Empty veins

Chapter 2

They didn't have anywhere to call home. She supposed that had she still been alive that fact would have greatly troubled her, but she just couldn't bring herself to care. After all, the social stigma and the issues of being homeless are only for the alive to suffer and they had clearly drawn a line between them.

All she had, all the others had was what was once home to many of them. Destroyed. Decaying. Each building covered in its own battle scars. The glass of every window shattered. The stench of rotting carpets and stale bodies, old iron and new iron – both enough to make any alive person's eyes water. It didn't affect her.

The city was all they had. And even then, it could do nothing for them. There was no reason for them to need it. As they had no need to sleep, or anything else for that matter, except sleep – the city could provide them with nothing.

Even still, they always, always gravitated back. It didn't matter when or why, they always ended back there as if they were attached by a string and would only bounce back if they went too far.

She guessed that the need to belong lasted longer than their 'human lives' did.

So, there she was again, leaving the city, her city – the forsaken citadel – her legs hardly working as the cold began to work its deadly tricks upon her. She stumbled, limping over the broken shards littering the potholed ground. Every step was an effort, but she kept on walking anyways.

Besides her, stumbling like fawns, others walked with her. Gurgles and groans were passed along the line, a general greeting. None of them were looking good, all were greying – the cold setting into all of them. Hunger. It hurt.

There was hardly any light in the morning dark, not that it mattered. But the paved streets were barely illuminated, a dull glow dancing through the broken shop window advertising dolls. Inside, they were all cracked with their tiny china eyes unseeing to the world around them. They didn't have to see the ripped teddy abandoned, soaked in a deep red hue, or the bloody baby buggy - but she did.

A groan beside her, low toned and almost unheard. The girl beside her tried to curve her mouth into a smile, failed, tried again, failed again and gave up.

She gargled back, brushing slightly into the girl, trying to ignore the wrinkled texture of the rotting skin. At least it was only slightly grey, like she'd been turned to stone.

"The cold is coming for you."

"And you too."

"Don't remind me."

"Maybe it would be nice."

"Don't say that."

"Well, it's not like I have much left to stay for."

Their conversation carried on like that. A gargle. A moan. It was all they could do, but still, it wasn't good enough – for any of them.

Out through the city gates they walked, on and on, passing the 1st, the 2nd and 3rd graveyard without a look back. They had been 'emptied' a long time back.

She didn't know what she looked like, or if she still held anything of what she used to be. Maybe she did? Maybe she didn't. it didn't matter either ways. The cold was setting in and she couldn't even remember her name. All she knew was that she had to eat, to burn away the ice filling her cold veins.

....

He woke early that morning, along with the rest of his team. They had to be out. To fight, to hide, to evacuate. To do their jobs, to save.

It all seemed rather pointless to him, anyway. It wasn't like what they were doing would save them. Him, and the rest of the recruit army were only weeks at most to all the lives they saved. After all, it was only 102 days till the bombs fell.