The farmhouse was away from the bustle of the main town. Still, it was not far. The road left of the Dairy led straight to it.

I had never seen the road so empty, other than at late night or early morning. I passed a few homes, with large open gates, shops with closed shutters, and an empty plot of land to my right that stretched far and wide. Out of the town the houses were far and in between, barded by high walls that covered more land than the houses were built upon.

Out there, there was more than enough vacant land waiting to be developed, but there were no houses under construction. For some reason, hu-mans preferred to live in a community, even if that meant compromising their living space. It was funny that the hu-mans who liked chaining others were also chained down by their very nature. They didn’t understand the meaning of freedom.

Up ahead, a human thing had crashed at the four-way crossroad. It had found the only tree that was growing in front of the ransacked shop —everything was lying outside, the things, the food, and the brutally maimed kids. The shop hadn’t caught fire. But the tree was barely standing and was no more than ash. Smoke was still rising from the tree. The crash must have happened not too long ago.

I didn’t dare approach them, however, because the road wasn’t as empty as I believed it to be.

Hadn’t the Dairy been missing some cows? Well, I found them. Left of the crossroad, in the direction of the farmhouse, there were cows that didn’t moo, and should not have been standing. Some had no insides and others had sharp white bones growing from their backs. They were grazing grass from the roadside. That surprised me until I looked closely and noticed that they were chewing grass and spitting it out before moving on. They were not eating it, only acting the way they once used to. However, they smelled very delicious.

I hid behind the shade of the house cornering the road before they could notice me. It was bound to happen if I was to approach the farm, but I didn’t want to take any chances.

So essentially, the straight road to my destination was a dead end. However, that didn’t mean there was no other way. The road was not the only pathway, not anymore.

Weren’t all the houses back in the community connected to one another? Well, it wasn’t much different out there either. Though the cows blocked the road, the house behind the wall I was hiding by shared a roof with the farmhouse.

No coincidence. It’s that the whole block was owned by the same person. Rusty said there was a time where there were no houses around, only musty, muddy pads of wheat glowing endlessly. That was a story he had heard in his wee days. And all of it was one person’s territory.

He had other hu-mans working for him, kind of like a dog's territory, but on a much larger scale. It was not the overlining meaning that amazed me, but the hidden truth that the hu-mans not only lived in a pack but other packs also respected their territory. It was amazing how hu-man could claim something as theirs without fighting. Or maybe they fought in a different way than us.

Anyways, I backtracked my footsteps and stopped in front of the entrance, a double gate that was nothing more than a hunk of sheet metal bolted to the walls. It was closed, but there were bars at the bottom that allowed me to look inside. I didn’t detect any movement, heard any sounds, or smelled any scent. The last one I was not so sure about since the cows were not far and there were too many of them.

The gate might be closed, but there was space underneath for me to skid through. It was a tight fit and I scraped my back to get through, but I managed. Tiger would be proud; maybe not.

The first thing I saw after getting through was a tree with long tongue-shaped leaves and two crows.

Look! The dogs back! Is he stalking us?

They were the same bloody crows I had first met on the roof of the unfinished building. I ignored them this time around.

Is it still not dead?

What is it doing this time?

They followed me, cawing loudly. My heart thumped every time they spoke. They were like blood-sucking ticks. No matter where I ran to I could not find an escape from them. It seemed as if they were everywhere.

It was not a house but a workshop, and as the shabby gate hinted, there was nothing important inside. There was a shed right in front of the gate. It was not housing slumbering wheeled monsters, but tools.

They were human toys like the soft plushy tortoise Kanti had gifted me.

I remembered the noises that used to come from inside. They had been loud and obnoxious. There was no blood there or other indicators of struggle. However, everything was a mess. There was junk everywhere. Kalki would have stressed herself just looking at the mess. Well, I moved on. I had to get to the roof. There was no point holding myself back anymore. If they were dead, then they were dead.

There was no roof over my head, but the large space had been divided in two by a wall, and even though there was a door, it was closed. The wall was barely 6 feet tall. I climbed over it without much difficulty.

The light was starting to wane, not because the glowing ball in the sky was retiring for the day, but because of the clouds. They had hidden it behind their dark angry faces and were beginning to roar.

There was nothing on the other side of the wall either. Only stacks of long tubes and large colored water tanks and—

I heard a noise.

The stairs to the roof were on my left, about thirty steps away. However, there were five rooms in front of me all with open doors and a dark interior. The noise had come from inside one of them. I could not smell anything in the air, and that was even more terrifying than if had smelled something.

It hadn’t been long since that dreadful night. I hadn’t forgotten about the roarer yet. If there was another one like it hiding inside one of the rooms—

I shook my head and calmed my breaths. I was meticulous with my steps as I checked the rooms. Three rooms past, I was sure the sound was coming from the next one. I peeked from the door. Inside the room was empty; the sound was from a window banging against the wall.

Relieved, I rushed past the dark, uninviting entrances with my tail swaying, and climbed the stairs. The roof was barren, and it was connected to the farm, but not in the way I thought. The farm was separated from the roof by a perimeter wall that stood ten feet high above my head. It was excessive huge, but not enough to stop me.

I ran down the stairs to get some running space, and sprinted back to the roof. I let the warmth flow, allowing it to change my feet, my nails, my bones, and muscles as I rushed up the roof and jumped at the wall, climbed it like I used to climb the container. It took me four steps to get over the wall, and those were the hardest steps of my life.

It was windy up there and the view was nice, but it was also a twenty feet high fall. I didn’t believe my heart had the capacity to bring me back from absolute death.

However, I didn’t have to contemplate how to climb down, because the farm had been razed by fire. There was nothing left. I thought the smoke I could smell was from the thing burning at the junction, but no. The joke was on me. The green coat of grass I had imagined playing in during my walk with Kanti and Kalki was now back soot. There was no smoke rising. I sneezed as the wind picked up ash from the ground and threw it at me. My heart fell. It was another dead end.

I couldn’t take my eye from the farm. It was my last hope. How was I going to find them now?

Don’t sulk. I told myself. You can find them; just keep looking. Maybe they are around? There was bound to be a clue, a scent for me to follow.

However, my thoughts were cut short when a set of foreign emotions hit me. It was rage, it was madness, it was pain and hunger all combined together. It was someone’s call. And it was not just for me. No. The wave that had hit me had also attracted the attention of the cows. I could see them from atop the wall; they had their heads raised and unblinking eyes focused in the direction of the community.

Come to me! It called.

I didn’t think at all and jumped down from the wall, dealt with the pain that arose, and rushed toward the stairs down the roof.

It wasn’t the voice that I only heard after changing, after letting the warmth from my heart take over. This one was different.

This was someone else.

This —I knew who this was! But how was it alive? He was at the center of the explosion that had thrown me flying. It was impossible!

I tried to go down the stairs, but there was a bloody screamer standing at the door of the room where the window was banging. How had I missed it! What a time it chose to make an appearance. It was in a trance, but then it saw or smelled me. There was a scream before it skittered toward the stairs, tripped and fell on the tubes, and started crawling like a critter toward me without stopping.

This was bad.