Crucibulum
Chapter 2
Clouds of vapour hung low in the sky as he limped ever forwards, sickly, waning sunlight pouring through at an angle depriving him of the cover of shadow. He did not know for how long he had been trudging through the ruins, but judging by the imminent sunset he guessed it was easily half a day. Following his exit from the highway, he had wandered down an exit ramp into what appeared to be an arterial road cutting through the suburban slums comprising the outskirts of the hive. He had stolen a few gulps of water from a leaking coolant pipe, exposed through the rent hull of a mangled vehicle, tasting of oil and making him retch, before attempting to determine which direction he should take. Given that the immense spiretops of the hive were omnipresent from wherever he was standing, he began to follow the highway towards it, staying in the great shadow the raised roadway cast over the squalid neighbourhoods underneath. Not a soul remained. Ramshackle residences of plastic sheeting and corrugated iron lay gutted by flame, still smoking. Scorched timber supports creaked and groaned, embers bursting forth, creating sparks in the shadows when they broke. These outskirts were an endless sea of tiny, one room houses, seemingly constructed simply out of whatever materials must have been lying around, in whatever empty space there might have been.
He noted the frequency of more permanent-looking buildings increasing as he progressed through the streets; he came first to what seemed to be a military checkpoint in the road, with the smouldering ruin of a stone watchtower beside a broken barrier blocking half the road. It was as though the sea of slum housing was a viral infection that had broken through these barriers from the inside out, as he noticed a wire fence had been torn down to accommodate one such improvised shack. It was then another flash of a memory intruded into his consciousness; he remembered a great flood of people, refugees. It was not only his village that had been evacuated, but all of them. He had stood at a barricade, weapon in hand, and watched as wailing masses were shut out of the gates. It was the thousands, perhaps even millions of displaced that had erected these slums. He scrutinised them as he walked, staring at the poorly improvised shelters and appalling conditions, which, even before the devastation of war, appeared to have been beyond poverty.
He had continued deeper into the outskirts until he reached what he presumed was the beginning of the city limits proper; the yellow light bathing the surroundings was turning to orange, the shadows deepening and darkening as the sun sank ever lower. It was now that temperatures were dropping and darkness descending that he began to fully appreciate the desperate nature of his predicament. He had simply no idea of when he had last eaten, and the gnawing hunger had begun to develop into swirling pain in his stomach, compounding the aches in his hand and head. These wounds themselves were taking their toll; as exhaustion and disorientation began to intensify, he was unable to continue onwards without supporting himself against the walls of houses. He rounded a street corner on to what once might have been a common green or park, but now boasted a cluster of improvised shelters and sandbag emplacements, pocketed with craters from shelling, and blackened from still smoking fires.
It was as he slowly limped across towards the edge of the green that a shape caught his eye in the ruined shell of a hab-block behind him; a shadow slinked from the black dark of the interior, created by the now almost set sun. Yellowed, feral eyes glowed behind a ragged, toothed snout as the wiry hound revealed itself, unblinking, and, to his horror, drooling. He faced the snarling creature, moving tenderly, half paralysed by fear, towards the shack closest to him at the edge of the grass. Quickly darting his eyes back in the direction from which he came, more wiry shadows were prowling, the failing light reflecting in their hungry stares. He'd been followed, he realised. This pack of strays saw his weakness, smelled his blood, and now had waited until nightfall to pick him apart once he collapsed from exertion. He glanced in the direction of the shelter. It was only a few metres away, but so were they. The apparent leader of the pack, a large, brown stray, the one with yellow eyes, lowered its scarred visage to the ground as it slowly padded towards him, set to pounce.
He made his decision. With speed he didn't know he had, fuelled by the adrenaline, he snapped around on his heels and practically leapt towards the open entrance of the closest shack. The starving mongrels seemed to respond before he had even made his move, bounding and shrieking towards him, frothing at their mouths. Sprinting, he crashed onto the floor of the structure, kicking the lead dog, which had been right on his heels, out of the doorway. He slammed the rudimentary wooden panel shut as the followers of the pack slammed into it a second later, the structure around it creaking and groaning. He grabbed a loose sheet of corrugated metal from the floor and held it against the entrance with his back, as the hounds yelped and continued to smash against the walls and door. In the rush of the escape, he had slammed the door with both hands, and now he had a moment of respite, agony hit him as the skin of his burned appendage split and cracked even more. He sobbed as howls and snarling rang out around his shelter, and forced himself to be quiet when he realised they had suddenly stopped. In trepidation, he turned and pulled back the metal sheet he was leaning on. Immediately a set of slobbering jaws thrust through a hole in the wooden panel and began to bark viciously, as pounding on the walls restarted on all sides of the cabin. He began to break down again as he realised these animals weren't just strays; they were intelligent, wild dogs, and hungry ones at that, and the improvised cabin of wooden planks and thin metal sheeting wasn't going to hold all of them back. A slam followed by a crack exploded to his right as a plank splintered, black and weakened, broken by a grizzled snout, blood dripping from its mouth. More slams rang out, reverberating in the tiny room, making the walls seem to close in on him, if not literally. He backed into the middle of the cabin, curling into a foetal position on the floor. He felt so small again. He felt like a child. He felt as though the only living things left on this world were him and these beasts, and he knew he would die alone and in agony, clueless and afraid. He cried, not unbidden, not from pain, but from fear, from wanting his mother, his home, to be anywhere, anywhere in the galaxy but in this shack with these monsters.
The constant smashing and howling, mewling and barking was broken by a thunderous crack from somewhere outside. The curious padding of paws on the earth broke the silence, once more an oddity to him, rounding the cabin. Another sharp crack rang out, and this time he heard fearful yelps, and running. He raised his head to peer through one of the holes rent in the flimsy wood, only to see the lead mongrel's yellow eyes flashing back at him from the distant dark, before fading into the night completely. He sat himself up in disbelief, cradling his injured hand and breathing hard, tears pooling in his eyes. He heard footsteps, and a gloved hand pushed the mangled door aside. A dark figure looked down on him, a smoking laspistol in hand. "You're looking a sorry sight, friend, but indeed still one for sore eyes".