Niki started at the ceiling of her room, the same ceiling she had started at each and every night since she had been born in this house twenty-one years ago. The white paint had long since turned grey and was peeling in places. If her father had still been alive, she was sure he would have come up with an ingenious way of making paint from what was were available in this world she had been born into. A tear seeped from her eye and made its way down her face until it ran out of energy half way along her jawline. There had been nights where she had cried until she thought her heart would burst. On those nights Blondie had silently entered her room and sat with her, not speaking but just sitting on the edge of her bed, letting her know she wasn't alone.
Over time the pain of her loss had faded a little. Now, not the raw jagged hurt that she had experienced, just a numb emptiness, a hole where her parents love had existed. She had tried to fill that hole with something else to help disperse the pain but nothing seemed to dull the ache. She wished she was as strong as Blondie, the stoic hunter never seemed to be affected by emotional torment. Blondie had been Niki's saviour in more ways than one. Not only had she saved Niki from the Reavers, she had also been the anchor that kept Niki from getting lost in her own grief. The tall, brawny woman who had not only been her saviour, but had also been the welcome distraction from the agony of losing her family.
A distraction that annoyed the hell out of Niki. She had often wondered what had gone on in Blondie's past that left her so cold and emotionless, but no matter how often she pressed for some hint of her life story, Blondie would just close down, thick mental walls blocking out any intrusion.
A small sigh escaped Niki's lips. This time not one of sadness, more of frustration. A feeling that fanned the embers of anger inside her.
Why was Blondie so damned closed to her? If only she would open up a little Niki was sure they could have something more than the friendship that existed between them.
In the beginning Niki had held on to the tower of strength that Blondie had been. As Niki had grown older and Blondie had begun to teach her how to be a survivor, Niki felt the bond between herself and her educator flourish. She had giggled to herself when Blondie had rebuked her for dressing in figure hugging clothing. While she had understood perfectly the reasons why Blondie thought her attire was inappropriate, she enjoyed the feeling of knowing Blondie's eyes spent far longer than was decent resting on what the clothing covered.
The thought landed firmly on the small flame of anger, smothering it before it took hold.
A ghost of a smile warmed Niki's face. She couldn't put her finger on exactly when she had fallen for Blondie. She assumed it had begun with hero worship that had slowly grown into infatuation, which inevitably blossomed in to love and sexual attraction.
Niki sighed once more. She had seen magazines from before the time of the falling, publications that contained faded images of men and women from a past age. They all seemed to be beyond beautiful, but in Niki's eyes Blondie outshone them all. The hunter was taller than Niki by at least a head, and her body was as hard as rock, muscle formed by a life of hard living. Dirty-blonde hair crowned her head, hacked short in to an untidy tangle. A total contrast to the styled faces that appeared in Niki's magazines, but her grim visage glowed with a beauty that none of the people the magazines referred to as stars could hope to match. Her harsh natural beauty coupled with her enigmatic past made Blondie a mystery begging to be unravelled.
Most nights Niki fell asleep wondering if the rough Wastelander would ever open her heart to the farm-born youngster, or would she be forever pining after her. Would Blondie always be oblivious to Niki's desire while they lived out the rest of their years on the farm?
There had been times when, as a child, Niki had asked her parents why they rarely left the small homestead. Usually it would be after her mother and father had argued about something. It was only when she grew old enough to understand what had happened while her parents had been young, did she fully grasp how dangerous life was beyond the hollow they lived in.
The world had known about Zeus long before it had become a real threat. Niki's mother had told her how the various governments had insisted there was no danger, and how the majority of the public had believed that. After all, it was a time when people believed what the media told them, blindly accepting what was handed down without question.
The minority, small groups of survivalists that didn't believe the spoon-fed information, chose to prepare themselves for a scenario where the worst would happen. Niki's mother's parents had been one of those groups. They had built the thick-walled block house miles away from large population centres, sunk a basement deep in to the rock with air filtration, and water sourced directly from below them. Niki's father had been an apprentice engineer and had been with the construction crew who had built the safehouse and had been infatuated with the couple's young daughter Marylin. Riku had only been dating Marylin for a few months when it became apparent that Zeus would indeed come a lot closer than the near miss originally predicted.
Riku had helped the family get to the safety of their newly-built bunker and accepted their offer to ride out the worst of what was to come. From Niki's understanding, Zeus had struck the planet on a continent call Africa. After the initial strike, no one was really sure what came first, but Riku had spoken about the sky raining fire and the seas boiling up to swallow the earth.
Why the authorities had failed so badly, no one knew. There was talk about people chosen to go to safe places to ensure the continuation of the human race, but if that had been the fact, then they didn't care about the part of the world where Niki and her family lived. When the dust settled, and the initial chaos had died down, the survivors had waited for help to arrive, but none came. Many had perished, dying from hunger and exposure and left to rot where they fell.
Out of the debris of the world that had been, the folk that managed to cling on to life fell into one of two categories, the ones who tried to rebuild, piecing back together the fragments of a devastated civilisation, and the ones who saw the power vacuum and grabbed everything they could while to opportunity presented itself.
The raids had begun small, one or two people stealing into encampments to take what supplies had been gathered. As the Rebuilders got more organised, they began to protect themselves against these raids, so to compensate the small groups formed gangs, earning themselves the name Reavers, taken from the groups of raiders that had plundered the Anglo-Saxon lands hundreds of years before. Niki's mother had told her stories about a land far away in a different time, where the Anglo-Saxon farmers had hired warriors to cross the borders and chase the gangs of Reavers down, and hopefully returning the stolen cattle and crops. She also told of how the Rebuilders followed a similar course of action, seeking out the breed of person who would take the battle to the Reavers and burning the roots of the parasitic breed out. Niki had grown up listening to wonderful tales of the Hunters, the fearless predators that roamed the Wastelands, putting Reavers down and returning the much-needed goods to their rightful owners. Heroes with names like America's Captain, The Man of Iron, and her personal favourite Miss Marvel, a beautiful huntress who dealt her own form of justice all across the Wastelands.
For a long time Niki had thought Blondie was either Miss Marvel or, if not, someone who had fashioned themselves on her. That had been the beginning of her infatuation and eventual attraction. Giving a small moan, Niki pulled her knees upwards, attempting to quell the warmth that blossomed between her thighs. The small moan ran in to a longer one as her hands began to touch her body in the places where she wanted Blondie to touch her. As the moans grew quicker, Niki wondered if Blondie ever touched herself while thinking about her young apprentice.
The next morning dawned bright, the storm had blown itself out overnight. By the time Niki rose, her body still buzzing from her previous night's climax, the sunlight was seeping around the edges of the shutters allowing a little natural light in to the room. Smiling to herself over the secret pleasure she had gained, Niki rolled out of bed and pulled on the gown that had been her mother's, her own grown too small a long time ago, then peeked out of her bedroom door. The door to Blondie's room was closed as always, but the coffee Niki had left outside her room the night before had gone. A good sign Bea was up and about already. Niki hurried off to wash before dressing, her bare feet tiptoeing across the chilly, heavy-duty vinyl floor-covering. At least the previous night's rainfall would have replenished the water tanks so there would be plenty for a shower she mused as she shrugged her robe off and turned the tap, steeling herself against the deluge of cold water.