Chapter 57: Shopping with Lady

"That was a bit...", she was gasping for air, "...unexpected, huh?"

"Lady...", I answered as I lay dying on my back, short on oxygen and legs feeling like they had melted, "You are crazy."

We were in the middle of nowhere, under a thick tree that was shedding its fall leaves, I could barely recognize the place. So how had we ended up in this situation, drenched in a liter of sweat despite the cold autumn winds and no apparent dog chasing us? Well, that's because we had left the dogs behind.

This morning, as I sat calmly in my little bunker that peeked outside through its singular window (a shaft in its wall really), I sipped on my hot, seemingly tasteless coffee. I put down my mug and stared at the flower pot that now housed a tiny cactus. I realized I don't like cactuses. For such a calm, bland, utterly static morning, I was having an unsettling feeling, a premonition that this day was about to get quite stormy. And what do you know, I was right.

It began with a knock on my door.

"L