FSE

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There is a myth about a Nuclear Bomb nicknamed Medusa by an unknown faction at the start of the war. This bomb was supposedly so powerful that it could kill with it's flash alone and left a wildly radioactive fog behind. A Ghost supposedly stalks the cloud, assisting travelers in reaching the other side. But since no one has seen Medusa's Fog or her Ghost, the myths remain just that.

Eirren woke me up the next morning, sounding rather stressed.

"Arien", she whispered loudly, "wake up, you need to see this."

"What?", I asked throwing aside the covers, wide awake now.

"Look outside, you need to see this."

I stood up and pulled aside the curtain, expecting to see bandits or a huge pack of Rabids, but what I saw was something on an entirely different level. As far as I could see, it was like looking into an old black and white movie, but, the scenery outside wasn't black and white. It was a new color, something I hadn't seen before. It wasn't black, white or even grey. It was really, truly colorless. Almost like looking at an outline of a painting before the artists filled it in, or a 3D model before you put a texture on it. Everything around me had been bleached this soulless, indescribable color. There was no color in the buildings, in the plants, the cars or even the fire hydrants, nothing had been spared. It was like a car commercial, where the producer turned everything black and white, but made his company's product an eye catching candy apple red or super bright orange. I didn't have words for it. I couldn't imagine how powerful whatever caused this must have been to wash the color from asphalt or stone. I couldn't find words for how pants-shittingly terrifying this tiny town was.

"Holy shit....", I muttered under my breath, "what...what could have caused this?"

Eirren didn't answer me, she was fixated on the scene just outside the window. It had been so dark last night that we hadn't seen this, thankfully I was glad we hadn't because if we had I couldn't have slept a bit. The scarier part was that whatever did do this did so without leaving a trace of radiation, because it hadn't set the Geiger's off when we arrived in town last night.

"This bomb wasn't nuclear", I sighed after some silence.

"What do you mean?", Eirren asked.

"The Geiger's didn't go off last night", I said, "so either we're just entering the edges of the carnage this weapon left behind, or we're looking at the aftermath of the worlds biggest flashbang. I know that bright light can wash out colors, given enough time. Imagine how bright this flash must have been to wash the color out of the road and fade the paint on a fire hydrant? Mister sun takes decades to do that on it's own."

More silence fell over us. Nero had now joined us, woken by our conversation and was peering out the window. Though he couldn't see anything, I felt like he could sense the dread that had set in over us.

"What happened outside Dad?", he asked quietly.

"I don't know", I told him simply, "it's like someone took an eraser and made the world black and white."

Nero gulped. Minutes more of silence passed before Eirren spoke again, "Arien? What are we gonna do?"

I sighed, "keep an eye on the Geiger's and get a move on. Hopefully this bleaching of the area is the worst thing we see today."

The tension was running high while we geared up. I took point, rifle in one hand and my Geiger in the other. Normally, the probe rode strapped to the shoulder on my vest, but today, the entire unit was in my off paw so I could keep an eye on it. The second that thing went off we had to pull back and either find a way around, or find away to keep Nero protected while we pushed through it. I had a feeling in the pit of my stomach that today was going to be a long day. All through Milton, the Geiger stayed worryingly quiet. I knew that it couldn't pick up Neutron radiation and I was very much bothered by the idea that Nero was getting pelted with those tiny little particles, silently destroying every system in his body. The fear was running high already, but for me at least, it reached it's peak when we reached a sign with barely legible writing that said, "Milton City limits". By this time, a thick fog that had the smell of smoke and fire on it had set in. The grass and trees had given away to a scorched earth covered with a fine powder, I couldn't tell if it was plants, buildings or animals. Every boot step kicked up clouds of the stuff....and the smell. The smell was unlike anything else I had ever encountered in my life. The smell of fire, burnt flesh, radiation, lava flows and death. This was when the Geiger spiked up like crazy and I spotted the first object. It was a tiny thing, barely noticeable hidden within the powder that covered the land for as far as the eye could see. It was a tiny lump of metal glowing with a breathtakingly sinister copper glow and it made the Geiger do cartwheels and scream all the way at the top of it's detectable range. It was about this time I managed to put everything together.

"Hello Medusa", I sighed, "I thought you were just a myth."

"Medusa?", Eirren asked.

"The most powerful weapon ever produced", I sighed, "Medusa was a Corium bomb, the only one of it's kind. It was designed to mimic the conditions of a nuclear meltdown and to just throw wildly radioactive Corium out as far as possible. I think it's time to not let Nero walk anymore. If he steps on one of these lumps of Corium it'll incinerate his paw immediately."

"Yeah, good idea", Eirren said picking him up, "you know, I heard that a Ghost lives in the Fog Medusa left behind. Supposedly he escorts travelers safely to the other side of the Fog."

"Fog?", I asked, "I haven't heard that part of the myth."

"Medusa apparently kicked up a huge cloud of a super light ash that formed a Fog around it's Ground Zero", Eirren said, "the Ghost lives inside the Fog. Doomed by Medusa to walk Ground Zero forever, he makes sure anyone who has to get through it gets out safely."

"Medusa might have been a real bomb", I said, "but there's no way it's Ground zero is haunted. That's just crazy talk."

We gave the tiny ball of radiation a wide berth as we moved down what of I-89 could still be followed. After some time, we realized we were going to go straight through Medusa's Ground Zero, which presented a huge problem. With the tiny ball of residue we'd found miles back throwing out well over 600+ rads a second of radiation, and the simple fact that Medusa likely left huge amounts of the shit behind at Ground Zero, that made Nero dead and put Eirren and I well on the way towards being dead ourselves. With what few road signs remained, and what fewer were still legible, we theorized that the city of Burlington might be Medusa's epicenter, an idea that was reinforced when we happened upon a dead wastelander in a makeshift radiation suit, looking like he'd succumbed to radiation poisoning while trying to figure out weather or not he wanted to run the hell away, or push deeper inland. He was an older Canine, I couldn't tell what kind though, his skin was too blistered and much of his face had melted off. His suit was made out of a black fleece blanket, a rubber rain rain coat and pants that had been painted black and boots with jeans and a long sleeve shirt underneath it with rubber and leather electrician gloves as hand protection as well as a copious amount of lead tape and foil. Tapped to the side of his makeshift gasmask, which consisted of a hand stitched hood with what looked like carefully cut automotive glass and a filter set up made of some copper piping and tin cans, was a note that read.

"The Ground Zero Ghost is real...I know. ..is still alive. I have to go back for her."

I sighed, tucking the note into my vest near the tooth fairy note I'd found yesterday and started stripping the dead dog of his suit. Eirren must have sensed a disturbance in the force, because she immediately got onto my case about how stupid this was.

"You're not seriously going to trust your life to a jury rigged radiation suit that obviously failed the guy who made it are you?", she asked angrily.

"I don't have a choice", I told her unlacing the canine's boots, "I have to go through Burlington. You're gonna have take Nero and find a spot above the radiation where you can safely fly across and wait for me on the other side. The other option is backtracking and I'm not willing to do that."

"This is really fucking stupid Arien", Eirren said, "that ittiy bitty rock back there was throwing out 600+ rads a second, can you imagine what it'll be like in Ground Zero?"

"It'll be insane", I sighed, "yeah. I know. But hear me out, one way or another, we have to get around this bomb site if we want to advance, and the best way to do that is to go straight through it. I'd rather deal with radiation, right here and right now and know for an absolute fact that I will be the only thing alive inside of this zone, than turn around, try to find away to steer clear of it, and open myself up to attacks by literately everything else the wasteland can throw at us."

"The enemy you know huh?", she sighed.

"Exactly", I told her.

"If you die, I'm gonna be really pissed", she snarled.

"Noted", I answered.

"And if you survive I'm tearing those clothes right off your body", she added.

"Also..noted", I said after some time.

"What do you want me to do once I clear the radiation zone?", she asked.

"Find a place you can lock up and wait for me", I said, "the chances are there I may not beable to clear this before nightfall. If that happens...well...bridge I'll cross when I get there."

Eirren kissed me, "please don't die Arien, I can't take another death."

"I'm not gonna die", I told her, kissing back, "I promise."

She sighed. I pulled on the suit, which was incredibly heavy, but fit well. I handed off my firearms except for my AR-15 and Sig. Eirren tied them to her gear, picked up Nero, who she'd wrapped in a Magnesite lined blanket and then rocketed off into the sky, going so high that I lost sight of her. I looked towards the fog and put the gas mask on, taking the bag of spare filter's that the canine had over his shoulder.

"Well", I sighed racking the charging handle on my AR, "let's see if Medusa really can turn people into stone."

I was on my own again. The closer I drew to town, the more the Geiger started to go off and the more puddles of a lava looking liquid I started to see. Armed with a sketchy at best rad suit and two Geiger counters, the one I'd taken from the dog and my own, the external one was doing fucking ballistic, but my own, which was awkwardly placed inside of the gas mask where I could see it, was still quiet as a mouse. Safe to press forward? Sure, for now at least. I'm not entirely sure how much time passed before I arrived in Burlington, but I know I did. I passed an almost completely illegible sign that read Burlington City limits. It was the only evidence the city had ever been there. It was like I was on some alien planet. The radiation levels were higher than anything I'd ever seen, the Geiger counter on the outside of the suit maxed out at 2500 rads a second and the needle was a bit past that mark and holding steady, only because it couldn't go any further. The one inside the suit was starting to chirp as well with levels holding around 100 Rads a second. This suit was obviously more effective than either of us had given it credit and the gas mask and filter were holding up remarkably well, but even so, the levels of radiation I was being hit with would be more than enough to fry the living fuck out of any non reptile unfortunate enough to get caught in it. The fog and the lose, shifty ash underfoot made my spine shiver in fear and the lake or river that ran along side the city? It was full of a boiling black sludge with nasty colored steam rising off of it. That certainly wasn't helping me in keeping my heart rate down. Lumps of Corium glowing with that breathtakingly sinister copper glow and occasional arcs of copper electricity were scattered all over the place. They varied in size and shape and it seemed the bigger they were, the more radioactive and electrically charged they were. Passing one lump the size of a baseball had me fighting to keep a grip on my AR-15, which was being pulled to it by it's Match Grade Steel barrel. Great, as if the rads weren't enough, there were lumps of metal here that wanted to steal my rifle. Just great.

I didn't have much of a sense of time, so I'm unsure how long it was before I first heard it. Footsteps. How? What the hell kind of business could anyone have inside this slice of hell on Earth? Maybe it was the radiation messing with my senses and I was beginning to feel slightly nauseated, a clear indication that despite my extreme resistance to any form of radiation, it was beginning to take down my defenses. The counter in the suit was up to 550 rads per second, pushing the threshold of my 900-1050 immunity barrier. If the exposure inside the suit got past 1050, I was done for. I heard them again. Far in the distance, but I heard them. It wasn't my mind playing tricks on me, at least I didn't think it was. As I kept marching forward, I soon had a figure to match to the foot steps. First it was a little more than a slightly darker black splotch through the fog and steamy smoke, then it got a little bigger, next thing I knew, in the fog not so far away, a single figure had shown up. His posture and the way he was moving suggested that the hooded suit he was wearing was clunky and heavy, but it also suggested simple weakness. He didn't appear to be armed, at least until He stepped into full view. He appeared to be about six feet tall, even. He wore an environment suit that I hadn't seen before. It consisted of a simple, hooded brown zip up jacket and brown pants that appeared to be made out of a heavy canvas material. The joints of both the jacket and pants were made of metal and chain mesh with vents in the solid front part that was occasionally releasing a rust colored mist, similar to what was coming off of the river and the ash that covered the ground. His mask looked like it was designed to keep him from turning his head. They had a one piece visor made of blue glass and a small, gas mask filter like protrusion near the mouth with metal pipes that came out and curved back behind the masks, likely to an air tank or rebreather system. Their gloves had vents on their top sections and metal finger tips had small valves in them, like what you might find on an old deep sea diving suits. He was armed with several makeshift melee weapons consisting mostly of sharp, short pieces of rebar with tape for handles and a pipe with razor wire tied tightly around it's end. I could hear him take each breath, every time it seemed like he had to fight just a little harder against his suit to breath. It was rather difficult to judge his intentions. His suit didn't look like it weighed all that much, but then again, neither did the one I was wearing. I couldn't tell if he'd had just been on the road a while and were suffocating inside his suit from the heat, because I certainly was, or if he was something much more sinister. He had business in Medusa's Fog as well, and that alone made me fear for my life.

He began to pace me in a circle. He looked and sounded almost deceptively weak, I was willing to put money on the idea that if I tried to knock or shoot him down, I'd be beaten to death on the spot, so I decided to play it safe. He didn't say anything, though I didn't know if he was even capable of speech. Every now and again the vents on his suit would discharge that rusty colored mist and whenever they did the Geiger inside of my suit would creep uncomfortably close to my 1050 Immunity Barrier. The circling went on for for a few minutes, during that time I was too scared of what they might do to move. Then, he stopped pacing, walked to withing about a foot of me, stood up as straight as he could, looked me in the eye and spoke.

"Are you real? Or am I imagining things again?"

He seemed worn out, tired of this place, tired of living, tired of everything. I wasn't sure how much of this was radiation sickness and how much of it was actually him dying from whatever was happening to him inside that damn suit. It didn't look comfortable at all to wear.

"Last I checked I was real", I told him

"You shouldn't be here", he told me, sliding his gloved paw further down his weapon, I couldn't tell if he was readying for an attack, or relaxing, "Medusa does something sadistic to anyone that dares to set foot inside her Fog. This is her turf."

"Everyone except you", I commented, "you seem all there."

He handed me his weapon, "hold this, I'll show you exactly what I mean."

I took his pipe and he lowered his hood. He unlocked the pipes from the small tank mounted to the back of his cowl and then pulled a buttoned flap guarding the zipper on his jacket open. He unzipped his jacket, but didn't take it off yet. He unlocked the clasps on the side of his helmet and it opened with a hissing sound, letting out so much radiation that the counter inside my own suit spiked all the way to 1000 rads a second before quickly falling back down to the 550 it'd been holding at. It dawned on me as he began to pull the helmet away from his face that his suit wasn't met to keep Medusa's Fog out, it was met to keep whatever he was inside. He pulled the helmet, which came apart at the middle, off of his face, throwing it behind him. At the same time that his helmet met the ashy ground, he shrugged off his jacket. The creature that was living inside of this suit paralyzed me to my very core.

The he, turned out to be a she. And she looked like she was enduring a thousand years of torture at the claws of Satan himself with each passing second. She was a blue pitbull with a white splotch on her chest, or at least what was left of it. Her skin was cracked, burned and charred with not an inch of what of her body she was willing to show being spared from Medusa's wrath. Fucking enormous, 4 or five inch across gashes had been ripped from her torso, arms and even her neck. Goddamn I am not making this up....there were chunks of Corium sizzling inside of these gashes. Every single crack in her burned skin held glowing traces of embers and Corium and the only remnants of this poor girls clothes were wire pieces of a collar that were embedded into her charred neck. She didn't have a tail, my guess was it rotted and fell off from the rads. Her ears? Blistered to the point that they each just looked like one giant fucking wart. Eyes? One of them was swollen closed. The other? A glowing, piercingly bright blue. It told her whole story, made me wonder if the dog I'd taken the suit from was her brother..or mate maybe.

I couldn't move. I couldn't speak. I didn't have words for what I was looking at, it was like something out of a nightmare.

"This could be what's in store for you if you don't leave the Fog", the pit said. Without her helmet on, her voice was barely audible.

"Your the Ghost", I said after sometime, "the one that people talked about in the Medusa Myth."

"I didn't know others considered me a Ghost", the pit said, "but I suppose the title is fitting. What else did they say?"

"They say Medusa doomed you to walk the Earth forever", I said, "that you help others so they don't share your fate."

The Pit sighed, the rust colored mist coming out on her breath, pushing my Immunity Barrier even higher, 1045 rads a second.

"How have you survived?", I asked, "this much radiation in the air...you should be long dead. Ashes. Just like everything else in this place."

"Something spared me", she said picking up the parts of her suit she'd shed and putting them back on, "I don't know how, and I don't know why. But Medusa keeps me plenty company. Just when I think it's safe to sleep she reminds me I can't any more."

"Are you in any pain?", I asked handing her the pipe back.

"More than you could ever comprehend", she said, her voice now much more easily heard, "Satan himself couldn't do worse. I've learned to with with it though. The nerves in my skin were killed long ago, and my soul was killed when Medusa decided I should be the one person in Burlington to live."

"The Ghost of Medusa", I sighed, "you're a bigger badass than I could ever be. I've been through some shit these past few years...but it's got nothing on what you must endure everyday."

"I'll take the compliment", she told me, "we should stop standing around. You may be a dragon under that suit, but your immunity barrier won't hold for ever. What is it? Do you know?

"1050 rads per second is where I'll cave", I said.

"You should make it out okay", she said, "I know the Fog like I know my suit. I'll be more than happy to take you through it if you'll let me. If you do, I can promise you you'll see your girl and son by tomorrow morning."

"How do you...", I began.

"I can smell it through your suit", she told me, "One thing that hasn't slowly been failing me over the years is my sense of smell. You seem like a nice guy, I feel like you're lucky to have someone who cares about you."

"I don't know why that reminded me", I said digging into my vest and pulling out the note, "you wouldn't happen to recognize this would you?"

I handed her the note as we began walking. She read it, traced the writing with her paw and then folded it up. "Oh Ben. Of all the stupid shit you could do...why would you come for me?"

"So you did know him?", I asked.

"My mate, yes", the pit sighed, sounding like she might cry, "where did you find this note?"

"I took it off the same carcass I found this suit on", I told her, "it was melted beyond recognition."

I thought I heard her sniffle, but she didn't say anything, "thank you..this...this closes a wound I've had for a long time. I at least know what happened now."

"I'm sorry", I told her, "by the way. I didn't get your name."

"Nat", she said, "but apparently, most people call me Medusa's Ghost."

"Arien", I said, "just someone who wants to go home."

"Well", Nat said, "let's see if we can get through this Fog."

Nat lead, and I followed. Before too long, the sun was high in the sky. Through Medusa's Fog, it was punishing, even more so than normal. The radiation only increased the further we went into the misty ash and with every few rads the Geiger inside my suit climbed, the heavier the suit became, the heavier my pack became, the heavier I, became. It didn't seem to bother Nat at all. I figured she was so used to the heavy lumps of Corium stuck inside her, her clunky suit and the heat that it just didn't affect her any more. The radiation got higher, as evidenced by the constant complaining of the Geiger I had outside of the suit, but aside from when Nat's suit discharged that heavily radioactive rust colored mist, the one inside my suit held right at 550 rads a second, well below my Immunity Barrier, but the sustained exposure would get to me without a doubt, and sooner rather than later as I quickly found out. At about 1 in the afternoon, I started to get a bit of a headache and my stomach began to growl, not from hunger, but likely from irritation of either the lead in the suit, or from the radiation, I couldn't tell which. It had become much harder to breath as the filter clogged, and shortly after my head started to hurt, it was so stopped up that I had to change it.

"Hold up", I called after Nat, "I gotta change my filter."

I took one of the 5 spare filters out of the side pouch I'd taken from Nat's mate, held it as close to the mask as I could and then quickly unscrewed the stopped filter and replaced it with the fresh one, finding breathing became immediately easier. As long as that filter had lasted, for a makeshift one at that, I figured I was rather safe for the rest of the trip, long as the internal counter didn't get above 550. Hour after hour passed. I just tried to focus on following Nat and not pay so much attention to how much the weight riding on my shoulder had increased and how badly my feet were burning. That radioactive ash had been fucking with them for hours now, despite the amount of material and lead in my boots, I didn't think I'd be doing much traveling for at least a couple of days after I got through this damn place. As bad as my feet hurt and shoulder's hurt, I didn't have room to complain. Nat was suffering way worse than I was. I knew I wouldn't beable to convince her to come with us, unless by some improbable stroke of luck we could find a way to get the Corium and Radiation out of her system. But that would require a Veterinarian with a understanding of radiation far deeper than anything I could comprehend. I still couldn't figure out the difference between a Rad and a Grey and had to rely on the Geiger to tell me. More time passed, and it was getting to the point where I could no longer ignore the fact that I was beginning to contract Radiation sickness. I'd never been exposed to this much radioactivity for such a long amount of time.

"Hey Nat?", I spoke up.

"You can't ignore the fact you're starting to get the sickness any more?", Nat asked.

"How'd you know?", I asked, "I haven't said a word about it."

"You don't need to", Nat said, "seems like 99% of the people I try to take through this Fog don't care to mention that they get sick. Not sure why."

"Maybe because they see what you look like under your rad suit?", I asked.

Nat paused where she was and turned to look at me, her suit discharging that mist again, 'Arien...you're the first living soul I've shared my secret with."

"Secret?", I asked, "that would mean that there are other people who know you're still alive in this Fog."

"There are two", Nat said turning and starting to walk again, "you seem like you'd enjoy hearing some history. Am I right?"

"I'm always willing to listen to someone whose willing to talk", I shrugged, "fire away."

"Couple of months after Medusa detonated", Nat began, "I was out scavenging when I heard something thundering around the wasteland. Wasn't sure what it was, so I laid low. Well, come to find out it was a sports car, a candy apple red Mazda RX-7, though I'm not sure what year, I know the model because Ben had one. The dragon who was driving it never said why he was out in the Fog and I still can't get it out of him, but when I got the guts to go talk to him, he told me he and a priest were held up in a church a good 30 miles outside of the Fog. Long ways to walk, but a pleasant ride if you have a car that works. He and I got to talking for a good couple of hours before he went on his way. Every now and again I make a trip to the church to trade for food because I still need to eat, at least I think I do."

"And you've never even taken your helmet off around them?", I asked, "not even showed them from outside?"

"The amount of radiation my body emits would kill them", Nat sighed, "the suit keeps me in and the world out. I'd be lying if I said I didn't like it that way. I suppose it doesn't matter though, the priest and Khen care about me. Khen comes out every now and again to bring me supplies and the priest is who I go see whenever I'm feeling suicidal."

"The condition that your in? If I was in your shoes, I'd have eaten a bullet a long time ago", I sighed.

"That's why Khen took my guns", Nat said, "he caught me with my hunting shotgun pressed underneath my muzzle. I cried into his shoulder for hours afterwords. When I think about it, it's like there are two sides warring inside my head. My body wants rest, it wants peace, but my mind says no, it says I have to say just one more day and maybe save someone from taking my place."

"That is selflessness on a whole other level", I said, "you've got a bigger dick than I'll ever have and you don't even have one."

Nat laughed, "hey, that means a lot brother. You girl is lucky to have you."

"Nah", I smiled, "I'm the lucky one. She's way out of my league. By the way, exactly how far does the Fog stretch for?"

"24 miles exactly from edge to edge", Nat said, "we should arrive at the edge shortly."

"Makes sense I guess", I said, "I can usually do 30 in a day."

"Once you get outside the Fog, I suggest you gargle whatever radiation drugs you have", Nat said, "and if your girl has a radio, contact her."

"Hell", I sighed, "knowing Eirren, she's probably hovering in the air just outside this shit trying to see if she can get my scent on the wind or see me through it."

"If she is she's a keeper", Nat laughed.

We wandered in silence for another hour or so. It was about 4 in the afternoon before I realized that the Fog was letting up. Fifty more passing minutes, and the Geiger's were silent, the flattened, scorched landscape returned to the overgrown, shaggy setting I'd seen last night. It was hard to describe my feelings at that moment. Exhausted? Sure. But I had made it! I faced the most powerful weapon ever unleashed upon this planet, and beaten it. There weren't any houses in site, but after removing my gas mask and taking a breath of air, I had Eirren's scent plain as day. She wasn't far. I turned to Nat.

"You know", I told her, "this reminds me of an old quote I heard from a kid pre war. His best friend, a Feral wolf, died in his arms."

Nat listened quietly.

"You know what he said to me when his brother asked why dogs don't live as long as everyone else?"

"What he say?", Nat asked.

"He said, most animals live a long time so they can learn how to live good lives and love everyone right?"

Nat put her gloved paw up to her helmet's rebreather.

"Well, dog's already know how to do that. So they don't have to stay as long."

Nat looked like she was trying to wipe tears out of her eyes, but stopped when she realized her helmet was in the way.

"You did something for me today that I am never going to forget", I said, "thank you, Nat."

"You can pay me back by letting me meet your girl and your boy", she said, "long as they stay three or four feet away, the radiation won't hurt them."

I smiled, "fine by me. I've got Eirren's scent on the wind, she's not far. Let's go."