Ficlets

Awakenings in the Dark

To this day, I chalk up what came next as due to radiation sickness or maybe losing my mind.
I must’ve been out for a good hour, shivering and alone. A grown man sitting in a play-fort watching a big pile of chips. I only woke up when the cinder of my cigarette, having crawled up the tube with my sleeping breaths, burned my lips. I immediately spat it out, coughing as I realized my lungs were lined with burned plastic from the filter – and stopped, gasping, when I saw two piggy eyes, staring right at me.
I say ‘piggy eyes’ because I hoped thats what they were. It was pitch black, save for the distant glow of sunset. The dim grey light filtered in through cracks in the shattered store. The gun was somewhere in my fort, but I didn’t dare grope for it.
After a moment of silence, I started to hear rhythmic crunching sounds – I wildly imagined the pig had taken off my leg as I slept, and was now grinding my femur into tasty pemmican.
Then the pig burped. And I thought bacon-ranch smelled bad before it was eaten.

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