The Odd New World

Chapter 4 - Leaving Home

      When Aldo and I ran outside from the pawn shop, there were no other creatures in sight. Thank goodness.

We run into an empty alleyway.
I made sure that the coast was clear, and I lean against a wall, taking a breather.

Aldo sits down, staring at me.

"Well. I've gotten myself some guns." I tell him. "Now. It's time to go find my car."

After the monsters came that day, I had to leave my car behind at the parking lot of the nursing home I used to work at. The monstrosities were everywhere, I couldn't even get to it. I ran straight to my apartment and locked myself in.

If my car is still intact, I will use it to get to the city where the giant glowing meteor thing landed. The city of Vagos.
I'm sure there will still be lots of monsters lurking about that city, since that's where the event occurred.

That's why I wanted to arm myself in case anything tries to attack me.
I'm not sure what is left of Vagos, but since it happens to be the major city where the astronomers were heavily reporting the sightings of the giant glowing meteors, I wondered if exploring Vagos would help me find any sort of leads.

I look to Aldo. He had his head tilted slightly.

"Alright, listen." I tell him. "We're going to be heading to another place where my kind used to live. But first, we have to make one more trip."

Aldo exhales from his nostrils.

I still haven't fully grasped what that exhaling could mean.
He's done it a few times in response to the things I say, but it was never clear what that could imply.

I only grasped on what he does when he's happy and sad.

Either way, I will explain the situation further to him.

"We're heading to the place where I used to work. Once we're there, we're going to take my—well, my 'carriage' of sorts to head to the place where all these monstrosities crash landed."

He does the exhaling thing again, while also swinging his tail in circles.

"No objections, right Aldo? Right foot for yes, left foot for no. Just so we're clear."

Aldo taps his left foot.

"Alrighty. Follow me."

Getting to the nursing home from here was a pretty lengthy trip on foot.

My job actually wasn't far away from the apartment, so I could travel to work on foot too if I wanted. But I was used to driving to other places after work, like the gym, to the mall, and even some fancy food places. So I would always park my car outside of the nursing home so I don't have to walk all the way back to the apartment to get to it.

As we make it closer to the nursing home, I heard some weird rumbling noise coming from my right.
Aldo also happened to be walking next to me on my right.

I stopped walking and looked at him. He did the same.

"Was that coming from you, Aldo?" I asked him.

Aldo begins sniffing.

"Hungry, aren't you? How about I give you some of your favorite barbecue potato chips?"

Aldo hops and swings his tail intensely.

I place my bag on the ground and dig out one of the bags I've been keeping in there.
I then pour out a few chips from the bag onto the ground in front of him.

Aldo happily munches on the chips.

He must really love those things. I may just have to save all of the barbecue chips for Aldo. I don't mind sticking to the non-perishables I'm holding.