Left for Dead

•Prologue•

     I don't know what made me leave that day. I didn't have any sort of inclination to escape my complacency before. I got up and left on impulse, and that impulse decision made a change in me. Maybe I could've stayed, settled down and had a family; maybe I could have had a simple life, like the others. Yet, standing in the coarse dirt of the crater, the crater that was the only place I had ever known, I breathed in the outside air. I truly felt free. I thought I was finally free, and I thought I had escaped. Still, free was the only thing I wasn't. Then I collapsed.

     Later that day, or maybe the next, or maybe a whole week after I had passed out, I woke up in a room. The walls didn't seem to have the old, peeling yellow wallpaper of our bedroom, though. No, now that I was awake, I looked at them closely. They were blue. A beautiful, preserved, bright blue, untouched by death. I was mystified, and then frightened as I realized that it was not my bedroom at all. I had not realized that I was far, very far from my home.

     I sat on the mattress I had woken up on for a while. It was the only thing that seemed old in the room, due to the age of it. Still, it was a luxury, unlike the items back at home in the crater. It wasn't dusty like most things we had at home. No, in fact, nothing in the room appeared truly withered with corruption. Nothing seemed dirty or untouched. It was a beautiful, angelic setting. The room must have looked the exact same as those before the blast, peaceful and taken care of. The more I thought about the proper word, the more I wished I understood the feeling of it- appreciation.

     The room was mostly empty, with only the mattress and a wooden dresser across from it. I was safe enough in the room, the door of it shut tight, with the windows covered in wood and metal bars. There was a crack in the wood that let in the only natural light. When I tried to peek through it, though, I could only see the sky and the ground, and something shiny. I later realized that the shiny thing was glass. Glass that was still in tact, glass that hadn't completely shattered when the first blast hit, or the second, or any of them at all. It felt like a miracle land. I questioned if I was still on Earth or now in heaven.

     Nobody walked into this weird, perfect room for a long time. Although I heard bustling outside, it must've been around dusk before anybody came inside to check on me. I had gotten used to counting the time that passed in my own home. Sitting in the dark, this wasn't much different than that. I was also used to sitting in a long, awkward silence with my family, the kind of silence I was uncomfortable with but tolerant of. I would listen to them leave quietly and wait for their return. Sometimes I would hide in fear of someone else coming to greet me instead of them.

     Now, there seemed to be activity all around me. Even though I wasn't a part of it, I closed my eyes and imagined I was working hard and talking with friends. My imaginary friends would hug me and help me find food in this barren wasteland. But when I opened my eyes about an hour later, I realized I was daydreaming. My muscles were weak and small from the lack of use and food. I felt a harsh pang of hunger in my belly, and I had never made any friends to hug or talk to. Nobody to work with me. Nobody to depend on, and nobody to depend on me. I was almost completely alone... and that was fine.

     When somebody finally opened the seemingly-stuck door, I got frightened. A tall, burly man with a brown, stubbled beard and a shaved head walked through the door with a large, all-black dog. I cowered in the corner of the bed, and I felt my back touch the wall. The dog sniffed the air, then didn't budge a bit.

     The man approached me stoically, the dog staring without moving a muscle. I waited for the man to shout, or to move, or say anything to me that would make the dog pounce on me, but they just stared. They stared for a long time, analyzing my body. I couldn't tell why they were staring, but I felt that their intents were dangerous. The dog and the man seemed to share thoughts.  They stood there for what felt like hours, and when I finally calmed down, the sleek-furred animal sat, as if on command. The terrifying dog was obviously used to this situation by now. That only made me more scared.

"What is your name?"

"Xarati."