by Lex Chamberlin

I braced my bruised spine against the cool metal of the payment room’s wall as the fiend’s punches barreled into my gut.

These were not my proudest moments, the ones I spent here, feeding the creatures who controlled this trade. The same ones who made the trade necessary. Another hit, and I grimaced at all the good my protective corset was doing—the guttural grunts from the blows passed my lips thick and green, the chamber’s concentrated extractive gasses facilitating the transformation of my pain into something they could use. The beast who wasn’t performing the procedure trapped it, bottled it. Added it to their suitcase for easy transport.

I left with six cannisters of product weighing down my satchel and at least one broken rib.

My name is Cherry, and they still haven’t traced my work.

If you want a chance to hit back, I can help.

I’m nothing if not selfless.

Rusted hinges screeched in protest as I pulled the hatch closed above my head, the resultant clang triggering a long peal of tinnitus as I descended the ladder into my bunker for the night. I poured the won containers from my bag onto the first of the series of four steel tables that took up half my living space, but before I stashed them away, I inspected my prizes for quality. They were good: the delicate spun-sugar look of the ore blocks remained intact in each, their faintly pink glow confirming their unspent nature.

In the morning — or maybe the next, I thought, wincing as I palpated my thorax — it’d be time to prep. Build. But not tonight.

I stripped off my corset, now snapped in three places, and peeled away my sweaty dress layers. No broken skin — that was more than I’d dared hope for. But swaths of dark color were already blooming over my bottom ribs, the swelling too nauseating to linger over. I climbed with clenched teeth into the sanitization stall and let it run the long cycle, eight full minutes. Then I wrapped my torso, ate a fistful of savory meal pellets, and passed out.

The year I turned eighteen, like anyone, I’d known things would change. Get harder in some ways, more confusing in others. But the emergence of the Ravenous had not quite been on my bingo card, diploma in hand. Nor had the horde’s unequivocal victory over us.

For most who made it through that initial bloodbath, the horrors did simmer down again in the establishment of our new routines. We’d had to retreat to underground hovels to survive, else risk the ripping of green mists of agony from our bodies with each venture to the surface, relinquish our homes — but we were alive. We had steady rations. Some people, out of their minds, went on to have families.

But despite all the grace and fortune and mercy of survival, I was still pretty upset.

Pretty understandably upset, in my opinion.

The strawberries had to be constructed with the utmost delicacy.

The containers I chose were palm-sized triangles, a thin glass front and back with solid metal framing the sides. Within, a divider was carefully caulked into place to separate the volatile ore on one side and the catalyst, an activating acid, on the other. The pin on top pulled out a sliver of material to start the reaction, with the resultant explosion capable of leveling a city block.

The third table was where I really brought together the aesthetic. The first held the raw materials, the second the assembly station, and the last the heap of finished products. But the third made me feel like a real artist again, like I was back in school, anticipating a life now worse than impossible. Second only to watching their destruction sown, nothing soothed me more than painting those tiny seeds over the priming coat of red, turning the pin into a delicate green stem, wrapping each precious fruit in its own gauzy little pouch.

It was hardly a risk-free operation — the tiniest fumble threatened to blow me to bits — but neither was being alive in a region under total Ravenous control.

A week later, nearly a full month from the first encoded request, the deal was made by torchlight in the sewers, wrinkled noses the least of anyone’s concerns. We were safe enough where we met, but it still took a moonless night and generous gaps in the patrols to get here. It’d take the same to get back.

The buyers were young, but they had that hard look. I recognized people who didn’t plan to throw far. Some one-time patrons had a certain unhinged gleam in their eye, an enthusiasm that betrayed their faith — in their minds, they were rushing toward a reunion. But I could see this pair had no such delusions, deep in their hooded cloaks. Whoever, whatever they’d lost, the only thing left was vengeance.

I wished them luck.

My ribs were almost healed night-of as I made my cloaked way past the roving creatures looking for a late-night snack, the emerald of someone’s misery already on half their lips. Remnants of a skyscraper on what used to be Baker Street were my go-to for detonations on the east side. The debris-strewn steps were treacherous in the limited light, but I wasn’t fool enough to carry a lantern. When I got to the right floor, I weaved in a practiced route past the ruined cubicles, up to the breeze flowing through the shattered floor-to-ceiling windows. I grabbed my usual chair.

The view was already well marked by my work, and the work mine existed to avenge. Half the city was cratered, the other half crumbling, all eerily lit by that pinkish glow of Ravenous tech. But in a way no other circumstance could evoke anymore, I felt full and bright glaring out then, justice loud in my chest. My nails dug into decaying armrests as the promised minute approached. My breaths quickened in anticipation, flashes of past versions of the occasion swimming in my head, a swelling of pride and impatience and dread —

And then my gifts took another beautiful bite from the home we couldn’t save.

My name is Cherry, and I know that we can’t win.

That doesn’t mean we can’t make them hurt.

There’s nothing else left that I want.

Lex Chamberlin (they/she) is a nonbinary and autistic writer of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror. They hold a master’s degree in book publishing and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy, and they reside in the Pacific Northwest with their husband and quadrupedal heirs. Find them online at lexchamberlin.com.