Wanderlust
"All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost."
— J.R.R. Tolkien (The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, #1))
Night was quickly approaching on the horizon of the city's remains as Eli trudged along the path of a long since abandoned road. Weeds grew freely, mixing with various types of grasses and other fauna, now allowed to take claim of the earth that man had once held in captivity. A low wind moaned as it wound its way through the broken panes of glass contained within a thousand windows, following an invisible path that only it could chart.
As the wind blew through his hair, Eli stopped to stare at the shadows forming long tendrils as they crept across the ruins around him. His eyes scanned the fallen city as his hands instinctively brought out a cigarette and lit it, placing it in his lips so that he could inhale the toxic fumes deeply. The assault rifle slung over his shoulder shifted slightly against the outside of his coat with the motion. After a long drag on the cigarette, Eli exhaled in satisfaction. The fragments of his civilization were his true home, not some New World, created by the boy and the Saviour…
The crimson rays of a setting sun touched Eli's body, caressing him in warmth as he stepped out from the remaining wall of an apartment complex. He appreciated the last remnants of the sun, enjoying the fact that he was alone, able to revel in his freedom from the rest of his kind. The clouds above appeared to be made out of a brilliant fire as Eli leisurely strolled down the broken streets, feeling the uneven pattern of decaying asphalt beneath his well-worn boots.
When the sun disappeared behind the desolate pieces of the skyline a deep twilight began to set in all about Eli, still wandering through the heart of the abandoned city. Pausing to light another cigarette, he began to size up an appropriate location to set up camp for the night. The odds of other survivors of the Fall being around were slim, but it was a chance that a seasoned pro such as himself wasn't willing to take.
The street Eli was currently on had once been a busy metropolitan shopping district, so there were plenty of choices for temporary shelter. Deciding on a store, he headed towards the smashed out window that had once proudly displayed the wares within for sale. The pane had been broken out almost completely, only a few chunks of sharp glass remained in the corners, smeared with dirt from storms that had blown through the area after its reclamation.
Shouldering his rifle tightly, Eli stepped up through the broken window and into the store, carefully avoiding the bleached remains of a manikin that lay in the sill. The interior of the store grew progressively darker as the evening gloom set in outside on the street. A long since stilled escalator led upwards into the growing darkness, beckoning the approach of anyone bold enough to enter the depths of abandonment.
Casually clenching the lit cigarette in his teeth, Eli reached into his pocket to withdraw a small, black flashlight that he clipped to a mount on the front of his rifle. Touching the round button on the back of the flashlight, he turned it on, watching as the pale white beam illuminated the darkness around him, dispelling any doubt of his surroundings. He knew from practice that this would be the best way to defend himself. It was much too awkward carrying a light and trying to shoot at the same time. Holding the rifle up, he swung it back and forth in a lazy sweep as he walked up the rusting escalator stairs, making sure to keep the barrel pointed upwards at any potential targets that might appear.
The main floor of the department store was a menagerie of dust, broken shelves, and abandoned equipment that had been left to the relentless test of time. Anything of value to a survivor had long since been looted, leaving only the remains of commerce behind. The white linoleum flooring buckled in areas where water had seeped through the overhead ceiling tiles, unable to be stopped by the roof above. The area stood in pitch-black darkness except for the swatch of light brought by Eli's impending presence.
As Eli looked around, he grunted in satisfaction, this would do for the night. There was no reason another person would be here, and the odds of someone below seeing his fire or the smoke from it were incredibly low, due to the elevated position of the main store. While he walked around the dilapidated floor of the store, Eli stopped to pick up bits of wood and other flammable materials that he could use as kindling for his fire. Satisfied with the amount of collected material, Eli sat the load down in an open area of the floor, within eyeshot of the escalator. He wanted to be able to quickly stop any attacks that might arise in the night, or if need be, make a hasty escape to more favorable ground for a fight.
The fire started easily; Eli sat on his backpack, rifle within arm's reach, as he watched the flames creep through the pieces of debris, hungrily consuming the very materials that were once selfishly guarded against such a fire. The store was silent except for the pop and crackle of the fire, Eli's lone companion. Lighting a cigarette, Eli stared into the flames, allowing his mind to wander back into the past. It had been a truly bizarre series of events that had led him to this point, but they were events he wouldn't alter. The end result, his freedom to roam an empty world, was a boon that he refused to relinquish.
The sound of a footstep on the escalator stairs broke Eli's trance, causing him to grab the rifle as he turned on the flashlight attached to it, pointing it directly at the only entrance to his location. The beam painted its hollow white light across the top of the stairs as Eli crouched, finger on the trigger. It was time to punish an intruder.
The footsteps were slow, calculated, as they continued to progress closer to Eli's camp. Whoever was coming was quite confident in their ability to take on their attacker.
Eli shifted his weight slightly to one side as he watched the top of a dark hoodie emerge from the stairs. For a split second, he thought it might have been the boy, come to converse with him for an unknown purpose, but then he saw the color of the hoodie in the light. It was the wrong color. This hoodie was a dark grey, striped with black. As the figure continued its progression into the light from Eli's flashlight, he realized it wasn't the boy at all, it was a girl. Her hood was pulled up, but the long strands of her black hair still flowed out of the sides, complimenting the lines of her pale face. Her eyes burned with a certain cunning that took Eli's breath away when he saw them. Her lips were tucked into a grimace.
"Get that fucking light out of my eyes, asshole," she called, stepping off the escalator and heading towards the fire Eli was crouched next to.
"It's you…" Eli laughed in awe, "But how?"
"What do you mean, it's you?" snapped the girl in reply to Eli's bafflement, "Do I know you or something?"
"Hell," pondered Eli, "You know me from hell."
"I've died at least three times that I can remember now," sulked the girl, "You'll have to be more specific than that."
"And I'm sort of immortal," laughed Eli, "What's new?"
"What do you mean," the girl eyed Eli from her stance near the fire, "Sort of immortal?"
Sighing, Eli put down the rifle, taking off his shirt slowly, revealing the jagged cut that Eve had once given to him.
"I have the mark of Cain," said Eli, glancing down at his now well-built physique, "This is the mark that keeps me from being killed by another man."
"I don't believe that shit for a second," scoffed the girl, "I might keep coming back from the dead, but I doubt anyone can keep from dying that easily."
"Who said it's easy?" retorted Eli, sizing up the girl with a rising mix of anger and arousal, "C'mon then, miss know-it-all, try to kill me!"
"Your funeral," snickered the girl as she withdrew a knife from her hoodie, snapping open the blade before she lunged at Eli's bare chest without hesitation.
As the girl reached up to stab Eli, she felt her hand slip to the side, causing her to run into his commanding figure harmlessly.
"What the fuck?!" she shouted in frustration, "I meant to stab you, hard!"
Eli smirked down at the girl, looking up at him with fury, "I told you."
"Goddammit," spat the girl, practically touching Eli, "I can't get myself to do it."
"Because you don't want to?" purred Eli, "Or because you can't?"
"Fuck you," muttered the girl, dropping the knife to the floor with a clatter, "You already know the answer to that."
Eli reached down and pulled the hood back from the girl's head, fully exposing her long hair to the firelight as she looked up at him, anger still burning bright in the deep brown of her eyes.
"I don't understand it," she said quietly, looking at his chest as she ran a soft hand across the scar, "How could someone have something so powerful?"
"Why are you alive then?" Eli ran his hand through the girl's hair, touching the back of her neck as he spoke, "Why are we here, in the ruins of our world, together?"
"That shit head probably has something to do with it," she laughed as she looked into Eli's predatory eyes, "We both know who I'm talking about."
Eli laughed deeply as his other hand pulled the hoodie off the girl's left shoulder, "I wouldn't put it past the boy to do something like that. I did make a comment once that I wanted to fuck you."
"Did you now?" the girl arched an eyebrow, Eli pushed the rest of the girl's hoodie off, exposing the grey shirt underneath, "What makes you think that's going to happen?"
"Because you're here," Eli leaned down to kiss the girl as he felt her hands run across the skin of his chest, caressing the scar and the surrounding muscle, "Because we're immortal."
"I don't know about immortal," the girl pulled back from Eli to look into his eyes, her hands on his ribs, "But maybe we are..."
"Tonight we are," Eli touched the skin of the girl's waist as he pulled her shirt over her head, "This is fate."
......…..
The fire was beginning to dim as the fuel ran low. Eli lay beside the girl, his naked body entangled with hers. He felt the heat from her skin as she lay her weight against him, the two watched as the flames flickered in random patterns, casting eerie glow against their passive faces. Eli found his fingers tracing the rough scars he could see on the girl's wrists.
"I have more," spoke the girl softly, "I have the scars from every time that I've died…"
"Which death are these from?" Eli touched her wrists, "These look self-inflicted."
"They are," sighed the girl, "It's from my first death actually. I was a heroin addict at the time, I wanted to die, and I took a lot of people with me to the grave in an elaborate game I made."
Eli chuckled lowly, "My kind of girl right there."
The girl rubbed her head against Eli in a gesture of satisfaction, "Hmmm, thank you, but I'm a killer."
"I promise, I've killed far more than you," Eli replied, running a hand through her hair, finding a raised scar, "What's this one from?"
"Ugh," grumbled the girl, "I trusted someone and they hit me over the head with a crowbar and killed me, again."
"What about the third time?" questioned Eli.
Wordlessly, the girl pulled away from Eli and stood up, allowing the fire to illuminate the pale color of her naked skin, "This is the third time…" she said, with sorrow in her voice as she pointed to a bullet scar above her left breast.
"Shit, right to the heart," Eli raised an eyebrow, "What happened?"
"One of my lovers shot me," the girl sighed as she lay back down against Eli, "I was betrayed, again."
"Seems to be a common theme for you," Eli wrapped an arm around the girl, pulling her body against his.
"I guess it's what I get for what I did," replied the girl, "Be killed, be resurrected, be killed again."
"What's your name?" Eli asked, "I still don't know."
"I had a name, but that was two lives ago," the girl giggled, "At this point, I don't think I need one anymore."
"Is there a name on your gravestone then?" Eli pondered.
"I've only been buried in a grave once," replied the girl, "That was an unmarked city grave, after my last death."
"Huh," Eli stared into the fire, "So, girl with no name, what are you planning to do now?"
"Probably the same thing you're doing," replied the girl, turning to look at Eli's face, "Endlessly wander the remains of our world, try not to die again."
Eli laughed deeply, "That's a good goal, considering you can still die, unlike me."
"I thought so too," the girl smiled slightly, "Will we see each other again after the sun rises?"
"I don't know," pondered Eli, "I'm sure our paths will cross again, but I can't promise you anything. I travel alone."
"I do too," replied the girl, turning back to stare into the fire, "It's better that way."
Eli nodded in silent agreement as he watched her body, studying the curves illuminated by the fire.
Sleep eventually came for the two as they lay together, warmed by the dying embers. Eli felt his consciousness slipping away into a deep sleep, filled with fragments of dreams. In some of them, he was back with Eve, watching their child, the one he had never met, playing at a playground. He could see the radiant smile across her face as she looked at him with her eternal devotion, once again making it clear without the use of words that she would kill for him if he were to ask.
In another dream, the girl sleeping next to him was holding an infant.
When he approached her and asked whose child it was, she turned to him, a look of concern on her face, "You don't recognize your own seed, Eli?"
......…..
Eli awoke from the dreams with a start, looking around the dimly lit store. The fire from the night before had long since died, and he lay alone, his clothes strewn about the edges of the black mark in the center of the floor. The girl was nowhere to be seen. Apparently, she had woken up and left him before he could rouse himself. Taking a quick inventory of his belongings, he decided that she hadn't taken anything of value. Grumbling to himself, he began to dress, pulling a cigarette out of his coat and lighting it as he did so.
Once he had fully prepared for travel, Eli began to walk down the escalator into the rising light of the morning sun. Stepping out of the broken display window, he scanned his surroundings. There was no life in sight. Only the broken city greeted his eyes. Eli took another drag of his cigarette as he began to walk down the street, heading off into the distant cityscape.
It was time to continue his endless journey to nowhere.