(Rose)
It's been more than two weeks since we arrived in this world. We're going fast. I want to hurry.
It's sportier than I thought to travel horse riding. My bottom hurts, but I don't really care.
The sky is a dark grey with a white horizon. It reminds me of the first morning we had in this new world.
There were many more people back then. And many more monsters. It was a slaughter...
The weather reminds me of that dark time. I feel insignificant in this time...
The sky above turns black. Strange horizontal thunder flashes from time to time. The horizon is lost in a white fog, very white. The scenery is turning monochromatic. A strange storm is appearing above us, very high in the sky. The clouds are very high, though heavy as lead.
The winds get stronger by the minute. We both realise that a storm like we've never seen before is closing in on us. It's about to burst. The light keeps fading...
We reach the point where it looks as if night had fallen. For the first time, our horses get nervous and seem to be scared. Lightning still only goes from one cloud to the next, horizontally and high above us. It's barely raining still. The wind is going upward from the ground somehow. Dust is flying, pulled away from the road. The ground begins to shake softly. An earthquake seems to start.
We hurry to the first good shelter we can find in the middle of nowhere. There is no town nor building around us. The thunder is getting louder and more frequent.
I see something on the road. There's a building a mile further, but something that might work is closer. It's one of these so called tanks. These armoured vehicles from the great war. It's big, it looks very heavy and the hatch is loose.
But we might lose our horses...
Either we risk that, or risk our lives reaching the next building.
We hesitate because we don't know how fiercely the storm will strike. The building is too far. I dismount next to the armoured vehicle. Ann follows.
We let the horses run away. They really were helpful and kind. I hope they'll make it to safety.
We climb on the sturdy vehicle and get inside through the hatch. It looks rather clean inside, nothing decayed. I close and lock the hatch behind us.
We're locked in, in the dark.
All what is left to do is wait. Ann still has a lamp and lit it. We discover a corpse. A skeleton, partially mummified, with its clothes and flesh. It held a kind of handgun. It's not like a revolver with the bullets getting aligned with the barrel. It has a clip with more than six ammunitions. They are rusted, so it would be dangerous to try using this.
We hear the storm raging outside even though the sounds are really muffled within the habitat. The earth is trembling softly.
Nothings reacts in the tank. It's off, probably out of fuel. The buttons and levers we try do nothing.
The lightning is barely visible through a perhaps half-a-metre thick and small window. From the noises getting stronger, we understand that it began to strike the ground around. Are we safe in this big coffin?
I can't remember what was with thunder and metallic shelters. I think it needed to be a closed box.
We're a bit scared. It's violent outside. It sounds like explosions. The ground shakes each time the thunder strikes. Rain and wind became a typhoon.
The world seems to collapse. The earth is ripped apart by thunder striking the grounds during entire seconds.
We're shaking. The storm is beyond everything we know. We guess and hear rocks being crushed and flying. Pillars of thunder strike and weld the ground like fire. The noises are atrocious. The tank is hit by thunder. Some elements inside lit on briefly when the thunder repeatedly hits around us. Small lights lit briefly, buttons with different colours to.
The vehicle reacts with the bursts of electromagnetic fields striking the ground close by. It even moves, shaking slightly at each time.
Thunder strikes the vehicle again. Some lights burst. An alarm begins to deafen us. A brown light is lit and stays. We hear a musical of the forces of nature now mixed with rising mechanics.
Strings of characters appear on a wall. Warning signs and information we don't understand are appearing one after another.
We begin to think that perhaps it can move. We try what we can and seems logical to try.
The thunder strikes the tank again for several seconds. The temperature is rising suddenly. Every light bursts and everything gets dark again. It smells of burnt animals.
Through the small window we see the thunder striking pools of rain water. The scenery is being flooded.
The ground stops shaking. The water level is rising. The thunder strikes the water again, splashing around. Fires appear in the middle of the sky and fly randomly around before vanishing.
It's calming down. The rain goes on heavily. The level of water is rising outside. The little we can see it disappearing under the flood of mud and rain.
It splashes against the window like an angry sea. The level keep rising. Everything becomes quiet. We're underwater now.
It's settling. We finally breathe a bit. It's still warm from when the thunder hit the husk before. The air is not cooling down much.
Ann's lamp broke with everything else when the electrical surges hit the tank.
We're blind now that mud covers the only window.
We wait. We try to rest a bit. I hope our friendly horses made it to safety. Ann is having difficulties to breathe. I can't rest.
I slowly discover the place we're in with my fingers. Maybe I'll find something useful.
It takes time though the place isn't that big. I open metallic drawers. I can't really figure out what is inside.
Until I found something I recognise. A lighter. It works and a small glow appears. Ann looks awfully scared, or ill.
I burn a few papers and look for an exit. Maybe if we can flood the tank from its canon we will then be able to open the hatch despite the water pressure.
I don't like that it's the best idea I could come up with... I begin to feel sick too, with the smell and isolated atmosphere. We will suffocate soon. We begin to panic. We need to get out. We can't say how long we already waited inside... Days? Minutes?
Ann is trying to open the hatch. Meanwhile, I found another one on the floor behind the corpse. I can open it. There's water. We can make it if there's enough space to swim below the tank.
I found a military suitcase that looks waterproof. We put most of what we need to keep inside. Ann doesn't know how to swim. I teach her the very basics before we're lacking oxygen. She then goes first for some reason. I follow.
Below. Aside. The water is very thick with mud and stones. Above. We're suddenly above the surface of a muddy sea. Ann climbed on the tank's roof. It's actually above the water level, but barely. We rest there. We can breathe at last. The storm is getting more distant now.
Something murky is growing within me. My left hand is itching. I can't look at Ann and I vomit in the water suddenly. I feel ill. The air is cold. The temperature change got me?
No it's, something else. Something is wrong with me. I just couldn't realise what it was right on the spot.
I see Ann exhausted too, and now I realise how I feel. I realise the consequences of my choices.
Put up with it Rose. Now is not the time...
Suffer in silence, regret as much as you want. It's too late to make a different choice and too early to rectify anything.
I feel awful. I'm scratching my wounds and scars over an etched bit of metal. My hand is burning me.
A swamp is born. Endless, stretching itself against the horizon. The building that were further are only protruding ruins now.
We wait. We try to dry ourselves and our clothes. Maybe the water level of this wasteland will go down rapidly.
~
By the evening, it has settled a bit. But it would be a death trap trying to leave now the tank hull. We wait the night freezing cold. We can't really warm up ourselves and I feel awful feeling her skin against mine.
Stay calm. Focus. Think slowly. Wait. Be patient. You will find your way...
During the night, we hear strange and worrying sounds. I don't know if they are exploding pockets of gas or animal.
Then the morning comes. We're tired and cold.
The swamp is still there in a way. There's a deep fog, and we can't see far. It's risky to go, but we have to move.
There's one metre of mud where I go down, but the road is still there just next to me, less deeply buried.
We walk slowly against that mud covering an invisible and damaged trail.
We walk painfully slowly for hours before reaching the damaged building we saw in the distance. There's nothing useful there anymore surely. We don't even bother.
During an exhausting afternoon, still foggy, we make it out of the swamp. We're covered head to toe with mud.
We're weaken and hungry.
The road is finally visible.
We go. We're not talking much anymore, too exhausted.
We just keep walking mindlessly.
~