Hollow

Mutations

I move fast across the dirt, my feet barely touching down as I fly. My blood starts to throb against my body, reminding me to slow down.

The land before my eyes is barren and scarred. The earth beneath me is just mounds of ash and grit. I force myself to tread slowly upon it, not wanting to pass out and lose more time.

An abrupt rustling shatters the fragile mirror of silence that encompassed me. I bring myself to a painful stop, urging my ears to ensure that what they heard was real.

The sound is confirmed as belonging to reality when it continues to go on at inconsistent intervals. I close my eyes, my ears consequently getting sharper. The inner workings of my mind hone in on the origin of the sound.

The rustling suddenly ceases, silence wasting no time in flowing back in and enveloping me.

Before I even know why, my hand thrusts out, slamming into a thick body. Time passes, allowing my brain to catch up to my reflexes.

A girl lays unconscious on the ground next to me. The purpling bruise on her head tells me I had knocked her out.

I start rushing towards her, wondering if this was the girl I had followed to the dead end. My feet suddenly skid to a stop without permission, my subconscious having already realized something ahead of me.

I lean over, attempting to figure out what made me hesitate.

Oh

The girl's skin is a dusty grey with hints of a green pallor. A closer inspection reveals that she is not breathing, though her eyelids continue to flutter and her limbs continue to twitch.

Whatever she is, she is no longer human. The Earth has turned her into nothing more than a mistake, an anomaly. I should leave: it is unknown whether or not her mutation is contagious.

As I turn my back, a moan drags itself from the thing's mouth. It has pulled itself to its feet when I turn around.

It lifts a mottled hand and points at me: mouth moving up and down as if trying to communicate the horrors it has endured. Long incapable of speech, the thing chokes and stares at me.

It's eyes show not a spark of intelligence: just the echo of things long forgotten. Before it remembers it should be attacking me again, I step in and disable it with as little contact as possible.

The thing is on the floor once again; this time never again to get up. I whisper short words of passing, for the girl the thing had once been.

I quickly scan the surrounding area, finding that there are no other mutations lurking in the shadows.

Whatever had happened on this Earth, that girl must have somehow survived: but not without great consequence. How long has she been here, buried under a layer of ash? Perhaps since the beginning of this great deathly silence.

Her existence is a clue to figuring out what had happened: though unfortunate, ultimately useful. I turn around and walk away, banishing the plaguing questions that threaten to eat me up.

After some distance is between me and the girl, I throw a look over my shoulder.
She is gone.
As if the Earth has swallowed her.