When The World Burned

Chapter 12

Benjamin had been walking for hours, changed his gas mask filters once already, and still felt as if he was getting nowhere. The landscape was all dark, burned to ash by the sun. For the first year in the bunker, raising Rue, he had listened to the radios and heard the sad whispers of those who kept their eyes open. This half of the planet had been on fire for months, maybe years, but he had stopped listening. All the horrors he kept hearing became too much.

Sighing, adjusting his weapons as he glanced back, the thirty-six-year-old worried about doing this. Would he ever find this Nela? Would he get back to Rue? Was his sister even in that vault? Nera had said she saw this Kage fellow take her down there, but could that have been a lie to get him to do her bidding? It would not be a surprise if true.

Continuing his walk, the brunette recalled those soft lips pressing to his own. A desire so wrong and repulsive had stabbed into him at that moment, sending chills through him. He felt both fear and lust for that woman. It was illogical, he knew, but she had been so beautiful and soft when she touched him. Her kiss had felt strangely...amazing.

Disgusting! He thought himself insane for being attracted to the woman. She was a cannibal, for Christ's sake! The whole lot of them were cannibals, had taken his legs and arm! God, he missed his legs. He missed his arm, too!

Something rustled nearby and he jerked his head in that direction. A creature with six legs darted across the ashen land, rushed to the remains of a tree, and began to dig. It disappeared beneath the ground just as fast as it had caught Ben's attention. Grabbing onto his pistol, the man shook his head and kept moving. This type of thing should not come as a surprise to him – the world was still covered in radiation and destruction. Seeing something with six legs should be normal at this point. Besides, he had to keep moving forward, had to put his worries and fears aside.

He had to get this job done to reach Rue.

Passing what looked like the remains of an airplane, he imagined it coming down from the sky when the sun's flames hit it. The wings would have crumbled as it slammed into the ground, nose and face bending and contorting into a mess of metal and debris. Looking away from it, he spotted movement in the distance that could have been another one of those six-legged things he had encountered.

With no instructions on Nela's whereabouts and no clue where to start, he decided to follow the creature out of curiosity. It stopped multiple times as he tried to keep up, watching it paw at the darkened ground. His heart pounded so loudly each time, worried it was going to turn on him and attack. The head would lift, bobbing from side-to-side as two pale eyes on one side of its face glanced about. The creature was hissing and purring all at once, lowering its head again and again to sniff the sooty ground.

Getting a bit closer, Benjamin crouched and narrowed his dark blue eyes at it. Six legs of pure muscle crunched down upon the ground as its dog-like head swiveled and continued to bob back and forth. The two eyes he could see glanced back and forth, as if it were trying to keep an eye out for danger.

He was positive it had an eye on him but kept following. Why could he not just let the strange animal be and go about his business? Did it have something to do with how much hope he held out to find this Nela girl? Where could she be, anyway? The only clue he had was the burnt half of the planet. That could take him years! What would happen to Rue by then?

"Following a Dragger is not smart business."

Freezing mid-step, Benjamin turned his gaze to the side, finding someone dressed from head to toe in clothing and what looked to be armor. The voice had been muffled by the hefty looking helmet the individual wore, but he had heard the feminine tone within it. Who was this person? And what was a Dragger?