FLARE

Her feet hurt.

She didn’t usually walk this long or far. At least the road was still in reasonably good condition.

When she’d woken up, it had been cloudy, but now it was sunny, and the city around her was slowly heating up.

She held her phone up, compulsively checking it for the third time in two minutes. Nothing.

She didn’t have a connection, so it was kind of stupid to check, but it was her only possible source of help or comfort. Everything was so much harder when you were alone.

All around was nothing, empty streets and ruined foundations, horizon broken only by the skyscraper in the distance.

She’d hardly made any progress. It would take her this day and the next to get there.

She hated walking.

Was there a signal tower nearby?

Was anything nearby?

The asphalt was hot from the sun, radiating up to her. She’d need water eventually. Food too.

Anything worthwhile in these ruins had long since been destroyed.

Gaunt said they were in a forest. Hopefully it was cooler there.

She’s always loved her time in the forest with her family.

She checked her phone.

She didn’t want to keep looking up and seeing how far she had to go, so she kept her gaze lowered to the streets around her.

She blinked as her eyes landed on… pills, scattered in the street. The kind with those capsules you could pull apart. A nondescript sort of yellow.

How did these get here?

The capsules should have dissolved with the first rainfall, meaning they’re fresh. The bottle could have been knocked over, or damaged, in which case it would be nearby.

…Or not. She didn’t see it anywhere.

Which makes it more likely that someone placed them here, or spilled them, and took the bottle with them.

But if they did, they left no trace, and she had no way to find them.

“Guess I’ll never know,” she muttered.

She originally intended to leave them, but paused and decided to grab the pills and stick them in her pocket. She may not know what they are, but someone else might.

She’d send a picture in the chat once she reached the next tower.

She kept walking.

God, this was boring.

She was alone, in a strange location, with no memory of how she got there. That was really scary.

But she was really bored at the same time.

She heard a growl, and her head snapped up.

A stray dog.

It looked like it hadn’t eaten in a while.

Could she scare it off, or would it be better for her to retreat?

She held eye contact with it for a moment, and the growling increased in volume. Crouching, she reached down without taking her eyes off it, grabbing a loose chunk of asphalt.

“Hey! Go away! Get outta here!” She sprung up, waving her arms in the air. “If you attack, I will throw this at you!” She gestured with the chunk. “I’m not messing around! Rah!”

The dog flinched back momentarily, before tucking its ears back and charging, growl opening up into a snarl.

She inhaled, wound up, and flung the asphalt at its head.

It hit the dog on its shoulder, leaving a bleeding cut. The dog stopped, yelping, and nosed at its shoulder for a moment.

She held her breath. Please go away…

It turned back to her, murder in its eyes.

“Shit.”

She scrabbled at the ground for another stone.

Again. A smaller one this time. Instead of the overhead throw she’d done before, she whipped the stone at it in a more sideways motion.

This one hit it between the eyes. Another yelp. Probably less damage, but still painful. No visible injury this time.

“Yeah, there’s more where that came from.”

The dog hesitated, considering for a moment.

She reached down for another stone, and it ran.

Once it was out of sight, she beelined away from it at a brisk walk. Not a run. Never flee from a wild animal unless you can quickly get somewhere they can’t reach.

She glanced back several times at the alley it had come from, until it was too small for her to see in the distance.

Then she stopped, sitting down in the street.

She checked her phone. No signal.

She could really use someone to talk to.

She could have died there.

She could still die here.

Tears pricked at her eyes.

She took a deep breath, trying to calm down.

It didn’t really work, so she tried again.

And again.

She stood up, rubbing her eyes. She could cry on the walk.

She had to go meet up with Gaunt, and she really wasn’t safer here than anywhere else.

She took her first few steps, sniffling.

There was food and water here. Some sort of food, anyway. Not much, but enough that that dog was still alive.

So she wouldn’t die of thirst, at least.

Contaminated water was still a risk, but there wasn’t anything she could do about that now.

Tears were running down her cheeks, now. She wiped at them, blinking to try and keep her vision clear.

In, and out.

She’d keep going until she found somewhere safe to rest.

Nothing much changed, aside from the skyscraper growing larger in her vision and the pain in her feet slowly increasing. More ruins. More empty streets. Thankfully, no more dogs.

At one point, she found a piece of copper wire and picked it up. She fiddled with it as she walked, bending and coiling it into interesting shapes before straightening it again.

Her tears had dried, leaving a faint sticky feeling on her face. She wasn’t exactly calm. More like she’d grown tired of crying. The rest of her skin was a little tacky as well, from sweat.

This place was turning into an oven.

She’d need water soon.

Still no service.

Hopefully Gaunt was okay.

And hopefully Lyre didn’t mean them harm.

She was pretty sure they did what they wanted and there wasn’t really any way to stop them.

She’d check in on Spike next time, see if they were okay. They seemed freaked out, with good reason.

And if they weren’t, then maybe it would be time to worry.

On her next step, her foot landed on the edge of a large hole, and as she put her weight on it, she slipped in.

“Ah!”

There was a tangled mess of rebar and crumbling concrete at the bottom, and her feet lodged inside of it as she grabbed onto the lip of the crater. It was about four feet deep, with a footlong radius. It looked like something had struck the road hard enough to pulverize it, and damaged the foundations below.

Dammit, she really should have been paying more attention. Not a big deal, though, she could just haul herself out.

She braced her arms on the side of the crater, pushing down as she tried to swing a leg up.

Her left foot was stuck. She tried to disentangle it, kicking, but only succeeded in scraping her ankle against the concrete.

“Fuck.”

This was so dumb.

“Fuck!”

Would she just be stuck here until someone dragged her out?

No. Absolutely not. She would get out of this stupid hole, and she’d do it herself somehow.

She needed a lever to loosen the metal around her foot.

Was there a loose piece of rebar or something she could use?

There, sticking out by her hip, a piece of broken pipe. Bent in a J shape, broken off and jagged at both ends.

She grabbed it, but didn’t use it right away. Instead, she ground down the edges on the asphalt surface of the road, wearing it dull.

It should give her enough reach and leverage to dig herself out.

She leaned down, awkwardly, and snagged a couple pieces under the curve of the pipe. Pulling, she was rewarded as it was slowly freed, and then she could bring it up to her other hand and toss it out of the hole.

This was going to take a while.

After some work, only the secured pieces around her foot remained. Even these felt a little looser. The pipe was covered in dents and scratches, and bits of rubble surrounded the hole around it.

She leaned down, one last time, and hooked the pipe around the rebar.

“Ghhhhhhh….” Shoving the end to the side using her full body weight, she felt it lifting as the metal bent agonizingly slowly. The pipe was also bending, unfortunately much quicker.

Hopefully it would last long enough.

“Ugh! Come on, please…” There was a scraping sound at her feet. Part of the pipe hit her foot, weight slowly increasing as the angle changed.

She paused to readjust, then kept working. The bend in the pipe was becoming more and more pronounced.

After just a few more seconds, it was too bent to be of use, but the rebar had loosened enough that she could move her foot around.

Setting the pipe aside, she gripped the side of the hole, and pushed herself up. Her foot snagged, and she gently kicked around until she was able to squeeze it through the opening.

She hauled herself out, brushed away some of the rubble, and flopped onto the ground.

How much farther did she have to go?

Oh.

She was actually pretty close! Maybe a kilometer away?

She stood, a renewed vigor in her step.

The sun was just beginning to set once she found herself standing next to it. It was a lot of stone and broken windows. Looked like an old apartment building.

She peeked into the entrance.

Dark. Quiet. Empty. Smelled like dust.

It would probably be okay to stay the night if she covered up the doors. She could maybe pry up some of the carpet for that, and use the wires, screws, and other shiny metal bits she’d been collecting.

The elevators were obviously nonfunctional. There was a door to the staircase leading up. She’d barricade that with the furniture scattered about.

She walked to the concierge desk.

She rifled through the drawers and cupboards- the ones that were unlocked.

Someone had left their water bottle. She shook it and it sloshed.

Unscrewing the lid, she sniffed, then took a small sip.

Stale, but clean. Two-thirds full. Nice.

Nothing else super interesting. A couple pens. She grabbed those. Papers. She stuffed a few into her pants in case she needed to draw or write notes.

She checked her phone.

“Yes!”

She started walking over to an armchair, already typing out her next messages.