September 2030

Helena

The warm wind grab's the girl's hair violently as she steps out the door. Her name is Helena. A pretty name. She's named after her natural beauty. But her face that once was smooth and even, is nowadays covered in dirt that refuses to wear away, no matter how much she tries to scrub it.

From far away she doesn't look much different than before, she's only skinnier. But if someone looked closely at the girl, they would probably have seen the dark circles under her green eyes and how pale her skin is under all the dirt. Up close, a person who knew her before the war would have noticed how her hair, which reaches all the way down to the waist, stubbornly saved for several years, has lost its shine, how her twinkling eyes almost has lost its sparkle and how her old skipping steps has turned into short staggering ones, slowly placed in front of each other. But her stubbornness haven't left her. She still keeps going.

She looks up one last time at the small wooden house she had used for the past few weeks. One last glance she gives herself, before turning around and starting to walk. She can not stay and she knows it. Her steps are directed towards the mountains. Their snow-capped peaks shine in the morning sun and she feels so small under them. A sudden feeling of dizziness overwhelms her. She stops with her gaze glued to the ground. It seems soft.

She sinks to her knees in the grass. It's very green, and it seems to be so alive and healthy, she's jealous. Small flowers with white cotton tops sway peacefully in the wind, seemingly unbothered by the heat. The fabric of the pants feels rough against her knees, and her eyelids are heavy. She should keep going. She should keep going. Her eyelids flicker just before her body falls to the ground and a darkness is closed around her like a black fog. She should've kept going.