It was the break of 'dawn'. Dust had distributed like a crescent moon around the small district. It was time again to pack up and leave behind their shelter of ruins. Decades had passed since the initial destruction, and only a total of 20 strays remained. The rest had either set up camp elsewhere or decided to let the dust engulf them.

The strays were part of the rejected. Some with no relationship to the other, they wandered the barren planet in packs or alone. She was only 13; the cub of the pack. Unlike the rest, she knew nothing of the previous world and slept easy at night. While her fellow strays lost themselves in the abyss of what remained, she was grounded through the Earth beneath her battered feet. The planet contains nothing for her to take, and she has nothing to give.

When the strays spoke of longing, she was blank. When they spoke of love and tranquility, she didn't comprehend. When they spoke of nature, she was curious.

'We used to lie in hammocks during the summer in our backyards. The heat of the sun and the chirps of the cicadas were enough to knock me out for hours.'

'This is why Eleanor left you, you good for nothing!'

The strays howled with laughter. She was mute. They had explained seasons to her but she could not understand anything besides the cold. The sun no longer blazed on the planet as it previously did. The smog... the dust was all too heavy and thick to let anything pass. All the sun could do now was light the world in a dirty, orange hue.

Since there was little to their name, there was little to carry, little to take along. A few of the elders however, carried artefacts of the Old World. That was how they stayed sane in what was left of the planet; by clinging to the memories of what no longer remained. Those small pieces, the metal chains engraved with names that meant nothing to her or the New World, were carried by the strays as if they were worth their lives. As if they were their lives. And that’s what they took with them in their dusty backpacks which were previously scoured and found in stores of precious goods. Those who remembered the Old World and its mechanics knew that those bags were worth more than their function. Somehow, the measly names and logos crudely placed on the pieced together material had given it value during the beginning of the century. Now they were battered and shoddy, on the dirty backs of the undeserving. But the bags and the strays were alike in one significant way; they had been left behind. And once left behind, they lost any previous value and became useful for all strays alike.

As the dust spread further and further, the strays fervently grabbed the little they had and pushed north. The first night at every new destination it was considered a tradition for the youngest strays to sit at the campfire and bet their weekly scraps; they would each take turns guessing how many nights it would take for the dust to hit, and for them to hit the road once more. She would never join in but would always know when the dust would reach them, almost like an instinct. One she had been born with. All the strays could ever do was travel north as they mourned what was taken by the pollution. The dust didn’t just engulf; it destroyed.

So they travelled deeper into the landmass that was once defined by its infinite luxuries, the dreams it grew and the people it neglected. But the strays rid it of its official title and gave it a new name: Pandemonium. A land of chaos. The religious were exasperated by this reformation to say the least. As years of travel through Pandemonium passed, the horrors they encountered piled up. It wasn’t unusual for one stray or another to end their journey at any stop they made; sometimes it was better to surrender to the dust than to witness any further. Although there was an abundance of petty pickpockets and thieves, they were the least of the pack’s problems. It was as if the further they travelled, the stench of death deepened and humanity became more alien. Though the pack had been on the move for 13 years (as long as she had been alive), they still never knew what to expect during their journey. This put them on the edge. For her, being on your toes was the norm; her survival relied on her inability to trust. Despite this, she was much more of a dichotomy. Her instincts willed every part of her body to remain alert, but her demeanor was always calm, emotionless.

It had been 12 hours since the last dust spotting and the strays had been walking for 10 of them. The sky no longer retained its neon orange glow, muted by a dusky blue and violet in the most beautiful way the world would allow; this was the cue to rest for the night. The young cubs knew they would have to continue their journey as soon as ‘dawn’ broke, but their youthful curiosity overcame their weary bodies and so they chose discussion over sleep.

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‘The stench… you all noticed right?’ Aura whispered nervously over the crackling of the burning debris. She always retained a nervous disposition and the lingering scent did not help her cause.

‘I’d rather not think about it.’ Clay passively responded. With a strong attachment to what had already passed, he tended to dissociate himself from the reality of Pandemonium. Somehow, this aloof demeanor made many of the young cubs respect and look up to him. It was easy to be drawn to somebody who seemed unphased by the world crumbling around them.

‘At this point it’s getting stronger with every few miles we cover. It’s as if we’re getting closer to some kind of… source.’ Aura sheepishly replied.

‘A source of death, great.’

They wanted to turn back but the dust itself was another source of demise. The circle of cubs and their somber expressions were illuminated with the thought of imminent doom by the light source in their midst. The fire slowly dissipated, and the last of colour was replaced by pitch. Night was calling. But there was something in that sky which had transformed, something that gave those children hope, and made her understand what beauty is.

‘The air here is surprisingly clean, you can see the stars…’

There was colour in the pitch. It was splattered across the complete vastness of the Cosmos and she was intrigued. Moved. In love. It was as if the sky had become a body of water with the clusters of dazzling stars forming an ocean. An immovable, eternal ocean. And suddenly in the midst of her awe, a story of absurdity unfolded. Only to encapsulate her whole world and meaning entirely.

‘Have you heard?’ Clay muttered as he gazed upwards, his breath visibly floating up to the sky. ‘The rumor of the talking whale?’

-

By the fourth day on the move, scraps were running low and the cold was settling in their malnourished bodies. But this level of challenge was nothing they hadn’t been prepared for.The strays knew this world was relentless and unforgiving, totally unlike the previous world that coddled and cradled humanity in its arms. To think that humans had been fooled into thinking that they were somehow chosen, superior. Maybe it was those who had managed to flee the planet they had consumed that were chosen, and those who were left behind were fated to bear the wrath of the dying Earth.

This particular journey escaping the dust had been slightly different from the rest. At this point, the stench had become apparent to every member of the pack and they were forced to create makeshift masks with the scarves they usually wrapped around their necks. It was almost unbearable. Yet the young cubs had a peculiar sparkle in their eye; one that had emerged and remained ever since that night, and it gave the strays the strength to continue through the heartless land. They latched onto the world that allowed them to bear witness of that night. She in particular had a newly renewed energy which baffled the pack. The other strays were slightly suspicious of her subtle but obvious excitement, especially since they were approaching something sinister. They quickly assumed the stench made her lose her wits, and advised each other to maintain some distance.

Despite her antisocial demeanour, she is far from a lunatic. In fact, her newfound joy was based on news that was pure and childish. More so than the ocean of stars which touched her in a way she hadn’t been before, it was the rumour that truly struck a chord. Somehow, it felt as though she had suddenly found her calling, like the rumour had been constructed to eventually find her. The whale was specifically wanting to talk to her. It was utterly absurd but she was completely infatuated by the thought of it. The whole concept of a whale was abstract to her; she had never been close to a large body of water, never mind seeing a fish. A whale was mundanely described as a large creature living in water by one of the older strays when the cubs curiously enquired. Yet that was enough to awaken something in her, to get the cogs turning in her youthful imagination. She was easily able to accept the existence of an inhuman creature that could talk, despite not being one herself. Her voice never came to be during conception, yet she could hear the sounds leaving the mythical whale’s mouth racing through her mind. The stench of death dissipated from the air she breathed in, as she imagined the ocean’s salty scent. Such an implausible rumour ignited a fire in her mind, full of images she would have never witnessed in Pandemonium. Sights of the Old World. But the strays who had wandered for what felt like eons knew that the New World only contained the ruins of what was.