There was some evidence that the thing feasting on a pile of flesh used to be a dog, but not a whole lot. It had the same general form: four legs, paws, same musculoskeletal structure. Now, it resembled something that had been stripped of its skin and starved for several decades. Yellow eyes, sunken into the skull, peered around nervously, looking for competition for its feast, danger, or possible a bigger meal.
Behind a large metal pile of junk, not twenty five feet away, crouched Alice Forthwright. Her heart pounded in her chest as she tilted her head just slightly around the pile to see the monster, a canis, look up. She ducked back, plastering herself against her shelter again, chest heaving under the heavy vest she wore. She readjusted the gas mask on her face, wincing as her oxygen monitor beeped in her ear again. How could she be so stupid? She'd been so distracted, exploring outside her settlement, that she hadn't even realized how low on oxygen she was or how dark it was getting. The sun, bright red and pregnant with a sunset, was almost below the horizon. They'd be shutting down the settlement soon. There were strange things that happened at night in this desert. She chewed on her lip, making the decision to try to sneak around it. Maybe if she took a far enough detour, she could avoid it and not have to run. Not that she had a chance. No weapons, barely any oxygen, and there was no possible way she could outrun a canis. She counted to three, eyes squeezed close, and took a few steps forward, going directly opposite of the beast.
She'd only made it a few careful feet before the wind switched directions, blowing her amber hair out and carrying her scent straight towards the thing she was trying so desperately to avoid.
It snorted violently and snapped it's large head in her direction.
Alice whimpered and started to run towards the settlement, faster then she thought she could have. Fear fueled her muscles as she heard the pounding of thick paws on hardened ground and the ferocious snarl of the predator behind her. She glanced behind her once and cried out as it leapt into the air, headed directly her way. The front paws caught her head and she smashed face first into the dirt. Blinding pain hit her as she realized her mask had been pulled off and she had just connected nose first into the ground. She stood up, half-blinded, and started to run again, ignorant to the dangers of breathing in chemicals that intoxicated the air as fear clouded her mind.
The canis, more preoccupied with the strange masked that screeched about oxygen levels, ignored her in favor of chewing on the noisy thing between its paws.
Alice ran until she could hardly breathe, her lungs burning from exertion. She turned her head, looking behind her fearfully. She could barely see the canis' outline in the dying light. Suddenly she gasped and her hands flew up to her face, pinching her soft cheekbones and bloody nose. Where was her mask? She paused, panic gripping her again as she realized the kind of air she was inhaling. She'd go mad soon, according to reports. Humans exposed to this air went mad, becoming animalistic and even going as far as feasting on human flesh. But Alice wasn't even choking. The air had a different taste, but it wasn't terrible. She could stand to breathe it. Was this normal? Did others feel the same way before they went insane?
Looking up at the horizon, she gauged the distance between her and the settlement, which she could just barely make out. She sighed and set off, knowing there was no way she'd make it there by nightfall. Keeping up a steady jogging pace, she headed towards home.
-
"John...I know it's been so long...I really wish I could've seen you one last time before...I still have your letters. You remember. The ones you sent me while I went into hiding? They used to smell like your cologne. Now they just smell like chemicals. Everything smells like chemicals now, John..."
John Davis sighed and pressed the stop button on his computer, cutting off the voice on the damaged audio he'd lifted off the tape.
The tape. The tape of his dead wife.
John ran his fingers through his graying hair and thoughtfully wondered how he hadn't come across this tape sooner. It was in someone's file. An Alice Forthwright. As settlement leader at Ragnarok, he had a duty to know every citizen. That was why he was going through the files. He hadn't taken the time to really get to know Alice, though she had caused enough trouble to bring herself to the attention of his advisers. As the stories went, Alice single-handedly managed to bring to down an entire store and a house, all just by messing around as kids were bound to do. However, when he reached for her file, the damaged audio tape had fallen out along with a post-it note saying this had been found when Alice had been rescued as an infant. The more John read, the more mysterious the circumstances surrounding Alice's discovery seemed. She was found alone, outside, in unclean air. Normally a child like that would be left alone or put out of its misery. They couldn't risk something infected being brought into the community. However, the man in charge of the scavenging team that discovered her, Uriel Castella, brought her back anyway. Uriel died soon after the mission due to complications from a canis attack, but Alice grew up normally in the community. There were no papers concerning her general mental and physical health. It seemed she'd never seen a doctor in her entire life. John couldn't figure out how that was even possible. Certainly she had to have been to some doctor...?
A knock on his door drew his attention away from the file in front of him. "Come in." He blinked several times, trying to get his eyes used to his surroundings again after studying tiny words.
Carl, John's extraordinarily anxious assistant, opened the door with a white face. "W-we have trouble...at th-the entrance..."
John frowned and looked at the clock. "Why? It's after hours. Whatever is going on down there should be handled by the guards-"
"It's Alice, sir. A-Alice Forthwright."
John's frown deepened and he stood up, grabbing his coat. "Is she trying to get out? For godsake, it's after hours!"
"No sir." Carl swallowed, pushing his blonde hair away from his broken glasses. "Sh-she's trying to get back in..."
