The Massacre [Pt. 1]

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It was dead within the fog.

As was the world, so to speak.

Only a silky gray wisp remained, alive yet dreadful. She lurked through the silver threads of the speckled night, eating up the sky as she did the ground. But her touch was soft to me; laying warm tears against my whitened scales for it to meddle upon the road. And every breath made my tail shiver, persuading me to look beyond her lens.

    It scared me, to feel her presence once more. But she longed for me to look beyond what she was to a truth hidden in the womb.

Beyond the grave of a long-lost nightmare. If that is what this is.

    The backroads had returned to me, just where I had left it. With a familiar haze of red silk churning above, and the scentless asphalt trailing below, I was left to stand frozen in the past, unable to believe and unable to think. Thankfully, the shoe and lamp post no longer stood before me in this dream.

    But something else did.

    I started to stumble toward an overturned figure ahead, my speckled claws raking the earth as a hissing cry grew near. The closer I walked, the warmer the earth became -- sheltering the rumbling tremors that lurked a few inches ahead. And then, as the fog started to clear, the object decided to unveil itself.

    And I froze upon the spot.

    A strange-looking car laid before me, overturned and shattered from front to base. Oil spots and flame, littered around its underside, took to the air, a rotten stench that forced my lungs to shrivel and my snout to wrinkle. Still, my nares flared on, swollen with interest at the sight of this damaged beast, and a little roundabout across its burning surface allowed me to study every fragment of its corpse.

    As well as its hidden surprises.

    To my horror, two massive holes had been stabbed into the front window of the vehicle, too large to call a bullet, too small to substitute for a claw. And, here, just past the window marked a splatter of blood upon the front chair, bearing no scent, and no taste to the tongue.

    Nothing for me to work with-

    "Beep... Beep..."

    My tail lifted in interest. The noise came from within the vehicle. A noise I found familiar, and yet haunting all the same.

    A call that beckoned for me.

    "Beep... Beep..."

    I leaned in close to the flames, my pale snout dipping low to peer deep into the glow. Here, the inferno grew firm, burning the skin of its frame (and the scales of mine), yet invisible to the naked eye. But beyond the flowers that bloomed and hissed, there laid a white shoe, sizzling like flesh in the sun.

    Burning away into the night. Bloodied. Bent. Broken. Burning...

    "Seven!

    Dead. All dead.

"Wake up!"

    Beep! Beep! Beep!

An erratic cry rattled my body back to the living world. It wasn't strong enough to deafen everything -- I could still very much hear myself talk and move. But there wasn't much to disdain because of it.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

"...What?"

Through a mild moan, I rolled my head to the left. My body still buzzed in the aftermath of the fight, if that's what I should call it. I must've gone into shock afterwards, a sickness the humans dictated as a 'concussion'. Hopefully I could shake mine away.

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