He Was Dying

Chapter Five

Trapper once said there was one other of us before I arrived. He said that they were animal-based, like me.
  I was never told the name. He was apparently rather tall, almost taller than me. Wide torso, long legs, bulky arms. A pair of bone antlers jutted from his skull, ropes and leather hanging from the branches of cartilage. He had the muzzle and hooves of a moose, and could carry himself across his yard in nearly a minute.

But everyone must come to a downfall. His was that he fell in love with a human with a red, artificial eye who fixed generators. He let him live. The human was torn away from him by the rest of the survivors and fled.
  And he was heart broken as well. He wanted to leave. Chase after them. Stay beside the human.

  It wasn't happy.

It, meaning the spirit in the red skies. The Others call it Azarov. I call it frightening.
   It took him. I don't know where or how, but the Other wasn't seen after those humans escaped his yard.

It created a barrier around all the yards that just blocked off the exit points in the gates. Humans were free to pass through it, not even aware it's there. But it only kept in us. Trapper, Wraith, Hillbilly nor Nurse have attempted to leave their area, anyways.

I was afraid that would happen to me. That those four would escape. That I would fall in love. That I would never see them again.

  I kept running until I reached a brick wall. Barbed wire curled across the top of the towering barricade. Walking beside the wall all around my yard, I dragged along one of my back feet, my senses in that area becoming numb and giving the impression of lifelessness.
I believed it was what one would refer to as broken.

At one point I collasped. My back laid against the bricks, chest heaving, my eyes glued to the ground as if it was the most fascinating thing. My ears were droopy and fell against the sides of my head, and my blinking slowed. Puffs of air escaped through the vents on my chest but remained trapped beneath my sweater.

  My eyes shut, and I tried to remain awake as much as possible. I suddenly bursted with energy as light flew across the sky with a roaring blast. Generators.

They were still fixing machines.

  I bound to my feet and darted through the woods to the nearest engine. It was difficult to travel with the injured foot, but I was sort of getting used to it. Arriving at the machine, there were no tools on the ground or parts torn out. Untouched.

Generator after generator, I then found one that was well worked on. The gears slowly shifting and the pumps' movement on top implied it was just over halfway completed.
  I didn't know what to do, but I did.

Crouched down at one side, I tore it apart. Ripped out bundles of wires and smashed the turbine, punched the pumps in.
  Sparks buzzed and flew at me, and I decided I was done.

Another blast of light but it wasn't from a completed generator. My senses shook and my vision sharpened as a redish-yellow source of brightness flashed. I sped towards it, climbing over a pile of logs that reached to the sky.
I pratically jumped off the top of it, landing a bit away from the engine. My body became horizontal, just inches from touching the ground.
My ears flattened against my head and my back, but still at the right position to hear everything happening around me.

I rounded one of the red lockers that stood right beside the generator and stopped. My ears twitched as I listened. A few grunts behind the churning of the machine's gears gave me just enough information to tell it was Luke.

Bounding out of hiding, I gripped his red hoodie and yanked him off. He landed on his back, staring straight up at me in terror.
"Y-you! I thought you're a friend!" My spine shivered. A friend?

No.

  I wrapped my paw around his neck and lifted him off the ground. Sliding my arm around his torso and other across his neck and up beside his head, I didn't have to look long for one of those meathooks.

Turning and looping around a wall of smelted metal car parts, I faced a hook.
"Nononono, don't do this!" Luke flailed around his arms and kicked about to try to escape my grasp.

  Breath was sent in clouds between my teeth in frustration. Placing Luke down on his feet, he wobbled, and I spun him around and gripped him again by each shoulder. Lifting him up, the sharp point of the hook broke through his skin and he let out a yell of pain as red stained silver. The metal sunk into his flesh like fangs and the meathook showed through the front of his shoulder.

He screamed, grabbing hold of the cold metal he was latched on to. I almost felt bad for him. Stomping away, he shouted after me. "You bastard! Y-you'll pay for this, you hear me?" Luke rambled. "You're just a monster!"

My eyes shut, I walked away, until I heard footsteps. I darted back towards the hook without even processing. I threw Delirious to the ground before he could pull Luke off from his demise.

   I picked him up, and repeated the process. Carried him towards a hook, slid him on, and his blue sweater stained with blood as he let out a screech.

Humans.. so fragile.

Eventually, I found Evan working on a machine near by. Sparks flew at him, he glanced my way in fear, and bolted. It didn't take long for me to catch up, him still having that ankle problem.

Two colossal swipes of my paw to his back and he was down, panting and complaining about how I betrayed them. Yet do they know, they'd be the ones to soon betray me.

I grinned wickedly as metal shot through Evan's shoulder. Ears twitching, I stared at the sky to notice spider-like legs crawling down from the clouds and hanging above the area where Luke hung.
  Then they suddenly retreated past the treetops.
Scowling, I knew the exact meaning of this.

I forgot about Bryce.
  And he saved Luke.