His breathing was all that he could think about. He didn't pay any attention to the can rolling down the street as it was pushed by the wind, as was the newspaper trying to free itself from being pinned under his foot. All that mattered was the target directly in front of him. Cautious yet relaxed, he observed every movement. The front hooves moved a little as the creature bit into the grass. The ears always changed its direction, on the lookout for anything that might present the smallest danger.

A gust of wind moved through the narrow shopping street, and the head of the target jumped upwards, nose into the wind to catch every scent. Slowly, he breathed out and used the noise of the wind as protection to move a step closer to the old car in front of him, weapon at the ready and red dot at eye level. The dot itself remained the entire time on the head of the first fresh meal for a month. Cautiously, he laid the front part of the G36C on the roof of the car to stabilize the weapon. The target began to eat again, which meant that the head would not move for the next seconds. A last breath, and as the air left his lungs, the bullet left the muzzle. Immediately, James "Fish" Tuna looked above his weapon and saw how the deer went to ground.

"You got it!" called Mac, who bolted around the corner and ran to his squad leader.

"That’s at least forty pounds of meat." He pulled a knife from his belt and handed it over to his comrade. "Finally, something else than those stupid German cookies." The last few months had been hard. The town has been more or less deserted, and everything not nailed down had been moved with the fleeing populace. At first they had survived by looting cellars of residential houses. However, after some time, there were no more cans to be found, and they started to collect "non-perishable food" from any possible location. They couldn't live forever on chocolate cookies though, so the dead German soldiers had been relieved of their rations stored in their backpacks. A dead soldier meant several meals for them. A few weeks later and wild animals had begun to enter the city, probably from how quiet it was. That meant fresh food, and what couldn't be prepared immediately was placed into a hole in the ground. These worked, especially in the winter, as refrigerators and kept everything edible for a longer time. Mac had salted a substantial amount the first few days, but their salt stash diminished too fast. If they planned to keep seasoning their food, they had to forgo this method. Fish retrieved the second knife from the inside of his vest and walked to Mac. His mate checked the animal for worms or other visible diseases.

"It looks healthy… Still, better roast it well done." He wiped off the blood that stuck on the knife due to digging the bullet out of the head wound. "I’ll get the pole." It was an old pipe that they had found on a construction site that same day. Last week it had been an old broom handle, but it broke after the last transport and could only serve as firewood. Quickly, the soldier rose and ran back to the corner where he had been waiting, and returned with the object in question. Fish lifted the animal's legs and started to bind them together. With a few well-practiced twists, it was tied and the pole pushed below the knots.

"On three." They bent their knees and placed one end of the pipe on their right shoulders. Some pieces of foam had been attached to their vests so that the pipe didn't hurt them. "Three!" With a powerful yank, they stood up again and had the food for the next few days securely between them now. The destination was the butchery now, which handily lay near their base. No one in their group had ever expected that it would be a small McDonald’s restaurant. There was only a double door which led to the broad shopping street, which they were walking down. Otherwise, there was only the back door which they had more than secured. The display panels didn't show the menu anymore, but instead held the installed UV lamps that were powered by the generator from the panels one block further. One of the posters Mac had kept, namely the one with his namesake.

"Cover!" hissed the two meters tall Texan before him, and they immediately vanished through a broken window of a drugstore. His mate turned to him, pointed with his index and middle fingers to his eyes before showing three fingers. Fish nodded and they slowly laid the deer down on the old conveyor of the register. With a click, he released the safety, and Mac drew his M9 from his belt. Both stuck to the wall and dared a glance outside of the store.

"Damn. Those kids again." A gang consisting of more than fifty teenagers had terrorized the area for about a month and stole already scarce resources. At their first encounter, he had tried to talk with them and to come to an agreement. The youth were either against him, or didn't speak English. In any case, the Glock in front of his nose had spoken a clear language. Since then, they had met a few scattered groups, but until now they had avoided a direct clash. Not only that they were significantly more than them, they were armed better. They pulled their heads back, and with a sign, Mac gave Fish the order to go back into the store. They shouldered their prey and began to move into the back. "We’ll take the delivery entrance and circumvent the gang." He had not seen any weapons, but he didn't want to take a chance, and he was reluctant to kill children.

"There!" Mac pointed to the door and in the next moment he pushed it open. They found themselves in a small hallway which probably led into the storage and the common rooms for the staff. A delivery entrance would probably be in the storage, so they took the way through the big iron double door. Everything here had already been looted, like nearly the entire store, and so it was possible to see the back door. Without hesitation and moving quickly, they moved past the shelves. Silently, Mac opened the door and checked that the coast was clear before he gave the signal. The driveway had been placed directly next to one of the small streets. These speedily led to the places to which one wanted to go, but unfortunately you were easy to see as well. Two armed men weren't an obstacle to be left in peace, especially if the prize was food for several days. In the moment where the door closed, they saw out of the corner of the eye, at the other end of the alley, the group of youths were walking past. A glance to the left from one of them, and they had a real problem. Tensely, they held their breath and breathed out in relief when the group moved on.

"God is with the dumb people. But he helps the really dumb ones," the captain quoted the old proverb of his grandfather.

"Eeeyup," agreed Mac.

I had been running for what felt like hours over this dumb checkerboard of white and blue, no idea of where I was, who I was, or anything at all. Dammit, I didn't even know what I was. I had four hooves, a blue coat, and white hair. But somehow my mind was empty. No name, no memories. Could it be that I had been always here? Or did I fall down? I could only see a few meters, then everything else dissolved in white fog. Only the blue sky was always the same. No clouds, nothing. Only this perfect green sky.

"Green is really a pretty color. Why I am not green?" I looked down and noticed that I was green. Strange, a moment ago I wasn't… I had forgotten what it was. But it was different. My feet – yes, that was the word – always made this loud noise when they knocked on the floor. I had already tried to call someone, or something, to see if I wasn't alone, but I was. Only me, whoever, wherever, whenever. The red-coloured tiled floor was somehow pretty. I wished I could be red as well...

He knocked two times against the barricaded window and kicked once against the plastic frame of the door before he opened it. That was the signal that they had agreed on so that the rest always knew that a friend was coming. Should someone be forced to open the door, then it was to be performed the other way around. If the door opened without any signal, they would immediately open fire. Too many precious things they had stored in the small restaurant to take any risk to lose any of it.

"There you are again, Fish," Bones greeted him, who sat on his bench and once more played Solitaire. Directly on the other side sat Alf, praying softly with his necklace in his hand. This he did every day since more than a year, every day he could see the sun. "Did you shoot something?"

"Mac is over there in the butchery cutting it." That his mate grew up on a cattle farm paid off. "Should suffice for the next days." They had sworn one thing, namely never to tell the others what exactly they had shot. Dogs and cats had been on their plates a few days already. "Is Lee still up in the nest?" In the vicinity, there was a high office building on which the roof had been a lookout point. Also, the transmitter was attached there. Every day, two went foraging and one was the lookout on the roof. Unfortunately, it was winter now and up there had grown very cold. It was fortunate that clothing had not been high on the list of the looters.

"He should be here soon. He signed off half an hour ago." With those words, Bones pointed to the old radio on the counter next to the registers. A car battery had kept it working for nearly two months now, and there were enough replacements as well. Fish walked to it and took the speaker off. "Come in, Hawk, this is Clown. Come in, Hawk, this is Clown. Over." Another precaution not to be intercepted and be located. He let the button on the speaker go and waited a few seconds with the head hanging next to the loudspeaker. "Come in, Hawk, we have sighted Mouse."

"You did what?" came from the loudspeaker. He had thought of the code just now. "Doesn't matter! You need to come now. There is...” The last part was drowned in the noise. "...Quickly."

"Alf! Bones!" The soldiers reacted at once. The Solitaire game forgotten, the medic buckled his backpack on and chambered a round for the M9 that had been lying next to him on the bench. His colleague followed suit, only that he had a pistol instead of a revolver in his hand. They had found the weapon during looting a house. Immediately, they sprinted out of the door and vanished in the pedestrian area of Düsseldorf's downtown. One store after the other flashed by them, their eyes always directed towards the large building in which their mate was in danger.

"Looters?" asked Alf between the others.

"Unlikely. They left when the pipes were full of air," answered Bones. Their water they got from the Rhine but didn't use it before boiling it off and filtering. A trick which every scout boy learned.

"It could be also that gang of kids. We nearly ran into the arms of three of them earlier." Fish turned around the corner, the journey almost half complete. Now they were at the location of the first encounter with the teenagers and they had to be particularly cautious because of this. Still, Lee had said that the gang wouldn’t think they would use this way again. "You take the stairs; I’ll take the fire ladder," he ordered as they crept through the knocked-in revolving door of the building. This meant that he wouldn't manage the thirty floors over the stairs like the other two, but over ladders. Fish dashed past the reception area, took the few steps into the first floor, and entered the first office to his left. He opened the window of the empty room and followed the black railing upwards with his gaze. "At least it didn’t rain."

Red, red, blue, green, blue, yellow. To jump always on the same-coloured tiles distracted from how it was so empty and dull around here. The most exciting thing that happened so far was… I had forgotten. Ah yes! The tiles on the floor had two colours. I jumped on the next one and painstakingly took care not to touch the white fields. Why? No idea, but somehow they seemed fishy. It was as if my head told me that it would be painful to step on them. That reminded to me to look up what a head was or a painful.

"Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious," I recited proudly as I managed to get to the third tile in a row. I had no idea what these words meant, if they meant anything at all, or where they came from. They were simply there. Like me. "Squirrel!" I called and quickly sent my gaze into another direction. It was as if I was drawn there. After some time, I slowly walked over the grey floor to the suspicious-looking place. It somehow looked wrong, as it had no color, nor light. A large, round, dark something without color. It wasn't blue like everything here.

"I see you found the damage?" The question was posed.

"It’s not as if it could be overlooked." I turned to the side and looked up to a being that was double the size I was. It moved on fours like me, but had a blue coat and not a brown one like me. Something was there on his back, seemingly arms or wings. In addition, a big lump poked out from his hair. Who had hit the poor guy so much?

"You look a little lost," it remarked with a voice I already had heard somewhere.

"Nope. The world is pink, my fur is magenta. I am happy," I explained to him and began to jump around the big dark thing.

"Night is colder than outside?"

"What a question! Of course." As if everyone didn't know that already.

"I think you have been hit quite hard." I stood on the other side, but somehow he didn't want to play catch. He still stood where he was since the start. Maybe it couldn't walk? But... it also had legs.

"Are you gonna hide now? I thought you wanted to play?" He had some nerve.

"Soul! Come here! I’ve found him," he called into the white fog and the coolest thing that I had ever seen immediately appeared. The being walked on two legs and seemed to wear fur on its skin, only that it had a different color than the skin itself. The skin on the legs was blue and on the torso white. It had far smaller eyes that were framed by glasses as well. A little dark blonde fur, not brown as many thought, was on his head.

"Phew. Well done, Body. I thought we would never find Mind."

Fish had to get into the building for the last five floors of the building. The last ladders had been pulled up for whatever reason, and he didn't want to risk a jump with that wind. In addition, his vest had not been lined, so his hands had become numb a bit. Without further ado, he knocked one of the windows in and found a large office with a desk and several chairs. A typical boss’ floor. The other two probably had several floors on him, but he had not many left himself. The stairs in which he climbed the steps was on the other side, and anyone who wanted to leave had to come by him or Bones and Alf. Unless, of course, the free fall towards the asphalt was a solution. In case of doubt, it would save them ammunition. The door to the twenty-ninth floor came into view. He leaned lightly against it and took a deep breath, as the last meters had taken their toll on him. With a click, his stride suddenly left him and he nearly fell over backwards, if not for the two hands that caught his back.

"Man, Fish!" called Bones and lowered his weapon. "We already thought you were another trespasser. Didn't you plan to take the fire ladder?" Alf helped his captain up, who bent over and supported himself with his hands on knees.

"The fire ladders didn't go up any further," he explained between breaths. "I should have stopped smoking earlier…" He stretched himself once and positioned his weapon around his neck again. "Go on." The other two nodded and moved to the small stairs lying offside of the main hallways, leading to the roof. They prepared their weapons for fire. Alf and Bones positioned themselves next to the door, one on every side, and with a relaxed kick from the radio operator, daylight entered the building. Fish tried to throw a glance through the gap but was welcomed by a M4's barrel as the door opened completely.

"Finally, there you are," Lee greeted them and secured his weapon before he threw it on his back. "When I heard the clatter of a window, I thought I was a sitting duck." Slightly confused by their relaxed comrade, the three looked at each other.

"If no one is here, why were you in such a panic?" Alf asked in confusion and looked around on the roof. Next to a sheet for wind protection stood the chair in which Lee probably had been sitting most of the time. Next to this was a coffee machine that was powered with a battery and some bottles with fluids.

"Come, it should be visible soon like this." He raised the spyglass from his neck and scanned the sky. The other followed him behind the wind protection before he pointed to a row of skyscrapers. "It should soon appear behind that." For a few seconds, nothing happened but then they saw it, and no one wanted to trust their eyes. A ship made of wood, which looked like as if it originated from the medieval times, seemed to have been bound to a zeppelin and placidly floated through the air. Without a word, Fish grabbed the spyglass and took a closer look at it. It had been painted in a dark red and was covered with yellow ornamentation. Now and then some minor damage was noticeable, but it seemed to be intact.

"From which Disney movie did that escape?" he asked no one in particular.

Author's Notes:

Edited by JBL
Translated by Verequus