Ch. 30 - Fire Drill

                                    

                                          
Meanwhile, London
It seemed an ordinary day like any other.
By now it had been weeks since Edd had left.
So much had changed in the routine of that house.
Ringo was sitting on the musty old couch, laboriously cleaning her fur.
Matt was in the bunker, trying to catch mice for her.
It was hard for the cat to keep herself clean, the creature had not eaten for a long time, and energy was low.
Matt had tried feeding her some of his food, taking it away from himself, but nothing.
The cat refused to eat, she was upset by her owner's absence.
Matt was also upset.
Being alone had never been a problem, but there in that place he was put to the test.
He never thought he would end up in such a situation, not without his friends.
Therefore, most of the day was spent with Ringo, trying as best he could to help her clean up her fur.
He would carefully leave the house in the morning and go fill a bucket with water, if he found it, then return and use it sparingly to wash both.
The water was putrid, polluted, and the two were getting sick using it, but there was no choice.
Once Matt had even dared an expedition in search of food, he had found an abandoned supermarket from which he had taken what little was left.
The first few days he had even tried to maintain his body and hair care, thinking that Edd would be back after a while.
Then the days passed, a week, then two.
Matt at first accompanied Ringo to the door, a habit the cat used to do on her own, then he had to pick her up and carry her, she didn't have the strength.
Sometimes he would stay there several hours with her waiting.
But Edd would not return.
Matt refused to believe that anything bad had happened to him, because then he would really be alone.
And it was a thought that terrified him.
Matt was always independent with others, loved to feel self-sufficient, and often said he would be fine on his own.
He would joke about it with others, telling impossible stories of how he would survive the worst catastrophes.
But there, in that ruin of a home, things were true.
That was reality. And the idea of being alone sent him out of his mind.
So he focused on Ringo as a way to escape from his own thoughts.
His whole day revolved around Ringo.
He would wash her, try to get her to eat.
After the first week he had even stopped doing his beauty routine, giving up his left products to use them to try to improve the fur cat's health.
Difficult to distinguish whether charitably or insanely.
He would talk to her, tell her about the adventures they'd had, and then they would fall asleep together, the cat under Matt's jacket so she wouldn't catch cold.
Every day he would brush her, remove her scabs, help her lie down, and feed her.
Treating her as the most precious of things, almost like a porcelain doll.
Ringo would try to use some energy to lick Matt's hand, to reciprocate the caring gesture, Matt would burst into tears when this happened.
He had to stop and run to the bunker to calm down.
Maybe it didn't seem like it, but Matt was the most sensitive of all.
After the first few weeks, Matt had changed a lot, and the tears had turned into long silences, broken only by the coughing fits of the boy who was getting sick in that condition.
He had stopped caring for himself, His time was completely devoted to caring for the cat.
As if he had projected his image onto the creature, to escape from reality.
He treated Ringo as he had always treated himself, driven even by the madness of hunger.
Or maybe he missed his friend tremendously.
And that cat reminded him of that.
No one knows.
There was so much in common between those two.
Both were silently praying to see that door open again.
Both did not want to think the worst.
But the door would not open.
Until, on a day that seemed like any other...
Noise of footsteps.
Ringo snapped his head up from under Matt's jacket.
He growled toward the window.
Matt opened his eyes and looked at the direction of the cat's gaze.
Silence.
More footsteps.
A sound of liquid falling to the ground.
Then more footsteps walking away.
The beat of the two increased.
It was not Edd.
Ringo growled in fright.
Matt stood up silently, crawling toward a metal bar.
He gripped it like a weapon.
Slowly he slid toward the window still clamped by the wooden boards.
He slowly moved the curtain.
A beam of red light forced him to squint, unaccustomed to the light for days.
Ringo huffed nervously, then ducked under the sofa.
Mak-soldiers.
In the distance.
In every direction.
Motionless.
All around the house.
Watching.
Freezed.
Then something reached Matt's nose.
A smell he unfortunately knew well.
Gasoline.