run

day oo6

Get up, get up, get up. I've fallen to my knees, forced down in front of a triumphant city, a landmark, an empire of the modern age. I can't bring myself to stand, though. I feel broken, devastated by what lies before me. From the Hudson River, New York City looks like a dirty, unkempt city without power. But now that I'm closer... I expected to find life here. I expect most people left to the countryside to escape the virus, but really, a virus isn't a war between people, it's a war with yourself. You can't escape disease the way you can escape air raids by moving to open plains and grassy hills. Because if you take it with you, then it stays, it spreads, and the demons no longer only run through the dirt-blanketed streets of cities, they flicker in and out of grass blades, and everything they touch withers and dies. I can imagine fields upon fields of greenery suddenly collapsing, turning black, as though I'm watching a timelapse of a rose withering on Discovery Channel.

Now, I see it clearly. A city in ruins, a city so dead that a breath echoes down the widest streets, pulled along by the ghostly fingers of the dead that lie buried beneath slabs of broken concrete or underneath layers of mud and sediment near the Hudson. My eyes trail up the facade of the building to my right, and I follow its shattered windows and concrete sides up to the sky, where the feet of the city moves to a rich blue that lightens with its proximity to the horizon. The sun flares above me, causing shards of glass to reflect rainbows onto the walls of nearby building like prisms. They're hints of colours that have otherwise disappeared, faded into the grey dust. Red, purple, pink.

I turn into what I recognise as 5th Avenue. The thunk of something heavy falling to the floor. I see it fall, three meters from where I am. A figure, right beside it, thin, tall, preoccupied with something. I lunge for it- and decide I'm not taking any chances. The figure- person, infected- whatever it is, crouches, presumably looking for the rifle.

They turn around- and I almost- almost lower the weapon.

▿

It's a girl. A girl that looks around my age, with bangs that fall into her eyes. Flaming red bangs, dots of freckles across her nose and each cheek, blue-green eyes flecked with dark hazel. She looks harmless, but her expression isn't particularly welcoming.

She moves a hand and wraps it around the barrel of the rifle. "You know, I'd appreciate it if you stopped waving that thing in my face."

I look her up and down; she scowls. Underneath those layers of clothes, I can't tell whether or not she's sick- but the angry flush in her cheeks and the normal alertness in her eyes half-convinces me that she's normal.

"Hello? Are you deaf?"

Definitely normal. I point the rifle to the ground, but keep my finger on the trigger.