What's left (残り物)

1: Coy

"Men are only so good as their technological developments allows them to be"

― George Orwell

My eyes are met with a soft sunlight through a window. My black nose twitches just a slight movement indicating my body is starting for the day. I let my eyelids separate and the sunlight with dust dancing in it's glow cast itself in my cracked open eyes. I sit upright in my bunk as my forest green cover lies on my lower half. I get down from my rack climbing down the metal ladder and see empty beds. It seems there has been a lack of troops recently. I open the flap to my tent and see an instructor awaiting with a group of 7 troops in a double line. I jog to the empty space and stand firm in my fatigues. He glances over the group Infront of him and proceeds with a wake up message "Good morning soldiers. Incase you haven't noticed we have been left with a loss of troops lately. We have lost many over the past few months and our connections are failing. Our best hope is to not lose any more of you and hold out as long as possible. We will be practicing safety drills today to ensure you will each be prepared for the dangers that await outside the fences" we jog over to an area with a few assault rifles with targets about 30 meters away. "Remember the best way to neutralize is to aim center mass, don't try looking like some hotshot with the headshots." I grab a rifle and feel the cold steel as it sinks into my paw-like hands. My body is an amalgamation of science, fur, and flesh built to help in warfare and the advancement of mankind. If my fellow troops are pawns then I am a bishop. The forest green troops I know to be part of this base sometimes find my appearance peculiar and even at times abhorrent not that a single word of these things are said but I can see it in the way their bodies move. I am a hybrid. A genetically altered organism that utilizes a combination of human and animal DNA to make an animal like humanoid. Hybrids are either born or made, usually born because the genetic alterations are a hefty cost to pay. "Soldiers prepare your weapons." The instructor says. I slide the bolt of my rifle back and chamber a round hearing the click as my canine ear twitches. "Aim" My right eye squints as I line up my sights with the blank silhouette. "Fire." I pull the trigger towards me as a round fires off into the target with a deafening roar of sound. The pain seethes in my ears as I reach in my pocket and put in some custom ear coverings. My pointed teeth clench as I fire another round this time getting a shot off to the left side of the torso. My genome is a mixture of the common coyote (Canis Latrans) and the human genome. I have a snout tinted a light brown and a tail that follows that pattern. I have pointed ears that stand erect and twitch with any sound that enters it's canals. My body is covered in a coat of fur gray with crisp brown like toasted food. I fire another round into my target it gets a little closer to the center. I shoot off a few more shots, 2 land bullseye, 15 near center mass, 18 further from the near center, 9 on the very edge I stop as I only have 19 rounds left. "Soldiers your training session is finished." I walk towards the gun rack and place my rifle down. "Alright soldiers, report to mess hall for your meals." My legs make a steady pace towards the hall but my mind is elsewhere. I think to myself "how long has it been since this all started." "It has to have been... years?" it's been a long time since anything has been remotely normal. Most of all factories and such have completely been left in ruins. The only thing close to production of a stable self sufficient area I know of is this base we've made of a town. Multiple sightings of infected are common in this town as well. We've already lost most of the troops here and that means that we're slowly just getting picked off. The scouting missions we have to carry out are a lot of times suicide missions. I make it to the mess hall and find the same troops at tables with open MREs in front of them. Ever since we've been left scarce with troops everyone has become less military like and has been making the most out of the life they have. We now can take time to eat our foods and we have volunteer jobs in the base. I tear open the plastic packaging to the fork in my MRE and open up the main entree. Macaroni and beef not bad. I press my fork into a pile of the cheese covered noodles and bring the fork up to my snout. I take a small sniff and bite into the food. Even as a coyote hybrid my digestive system is more similar to a humans making me omnivorous. Eating the macaroni with a fork leaves my mind wondering about what other foods lie beyond these chain link fences. Teriyaki chicken, spaghetti, sushi and all sorts. My mouth proceeds to salivate at the thought as I daydream. I focus back on eating what I have as it isn't as terrible as I compare it to be. The daylight fades into a crisp orange-pinkishness signaling another day passed. My body almost instinctively goes towards a treadmill that was going to be scrapped a long time ago but hasn't had much of any attention leaving it to waste away if I don't use it. My black soles find their place on the treadmill and the buttons light up. On a display it reads "ATOMATECH NUCLEAR POWERED TREADMILL" the letters slide down the left side of the square display screen and a new message presents itself "SELECT SPEED" beside the display screen were a multitude of buttons ranging from treadmill speed to treadmill slope, timers, calorie counter, and even a button that played music from an internal storage of songs. I press my clawed padded finger on the music player as I read the songs shown before me. A group of songs in the grunge selection catch my eyes. The songs include a band by the name of Nirvana, a band I've never heard (not that I've heard many). I press play on the song list and select a medium speed workout. My legs slowly bring themselves forward as the whirring of the machine and the accelerating tread is below me. The music grows louder as the lyrics and the Instruments flood my ears. The band has an amazing combination of instruments to make a powerful mix of softer pieces and more wild, eccentric, almost feral pieces. My legs maneuver themselves almost automatically moving now in a semi-run as the tread whirrs beneath me. The music is very pleasing to my ears as it fills my body from the head down to the very dashing feet that use the machine.

I don't want to stop running. I can't stop running. I want to keep running free like a dog from a cage. I want to feel the wind grace my face crawling aside my snout with my legs leaping from foot to foot. To be free, To be safe, to be...happy?

The music dies down and the treadmill slows as the machine registers a beep and the display flashes "EXERCISE COMPLETE" I step off the treadmill as I feel the dizziness of my legs almost like I'm still moving forward never back. I make my way towards my rack and climb in my cot. I stare up into the roof as my eyes slowly fall down over my eyes. I take a breath in the darkness and feel the coolness inside me as I expell it, now warm, into the air around me.