A Death in After World: Rennet
By Eric Johnson
Copyright ©2013 Eric Johnson
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https://www.ALifeinAfterWorld.com
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A Death in After World
Seek not pleasure or fancy beyond this point. These stories are not for everyone and I would warn against those that are faint of heart from continuing. The deaths contained in these stories are no pretty, glamorized, or funny. They are detailed and raw.
A Death in Afterworld is a short story series that focuses on the death of a person in the After World universe. Pitfalls, deaths, and murder are commonplace and are a means of survival for others.
Death is final. Death is abrupt. Death is the end of one’s story. Now these people get their last story told before the book is closed on them.
If you enjoy these tales, please purchase the books in the series A Life in After World.
A Death in After World: Rennet
My name is Rennet and I am a mouse. Or rather, I was a mouse. No, not a cute little mouse with fur and whiskers, but a type of human. Yes, contrary to how most people see me, I am human. My people have adapted over a couple of thousand years to be very small so we can use less resources and grow up faster. We also have an amazing immune system that keeps us from getting sick or poisoned. Once something is introduced into us, it may affect us for a short time, but we adapt to it and get over it quickly. But this immunity did not help me stay alive.
Oh, and we reproduce like crazy. From about age 4 on we become adults and are able to produce progeny. While we usually have only one baby at a time, it is usually given over into a clutch of babies that a couple of mouse mothers are taking care of. When a new mouse has a child it enters the clutch with its own baby and usually one of the other mothers leaves and will not return again until she is giving birth again. So our people number many. Others do not like that we are so prolific and will do whatever they can to eliminate us.
I am getting into too much detail though. You want to hear how I died.
I was very hungry. We are always hungry, it is survival instinct to be hungry, but I had not eaten in a couple of days. It seemed like I was behind every one else at each trashcan. I could not even find an apple core to literally save my life.
I chalk it up to inexperience though. I was just over a year old and already out of my clutch. It is an important skill to go find your own food so once out of the clutch we are on our own. But I digress.
So I woke up in a tight den. It was beneath flower shop and was packed with bodies that morning. I pulled my way across the bodies lying there until I was close to the entrance. As my senses fully woke up I realized there was a foul stench of death in the hole with me. Someone in the pile must have died.
I started out of the passage to the alley but had to back track as another mouse entered at the same time I was leaving. We struggled to get past each other and finally he made it past me. He was a bit older and had pretty much just pushed be back into the chamber and nearly knocked me over once we were in there. I did not fall though because it was just too crowded to fall.
I made it unfettered into the passage this time and out into the alley. As I emerged I saw two of the watch walking back out of the alley. They must have been chasing the other mouse. I hid behind a bin ready to dash back into the hole should the need become apparent. But they did not turn.
I nosed around the cans in the alley. They were picked clean. I needed to find some food.
There was no way I could leave the alley into normal traffic of people. Death would be quick.
I climbed up on a bin against one wall and then grabbed a drain pipe from there and went up the side of the building almost as if I was walking on level ground.
Atop the roofs of the city was a whole different world. I could see a distance away from me and could navigate several blocks at a time moving from building top to building top. Many buildings had some kind of a connection between them so except for crossing main roads, I could get anywhere. Crossing main roads are what tunnels are for.
I made my way across the flower shop roof and it was almost level with neighboring cloth store. When I came to the end of the block there was a board someone (probably a mouse) had laid across the gap and I scampered across it without hardly even shaking it. I wanted to get a few blocks from here to the food district. Surely I would be able to find something thrown out there. If worse came to worse maybe I could steal something.
I shivered at the thought of stealing something. Not because I abhorred the thought of theft, but because it put me in closer contact with the other humans that sought to kill my kind.
I looked down into an alley to make sure it was clear. Bingo! There was a vendor throwing away something in a bin below me. I shrank back but they did not even look up.
As soon as it was clear I was sliding down a drain pipe. As I went towards the bin I was suddenly tugged physically back and someone pushed past me. There were two other mice at the trash can going through it.
I came up and stood my ground against one of them.
“Let me in,” I told him. Being ‘in’ is what we often called going through a trashcan for food since if it was large enough we would just put ourselves bodily into the trash bin to search and also hide from prying eyes at the same time.
“Fall under a foot!” The mouse I was addressing said to me.
I balled up my fist and punched him as hard as I could in the side. It had no effect on him. He was probably about seven or eight years old.
He looked down on me and laughed. His partner laughed too.
“We should let him have this.” The second said with a slight punch to the first’s shoulder.
The first looked back at his partner and received a nod from him.
“We will just get in somewhere else.” He said with a sneer on his face.
I huffed out my chest at them and as they walked past me and away from the fresh bin one of them hooked their foot across my ankle and pushed. I toppled over in a most undignified manner. I leapt back to my feet but they had already vanished and left me alone with the bin. I could smell food in it.
I pulled the lid up a bit and peeked in. It was kitchen cast offs. My starvation was over.
I reached in and grabbed a hand full of the top layer and pulled it out to look at my bounty.
I was potato skins. Just potato skins. I put a couple in my mouth to chew and threw the rest to the side and reached in to see what else I might find.
I found more potato skins.
I threw these aside and put my whole head into the bin and dug around with my hands looking at the cast offs. The entire bin was full of only potato skins. No wonder they gave them up so quickly.
I grabbed a final handful and replaced the lid on the bin.
It does not do to leave the lids off of bins. And throwing the skins around outside of the bin was actually pretty careless on my part, but I was hungry. We always make sure that we do not leave a mess or any signs that we have been there because once we show signs then they set forth in trying to find us and kill us.
I just thought that was important to note here.