The sun was like a razor-wire, thin and sharp, the smallest pinprick of artificial light. I stood below its gaze, burning below its branded face, with my hooked javelin in one hand and a forgotten brandy in the other. I could see the living march, thousands and thousands of acres away, with their pale faces and stumbling gaits, as if drunk or dead already. And perhaps it was a mercy that their helmets covered their eyes; I had no wish to see their expressions. Soon I might join them, and that single thought was enough to drown myself in the brandy and lurch to my feet. Death was coming. It made my heart ram against my ribs, like a sword sawing at weak, defiled plastic, and made my teeth chatter as if they were anything more than pieces of bone attached to strings of flesh. Strange, that my body still reacted to fear. It was the only thing I knew anymore. In a world full of death, it was the only way to recognize that I was still alive.