Morning yawned across the horizon, cold light spilling onto ridges of rubble, ricocheting off edges of broken glass. The sun’s rays stretched, blinking alertness to the terrain, accentuating the soft pitter-pat of footsteps falling lightly in the cool air. Her breath hung before her crimson lips with each exhale, little clouds frozen midair. She smiled, happy that she’d beaten nature in her morning tasks, soaking in the first glimpse of day. Sweat clung to the nape of her neck, her blood throbbed to her fingertips as the balls of her feet touched briefly upon naked concrete. Her legs coiled, sprung off the smallest of holds, her entirety urging for the freedom of momentary flight.
Suspension, a second spent detached from gravity, air wrapping warmly around flesh. Her skin ignited, adrenaline being pumped to its every pore. Her eyes sought quickly for a landing, aiming for the ledge just beyond her toes. Land, roll, crouch, bits of gravel sticking in her shoulder, her long black braid swirling around her frame, ending its momentum with a thud against her ribcage. Again a smile broke across her lips, her hands deftly removing shards from her fresh scratches. The routine would perhaps always be the same, yet the never-ending surprises of the ruins kept her skill to a honed edge. She hadn’t forgotten the training she had once been given, the building blocks for her present survival. Never would life be without a challenge, if one looked hard enough for details to improve.
She settled down to greet the sun, her legs folding easily into the form of the lotus. She placed her hands upon her knees, palms up, to welcome the wind into her soul. Her breath became measured, deep, cascading down the contours of her figure, taking in the richest taste of solitude; meditation.
Solitude was not always a feeling she had been prone to. There was a family once, once friends that surrounded her with laughter, and a man whose heart felt as though it were carved from the same ethereal stone as hers. What once was now felt like a dream, a mysterious song that played in the backdrop of her mind, entrancing her when a winter night felt stale and empty, and a fire could not be risked. She considered the past to be her lullaby, a sweet nothing to remind her of imagination.
For to truly consider the past as a beautiful reality, would allow her heart to remember the ending of its sweet story. With their memory came the memory of the wars, the bickering, the separation and fear, the plagues, and finally the distorted, lurching figures looming in doorways shrouded by screams. Her prior world ended with the death of her conception of love, when she came to understand that it was only she who contained the strength to survive.
She watched her fellow humans rip each other to shreds, tear apart relationships and burn any fathoming of trust. She understood it was fear that drove those she loved to each others throats, but it didn’t make the chaos any easier to see. She fought the battles, helped to stave off infection as long as possible, and watched attempts to unite the populace as one wither with each new wave of the plague. The city crumbled to piles of rubble, torn apart by the hands that built it, leaving only one to remain. The land was in all rights now her personal playground, a freed version of its former self.
She finished her meditations, stretching her limbs as she rose to her full height, her eyes blinked open quickly, automatically scanning the shadows for the skitter of small game. The breeze caught the loose strands of hair around her jawline, mimicking caress. The scenery spanned for miles, nature retaking the jumbled, organic mass wrought by sickness, she loved the deep green vines and soft moss that seeped through every crack. It was her city now. Only hers. She pulled her spine taller, narrowed her eyes to the south, sweetly daring the death to return a try to take its forgotten survivor.