Four Days Remain Until The End
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Four Days Remain Until The End ~ ~
Lionel grumbled loudly as he climbed out of bed, his eyes still closed as he stumbled to the shower, his fluffy husky tail hanging limply and disheveled from sleep as he switched on the bathroom light and cursed as the light stung his eyes. He looked bleary-eyed into the mirror. A very tired brown-furred husky stared back, a little too many pounds and far too little muscle on him from years of neglect in his lifestyle. His desk jockey job was wearing on him and he saw those damn rubber stamps in his dreams.
But for now, they paid his bills. He threw the cheap two-tone shower curtain to the side of his tub and turned on the warm water, playing with the cool stream of water until he adjusted it just to his liking and stepped in to wash the smell of sweat from his fur and the sleep from his eyes.
~ ~ Four Days Remain Until The End ~ ~
Lionel rubbed his headfur absently as he drifted aimlessly in his car from lane to lane through traffic on his way to work. At least everyone today seemed to know how to drive. He wasn't in any particular hurry, and had about an extra half hour before he had to arrive. He looked at his silver watch with the carbon-fiber face. It was too expensive and he never really cared for it, but it was a status symbol, and he had seen enough of how you dressed at his office determined how far you got with his company. He looked at his cell phone's face to get the time as he pulled into a gas station parking lot to get some snacks. The husky shut off his engine and pulled the keys out of his ignition. The silence in his car was intoxicating and his body screamed for more sleep. The husky simply disregarded his body's wants and adjusted his suit and tie as he stepped out of his car into the parking lot. The sounds of passing cars and distant sirens echoed across the pavement as he began to walk inside, his eyes fixed on the ground as he blinked hard. His eyes strained from the sunlight of an earlier morning than he would have normally liked.
Suddenly he stopped dead in his tracks. The soundscape had changed drastically. The sounds of slowly passing cars turned to screeching brakes and crunching metal. The voices of hundreds of people began to join the din and the sirens became tenfold. He looked up and back to the street, his brow furrowing in curiosity as he saw almost every car either mounting the curb and smashing to a halt or careening into parking lots as hundreds of people flocked into the streets away from their cars. Their eyes fixed to the skies above. Lionel looked up as well, his paws in his pants pockets, but almost falling onto his ass in surprise.
There, almost directly above, the clear blue sky had spawned a small blood-red blotch, probably no larger than the midday sun. The small circle of red began to spread before his very eyes, growing thin tendrils that slowly flowed away from its center, eating up the blue sky above at an almost maddeningly slow pace. He looked down in his peripheral vision, to find most furs who had stopped suddenly were now surveying their cars for damage, others talking to each other and pointing up at the sky and a few checking their cell phones or taking pictures of the phenomenon. Lionel began to walk inside the convenience store, turning his head back up to the sky occasionally, but not seeing any substantial change in the new celestial body. He could not tell if it was translucent or an actual object in the sky, and his heart began to beat a little faster as fear of the unknown began to sweep him. He almost bumped into someone exiting the shop carrying a medium brown paper sack in their arms with some small groceries and bottles just slightly missing being dumped onto the run-down face of the parking lot. He muttered an almost illegible apology as he stepped inside, his eyes finally returning to earth.
"Do you see what's going on out there?" He asked no one in particular, but then found the counter to be empty of attendees.
He looked around in confusion before he saw a door open nearby, the two gas station attendants watching a news report, their eyes glued on the small 12 inch screen and nothing else. He quickly made his way in their direction, finding both a short brown female bobcat and tall lanky male lizard with a very dry skin problem standing around the TV. The bobcat turned her head to acknowledge Lionel before locking back on the screen. The husky stepped closer until he was able to peer in and see the screen.
"What's going on?" He asked, very slowly moving his head inward until he just saw the edge of the screen so as not to startle the two watching.
They turned their heads and the lizard quickly adjusted the screen at an angle so Lionel could see it from the doorway of what appeared to be a supply backroom and the bobcat turned up the volume quite a bit.
"...now we have no official word on what this is, but apparently they are being seen all over the nation. They appear to be interspersed at approximately 100 mile wide intervals from the very early information we have now, but don't seem to be in any sort of real pattern. We have just received word that our overseas affiliates are also seeing these red spots in the sky, and some have already expanded to huge proportions. We don't know yet how far up these spots are, but we have sent our news helicopter up as high as we could and while the spot appears slightly larger from the air, it still seems incredibly far off from there. Do we...hey do we have any footage from the helicopter yet? No? Ok, so viewers it looks like we will have to wait for the footage from the helicopter a while longer, as it's being loaded from the camera now into the station."
Lionel checked his phone. Five missed calls. Sliding his pawtip around the face he found his mother and father had called, a few friends and especially work. He turned off the screen and shoved the piece of distracting technology into his coat pocket. It would have to wait. The husky turned his head back to the screen and bit a clawtip as he watched.
"...is sending pictures of the phenomenon showing the spots above several areas of Great Britain, Germany, Spain, Italy...just to name a few. Their spots seem slightly smaller than those here in the United States we have witnessed and at this time, we are still not sure of their origin. If you're just joining us, we have been receiving hundreds, if not thousands of reports of strange, reddish, almost strikingly-red spots in the sky. We don't know at this time what they are or when they first appeared or what they mean. The only thing we know right now is that they do not seem to pose a threat at this time and there have been no reports of anything negative to health or well-being happening in relation to the appearance of these spots. We have images of the spots coming through now, can we put those up? Can we put thos-ok there they are. This video was taken by a CNN news helicopter just moments ago, and as you can see in the image, the spot appears to be opaque, as you cannot see the blue sky behind it, but instead around it. There also seem to be what looks like tentacles slowly moving from several areas of the spot in a random burst pattern outward. These are also opaque as well. From what we have been able to gather, this is not a local phenomenon as we are receiving reports from all over the world, with the only exception being Japan and other countries where night has already come. We are getting scattered reports from these areas, especially those in large cities that the spots are still there, but barely visible due to the glare from the night city lights. Again if you're just joining us..."
Lionel pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed his parents first, walking from the store and to his car and beginning the drive home. No way was he working on a frightening day like this.
~ ~ Three Days Remain Until The End ~ ~
Lionel awoke at the crack of dawn and almost bolted out of bed. He tossed on a pair of jeans he had left laying on the floor and almost ripped his front door off its hinges and looked up. The spot had grown to well over the size of perhaps a third of the sky. The blood-red spot blotted out the leftover early morning stars as the sun began to peek over the mountain ridge to the east, its rays almost blinding the husky causing him to wince and hold his paw up to shield himself as he stared up. The red tendrils continued to reach out from the center, wide as jet vapor trails and meandering all over the air at a maddeningly slow pace, their paths looking more like a living thing than pollution as many had speculated.
He had spent most of the night talking to his parents out of state on the phone as he watched the news replay clips from all around the world. A sense of dread was filling every one's hearts and panic was beginning to brew. Crime had shot up overnight to startling levels. Murder rates were so high that police were backlogged and unable to investigate even a single one. Looting was rampant and gunfire routinely filled the night sounds. Lionel was lucky. He had spent most of his time to himself in his apartment and it would have been more inconvenient than it was worth to rob his little one bedroom due to his location at the back of his complex and on the third floor. He peered down into the parking lot below, finding another collection of broken windows on various cars below. His had remained undamaged, most likely because his car was a simple economy sedan and didn't have anything of value in it.
The husky looked up again at the sky, shivers running down his spine. Work had stopped calling and business had stopped almost completely. Most had returned to their homes to be with their families and Lionel was strongly considering taking the four-hundred something mile trip to see his parents. He looked back into his apartment just as he heard another series of gunshots far away on the other side of the city. The thought of praying briefly occurred to him though he was not religious, and was just as quickly discarded.
When the world burns where is God?
Lionel turned and walked into his apartment, locked the door behind him and went straight for his bedside, picking up his small, modest pistol he had pulled out of his safe just for last night. He checked the clip, again finding 16 rounds in the magazine before sliding it home into the grip and going to his closet to find his thigh holster and strapped it on over his jeans, slipping the pistol into the holder and dressing himself as quickly as he could. He tossed a gym bag onto the bed and began tossing a few sets of clothes into it. Bare essentials for survival only. He almost ran around his apartment, grabbing item after item. Canned food, bottled water, more ammo, family photos, bonds, cash, wallet, coat, rudimentary first aid supplies...he was packed in a matter of minutes. The husky stormed to his front door, packing the last of the things he needed into his pockets and turned to look at his place. Widescreen TV, computer, knick-knacks and trinkets...all useless to him now.
With that sobering thought he turned to the door and slammed it behind him, locking it tight out of habit and descending the stairs to the parking lot, his eyes up and watching in this very dangerous time. The few people who were up and about at this time eyed the weapon on his right thigh and immediately turned in the opposite direction. The husky kept his eyes on them and in their direction until he reached his vehicle, quickly unlocking it and tossing his bag in the back seat. His key turned and the engine puttered to life and as quickly as he could shift the transmission Lionel had left his apartment complex.
The city had not completely collapsed into anarchy, but the signs were there. Police sirens were more frequent, several businesses had boards in their windows, glass littered the streets and parking lots, pedestrians carrying firearms in plain sight were everywhere...
The husky quickly pulled out into the street and made a beeline for the highway. He didn't bother turning on his GPS. He knew where he was going, he just hoped he could get there. He dialed his parents, glad that cell phone service was still active as he told them his plan to come visit them as he saw a wolf on the side of the road using a demolition saw to cut through the front door of a pawn shop business, completely undisturbed by anyone nearby.
~ ~ Three Days Remain Until the End ~ ~
Lionel had been driving for 10 hours now. He was almost at his destination. Several times he had to take side-roads due to large pile-ups on the main highways. A few times he had heard nearby gunshots in a few cities, the shooter just out of his view and small crowds running in terror. The husky was worn out, emotionally and physically. He just wanted to stop and rest, but had only gotten a single respite at a family-owned gas station at the five hour mark where the clerk held an assault rifle at his shoulder. Needless to say he hadn't stayed long.
The husky turned off the main highway he had been following down a dirt road that led to his parent's plot of land. They had been living for years in the middle of nowhere, fifteen minutes away from anything, and now it seemed like the best place to be right now. The wolf bent down to look straight up at the sky as the sun began its slow descent to the horizon. The red spot had gotten much larger, now filling up almost half of the sky overhead. The news radio station was playing almost constant messages of government-issued warnings to stay calm, stay in your homes, all that bullshit that no one ever listened to anyways. Lionel turned on the radio again as he watched a red tentacle in the sky advance and merge with the tendril of another one beside it seamlessly.
"...are reporting that the red disturbances appear to be in two layers. One layer seems to be too high in our atmosphere to observe or gather a sample directly and the second layer seems to be composed of almost living stems of the material descending into the lower troposphere. Attempts to gather the material have failed as it seems to be repelled by the presence of aircraft and weather balloons. Samples taken from the upper atmosphere only contain what we already know is, or rather, was in our atmosphere already. A few hours ago we recieved a report from the international space station saying that the material seems to be completely eclipsing our planet's surface from their position and they cannot see any possible explanation or cause. Scientists at the University of-"
Lionel switched it off again. It was aware of our trying to gather it up? Or was it simply shying away like a fly when you wave your hand at it? The canine didn't need to know that the religious sectors were interpreting this as judgement day. Horns would blow, God would descend surfing a flaming sword or some shit like that apparently. He held the pistol next to his leg as his car hit a bump, a cloud of dust swirling behind him on the dirt road.
At times like this, he wised he had religion to help calm himself. After a few minutes of boredom (a welcome distraction from the stress of a society falling apart), he pulled up beside his parent's modest house and switched off his engine. As he stepped out into the warm desert air, he coughed slightly as the dust following his vehicle caught up to him. The sun was setting in the west just as he knocked on the front door and found his gray-furred dad Richard answering it and immediately pulled Lionel into a hug.
They stayed there for a moment as his mother Heather joined them. Not a word was spoken for hours.
~ ~ Two Days Remain Until the End ~ ~
Lionel awoke at about 4am coughing and feeling a little light-headed. It felt like he had run a marathon and his lungs demanded oxygen. The husky rolled out of the sofa he was sleeping on and stumbled over to his parent's bedroom door, knocking on it a little more loudly than he would have preferred. He didn't know what was wrong with him, but he knew his mom would have some portable oxygen in her closet. She had been a smoker for about twenty years and occasionally would need oxygen after outdoor garden work and the like. He leaned heavily on the doorframe and knocked again after getting no answer, his head swimming and his vision blurring. He could faintly hear his dad on the other side softly whispering something, but it was impossible to make out. Just as he raised his paw to knock again, he suddenly found himself staring up at the ceiling, his dad crouched over him and a sharp pain in his skull as his father lightly shook him.
"Lionel, Lionel? Are you ok? Wake up."
The husky looked up as the snow from his vision subsided. Light spilled from the bedroom as Lionel's dad pushed a oxygen mask onto his face and sweet air flowed into his lungs. Richard panted heavily as his son's lungs drank the oxygen and the husky's eyesight returned to notice his dad's eyes red and his facefur strewn with tears. Lionel sat up, holding onto his dad's shoulder for support.
"Dad, what's wrong? What happened?"
Rich closed his eyes tightly and held his right paw up to cover his eyes as he began crying again. "Lionel...your mother is dead."
The husky just stared at his dad as he wept. He didn't cry, he didn't panic, nothing. He just stared at him as the oxygen mask fed him air. His dad began to gasp loudly as tears fell freely and Lionel handed back the mask for his dad to be able to breathe. Rich gasped loudly through his grief as he leaned against the door frame and looked to the bed. Lionel stood up, his lungs seeming to struggle to bring in a breath as he stumbled into the bedroom and leaned against the bed frame, finding his mother laying there in bed on her side, but her chest wasn't moving at all. She just seemed asleep, but Lionel knew better. He gasped for air just as his dad handed him back the oxygen, his eyes locked on the still form of his mom.
Then it hit him. She was dead.
He fell to all fours, his eyes awash in tears and his soul feeling like it was torn in two. The husky wept as he had never had before. His father was slumped against the wall behind him, gasping softly for air as Lionel mourned for his mother. The candid turned to his father and handed him back the oxygen mask.
"We have to get into town." Rich whispered softly, his voice muffled by the plastic mask as he stood and walked to his closet and unlocked his gun safe and handing his son a pump-action defense shotgun.
~ ~ One Day Remains Until the End ~ ~
The drive back to town in Rich's hybrid was a long and silent one, both husky's handing the mask back and forth during the trip. Lionel checked the air supply gauge. Half left. His dad turned on the radio only to find mostly static except an automated message playing on the talk radio station.
"...broadcast system. For unknown reasons, oxygen levels around the world have begun to drop. Government vehicles have been dispatched to major cities to disperse oxygen recyclers and canisters. Oxygen is limited to one unit per person in major cities or as supply restricts. Any hostile approach to a government vehicle will be met with lethal force. This message will repeat in thirty seconds. This message was recorded at 2:13am, May 20th..."
Lionel shut off the message as he looked out over the empty landscape in the pre-dawn light. The world looked the same as it did yesterday, but was obviously not the same. His eyes gazed upward and he was just able to make out that the spot in the sky had completely engulfed the night sky overhead. The stars were completely blotted out and the light of the moon was only barely visible beyond the veil of crimson above. His eyes glanced at the car's dashboard clock as he handed back the mask to his dad. It was almost 5am. The sun would be rising soon.
He looked down at the shotgun resting between his legs and cocked the pump to load a shell into the chamber before doing the same with his pistol. He didn't know what to expect, but he was prepared to fight for his right to breathe. His father looked at him but didn't say a word as they passed the sign declaring the city limits as the sun began to peek over the horizon to the east. The sky above lit up in a brilliant display of vermilion light. Everything under the light looked as if it were bathed in blood as the sun rose into the deep red azure. Lionel felt deep fear seat into his heart as he clutched the shotgun's barrel with both paws. His lungs cried out and his heart raced. It couldn't end like this.
He knew he was looking at worldwide extinction. The eradication of all living beings on earth. His dad pushed the mask back into his paws and he took a deep, sweet breath as they passed a local feral horse farm on the outskirts of town. Dozens of horse corpses lay in the mud, the fields nearby littered with cow bodies. Lionel shuddered at the sight, their carcasses lit with the unnatural red daybreak. His eyes were locked on the morbid sight until the car passed a hill and obscured his view, causing the husky to come back down to earth as his eyes were cast in front of them towards the drive to the city as the candid passed back the mask to his dad.
"We have to find more oxygen in town somewhere." Rich spoke quietly, almost reverently.
Lionel began looking around at every street corner for hostile activity but instead found many furs crouched in corners gasping for air, some holding weapons and a few already laying dead in the streets, some from asphyxiation, some laying in a puddle of their own blood. He raised his pistol to the ready, flicking off the safety as they drove through town, keeping to the speed limit so as not to alert the others that they were breathing easily.
Lionel's nerves began to calm as they drove. It looked as if the oxygen depletion had caught everyone by surprise. He began to lower his weapon until it just rested in his lap. Those who weren't already dead from oxygen deprivation were well on their way there.
The sun cleared the horizon by the time they made it to the center of town. The streets were completely devoid of traffic and no one seemed to have been lucky enough to have oxygen like they were. Rich sighed softly as his car gave him a warning message that his battery was low. So much for the vehicle. The car continued for a few more miles before the gas engine attempted to kick in, the starter churning fruitlessly as it attempted to ignite the gas in the engine in the extremely oxygen depleted environment. The car slowly slid to a stop and the silence around them pierced their ears. With very little air to carry sound, they weren't sure if the town was just dead or an anomaly of the natural phenomenon.
The two stepped out of the car. Rich holding his shotgun at his shoulder and Lionel slinging his behind his back to carry their precious air supply as they made their way to the nearest medical supply store about three blocks away.
~ ~ One Day Remains Until the End ~ ~
Lionel picked up a small container of medical gauze as they searched the store. No one was around. Not a single soul was left alive as far as they could tell. There was no sound in the streets, anyone left on the sidewalk was long dead, many curled into a fetal position as their lungs emptied. Lionel felt a pang of guilt cross his heart. If only they had gotten to town a little earlier. They could have helped save just a few. But for how long? Would he sacrifice precious minutes of his own life to save someone else when extinction of all life was inevitable? Lionel's dad had thankfully found a small supply of oxygen in the back storage room just as their own supply began to get uncomfortably low. Now they each had their own mask supplying them with air as they wandered the store looking for more, the normal breathing holes in the mask taped over to help conserve the precious supply.
Lionel carted around his air supply behind him on a wheeled oxygen cart like an old man. He tossed the gauze back onto the shelf carelessly as he looked over at his dad seeing him just shrug his shoulders and point towards the door. Nothing left to find here.
Lionel stepped up to the large store picture window and carefully ducked down through the display so as to not be cut by the glass they had shattered to get inside. There was a red blinking light near the ceiling as they exited, probably the silent alarm, but no one had come as it rang away to a security company probably also filled with dead workers just like the streets of their town. The two huskies stepped into the street, broken glass crunching under their shoes, but just barely audible as they walked side by side, their guns held carelessly at their sides. Lionel had no idea where they were going next. The scuba diving store? Another medical supply? Did it matter? When would they run out of portable oxygen? Tomorrow?
Lionel felt his dad tap him on the shoulder and he looked up. A large military truck was parked in the middle of the intersection ahead, a few oxygen canisters strewn around it in the street. Guns and dead bodies lay on and around the truck and shell casings littered the gutters as they approached slowly. No need to waste more oxygen by running.
Rich held his weapon at the ready with one paw while carting his oxygen supply with the other as he knelt down to check one of the canisters, but found it completely empty. Lionel checked one of the others next to him finding the same. He sighed softly as the hiss of cool air breathed into his nose. Whoever did this took the supplies and left already. His dad looked back at him and Lionel shook his head dejectedly. Nothing to be found here.
He walked around the other side of the truck to check another canister before he faintly heard what sounded like a gunshot. He quickly ran around the corner of the truck, his pistol at ready to find his father laying face down in the street, blood pouring out of two bullet holes in his back. He screamed into his mask and raised his weapon in all directions, finally finding the form of a fox about twenty feet away coming out of a nearby nail salon carrying a rifle. A scuba mask obscured the muzzle and dirty, tattered clothing hung off the vulpine's form as Lionel checked for his father's pulse, but found it already gone. Tears obscured his vision as he advanced angrily at the attacker, already squeezing the trigger before he wiped his eyes clean with his forearm.
His vision cleared just long enough to see that the fox was female, one of her breasts hanging outside her shirt and crusted blood covering her dirty brown fur. She held her rifle pointed in Lionel's direction, the barrel wavering wildly as she looked down at the dead form of the husky's father. She stopped her advance and stood still and Lionel noticed her cheeks strewn with tears and her own blood dripping from her left side.
The husky could barely make out that she was trying to speak, the rubber mask distorting slightly before she let the rifle barrel drop forward to the ground and let the weapon go. The rifle landed in the street and the fox stepped backwards, trying to speak again, her eyes wild and full of what appeared to be remorse before turning and stumbling away, disappearing behind a building within seconds and leaving a thin blood trail in her wake.
Lionel knelt beside his dead father, his right paw resting on his shoulder as he cried again for the second time that day. He dropped his own weapon to the street beside him as he said a silent prayer for his father, not praying to any one deity in particular before he leaned down and held his father's dead body and turning off the oxygen flow before he robbed his own father's corpse to survive a little longer.
He never entered the nail salon and didn't want to know why the fox had shot his father or why. He just wanted to leave that place. He walked for hours, trailing both oxygen canisters behind him until he reached the city center and the park there and sat down on the bench just as the sun fell down behind the horizon. He turned his oxygen supply just low enough that he could breathe comfortably and laid down on the dead, prickly grass and fell asleep.
~ ~ The End Has Arrived ~ ~
Lionel awoke just as the sun was rising again, casting it's red light upon the world. His oxygen tank was nearly empty and he looked down to his side to find no one had stolen his spare in the middle of the night. He doubted that anyone was left alive, be it in the city like him or elsewhere in the world. He sat up and pulled his mask off to test how much air was left, attempting to draw in a breath but finding nothing to draw on. His lungs filled with something but it was not oxygen. The husky put his mask back on and stood up and slowly began to walk out of the park, passing by a small pile of discarded signs declaring this the end of the world by God's hand. He kicked one of the signs absently as he passed. Correct or no he had nothing to live for.
Lionel walked aimlessly. What he looked for even he did not know. Another survivor? Another government message played on the radio? More oxygen? Another gun? The husky shook his head as he passed by another dead body in the street, this one dead from suffocation. The silence of the city had long since worn in and ceased to fill him with dread anymore. He couldn't hear anything at all. The sound of his footsteps, the creak of the oxygen cart behind him...he even tried throwing a rock through a car window but heard nothing. The canine's soul felt drained and he struggled with not just finding a gun to blow his brains out right there. Overwhelming depression washed over him and each breath felt like it was mocking him with how he was keeping himself alive artificially.
He passed another pile of dead bodies. Mothers holding their children, watching helplessly as they died right before their eyes. Lovers holding each other as their eyes closed for the last time. Yet he always found more of those who were curled into a ball or clutching their throats, desperately trying to save themselves from an end that they could not stop. Some stared up into the sky as if asking for supernatural intervention, their paws clutched together in useless prayers.
One caught his eye though. It was a skinny feline of some kind laying in the middle of the street, dressed in a simple white tee shirt and jeans holding a handwritten sign in permanent marker on poster board. He stepped closer to find the male cat's eyes closed and maybe even a smile on his face as Lionel read the sign.
"My name is David Alan Laemmer. I lived a good life. I die a good death."
Lionel blinked hard and felt tears welling in his eyes as he looked at the cat's smile. No religious views, nothing. Just contentment.
The husky knelt beside the body and gently touched the feline's sign. He could not stop the end from coming, but did he want to live like this? Did he think he could outrun his fate forever?
The husky picked up the permanent marker from the street next to the dead body of the cat and walked towards the strip mall nearby, finding an office supplies store. He ripped out a cardboard sign from a display and turned it around to find empty white space and walked back into the street and knelt down next to David's body, looking down at his face before he began to write on his own sign, the marker gliding silently over the cardboard as he carved out his final words.
Lionel turned the sign over and placed the marker back next to David's dead hand as if he were placing a holy artifact back in it's rightful place. The husky tucked his sign under his arm and tugged his half-empty oxygen canister behind him. Half a block away he stopped in front of a baptist church, the doors sealed shut and a few more corpses littering the steps. His eyes found a bench outside with a Christian cross set into the metal back and the husky sat down carefully onto it and rested. He set his oxygen on the bench next to him and leaned his sign at his feet before reaching over and turning off the air flow.
Lionel pulled off his mask and set it on top of the canister, holding his last breath in his lungs as long as he could. The canine laid down the canister so as to not knock it over when he inevitably suffocated and leaned back on the bench as the blood-red rays of the sun warmed his flesh through his fur. The husky adjusted his clothes, smoothed out the wrinkles and picked up the sign at his feet and rested it in his lap as he exhaled for the last time.
In four minutes he lost consciousness. At the six minute mark he was dead. No one would survive to read his sign.
~ ~ My name is Lionel Quincy Williams. I was 31. I wish I had helped more people. ~ ~