Before her yawned the sewer, dark, bottomless, framed with concrete walls running rusty tears. Outside, the air was heavy with moisture, and on the wind came a faint metallic tang that spoke of decay within. She stood at the entrance, a slight figure outlined against the pale remnants of daylight. Her cold, steady eyes pierced the blackness ahead; her face showed no trace of fear or hesitation. She took one step forward, the gravel-strewn edge crunching beneath her boots before subsiding a little into the shallow film of water seeping out onto the ground. Inside, it swallowed her whole. The beam from her flashlight cut through the black, and jagged shadows twisted and danced across damp walls coated with moss. There was an instant, overwhelming odor of fetidness: mold, decay, and foul water. Droplets fell from unseen crevices now and then; the sound was magnified in the quiet to create a rhythmic drip, seeming to echo her measured footsteps.
She moved cautiously, her gaze sweeping the narrow tunnel and taking in everything: the corroded pipes jutting out at odd angles, the pieces of broken glass glinting faintly in the light, and the scurrying of unseen vermin. The air was thick and heavy, clinging to her skin like a damp shroud, but neither her pace nor resolve wavered.
The beam of the flashlight caught something out in front of him-a heap of crumpled forms scattered across the waterlogged ground, like a bunch of dolls thrown about.
She walked closer with a slow tread, her footsteps careful, and knelt beside the first body. The corpse lay twisted, the face distorted by pure agony, the clothes nothing but tatters hanging on its skeletal frame. The sight was ghastly, though by no means unfamiliar. Unlike the clean uniforms she had seen at the airport, these were the clothes of desperation, of people who had nothing left even before death claimed them. She leaned forward, her gloved hand brushing against the frayed sleeve of the corpse as she began to search him. Her movements were quick and exact, practiced with no feeling. She found nothing of value and straightened, brushing the dirt from her gloves, onto the next. She moved body to body, impassive face watching as the light danced across the faces of the dead.
A moment later, she stood and turned away, dropping her eyes to the ground, her lips pressed into a thin line. She let out a low sigh, raising a hand to her temple, where the fingers kneaded against an ache in the skin. Saying no more, her pace deliberate, she moved away from the sewer onto the next location.
Another outlet, similar to the first, was her destination, and she did her work methodically. She went inside; again, a tunnel, again the smell, and corpses thrown around like forgotten memories. This time, however, she seemed paler, her face quiet and efficient in the way it worked its way through space; yet somehow, the weight of her aloneness leaned on her shoulders a little bit more heavily now.
Hours passed, the cycle repeating itself: sewer after sewer, each one revealing parts of the world that had been.
As she finally approached the military outpost, she was greeted for a moment, before stiffening with the coarse hide of some dog being yanked over her face in order to protect herself from what little light still hovered on the horizon. The outpost was almost a crumbling monument which showed a structure battered and broken. A lot of death smelled there. She stepped inside quietly.
A soldier's body was lying just beyond the entrance, splayed across the floor in some desperate pose, his arm flung forwards and his fingers curled as if clawing towards safety that never came. The wall behind was smeared with the bloodstains, and his uniform showed the signs of the hasty retreat-ripped fabrics, snapped straps, a missing boot. She knelt down beside him; her hands were working rapidly as she pulled out a name tag from his chest. The letters on the tag were smudged but readable. She stared at the tag a while, then tossed it aside without looking again. Her search continued, yielding a small tin of antibiotics tucked into a corner of his pack.
She pocketed it with a faint nod before standing. Her eyes scanned the room: an overturned crate here, a chair knocked over there, and a map taped to the wall. She tore it free, her eyes racing over its surface until they caught on a small, marked cross. Her brow furrowed for a moment before she folded the map and tucked it into her bag. The going was slower now; she breathed harder. When she finally reached the river on the map, the sun was low in the horizon, with its lengthening shadows stretching across the land. The urge overtook her, and she began running as glimpses of the river shone. Exhaustion betrayed her, and she fell hard upon the rough ground.
She lay there a moment, the cool earth pressed against her cheek, her rise and fall of chest slowly labouring. The world out of focus, dying sunlight painted hues of crimson and gold across the horizon. Then, without warning, her eyes fluttered closed and sleep took her, leaving the river to still flow softly in the background, night now a giveaway.