Dawn Lowrey's Story

Dawn's bag was called Frankenstein; her mother had named it so. Such a strange name, Dawn always thought, and a funny one too. She had no idea what such a name meant or where it had come from. When asked, Mother seemed not to know where the name came from either but said that it had something to do with being made from many different and mismatching parts. That certainly fit. Dawn's mother had owned the bag as a girl long before she was ever a mother, and at that time it had been a nice backpack, clean and neat and a solid deep purple, with pockets of various size and sturdy straps which supported much weight with little strain on the back. But the decades had worn it down just the same as the earth had been worn down. Countless tears had ripped through the fabric, and Mother had had no choice but to cover the holes with patches of any cloth available. Here a red patch, there a green, this one cut from floral curtains, that one ripped from Mother's own shirt. Anything to keep together the bag which held every possession they owned. Little of the original fabric remained visible, and what could be seen was no longer purple but an ugly, murky grey. Dirt and dust became permanently embedded in the strands. One strap had been completely detached, and what was left of the remaining hung on feebly by poorly made stitches.

The bag was called Frankenstein, and it was dirty and torn and broken just like Dawn. It was her most precious thing.

She had the strap hanging by her neck to keep both arms free as she stretched for the next ledge. The scalding brick of the building burned her hands with each moment that passed. With every hand hold she could feel the bursting of old blisters and the formation of new, and her muscles ached in protest both from the heat and from the strain of pulling herself up yet another foot. But she could not stop or rest, not even for a moment. The sun was setting, and it was a 10 story drop to the broken asphalt below.

She grabbed a hold of the next ledge and felt the brick crumble into dust beneath her hand. Suddenly she was slipping, the air rushing up beneath her and the ground rapidly approaching. A screech like that of a small animal escaped from her throat. She reached out blindly, grasping for a hold of something, anything. A heart-stopping despair ran through her being. She never let herself fall. Before now, anyway.

Halfway down to what was sure to be her final moment, Dawn's hand finally impacted with a broken window still, a sharp shard of glass cutting into her palm. Fighting against instinct she tightened her grip around the impalement. The fall was broken, causing the entirety of her body weight to hank down sharply on a single arm. It was only from her cry of pain that she was unable to hear the pop as the bone dislocated from her shoulder joint. Her Frankenstein bag pulled down on her throat, choking her, stealing away her breath if only for a moment. She gasped. She gasped for air and for relief that she still had air to gasp for. Adrenaline fed into her veins and allowed the pain to fade, but she knew the effect was temporary. Slowly, surely, she began to lightly swing from side to side. Each swing to the right she reached her uninjured arm up, grasping for the window sill. More glass scattered the sill and cut into flesh when she finally made contact. She could feel the warm blood spreading between the fingers of both hands, making her grasp slippery, and with the slightest movement the cuts in her palms grew deeper. The dislocated shoulder made her left arm useless, forcing her to rely on just one to pull her up and over the window sill, finally rolling limply into the room inside.

It was a suffocating kind of darkness in this room. The last hints of day's light refracted through shards of glass and spilled out on the floor beside her, highlighting a circle of deep brown blood crusted into the carpet. Dawn could see no more. Her breath become caught in her throat as she fumbled in the Frankenstein bag for her flashlight, a temperamental nearly dead thing which gave light only at its convenience and a dim narrow ray at that. Batteries were so hard to come by. Fortunately it saw fit to work at this moment, and Dawn cascaded the weak light across the room she now found herself in.

It appeared to be some kind of one room apartment. Chairs and a table lay broken on their sides, one chair completely shattered as though having been thrown against the wall. Clothing cluttered the floor as well as papers which crinkled and fluttered with every breeze through the window. The thrown open drawers of both a dresser and desk suggested that the place had been hastily fled, or perhaps raided by bandits, or both. The curtain waving peacefully beside Dawn from the window railing was ripped from top to bottom in three long, claw-like tears. Everything was filled with silence. The door to the outside hallway was closed shut, but the closet door across from her sat ajar. Dawn's flashlight was unable to penetrate the darkness within. She held her breath, waiting to hear the familiar deep growl, or to see a pair of bright eyes flash open. But after several moments of nothing happening she accepted that she was alone.

Dawn evaluated her situation. She had cried out not once, but two times in her fall. Bandits, thieves, cannibals... Beasts... anyone or anything nearby would know where she is. But as dangerous as it was to stay in this place, it was more dangerous to leave. Night was here, and everyone knew it was suicide to wander in the city at night. And with her shoulder... Dawn bit her lip, squeezing her eyes shut as pain washed from her shoulder and through her arm and body. The cuts on her hands she could handle, but a dislocated shoulder made her useless for climbing, and climbing was the best way she knew to survive. Even if she survived the night, what was she to do when the morning came? How was she to search for supplies, so scarce and running lower with each passing day? Hopelessness sunk like a pit in her stomach.

Dawn wrapped her hands the best she could and fashioned a lousy makeshift sling from a ripped pillowcase on the bed for her shoulder. It was not enough. She had no idea how to do about putting the shoulder back in place, and there was nothing to do for the pain. She allowed herself a small sip of water from the bottle of water she was preserving; she had found it just today, nearly empty, beneath a pile of gravel, the plastic of the bottle melted and deformed from the heat and leeking chemicals into the water , and the water so hot it burned her tongue. But her thirst was so dire she would drink anything.

With nothing left to do, she held the Frankenstein bag to her chest and waited, waiting for something and nothing to happen. Tears formed in her eyes.

"Mom," she whispered into the dark. "Mommy, I need you... I'm scared. Please, I need you. I don't want to die..."

But she was, of course, completely and utterly alone.

Dawn couldn't remember falling asleep. She had barracked the door best she could, pushing a chair under the handle (at first she had attempted to use the desk, but her small and injured frame proved too weak to move anything of any significant weight). Her attempts to rest were all but futile; great as her exhaustion was, the pain from her shoulder and the fear of being found by someone or something out there kept her conscious until the early hours of the morning. But at some point she must have dozed off for here she was, laying on the floor with her head nuzzled into the Frankenstein bag, eyes fluttering open and squinting back shut as the first rays of day's light came filtering into the room.

Dawn had been born with the sun; that was how she had gotten her name. Her mother, Lily Lowrey, used to tell the story often. Lily had gone into labor a month before she was meant to, just as night fell over the wasted earth. With little time to prepare she had locked herself in the nearest shelter she could find, a wooden tool shed which had been looted and abandoned and was missing several planks in its walls, leaving Lilly exposed should anything happen to look within. She had gagged herself with her own shirt so that she could not scream and draw attention when the contractions hit. The growl of Beasts could be heard all through the night; in the occasional moment Lily was even able to glimpse a clawed paw or a mat of fur or a pair of glowing eyes through the slits. But even if she was not attacked and killed before the night was through, what was to become of her baby? How was a child to survive in a world like this? Lily had nearly lost all hope.

But then the morning came. Sunlight spilled out onto the laboring woman's withering body in much the same way that it spilled over her daughter on this day ten years later. The creatures of the night disappeared from it's burning grasp. The light and the warmth it provided fueled in Lily the strength to make her final push.

Lily's baby was premature and scrawny, born into a dirty tool shed with no prenatal care and no medical attention. And yet she was born, not just alive, but healthy. She was a miracle in a world where miracles no longer existed. Lily held her tiny body to her chest and named her Dawn, for the first lights of day which had greeted her into the world. Lily was fueled in that moment with sudden and irrational hope for their future together.

But Lily was dead now. Dawn rose from her place on the floor and looked through the window, alone as she watched the sun rise.

Pain shot through Dawn's shoulder with every movement she made. It had only gotten worse in the night. She could only stand to lift her arm a few inches from her side before the pain grew unbearable. Her mouth was dry, lips cracked and broken, her head spinning and dizzy every time she tried to move.

Oh, but she couldn't stay still. She munched on half a granola bar from her backpack and drained what little remained in her water bottle. Neither did much help. She needed more. She needed food and water and medicine for her pain, and she needed to find a way to fix her shoulder so she could climb again. If not, she was good as dead.

Pulling Frankenstein's remaining strap up around her good shoulder, Dawn pushed aside her poor excuse of a barricade and cautiously entered the hallway. The small girl's face scrunched up as a foul scent hit her. Across from her lay a decaying pile of flesh, barely distinguishable as human. If not the sight of it, the smell was enough to make one sick. Or at least it used to be. Dawn was raised in a world of death and gore and decay, and she barely gave a second glace as she passed the body.

The apartment complex's hallway was ill-lit. Light bulbs hung from the ceiling at regular intervals but were utterly useless. The only light came from the rooms whose doors sat ajar, shinning in from the windows. In some spots there was naught but darkness. She lept from puddle to puddle of light, only able to hope that it was enough to keep the Beasts away. The safest bet would have been to climb down to the ground, but her injury made that impossible.

A sign showed her way to the stairwell, which as luck would have it was located on the outside of the main building. A window was built in every story and provided enough light for Dawn to feel safe. She climbed down the five flights and pushed open a heavy door to the outside world.

Where to search? What in this city had not already been raided or destroyed? But Dawn knew the secrets hidden in the walls of each building. She knew how to search where others would not think, how to find things long lost and missed by bandits. It was the only way she could survive. She set off down the broken street, set in mind to search the first likely building her eyes met. Even this early in the day heat began to burn into her skin. Through the soles of her shoes she could feel the burning asphalt on her feet.

Suddenly, she paused. She could see a person, a man, searching the underbrush some distance from her. Instantly she ducked behind the cover of the nearest building, sliding her head out just a peek to watch him. A bandit? Or on second thought, perhaps not. He appeared to be alone... and injured. Dawn crossed behind the building and up the street on the other side, gaining cover from a closer point to examine the stranger more closely. If only she could watch from above, it would be safer and quicker to escape should she be seen. But in her desperation she chanced herself even closer, hiding under the cover of a shrub. Before long she was trailing him, slipping into the next hiding place when he was looking away and over time closing the distance between them, though she dared not get too close.

The man looked worse for wear; angry red wounds, no more than a day old, shinned bright on his face and could be made out clearly even from this distance. He wore a satchel, and this Dawn's eyes clung to greedily. If she were to move fast enough... oh, but did she dare? In normal circumstances she never would, tending to avoid other people in the rare instances she came across. But now... now she was possibly desperate enough to try.