Chapter Text
the sun began to climb into a sky painted light blues and oranges, golden rays shimmering on the city. from the apartment the dragon had settled in, he could see the city streets stretching out in every direction, old memories clinging to a now quiet place.
he sat, knees brought to his chest, tail resting on his feet and wings folding over himself, looking out over the city, perhaps eyeing off new places to scavenge or the next “home-base” to settle. his violet hair was still messy from sleep, and the morning light gave his black horns a shimmer. he squinted his dark eyes as the sun’s rays grew brighter over the city, highlighting skyscrapers and cranes, reminding of memories from what felt so familiar…
it had happened many years ago, when the infection – that’s what The Law had called it – began to spread. nobody back then knew much in the beginning, Law’s officers made sure of that, but before long, people saw the effects of the infection in person. shortly after that, Law’s civilisations began to break down, leaving this as the state most cities and civilised areas were in.
beside him, someone stirred, yawning and unravelling itself from the bundle of blankets it had fallen asleep in the previous night, echoes of their conversation and laughter still fresh in the dragon’s mind.
“morning wemm,” yawned the angel, now shaking sleep from his body.
“morning egg,” wemmbu replied, not moving from the window.
egg shuffled closer, still wrapped in a mess of blankets, joining wemmbu by the window.
silence sat between the two, not awkward, but like a familiar unspoken greeting. Egg turned his head, leaning it on his own shoulder,
“what’s the plan for today bro?”
wemmbu turned to face egg, “continue to find supplies,” his lips turned up at the corners, “maybe fight some infected.”
“sure bro,” the angel sighed.
---
heat soaked into their backs as the pair weaved their ways through abandoned cars on the main road, stopping occasionally to loot from cars scavengers had missed or left.
egg lagged behind after insisting on bringing books from the library they had passed three traffic-lights ago, yet he refused to leave them as they “carried important information from pre-apocalyptic times.”
wemmbu had told him to leave it but was happy that egg had found himself something to entertain him when they had to bunker down for spring – thinking about spring wemmbu couldn’t help but notice that the sun was rising earlier and the city was warming up.
wemmbu noted to really pick over everything to stock up in time, spring seemed to be about to arive..
the sun was almost half-way into the sky when the pair passed by the entrance to a mall, golden sunlight filtering through dimmed windows caught on patterned tiles and two large escalators stretching up to a second story. with a swift look at each other and a wordless decision, the pair decided to enter.
vines and small fungal buds clung to the mall’s entrance and shadow draped over the main hall just past the escalators. egg paused just before the entrance, the wings by his head folding in on themselves,
“bro are we sure this place will be fine, it’s kinda dark in there,” egg squinted his eye, attempting to peer into the dark entrance.
“seems bright enough to me, how bad is your vision bro,” wemmbu grinned as he walked forwards into the mall, egg rolled his eye at the comment.
wemmbu's eyes caught on a small mushroom clinging to the escalator handles,
“let’s – let’s just wear our masks to be sure,” his hand moved to his thigh, fingertips grazing his dagger.
egg’s mask covered his entire face, with an eyeball painted onto the left side of the visor, whereas wemmbu’s mask had a quickly drawn smiley-face over the visor and respirator.
they moved through the mall, building a decent amount of supplies slung over their backs in makeshift backpacks.
they entered a supermarket towards the edge of the mall's stores.
“i’m just gonna quickly check what the food section’s got left,” wemmbu said, leaving egg to scan the small magazine section near the front of the supermarket.
The dragon made his way towards the back of the store, where the long-lasting and canned food would be, passing by many empty shelves likely looted long ago when the outbreak had just begun.
when the outbreak had just begun, it seemed like so recent, like only yesterday egg, rejoice and him were talking about their classes. rejoice would be offering to help wemmbu in the classes he was struggling with (almost all asides from music) and egg was always talking about the newest book he had read, written by authors wemmbu couldn’t even pronounce.
- clunk -
wemmbu stopped, the noise breaking him free from sweet memories. he moved fast, quickly hiding behind a cardboard display box. he couldn’t mistake the noise; something had been pushed of a shelf and fell to the floor.
his tail curled around his leg and his wings instinctively flared outwards. his mind spiralled – is it an infected? how many are there? where’s egg? is he okay?. wemmbu slid his hand down towards his dagger, holding it with whitening knuckles.
“hello?” a small voice echoed from the direction of the earlier noise.
wemmbu’s breath hitched – a survivor.
he sucked in a quick breath, folded his wings neatly and loosened his coiling tail. He shook some of the fear clinging to him, and stepped out from behind the display box.
The food isle stretched outwards before him, lines of mostly empty shelves, and at the very back, a two small figures crouching over a can of sliced peaches.
The first person had markings over his face and body, with small wings from his head and lower back. His hair was all kinds of browns and greens and his feet were bird-like.
The second person was also an avian, however instead of the green colours he was mostly yellow, with rosy cheeks and drooping ear-wings.
but wemmbu barely noticed their appearance, as the only thing he saw were the figures drenched in blood. thick and deep red lines running down both their clothes, sticking to their hair and feathers.
and the avian’s faces – empty, like they was starring through wemmbu and past even this store.
wemmbu reached for his dagger once again, scanning the two for visible bites or even early signs of infection. however, his search came up empty, only leaving two unexplainably very bloody avians before him.
“hi…?” wemmbu awkwardly stated, already scanning the isle for weapons, escapes anyway to elevate himself if a fight were to break up.
however, before anything could happen, egg walked past the display and into the isle, now brandishing several magazines. he stopped, quickly scanning the two and then looking to wemmbu,
“uuh, who’re they bro?”
wemmbu’s grip tightened on his dagger, and that silent action told egg everything he needed to know.