"Incoming Dawn" by Emmy Larrew

A dilapidated city sat empty, welcoming the morning with a haunting silence. The dawn lacked all but the sun, for its rays of heat had failed to reach earth’s barren terrain since months prior.

It was 6:38 when the blushing dawn rose from a distant horizon, but the large digital clock stationed at the center of the city’s square would forever read 17:29.

A dog whined with the emergence of light, awakening from its exposed sleep under a tree. The dog, who had once been large and agile, was now reduced to flesh and bone. Its body, covered with malignant sores and opened wounds, struggled to stand up from the thick snow. Shakily, it began its daily search for heat and food.

The dog roamed through the city, taking in the scent of masters passed and dark, long nights that were all too normal to the feeble creature. It wheezed, coughing up its last attempt at a meal from mere days ago.

A concentration of light – what one assumes to be whatever is left of sunlight – sits idly in the center of the sky. A breeze picks up, creating the beginnings of a squall.

Blocks away, a tower crumbled, for its infrastructure had collapsed to the cold. With the tower, the smaller building aside it followed, caving in to result in a small cloud of dust and particles. From the rubble, the eastern part of town was revealed - as well as a vague, black essence emerging from the top of yet another building.

The canine shivered, its attention darting to the collapse only to see the black vapor in the distance. In hopes of heat, the dog began its journey across the city. A light jog created footprints across the ashen snow, stained by the grime across the dog’s paws.

The dog maneuvered through the labyrinth of remains left by civilization, debilitated by its hacking and broken barks. It stumbled across a bridge, meeting the bridge’s descending point with a trip and a fall. It took minutes to regain its steady stroll, though its gait was beginning to slow with incoming fatigue.

Through the dog’s seemingly endless travail, it was met with the unfortunate reality: a piece of cloth, decrepit by harsh gales and cinders. Such broad stripes and bright stars once stood prideful, though it was now known that none succeeded against the angry wrath brought by mother nature.

The fabric billowed jarringly as its corners flaked off with brewing winds. The dog whimpered, slouching its shoulders and bowing its head in its failure. A mighty tempest had brewed since the dog first began, provoking the weak animal to try again.

The dog staggered on its way, finding the city’s abandoned suburbia. Behind the dog, irate mice whirred, providing the hound with hardly enough food to last much longer.

Light had left the city, though the pounding wind intensified with time. Suburbia stirred; yard art flew from its posts and flushed against the multitude of picket fences and unattended pools.

In a last attempt to survive, the dog hurried into the first open house it could see. Dangling from a rusted chain, a sign reading “13o ASH TON” welcomed the mongrel. Once inside, the dog collapsed in its last moment of fear.

The hinges of the door screamed, and the door fell off the house. The hose was now a snake, thrashing in reckless abandon before losing itself to the blows. Windows opened, shaking against their frames in invitation. In the foyer, chairs of worn leather soared to and through the roof, striking the drywall and bringing up the particles with another gust. Floorboards creaked in sync with each coming gale, spiraling into the sky with the rest of the foyer.

The dog whimpered, closing its eyes as the storm found its only shelter. It cried out, for help no longer available to him, in hopeless demand for protection. The screeching storm met the dog’s desperation. Surrounded by the hum of demise, the dog sat pathetically, closing its eyes for the last time.

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Dawn came once again, and with it came a soft rain. Rubble and remains littered the town, glistening as water bounced playfully off of it. A hazy glow stemmed from the light and the rain, entranced by the shining screen stationed at the center of the city. The digital clock had fallen, cracked and sprawled across the city’s square. The screen was flashing now, in forlorn attempts to stay on. As the flashing slowed, the same time it had shown for months had stopped completely, only to be burned onto the dormant screen until the end of time.

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Photo Credit: Ms. Loesche