Hiber-Nations Fall

This is kind of a silly story I wrote based off of a random writing prompt I found on Reddit. The premise that the main character woke up during the apocalypse. Oh, and he's a bear.

He always woke before Susan. Her soft, even breaths drowned out by the alarm which signaled the imminent approach of his shift at the factory. She wouldn’t be up for at least another hour.  Her first patient at the hospital wasn’t scheduled to see her until 9:30. It took a special kind of care, a distinct gentleness to follow a career in veteran therapy as she had. In her office, she would counsel bears who had escaped the Human Wars with their bodies intact, but their spirits in tatters. Any time she spoke of her work, he couldn’t help but shudder at the images of the hollow husks of soldiers that his wife worked day and night to heal. 

Today her breathing was not cut off by the shrill cries of his alarm. The alarm had as well taken to silence. In their place, uncomfortably replacing that which he knew so well, was a soft rhythmic beeping, intermittently joined by a faint dripping, just above his head. The sunlight streaming through the drapes was an alien tint, too faint, and from the wrong direction.  

The beeping sped up drastically, sounding as if from a far distance, as lack of familiarity turned to fear, bordering on panic. Instinct took over,  all four legs thrashing to propel him away, paws scrabbling desperately for purchase, but achieving nothing but to create a tangled mess of the white sheets he only now realized enshrouded him.  

He crashed to the floor. Landing flat on his back, all air exited his lungs with a sickening “whoosh”.  Laying there, he looked around the room for the first time.  A partially inclined bed, rails on the side bent from his thrashing,  loomed over him.  Three chairs, one too big, one too small, and one just right angled toward the bed, rested on the far wall.  A soft breeze from the window to his right brought a startling smell of burning, of smoke and ruin. Foreboding red light streamed through. Shakily, getting to his feet, he peered through the open door of the hospital room he couldn’t remember entering. 

He wished he hadn’t. A wave of revulsion swept through him, legs shaking, stomach heaving, as he gazed in shocked disbelief at the pools of blood, radiating on the floor around corpses. Walking to the doorway, the smell of death and rot rolled over him, nearly flooring him once more. 

That there was a struggle, there was no doubt. Dozens of bears; male, female, even children, lined the hospital corridor. Gaping wounds stared at him with the bloody draw of morbidity.  Accompanying the blood spatter on the wall were tightly packed groupings of holes.

Shotgun blasts. 

But no…. there was only one thing, only one creature savage enough to use such a weapon. And they were gone now. 

“We killed them…” he muttered

“We killed them!” shouting, muttering, trying to escape the horrible sight, he stumbled down the hall.  Around a corner, sunlight streamed thorough the windows of a door that appeared to open to the outside. The reality of escape increased his feet, less stumbling, now running, he pawed open at the handle, throwing open the door. One breath. One breath is all he could manage before the shadow was cast over him. Buildings smoked and burned all around. Gunshots and pained roars sprung up from blocks and miles away. Vehicle overturned, collapsed bridges, and destruction surrounded him, but he saw and heard none of it. 

Piled with the disregard one would have for a sack of garbage, 20 feet high,  wrapping around the edge of the building to his left and a city block to his right, were his friends, his family, his people. For every one he recognized, there were a dozen, mutilated and disfigured by the ferocity with which they had been slain. They had been beaten, executed, exterminated. They had been murdered. 

It was too much to bear. 

A wordless roar escaped his maw, crescendoing wildly. Dropping to his knees, his breath gave way to sobs that racked his entire body. 

He remained there, speechless, until his legs began to ache. Getting up, his mind was filled with sudden clarity. It was the humans who had done this. The humans who had slain all he had ever known. With guns in their weak, furless arms, they had taken everything. The grizzly sight that rose before him was meant to be a sign. 

“A pile of dead bears… that can only mean one thing…”

They would be back. They knew the fight wasn’t over. 

As if on cue, the sound of the stomach churning human speech drifted across the street. Syncopated, rising and falling in tone, with bizarre series of grunts, it was enough to make most any bear feel queasy. 

From an alley across the street, five emerged. Though he had seen pictures, never before had he imagined encountering one in reality. Clad in green clothe patterned to make one nearly invisible agains any backdrop, shotguns in hand, they strode confidently through the ruin they had created. One seemed to make a joke, followed by a weak, forced laugh from the rest. 

“Vureee funee kevinn” 

He tried to piece their speech together, but it was hopeless. 

Continuing down the street, they eventually passed out of sight. 

With a sigh, he let out the breath he had been holding. There would be more, he had to be cautious. It would be best to spend the night in the hospital, then begin to search for fellow survivors in the morning. 

With that intent, he turned back to the door. 

The one that stood in front of it was small. Skin pale, small pieces of glass held in front of his eyes by wire, hair curling underneath the helmet that was a size too large. 

Shaking hands gripped the shotgun that was leveled at his chest. His eyes radiated terror, though the furrow in his brow revealed a deep determination. 

As he faced death, he though of Susan. She would know what to say. With a soothing word she could talk down the shotgun. She could save herself and convince the one wielding the gun that she had somehow saved him as well. But he had no words. His paws rose, whether to surrender or attack, even he didn’t know. 

The darkness came before the bang.

Somewhere, far away, his body crumpled. Somewhere, a soldier celebrated his first kill. 

But where he was, he was just waking up.  And this time, Susan was awake to meet him. 

Author's Note

I bad at grammar. I'm really trying to work on creative and detailed description of the settings/environment.