Story 1288: The Farm That Fed Flesh

They left the Vault shaken, silenced.

Even H-13, with all its emotionless logic, hesitated to process what they'd seen—echoes of humanity looping forever in glass prisons, minds screaming across decades without form. It wasn't a lab; it was a graveyard of thought.

The feral children waited in silence when they emerged. No questions. No cries. Just the same still, alert gaze. They knew.

“Where to now?” Shade asked, reloading a half-empty clip.

Axen, grim as ever, simply pointed northwest. “There’s one last route through the Deadlands. A forgotten place.”

They moved under twilight skies, where the ash fell like black snow. Eventually, a wide plain opened before them—brown, cracked soil riddled with irrigation pipes and mechanical scarecrows slumped like executed sentries.

The air reeked of iron and rot.

A shattered sign marked the entrance:

VIREX BIO-DIVISION 12

Agro-Regen Project: Phase Omega

"We Grow What You Are."