Video

[theweakhavepurpose]

[The video turns on to show the outskirts of town, nearby is a fence of sorts made of junk Pratt collected from the Colosseum and some baling wire. It's encircling a fancy new shooting range complete with training dummies and targets and some other items that aren't immediately identifiable.

Okay fancy isn't the right word, everything is made of remnants he found and some of the targets are empty soup cans on sticks but it looks serviceable.]

This is Deputy Pratt. I know we're all busy freezing to death, but if you'd like to take your mind off that, I've finally got this all together. Range is up and running!

It's set up by the orchard, or well.. where the orchard should be anyway.

[He pans the camera towards the orchard to show where it is and then starts walking towards the range. The camera is surprisingly steady, this is someone who has filmed hundreds of Vine videos of him and other deputies doing stupid stuff on slow days. He's a pro at this shit.]

I've got training dummies up front for anyone who wants to get their melee fighting on. But uh.. try not to completely destroy them because I don't have a ton of wood to fix them up.

For the range itself I've got targets at 10 meters, 25 meters, 50 and 100. It's not perfect because I'm measuring this with my feet, but it's close enough. Spinner targets are for guns, and the bigger baled ones are dirt and wood so they shouldn't chew up your arrows too bad.

This thing is a work in progress.

[He sets a can onto a contraption off to the side of the range, stomping his foot on a pedal and sending it shooting down the lane and a little to the left. The camera gets unsteady here as he launches a knife that's far too big for this at the can and it tumbles to the ground.]

Keeps shooting them off to the side, but it's better than throwing something and then trying to hit it.

As for weapons... [He walks over to a large but very battered chest and opens the lid.]

I've got some throwing knives that aren't stupid like the hunting knife I have. A few bows. And some arrows in here. Keep them in this crate because the weather is not kind to bowstrings and you don't want these things snapping when you're shooting.

It's on the honor system because I'm not going to freeze my ass off monitoring this twenty-four seven. So try not to burn it down in the next two days.

[Please guys. He worked hard on this. Don't set it on fire.]

Comments

[fogsong]

Those are called assholes and I vote we kick them the fuck out if we catch them fucking shit up.

[theweakhavepurpose]

Can we do that? Banish them to go live with the mammoths?

[fogsong]

Technically, we can do whatever the fuck we want, even if people don't like it. We are kind of a lawless society. Kill someone and most people won't bat a lash.

But I was just talking banning them from the range. I'm all for throwing them to the wolves or... weird walking hair monsters but I think that should be saved for, like, the third offense?

[theweakhavepurpose]

Three strikes and take your chances out on the tundra? I like that.

Though I'm guessing the Guard won't, not that I've seen them around too much lately.

[And a tiny voice inside Pratt's head is screaming that he is a police officer and he shouldn't like it either. But he ignores that.]

[fogsong]

The Guard isn't some authority here and I doubt anyone would listen if they tried. [ They've played with authority, like taking in Mello after he'd killed her, but they've since learned that their best bet is to guide without pushing. ]

It's like we all live by... I don't know, eye for an eye? As long as you don't fuck with someone, they're probably not going to bother with you—unless the gods are fucking around.

[theweakhavepurpose]

I don't even know who's a part of it other than Nick.

Yeah. You know what's weird? Back in Montana this is what everyone wanted; lawless and free. Where if you left well enough alone other people would do the same.

Not exactly how I envisioned it honestly.

[fogsong]

How did you envision it?

[theweakhavepurpose]

With more cars for starters.

Honestly I'm not sure, I never really bought into the whole everyone will be a good person if given the chance thing. I'm a cop, I get to see the bad in everyone. After you've seen someone ram their car into someone elses house for the nineteenth time because they're so drunk they can't even say their own name, you kinda start losing faith in people's ability to be decent.

[fogsong]

So, chaos, right? Just with more vehicles.

The people here, they're decent but it's not because we're all good or better than the people you encountered back home. I think we're just smarter and we're all locked in this bubble together, forced to work together, suffer together.

[theweakhavepurpose]

Yeah, a little more Mad Max I guess.

There's that, but also death is meaningless. So why bother killing anyone when they'll just come back and be pissed about it.

[Not that he wants to die. Ever.]

[fogsong]

Because death isn't meaningless here. It's not permanent but it... sticks with you. You wake up and... there's nothing quite like reliving your death and knowing it's something you'll never forget. Some people get angry and try for revenge but... I don't know, encountering the person that fucking murdered you is kind of traumatic?

[theweakhavepurpose]

[He shrugs a little, because it doesn't sound that different than seeing the person who tortured you daily.]

I've almost died so many times... it doesn't seem that traumatizing anymore.

Though I suppose that's not something everyone's experienced. I kinda hope it isn't anyway.

[fogsong]

Almost dying and death aren't the same but there are... similarities. [ Spoken from a young woman who knows more than she should about things of that nature. ] And the trauma that comes after never gets any easier, you know? It sticks in your head and at night it replays like a bad movie.

Torture is torture, I guess, and it all fucks us up.

[theweakhavepurpose]

At this point I'm pretty sure everything fucks us up.

And you never get better.

[These are two people far too young to be this morose and familiar with death.]

In any case, I'm glad people aren't just running around slaughtering everyone because there's no repurcussions.

[fogsong]

[ 'And you never get better.' No wiser words have been spoken and they weigh at her heart. Wounds that just won't ever get better. ]

Small blessings, I guess. Sadly, we just have to wait until one of the... whatever gods that come back don't decide to turn the tables on us in that regard.

[theweakhavepurpose]

If they kill us they don't get to eat our emotions, so we have some value at least.

[fogsong]

The Door is always bringing in new people; they'll always have something to feed off of as long as it's open.

[theweakhavepurpose]

[He narrows his eyes, he hadn't thought about that, but she's right.]

Well fuck.

So if we closed it somehow, then we'd have the upper hand?

[fogsong]

I don't know how many of us are powerful enough to handle the Door long enough to figure out how to shut it down. I'd love to figure it out, though.

[theweakhavepurpose]

There's got to be some people who could do it. We have people who can fly, who can manifest weapons, who can make trees grow instantly. Someone should be able to figure out how a door works.

[He knows it's way more complicated than that, but he's annoyed now that they're not quite as valuable a commodity as he thought.]