Blunt

We'll Ride 'Till The Sunsets

MK tossed a scrunched up paper cup to the empty space accross the room. The cup bounced off from the floor, landing with a soft thud that barely covered the stale air. Her dull brown orbs restlessly followed the cup; their scrutinizing stare recorded every movement it made. Outside, carnivorous birds squawked, up high in the air, gliding under the scorching sun. A routine, she would sit there and spend the day's portion of the well water, and birds would screech, and the sun would burn.

A small hiss made her ears perk up and the only door into the room creaked open, clearly too old to even hang onto its hinges. A scruffed up man walked over to her, his leather boots smelled like overcooked cow skin, and he handed her an apple as rotten as it was the most fresh one he had found. MK accepted the apple and started to gobble it down without hesitation.

The man took off the wide hat he was wearing, dark curls falling into all the right places after being cramped under the stiff material of the hat. He ran his hand, as calloused as it was dry, and exhaled. The room was silent again, except for the munching sound and another screech from the birds. They kept flying, gliding, scanning the earth for a prey no bigger than a filly - so that their claws could snatch the free meat without slowing down. The wasteland was littered with clean bones and carcasses, ones which used to have blood and small tidbits of flesh remains, but the vultures had licked them clean.

"We may or may not have ran out of food source."

MK kept ingesting her rotten apple, the acidic and mushy flesh by now resting idly in her churning stomach. They had ran out of water, of safe place, of food - of options. They were running out of time. Precisely, their life was running out. Soon, they would be weak enough for the predators they had fended themselves from so far to pounce on easily, and the birds would rip their flesh as they struggle against the desert hunters, and vultures would make home decorations out of their remnants. They were as good as dead, but that is the point of life, to die; so they might as well enjoy their death. They were no longer feared. Nothing was feared anymore. You survive, you need to make peace with fear, and believe you are the fear itself. They didn't do it.

MK was sure they were still afraid. Still trapped in fear, like the way she was trapped in the room when she could easily follow him to the outside world, to hunt for food. She was still afraid.

What remained from her rotten apple was only the core, and she tossed it away, the core landed with a bigger thud next to the scrunched up paper cup. Her throats itched and burned like they were taking the acid in the apple not as well as her eyes had accepted the horrendous appearance of the said fruit. She mentally sighed.

"I think we should talk..." he trailed off, his eyes fixed onto the empty space in front of them. Yellow stains decorated the walls like some metaphorical daisies and white fungus grew from the decrepit wooden rims. Cobwebs donned the corners like some illusion of threads. This is as close as to what they had for home.

MK stood up, for the first time in God knows how long, her joints cracking in protest. She dusted off her worn out jeans and stretched her aching muscles to the point she craned her neck too hard. She looked at the man, and shook off her head, the dull brown color in her eyes showing both defeat and determination.

"No."

The man stayed silent, his eyes drilling onto the dirty gray that was of the concrete floor. The birds flew in cicle, searching for a moment to swoop down in case something pawnable appeared, their energy never ceasing into tiredness. Hunger fueled them, for each flap of their feathery wings, for each squawk coming out of their golden beaks.

"We'll ride 'till the sun sets."

"A prolonged life. Continuous suffering. All part of our adventure now."

And she went outside to finally untie her horse from the dead tree trunk. The man followed.