary weapon, my trusty hand-gun. It doesn't look like much with its fading polished metal plate and the rust here and there, but it packs a punch - plus a few other things too. I switched on the modified grenade launcher attached onto the underside of the pistol, targeted the ledge from a run, and pulled the trigger.
A small, hooked wire flew out of the barrel with the approximate force of a stampeding bison. It hooked onto the ledge and - when I hit a button - started reeling itself in, and in the process I rocketed skyward at about seven miles per hour. I reached the ledge in a tad less than four seconds, scraping my elbow as the wire ended and the rock started. I bit out a curse and clambered onto the ledge.
"Now all we need is bait," I mused.
I looked around me for inspiration. Tall walls sprouted from the ground, extending their gnarled fingers towards the heavens above. The small outlet I was standing on protruded out of the southern-most wall. The walls had most probably formed a building long ago, all that now remained was the rough outline of the borders. The same in common English: naught but shit to work with.
Oh boy, just my luck...
Then, on a burst of genuine intellect, I pulled out a circular metal ball, pushed a button on it's surface and lugged it downwards toward the ground as hard as I could. As it neared the ground, I pulled in a deep breath and held it. The next second it hit the ground, bounced once... bounced twice... and then it went click, and all hell broke lose. The fire and flames roared out of the once small ball and engulfed everything within a sixty meter radius in a hellish sea of fire. The ground shook with the sheer force of it; walls of rock crumbled, sending splinters of chipped rock flying in every direction.
One of these little devils clipped me on the cheek, rolling me 180 degrees, the ledge protecting my body from further missiles. Then, after what seemed an hour, there was only the eerie sound of rocks hitting the sand with muted thumps. I lay there, gasping for breath, drawing in deep gulps of still hot air and focused on finding my battered sense of hearing.
After a while I could almost think straight, and found the ledge half destroyed, rocks scattered in every direction. Next came the pain, the red-hot, muscle-deep, jaw-clenching, practically overwhelming pain. In other words, it hurt like hell... and a hell of a lot more. I think I passed out for a while here, but when I forced my rebelling limbs to propel me up from the rubble, I faced total destruction.
The walls of rock had mostly crumbled, leaving only slightly higher dunes than normal. Only the wall I was on had somewhat survived from the explosion, due to the fact that I had thrown the grenade away from it, and in the process, me. This was to be expected seeing as it had cost me a fortune. Realizing that, I let out a stream of vicious curses. Cursing doesn't do shit to help the situation, but it has been scientifically proven that it helps with extreme stress. And yes, this counts as extreme stress.
Once I had myself under some measure of control, the debris had almost subsided, and I could faintly make out the voice of Mr. Roars-Out-Orders, surprise, surprise, roaring out orders.
“Well, at least they heard it,” I said aloud, but couldn't make out my voice over the ringing in my ears. "Damn, that guy must have good lungs."
I faded into the oblivion of sleep in a fit of giggles verging on madness.
An hour passed, then another, and another, until it all dissolved into an illusion of a stream of endless moments. My limbs were stiff with pain and cold. The numbness kept creeping up my arms and legs, reaching out to my chest with icy fingers. The toxins in the atmosphere also caused extreme weather conditions, allowing the heat to ascend and descend at it's own whim. And if that wasn't bad enough, it seemed to have an impish character, always seeming to be hot when you craved cold and vice versa.
I reached for my leg, trying to massage the numbness out of it. I had pulled my cape around me as tight as possible, but the wind seemed to mock me with the ease it penetrated my defenses. Clenching my teeth, I strained my neck to look over the cover I had hastily built to shield myself from the conditions. The rocks didn't help much, because the wind seemed to blow in every direction at once. Once out from the cover, though, the wind wasted no time ravaging my face.
My eyes felt like they were being sucked into my skull, and the flesh of my face seemed to rip away. Even the sheer coldness was unbearable, and I strained every muscle I could to keep my eyes open. Through the tears and wind, I could barely make out the slender silhouettes of my pursuers, but I knew that they would have to make camp in a while. Nothing could escape the icy teeth of the wind, especially here in the wide open desert.
I hid my face from the wind and added a rock to the pile in front of me. Praying to every God I knew - which amounts up to one - I settled down onto the rock-hard surface. Then I curled up, wound my cape tighter around my shivering form, and forced myself into a dreamless slumber.
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