TRES - CHAPTER ONE - DOG PISS

Buglas : Day 493

The dog was emaciated. A few pounds of meat within loose skin, covered with scabs clinging to bones. It could have been gray or black or brown; not really any color. But it still moved. Alive.
Tail tight between its hind legs, the canine gingerly walked on the debris. Picking its way over fallen pieces of wall, broken glass and sometimes green vegetation that has managed to fight its way through the cracks of what used to be streets. Its nose straining for even the faintest scent of food; rotten or otherwise. There was none.

It stopped. Its ears pricked up. Catching something in the wind the way dogs sometimes do when they hear something that nobody else can. Again, there was nothing.

It lifted its left leg and a stream of yellow urine watered the dry fragments of rubble only to trickle down towards the bottom of the pile of remains of the shattered city. After, the dog ran to disappear behind the ruins.

Drops of the canine waste dripped beneath the layers of wreckage. Dribbled from one piece of wall to the next piece of glass until it fell on closed eyelids. Human eyelids. Eyelids that suddenly blinked as the urine woke it up from a deep slumber. A sleep of forgetfulness.

Anrhu’s eyes felt the sting of the dog excrement. He jerked into wakefulness to find himself lying prone, face down on the ground. His face, bent to the side where the drops continued to wet his face. He strained to use his hands of wipe off the pungent smelling liquid but found that both his arms were pinned beneath him. And above him were large chunks of some things that he felt were heavy. It was dark but a few cracks above him told him he was covered by some sort of pile. Straining, he pushed with his shoulders and felt the things that were piled on him make way. Bit by bit he felt the breeze and suddenly he was out.
With his hands free, he wiped his face but realized that he could not see very well. His vision was blurred and hazy. Again, he tried to clean his eyes, rubbing it with fingers covered with grit. He opened them again, looked around and gasped.

Everything around him was ruins. Buildings wrecked. The streets were puzzle pieces of asphalt decorated with cement blocks and sharp shards of broken glass that must have fallen from the windows of the destroyed structures. Everything had the look of aging that it must have taken time for things to arrive in its state of disrepair. It could not have happened in the span that he was apparently unconscious. But it must have. He could not remember ever seeing anything like it. It’s as if he woke up to a nightmare and he was right smack in the middle of it all.

He believed it was day. There was still light, if not brightly. Sunlight looked filtered; everything cast with a golden glow as if passing through amber glass. The sky, green tinged, was clear of clouds. In fact, it was blank, broken only by the fading light of a tired sun.

There was a faint breeze. It reeked of smoke and other fumes that could have come from any of the countless wreckage that surrounded him. That, and numerous other rancid odors. Himself included. His shoulder length black hair was tangled with whatnots, whipped across his face. It stunk from an unnamable stench. The shirt; black, decorated with some band - Eraserheads printed in front – the dirt stained rag that he wore – was no better.
He tried to walk. Took small tentative steps towards the direction of the sun but found out that he limped. Checking, he found bleeding. And pain. The skin of his left knee scraped. What he could see of it where his jeans were but tattered strips. Probably cut by the friction of the stones that covered him moments passed.

Unable to think. Not understanding everything. Anrhu slumped back to the ground.
And cried in anguish.

He was sixteen. As far as he could remember. Barely out of childhood, even if he was built more like a man. And from what he could see, alone … in a dead world.

He closed his eyes through his tears. Closed and opened it again in the dire hope that he would wake up and find everything to be different from what he supposed was an impossible reality. But his vision was still the same. Chaotic emptiness.
A rumbling in his stomach told him he was hungry. It only made him realize that what was happening could never be a dream. One does not go hungry in dreams.

Or did they?

He struggled back to his feet.

Sighing, he wiped his face with the sleeves of his shirt. He realized as he did that he only managed to smudge the dirt that was already there, now made dirtier by his tears. He could still trace the faint stink of urine and he almost gagged but there was nothing to throw up. Still, there was the distinct sour taste of vomit in his throat.
Anrhu was in the brink of desperation. He forced himself to move one step at the time towards wherever. Half dragging his left leg that was beginning to swell. The pain was getting intense. Surprisingly, he did not have any tears left to shed.

He wandered aimlessly. Not in any particular direction but half hoping to find food or any other living being. Soon, bits and pieces of the rubble looked familiar. Colored bits of glass that was the exact shade of some window from a hazy memory, parts of tiles that were a distinct recollection of a spark of almost remembered locations. Things felt familiar. Only they were not this forlorn.

Until he came to the large letter S, or the broken half of what was distinctly an S, leaning on a broken down wall. Blue and made of fiberglass. Almost eight feet in height. Anrhu’s heart skipped a beat. He suddenly knew where he was.
ShoeMart. Or what was left of it.

“Wha..?”

Snippets of memory came to him. Visions of glass covered displays and people seemingly wandering about aimlessly. Laughter and the glare of electric lights. Beeps and a myriad collection of sounds. A train that followed no tracks. Glass tunnels that connected huge buildings filled with still more people. People who were alive.

What happened?

He remembered the last time he was awake. He was at ShoeMart. Or the mall as he remembered it to be. Not this collection of stones and ruins. He went out to go home and then nothing. There was nothing else that came to mind except that he was about to go home to a family that was waiting.

Where are they now?

Helpless, Anrhu sat on one of the remains of the wall where the S leaned. Covering his face, he bowed his head and tried to remember. But there was nothing. Nothing!

The dog howled from a distance. The boy looked up. His eyes mirrored the turmoil that was slowly eating him from the inside. The sound of the animal only managed to confirm his isolation.
Looking for the dog – at least it was something alive…he glanced towards the direction from where he thought the sound came from and saw the distinct movement of a man on a bicycle. The dog, thin and gaunt trailed behind.
__________

They turned another left. Crouching behind the shrubbery that barely concealed him, Anrhu strained his eyes to see where the man and dog went. The sky was rapidly darkening that trailing the man on the bike and the dog was becoming harder. He had been following them since the ruins of the mall. It felt like hours ago but in reality it could not have been more than thirty minutes.

For some reason, he found himself hiding behind remains of broken down walls; and when it was obvious that they were leaving the main part of the city, there were trees that grew – gnarled and sickly - and low shrubs that hid him. Without any sense except the logic that he did not understand what was happening to him, he chose to remain unknown to the man. Luckily, the wind was blowing towards him. Otherwise the dog would have smelled his scent.

Or did dogs have a keen sense of smell like he thought he remembered?

A few minutes more and it was dark. Pitch. That it would have been impossible to follow them if he had not seen the faint glow of what could only be the light coming from a light source inside a closed shelter of some kind. Without doubt, this was where his quarry went.

He crept in the darkness. Favoring his right leg since his left had gone too painful to be of much use a few miles behind. His hands almost stretched out in front of him. Discovering by touch what he could not see in the dim light lent by what escaped the window.

A few more meters and he could see what was inside.

His heartbeat hammered a steady tattoo inside his ribcage.

A bark from a few feet away caused him to stop dead in his tracks.

“Don’t move!” came the voice right behind him as he felt strong arms grab him on both shoulders.