“Hey! My man! What’s up?”

Zen looked to his left, on the sidewalk of a busy intersection. He was on his way to work, the damp smell of wet concrete and grass permeating throughout the air as sedans, trucks, and motorcycles billowed by.

A middle aged man with a shaven stubble beard bounded towards him and hugged him intensely. Zen was quite taken aback by the sudden shove by his coworker, but since this happened nearly every morning, he had gotten used to it.

“Nothing. Just waiting for the traffic light to turn on. Y’know, I’ve always wondered how these traffic lights work,” Zen said, pointing to all of the red and green, as they switched back and forth to let the traffic pass. “They’re so rhythmic. It’s like they’re on a timer.”

“They are on a timer you dunce.” He laughed, as he scuffled Zen’s hair. Zen scrunched down. He didn’t like it when people messed with his hair, but he’d make an exception for his friends.

Zen scratched his head, combing it back in position. “Oh come on Curt, you know I was joking. I’m not actually that stupid. Now come on, we’ve been given a rite of passage by the lights. We should hurry so we can clock in.”

Curt nodded, and Zen and him ran across the intersection, their white laboratory coats bellowed in the wind. It was a beautiful early dawn, and the sun had barely risen over the horizon. Zen loved this type of weather, up early to watch the sunrise, the early morning dew like beautiful drops of jewels drifting onto his face. If he were ever to have a vacation, he’d probably go camping in a national park with titan like firs and exotic flora. It was nature that yearned out to him.

“Hey man, don’t you know what the higher ups are thinking?” Curt pondered as they walked down the street. The smell of coffee and freshly baked goods wafted past them. “They’re all worried about the oxidation stabilizers or the iridescent IRIS generators. Why should we worry about them? They haven’t malfunctioned in over two hundred years for god sakes! You understand, right?

Zen sighed. “Curt, if you had been listening to the morning announcements rather than stuffing your face with corporate offered biscuits, you’d know why this is a problem.”

Curt jumped back in a pretend and phony shocked manner, shaking his hands from side to side. “Woah woah there, Mr. Listen to me. You can’t tell me what to do!”

Zen blankly looked Curt in the eyes. “You do know that I outrank you by like multiple levels. So yeah, I can tell you what to do. Are you hungry? Christine’s bake shop is open. And they sell those biscuits you like so much.”

“Oh shut up,” Curt waved off. “I’ll get the biscuits and I’ll actually listen to today’s announcement. You happy?”

Zen beamed. “Oh yes. I am. Now go on, go buy those biscuits you like. I heard Christine is selling butter ginger-pumpkin applesnaps today. Long name, but they taste god damn amazing.”

“Will do man!” Curt said, as he hopped his way into the store.

Zen didn’t go in. Instead, he sat down on one of the nearby café tables and flipped out his phone. He poured through the notifications, until he found the email he was looking for. Good, it’s all going to plan. He just had to get Curt off his tail after they clocked in and he could get to work with Benny and Alastor.

“Hey man, I got the goods, let's go.”

Zen looked up from his phone, where Curt was looking down at him carrying a white box loaded with pastries.

“That was fast,” Zen noticed, as he stood up and put his phone into his back pocket.

“Yeah! Christine heard our conversation out front and got the biscuits ready. The transaction was really fast and easy. Now let’s see how these cookies taste!” Curt picked a brown and orange wave cookie out from the box and took a big bite, its crunch sounding like music to their ears.

“Mm!” Curt hummed. He licked the crumbs from around his mouth and kept chewing. “I have to say, your taste is once again impeccable. These biscuits are absolutely incredible!”

“I know that, because I took a sample database of your tastebuds and determined what your favorite snack was over three weeks before giving the atomic data to all the pastry shops in the area, so you’re welcome.” Zen said in a flurry.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

“Hm?” Curt asked, mid-chew.

“It’s nothing,” Zen smiled. As they walked, Zen thought about something.

“Curt,” Zen asked. “Why don’t you ever refer to me as my name? You always refer to me as they, or dude, or man. Ok hit me, what’s my name?”

Curt swallowed. “Hey! Of course I know your name! It’s uh…” He checked his phone before putting it back into his lab coat. “Well, we all know who you are…sport.”

“D’ah, forget it,” Zen waved off. They turned the corner and were met with the security guard at the facility toll gate, the security guard as rigid and eagle-eyed as ever.

“You’re up I guess,” Zen said to Curt, who nodded and walked up to the security checkpoint.

“Name and occupation,” the buff and middle aged veteran guard said gruffly, his arms folded in his navy blue uniform.

“Curt Colbins, Third Floor Chemist,” Curt said to the guard. “You know Matt, you should loosen up a bit. You could get a lot more friends if you did.”

“That’s enough out of you. Go to your post,” Matt the guard said with a grumble. Curt shrugged, and walked through the checkpoint.

Zen walked up to the checkpoint after Curt and looked at Matt, giving him a nod.

Matt sighed. “You know I can’t abandon policy. State your name and occupation.”

“Fine. My name is…”

----------------------------------------

He woke up with a start.

Zen sat up from his slumber, still laying on the floor of the granite cove. He swore he remembered something in his dreams, but when he tried to remember anything from his fitful day of rest, he couldn’t grasp a single image. He sighed, stood up, and stretched.

It was evening now. He could see the color of orange and blue, the yellow glow from the beaming sun slowly disappearing behind the horizon, well, if he could see the horizon that is.

Yeah. There was still a blizzard going on. And it didn’t look like it was stopping anytime soon. The blizzard had died down slightly, and the wind had died down significantly. Now that it wasn’t that windy, and Zen could actually start feeling a little bit warmer.

The fire Zen had built some time ago had died down to a pile of smoking hot pieces of dried leaves and sticks. It didn’t seem that he’d been asleep for long, as by then the fire would have gone completely cold.

Quickly, Zen placed more furry leaves and sticks until it had enough tinder. He blew on it, hoping it would reignite the flame, but it seemed the fire didn’t have enough juice, so he resorted to his flint and steel again. It took a good couple of minutes, thwacking the flint with the steel chunk, but eventually, he got enough well placed sparks to start up another fire. In no time, another fire was crackling in his face.

Zen stared out into the open hole of the cove, revealing his route from the containment cell he came from. He couldn’t see any indications of the room, so it was best assumed that he had gone a reasonable distance away. The snowy blizzard had mainly calmed down, turning into a soft snowstorm. Because of this, the path he took became visible once again, and that’s when he saw it. A white bird sitting in the snow, mere meters away from the cove entrance.

Slowly, without daring to make a single noise, Zen grasped his steel cudgel like rod and slowly made his way out of the cove, towards the bird. This was the moment he would finally have a proper meal! A freshly killed bird, cooked on a metal plate with a side of frost berries! It was too good to be true.

As he approached, the bird swung its little head towards Zen, who stopped in his tracks from the bird’s sudden movement. The bird seemed to wink at him, and without a moment to lose flew away at an astounding speed. In a mere blink of an eye, the bird had disappeared.

Zen silently cursed. He had missed his opportunity for fresh meat. If only he had gone a little faster, or been a little less stupid, he would have had it. What was that bird anyways? How did it move so fast? And what was it winking at–

He swung his head to the right, where a little bit further down the snowy path, a dirty gray bird that was the same shape as the previous one was sitting in the snow, preening their feathers, without a care in the world.

Slowly, Zen raised his club again, and carefully walked towards the bird. It still had not moved, not twisted its head to stare right at him or flown off faster than he could blink. Yes. All good. Everything is coming to plan. He just.. Had.. to get into… the right.. Position!

Standing right behind the small brown bird, he raised the club, and…

[THWACK!]

It had been so long since he had eaten anything filling.

Zen tore through the freshly cooked meat of that little brown bird, chewing with great delight as its fat and oil dripped from his mouth onto the small steel sheet he was using as a plate. With each bite, he stuffed a handful of freshly steamed and mashed frostberry jelly into his mouth, a combo beyond god and death could imagine.

Just a few minutes ago, he had thwacked a little brown bird to death, cut out its feathers with a knife, and cooked it on a steel metal sheet over a fire. He had originally cooked the bird whole, including the organs, but it's innards didn't taste very good so he scooped them out. But the thighs, wings, and the other parts of the bird? The taste was incredible! It was nothing like anything he had ever had.

Nothing, whatever else he ate in the rest of his life would not compare to small poultry with a side of frostberry jelly. The pairing was almost perfect.

When Zen had finished the meat, he nibbled the bones clean until not a scrap of meat was left. Even the organs, heart, liver, and brain were consumed by this rampaging hungry human. And when all the bones have been thoroughly nibbled, the bones were sucked on to get all the juices out, before even those were promptly crunched up and eaten. Did he feel like a monster? Kinda. Could he have at least eaten with some manners? Absolutely not. Eating like a deranged felon in the wilderness made food taste better.

When the entirety of the bird was gone, meat, bones and all, he licked off the fat and oil off of the plate that had dripped from his mouth. Finally, after a chug of water from the nearby cove pool, he was ready and set to go.

Well, not yet that was. He was still healing from the last blizzard. The last storm had screwed him up a lot, and his fingers were still shaking. It was best to hang out near the fire and stay put until he believed he was healed enough to move forward. And anyways, the sun had almost disappeared, and it would be suicide to move out at night.

It was decided then, he’d leave in the morning.

Zen picked up the bunch of feathers from the bird he had just killed and wrapped them in his cloth sack, dampening his head and acting as a makeshift pillow. It was barely any, and it didn’t help much, given how his bag was mostly rocks and metal fragments. Then he got ready to sleep again.

It was going to be a great sleep, a rest under the stars, with a roaring fire, right after a delicious and fulfilling meal. And just maybe, he would be able to dream again and actually remember it. He could only hope, as his eyes closed again.