This is the first of what I hope to be a series of concept pieces for a Fallout game set in the deep south, maybe Louisiana, Mississippi, etc. The 'Holy Southern Republic' as referenced on the banner on the cross is what I imagine could be a Christian evangelist/protestant theocracy that has taken over a great deal of The Bible Belt by 2287. NOT AI, THIS IS A 3D RENDER
The snake pictured is the Ultracite Terror from Fallout 76 gotten here
hhehehe!!
Have a piece I finally did in it's full glory! This was originally an old sketch from a couple years ago, that I finally put in the time to fully render it.
Warning(s): Supernatural elements, horror elements, mentioned gore, death/ghosts, bad language/swearing.
A/N(s): Labelling this a concept piece because it’s not that refined imo; I got violently struck by the need to write it after randomly thinking of the idea at work. Doubt I’ll expand on it, but still interesting to write. And yes, I’m fully aware I’ve missed Halloween but– shh, who am I to question when inspiration strikes?
-/-/-
“Holy shit…”
It wasn’t anything new. Really, you shouldn’t be surprised; not with all you’ve heard about them. Not with the things you’ve seen…
But it’s the volume that catches your breath, makes shaky words tumble loose in a wispy exhale despite your aim for covertness.
You shouldn’t be here. Perched precariously across a high branch, you never should have come here. You can’t even remember why you’d decided on such recklessness in the first place, far removed from your typical cautious nature.
It was likely curiosity, the damned thing. What with this local war, once a whispered rumour with the tension brewing in the county, now in full swing.
You were unaligned, vehemently against the needless bloodshed on both sides. Had seen too much death in the calm of a spring evening to ever want to see it in the wrath of an actual war.
Without your camera, an old heirloom passed down to those with your ‘talents’ in the family, you could only catch glimpses. The unnatural glint of luna’s light in the corner of your eye, reflecting off the impression of a form that isn’t there in your periphery.
With the camera however… Well, fact is oftentimes stranger than fiction and seeing the evidence of some of the ways people have died is…
It was terrifying as a child; it’s still terrifying as a young adult.
God, you’ve always wanted to throw this fucking camera away. Put your foot to it so you would never have to see the horrors that lurk behind its lens again. Save any future members of your bloodline from the trauma it will surely lash upon them.
But you can’t.
It’s like a compulsion; morbid curiosity in full unrelenting force. You can’t bring yourself to destroy it. The not knowing, the paranoia should you ever lose – even just misplace it keeps it close.
Hardly a comfort, but always better the devil you know.
And you would always rather know than not when they are looking at you.
But this… this is unprecedented.
They’re not looking at you – fuck, thank god – but they are looking at him; at them.
Fucking hell, there’s so many…
It’s sickening. Seeing one is bad enough, having one follow you is worse, but this… this man has a whole fucking army of ghosts around him. All surrounding him, all circled close along with the living but still maintaining a certain respectable distance from him.
Are they all his followers, devoted in death as they were in life? Or have some inadvertently latched on to him, tethered themselves to him from the fear or rage he caused them in their final moments? It’s hard to tell. The toils and muck of conflict stains them all, makes them indistinguishable from one another.
You suppose death never has been a biassed prick.
The sight is beyond unsettling all the same, though.
Can he feel them? You know you can, if they get close to you. Still not figured out if they can hurt you though; never given them the chance, never been brave enough to try. Only ever turned tail or shot them with your camera in a reactive bid to startle them away. Sometimes they come back, other times they don’t. Sometimes they appear to want to show you something, other times… other times you don’t know.
You don’t exactly care to look at them long enough to find out.
Thankfully, depending on who you were to ask, he doesn’t seem to notice them. None of them do. Not even the girl, their appointed sister, despite how much exposure to that fucked up Bliss stuff she’s apparently had.
You’ve heard it causes hallucinations, makes people see things; you sometimes wonder at how much of what they see is really there or not.
They all have ghosts, you notice though. More so the preacher, Joseph if you remember rightly. But the other two men – his brothers, have a few of their own too. Barely a handful each, but…
You shiver, breath a whispered gasp as you see the way they stare. There’s no emotion in a ghost's face, completely blank and expressionless save for whatever injuries or lacerations may scar them. Even their eyes are blank, void of any thought or feeling, never no different than the eyes of a dead fish; but the intensity… that is something else. That is something felt.
And if they could… well, you’re sure they’d be glaring something fierce.
Did they kill them? It’s an awful thought, but with what you’ve heard it wouldn’t be far beyond the realm of possibility. The Seeds have always had blood on their hands, as goes the local gossip. And with how fixated the two and one ghosts are on the other two brothers respectively…
There’s history there, at the least. Enough history that you don’t think they’d ever leave.
Grudge worthy history.
God, how do they sleep at night from such a look? From such a silent and inexpressible rage? It’s beyond you.
… You really should leave.
This is dangerous. The full weight of the situation you’ve found yourself in starting to drag you down. Chewing at your already fraying nerves. It’s not even like you could take a picture to hand over to the resistance as a peace offering of sorts, in exchange for your continued uninvolvement. The flash would go off; the outcome would be your worst case scenario.
Slowly, so slowly you start to move. The ramblings of the zealous preacher falling further into the background as you attempt to manoeuvre from your, admittedly awkward position across the branch.
You don’t think too much of the chill from the night air. A glance towards Joseph and his entourage is enough proof that the ghosts haven’t moved from their docile positions, dead eyes still fixed on the preacher. You breathe a sigh of relief and continue to carefully raise yourself into a sitting position, making sure to keep as much of yourself as close together and hidden as possible under the leaves and cover of night.
It wouldn’t do for anyone to see you swinging about like some damsel in distress because you lost your balance.
In a cruel moment of irony, you stretch your leg back to start shimmying to the trunk of the tree, fully intending to make your way down and skedaddle away, when your foot suddenly slips from its hook on the branch too quickly. Body tipping dangerously to one side, frantically wrapping your arms around it, camera scuffing against the sturdy wood as you pin it harshly between your chest and the branch.
Thankfully, the flash doesn’t go off.
Taking a gasping breath, your eyes skittishly dart from person to person, hoping beyond all else that no one heard your – almost – fall. When no one seems to bat an eye you sigh, slumping with the weight of it to further cage your camera against you; forehead colliding a little harsher than intended into the bark.
That was too close.
With another quieter sigh you start to rise again, adamant to get away as quickly and stealthily as possible; not wanting to test your luck any further tonight.
But then you see it.
A glimmer, an unnatural glint of silver in your periphery.
You freeze.
Breath catching in your chest, fear an icy tendril sliding down your back you stare wide eyed at nothing; eyes becoming unfocused in a vain attempt to better see what is typically hidden. To attempt to follow the things you normally can’t.
It’s a silly attempt. Worthless really, but still you make it. No different to chasing those squiggly things in your eyes.
Cautiously you slide your camera out from under you. Turning to look over the edge to the ground below, vision spinning at the sudden acknowledgment of just how high up you are. You close your eyes hard for a few seconds, take a deep breath, and raise your camera…
It’s there. Almost right underneath you.
Dead eyes staring up at you, empty and expressionless.
You don’t move. Snared in the trap that these weird moments of looking at something that shouldn’t be, that isn’t there for most people, lock you into. Almost like an invincible ledge that you don’t know the limits of, nor the depth of the fall that awaits you should you get too close.
They are a follower of Joseph’s, though. You can easily make out the mark of the cult on their shredded jumper. Can see the inked branding of a sin on the inside of their arm. You think there might be hints of another one on their face, but… if there was one it’s gone now. Missing with the entirety of their right cheek; muscle and tendon and teeth exposed, part of their tongue…
They don’t gurgle though. Or choke. Or do anything really to show off their grisly wound. Not like the way they do in the movies or on television shows. There’s no fanfare here. They’re already dead, they have no need to sputter and uselessly swallow. They’re just an apparition. A scary one, a harmless one, but an apparition all the same.
Or at least, you try to tell yourself that.
With the sting of salt in your eyes you watch in distress as the ghost raises its arm, loosely outstretched toward you. Burnt and blood coated fingers pried apart into a lethargic open grab, a claw ready to steal you from your haven.
Oh, you’re so fucked…
It’s blocking your only way down. The only good thing is that ghosts can’t climb, but one of many pieces of bad news is that it's standing guard, waiting for you to eventually leave the safety of the tree. Sadly you don’t have the luxury of staying in one place forever, unlike the dead do.
The only thing you can think to do is to jump, but that’d be stupid– even for you. If you fall wrong you're done for. Staying up here might not be ideal, but at least you're not down there with it; incapacitated to boot if you were to be foolish enough to take the risk and end up hurting yourself.
… But you need to leave.
You’re becoming too lost in your fear, can feel your finger hovering over the shutter button, the urge to press down and drive the thing away growing the higher your panic rises. The need to flee itches at you, makes you twitch the longer it stares blankly up at you through the camera. Arm raised and painfully still.
What the fuck does it want?!
Before you catch yourself your mouth is already opening, a hushed ‘go away’ on the tip of your tongue–
And then there’s a shout, a raucous rally and the sporadic spritz of gunfire.
You jump, muscles flinching violently as you move to look too quickly, arm slipping out from under you–
Hands reflectively grabbing your camera tightly to hold onto and protect–
The impression of a button under your finger–
The flash goes off.
“Ahh–!”
You’re blinded, vision seared white as you're shot near point blank, flail in your shock and feel yourself slip from the branch, scrambling too late to save yourself before the blurry world is tumbling by too quickly–
A crack of pain has you scream out.
The ground a harsh greeting as you warble a pained cry, breath a wheezing cough as you weakly roll from your back to your side.
Fuck, you think you caught your shoulder…
The world is still a blurry mess of afterimages and lights, tears threatening to fall at the pain ricocheting through you, but you don’t have a chance to try and work yourself through it all before you're being mercilessly yanked to your feet. Rough hands grabbing and clawing as you are thrown into the roaring crowd.
“G-get the fuck off me! Let me go!” Your demands are far weaker and shakier than you want them to be as you're dragged along, shoved into one person only to collide and be pulled by another, the jeering exclamations and threats of the cult loud and ringing in your ears before you’re aggressively tossed to the ground.
You barely stop your face from hitting the ground, knees and forearms taking the brunt of the assault as your head instead knocks into your shielding arms before resting there as you curl into yourself. Make yourself as small and un-intimidating as possible in the eyes of the dead and living both.
Although, you’re far more concerned about the latter…
Choking at the harsh dig of your hoodie into your jugular, you're yanked by your hood back and onto your knees. Fingers clawing at the pressure around your throat as you're made to look up into the piercing eyes of the cult’s leader: the elusive Joseph Seed.
Freezing, you barely pay any mind to how he lightly raises his hand, a hush falling over everyone at the placating gesture as the choking grip on your hood is slackened into a controlled grip; a warning hold.
… You’re so going to die here.
The realisation has you gasping on a shuddery breath, tears gathered from your painful fall now weeping down your cheeks at the physical and mental strain of it all. The emotional turmoil of being so viciously confronted with the sudden fragility of your existence.
There’s no mercy here, you realise. No conceivable way to weasel yourself out of this now that you’ve been captured. Any excuse you can think up, any plea your brain desperately provides turns to ash in your mouth. There’s no way out of this…
He’s going to kill you…
You’re going to become one of them…
Glimpsing the flickers of light snagging on their ethereal forms you try not to actively look and search them out. The cold is far more prevalent when surrounded by them all, all no doubt watching you now that Joseph’s ramblings have come to a close at your impromptu arrival.
You try not to shiver though, try not to draw attention to the fact that you’re trying to look for something that isn't there. You’re sure you fail though, if the way Joseph slowly tilts his head is any indication. Natural eye colour tinted differently with the defence of his sickly yellow glasses between you.
Effortlessly, the older man kneels in front of you. Keenly observing you as you sniffle and barely hold back a shiver, breathe a contained gasp at how close he suddenly is. You try to retreat, to back away from him but you can’t; his hands quickly yet gently take your face into his grasp, holding you steady in his subtle inspection of you.
He calls you a child, tone patronising yet insufferably endearing as if you know no better. Looming over you as he admonishes you with all the righteous authority of a concerned father. Falls into a terrifying inflection of faux-sympathy as his thumbs brush absent circles into your damp cheeks, passes too close to your vulnerable eyes to be anything less than an unspoken threat; an intimidating yet wordless demand for your compliance.
You merely stare wide eyed at him, listen halfheartedly to his fraudulent platitudes and serpentine reassurances. Addressing all present, not just yourself as the object of his unwavering stare. Manufacturing a humble spectacle as he makes voiced inquiries he has no intention of letting you answer, drawing assumptions that rile up the onlookers into a thunderous rapture as much as it eases them from the edge of action.
Completely controlled and controlling.
An arrogance thinly veiled, a power freely wielded and openly demonstrated.
He is dangerous, beyond reason and comprehension. The devil is a sweet talker, and Joseph’s tongue is an enticing silver snare for the unguarded; words an enchanting will-o-wisp preying on the gloom of a despondent soul.
It’s little wonder he has risen to such notoriety.
Then his eyes drop, his voice stills, and his smile fades.
A pause. Lengthy and considering; lined with a tenuous, yet undefinable tension.
Watched by all around with bated breath, your interaction a show upon this most undesired stage, the hum of your joint audience a silent wonder and murmured question.
… What is he–?
Before you can follow the thought, he reaches for you.
He takes your camera.
“No, wait– let go of me!”
In the midst of your renewed struggle, panicked and desperate as he frees you from the metaphorical shackle of your camera and its strap around your neck, you keep your wary sight trained on Joseph. Watch in morbid interest in case he sees something, that he’ll be scarred by whatever it is he finds on the other side, letting you go free from the fear that will no doubt begin to plague him at such a blasphemous view.
Though you also fearfully hope he doesn’t break it…
He carefully turns your camera to and fro, expression contemplative as his fingers brush over the vintage wood. Tracing the elegant silver vines and delicate spirals inlayed into its frame.
He looks to you, peers at you over the frame of his garish glasses in a manner too much like the ghosts that watch you both.
You can’t keep the contact, too quick to look away and stare wantonly at your camera instead. Casting nervous glances to the flickers of unnatural light in the corners of your vision; afterimages quick to dodge your direct line of sight.
Joseph raises the camera; looks it over one last time, before finally looking through the viewfinder.
You hold your breath, struggles ceasing a second after at the morbid wonder that has taken hold. He doesn’t jolt or flinch or give any indication that he sees anything, simply looks through it. Seamlessly turning to point the camera at the many people around him, to turn it on his own brothers and sister; to turn it on you.
You flinch violently at having the dark lens of your camera pointed at you; the abysmal eye of death’s observer trained intently on your trembling form. Your terrified and living visage reflected in the black pitch of its glass.
Click—
There’s a flash, blinding and sudden and you yelp at the revitalised burn of your eyes, held tightly closed as you attempt to blink away the afterimage seared into your poor eyes: the ominous face of your camera staring back at you, a mask upon the devil before you.
Hesitantly your eyes flutter open, ears picking up at the laborious whir of your old camera as it develops the film.
Joseph is disinterested in you, focused purely on the picture slowly drooling from the film ejector.
He takes it gently, briefly shaking it to help develop the picture quicker. Once he’s satisfied, he stares. Shaded eyes glossing over the captured details of your person.
Green tinted eyes slowly crawl from the picture to its living counterpart. Watching you from his towering advantage as you shrink further under his blank yet intense gaze. So much like them, so much like them…
Illustrated this with the concept of the Chinese saying 莲花出淤泥而不染. That despite growing out of silty waters, the lotus blooms untainted and free of corruption.
I've made a day time and night time version of the Illustration as I think they both tell their own stories.
