It started with laughter — light, thin, completely wrong for the place.
The Raiders’ base was never silent, but this sound didn’t belong to it. Too soft. Too human.
Zodyl heard it before anyone else did. He was sorting through reports when the echo reached him — a brief giggle bouncing off the corridor walls, followed by a hushed voice trying to shush it.
He didn’t speak. Didn’t move for a few seconds. Then, he stood.
The walk through the lower halls was quiet; the Raiders nearby straightened instinctively, parting like smoke. He didn’t have to ask where it came from — he could feel it.
The anomaly.
At the end of the corridor, one of his ‘worker’ froze mid-step — a raider, eyes wide, hands raised halfway in defense. Behind them, a small figure stood half-hidden behind a rusted crate.
A child. No older than six. Covered in grime, eyes too bright for this place.
you stammered,
“Boss, I— they must’ve followed me back from the lower district, I didn’t notice—”
Zodyl’s gaze flicked once between them and the child. No change in expression, no visible irritation. Just quiet calculation.
The child was shaking — not from fear, but cold. Their clothes were torn, soaked from the storm above.
“Name?” Zodyl asked.
you blinked. “Mine or—”
“The child’s.”
“N-no idea, sir.”
Zodyl stepped forward. The child took one step back. His boots clicked once against the metal floor before he stopped just close enough to see their face clearly — thin cheeks, hollow eyes, but still defiant in a way only a child could be.
“You shouldn’t have come here,”
he said evenly. The child didn’t reply. Just stared back at him, clutching something in their hands — a broken Raider emblem, probably dropped earlier.
Behind Zodyl, Jabber spoke up with that smug grin on his face,
“Should I… take care of it?”
Zodyl didn’t answer right away. The silence stretched, thick and suffocating. Then —
“No.”
He knelt, meeting the child’s eye level.
“You followed them because you wanted food?”
The child hesitated, then nodded slowly. Zodyl’s jaw twitched — the faintest sign of thought. He reached into his coat, took out a ration pack, and set it on the floor between them.
“You’ll eat this,” he said “Then you’ll leave.”
your confusion broke through his fear.
“Boss, that’s—”
Zodyl’s gaze slid toward you — calm, sharp, final.
“The child leaves. You don’t bring anyone back again.”
The man went silent. The child reached for the ration, hands trembling. Zodyl stood, turning away. His voice dropped, quieter, almost to himself:
“There’s no place for innocence here. Not even by mistake.”
As he walked back through the corridor, the faint rustle of the child’s wrapper followed behind him — small, fragile, temporary. He didn’t look back. But later, when he returned to his quarters, there was one less ration on the shelf — and one unfamiliar piece of scrap metal sitting on his desk, shaped like a crude bird.
2 days passed since that happened. And the child is still with you, what’ll you do? Hide the kid? Or just take care of them?