Fishy made a path for himself among the crowd gathered on the esplanade, taking good advantage of his natural slimy body to slither more or less quickly between the rest of the Mutards present there. His bulgy eyes kept looking over and over again to the stage improvised with pallets and wooden boxes, where the mythical Prometheus would soon make an appearance. That was a really exciting moment, a once in a lifetime event for Fishy, who had crossed half the Wasteland putting his scales at risk to reach The Twins and feel finally at home.
Back at his one-horse town, lost in the middle of the radioactive nowhere desert that half the fucking world had been turned into, he could only aspire to a life of blows, spits, insults and maybe a slow and painful dead turning in the spit over the campfire of some cannibal bastard. “Fishmongrel” was the nicest nickname his neighbors had gave him, due to the iridescent scales that covered his body, his bulging eyes and the guts open on both sides of his neck. Maybe being capable of breathing underwater was cool as hell or really useful on the other corner of the world, but in that thrice-goddamn desert, where you had to walk for miles to find a contaminated pool of still and stinky water where you had no intention of even dipping a finger in it, was a rather useless ability. And if someone in his settlement ever found out that he used to dive in the clean water well they had in the middle of their square, he would be turned into breaded fillets quicker than he could say “Holy shit”. It was really a huge relief that he could also breathe air, just like everybody else.
So the day came for him to split. In the company of other mutards or travelling alone, he got away as much as he could from his birthplace and started listening to the first stories about Prometheus and the legendary haven where all his kind would be welcomed. It took a while for him to find the place, as every story was different from the rest and described it in a different place, but after spending a couple of days in the back alleys of Scrapbridge he was able to pinpoint quite precisely the location of the dreamed Twins. The sight of the old nuclear power plant’s cooling towers, after his personal desert crossing, was one of the biggest joys he had ever had in his life. Until soon after his arrival, he was told that Prometheus himself would give a speech in a few days. He could not believe that… he was going to finally see the Messiah in person!
Dodging
tentacles, tunics under which were hidden deformities too gruesome even for other mutards to see, claws, tails and pools of various secretions, he could at last reach the front rows of that huge gathering of bodies. There he would be able to see the show quite well, because his small size didn’t allow him to peer over the shoulders of the rest of beings. That was the reason he was nicknamed Fishy as soon as he got to The Twins, but not due to his bad smell (he was very proud of his personal hygiene), but for his small size, and contrary to any other alias he had ever had in his life, took that one with pleasure. Withstanding the pushes and pokes of the others around him, the energy and synergy of the crowd told him that something was about to happen. It could be felt in the air, almost physically, as if an electric current was roaming through the crow creating a wave of whispers, squawks, croaks, mumbles and moos. After trying without any success to locate the source of the moo looking over his shoulder, Fishy turned his head again to the scenario right in time to see an imposing figure stepping on it from the other side.
He gasped several times, full of excitement, his guts rattling wildly like shutters in the middle of a sandstorm, and his already bulging eyes seemed to get out completely from his herring head. Nothing had prepared him for that presence, no story could ever do justice to Prometheus’ appearance, no tale he heard on his way to The Twins could depict even remotely the magnetism, charisma, serenity and… majesty which emanated from the man that stood as a statue on the stage. He was tall, muscular, with broad shoulders and the looks of having been chiseled in stone, but his skin possessed a gleaming texture, bright, as it really glowed with an own, soft inner light. His face was harsh, terse, but even so it also was calm, serene, with the ability to transmit at the same time calmness and the menace of imminent violence. No trace of body hair, perfectly shaved skull and clenched jaw. His fists as rocks were also clenched on both sides of his body, thighs and powerful legs standing firmly on the ground, immovable, a colossus capable of withstanding any threat, enemy or force launched against him or his kin. And then his leader, his… father finally spoke.
Fishy was overwhelmed by an utter feeling of devotion, respect and absolute calmness. Prometheus’ voice was a salve that extended through every fiber of his skinny body, with the promise that everything was going to be all right, that they would together walk towards a better tomorrow, that his life of misery and exclusion was over once and for all. His eyes rolled like wheels in his sockets, and he barely saw that all the mutards around him were equally immersed in a similar trance-like state of utterly rapture. Without being able to contain himself, Fishy opened his mouth and shouted to the top of his lungs “Prometheus!!” again and again. “Prometheus!!”, shouted someone by his side. “Prometheus, Prometheus!!”, chanted the crowd behind him. Like a stone thrown into a pond, his spontaneous cry spread in waves across the gathered multitude. Arms, fists, tails and horns were raised, machetes, clubs and pipes were wielded, while the word was roared, shouted, croaked and ¿mooed? through hundreds, thousands of throats.
PROMETHEUS!!