Dog Strength

Yips began to expand.  This time, it wasn’t because of breathing.  I pushed him away.

Concrete cracked and groaned.  I remained ready to use my power-

I closed my eyes and held my breath as choking dust flowed into our little piece of safe ground.  I waited until my lungs were fit to burst, then breathed through my sleeve.  I regretted it as I choked on dry dust, coughing.

When I opened my eyes, I could see lights, so distant and numerous that they could have been stars of the night sky.  Except they were ordered in rows and columns.

I looked up, and I saw they were ceiling lights, on a floor far above where we had been.  Past the choking dust, I could make out the skeletal rows and columns of walls and floors, from the parts of the facility that were still intact, surrounding us on four sides.

Too many had thralls perched on them, staring down at us.  Many of those thralls were armed.  We stood in no man’s land, an area of devastation so vast I knew that even if I’d flown from the moment the Custodian had disappeared, ducking and weaving through corridors, I might not have escaped the full breadth of the damage.

And yet even with all of that gone, we were still indoors, still surrounded by facility.  By thralls.

Yips, instead of waiting and letting us assess the situation, heaved himself free of the concrete slab that was now resting against him.  Monstrous and the size of a horse, he shook the dust off.