Broken

[panggul_mas]

Its hard to describe what it feels like to be broken.

Because, when you're broken, there's no one left to observe the experience. Whatever part of the psyche that we associate as the self takes a vacation, and what's left is something between an infant, and a wild animal with none of its instincts. It starts with a slow buildup, rising to a point of insurmountable stress. It's like climbing a steep mountain, and upon reaching the peak, realizing that the other side is a sheer cliff dropping into an endless void, just as you lose your footing.

Hunger, exhaustion, climbing, climbing. Discomfort, sadness, climbing, climbing. Cruelty, death, climbing, climbing. It's all very formulaic. The only part that is unique to each person is the breaking point, something seemingly tailor-made to be incomprehensibly horrible to them.

For Bren, it was looking down at the woman they had just killed, and realizing, as the men around him began laughing and abusing her corpse, that she looked just like his mother.



It was the first thing he thought of as he slowly began to come back from the void, before the more pressing realities began to sink in. How much time had passed? Minutes? Hours? Days? He was wet, freezing, exhausted, and so, so hungry. Oh God, he had abandoned the attack. On their weeks-long trek across the plains, the mayor had said many times that anyone retreating or showing fear would get a bullet in their head from him personally. But if he stayed where he was, he'd die anyway. He had to do something.

With great effort, Bren pulled himself out of the crevasse that he had found himself in, and took in his surroundings. He hadn't made it too far from the siege camp; he could see it about 200 meters further down the ridge. And in the valley below was the settlement they had come for, smoke rising from half a dozen spots around the compound, surprising, considering how wet everything was.

He would just have to talk his way out of it. Sure, he'd be beaten, that was a given. They'd cut off his hand or pull out one of his eyes, but maybe, just maybe, they wouldn't kill him. Defending himself against the brothers was out of the question; violence just wasn't in his nature, one of the many reasons for his torment. They called him retarded kid, said he had brain damage, but Bren's only real problem was a learning disability, in that he never could learn to love rape and murder, the two most cherished activities of his people, the Claymore.





In the hazy light of the overcast morning, he slowly walked along the ridge towards the camp, oscillating back and forth between rehearsing what he was going to say and mentally preparing for death. As he got closer and the camp appeared relatively deserted, he hoped for the chance of running into one of the less malicious brothers alone, getting a chance to explain himself, taking his beating and having it end with that. His pace slowed as he reached the perimeter of the camp, listening for voices, but was met by nothing but silence. There wasn't a soul around. Everyone must have gone down to the settlement.


Food. Nothing had ever looked so enticing as the stack of soggy survival meals he saw next to the fire pit. After looking around once more to make sure the coast was clear, he fell to his knees and tore into them, devouring the colorless nutrient paste like it was prime seasoned muffalo steak, hardly stopping to breathe. Sating his hunger felt so good, but odd; he couldn't remember feeling anything but dread for so long. Just as the warm feeling began washing over him, he looked to his left, and laying not five feet away was the woman.

He instantly recoiled in horror, first crawling then running away, but didn't make it three steps before tripping over a crate of mortar shells and falling face first into the mud. He almost broke again, but managed to keep it together this time. He turned around and sat there wheezing, staring at the half naked corpse, white as snow, eyes still open as if she were looking right at him.

She had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, on her way to visit the settlement when she stumbled upon the forward team setting up the siege camp. Once they cornered her she put up a good fight. She kicked in one of the brothers' teeth, shouted, cursed, before they pinned her down.

It was all too familiar.




He was only eight years old, more than half his life ago, when they killed his mother. She fought too. Bren had tried to help her, but the brothers who came that night threw him out of the tent. He came back again and again until one of them broke his collar bone and he blacked out from the pain. The old scar still hurt when he woke up every morning. It was hurting now, as he sat there in the empty siege camp.

He sat there for a very, very long time, shivering, looking at the woman, and letting himself feel what he was feeling. It helped. It desensitized him enough to move on to the next major problem he was facing. He found a tattered parka and some foul smelling leather pants in one of the tents, and changed out of his wet clothes. I'll just lay down here for a second, he thought to himself, get warm.






He woke up with a start, into a pitch black night. He knew where he was, he could feel the pants chafing him, could smell the hides he was laying on, but all else was darkness and silence. Bren listened for any sound of life, but only heard a muffalo baying in the distance and the soft hum of the wind. In that moment he was safe. Nobody was there to torment him, to boss him around, to kill him. He was warm and fed. It was too much for him, and he started to cry. He had forgotten what it felt like. He cried long, and loud, and hard, he cried until no more sound came out, he cried until he was exhausted, and again drifted back to sleep.






The next morning, Bren took a walk along the ridge while planning what to do next. He couldn't just run, could he? This was only the third time he'd ever left town, and they'd traveled so far he'd never be able to find his way back. There wasn't anything left there anyway; this was a mass migration. Every single Claymore had made the journey to this settlement to take it as their new home. Its the only reason Bren would ever had been brought on a raid. If he couldn't swing a gladius, at least he could haul supplies and clean the latrines.

Could he just strike out on his own? Into the wilderness? Winter was approaching, and while he might be able to gather some wild berries, he was no hunter, and would probably starve before he froze to death. He needed people. Even if it was the monsters he was forced to call brothers. So his mind fell back to reconciliation.

While playing out ideal beating scenarios in his head, he walked back into camp and saw the woman again. He was slowly getting used to the sight of her. The simmering horror her appearance had instilled in him had developed an odd touch of comfort. For all she was put through, her face looked peaceful now, as she stared off at some unknown point. He decided to cover her exposed parts with a blanket, and even moved her a bit so that she was leaning up against a crate, appearing to sit upright.

He couldn't go down there, to the settlement. The brothers would kill him, he knew it. And he couldn't run, there was nowhere to go. Maybe he could just stay here for a while? With her?









It was seventeen days before the survival meals ran out. Each day, Bren would wake up and walk along the ridge, watching the settlement for signs of activity. He watched the fires go out one by one, and then nothing. This settlement was supposed to be very advanced; he imagined the brothers had no need for campfires, instead sitting around electric heaters on golden chairs, eating chocolate and drinking beer. But even though it was a few kilometers away, he thought he'd be able to see people walking around outside the walls. They were probably so content in there that nobody wanted to leave.

After his morning recon, he would then walk the perimeter of the empty siege camp, tidy up, move around and sort the munitions and supplies into orderly stockpiles, wipe down and lubricate the mortars, and then have his meals by the fire pit with the woman. He didn't dare light a fire, in case someone in the settlement below saw the smoke and came looking for him. One day, without thinking about it, he walked by and said "Good morning" to the woman. He laughed it off, but by the end of his time at the camp, he was talking to her every day. He knew how crazy it was, but it still made him feel better. He'd talk to her about the settlement. He'd talk to her about his plans, about his work around the camp, about his life at the old town.

Even though it was cold out, she had started to decompose, and he had to sit further and further away from her each day to avoid the smell.

On the morning of the third day without eating, Bren realized it was time. If he could, he'd have just stayed with her in the camp. But he had to go down there, to the settlement. He had to move forward, and/or die. He didn't know what else to do. He went to see the woman one last time, and brought the nicest synthread blanket he could find and laid it over her head.

"Bye mom. I love you."





During his slow march down into the valley, his mind raced among all his possible futures. He could be shot on sight, he could run into the mayor drunk and in a good mood and be welcomed back with a slap on the wrist, soon to be enjoying chocolate bars and feather beds and something he'd heard of called "television". Or maybe he'll just get the beating of his life and go back to being retard kid hauling rocks around.

The morning fog hadn't burned off yet, so before he saw the settlement he smelled it, and was soon walking through a sea of rotting corpses. It took him a moment to recognize each bloated face, but they were all brothers. With each he had a memory of how they had tormented or ignored him, or that one occasion where in a moment of weakness they treated him like a human being. Why were they all left out like this?

After passing the threshold of the gate, he heard a strange whzzzzzzz- click-click-click click-click-click sound, and spun around to see a lone surviving turret trying to murder him, its ammunition reserves long since exhausted. A bit shaken up, he continued forward to a collection of what must have been sleeping quarters, burned down to their frames. The brothers must not have gotten to repairing this yet.


Pressing on, he saw more of the same, around every corner in the sprawling complex were more bodies, more burned out and collapsed buildings.

Bren started to panic. He was running now, desperately searching for anyone. He ran out into the vast enclosed fields, and saw dozens of shield brothers burned to a crisp, as if cooked by some massive fire from above. He found a largely intact cooler building full of shelves and shelves of putrid rotting food. He ran to the east of the compound and found a strange "V" shaped courtyard facing an opening in the outer wall, and there, circled by piles of shredded steel and machine parts, were the bodies of more than half of the people he had ever met in his life.

Everywhere it was the same. They were all dead. There was no food, no electric heaters, no chocolate, no television. Worst of all, there were no people; no brothers, no settlers, no friends/tormentors, no enemies. In that moment, Bren realized that he was completely, utterly alone. Maybe for hundreds of kilometers, maybe on the whole planet, it was just him.


And then Bren broke again.

[snipes]

wow well written  GJ

[A Friend]

Woah. You've got quite the talent in story telling.

10/10, More pls.

[Quasarrgames]

That was so deep. And so well written. Wow.

[Specialist290]

You, friend, seem to have a gift for excellent writing.  I'd encourage you to keep developing it.  Nicely done!

[Axelios]

Fan-bloody-tastic. An inspired piece. It is a gripping read.

[Lonely Rogue]

Maybe you should add a gruesome death scene, or a hope inspiring tale of survival against the odds...