Beauregard's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Beauregard padded through the cracked streets of the nameless city, his many eyes scanning every shadow. He needed his owner. He needed a thread to follow. But the wind had scrubbed the world clean of her, and his tongue twisted around words that came out as riddles instead of pleas. He stopped at the weathered hall where she was last seen. Peeling paint. Broken windows. The doors hung crooked, whispering of better days. Inside, dust lay thick on every surface. "She walked here," he murmured, "but the walking has unwalked itself." Nothing held her smell. Nothing held her shape. Then he saw it, half-buried near an overturned skateboard with a faded purple paw. A crimson scarf, crumpled in the dirt. Beauregard lowered his strange head and breathed deep. Her. Faint, but her. His chest heaved with something close to a sob. He took the scarf gently in his teeth. The thread was found. Now he had to follow it, wherever it pulled him next.