The City

Fargo could hear the rats skittering about as he lay on the worn out, dirty mattress. The door had blown open during last nights storm, causing snow to sweep inside with every puff of wind, but giving him a nice view at least... if you call an entire street of empty and worn down houses covered in snow, 'nice'. He was waiting for his sister to return, she'd left hours ago to pilfer through houses in the larger part of the city. She was always the one to go do things like this. And it's not anything Fargo had anything to be jealous about, she was in fact the smaller more agile one of the two, so it was only natural that she'd be the one to go to the city. It was overgrown with plants and there were fallen buildings everywhere. And with the snow and ice it would be much harder to find herself a path. But it did grow unbearably boring just sitting around in this house with the rats. He was really growing to hate them.

With a sigh, he stood and stretched, rats scattering every direction and some even running right under his paws. They deserved to get squished if they were that stupid, he decided. The muddy brown and white dog paused at the door for a moment to look down the street, the way his sister had gone, then stepping out into the snow. Compared to the inside of the house, it was blindingly bright out here. Before he just decided to go back inside, he took off trotting down the middle of the powder covered street, the opposite way of his sister. Just to have another look around, is all. They'd only been camping here for a few days and it was just until the storms subsided and they gathered some supplies. There was still much to be checked out around and in the other houses. They'd chosen the most stable one to sleep in but had only had a few moments to skim the others for threats before they were forced inside by the snow.

However none of the houses he was passing seemed to even have anything in them. They were all bare, stripped of even the furniture. He thought it was odd, but most of the things the humans had done after The Fall were odd to him anyway. Just as he was losing motivation to be out in the cold he saw something gleam out of the corner of his eye. Trotting over to the area, next to a tree that was beside one of the caved in houses, there was a dog house. No chain though, so what was shining? After some brief digging in the spot he could now call himself the 'proud' owner of a faded pink, ratty collar. Great.. his sister might like it though, he thought.

"Well that was a waist of time." Fargo grumbled to himself anyway, picking up the muddy, half frozen collar gingerly and carrying it back to the house with him and dropping it near the mattress. His feet were covered in ice that had matted to his fur and now he was colder that before and not in an any better mood. But his sister would be back soon, and it was getting dark. Temperatures would start to drastically drop and she'd be caught out on it if she didn't hurry back.

After thirty or so minutes of chewing on ice and waiting for it to melt off his legs, Fargo was now curled on the mattress once again. The rats had mostly settled down too, finding places that were warmer within the dark house. He was back to staring out the door, watching the snow. It wasn't a storm tonight, just a gentle snow fall. His sister wasn't back yet, and he decided that if she wasn't back mid-day tomorrow then he'd go look for her. But she'd be back, he thought to himself as he slipped into sleep. She's always comes back okay.