| Safe | a post volcanic eruption story

2

 The Girl skips steps as she runs down the old staircase.

Another person. A fellow survivor.

 Her mind races, thoughts rushing in and out of her mind. She doesn't know how long she's been alone, doesn't even know how old she is. Maybe it has been weeks, months, could it have been years yet? She doesn't know. She hopes maybe this stranger knows how long it has been since the eruption. Her loud steps echo through the stairwell. Up on the roof when she had ran at top speed to the stairs she knows she'd known she'd startled the cat because it jumped back, hissed and scurried off.

 But as her mind still thinks of the other living person she cannot find herself to care. She hates that she is already so hopeful about this figure. Food is so scarce that for all she knows they could kill and eat any living thing in their path. Though, even as she knows this, the feeling of hope doesn't die out, doesn't even flicker. Instead it blossoms even more. She can't explain how, but she knows this person is safe. 

 When she reaches the bottom the Girl throws the door open with more force than most likely needed. And when she comes to the outermost doors fear pulses through her with more effect this time. This person could kill me, she thinks. Only, the Girl doesn't fear death anymore, instead she welcomes the possibility of it.

•

 When the Boy opens his eyes pain crashes through him. The back of his head feels as though someone hit him with a metal bat. Hard. When he looks around he can't see anything in the dark room. As his eyes continue to sweep the room he spots a pair of eyes watching him from rather closely. For a moment his heart stops. Those are snake eyes. There's a snake on the end of his cot. 

 Logic catches up with his racing thoughts and he realizes these aren't that of a snake. The rotation of the creature's blinking eyes are vertical and not horizontal. A cat. There's a cat on the end of the cot, only a cat. He can not successfully remember the last time he has seen a pet of any sort. Before the eruption, he's sure. The Boy reaches his hand out to the cat. It retreats for a moment but he feels it's soft breath as it smells him in slight suspicion. 

 A noise comes from outside the walls of the shadowy room. Which causes the cat to scamper away from where he lays. The Boy follows it's movement through the dark, and his eyes remain watching it as it runs through a now open door. Where a figure stands.