I know, I know. Listen, I promised you I didn't get into these situations often. Back when I was a younger, less masky little masker.
Back before the fur on my neck would stand on edge, before the bags of stress and drug-cooking took over these brown eyes of mine. Back in those supple little days, where I didn't smell like the rubber of hazmat suits and botchy pharmaceuticals.
~~
I'm recording this partially out of spite. This wound has left me for dead in this caravan palace of broken dreams.
The chemicals on the doberman's head had sizzled strong. But he's dead by now, his cold body warmed by the desert sun.
Adrian... babe... if you're reading this. You're going to hear some things about me. Heh, I'm just kidding... you already know about them all. I... I should've listened to you, all those months ago. I'm sorry that I didn't.
The tape-recorder clicks around on a loose socket, before righting itself back into place. The desert blows a mighty gust, its bright orange soil picking up speed, slapping the boiling metal sides of the caravan.
Anyhoo, I'm completely in the shit, now. There's-
A furry walks into a caravan. The punchline is the bullet he receives to the skull.
Jesus Christ... there's so many of them. I should've listened to you. Heh I bet you're getting hard over that, aye? Proving your fiancé wrong, what a jip. But really, I should've. And you can be mad at me for that... but I've enjoyed every fucking second of it, Ads. Every trigger I've pulled, every gram I've cooked, every explosion I've felt singe the tips of my fur.
A shoulder check, out of the cracked window. Nothing but hot distortion. The 'desert noise'. He clicked the bullets back into his revolver, and played with the stump of his missing ear - purely out of habit.
~~
{Art by @Jacato_ on Twitter}
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~ Chapter 3 ~ Too much shit, too little fan
The pain upon waking up was so incredible I threw up on the dashboard. I looked around me, noticing the smoke first, then the heat next. The stinking, shrill fumes of the desert.
My paw twitched at a strange angle. I looked down and nearly had to vomit some more: the bone of my wrist stuck out the side of my fur, peppered in dried blood. It tapped limply at the foam of my seat as I heaved in panicked breaths.
"Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck."
Beside me, sat a boy too skinny to be Adrian. His muzzle and face were wrapped up inside a gas-mask. Inside the lenses, his eyes were shut. Dirt and blood painted his ears, which stuck out at fluffy angles.
I twisted my working arm towards him, tears stinging my eyes even from a movement that simple. It would be impossible to get my seatbelt off, I was just sure of it.
I pushed the otters head to the side, where it flopped limply against the shattered glass of the window. I grunted as I reached into the glove compartment, searching around frantically, thanks to some off-shore memory of how I had gotten into this car.
I'm sure that I left something important in there. Some baggy of some kind. But all I felt was the wrong kind of papery, car-manual shaped car-manuals. Fuck.
The passenger groaned gently.
No wonder we had crashed: the steering wheel was in front of me. I stared limply at a tooth that was lodged in the flesh of the wheel's leather. Sticking out, in a cartoonish sharpness. I hesitated, before daring to feel around my own gums with my mouth. Sure enough, there were teeth missing. One, I spat out, one in the wheel - the other I had possibly swallowed.
"Evan, wake up, man." It's this otter's name, I've just said. These... memories, slowly leaking back into place.
He grumbles gently. Like a kid, stubborn for more sleep.
I shake him harder. "The drugs. Dude, the drugs."
His eyes dart open, and soon I've got the green gas-mask staring straight back into my eyes. He rubs his head painfully and slips the gas mask off. Blood drips down from his broken nose. "De-"
"Don't say my name."
He blinks, staring down as though he were remembering things himself. "Right... Skim... fuck, your arm."
"I know."
"The bones, like, sticking out."
"Dumbass, I know. Where's the drugs?"
He frowns so hard it shows his jagged, ratty teeth. "I... thought you had them."
My head was starting to hurt. A metallic, ringing sort of pain. I turned my attention to the one in my chest. "My brother?"
"Jake?"
I shake him so hard that the blood rushes up from his nose in a red arc. "YES, EVAN. WHERE THE FUCK IS MY BROTHER?!"
He manages to get an arm out despite my shaking. It points straight out into the emptiness of the desert. Only... its not empty: there's a pillar of smoke edging on the horizon, accompanied by nothing but scattered powerlines.
He gulps nothing but dried saliva. "Wasn't he... wasn't he with Adrian?"
I rub my temples absently.
"What?"
"Nothin, man. I'm just having a hard time getting it all together. I remember... we were... it was the Mete-Out, and Filler..."
He's already out of the car. His scuffed, bloodied tail getting caught in the door when he tried to slam it shut, making the otter yelp.
I damn near pass out trying to get my own door open.
I step out, feeling the breeze instantly in all its stifling warmness. Loose sand blows into my already bloodshot eyes. I kept them open thanks to my staring, that squint to cover the span of the distance between me and Adrian.
Beside me, Evan approaches and taps the exposed bone of my wrist.
A flare of pain. I punch him in the stomach.
"Oof. Sorry," He coughs. "Just wanted to know what they actually feel like."
"Evan," I say slowly.
He spits up some blood. It paints the dusty cement of the road quite generously. "Yo."
"Did my brother take any of the... stuff?"
He cocked his head.
"The drugs? In the mete-out?"
The wind plays with the fur on his face. "I'm not sure."
I turn away from him and stare off at the pillar of smoke, letting it blur from the slow tears seeping out of me. This feeling that I've failed him. That he's been hurt in some way. That little golden wolf who loved to play with legos...
Caught like a fly in his older brother's shit.
"Skim."
Evan didn't need to say it. I've already noticed them: the flames licking distantly at the wreckage.
