Better Than Expected

“Ahh, this is amazing,” Vera said, stretching her arms above her head while the guard stared at her like she had lost her mind. “My paradise.”

She started walking, and the farther she moved from the border line, the better she felt. Of course, no one in the galaxy with a working survival instinct would willingly step on this planet. Even the people who sent mentally collapsed citizens, beasts, criminals, and unwanted bloodlines here would never place their own polished boots on this ground.  

But if they did, if they stopped wrinkling their noses at the garbage long enough to feel the pulse under the dirt, they would understand this land was not dead at all. This sector healed. The air here was preserved, the soil was rich under all the waste, and with time, it could become much better than anything the galaxy imagined. 

Vera smiled again, though calling it a smile was not fully fair. She was grinning from ear to ear. Who would not? 

This place might have been called a garbage sector, but to her it looked a thousand times better than Earth during the apocalypse. Back in her past life, half the things dumped here would have been treasures. Broken machines could become tools. Old wires could become traps. Metal frames could become fences. Even the garbage had value if someone had enough sense to use it.

As she walked, Vera remembered that an ambush was supposed to happen soon. In the book, this was supposed to be one of those scenes where Vera panicked, cried, and barely survived because the written Vera had been a coward in every way the plot needed her to be. Of course she would be. That Vera had never lived through the end of the world. 

This Vera had a cheat code with her mental space, ten years of nonstop killing behind her, and enough ugly fighting experience to know exactly how fast a body could fall apart if you hit the right place. Her movements might not have the grace of trained warriors, and she did not fight with some polished noble stance, but Vera was not easy prey. 

When she read the book, none of the monsters in it had truly scared her because the story had cared more about romance than survival, and Earth had been full of creatures far worse than anything described on those pages. To Vera, this was not some terrifying trial. This was work.

She entered her mind space without stopping, moved past her organized shelves, and picked a huge machete from the weapons section. She was going to fight anyway. If a few bad guys died and made the place safer, why not?

Some practice was good, and if they had anything valuable on them, that would be even better. She needed money, help, information, and bodies strong enough to work. If she could save someone who would owe her for it, she would. 

She also knew vegetables grown on this land could potentially help with mental levels and pull people closer to themselves before madness swallowed them fully. That was another reason she had been so eager to come here. Honestly, the plan was beautiful in its own messy way. 

First, she would help the good ones, because loyal people were useful and she was not stupid enough to waste decent workers. Second, she would scare the bandits into becoming free labor, as long as they had enough brain left to understand that working for her was better than dying under her machete. Third, once she proved the land could grow food, heal minds, and make money, she would start a business so profitable the whole galaxy would choke on its own pride. Let them keep calling it garbage. Vera already saw gold under the dirt. 

With that, she walked toward the direction of the huge junk pile filled with broken appliances. That was where a group of garbage bandits was supposed to attack an elderly man and his grandson. The elderly man was some sort of chief here, and the book had mentioned him because he still had enough mind left to lead people after being sent here as punishment. That made him valuable. The bandits wanted him gone because the land under his control could give them power over everyone nearby. Vera wanted that land too, but in a more legal way. If she helped him, if he owed her, if she could get access without wasting time fighting every desperate person in this sector, then that was better than starting from nothing.

When she heard the scream, she moved.

The sound came from behind a leaning wall of twisted metal and broken machine shells. Vera rushed toward it as fast as her body allowed, the machete already in her hand, and when she saw the scene, she did not like it at all. 

The book had said there would be three attackers. There were ten. The boy, who had to be at least three hundred years old even if he looked younger by this planet’s rules, was standing in front of the old man with both arms out like his small body could block all of them. The old man was half-collapsed against a pile of scrap, his eyes turning red as his mental powers started to break harder under the stress. 

One of the attackers lifted a weapon toward the child, and Vera did not think. Her hand slipped into her mind space, grabbed the first dagger her fingers touched, and threw it with every bit of strength she had.

The blade flashed through the dirty air.

“Whoa,” Vera breathed.

She had expected it to hit. Maybe cut deep. Maybe make him drop the weapon. It did much more than that. The dagger sliced clean through the attacker’s arm with a wet, sharp sound. The severed limb spun once in the air, still gripping the weapon, then dropped into the dirt with a heavy thud. The weapon hit a second later, clanging against a piece of scrap metal before sliding near the boy’s feet.

The attacker screamed. It was not a normal scream either. It tore out of him raw and animal-like, full of shock before the pain even caught up. He staggered back, staring at the empty space where his arm had been, blood spraying over the dirt in quick, ugly bursts.

For one frozen second, no one moved. The boy stopped breathing. The old man’s red eyes widened. The other attackers slowly turned their heads toward Vera.

Vera looked at the dagger, then at the arm on the ground, then at her own hand. “Well,” she muttered, tightening her grip on the next blade. “That was better than expected.”

The attackers’ eyes were fully red, and Vera understood what that meant right away. Their mental powers had collapsed, and whatever was left inside them was running on instinct, hunger, and the last rotten thought their minds had held before breaking.

Collapsed powers did not create one clean result. Sometimes the power died completely and left the body empty. Sometimes it twisted. Sometimes it woke up wrong and dragged the person down with it. The last thought, the last obsession, the last need inside the mind became the only order left, repeating again and again until there was nothing human enough to question it.

These men had already chosen a criminal path before their minds broke. They had robbed, hunted, taken from weaker people, and survived by making others afraid. So when their powers collapsed, that was what stayed. 

Rob. Kill. Take. Survive. 

Their bodies remembered it. Their powers obeyed it. Their minds had just enough awareness left to move, attack, and follow the strongest command, but not enough left to stop.

Their powers had not died either. That made them worse. The abilities had awakened in a damaged way, broken but still strong, leaking through their bodies in sharp, unstable bursts. One had claws pushing through his fingers. Another had dark liquid gathering behind his teeth. Another’s bones shifted under his skin like the power was still trying to rebuild him and failing every second. They were dangerous enough to kill, but too far gone to reason with.

Vera had seen enough broken things wearing human faces to know the rule. You did not explain mercy to something that could no longer understand it. You ended it before it got close enough to tear someone apart.

She had seen similar things before, just under a different sky. In her old world, mutated humans with collapsed abilities were worse than zombies because zombies were honest. Zombies wanted flesh, followed noise, and died when the brain was destroyed.