The sun had plunged into the horizon only to rise again. The first light of the new day stabbed into skeletal remains in crumbling buildings, shafts of gold filtering through gaping holes in concrete. Harsh lights seared into her eyes, pulling her from fragments of dreams. Streaks of dried tears marked the pale skin of her face against the stifling stillness of night.
Slowly, she opened her eyes, wherein the weight of unuttered words was behind each blink. Her heart drummed very lightly, almost as if not wanting to. Her eyes chanced upon the two bodies lying not very far from her. The void within her eyes yawned a little deeper-an abyss of grief and hollow despair. The knuckles of her trembling hand were white with unconscious clutches on tattered remnants of her clothes.
Every small movement spoke to something unraveling within. She raised her hands to her face, fingers quivering as if to stifle a scream that would never come. Her lips moved, silent and trembling, but the air remained heavy and mute. Only her ragged breaths broke the stillness, each one a tremor.
She slowly reached for a splintered piece of wood and a jagged stone, her hands moving with a vacant deliberation. She pressed the sharp edge to her neck. Tears fell, one after another, patting softly against the ground now dusty. And the soundless sobs echoed in her mind-invisible screams reverberated. A partial opening of the lips, the words never voiced.
But in that final instant, as it teetered on the edge, something was shining amongst the rubble—a photo, singed and half-buried in the debris. Her eyes widened, a tremble intensifying within her hands. She reached for it, her breath catching in her throat. The burnt photo showed her in the center, flanked by two figures whose faces had been swallowed by flame.
She froze. She dropped the makeshift weapon. She was shaking all over as the tears welled up once more. She clasped the photograph to her chest, arms quivering as if trying to cradle the fragile remnants of a fading memory.
Time slipped by, as insubstantial as the wind itself. Then she started digging graves for the two bodies; weathered and broken stones were laid into crude markers. Every action was fully laced with reverenced quiet mourning, and when she was finally done, there were no longer two graves but three.
She approached the third hollow and lay in it, as if to see whether it would serve; in a minute she got up and looked at the sky - still so. She lingered, then turned to the graves, long regarded them, and bent her head. A few moments thus, and she glided away as noiselessly as a shadow.
The sun set once more, its dying light painting the ruins in hues of soft amber. She walked past the same rubble, the same bodies—unchanged, unyielding. The only constants in a world that had forgotten how to move forward.
As night began to fall, she took shelter in the husk of a building. There was an old wooden crate sitting on the ground that momentarily caught her attention. She raises it as the first droplets of rain begin falling.
She exhaled a heavy sigh of weariness and defeat. At the end of a deserted street, she sat with the crate overhead, starting to gather other splintered pieces of wood. Slowly, methodically, she started building: a fragile barrier against the night. The rain drummed on the patchwork roof-a steady cadence in the stillness.
And then, finally, was her shelter two planks above, one at the side, the front open to the world. Imperfect, but it would do. She dragged a nearby corpse beneath it, laying her head on the lifeless form as if it were a pillow. The tears fell again, silent and unending.
In her hand, she clutched the photograph-the burned image of....