Snippet #2660857

Rosy-fingered dawn.

Toby thought about the Odyssey as the pinkish light stretched over the gray sky and the light warmed the top of his wavy, mouse-brown hair. Odysseus. Huh. He couldn't qualify as a hero in the most favorable sense of the word, but could probably pass as a Greek hero, he thought. Some of them were terrible people like him. Fatal flaws and all that.

Except he had no Ithaca to return to. Hellton was probably the closest thing to Ithaca he had.

The young man paced the perimeter of the central Hellton training facility to keep himself alert for his shift. After the ambush, not to mention Oren's attempt to kidnap Hel, Toby and Dawn had set up a rotation for the sensory-Gifted among them--that is, Toby, Dawn, Allen (Toby had gladly left Dawn to convince her rascal brother), Talin (Toby asked nicely, and a little bit nervously), and Pierrot (Toby asked nicely and a lot bit nervously - even as an empath, he was never sure what Pierrot thought of him) in the form of any of them. Somebody needed to keep a wary eye at all times. Hopefully Roxy and Dutch were on their way to fixing the anti teleportation technology and hacking the Erubesco communicators.

It was as Toby completed another circle  that he realized he had company. Not company he could sense--it was no Gifted.

Toby didn't know it, but he had made his first grave mistake of the day:
Earlier, he had picked a ration pack of sealed tuna to take on the road. He had finished the package and had folded it over, crinkling the foil-plastic idly.

His stalker had smelled it and trailed him around the building.
Toby turned around when he heard the whimpering mewls, turned to see a skinny adolescent cat. Its matted short fur was probably white, with blotches of black on the nose, paws, and tail, but it was rather difficult to tell what was dirt and what was markings.

"Hi," Toby said glumly, wondering how the pathetic creature managed to survive in the deserted city. Probably on rats that had in turn subsisted on garbage and human remains. Which he supposed indirectly meant the cat might have subsisted on human remains.
Which might have even bothered Toby a bit if one of his best friends among the Wanderers wasn't a cannibal.

Mrow?

Toby looked at the empty package in his hand. "Nothing left," he said apologetically. He vaguely remembered a resident cat and a few dogs from the bunker days, back when there were a fair number of humans, enough to be called a community. He'd always liked that cat.

The stray persistently crept forward.

"Sorry, c--c--cat," Toby said, unfolding the package and holding it down where the feline could poke its black nose into the opening. "Beat you to it."

Toby had made his second grave mistake.

With a tiny pink tongue, the bedraggled feline licked hungrily at the remnants on the package, pushing the wrapper out of Toby's hand with its little ash-stained paws. Its head didn't quite fit inside the opening, so after watching a moment, Toby took pity and pulled the wrapper apart to reveal the last juicy bits of fish.

Mistake number three.

By the time Toby made it back to the door of the training center, the cat had claimed him and flagged him with a dusting of dirty white fur on his ankles.

It was far too late for "Go away."