Small chips of paint fall to the ground after losing their battle to the merciless weather. A strong, freezing wind sighs through the crumbling highway bridge. The unevenly white-washed sky flashes warnings of an impending storm. An old pair of muddy boots, tied tightly to a collection of worn, creaky bones, dangle off the rusted remnants of the traffic barrier. A young but tired face is angled at the horizon, blankly staring off with glazed eyes. A calloused hand gently grazes a festering cheek laceration. The rhythmic echo of a water drop can be heard from below. Aside from this, the world is frozen: silent and macabre.
The silence is broken for no more that a second by a pleading whine. The massive, filthy paws of a Shiba Mix land with a twang onto the metallic beam. The eerie silence is broken yet again as the twenty-something year old clears dust out of her dry throat to speak. 'Okay. I hear you, I hear you,' she rasps, 'I'm coming.' Her black and blue legs swing up and over the ugly, olive colored bar on which she was sitting. With her feet finally return safely to the cracked pavement, she reaches down calmly and slowly to place a mostly gloved hand on the mutt's head. His normally chestnut fur, much like his master's clothes, were black from soot and ash.
Slowly, she makes her way towards the road through the blackened woods, dreading what was sure to come. Loyally, he follows his master, by her side, towards anything and everything that would be waiting for her. Together, they move forward, ready to face what was left of the world.
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