AN: this story is somewhat emotional for me as I used to feel just the same way, alone until someone came along and changed it.
I hope you all like it.
No one was there.
she walked through the tunnel blindly, all other senses on high alert. she heard her paws on stone beneath her, felt dust scrapping her fur in such a narrow space, smelled only cold air and stale stone.
No one was there.
A breeze picked up ahead of her, her eyes watered, nose itched, dust everywhere causing her to cough.
The tunnel widened and branched, she stretched a bit, still on all fours sniffing around. fresh air, a way out! she followed it, forcing herself not to run.
Light, so much light, her eyes squinted shut against the source, nose turned to the outside. there was grass, fresh fallen rain, the smell of pine, oak and rowan. her ears picked up breezes and a sound of water in the distance, trickling along.
People? Birds? Ants on the ground?
her eyes opened slowly to a cloudy sky, tall grey buildings, and few trees choked with vines. little green in the grass peeked from between huge slabs of stone on the ground, weeds tore through black asphalt and climbed chain link, metal and plastic fallen in a pile like a sad skeleton of what used to be a playground. an old water fountain under a half fallen structure leaking onto the thick concreate slab.
she sighed as she glanced at a faded mural of a brighter town, one with people, children laughing in the park, a man selling ice cream or lemonade, cars passing by to wherever their drivers deemed. a graffiti message written on the corner in bright neon colors, 'SEE WHAT V-TECH DESTORYED'
she glanced down the streets. Smelling the stale air of long gone smoke, the sources all lay rusted in the streets now, either torn apart or abandoned. many with plants just starting to grow back. their fresh oxygen mingling with the sour smells of the city.
No one was there.
she passed by towering buildings and low shops, many with windows boarded up or broken. more graffiti, some of it decorative to her, others hatful spites against V-tech, several calling the company murderous.
'MUTANTS OR MONSTERS WE DONT CARE' c
she stopped for this one, a message written in green on the side of a small werehouse. under it was another in blue.
'SAVE THE VICTIMS TO SAVE OURSELVES.' m
she sighed again, standing up on her hind paws and passing through the door seeing a broken down lab.
No one was there.
She walked up to one of the machines, a glass tube that was once full of liquid, now nothing but a broken screen and fallen leaves. she turned to a wall on the far side where a broken robot lay in shambles, posed and propped to look like it was crying, the faint rust on its metallic face fitting for what happened here. she padded up to look at the faded photo behind it of two young men smiling with a trio of mutant animals around them. one of those animals in the photo was a wolf creature with bat wings. she touched a paw to where those very wings were once attached to her body. she sighed and moved on to a back room, here she found an experimental garden, now growing wild.
She padded over to one of the fruit bushes and helped herself, blueberries, rassberries, and some asparagus from the vegitable garden. she lay in the sun a minute, remembering happy times before all of this. before the town emptied out and all had left. how the world could change in just a few days, just as in the same time a garden as this left to wither had grown wild instead.
she sighed in contempt, but something caught her ear, a low hum and a purring noise. she looked outside growling to herself for being so foolish, the sun had begun to set, she must've fallen asleep. stupid!
she grabbed a huge mouthful of herbs and stuffed an artichocke into her mouth, turning tail and running back out the door, back through the lab, onto the streets, past the park and down the hole, just as the choppers flew over. she heard a scream behind her of some mutant creature hanging underneath in a cage. she stuffed herself down the hole backwards until she was invisible.
Seeming as if no one was there.
the chopper landed, dropping the cable holding the creature, to be put simply it was a horse with crocodile skin and the front paws of a lion, a reptilian tail lashing as it struggled in its bonds. it screamed in terror at the men in armored hazmat suits swarming over it and injecting something into it's side before cutting it loose from the net.
She watched as he went still, breathing and wide eyed but still. the men piled back into the chopper, one holding up a radio. she could hear him clearly, "The mutant has been dropped at the dump site sir. heading back now...yes sir, understood."
he hopped in as well and they soon left. the horse creature stood up shakeily, heavy breaths escaping from its nostrils, it looked up into sky after them and screamed a curse at tehm. to her ears it translated to, 'I am alone, but I am not dead.'
she crept out slowly. the second creature was now laying on the ground again as if exhausted. to him it was the same as before. to him, no one was there. he was wrong.
she placed down the artichoke and gave it a shove in his direction. it bumped him, causing him to start. he looked at the artichoke then around to see where it had come from. his eyes landed on her. he tensed.
she tunred around and snorted in a language he would understand, 'eat it, its yours.'
she sat and waited for him to finish. it didn't take him long, he soon walked up to her slowly, sniffing at her and asking why she was here.
she replied in the same way as before, 'forgotten'
he looked at her surprised, 'how long?'
she flicked her long tail at him as she answered, 'long time, come'
she padded off towards her hole in the ground, slipping in easily, for him at his size it would be a bit of a squeeze, after she had fattened him up of course. she turned to look at him, he was stareing at the hole, shifting from hoof to hoof, paw to paw. she motioned in a way for him to understand that it was ok, that it was safe down there. he soon followed, cautiously.
she smiled, she thought back to those men in the picture. she smiled, now that he was here she wasn't going to just leave him. after all if she did she would be lonely again. he needed what she had wanted all this time. for company, acceptance, just like those men so long ago.
and now, finally...Someone was there.