I stood looking at the old man, his face trembling as those beady eyes darted across the sky. I held him fast as his struggles suddenly stopped. I had chased him from the slaughter I had found in those ruins, the only living person amongst the carnage that I had just seen. An entire building razed, doors and windows smashed and the inhabitants torn apart as they huddled in corners, doubtlessly in utter terror. I had found the ragged, tortured soul among the visceral scene, clutching the dismembered torso of a young child. When he saw me he made to flee, obviously amidst delirium and shock from his experience. He stumbled out into the desert, kicking sand and shouting incoherently in his attempt to get away. The moment I caught up to him he went catatonic, and thus here we stood. His eyes watered, glazed from maddened vigilance as I tried to shake him out of his condition.

"What happened, old man? What did you see?!" I inquired. I had to know what had caused that carnage, that utter savagery that had left that makeshift colony a lifeless wreck. The presence of Deathclaws or a particularly sadistic band of raiders would be of most concern to the nearby settlements, but there were none of the telltale signs.

His eyes continued to scan the horizon, straight into the setting sun. Vast moments after I asked, seconds seeming drawn out and stretched to his fevered mind, he looked up to me and with soul-raking seriousness muttered in a dry croak back to me, "Demons."

"What do you mean "demons"? What killed all those people?"

He looked at me, eyes flitting to the setting sun as it drifted below the horizon before coming back to my face, the madness in his mind becoming evident. "You'll see."

Skreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

I looked back to the ruins of that city from which we had fled. Fevered clicks and shrieks echoing into the night. Howls of hunger and the sound of displaced air. From the ancient hulls kept intact from after the war came something ever-so-adequate to the infernal description of the recently-fashioned hermit as I looked on, my heart skipping beats as I watched the remaining light of fading day blotted out with monstrous wings.

Bats... They were bats...

Spam away.

I am so breath-taking-ly happy about what I just read in this fan fiction! The picture this writing gives, come without the need of 1,000 words. The paradox kicks in when I realize the picture itself is not just more than 1,000 words, but so eye poppingly intrusive in my own dimension, that it literally speaks for itself. Which is odd, as the origin of "literally", might be related to the origin of "literature" and fan-fiction is literature! All in all (that actually makes sense (wait a minute, pictures are related to the visual sense: sight! (lol, and i couldn't help but not to leave out that homophone for sight is site, and you posted your fan fiction on a website!!), this fan fiction will best be known for the SKREEEEEE . I really felt it man (or woman?), I think that skreee was so enlightening that it almost had to be delivered by the SKREEE (screaching) that old tv's with the white noise would make on channels that weren't watchable.

WOW! I had a hell of a time trying to follow that, but I agree. Good start.

The bats were a good idea. I was thinking of including mutant bats in my own fan-fiction. There were supposed to be giant bats in the cancelled Black Isle version of Fallout 3. It's a shame they weren't carried over to the Bethesda titles. We go into caves and tunnels often enough.