The Birth of the New World

-Lain-

Haaaa, another day of walking. It seems that all I’ve been doing for quite some time is just walking, walking, and a side of more walking. I never thought I would miss cars so much, I long for the days when I could complain about a car ride taking ‘just’ two hours. Oh, how little did past me know, The FOOL!

To think that I would be so blind in my youth, so utterly foolish as to complain about sitting in a nice comfortable, climate-controlled car for two measly hours while covering a distance that would take days of exhausting walking to cover on foot! Shame on thee past self! For shame! She didn’t know how good she had it!

“Haaaa, oh well, there’s nothing I can do about it now. At the very least I can take solace that I now have a cute little travel buddy to keep me company.” I say to myself, as I lament the irresponsible behavior of my foolish younger self. [Completely ignoring the fact that that was not even two whole years ago.]

Sky, by my side, looks up at me with curiosity. Probably wondering why this weird demon that she is traveling with is talking to herself like a crazy person.

Ahh, why must she be so small and cute? It makes me want to pick on her so badly. Maybe just a little scare? Ah, I can’t resist!

Before Sky can even realize what is happening, I let go of her hand and move behind her. In one swift motion I grab her by the waist and lift her up and over my head. Being extra careful to not stab her with my horns I move her and set her on my shoulders.

Sky sounds out with a startled squeaking scream, and I laugh as she grabs ahold of my horns and squeezes my neck with her fluffy thighs in a death grip. I’m still laughing as she starts to calm down, realizing that she is not dead, but is now riding on top of my shoulders.

She relaxes and soon I can feel her tail happily wagging on top of my backpack. I look up and catch her looking down at me, I lock eyes with those big yellow eyes and give her a toothy smile. With a shock she turns her head away and looks to the horizon, but behind me I can feel her tail start wagging even faster.

Ah, she’s so shy, haha. At least I could help make her happy. I think to myself as I redirect my attention back to the road. After all a responsible driver shouldn’t be taking her eyes off the road, especially when they have a passenger.

No longer needing to match my speed to Sky, not that I mind doing so, I go ahead and speed up to my normal walking speed. Sky, up on shoulders seems to be a bit excited by us moving faster, which makes me happy.

It’s so much better having someone to travel with. I probably would have gone nuts if I was left on my own for too much longer.

After some time, something interesting happens; Sky starts petting my head.

She is up there with one hand holding onto one of my horns, which I don’t mind, as her other hand runs her fingers though my hair and pets the top of my head. Occasionally, she will even use the little claws on her fingers the scratch at my scalp and behind my ears.

I’m a bit shocked by her doing this, but honestly, if I can do it to her then why can’t she pet me too every now and again? If she wants to pet me, then I’m not going to stop her, and besides, it feels nice.

To let her know that I like it and she can keep going, I go ahead and push my head against her hand like she does mine when I pet her. Apparently, this makes her very happy, because I can feel her wag her tail with even more intensity and she squeezes my neck with her thighs. Ah, there so soft!

So, I continue my journey with Sky happily petting my head as I carry her down the road.

It’s nice not being alone.

With Sky riding on my shoulders, we manage to cover some good distance and are able to avoid having to take breaks for her to rest and recover. For some of the trip, she even munches on some of her packed jerky as she enjoys the ride. Thankfully, she doesn’t end up just destroying the entire bag in one sitting. She probably realizes that we only have so much of the stuff and is portioning it to make it last longer.

HmHm, she’s so smart! Makes me feel like a proud mother watching her daughter; and she is picking up words so quickly now!

As we walk, Sky will occasionally practice her vocabulary by pointing out different things and saying their name, getting excited every time I congratulate her. She especially loves to use my name whenever she wants to get my attention for something.

As we walk the scenery slowly shifts and changes around us. Where there used to be only forest on all sides of us for quite some time, it now only resides to our left. To our right is farmland that stretches out as far as I can see.

In the distance I can occasionally spot an abandoned barn or the remains of an old tracker or oil pump. As we travel down the road, Sky gets my attention by calling my name and patting my head. I turn to look to where she is pointing as she asks, “What that name?”

I look and see off in the distance a bunch of incredibly large creatures grazing through the fields. The are absolutely massive, being almost as tall as a single-story house. Their bodies are covered in layers of cascading thick hair covered in green mossy growth, making each one look like living moving hills of grass. Adorned atop their heads are horns that extend outward to the left and right as if trees had awkwardly grown out from those hills at an angle and hanging from those horns are layers of green ivy and thorny vines. In the distance, one of the massive beasts rears its head back and let's flow the deepest and mightiest ‘moo’ that I have ever heard in my entire life.

Having stopped walking so as to take in this marvel of mutated nature, I look up to Sky sitting atop my shoulders and tell her, “They are called cows. Cows.”

She glances down at me with eyes full of fascination before returning her attention to the massive bovines hoovering their way through the field without a care in the world. “Cows, cows… Cows!” She says happily.

I smile with her excitement, this is probably the first time that she has seen such massive creatures in her life, or at the very least ones that aren’t actively trying to eat her and are instead enjoying some nice, tasty grass.

And honestly, I can’t blame her. They are really cool to look at. It’s almost like seeing a woolly mammoth come to life after having only seen drawings of them and replicas in museums. They’re majestic in a way.

After enjoying the view for a while, I get back to walking, the cows eventually disappearing over the horizon and the both of us shifting our attention back towards the road ahead of us with a tinge of disappointment.

I hope I’ll get to see some more cows, it’s nice seeing a mutated animal that isn’t actively trying to eat my face like a hobo drugged out on bath salts. I think to myself.

We continue to follow the road for some time and my attention is drawn to the namesake of my traveling companion. Still looking blue and beautiful despite it having been so for two days now. A very rare occurrence nowadays when the new norm for weather has become full cloud coverage with a high chance of rain.

These clear days, or at the very least days where the clouds aren’t entirely blocking out the sky are becoming more and more common in recent weeks. It is making me hopeful that we’ll soon be back to ‘normal’ weather for once, and hopefully before the next winter arrives. Last winter was not pleasant in the slightest. It made a normal Ohio winter look like a little push over: and Ohio Winters Suck!

Don’t even want to think about it, let’s just hope that the next one is better and move on.

Watching the sky, I see clouds of in the distance, “Ya this won’t be lasting much longer, huh? Looks like we'll be back to rainy days starting tomorrow…”

Sky looks down at me with a curious look, so I just give her a smile and pat her on the thigh to let her know that everything is alright.

Returning my attention to the road, I notice something off in the distance. Squinting a bit, I try and focus on what it is. “Is that a military vehicle? I ask myself. Obviously, by this point I am used to seeing all sorts of vehicles left abandoned on the highway and around town, but the military isn’t one for just leaving their vehicles behind to rot. We don’t have factories cranking them out anymore, each Humvee and tank they have left is probably worth their weight in gold.

Picking up my speed a bit I close the distance to the vehicle. As I get closer, I get a better idea of what it is and why it was left behind.

The vehicle, a heavily armored Humvee, is flipped over on its side, dented like a kicked can, ripped open, and missing a tire. From what I can see its undercarriage has been viciously torn into and utterly ruined.

With how torn apart it is, I can’t imagine that they could have brought it back while also escorting civilians, so they chose to leave it behind. It would have needed to be completely refit anyways and probably would have just been stripped for parts.

The concerning part is that this was probably one of the escort vehicles for the convoy, and yet here it is looking like a corpse on the side of the road. What the hell attacked the convoy!?

Finally arriving at the scene, I kneel down and let Sky off my shoulders, she seems rather disappointed to not be riding me anymore, but she quickly cheers up when I start approaching the Humvee, probably thinking that it is time for some looting.

From up close the damage looks even worse. Parts of the vehicle are visibly scarred by a set of massive arcing lines that look as if the vehicle had been torn at by a massive set of claws. Whatever it is they pissed off, the beast was huge.

All over the area is covered with bullet casings, they must have left in a hurry, they didn’t even take the time to collect them to reuse latter. Taking a walk around the area I find a strip of farmland where the remains of massive tire tracks have yet to be fully filled back in. They arch off from the road before finally heading back onto the highway.

Some of the vehicles moved away from the combat? The civilian transports perhaps? Moved off the road and out of the way behind the armored escorts. I think to myself, looking back toward the massive, ruined vehicle. Even now, Sky is marveling at the thing and looking at those massive claw marks that mar its surface.

Continuing my walk around the battlefield I find an area of the road that is scorched and cracked, not too far away is a massive arm laying off the side of the road in a ditch. Even blown apart and rotting, the size of this one arm easily dwarfs my entire body and the claws that extend from its end could each be wielded as swords in the hands of a grown man.

The arm looks as if scavengers have been feasting on it for some days now, in many areas I can see bone and rotted tendons showing through openings in torn flesh. Approaching the arm, I have to cover my nose as the scent of rot assaults my senses.

Sky, being curious about what I’m doing, decided to come over and is visibly shocked when she sees the arm. I can only imagen the thoughts going through her head.

Looking over the arm, I am about to disregard it and walk away, when my attention is drawn back to those claws, they are very intimidating and considering how damaged the Humvee is, very strong.

Deciding that it might be worth it, I head down the incline and approach the arm. I ignore the scent as I draw near, I’ve smelt much worse, and this is hardly my first time coming across a rotting carcass.

Walking over to the claws, I bend down and grab one. Giving it a tug, it doesn’t budge; hasn’t rotted enough to simply be pulled apart. Resolving myself to a bit of nastiness, I work my way up the back of the hand and feel for where the joints connecting to the claws should be.

Finding an area that feels about right I take out my knife and start carving at the arm, tearing open rotting flesh and meat until I uncover the bones joints. Working my knife in, I carve away at the cartilage connecting the two joints together and cut away some more of the flesh connecting to the bits that I want to extract.

After repeating this for all five claws, I then head back over to them and grab onto them with both hands. Bracing my leg and digging my feet into the soil, I start pulling. At first the claws fight back and try to stay put, but as I pull, I start to hear some squelching noises as the claw is torn away from the surrounding flesh. I repeat this for the other four until I have all five claws piled up beside me.

Up at the top of the incline, Sky is watching with wide eyes as I gather up the claws and carry them back up the hill. Sitting down in the grass next to her I set the claws down and work on cleaning some loose bits of meat and blood from their surface.

Sky, realizing what I am doing, quickly sits down opposite me and works on cleaning one of the claws. She looks like she is happy being able to help.

After we get them all cleaned up, I take and tie them up with some rope and then hang them from my backpack. Using one of my bottles of water, I clean both mine and Sky’s hands. I don’t particularly need the claws, but they could be useful for trade or something.

Petting Sky on the head, I head back over to the Humvee that is still sitting on its side. If they left in a hurry, then maybe the soldiers left some goodies behind. It’s worth giving it a look. But first I want to try something.

Depositing my bag on the road, I direct Sky to stand by it. She does so without complaint, but looks really curious, so I just give her a smile.

Walking over to the top side of the Humvee where there should have been a mounted MG, probably salvaged before they left, I look for a good spot before crouching down and digging my claws into the frame. Making sure that I have a good grip and my legs are properly planted, I start lifting.

I wanted to test and see just how strong I am, what better test than trying flip a freaking heavily armored Humvee? Unlike with my other feats of strength so far, I can actually start to feel myself struggle a bit. However, this doesn’t seem to be my limit as the Humvee starts to lift and tilt away from me. Once enough of the massive vehicles weight is shifted over, I simply let go and let gravity finish the work.

With a massive slam and much complaining from the poor things ruined suspension system, the Humvee is finally back on its wheels; well, three wheels. Stepping away, I admire my handy work while clapping my hands with a big smile on my face.

Looking over to Sky, I see her staring with her mouth wide open in shock. Seeing this, I laugh a bit and say, “I’m pretty strong, aren’t I Sky?”

Snapping out of it, she runs over like an excited puppy, gabbing at my arms and poking at my muscles. Despite what I just did, my appearance definitely doesn’t scream super strength, if anything I have the build closer to that of a runner or a gymnast with my new body.

While my legs certainly look like they have some power behind them, my arms are rather narrow. Still as a joke and to please Sky, I go ahead and flex the muscles on my arm. To her delight, she starts squeaking very happily while poking at my meager arm muscles.

After letting her play for a bit, I get her focused back on the task and I go and fetch my bag, bringing it closer to the now righted Humvee. Setting down my stuff, I reach up and pry open one of the dented doors.

Giving a quick look around inside and determining that it should be safe, I pick up Sky and raise her to the vehicle so she can climb in. Even using the footstep on the side of the vehicle, I have to practically throw myself just to get into the vehicle; darn thing is clearly not made with shorties in mind.

I laugh a bit as I am reminded of a little person comedian that I watched online who talked about going overseas to entertain the troops. He apparently ran into some similar issues as we are now. At the time, being 6ft tall, I couldn’t fully appreciate the comedic elements of his story. But now, as a certified shorty, I get it; tall people are assholes! Why do they have to go and make everything so big!?

Shaking my head and giggling at the injustice of a not-so-long-gone society, I clamber into the massive vehicle to join my little companion who is already busy at work crawling around and digging under chairs looking for loot.

In the back, where we are currently, there is plenty of seating for soldier to squeeze in like a can of sardines, up top I can see the sky through the turret well where an MG most likely used to be mounted. Up front is the console where a radio unit used to be, but the soldiers apparently took that with them as well. Not having the radio is disappointing, might have been able to use it to contact the army and try negotiating with them.

Of course, using a radio would have probably also ended up with me getting swarmed by monsters, so maybe it is for the best that it’s not here.