The first image she had of Lugones managed to make her hair stand on end. There was a gloomy atmosphere, the cars that could be seen, unlike those abandoned on the previous roads, were destroyed, in strange positions. It was as if a truck had gone through the city pushing and breaking everything in its path. The little patches of grass on both sides of the road were incredibly overgrown, the trees grew poorly. The streets also showed signs of violence as well as abandonment, open doors and broken windows seemed to be the order of the day. The young woman knew that she could not allow herself to internalize what she saw or she would panic, took several breaths and began to move forward. The further she went into Lugones the more chaos surrounded her. The deterioration of everything that surrounded her was greater, along with the dirt, strange brown stains littered walls and streets, carcasses torn to pieces of animals were scattered joining with completely clean bones decorated in a macabre way every corner.
To her left she could see the Asian food store that she used to frequent with her partner long ago.
"This is going to be a bad idea," she whispered to herself.
Poking her head she saw the man who had attended her the last time, he was sitting with hisr head resting on the counter. With a smooth step she entered the tent, without taking her eyes off him. As soon as she had completely turned the clerk she discovered the reason for his strange pose, the face visible from her new angle was completely destroyed, her cheek and eye socket had been blown off, everything indicated to be a case of suicide. Like the stains on the street, what had once been pools of blood was now only dirt of a blackish brown hue.
That man had always treated her well when they went shopping, he even gave her milk candies despite being one of the most expensive sweets he had in the store. Seeing him dead hurt, she knew that he had been there for a long time and although decomposed it was very well preserved, she was not a forensic surgeon, but she believed that his diet could have something to do with it. Looking closely at the corpse she could see bite marks on her arm. Perhaps one of the patients had attacked him and out of fear of infection he decided to end his life, although that idea seemed a bit excessive.
She closed her eyes giving him a minute of silence and, apologizing, she went through the store picking up food and drinks that did not require any special preparation. Once she was well loaded, Eden went back out onto the street following her path, the pastry shops and small neighborhood stores had displays full of rotten food, in the windows of the buildings, behind the curtains, she could see shadows moving.
She did not really know what the seriousness of the sick was, although the landscape of the city looked grave. Moving further, she found a group of people walking around, catching slightly, she could see their dirty clothes, some rags. They were too far apart but it seemed that each of them had different injuries, which was consistent with being violent, although they did not seem to behave that way.
- Maybe ... between sick people they don't attack- she looked at them for a few more minutes- it will be better not to alert them
Still unaware of the true symptoms and contagion methods, she began to advance from her hideout, practically crawling to reach a bench as soon as possible to take cover, thus initiating a progress from coverage to coverage.