The boundaries between these elements finally disappeared, like an invisible river courting their banks without sense or meter. Days bled into night, and the sun and moon became disinterested watchers of a world long forgotten. How many years she had endured-so little did the memories of her beginnings weigh upon her, it would seem, as though she stumbled through the remains of some endless dream.
The world turned into something unreal. Nature had taken back its right, molding life once more on the ruins of men's great ambitions. Trees towered giants over shattered skylines, their roots bursting open the roads, swallowing bone and remnants of a forgotten era. Buildings stood as bleached skeletons of what they once had been facades draped in ivy, innards hollowed out by decay. A faint, melancholy breeze brought with it the hint of damp moss, wildflowers, and something a little older-ancient.
But this ghastly, green desert stretched itself between there and here; so, all alone, one girl. Slight in front of the world, there was something resilient in that strange being, unassailable by her light bones. Her eyes would shine neither with wonder nor be haunted by ruin for everything one saw had already silenced a part of it and thus become a part in one's desolation, each footstep a silent greeting from its inevitability.
Her boots scraped against the cracked asphalt as she walked forward, neither hurrying nor hesitating. She moved as if conducted by some silent ritual, following paths long since committed to memory. On either side of her, the remains of a dead civilization told their tales: a playground where swings rusted, swaying faintly in the wind; a marketplace where skeletal stalls sagged beneath the weight of silence. Car husks lined the streets, their frames consumed by rust and nature alike.
The road she traveled took her to places once known intimately. She passed a school that ivy had crawled into every crevice, laid claim to its walls and corridors. She paused by the crumbling theater, its letters faded and missing on the marquee, leaving behind ghosts of words. Now, buildings that had been tempered with time seemed not quite ruins but monuments to a silent testament of a world no longer living.
At last, she approached the research lab. The building, on the outskirts of town, had grown dull and pockmarked with corrosion; its metallic walls had dulled with corrosion and pockmarks. The hallways, once sterile in which she had walked, lay under a thick layer of dust and debris. Broken glass and fallen ceilings made it barely recognizable, yet it remembered. Every nook, every room-it was still in her head, preserved untouched by the years. She did not linger, but turned and stepped out again into the open air.
Her hand entered her pocket, drawing out a spartan ration bar. She broke off small pieces, chewing slowly as she walked. Her water bottle sloshed faintly as she tilted it to take a sip, now almost dry. Each drop was gold, and she savored it with the care of one who knew there would be no more.
Before her lay the highway, forlorn ribbon of asphalt strewn with the detritus of what once had been a titanic battle: bones, bleaching in years of remorseless sun, lay strewn amidst rusting weapons and torn armor. The air was heavier here, as if the echoes of screams and gunfire still lingered.
She was quiet for a moment, staring off across the plain before her, her face impassive. Here, two had struggled: opposing beliefs grappling desperately in that wild bid for life-one for the god and one for refutation of deity itself. And in a sick irony, both died. Faith and lack of faith proved incapable of saving either from the dark certitude of death.
She continued onward, the shadow of the girl trailing behind her like a silent companion. Further down the road, she found the remnants of a resistance camp. It was a point in history marked by ashes and charred debris, period. She pulled her sleeve up, showing a mark upon her pale skin
.
She looked up at it a moment, bowed her head-a slight movement to acknowledge the forgotten-always silent, and on she went.
Soon, she came upon places that once stood for something: temples and shrines, altars now consumed in layers of dirt and waste. The air that held them was dead, even the wind seemingly avoiding blowing for disrupting the silent solemnity. She came to a stop by the bank of a river, its water running steadily on, carrying the reflection of the pale hue in the sky. For the first time, her lips set in a slight nod, as if acknowledging the silent persistence of the river. Then she turned and walked on.
She had made out a little grave at the airport beside the rusted hulk of an airplane; on the grave was screwed a steel plate, the lettering barely readable under the filth of years.
She knelt, her face unreadable. From the pack, she brought out the last of her water and sprinkled it over the plaque sparingly, as if to rinse it of time's grime. She had scattered wildflowers she'd picked up here and there on her road around the grave, those splotches of color against the gray of everything around. The moment stayed with her briefly until she got to her feet and continued in her course, her footsteps unhindered.
She passed the mall, where she had scrounged up some weapons; the bunker that had protected her for a time; the park where she finally had lain down a little under the shade of its ancient trees. At every place, she stopped several seconds, her eyes straining into the ruins for something to be hunted-a memory, or even perhaps a feeling she might feel once again.
Her wandering led her around in a circle.
She stood in front of a house that was crumbling down, whose worn wood was weakened through years of weather. Her first home, the first refuge she'd found, the time she huddled against mock walls of cardboard and slept through the storm, her hunger did. And now, digging deep inside, no name stirred somewhere inside her.
The world around her was in eerie silence; the only sound was the wind whispering through. A lonely ambiance hung in the air, an almost palpable entity seeming to echo each of her breaths.
And yet, as she stared at the house, her expression softened.
Her lips arced upwards, a small, uncertain smile rising from somewhere deep inside.
She smiled, and in that instant, the silence wasn't quite so complete.