Distopia

Chapter 1

I travel through the large abandoned city. The buildings seem to all be in a state of decay. Grass grows at the bottom of giant towers of glass and concrete. I look at the decay and smile. Yes, you heard me, I smiled. A small bark breaks my attention from the ruins. I turn my head to see a small wolf pup digging his head in and out of a pile of rubble. I shake my head and laugh a little before whistling. He looks up from the pile and stares at me “Sphen what are you doing?” The little grey and white pup shakes his head and sneezes a little from the dust. He climbs down from the pile and runs over to the bottom of my legs, brushing his head against my bear skin making me giggle.

We walk a little further before I bend down and take the back pack from my back and take out a small canteen of water. I grab a small metal bowl and pour the water onto it. “You must be thirsty?” I ask, Sphen nods enthusiastically as he laps up the not so cold water. I stand up and take a few gulps. The sun is slowly setting and I look around the giant metropolis for a safe place to sleep. We walk for a little while longer before I see a town house that looked fairly intact. I open the old wooden door and we enter a large but thing empty hallway, wallpaper is falling away from the moss covered walls and the floorboards creak unnaturally. Sphen fallows slowly, not used the strange smell he takes each step carefully and whimpers slightly when he picks up on a smell he doesn’t like.

Once the living room door comes into view I push the decaying door open and wince a little at the loud screech it admits. The room is crawling with cobwebs and dust and enclosed in darkness. The furniture is slowly rotting and under a large layer of dust a large LCD TV sits unused. I shake my head and begin to clear an area of the room from dust and cobwebs before setting down my bag and taking out a small used blanket and some bread. I sit on the blanket and tear the bread apart into small pieces. I eat slowly, savouring the not so fresh morsels. Food was hard to come by even if it wasn’t fresh I needed to eat and as long as I had something I wouldn’t complain.

Sphen eyed me hungrily putting on his best puppy dog eyes and whimpering ever so slightly. I stare at him for a while before caving in as usual and throwing him a small section of the bread. I look at him sadly as he pulls a face of disgust but slowly eats the bread. In know I should give him the food he needs but right now we are short on supplies and there isn’t a camp for miles yet. Once I finish the bread I lay my head on my empty backpack and curl into a ball. I lie there for a-bit dozing off every so often although I could still hear Sphen moving around for another hour or so before he curls into a ball beside me and falls asleep.

The sound of rain wakes me up. The sun has barley risen yet but I felt refreshed. Moving slowly so I don’t wake the sleeping pup beside me I stand and walk to the large bay window at the front of the room. I sit of the wide ledge and shiver as a cold draft tingles my legs making my hair stand on edge. Yawing and rubbing the sleep from my eyes I stare out the slightly fogging window. The rain looked like a waterfall, falling straight down onto the pavement. The harsh grey tarmac is now dark black and glinting slightly in the dim sunshine. I smiled and placed my head against the window. I loved days like this when I was younger, I always found it calming. I remember sitting with my family in the living room watching some lame show on TV listening to the rain in the background. I always imagined it as washing away all the stress I had from that day and imagine I was somewhere far away. Cheesy right? Yeah that may be true but hey I had to find a way to cope with school and people.

I finish my short day dream with a shake of my head, I can’t think of those things anymore, they just weigh me down and stop me from getting anywhere. I look over to find that Sphen has woken up and doing these little stretches with his paws, his jaw widening into a yawn. If I look closely enough I can see the beginnings of sharp fangs grow at the front of his mouth. For now though, he’s still my little pup, a hungry underweight but more than well cared for emotionally wise pup. He shakes his head once more before looking at me and barking happily. I slide off the windowsill and bend down to pet him but he ends up licking my face first. I laugh and pat his head. “I’m happy to see you too buddy” He barks as if he understood, then moves in a direction that points towards the door. “You wanna leave already? But we only got here” He looks sad and begins to scratch at the closed door. “Okay okay I get the point we’ll leave now.” He barks happily as if to say he had won. The rain hadn’t eased any so I throw everything into my backpack and throw my flimsy hood over my head I open the door and we walk down the hallway to the main door.

That’s when I hear it, a small creaking from upstairs as if someone had pressed their foot too hard on a floor board. I press my finger to my lips and I look at Sphen who remains silent. Moving to the right I notice the stairs aren’t in the best condition and could probably collapse under the weight. I can’t run the risk of being caught so I take my change and as quietly as I can I make my way upstairs with Sphen at my heels.

The creaking continues and I realise that someone must be in the bedroom just to the left of the stairs. I crouch once I reach the top step and lean over just enough so that I can see whatever is making the noise through the crack in the door. Through the crack I can see a shadow of a large man sitting on the dusty bed, I recognise the uniform he’s wearing and I gasp lightly. He doesn’t appear to have heard it and he continues to sit on the bed. He is humming some sort of inaudible tune and I can see his left arm moving back and forth in a cleaning motion but I cannot make the object. He lifts his head as if he heard me and smiles a little. He stands up, and I now realise that the thing in his hand was a gun.

Standing up quickly I race down the stairs and head down the corridor towards the kitchen and the back of the house. I hear his footsteps making slow careful steps down the stairs. He makes an audible clicking noise with his mouth every so often; it’s so loud I can hear it above my panicked breath. I make a sharp left turn and fling open one of the storage cupboard doors and throw myself in, Sphen follows suit. His breath comes out in audible pants so I grab his muzzle softly and try to calm his breathing. It goes a little quieter enough so that I can be happy that the solider can’t hear us.

The man arrives in the kitchen and continues through until I can hear him right outside the cupboard his clicking noise sounds a lot creepier this close up. I can tell that it isn’t fully human and it has an electronic element to it.

“Damn where’d she go?” His boots make a loud thunking noise as he walks away from the cupboard. Sphen mistakes my relived gesture as a queue to bark happily. My eyes widen as I hear and laugh coming from the kitchen. “You were so close to getting away too what a shame.” The large man flings open the cupboard and I fling my fist at his face, his reflexes are fast and he grabs my hand mid punch. Squeezing tightly on my hand he smiles disturbingly before twisting my arm until I can hear an audible crack. I yell in pain. Sphen growls at the man and before he has time to react he scratches at his face with his not yet developed claws. Hissing in pain the man releases my arm and falls backwards. Sphen’s attack doesn’t stop, he bites the mans arm and legs before taking one final swipe at his face. The man falls unconscious and Sphen jumps off and strides happily towards me.

“Well done boy, what would I do without you? Huh?” I wince in pain as he nudges at my arm. I smile weakly and sigh. “It’s definitely broken, that’s for sure. We can make it to a camp within a day, I’ll get this fixed and we can find you some proper food. How does that sound?” He barks happily for a moment before turning an affectionate gaze towards my arm. He nuzzles my legs as I shakily stand up. I fall to my right and placing my broken arm out to protect myself I hit the injured article with quite a lot of force. I yell again and Sphen barks. I stare at him for a moment before sighing and laughing. We make our way out of the house and back onto the deserted city streets. With Sphen’s help I manage to tear a piece of cloth off my jumper and make it into a make shift sling. The support feels good on my arm as we walk through the rough terrain.