The Salt stretched to every horizon, a white, cracking hell under a brass sun. Scabrous Scrotus ruled the wasteland with a fist of rusted iron, and his name was law. For a lone road warrior named Rictus, the law was simple: run, hide, or die bleeding in the sand.

And that was enough.

The words beneath read:

He woke to the roar of engines. War Boys. A dozen of them, their faces painted white, their lances tipped with explosives. Their leader, a monstrous brute with a jaw of scrap metal, screamed, “Half-life! Half-life!”

Then the shriek ended. The world re-rendered. The Salt was gone. In its place was a valley of impossible green. Trees. A river of actual, liquid water. The air smelled like life.

“Good,” he whispered, and cranked the ignition. It coughed. He cranked again. Almost alive.