Lost Change

Chapter 11

A muffled whining drew me from my thoughts. I opened my eyes, blinking them a few times to clear the tears that had formed in them, then turned my head behind me to find the source of the noise.

It seemed to be coming from the house across the street.

A sudden worry filled me. I hadn't seen anyone else in this city, or any sign that anybody had been in it quite some time. I wasn't sure what to expect from anyone who had managed to survive what had happened here. The noise could be a serious threat.

But it could also be a friend. And... I was really starting to wish I had a friend right now. Waking up in the deserted lab, traveling through the devastated city, remembering all that had happened to me...that would have been scary enough all on its own, but I was also starting to notice new feelings of loneliness that I couldn't remember experiencing as a human. As a dragonet, the idea of being completely alone was... painful.

The whine repeated itself, followed by some scratching, and I smiled as I realized what I was hearing. I flew across the street to the far house and perched on a windowsill near the door. The scratching paused when I landed, and I let out a short whistle.

Excited barking suddenly reached me, and I felt my ear tufts perk at the sound. "Hi doggie! Are you stuck in there?" I fanned my wings out in excitement. A dog... that was just what I needed right now. The dance for the sun had done wonders for the fear and loneliness that had been sinking in, but it wasn't gone entirely, and the idea of being able to pet and play with a happy dog was an exciting one.

The barking suddenly broke off into a confused whine, and I felt my wings droop as my thoughts caught up. My sentence hadn't come out in human words - it had been a series of trills and chirps. The dog was realizing that maybe it hadn't heard a human whistling to it after all, but instead maybe just a bird fluttering around.

And... if I opened the door to let the dog out, how would it react when it found a strange creature waiting for it? Would the dog attack me? Would I be seen as a friend to it... or just a meal?

I needed to be smart about this.

I turned from the windowsill and flew away.

It took me about two hours of searching for a pet store - I could remember where a lot of places were at now, but I hadn't had a pet as a human, so I never had any occasion to look for a pet store. I came across a supermarket first, and decided that might be even better - I could check the grocery section for canned fruits while I was there. A dedicated pet store might have a better variety of things that the dog would enjoy...

...but pet stores also tended to keep live animals in stock, and I was pretty sure that I did not want to learn how they had done when the humans that fed them had suddenly vanished.

A small group of pigeons too small to really be called a 'flock' flew away when I landed in front of the sliding front doors. The power was out - just like everywhere else in the city - so the doors didn't part automatically for me, but with a good bit of pushing and leveraging my body I was able to nudge the door open enough to get through.

I felt a little embarrassed about just how much effort it had taken to push the glass doors. My body was much lighter now, and built for agility and speed. Even simple efforts of strength that I had taken for granted might be beyond me now.

I made a mental note to stick to doors with handles going forward, and to avoid any jars with tight lids on them.

It took me a bit of gliding around the store until I came across the section for dogs. I grabbed a few toys that caught my attention - a short 'tug of war' rope with knots for the dog to bite on, a few balls, and a rubber bone. I thought about some of the brightly colored chew toys and plush animals... but in the end I decided that it might not be a good idea to encourage the dog to play rough with and rip apart anything that even remotely resembled my current body. I rejected a frisbee for the same reason, since I suspected I might look a bit too much like a silver frisbee myself while I was flying. I did not want to find out the hard way how well my scales would hold up against teeth.