Sleepwalking Into Hell (Noxious Nightmare)

[Volume Virus]

My name used to be Kiyomi. I barely knew my last name; I was never in a conventional school and my mother never used it. She was the only family I had, other than my father, who I never remembered; he was rarely at home when I was really small, and later died in the Helium Wars. I was small when the wars started, barely school-aged. I learned how to count, read, and, most importantly, play all sorts of instruments, in a small bomb shelter in a place that is now part of Zone Four. Eventually, my mother and I felt secure enough to come to the surface. It was 2017, and I was 10.

My mother got a job working for Better Living Industries. I didn't instantly know that they were bad; in fact, I only learned that years later. However, I wasn't old enough to take the pills yet, so my mother was the only one who changed. As a child, I attributed it to happiness to be back on the surface. At least she wasn't having her headaches anymore. At least she wasn't staring at my father's old war jacket and crying. At least she was smiling. I lived like that for a year and a half.

Everything changed when a trio of people in weird, colorful costumes broke into our house and kidnapped us. I overheard that they followed my mom home from work at a distance. I was petrified. All I had seen for most of my life was people with white uniforms, but these ones were different; one even had blue hair. They assured us that they only wanted information, but, after a week or two, they hadn't even asked us anything. As a matter of fact, they were waiting for my mother to recover from happy pill withdrawl, which I just assumed was a crippling illness. They kept us fed and clean. When my mother couldn't give them the information they wanted, they didn't even really mind, at least not that I could see. One of them had taken a specific liking to me, and told me all about the terrible pills, the murderous Scarecrows, and the bald man in the black car. She introduced me to Dr. Death-Defying's radio station, and I gleaned all sorts of information about the other rebels.

After about a month in the hideout, my mother's co-workers came for us. They ended up getting into a firefight with all three of our hosts, killing each. They ended up killing my mother, too, thinking that she was one of them. I ran awxy from the carnage, scared out of my wits, and wandered the desert for a while. Eventually, I was picked up by another group of rebels. I live in their hideout now, fighting back against the company that killed the people that I cared about.

My new friend, Volume Virus, gave me a new name: Noxious Nightmare.

I hope to someday live up to that name and give BLI something to have nightmares about.