Steel Ethereal

Ch. 3 Awakening

Rob

My eyes creak open bringing with my crash back into consciousness a thudding headache. I thought the white void from the night before to have returned or that I was blind. I shift my eyes around and I realize that what coats my vision is the overcast sky. Waves and waves of still clouds leave no room for the sun to peek through.

It was a miracle that I was untouched by the raiders of the village. Perhaps being unconscious led them to believe me to be dead.

I groan and move my arms. I feel water disturb and swish against my body. I had fallen in a puddle the night before. I would be lucky not to get sick from being exposed to the weather.

I struggle to get on my two feet which feel like led and ache with raw soreness. My legs nearly buckled like I'd run the longest distance without rest.

My dreary senses are dogpiled by nausea that I can't hold back. I slip forward on wet grass next to the puddle I woke in and dry heave. There's nothing in my stomach.

I feel stretched thin and feebly grab at the grass as I heave breath. Dry heaving left me unable to breathe and I panic because I felt I'd suffocate. I'm kneeling there with a knob of drool dangling from my lips. Every few breaths, I feel as if my throat will close and the cycle will begin again.

The scent doesn't help.

Burning trash, flesh, and spent gunpowder. An acrid smell that somehow filled my nostrils despite being outdoors. The air hangs still with light humidity thickening it. There is no wind.

My stomach still turns side to side queasily. Every new sense I pick up exacerbates my conditions and threatens to bow me over.

Every sight as I carefully wander back up the street to my home. The dead bodies, raider and settler alike. Old, young, gunshot, dark marks on their necks telling me they were strangled, countless stab wounds, burnt to an unrecognizable crisp... It took every ounce of willpower to keep going and not succumb to dry heaving again.

I had to get home, I had to gather my bearings in a familiar setting.

It's probably what Gina would dote on me to do...

There's a dull thud in the arches of my feet like they were threatening to cramp. I feel an uncomfortable feeling in one of my thighs. I was sure I'd pulled one of my muscles trying to get away last night.

My brain isn't functioning properly. Everything feels like a tug and pull between survival instincts and blotting out every image, every smell to keep me sane. My grief and instinct wrestle and I don't know whether to cry or quicken my pace.

I get home without incident. Home is miraculously untouched. There's no blood, no sign of gunfire having to have peppered the wood and brick.

Our front door is intact but that means nothing. There could be a whole gang inside taking shelter, waiting for someone to foolishly stumble in.

One spare key hidden beneath a tacky, plastic lawn frog. I'm carefully prodding at the lock, careful not to make too much noise. Should I hear anything amiss, I'd run again, as fast as I could. Though where I'd run to, I don't know.

The door opens. Darkness quivers and retreats from the light brought to my now cold and depressed home. It's an empty husk where no one would live again.

There's a draft in the house. A window must have been shot out or broken into.

Against my better judgement, I walk slowly through the halls. I catch a whiff of stale smoke as I pass the study. Gina spent countless hours there in that worn brown leather chair, using up packs of hand rolled cigarettes into the night as she completes her makeshift reports.