Decklan O'Connell's Story

The wandered's eyes flickered open as a few small rays of light filtered across the room. He groaned with a raspy release of air. He felts as though his mouth was coated with dust, his head splitting and eyes dry and puffy. He touched the side of his face gingerly - infection had likely set in, and it was hot to the touch. He couldn't afford water to rinse the wound clean, but it crossed his mind as he pulled a waterskin from his backpack and sipped, denying his voracious thirst. His lips were broken and cracking, bleeding at the corners. Decklan forced himself to stand on wavering, shaking legs, briefly enjoying the cool inside of the building. As he approached the windows, he could feel the heat seeping through.

The filthy traveler shook his head, as if trying to clear the fog inside of it, and cleared the shelving from the door. The metal entryway was already warm to the touch from the sun. He pressed his body to the rusting door and forced his way out into the blistering warmth of the sun. In the daylight, the city was hardly threatening. Small birds filled the windows of the adjacent buildings, a rabbit leapt through the overgrown road. If he had been in better shape, it might have been dinner.

Decklan kept moving through the city, if slowly. It was too dangerous to skim buildings alone, in his condition, and he settled for rummaging through the underbrush - small bushes, trees, and tall grass. A broken bottle here, a brick there. It may have been useless, but he had to stay occupied and keep his mind off the pain.

The day while sliding right out of his fingers, it seemed. Decklan scratched at his face absently before shoving a dumpster away from the walls of a building, into an alleyway. Nothing. He sighed audibly, rubbing his sunburned neck. It had been weeks since he was last in a city, but this one seemed to be devoid of all useful things. Even a rope could be useful. He could feel the wear of wandering and the bite of loneliness as he kept walking down the sidewalk, kicking the occasional pile of refuse out of the way.

Decklan tightened the straps of his bag across his chest, bending down to sift through a few wooden boxes. Nothing. He stood up on creaking knees and let his shoulders sag. Though his vision was impaired, he caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his good eye. He didn't alter his behavior, and kept walking down the street slowly, scanning the ground for anything interesting. However, he now listened very closely - catching a step here, a scuff there, and he was certain after a few minutes that he was being followed. Decklan kept his head down, pulling the machete from his hips slowly, as if he needed it to hack brambles out of his way. He wasn't well-armed, but he was strong, even dehydrated and tired.

The wanderer was momentarily distracted from the pursue, by a painted sign on the canopy above a doorway across the street. He looked over the exterior of the building - it was large, and very tall, but the windows on the bottom floor were boarded up sufficiently, and large red x's patterned the wood. He pounded a fist on the board, letting the thumping sound through the entire floor.

Silence.

After a few moments without a vicious response, Decklan shoved the dull blade of the machete into the jam of the door, ripping off chunks of board and splinters of wood. He landed a solid push from his heel right above the doorjam and the entryway gave with a groan, and slid open. He couldn't read the painted sign above the door, and even if he could, he wouldn't know what the words meant.

The lower floor was mostly empty, and dark without the light from the windows. Decklan let his eyes adjust to the darkness, but stayed within the ray of light shed by the doorway. Stools and chairs littered the floor, and a long counter expanded the back of the room. Behind it, he felt a quiver in his stomach - bottles. Hundreds of bottles. Briefly he thought of drinking himself to death, before pulling the torch from his belt and shaking it quickly to get a better look.

The bar counter was filthy, and so were the bottles, but there they were, unbroken. Cleaner alcohol was useful medically, and it would be a godsend to purge the infection likely growing on his face. To his left, a lower-set area with broken tables, a few splintered chairs, and old plastic electronics. Things were broken from rot, not from intrusion, it appeared. It was rare to find an undisturbed location, even more so in a city. To his right were double doors. The right wing of the room would wait - Decklan skirted the counter and slipped a few small bottles of clear alcohol into his bag, along with what he could salvage behind the counter - cutlery mostly. He resurfaced from the counter and gently, hesitantly pushed his way into the right wing of the floor.

Having never seen a restaurant or kitchen in his life, he was puzzled momentarily by the grimy metal appliances. He didn't let the deduction of his whereabouts linger long, and Decklan was immediately rummaging through drawers and cabinets. In all, he found a large steak knife, a whetting rod, and a can opener. Canned food was almost useless now, and so he left the canopener behind. The knife and whetting rod were as good to find as the alcohol.

It wasn't until Decklan was approaching the doorway that he recalled the tail he'd gained while scavenging, and he hesitated to return outside.