---something straight out of a horror movie or something. As I moved between the perfectly untouched shelves I managed to kick up an entire storm of dust. How long had it been si|

I looked back up at Kaja. She was simply standing there by the corner of our shared ‘bedroom’, softly smiling. I exhaled.

Thankfully griffon claws had about the same material as human fingers so I could still work my lappy’s touchpad as I saved, minimized the document, double-tapped the desktop and closed the screen. I waited a second for one of the lights to change to soft red and fumbled to my feet. I placed my laptop on a nearby table I had cleared for myself and walked over to Kaja while picking out a wedgie and we set off.

.
“You scare us today.” She said, matter-of-fact. I didn’t look at her, letting my head-feathers do their job of obscuring at least a bit of my eyes.

“It oke’. World is scary.” I couldn’t not look at her and I raised my head. She was a good ten centimeters shorter than me. I hadn’t noticed that before. I still didn’t respond, only slightly narrowed my eyes.

We came to a stop before the stairs, the weak light from our makeshift windowsill lights not reaching even the third step. Kaja awkwardly thumped around a flashlight before she managed to flick it on with the edge of her hoof. She bent down and picked it up with her mouth before shining the light down the steps. I went first, backwards as usual, and thankfully she was courteous enough to not shine the light in my eyes. I made it to the first landing and sat on my ass, looking up.

Kaja shifted around a bit before awkwardly throwing the flashlight at me. Thankfully I caught it and lit her way as she reversed down the steps. She stopped next to me and looked at me, her eyes reflecting the light like nothing I’d seen.

We eventually made it to the first floor and it was even darker than upstairs with the exception of our ‘kitchen’ corner. Carl had his back to us and was doing something at our dining table. I gave that entire area a wide berth and walked over to one of the main support pillars where Bella was, sitting in a half-empty bag of dog food kibbles, happily munching her dinner. I didn’t touch her because you weren’t supposed to touch dogs when they ate, so I just refilled her water bowl.

“Do you want tuna or peaches, Kaj?” Carl sounded dead inside as he asked. I assumed the question was for me as well as I slowly slinked closer to the two.

“Tuna!” Kaja excitedly exclaimed and I watched Carl pull open two cans of the stuff and dump it out on a paper plate, tuna juice and all.

“Peaches I guess.” I muttered and watched through my forehead-feathers as he pulled open one of those huge-er-looking cans.

“Do you want a bowl or…?” I didn’t say anything, just reached out and he handed me the ca- fuck this thing was heavy. I almost dropped it but I didn’t. I waited for Kaja to scoot into her spot and sat next to her. Carl took a seat opposite of us. The camping lantern sitting on the table next to ours gave off a pale yellow light, stark contrast to the blue moonlight pouring through the huge windows. It was strange living with so little light, especially since the colors went away when it got dark.

I glanced to side to see Kaja happily chowing down her tuna. I swear it was like watching cat in one of those fucken’ Purina or whatever commercials. Maybe I should stop calling her bird-horse? Wait, could horses even eat fish?

“Is that dog food?” I asked, breaking the silence, the disbelief clear in my voice. Carl looked up from the can and the spoon hovering above it. For a moment he looked confused.

“Oh, yeah, right, I guess we didn’t tell you. I can eat anything. Like. Anything.” He took a bite. “And I don’t really have taste anymore, so I'm basically a walking recycling bin.”

“Ye! He can eat anything! He say he eat rot-old meat one time and not go sick.” She seemed chipper about that and the minotaur just looked ashamed. “He eat old food so I can eat good food.”

“Huh. I guess that’s kind of cool.” I paused. “Fucking disgusting, but cool.”

We returned to silence. I occasionally stole glances at Kaja’s yellow eyes. It was almost like they were glowing. Carl was the first to finish eating while I was barely a third of the way through my dinner. Canned peaches were sweet as fuck. Goddamn.

“Whelp, I'm going to sleep.” He stood up and stretched. He picked up one of those huge spotlight-flashlights that was sitting next to our lantern. When he turned it on Kaja and I both shrunk back like vampires in sunlight. I might’ve actually hissed.

“Geez, what’s with you two? You know I can't see shit.” he gave us an annoyed eyeroll before walking away. Now that I think about it, I had no idea where his ‘room’ was. He called out a ‘goodnight’ and vanished with his light somewhere over the counter into the McDonalds’ kitchen.

I poked at a peach with my spoon but I felt like I was going to vomit if I ate a single one more. In my peripherals I watched Kaja munch the last of her tuna and I slipped out of the booth-seat to let her get out. She picked up the paper plate in her teeth and trotted over to the door we didn’t use and dropped it into a garbage bag. How considerate.

A quick run upstairs to grab my dark blue jacket and Walkman and another flashlight off the table we were out the door. Kaja had, at some point in the day, wrestled on a cherry-red zip-up hoodie.

As we exited our home base we were hit with a burst of cold air. Despite the very warm days, the night always brought a certain chill with it. Yet there was something spectacular about the night air. There had always been, even before the world had disappeared. We were soon joined by four tapping little feet. Bella stood in such stark contrast against the dark of the night.

I concentrated on the scent of the wind. I could just about make out the smell of salt and seaweed as the northbound winds brought an extra chill from the sea and if one listened above the crickets it’s like I could almost hear the river kilometers and kilometers to the west.

Three sets of legs filled the silence as we walked deeper into the Old Town. We absentmindedly followed the same path I had when I had my breakdown earlier today. I made myself forget that.

There was something serene about a walk in the night. Something illegal. Something scary. I wish I had my bike.

I looked over to Kaja. There was no doubt about it, those yellow eyes of hers were glowing. She seemed comfortable in the dark. Her mouth was agape and I could get a good look at her freaky, little vampire-fangs. Her tongue moved, like she was clicking it against the roof of her mouth but no sound came. Only now I realized she had moved her huge headphones off of her earholes and her fuzzy ears were pivoting in every direction.

I decided not to speak and rather look around myself. We had made our way to one of the churches, the closest to our base. As we stalked around the huge stone building in eerie silence I used my vastly improved vision to admire the stained glass windows. Sure, I couldn’t tell apart the colors much, but the designs were pleasantly intricate.

We came out into /Doma/ Square and were hit with another blast of colder air. Bella shivered and pushed herself closer to me. The three of us paused and out the corner of my eye I saw Kaja move her headphones back over her ears. We started walking again, towards the river, I realized.

I knew what she meant. I could have played the ignorant but at the same time I couldn’t bring myself to bother.

“Look…” She let her head hang to the side. “I know we stranger. I remember what you say last day, all that about…” she paused to look for words.

“Faking?” I offered. “About giving in and not giving a fuck anymore…?”

“I wish I could do like you.” She was so quiet. “But I can't. But I understand.”

“I know I old and I know we only three and I know we not friends and I know everything strange but I listen if you want.”

I didn’t know why that made me angry, all I know is that I felt all wrong. Not just on the outside but on the inside as well.

“I don’t need your pity, Kaja!” she shrunk back and I felt my feathers fluff up. “I don’t know what I need but it ain’t this shit!”

“Look I know I barged into whatever you and Carl had going on and just kind of… dumped all this shit onto you, and I know everything is stupid and no one knows what to do about ourselves or each other, but all I know is that we can't keep going like this.”

“Look. I don’t know what to do okay? About myself or about you.” I looked her in the eyes. “You’re good people but I can't just sit around here like you.”

“I mean… I could have gone my entire life in a box with a fridge and, and, and an Ethernet cable but-but we don’t even have fucking power and light and everything is so fucking ramshackle… this… this isn’t living…”

“I know.” she repeated, more firmly this time. “We not know what we doing. I not know what I doing. I not even from here. All I do, I help Carl but he not know what he doing. Then you come and you look like you know but then you say how everything wrong and you lost like us and that oke’.”

She gently bapped me on the shoulder with a socked hoof. She smiled like a typical mom and I couldn’t help but smile back, just a bit.

“Eh?” I wasn’t even done processing that thought when she was already off. I took off running after her. I heard her giggling as she disappeared around a building. Bella let out a few yaps from beside me and I sharply rounded the corner only to see a black tail disappear around the next.

My hands hurt from the impact but for some reason I didn’t mind as much. I continued my dash, I had lost sight of Bella but I could still follow the laughter. Another street, another corner and I suddenly came to hard stop. I hadn’t realized we were this close.

The full moon was bright, pouring silver across the dark city, its light dancing across the shimmering river.

I don’t think I had ever looked up since I awoke to an empty world. But while Earth might’ve been gone, the sky wasn’t.

It wasn’t dark. It wasn’t the pitch black of night. It was barely gray, like TV static, full of light against the backdrop of hollow skyscrapers.

And I could only stare, for that moment I truly felt us hurling through the void of existence a billionty miles per hour.

Kaja laughed, and I saw her hoodie fall to the pavement and she unfurled her massive leather wings, as dark as the night around us. I didn’t even realize my jacket was off until I felt the cold wind around me.

I called out and we took off running through the night, our new eyes guiding us through the highways hugging the sparkling river.

And I knew they felt it too.

Freedom.

And maybe one day…

Roadtrip

by enamis

-the Great-