The Birth of the New World

Quickly making my way back, I am relieved to find that the store had not been robbed, destroyed, or suddenly combust into flames while I was gone, despite my paranoia constantly telling me otherwise.

Gently, I lift up the gate and slide underneath. Lowering it behind me, I head in and start packing as many clothes as I can fit along with my other looted goods. I don’t stop until the bag is bulging with fabric like a man that just ate too much and is about to throw up.

The hoodie I found, a white and pink thing with cat ears, is too big to be stuffed into the bag so I decide to just go ahead and wear it. Slipping it on it is apparently a couple of sizes too big, but not so big that it becomes an inconvenience.

Putting on the hood with its cat ears, I give myself a look in the mirror. I can’t help but laugh at myself as I strike a pose, “Hahahaha, I look like one of those moe blob anime girls. What the hell, hahaha?! Little demon girl dressed like a cat! Next, I’ll be swinging around a sword twice my size and shooting lasers beams. Hahahaha, oh I wish I had a camera! Anna would be losing her shit if she saw me like this!”

Before I can become a laughing mess on the floor, I look away from the mirror and take off the hoodie. It would be for the best if I don’t wear this. Not only would no one take me seriously, but I wouldn’t be able to take myself seriously if I wore it.

Besides, I don’t think my moe stat is high enough to be able to equip this piece of gear yet. It’s just too high leveled.

Deciding to leave the hoodie for someone else to maybe find, I put it on a hanger and then display it where it can be clearly seen from the window. Packing up my stuff, I pull on my pack and get ready to leave.

As I am stepping away from the counter, my foot kicks something and it goes skidding across the floors until hits a shelf. Looking down I find a round pin that is face down. Curiosity compels me to go and pick it up.

Flipping it over, I am a bit stunned when I find a rainbow. It’s a simple pride pin, no words or anything, just six different colored lines turning the circle into a rainbow.

I just stare at it, frozen with indecision. Should, should I keep it? Should I wear it? I, I….

I’ve been a closeted lesbian for quite some time now. Didn’t take me long to figure out that I had no interest in guys, and a lot of interest in other girls. Questionable thoughts and urges in the locker room is what got me to notice and eventually visiting some ‘dirty’ websites is what confirmed it for me.

The problem is that my family doesn’t know, I haven’t even told Anna; despite really wanting to. Not that I could, I don’t think they would judge me, but I could never work up the courage to out myself. And then the end of the world happened and a lot of things, like survival, became a hell of a lot more important than worrying about your sexuality.

So, I just stand there and continue to stare at the pin. It weighs practically nothing, but still, I find myself intimidated by the weight of this little object. Should I put it on or push the problem off until later?

I was already brave once today. I’m all dressed up in a skirt and looking cute. I can be brave again! Besides, I’m sure that everyone will be more concerned about the whole ‘turned into an Imp’ thing. While they are busy freaking out over my transformation, I can just drop it on them. “Oh, ya. I turned into a demon after a dog bit me, almost died, no biggie. Oh, by the way, I’m gay.” I’m sure it’ll go great.

Actually, now that I think about it, it would probably be pretty funny if I did that… For me, not them. But still, pretty funny…

Besides, it’s just a pin. Just wear the damn thing. You’re already a demon, who cares if you are gay. What’s anyone going to do about it? Shoot me? The soldiers are probably going to try that anyway when they see me, what’s a little rainbow pin going to do?

"Wait don't shoot; the demon is gay! Don't waste the bullets, pull out the Flammenwerfer! We shall burn away this heresy before she can corrupt our children and steal our women!"

I giggle to myself a bit as I let my mind wander to the extremes of my imagination. Still need to figure out if I am fireproof or not...

Deciding that enough is enough, I pull myself together and make up my mind.

If I can be brave enough to wear a skirt, then I can be brave enough to do this!

With my tail angrily smacking the ground behind me, cracking the linoleum tiles with each hit, I take the pin and hook it on the left arm strap of my backpack.

With that handled and my future looking even more questionable, I calm myself down and then leave the store. Gently I close the gate behind myself, in the future some other survivor might come here, and I am sure that they would be grateful for the store being sealed rather than left open to rot away.

“Alright,’ I tell myself, “I got everything that I came for plus extra. This has to be the best scavenging run I’ve done in a long time. Time for me to get out of here and get back to traveling.”

Heading back towards the food court, loaded with loot and a shit eating grin on my face, I come to a grinding halt as I hear the sound of breaking glass coming from up ahead. Immediately, I move myself against the nearest wall and put all of my focus into my hearing.

Focusing as much as I can, I can hear the sounds of crunching glass as something heavy walks around.

The glass doors and windows, something is coming inside.

Slowly moving forward, I make my way to the corner before the food court and peak my head around. From where I am I should be in near complete darkness, so I’m not too worried about being spotted. From my corner I can see what had entered the building and heart drops like a rock.

At the entrance, sniffing about and spreading out is three mutated dogs.

Seeing this, I start to panic. My breathing quickens and a cold sweat runs down my back. Hiding further behind the corner, I shrink in on myself. Without knowing it, my tail had wound itself tightly around my waist and I find that I am holding my left arm, the scars that adorn its grey skin feeling incredibly itchy.

Why the hell are there dogs here!? What are they doing!? Why did they have to show up now!? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? WHY!?

Trying to control my breathing and stop the shaking, I fearfully peak around the corner again. The dogs are still sniffing everything. Smelling the air and slowly making their way further into the mall. There smelling for something… They have my scent; they know that someone has been in here! I realize.

Quietly but quickly, I back away. Slowly making my way back through the aisle, if I run, they will most certainly hear me and jostling of my backpack. Have to move slowly. Have to walk!

Slowly I backpedal away, refusing to take my eyes off of the food court, my fear not allowing me to look away as my heart pounds away in my ears. Stepping over a root, around some rubble, avoiding a crack in the floor big enough to swallow a foot, I keep backing away, trusting my new body’s instincts to keep me from tripping while I fight to keep myself from hyperventilating.

Finally, after what felt like hours to my adrenaline filled mind, I make it to the intersection.

Come on brain focus! Yes, big dogs scary. I need an escape route!

Looking around I spot the bath and candles store, The smell! I can use it to cover my tracks!

Being careful not to shake my bag, I move as fast as I can walk, my eyes never leaving the food court. As I cross the corner into the aisle, I can’t help but witness as the first dog begins to crest the corner of the food court, its nose firmly planted to the ground.

Nope, nope, nope! I quicken my speed and hurry down the aisle. Up ahead I can see the branching path. Earlier I had ignored that path as I didn’t see much of a reason to go that way, but racking my brain I recall that the quickest way back to the highway is through that path.

Every fiber of my being wants me to sprint to the exit, but I keep my self under control and keep walking forward. Just ignore the building dread in the back of my head screaming at me that if I don’t run, I will die. The dogs know that I am here, but they don’t know where. If I can just get out without attracting their attention, I will be fine. I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine!

Finally, I reach the next corner, leaning against the wall I let out a long shuddering breath. Taking a moment to work up a sliver of courage, I lean over and peak around the corner. It doesn’t take long until the dogs enter the intersection, nostrils flaring as they try to follow my scent. For a long while they linger around the Hot Topic, smelling at the gate and scratching at the floor. When they eventually give up on investigating the gate, the dogs split up, one heading down towards the first department store, and the other two heading towards the empty Sears.

Resisting the urge to sigh in relief and collapse on the spot, I turn around and get moving. As fast as I can silently walk, I hurry to make my way to the exit. As I draw nearer, I can’t stop myself from moving faster until I am almost at a jog.

Suddenly, I hear a large a loud crash from further back into the mall, shattering glass and clattering furniture. In my moment of surprise, I turn around and trip over a wayward root, landing on my behind, my bag clattering behind me as its contents get shaken about. From a nearby crack in the ground some rodents scurry away in fear, squeaking out their plea for life before diving into another crack. Noise comes from up above me, resting on a branch, an angry owl hoots at me in protest for scaring away its prey.

I ignore all of that, my every sense is focused on the way I had just came from, watching, listening, narrowing until I can hear it. The sound of clicking and clacking as claws collide with ruined linoleum tile. The unmistakable sound of a dog running on cold hard flooring growing closer and closer.

In a great mess of flailing limbs, I somehow manage to fight down a panic attack and get myself back on my feet as the first dog turns the corner and comes into full view. Mouth full of teeth and flowing with salvia, madness and hunger ever present in its eyes, it takes barely a moment for it to lock on to me. Arching back, the massive hound throws it head skyward and lets out a deep billowing howl. Very soon the mall is a cacophony of noise as the other dogs join in.

Backing away I reach down with shaking hands and searchingly pat away at my waist. Knife, knife, where is my knife!? Bag! I put it in my bag when I changed my clothes! Idiot!!!

The dog is moving now. Looking up from trying to find my knife, I can see that the massive beast is already barreling its way towards me like a freight train.

“Shit!”, I scream and kick off the floor into a mad dash. Exit, exit, exit, just get to the exit!

Ahead of me is the closed doors leading to the clearance store. In front of the door is some signs, one surprisingly still standing, that says something about the entrance being from outside only or something. The gates are most likely locked.

Considering my current situation and the sheer amount of fear and adrenaline running through my veins like liquid cocaine, I honestly couldn’t give a shit if the gate was locked or even made of titanium. I would open it, or gods forbid, go through it if it means getting away from the +200ibs of slobbering hunger behind me.

Finally, I manage to reach the gate. Throwing myself to my knees, I reach out to grab the handle for the gate, ready to rip it from the ground. But before my hands can reach it, I feel every instinct in my body scream out at me in danger.

Wasting no time to look, I throw myself to the left and roll away. Not even a second after I vacate the spot, the large mass of the dog’s body comes slamming into the gate right where I used to be with a loud crash of vibrating metal. The metal of the gate is dented in, and the dog has to struggle for a few moments in order extract itself from the gate.

Backing up in a hurry, I can feel my backpack make contact with the wall behind me.

I frantically look around to see if I can find another exit and it doesn’t take me long to find it. It’s behind the dog, a side entrance to the mall with a vending machine for drinks and access to the restroom.

The doors are glass! Even if they weren’t already broken the dogs will just go straight through them and keep chasing me! I tell myself.

Something catches my attention in the corner of my eye. Directing my attention to it, my heart falls even further. The other two dogs have just rounded the corner and are already barreling their way towards me.

The sound of ripping metal draws me back to my area. The first dog, a bulldog now that I think about it, had just finished extracting itself from the gate and is already turning towards me. I can’t help but to think, ‘Ah, I’m cornered.’

With a single beat of my heart the world comes to a crawl as I watch the massive beast flex its muscles and prepare to leap at me. Each fiber of its muscle tightening up in anticipation as it bends its knees. Moving a snail’s pace in the slow world of my mind; each heartbeat reverberating through my being like the toll of clock counting down to my end.

Ah, this is the second time this has happened, isn’t it? I ask myself. That right, the first time was when I almost died to the dogs. Not even two weeks and I am already in a situation like this again. What the hell is up with my luck?

As I contemplate my crazy life, I notice that the dog is almost ready to pounce. Its ugly face is already that of bulldog, so it basically looks like someone smashed its face in with a dictionary, while the mutation clearly did it no favorers. Its teeth are an utter mess, going every which direction. Must be British, I honestly don’t know how this thing can even eat with its teeth so fucked up.

Soon it is ready to jump, and its muscles release their tension in an explosion of force. I can’t help but watch in morbid fascination as they move, sliding under the skin, moving and shifting as the leg fully extends and launches the beast like a compressed spring let loose.

As the dog soars towards me, mouth wide open, ‘Ah that’s how it eats, more teeth, lovely.’ and droplets of drool flying every which way, my eye catches a ray of light. Following it up, I see a tiny sliver of the sun peeking through the clouds; its light somehow managing to find its way here through the skylight in the ceiling.

Ah, I really am an idiot sometimes. I didn’t even think of trying that…

The dog is moving through the air now like the world ugliest superman. Kicking my leg against the ground, I launch myself to the side.

Time slowly starts to catch up, seemingly satisfied by my making a decision to move. The dog quickly becoming a flying blur of muscle and flesh as it slams face first into the concrete wall I just vacated. An audible slap of flesh and crunch of bone is heard as the dog most likely just broke its already smashed nose against the wall.

Behind me it whimpers a bit, but I don’t turn around, the other two are closing the distance quickly and will be arriving in seconds. As fast as I can, I take off and run, not for the clearance store gate or the other exit, but for the opposite wall.

One step, two steps, then three, I brace my knees and kick off the floor with as much force as I can. Soon I am leaving the floor far behind and the wall is quickly growing very close. Spreading my arms wide, I smack into the wall at full force. Flailing about before I end up falling off, I grab at the vines and plants growing out of the wall. Several of them simply get ripped out and thrown aside, luckily one holds and before I can lose my balance entirely, I stab the claws on my other hand into the wall.

Seriously, I am such an idiot! Why do I keep forgetting about using my claws? These things are ridiculously useful!

As I berate myself and hang from the wall like some knockoff comic book hero, I look over my shoulder and check on the dogs. The other two are just now arriving and the first is joining them, blood streaming out of its stupid ugly face.

Quickly, I scurry a bit further up the wall until I feel safe. Down below the giant mutts are going about in circles, scratching the wall and barking at me with deep guttural calls that most certainly do not say, ‘domesticated and loveable.’

They can’t get me! I’m safe! I start laughing as the relief floods through me, the fear that used to fill me becoming a vacuum that’s now very quickly becoming flooded with excitement and an adrenaline high like sugar in my blood.

“HAHAAAHahaha you stupid dogs! You can’t get me! How about you use those claws of yours and climb up here? Oh wait, you can’t because you don’t have thumbs! Losers! Stupid dogs! Hahahaha!” I laugh and berate them, stirring them up into a fury as they seem to understand that the little creature that was just running from them with its tail between its legs, is now berating them like a monkey in a tree.

By this point I am shaking my butt at them and wagging my tail like bait in front of a fish, laughing myself silly with tears in my eyes. “Come on, jump! Hahaha, maybe you can still get me? I’m not too high up, am I? Come on look, I’ve got a nice juice ham for ya, premium A Grade Lain Meat. Too bad you can’t reach me, I bet I taste delicious. Oh well, guess you’ll just have to give up, LOSERS! Hahahaha!”

Now I know what it feels like to be a bird in a tree, making fun of all those ground creatures too stupid to evolve to have wings or claws for climbing. What a bunch of losers, what are they going to do about it? Come up here and make me stop? I’ll be as loud and annoying as I please, thank you very much.

Down below one of the dogs seems to have become royally pissed; I can’t help but watch as it backs away from the wall. With a running start it leaps off the ground and flies at the wall. At first my instinct is to laugh at it as it’s about to smack into the wall, but surprisingly it ends up hitting the wall paws first and danger signals immediately start blaring in the back of my head.

Kicking off the wall, the dog launches itself at me.

“Eeeeeeeeehh!”, I yelp and pull my rear away, my tail quickly following in a scrunched up curled mass. Powerful jaws and a set of sharp teeth snap down right where my butt used to be, and the dog quickly goes soaring past me like a wall of flesh.

I almost lost my hams!

With a fresh cold sweat running down my back and my excitement firmly put in check, I quickly scurry further up the wall until I am close enough to touch the ceiling.

“Alright, alright… Even if they pull that same trick, they shouldn’t be able to reach me now. I hope…” I tell myself.

Down below the dogs are still angrily jumping and clawing at the wall, it doesn’t seem like they are just going to give up if I stay up here, so I need to be the one that leaves.

Obviously, my plan wasn’t just to cling to the wall like a lizard and hope they go away. Looking over I see my objective, the skylight, one of the few sources of light in this building and my exit out of here. Once I am on the roof the dogs will have no way of reaching me, I can simply wait for them to leave and then climb down.

The ceiling of the mall was seemingly designed to be open and showing pipes and grid, but in a sort of fancy way that nice to look at. Grabbing onto one of the pipes I test my weight on it and see if it will hold. Everything seems to be pretty solidly built, adding credence to the fact that the building is still standing even after the end of the world.

Letting go of the wall, I move from pipe to pipe and hang from the grid as I move towards the skylight. Down below the dogs are circling like hungry sharks. From up here they can almost be mistaken as dogs begging at the table, hoping that their master will accidentally drop a scrap of food. Only in this case, I’m the food.

Swallowing back some saliva flavored with a heavy splash of fear, I continue making my way across the ceiling like a mall ninja in a red skirt.

As I am crossing, I can’t help but to think to myself. ‘I would never have been able to do this when I was human. Holding my weight and a full backpack doing monkey bars several meters in the air above mutated dogs that want to rip me limb from limb. I would have fallen after the third pipe.

Although, I probably wouldn’t even be in this situation to begin with,’ I deadpan, ‘I would be dead…’

Finally reaching the skylight, I grab onto its edge and dig my claws in. Pulling myself up and through the already shattered window, I haul myself up and onto the damp roof and collapse to my knees. Soon I am reduced to a puddle of stress and relief, sitting there with my new skirt getting dirty and soaked from being on the damp roof.

My emotions eventually flood over and turn me into a laughing and crying mess. My hands go to my face, and I break down, “Damnit! Why did it have to be dogs!? Is once not enough!?”

It takes some time for me to calm down, to get my twisted up feeling back under control, to stop the shaking as the last bits of adrenaline finally drains out of my system. The promise of more panic attacks refusing to fully leave me. For a while I just sit there at stare up at the clouds, grey and heavy with the promise of more rain.

Once I feel calm enough and back in control of myself, I slip off my bag and dig out a bottle of water and some food. My throat is dry, and my brain is feeling heavy from the weight of stress, and food should help.

As I munch on some jerky, I take a peek through the skylight. The barking had stopped some time ago, and when I check, it confirms that the dogs have left. They may be stupid mutts, but they are smart enough to realize that it would just be a waste of time to wait for me to come down. There are other things out there that they can hunt.

Finishing up my small meal, I look around the roof until I find the roof access just a short walk away.

I’ll wait until the rain comes and goes, make it harder for them to track me in case the dogs try to follow me after I leave. I tell myself.

Not too much longer and the clouds soon start to let loose their payloads, fat raindrops slowly start to fall around me. Getting up from my spot on the ground with a big huff, I walk over to roof access. Trying the door reveals that it is locked, which isn’t too surprising, but is rather irritating to me in my current burned out state.

A small flash of anger goes through me and before I realize it, I am kicking in the door. Unable to withstand the blow, the door is blasted from its hinges and into the stairwell. Raising a massive racket, it tumbles end over end before slamming to a stop against the opposite wall down the stairs.

My anger flashes again and I jump down the stairs and start punching the metal door, its form denting and ripping from each blow from my fists. “Why!?” I scream, tears running down my face, “Why am I so afraid of them!? I’m strong now, aren’t I? What do I have been afraid of a couple of dogs!? I should be able to rip them in half! Aaaaaaahhhhhhh!”

With a final scream, I collapse to my knees like a puppet that had its strings cut before the bent and destroyed door, clutching my left arm to my chest as tears stream down my face. “I can still feel it. It’s teeth biting into my arm, the bone being crushed. The weight as it brought me to the floor! I don’t want to go through that again…” I cry out as I collapse onto my side.

For the longest time I remained curled up in that stairwell crying and occasionally adding a fresh dent to the door as outside the rain continues to fall without a care in the world.