CC Round Four Pg.5

The dogs of Pripyat kept the wilderness at bay.

With the dogs in disarray, the wilderness came to play.

Beasts of every form filtered into the outskirts of the ruins. Many encountered resistance, driving them back to whence they came. Some, however, went unchallenged. They delved further and further into the city, culling the weak and the pale.

One such creature, a stray wolf separated from its pack, stalked through the alleys. A bloody gash surrounded the gory remains of what once was its left eye. Small claw marks peppered its face. Dried blood stained its matted fur.

It walked with trembling steps. Hunger clawed at its belly.

The brute slipped through a side street and sniffed at the air, whimpering as the odor of decay flowed into its nostrils. The city struck the creature dumb with its sheer vastness. Great behemoths rose high into the blueness of the sky, scraping the heavens with their sheer greatness. Endless corridors of cracked stone led off every which way, forming a maze so great that no creature could hope to explore it in a single day. The night turned the peculiar splendor into a harrowing labyrinth.

Hunger overrode fear, driving the creature onwards.

~~~~

Erx sat up at the sound of a distant, savage bark. He glanced towards Untoten, who seemed similarly alarmed.

"That was no ordinary dog," she spoke hurriedly. "I know that sound."

Erx nodded and raised his second sight. Four tiny glows skittered around nearby, vastly overshadowed by a single faint spot further off in the distance. It grew brighter by the second, rapidly solidifying into a decidedly dog-like shape. The form drifted back and forth, growing brighter each time. He frowned.

"Whatever it is, it's coming this way," he said.

A tapping sound rose from behind him. Erx jumped, clumsily turning around mid-air. Two dogs- one dark, one light, and both larger than he- approached from the darkness. He scuttled into a dark alcove and watched with timid eyes.

"Greg! Stief!" cried Untoten. "What are you doing here?"
"We're out of time," spoke the darker of the two. "It's getting too dangerous to wander around like this. Beyra's on to us, too, and she won't be happy if we show up around you again. You've got to get out of here right now."
"But I still haven't had time to think!"
"This isn't a matter of thinking," said the lighter one. "It's a matter of living or dying. You aren't going to last much longer out here."
"But what about you?"
"We'll be fine. It's you that's in harm's way right now, not us. And if this works right, we can all get out of this in one piece."
"But how?"
"We fake your death," explained the dark one. "You're already good at looking dead, right? Really, all we have to do is convince someone that you're a goner and that's that."
"Nobody asks questions," affirmed the other. "Dead dogs are dead."

All had forgotten of the approaching figure.

"Okay, so what do I have to do, Greg?" asked Untoten.
"Just follow us," the darker one answered. "We'll explain on the way. There's no time."
"Say, where's your opponent?" asked Stief. "Shouldn't he be around here somewhere?"
"He must've wandered off," suggested Untoten.
"I don't like that. What if he's just waiting to ambush you?"

Erx shivered and drew himself back further into his shelter, trying to look for any more hidden allies of his foe.

Nothing to his left. Nothing to his right.

"Look, let's just go" said Greg. "He's none of our business."

Untoten rose to her feet and followed the two into the alleyway.

The madness of the world kept on rapping on the door. It tapped harder, harder, harder.

Erx gasped as a yellow glow flared up from the corner of his eye, hurtling down the alley with tremendous speed.

"LOOK OUT!" he screamed.

The madness broke through.

Untoten and her two companions turned in surprise, looking back into the building. Their eyes never alighted upon the frenzied wolf and its lolling tongue and its gashed eye and its deadly fangs.

For they, perhaps, were captivated by the sight-

-of the rust.