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Silence is a luxury Malka can finally afford, and yet it screams in her ear every moment of every day. She may not feel the constant breathing of millions of people like she did in the city or feel the way the air moves when creatures impose on it. In fact, the simple conversion of carbon dioxide to oxygen can lull her to sleep most nights, and then the animals around her taking that oxygen and making it carbon dioxide again just complete the cycle. It is natural.
She is anything but.
How long has it been since that fateful day? Malka can lie and say she doesn't know how many hours have passed since ash covered her fingers and her heart ripped in two. She can lie and say she hasn't spent every day cursing Thanos and his snap for all the pain he brought. But the days still blur and the minutes pass in a blink. Her mind still knows. It always does.
These days, it is an endless cycle of waking up alone, walking through the trees in the rainforest to help watch them grow, plant a few more to repopulate the area, and return. Somedays, curious critters gather around her small cave to watch. She ends up giving over most of her food, so they come back the next day and the next. The only bit of interaction she really has, other than to remind other groups in the forest not to disturb her. She doesn't speak, necessarily—she warns them not to come any closer, not to bother her.
They usually come in groups. Maybe that's why she does not sense the single person approaching until he is practically at her doorstep. Within seconds, she grabs a rifle, loads it, and points at the entrance to her cave just as the man appears at the mouth.
"Leave," she states, the air around them growing toxic. The animals scatter away, further into the cave, but the man seems unaffected. "You heard me."
"Malka Laska?"
She shoots just past his ear. As he shouts and covers his face, she repeats, "Leave."
"Ok! Ok! I'll go." He turns around and shakes his head, muttering what she can only assume is a curse.
"You ever come back, and that shot goes through your chest." Malka keeps track of his breathing as he walks away, inching closer to the edge to watch him disappear through the trees. What surprises her is that he stops. And stays. In her forest.
She waits for nightfall before she begins her trek down into the foliage, the air thickening around her to quiet the cracking of branches up until she stands just above the sleeping form of a man. Upon a closer look, she realizes this is no simple man; his skin is blue fur, and his facial muscles always clenched, even in a deep sleep. No matter who he may be, this is her territory, and he is trespassing.
His breath shifts as her rifle presses against his temple. "I already gave you a warning, yet here you are," she says. "You are either desperate or idiotic. Which is it?"
