Hey Mom & Dad,

Just wanted to let you know I’ve been wagging my tail and brightening everyone’s day in this adventure. Brought some smiles, chased some squirrels, and even helped out in ways only a good pup can. Can’t wait to see you soon!

Love,
Fenny 🐾

It was a typical day in Spencerville, as typical as any day can be in a world where the sun seems to have taken a permanent leave of absence. Paws padding quietly on decaying concrete, I navigated through the twisted remains of what used to be Main Street, nose twitching at the faint smells of rust, rain, and trace wisps of stale bread.

My name is Fenway—possibly the last retriever this side of the Divide—and today, just like yesterday and the day before, my mission was simple: locate those elusive crumbs of food for my pack. Survivors, they called themselves. I liked the word. It had a nibbling optimism about it, a belief that just existing one more day was a triumph. It was infectious, even for a dog.

As I trotted past old traffic lights that now served as roosts for crows, I pondered Spencerville’s rules. Rule Number One: Safety First. If something looked like it could fall on you, explode near you, or generally cause you harm, stay away. It wasn’t a complicated rule, just difficult to adhere to when survival necessitated risk.

My pack, my humans if you will, had instilled this rule into me early. “Fenway, don’t poke your nose where it doesn’t belong,” they’d say. I, of course, ignored them—curiosity might not have killed this cat, but it surely had led me to some interesting finds.

Today’s treasure hunt took me to the old library, a hulking relic steadfastly refusing to crumble entirely. My paws made dull, echoing thuds as they met the cold marble floor. The scent of decaying books—once my kind’s least favorite odor—now meant pages that might conceal forgotten stashes of chips or canned goods. I sniffed around, momentarily pausing at a particularly undamaged pile of hardcovers frozen in mid-tumble.

Rule Number Two: Sharing is Surviving. In Spencerville, anything found was shared with the pack. Food was parsed out with precision, making even the smallest morsel feel like a feast.

I was halfway through a particularly stale piece of pie crust buried under a volume of Shakespeare when I heard it—a faint rustling. Not the wind, Spencerville’s lack of glass windows saw to that. Something alive. I paused, ears erect, and waited. There it was again, a scurrying sound that betrayed nerves. I barked, a low growl really, to assert my territory and protect my find.

“Hey there, hero,” a familiar voice echoed back. It was Max, our erstwhile leader and self-declared protector of all beings big and small, including us four-legged scavengers. He had a way with tone; even in this bleak, unforgiving world, Max’s voice carried a sheen of hope wrapped in sardonic wit.

“Well, if it isn’t Fenway the Fearless, guardian of crumbs!” Max appeared from behind the disintegrating information desk, face smudged but eyes alight with mischief. “Found anything interesting today?”

I wagged my tail, which was dog speak for “I’ve found a veritable feast, let’s eat!” In return, Max knelt beside me, patting my head as he inspected the crust. “Shakespeare and pie. You’ve outdone yourself, my friend.”

Max’s laughter reverberated through the once solemn halls, managing to sound both grim and grateful, like everything in Spencerville. We gathered my finds—a small, dusty bounty of survivalist angels—and prepared to head back to camp.

Rule Number Three: Always Return. Before nightfall, you had to be back at the camp. Night in Spencerville belonged to shadows and whispers, best left undisturbed.

With our humble loot secured, we retraced our steps, Max’s weather-beaten pack slung over his shoulder and my tail high in determination. At the edge of the library, just where the light turned faintly edible, Max sighed. “Another day, eh Fenway?”

I barked in agreement. To my canine mind, it was a good day—paws on the move, noses in the wind, and a sense of purpose as tangible as the starlight we could no longer see.

Together, we paced forward, each paw and footfall a tacit promise to survive—and perhaps in that survival, to find our way back to something resembling normal, one pie crust at a time.