• An old lady stood half turned to Inuko, she memorized, as she stood from her seat with a photo in her gloved hand.
    “I’d slow you down.” said the old lady.
    “Don’t assume.” Inuko shook her head.
    “It’d be a waist if I go with you. I’d die.”
    “Don’t assume!” She raised her voice. High pitched whistling sounds fell from the sky, a descending bomb. The ground shook in its explosion. The dangling lamp above the kitchen table behind Inuko blew out for a second and flicked back on with a buzz. “I’ll come back for you…” She said and ran up the stairs to her right.
    The old lady looked down. “I won’t be hear when you come back…” she said, soft enough for her not to hear.
    Inuko noticed she had blinked and came out of the daydream. A tall lamp stood lit at the foot of her bed, enclosed to a corner. It’s only escape was strapped by a large tan spiral shell striped with red and standing upright.
    A springy bed leaning against the wall, a plane lamp cornered by a bed’s foot and a giant spiral shell. A dusty, closed double-hung window in a wall left from Inuko. On the other side of the room a dresser. And a door in the wall right from her. The house creaked and snapped from the heat of other buildings but she ignored it. It was all she needed to live with. It’s all she will leave behind.
    Inuko dozed back into a daydream until she heard rough knocking sounds on a door. She shot up from the bed in a loud gasp, almost in a shriek.
    “Open up!” yelled a voice. Had the Akane villagers come for her already? The knocking wasn’t from her door, somewhere farther away…the front door? It wasn’t the back door of the family room beyond the kitchen. She backed away from her door and pinned herself against the window. It’s a window what if they see her!? She glanced over her shoulder and quickly crouched down under the window. Her heart was racing. Why now? Why have they come now? Her trembling hands protected her head. There was the knocking again. “I said open up!”
    “Ah screw it just knock the door down.” said another voice. There was a thud; a snap, another thud and a scream coming from her neighbors. The Akane villagers were coming down the street knocking on people’s houses and raiding them one by one. She was next.
    It wasn’t a one way street she lived on. The streets were scrambled in fancy curves and turns leading to shops and big businesses that are now lit with fire and smothered in smoke. Inuko just lived in a single row of houses along the borders of the market place.
    She whipped a tear from the corner of her eye and reached for the spiral shell. “Roy,” She called as she brushed a poke on the shell with her middle finger. “Come on Roy, we gotta go.” There was another scream coming from the neighbors and she fought back the tears. Her breath was falling short A creature almost golden emerged from the shell. It was silky and slimy, what else would one expect from a sea creature who lives in a shell? Its many tentacles lay limp on the wooden floor, leaving residue. Its big eyes searched the room and landed on Inuko. “It’s time to go.” She said as she pulled out two lavender straps from her back pocket. Its eyes widened, its tentacles lifted its air filled home from the floor and scrambled around. “Oh please don’t do that!” It attempted to hide under the bed but the shell was too big to fit. “Hold still.” Inuko came close to it. It let out a shriek and quickly hid in the shell. She easily hooked the straps on the shell and looped them around her shoulder like a backpack. She grabbed a black cloak from her dresser and swung it on her shoulders, covering Roy.