Island of Violence

by yusaintrench

Summary:

The first thing to vanish was the noise. No more chatter from the radios, no more hum of latenight stations filling the emptiness of sleepless hours. Towers went dark one by one, until all that was left was the hollow hiss of static. In the silence that followed, monsters came. Towns crumbled, highways turned into graveyards of rust. Survivors learned to whisper instead of shout, to hide instead of search. Yet sometimes, when the night was quiet enough and the wind turned just right there was still a voice. A voice that told people where not to go, what roads still held danger, which shadows were alive. No one knew the man behind it. Only that when the world itself had gone silent, someone out there was still speaking. And for those who were lost, that was enough.
Meeting Torchbearer is the first time in months Clancy leaves his bunker willingly. Something about a strange broadcast telling him to follow the yellow cuts through the static of his cynicism. He wonders if someone else out there is carrying a torch for more than just themselves. Clancy doesn't know if this will be his redemption, or just another dead-end signal. But as long as his voice carries, he'll keep speaking.
Because silence in this world is death.

Chapter 1: - Static Walls

The bunker groaned as though it were a living thing. Concrete walls cracked in the cold, steel beams settling in the earth, wires and lights humming faintly in their endless loops. Clancy had learned to live with that noise. They were safer than silence. Safer than what waited above the ground.

He sat hunched over his console, the glow of half-dead monitors painting his lined face in pale blue. Coffee sat forgotten at his elbow, more bitter than warm. A map of the valley lay pinned beside him, scattered with notes in scrawled handwriting.

-don't cross the ridge at dusk-

-new tracks spotted near the orchard-

-nest here - avoid!-

His hand hovered over the transmitter switch. He'd done it a hundred nights, yet still his chest tightened each time he leaned foward. Speaking into the void had become both habit and curse, just him trying to stay sane.

He pressed the button, the microphone crackling alive.

"Another night, another monster." he said, his voice steady but hoarse. "This is Clancy, still breathing, still talking. If anyone's out there listening - keep your heads low and your eyes high. Tonight's warning: We got a new crawler in the catalog. Name’s Buzztoad. Ugly bastard, as big as a car. Doesn't hop - lumbers. Has a tongue sticky enough to rip a man off his feet and reel him in like dinner on a string." He chuckled quietly. "If you hear a wet slap in the dark, don't stop to check. Run. I repeat, run."

He paused, the weight of silence pressing back against him. The only answer was static. It always was. Clancy sat with it, waiting. Three minutes, five. He imagined someone out there straining to catch his words, whispering thanks into a dead mic. He told himself maybe there was one, just one, who lived because of what he said. But the truth gnawed at him: no one had answered in months.

Maybe I am the last, he thought. Maybe I've been talking to myself the whole time.

His fingers tapped nervously on the desk. He glanced at the monitors, checking the cameras that showed the overworld. Nothing to see besides the ruins that were homes once. His eyes wandered to the heavy steel door across the room, reinforced with scavenged plates. His heart quickened at the memory of claw marks etched into the outer hatch, ragged grooves left behind after something tried to force it's way inside just days ago. He had killed it with a bolt through the eye when the metal finally buckled. But there were more. There were always more.

Every creak in the walls was a reminder: the bunker was not a fortress. It was a coffin waiting to be nailed shut.

The static hissed on, taunting. Finally, Clancy pushed back from the console with a dry laugh. "Talkin' to no one but me, as usual." His voice sounded smaller without his mic.

From the corner of the room, he pulled out his old Ukulele, the wood worn smooth by years of restless strumming. His hands trembled just enough to make the first chord buzz. He winced, adjusted, and tried again. The first notes filled the bunker, shaky but warm. A song older than the fall, older than the silence. His voice followed, softer than his broadcasts, carrying through the concrete like a fragile ember.

Let's say we up and left this town

And turned our future upside down

We'll make pretend that you and me

Lived ever after happily

She asked me, "Son, when I grow old Will you buy me a house of gold?

And when your father turns to stone Will you take care of me?"

I will make you queen of everything you see

I'll put you on the map,

I'll cure you of disease

And since we know that dreams are dead

And life turns plans up on their head

I will plan to be a bum

So I just might become someone

For a moment, the monsters were forgotten. For a moment, he wasn't alone. And when his voice cracked in the last line, Clancy let it. Because even broken songs were still songs.

When the final chord faded, the bunker fell silent again. He sat staring at the instrument in his lap, breathing slow, listening to the hum of the machines. "Still breathing," he whispered to himself. "Still talking."

But the truth lingered, sharp and unspoken: for how much longer?

Notes:

First chapter YAY