Strays Intro

The golden glow of the morning sun shone through the window, blinding Charlie who was peacefully asleep.   He awoke and lay there, blinking his brown eyes heavily.  There was the sound of muffled footsteps coming from upstairs. He almost thought he could hear the sound of humming but it was only a nostalgic memory reminding him vaguely of his past.  Charlie thought about the memories the footsteps brought him.  Golden hair, blue eyes, the smell of mouth-watering ham.  The memories slowly drifted away from his mind. Wait a minute? Footsteps? 

 Charlie quickly got out of his bed, fully awake now. He grabbed a loaded pistol out of his dresser and cautiously came out of his bedroom. As he neared the stairs, he could hear the sound of shuffling feet and things being moved around. "Elsa?" He whispered up the stairs. There was nothing. Just the continuation of the footsteps.  Charlie took slow steps up the stairs, his finger on the trigger. The sounds were coming from the kitchen. "Hello?" Charlie mumbled. Deep down he knew that whatever or... whoever it was, they probably didn't know how to respond.

At the final steps towards the kitchen there was a loud, violent growl.  The man turned the corner and viciously launched himself at Charlie.  Charlie fired his gun, missing and hitting the window to the back door.  Charlie flinched as the glass shattered loudly and flew everywhere, dropping his gun.  He struggled to get the maniac off of him, finally pinning him on the ground, and put his hands around the mans neck.  His skin felt moist and sticky against Charlie's hands. Charlie looked the man straight in the face as he struggled for air and beat the ground.  He was immediately nauseated by the man's appearance.  

The man's eye's were bloodshot and there was a strange dark liquid oozing from his eye's and slightly out of his nose. His eye socket's were depressed deep into his skull, making him look skeleton like.  The mans skin was a blotchy, dark color.  Charlie tightened his grip around the man's neck, but he just would not go out.  Charlie looked around for his gun, it was with the many pieces of shattered glass by the window. Charlie reached for a sharp piece of glass, but couldn't quite reach.  With one final, desperate reach he grasped a piece of glass and plummeted it into the mans skull.  Dark blood began oozing out of the wound and out of the man's neck as he let out his final breath.  Gurgling sounds came from the man as he died. 

Charlie watched the last light depart from the man's lost eye's.  He'd be at peace now, Charlie thought. He got off of the man, panting and sweating profusely.  There was a whining sound coming from behind the couch. Charlie crawled over to the couch. "Elsa," he whispered "it's alright, Elsa."  The whining stopped and a dog crawled out from behind the couch, it's tail between it's legs.  She licked Charlie's face, showing she was happy to see him. "It's alright, girl." He trembled, petting the dog's dark fur.  

Suddenly, there was two loud, thunderous sounds from outside, startling both Elsa and Charlie. Elsa whimpered and crawled back to the safety of the couch.  Charlie got up and stumbled over to the back door, glass crunching beneath his feet. He peered through the window.  There was a considerably large fire in the distance, and the sound of car alarms going off and people screaming. He saw people running away from the fire, and running from other people. There were gunshots then sudden deadly silence. Charlie picked up his gun off of the floor. "Elsa," he called "it's time to go."