Saviour

Through the crumbling remains of the once vibrant metropolis of New York, you walk alone.

Feet sore and legs aching, the pain is a reminder of how long you've been wandering. Your clothes clings unforgivingly to your sweat-drenched skin, every breath you rake in is a scrape of acrid air down your throat. The backpack strapped tightly around you weighs considerably less than it used to, and that's not half the relief it should be.

Passing a destroyed shop front, the sign of which reads a faded red 'DELI', you spy a stack of plastic crates. With the weight of exhaustion slowing you, you pause to sit down, unlatching the clasp of the backpack. It falls from your body with a thump; your shoulders thank you for the break.

It feels like summer now. The days are longer, nights warmer. You squint and look up; the encroaching sunset stretches hues of pink and orange over the derelict landscape, what little glass remains in the skyscrapers catches sharp rays of waning sunlight. Shrubs and wild foliage sprout amongst the broken concrete, the streets and buildings long since abandoned by civilisation for nature to reclaim, perfect habitats for the small animals that dart about the city scavenging for food. In that you are not so different. Structures that still stand do so with a dark and deathly quiet, their depths inhabited by undead nightmares that human reason was forced to comprehend when the world fell. Avoiding them isn't too cumbersome a task; keep to the open streets, travel in daylight, sleep lightly and only when the insomnia will allow (for you've come to learn that the brain protects the body, and if it's denying you sleep, it's for your own good).

With some time left before sundown proper, you take a moment. Fishing inside your backpack, you retrieve your trusted water bottle, holding it to your ear and giving it a shake; your heart sinks. Water and food now a scarce luxury, you've seen one too many times how strong a force it can be in driving men to madness. Friends against friends, brothers against sisters; sometimes it's hard to tell the creatures from the humans. You're glad to be able to say you've abstained from such barbaric means. Indeed, you'd sooner give up what little you possessed than resort to hurting another in the name of survival. Something of an odd take in this world, you suppose, but integrity ought to mean something still, to someone. Identity ought to be worth more, when there is so little to be owned by so few— even if it's likely to cost you something in this world karma has long since abandoned. You'll pay the price.

But there are those who are not so prepared to; those like him and his gang of brutes that run from camp to haven, city to town, destroying and killing as they go. You know all too well the ease with which they rob the vulnerable of whatever they may and murder the weak. You still recall the smell of the blood; the sickly tang of iron in the air that welcomed your return to camp from a scouting venture. The bodies and the destruction, unable to identify the corpses of your friends from those of the dead ones, for there was no end to the gore. Caches of weapons upturned and emptied, food and medicine stocks raided, tents trampled to ruin. Yet amongst the despair that threatened to end you—for how go on alone now? —there lingered a shred of hope: a tag of crimson graffiti, rivulets of the wet paint running from the great infinity symbol someone had left behind. It was a distinctive mark, one that inspired recollections of whispers about a gang that left such a bold sign in their wake: as much a deterrent to those that might challenge them as an indication of their victory. Rumour had it that the members of said gang sported the symbol on their skin, inked in permanence in what surely constituted some barbaric initiation rite. The leader, you'd heard, was the worst of them all: ruthless, bloodthirsty, a charismatic predator.

In the graveyard that was once your home, you vowed revenge by every oath you knew how to make. You would end him, his gang, his spree of violence and terror if it was the last thing you ever did; and part of you was counting on that.