Chapter 2: Dirt
Author's note: Hey everyone this is the second installment right after "Snow". Sorry but no smut just drama right now, please enjoy the read and leave a comment and a rate as it helps me out to see what I need to work on as a writer. Might be a little short for some of your tastes but I try to get as much thought onto paper as I can before I start to ramble.
Chapter 2: Dirt
I awoke onto one soft-as-hell couch.
The couch was so fuzzy I felt like I had passed out in a pillow factory. This couch was comfortable as fuck, easily making it the last comfortable couch on Earth.
I mean this is one comfortable-ass couch if you pardon my language. It might have been just a normal couch but the beating pain on half of my face made it seem just that more awesome. A quick rise into a seated position released the pressure out of my head and brought a numb sensation to my carved out cheek. I looked over my shoulder down the hallway and saw that my prints in the fluffy carpet hadn't been disturbed yet.
I wasn't one for worrying but it struck me as odd that she wouldn't come out to go to the bathroom or something like that. I shook the wrinkles out of my bloodstained shirt and slid it back onto my body before standing up and flexing my toes into the fluffy shag beneath my feat.
Creeping along the hallway I made sure to not make a sound as I neared closer to her bedroom door. I pressed my head against the wood and listened for sounds of breathing or any movement at all. All I heard was wind slipping through a window.
I burst into the room hoping something hadn't happened to her over night, but all I could see was an open window some rustled sheets and a lack of winter wear that would have been present. It either meant she was kidnapped by a jacket stealing something, OR, she took her jacket and snuck out the window on a runaway adventure into the frozen, dead, and dangerous wilderness that surrounds our compound.
I tear out of the front door and bulldoze my way through Khariton's door. His jaw drops as he stares at my shredded face and blood stained shirt.
"Get your shit, Chloe ran off into the forest early this morning." I said.
"Fuck." He sighs.
He stands up and shakes his furry six foot werewolf-like frame. His massive stature and impressive build came from the daily survival work that everyone did to keep our small town running. I was close to his height but minus an inch or two, although my body build is leaner, and all around more cut, then his.
He threw me a clean shirt that I exchanged my caked red one for and opened the front door. I didn't know how far she had gone but the one thing I knew was that weather change around here could happen so rapidly that the shining sun currently beaming overhead might be drowned in grey, ominous, snow-filled clouds in hours.
We jogged towards her house again and walked down the side to look for which direction she left after sneaking out the window. I slowed down as we reached her window on the outside and found dried mud in the shape of paw pads leading away from our community.
"Well shit." I breathed out.
Our jog restarted as we pounded across the dirt and dried mud from the previous day's snow. We reached the trees and slowed to dodge the foliage and any obstacles in our way.
Another thing I knew was that when you run away you don't try to hide your tracks, but either way it doesn't matter because when you run away you go in one direction and one direction only. The usual plan isn't to lose whoever might try to find you, but to get as far away as possible in the least amount of time.
So if you have any sense of geometry then the fastest way to attain the furthest distance is a straight line. We kept our speed through the dense trees as I started to have doubt in my mind if we could actually find her. As we ran the trees started to blend and my mind started to wander until I was a fully mechanized running and thinking machine.
I didn't know how far she could have gotten over night or whenever she left her room. I didn't know if she was hurt. I didn't know if something could have attacked her. I didn't know if she had a gun with her or even a knife. The fact of the matter is that I don't know much of anything right now and I'm trying to grasp on to the slimmest glimmer of hope that would tell me she was okay.
Any hope at all, any sliver of evidence, any shred of fur or clothing that wasn't in its place would set me off as my eyes darted across the landscape in front of my eyes.
Tree. Tree. Tree. More tree. Oh look a bush! Tree. Tree. Tree. Another bush. Tree. Tree. Tree. Blood. Tree. Tree. Tree...... blood?
I stopped dead in my tracks and looked at the small patch of snow hiding in the shade of a leafy branch. It was my blood for sure; it had been wiped off on the snow making one elongated paw print. It had to be Chloe trying to clean off her hand from the nasty slash she handed me the night before.
But another thing clawed at my mind worse than my face: If she wiped her hand off out this far while the blood was still wet then that meant she had gone a lot farther in the time I didn't know she was gone. I had to find her before the weather changed or before the sun dipped in the sky or she would be lost forever, and that wasn't an option.
I wasn't angry at her in any way, just scared that she would act out like this. When 75% of the landmass on this derelict planet is charred and destroyed, people choose to cling to things for something more powerful then greed or bullets: hope.
Seeing her safe and holding her in my arms would be my bastion to keep living in the war torn world I reside in.
The trees began to flow together again and before I could tell I was thinking of her.
I found her one day when I was out scrounging through wreckage looking for something useful. I had left my basement in the early morning and went a few miles out deeper into the residential regions of what was left of the city.
Usually safes would settle under the wreckage and breaking them was as easy as using its own weight to break the door off. I had found an alloy crowbar that I could not, for the life of me, break. So it dawned on me and I jammed it into the top crevice of a large standup safe and heated the hinges way past red hot with a simple blowtorch. I then just tipped the heavy thing over and it ripped the locking mechanism to shreds due to the weight of the thing.
As I was rolling these massive wooden beams down the side of a hill I heard one of them hit what sounded like solid metal. I thought I had found another safe but as I slid down the hill to find what I wanted all I could see was dirt. Disappointed I began sifting through it with a stick trying to hit something solid. Nothing.
I tried to trace a path that the wood took as it rolled. Using all my mental capability I determined with utmost pride that it rolled downward in a straight line. (I know I amaze myself sometimes too.) And because I'm such a goddamn genius I could see that as it rolled it left about an eight foot wide trail down the hill. So I decided to drag my foot through the dirt in a zigzag motion down it.
*swush*swush*swush* I don't know I couldn't think of something onomatopoetic for kicking dirt around. I reached about half the way down the slope before I connected with something large and solid and almost tripped on it. It was definitely steel or something like that and it was thick, very thick. I hit it with a rock and it bellowed deeply. So it was hollow and made of at least inch or more thick steel.
I used the crowbar to give it a few good bangs before I heard a few good bangs back. I almost fell onto my ass. But then I thought, maybe it was a bomb shelter? Time for the all powerful test if something has intelligence.
I held the crowbar in one hand and gave it the knocking beat of "Shave-and-a-hair-cut." and waited for a response. My heart thumped in my chest as I wondered what could be inside, I waited what seemed like hours until I got the response I was hoping for. Two knocks in beat to "two-bits" echoed under my feet.
I was completely ecstatic either I had found another living person or I had found the first ever living bunker! I immediately started sweeping dirt away with my hands looking for a hatch or something. As my sweeping kept up I eventually hit another block of steel. And again using my amazing powers at deciphering I assumed it to be another part of the same structure, And indeed it was, only buried under a couple inches of dirt, the steel bunker was escalating in a step like formation up towards the rubble of a house.
I stopped sweeping dirt and ran up to the beginning of the hill and stood on top of the concrete, rebar, and wood remains of a larger edition suburban house. I began to throw large pieces of rubble left and right looking for a hatch entrance or something of the sort.
I hauled away massive wooden crossbeams and rolled gigantic concrete slabs down the hill digging rapidly for an entrance hole. Soon I began to hear soft pings, following the pings I jumped through the wreckage and over to a large refrigerator that had both doors broken off and was laying face up.
I pushed and shoved the fridge off a dirt pile and into the other remnants. The pinging sound was exponentially more prevalent now so I decided to sweep more dirt away from where it was laying. *swosh*swosh*swosh* Again until I reached what looked to be a submarine entrance hatch.
I snatched the Colt I brought with me and put a small flashlight in between my teeth facing the hatch before I grabbed a side of the twist handle and lurched it around counter clockwise. I twisted it all the way until I felt that twisting wouldn't help it move any more.
I knocked on the hatch with my free hand and stood back a few feet before it was slowly and obviously lifted with difficulty. A fuzzy white hand pushed the hatch up before another fuzzy hand grabbed onto the edge. I saw two pointy white ears poke up before extremely light gray eyes peered out and stare me directly in the face.
"Either put the gun down or I go back in for a couple years." It said. The face and the voice was particularly feminine and although being a different breed, outstandingly attractive. I mean I never dated a furry due to the usual hidden morals that usually made you think twice about it, but if presented with the option nothing would stop you.
I lowered my forty-five and took the flashlight out of my mouth.
"Alright it's down, how 'bout you come out and we can talk?" I said.
The first person I'd seen in two years was still only halfway out of the bunker that probably saved her life during the bomb drops, and the only thing I could think to say was we could talk. I don't know, maybe you would have thought of something better to say, but it was kind of a change in pace for me. I was only a few days from offing myself due to the thought that I was entirely alone.
"Okay now we can introduce ourselves...properly." She said before hoisting herself out of the fallout bunker and into the broad daylight.
She was wearing a plain gray sweatshirt and digital camo fatigues, no shoes though, although I never took notice to see if furries wore shoes or not. I guess they didn't have to or something like that.
"I'm Bryce." I said nervously. I was probably in worse condition then she was; black fading jeans ripped at the knees and a jacket under a Kevlar vest. I know, I know, if I haven't met people then why wear a Kevlar vest? Well it was the best protection I found so I kept it.
"Chloe, not Chleo." She extended out a hand/paw and I took it, giving a firm shake and a smile.
Suddenly I was back in the present dashing through trees again. I slowed to a stop and looked around, my heart was beating frantically, we had been jogging for a couple hours now and the sun was a little before noonish in the sky.
Suddenly a beam of sunshine shone down onto a patch of dried mud that held a neat paw print lined with claw points at the tips. I leaned down and pressed my finger into the base of the print, under the pressure of my finger the dried mud cracked and revealed dirt still moist. I completely assumed that this meant she was close even though I have had no previous tracking skills of any kind. I guess I was just running on empty and even the slightest glimmer of possibility would keep me going.
I slowed my jog to a walk from then on out and tried to follow the paw print trail. The first to second print had about a separation of three and a half feet meant she was either hopping or she was still running. The second to the third and the third to the fourth seemed closer than the ones before it and the pattern kept up until each footprint was only about a foot apart leading me to believe she began walking here.
Soon the print's impressions were a deeper shade then previous ones.
"Fresh tracks." I thought to myself. More hope.
As we rounded the crest of the hill all the trees stopped abruptly and no more forest lay before us, only a flat expanse completely void of plant or animal life. The flat must have gone on for miles in every direction. I looked to either of my sides and it seemed as though the trees knew to stop growing at this point, either that, or the dirt flat couldn't sustain life due to radiation deposits.
As I stepped out onto the flatness I realized why the trees didn't move any farther. The entire flat was completely solid. No dirt whatsoever, only small pebbles and dust. It was a wasteland literally. Not capable of supporting life in any way at all, no miniscule weeds or tiny lizards. The whole thing was a barren.
I couldn't imagine Chloe going out here, if you lost sight of the tree line you were doomed to wander this flatland until you expired from dehydration or just gave up on trying to navigate your way back.
Apart from its stark emptiness I could see boulders jut out randomly from the stone ground and hold large oblong shapes probably formed from wind or rain.
Every boulder held its shape with an equal shadow being thrown askew along the ground... Except for one.
I saw It, It was only a normal looking rock, slightly spherical in shape which would entail a simple shadow on the ground next to It. From where I was standing I could see the shadow cast a smaller hump on the opposite side of the boulder.
I stepped out and started treading my way through the puzzle of rocks walking slowly over to the unmatched shadow and boulder. I poked my head around the rock and my heart skipped a beat.
Caked in mud, cut, bleeding, passed out, and all around disgusting is one way you could describe the usually bright white tiger that is currently curled in a ball, holding her knees against her chest. Her usual white gleam is replaced with a dirty gray menagerie of leaves and dirt.
I'd never seen something that was once so beautiful turn into a complete wreck. I couldn't imagine the pain or sadness she was experiencing but just seeing her like this wrenched at my heart worse than any pain could.
To be continued.
Yea yea I know no smut, sorry but in the next installment I'll hopefully think of a situation with some action. I prefer to develop a character base before slapping dicks around.
Please leave a comment and a rate as it helps me gauge what I should and shouldn't write about.