Information

Alone
Legacy Name: Alone

The Glacier Fester
Owner: Derelict

Age: 15 years, 8 months, 4 weeks

Born: July 17th, 2008

Adopted: 15 years, 8 months, 4 weeks ago (Legacy)

Adopted: July 17th, 2008 (Legacy)

Pet Spotlight Winner
January 10th, 2021

Statistics

• Level: 24
   
• Strength: 24
   
• Defense: 16
   
• Speed: 19
   
• Health: 24
   
• HP: 24/24
   
• Intelligence: 6
   
• Books Read: 6
• Food Eaten: 1
• Job: Unemployed

"Above all else, survive."

---

Day One

His breath smoked in the frosty air as he sighed, lowering himself into a chair on the porch of the rickety house. The wood was all but bare now, save for a few stubborn patches of chipped white paint that held on long past their final days. He gazed out, down the length of an old boardwalk that vanished into the field of unkept wheat and dry, dead grass. In the distance, he could just barely make out the silhouette of two figures on the road beyond the field, turning to head in the other direction. He reached down without looking and pulled his pack open, hoisting a small metal flask from within. The man shot his head back and punished himself with a quick swig. As he began to lower the bit of metal, clattering footsteps could be heard from within the house behind him. When the front door burst open with a loud creak, he instead raised the flask higher and let the whiskey continue flowing.

”Finally.” He let out with a wince, alcohol still burning his throat and nose. He quickly rose to his feet and stuffed the remaining contents of the flask back into his pack.

”Relax.” Spoke a voice from behind him. “Still beat the sun, didn’t we?” The boy gestured outward at the darkness around them. Then, the exaggerated yawn he’d tried guilting the man with was cut short. Noticing the same figures on the road, the boy slinked back behind the doorframe and into the house. “Shit!”

The man looked back, then returned his gaze to the travellers. “Relax.” He mocked. “They know better than to come here.”

The boy dropped his tensed shoulders, and scoffed. “Yeah, okay tough guy.” And they set off.

As they trudged along through the field, mud reached up well beyond their mismatched boots and spattered their legs. Each step took the effort of two, with the sloshing and slipping and inability to get a solid foothold on the uneven ground. The sun had by now been out for a while, and they’d already lost any lead gained from leaving early. Among the sprawling fields lay scattered houses and barns, all with similarly chipped paint and blown-out windows as his own. Despite the treacherous terrain and pitiful scenery, it was still the preferred path over the road. There were people on the road.

After roughly an hour of tedium, a ruckus in the near distance broke the silence- though the man had been hoping for no distractions. As far as he was concerned, bored meant alive. Just a few broken buildings down from them, a rusted car hastily pulled up onto the lawn of a home. Leaving it running, three men promptly got out and slammed the doors behind them. The first, who’d been the driver, gripped some unmistakable dull metal in his hand and racked the magazine. Behind him, two more grizzly beasts hefted metal poles- sharpened and beaked to a vicious point. The three marched with malicious intent towards the home.

”Fuck. Get down.” The man ordered as he dragged himself and the boy down behind a pile of rubble that had once been the foundation of a home.

”More men who know better?” The boy spat accusingly and terrified at the same time. The man said nothing, just continued to peer intensely over their crude wall. Suddenly, his eyes widened, and he returned behind the crumbling bricks, pressing his face to the damp ground next to the boy. Silence, for a moment. Then, two quick pops followed by a blood curdling scream.

”Don’t look. Keep your head down.” The man urged, a certain intenseness to his voice. The boy was nearly convulsing with fear, but kept the side of his face pressed into the mud as was commanded. A faint ray of light touched his face through a small crack in the foundation- small, but enough to see through. The boy peeked through the jagged stone keyhole just in time to see one of the men dragging a woman out the front door of the house and down the porch steps by her hair, thrashing and writhing behind him the whole time. The boy quickly jammed his eyelids shut as tightly as he could bare and put his hands on his head. When the guttural pleading was finally muffled by the sound of a slamming car trunk the boy inched over and relinquished himself, burrowing his way into the man’s folded arms.

”You looked, didn’t you?”

Day Two

They’d finally made it out of the fields, at least. Now, their new torment came from trying to keep a pitiful fire lit in the torrential rainfall that the forest canopy did little to quell. The pair sat under a crude shelter of pine branches and a near-shredded tarp, nursing a can of beans between them that remained cold despite the few faint wisps of smoke bellowing from their surface- the most they could get them to cook over the hissing coals.

”So, we’ve been together, what? How long now?” The boy spoke, almost inaudible for the water pelting the ground around them. The man’s dead expression near instantly turned to a scowl.

”You’d know-“ he said in between quick spoonfuls. “-if you’d been keeping up on the calendar like I told you.” The boys’ face turned pale of an instant, and he suddenly began patting down his coat and pants pockets furiously.

”The calendar! Shit!” He jumped to his feet, surveying the ground around him as if he’d reveal he’d been sitting on it the entire time. “I completely forgot! I’m so sor-”
The man cut him off by grabbing something from his own pack and passing it to the boy. The calendar, all fully marked with the passage of days and with the current day circled with charcoal. Which had of course, been the boys’ job. He slowly snatched it, ashamed. “Just over a month.” The man answered coldly.

More rain-filled silence, for a moment. “Thanks, pops.”

Of an instant, the man jolted up onto his feet and snapped to attention, meeting the boys’ hopeful gaze with a fuming-mad glare. Their humble shelter shifted with the sudden movement, sending a splash of collected water down onto the coals, utterly extinguishing them. “Don’t call me that.” The two were locked in an intense stare for sometime.

The boy started again, carefully. “Come on. Over a month and we still don’t know each others’ names?”

”That was the deal.” The man spat in immediate response.

”... Okay. But we can at least give each other nicknames or-” The man suddenly darted forward, marching with a brutal intent. At once he gripped the boys’ collar and slammed him heavy into a tree- accusing finger of the other hand waving in his face.

“No!” With a voice that finally seemed to silence the rain. “We can’t. I’m the man, you’re the boy. That. Was. The. Deal.” The boy nodded ferociously before the man let go his now crumpled coat and righted himself. The longest, most pregnant silence of all, now.

”I’m not a boy, though.”
”You are to me.”
”Guess you got me there, old timer.”

Day Three
”Almost there now, right?” The boy asked with a map outspread in his hands, blissfully hopeful. The rain had stopped now, and dazzling rays of sun pierced the canopy.

”Yes. Just beyond this clearing.” The man gestured forward, where a small building could be seen poking around two patches of trees making up the forests’ exit.

”That’s it?” the boy was taken aback by the sight. A small, stone shelter with a sheet-metal roof lay derelict in the center of a green field. “Doesn’t look like much.”
The man winced, and stared off into nothing as he spoke. “That’s why no one else has touched it yet. Full of supplies.”

The boy tilted his head in question for a moment, then shrugged and continued on. “You alright?” He piped up hesitantly, like he wasn’t sure if he wanted the words to come out or not. “You’ve been acting... strange. Stranger than usual.” The man said nothing and continued walking, shifting the pack uncomfortably on his back.

“If you keep ignoring me, I’ll shout out my name loud enough for every bandit within ten miles to know it!” The boy teased. The man glanced back at him over his shoulder, the faintest hints of a gentle smile creeping over his tired face for a fleeting instant before he corrected himself, visibly unsettled.

”Alright.” The man sighed deeply. “Here we are.” Before them, the pitifully run-down shelter; the fruits of all their labour. Still noticeably put-off, the boy put his hands on his hips. The man shrugged his pack off his shoulder, pulled out a long rifle barrel jutting from the zipped pouch and began assembling the pieces; bolts sliding into place with a metal scrape.

”You first.” The man handed an empty pack to the boy with one hand. “I’ll keep watch. When that’s full, you come out and I’ll go in.” The boy nodded and dropped his own pack.

”Right. Right.” The boy psyched himself up, preparing to enter. “Just...” he spoke nervously. “Just keep a real good eye out, okay?”

The man held his stoic look as best he could, and put an affirming hand on the boys’ shoulder. “Of course.”

As the boy turned and started towards the house, the man raised the scope to his eye. He feigned a diligent scan of the vast meadow, butt of the rifle firmly pressed into his shoulder and finger hovering over the trigger. The boy entered, and the door clicked shut behind him. A few brief moments later, three figures similarly villainous to those they’d seen in the fields sprang from behind a boulder, and one from a tree. They kept low to the ground, silently honing in on the building. The man saw them, caught them in his crosshairs, and lowered the gun. The group converged on the doorstep, and one of them gave the man a knowing nod before turning and kicking the door clean off its hinges.

As if timed perfectly with the crack of splintering wood, the man turned, dropped the rifle and lowered himself onto a rock- head dropping sombrely between his knees. He agonized his fingers through his matted hair as the sounds came. The commotion of boots shuffling, chairs scuffing- of a struggle. Three loud thuds emanated from within the walls, and the man buried his face in his hands. Another crack of the door bursting open, followed by a pitiful whelp of “Help! Please!” from the boy, and he was sobbing. The man didn’t need to look to know what the familiar dragging, kicking sounds meant. A fourth man pulled up from behind a hill in a noisy, sputtering truck, and soon the slam came, and all was silent. The one who’d given him the nod at the door slowly sauntered over to the man, now standing and gathering his pack, returning the rifle to his shoulder.

”Good work.” The bandit grinned.

Without the faintest hint of enthusiasm in his voice to match the bandit’s, the man spoke shakily. “The usual de-”

”Yes, yes. The usual deal.” The bandit interrupted, scratching the back of his head through his cap, not seeming to grasp the gravity of the situation in the slightest. “We’ll leave you and your shitty hut alone.” The man sighed, relieved, and nodded knowingly. He turned, ready to be rid of the bandit, the situation, the entire bloody day. ”Wait.” the bandit boomed. “Kid said he had a message for you.”

The man froze, mortified. He turned as quick as he could, shot out a protesting hand, but the bandit continued on. ”...said his name was Isaac.” He shrugged, turned and walked back towards the still-running truck without a single care for the scene left behind him.

Day Five

The trip back had taken one day less on his own. He was simply more efficient that way. Faster, more aware of his surroundings. Safer. When he made it to the groaning porch, he dropped his pack onto the steps, but not before grabbing the flask from within. He marched into his home and went straight for a box in the corner, whiskey pouring down his throat all the while. He pulled a thick book from the dusty space, opened and blew on it to reveal pristine pages within. Smooth, laminated pages filled with family photos. He carefully slid one page from its’ plastic covering and grabbed a thin piece of charcoal to his right. Below the photos there was a short, spaced list of crudely scribbled names with dates next to them. Some dating back years from now. Emptying the last of his flask, he raised it high to let a couple more drops leak out before tossing it uncaringly aside. He gripped the charcoal in his shaking hand, wrote the days’ date, and added to the list of names: ”Isaac”.

The man returned once more to the porch and relinquished himself into the chair, heavy breaths frosting in the cold air. His gaze was again drawn to the road, where he could make out the silhouette of a person. The shadowy figure stopped of a sudden and turned, facing the man and his home. Then, they turned and carried on in the opposite direction. The man hung his head, spots of wet pattering the wood beneath him- though there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Between sputtering sobs, the man whispered to himself.

“Home again. Safe again. Alone again.” and remained there, repeating the mantra long, long into the night.

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