We'll Go Down Together

Survival of the fittest

*This story is unedited* 

The year is....Nevermind I lost track but I think it's around 2030. It's a mess, I came across an old town today. The stores were empty except for maybe three cans of beans buried in pile of rubble. That was my food for the week, it's pretty much gone now. I dropped one of the cans while running from a magnorat. So I'm off in search of food again, I'm hoping to find a spot to stay for a while.

-Ryder

He sighed and closed the journal and locked it putting the pen into the holder locking that as well. Ryder placed the journal into the front pouch of his backpack and leaned back against the seat of the broken down car. The sight wasn't very pleasing in front of him, through the cracked window he could see the towers of metal parts, and the sickeningly green sky above. The noractins scavenging for food, swiftly darting in and out of the broken things in it's path, occasionally it would pull out the carcass of an animal that had died. Noractins were animals that had survived but at a great cost they were mutated, some had extra limbs or three heads. They were different than magnorats though, magnorats were man made, they were failed experiments from the scientists that tried to make a new species of super soldier. They escaped during the first attack and now run lose, attacking anything and everything.

Ryder closed his eyes as he breathed the filtered air from his gas mask, if he took the mask off for more than a few minutes the air would kill him. He kept his hand tightly wrapped around the strap of his backpack in case he had to run for it, his other hand tightly gripped the knife his Grandfather had given him years before the attack. His mind slowly drifted into sleep along with his body as he sat there. His sleep was dreamless and light.

Ryder woke with a start and quickly ducked down, he peeked over the top of the dashboard and watched as a large noractin skidded down from the top of a tower of metal parts, followed by a magnorat. Ryder swore under his breath and quietly put his backpack over his shoulders before watching the magnorat tear the noractin limb from limb throwing it's body around for fun. It made Ryder's stomach churn as he watched the gruesome scene in front of him. He thought about his options, one, he ran for it which would risk alerting the magnorat that he was there, or two, sit there and wait for the magnorat to find him or leave. He knew that either way the magnorat would probably find him, and he had a better chance of surviving if he could actually run from it. He held his breath before as quietly as possible he slid out of the car and onto the dirt ground, he looked to make sure the magnorat was still playing with the dead body of the noractin, he sighed when he still saw it there.

He slowly made his way over the one of the towers, his footsteps silent, something he had learned from his Grandfather. He silently moved over the miscellaneous pieces of metal and hid behind one of the large metal towers. Ryder would have to make it over the fence without making a sound, which would be a bit hard. He glanced at the magnorat and saw it sniff the air, look at him, then it let out it's deafening scream, as it barreled towards him. Ryder turned and ran not worrying about the sound he made now, all he cared about was getting out of the way of the magnorat. The magnorat was much faster than him but Ryder knew that he was smarter than it. He quickly slid out of the way of the magnorat and dived into a pipe just big enough for his to thin body. The magnorat attempted to follow him but it was to big so it instead lifted up the pipe and threw it into the fence. Ryder winced a bit as he heard the ringing the pipe made as it was smashed into the fence. He darted from the pipe and into a small opening in a metal tower, the magnorat immediately sped after him. It ripped the metal free of the tower attempting to grab at Ryder who was still scurrying away from it. He followed a path just big enough for him to get through and hid as far away from the magnorat as possible and waited for it to get bored. He watched it rip metal free of the tower and wrapped his arms around his body, if the magnorat got to him before it got bored, he would die.

Ryder started to get worried, the magnorat wasn't retreating, it was still ripping metal out of the way creating a path for it to follow. He stayed silent hoping that it would think he left, he doubted that it would work though. He wished for a miracle to save him, and that's exactly what he got. As the magnorat was pulling metal away from the tower it made it unstable, Ryder heard the rubble started to fall and he heard the magnorat scream in pain as the metal parts collapsed onto it's head. He gave a sigh of relief and started making his way out of the noractin tunnel that he was in. He crawled over the magnorat's body but he was hurrying knowing that it could still wake up soon, Ryder slipped easily up the fence and silently jumped down.

He ran away from the junkyard, it was still dark which meant that he hadn't been sleeping that long; and that also meant that he would have to find a place to sleep once again. Great, another thing to add to my struggle. He thought to himself as he made his way along the once golden but now barren cornfield. Still shaky from the magnorat attack he collapsed to his knees breathing heavy, he was tired, hungry, and thirsty, and now he had to find another town before he completely ran out of energy. He looked around the empty cornfield and slowly got back up to his feet he shivered as a cold blast of air hit him then he started walking off again. Fight through it. Come on you can do it Ryder. Survive. He thought as he started to get a faster pace, after a few steps he got himself at a nice jog. He ignored the aching in his legs, ignored the burning in his chest, ignored the cold, and just ran.