058. About life, 4

(Zeslinry)

My foot stepped over an animal I didn't notice, making it explode under my weight.

I felt nauseous and guilty. But then I couldn't identify what that thing had been.

It was a lump of flesh and fluids crawling around without legs apparently.

It's not a slug. It's just... something else.

I clean my shoe with a stick, trying not to vomit. It stinks of elderly people and death.

I push further in constant worry, and half a daze. I broke my glasses somewhere along the way, but my memory is in a constant fog some days lately.

I nervously smoke on the last cigarette from the pack I found, trying to push away from myself some worse smell from sticking to me. I swear to myself I will never smoke again still, because I feel awful. If I survive this winter alone, I won't need to.

Although Spring is becoming noticeable clearly.

I wheeze, walking randomly inland, or nearly. Even in our day, I wasn't alone appreciating a good old printed map.

And since I mostly make do with what I find in the bags and pockets of the people who died recently, on the same roads that I take, I can find some clues to their previous ideas.

I sat on a boulder, munching on stale bread while looking at some of their maps I found.

And I noticed some interesting notes in one.

Someone now gone had marked some noteworthy places to try visiting. And they were heading toward the next one after scratching a few prior. It's still a good hike away.

I chugged some herbal water I took from another backpack along the way.

I'm feeling dirty... But I want to live, and I keep walking for a fairer place on that.

~

If I were to pass by a good farm now merely without owner, perhaps I could just settle in.

But I get a feeling it will never be that easy. I see the moulds spreading around where the sole of my shoe hits. It still carries spores. Awful things propagate and fast, beyond blight.

Still some people moved after surviving the first awful night. Now like me they're facing that. I don't know at all what's out there anymore, and that scares me.

I encountered a fox the next day, and it wasn't a fairy tale.

At first I thought it was a dog just startling me. Then I noticed its tail and recognised it was a fox, trotting around me without a worry. It stopped to look at me.

There I noticed its glazed pale eyes and its weird attitude that betrayed no fear toward me.

I realised it might be rabid, or sick any other way.

I stepped back and away. It followed.

I pulled out the gun I found before, still looking usable.

It blew out as I fired toward the ground. It scared me for my life and my hand. I screamed in panic.

Thankfully and luckily, my hand only got light burns and trauma. And the fox did run away from the explosive noise.

But I fell to my knees, shaking. It took me a while to recover my composure. I'm feeling sticky and dirty everywhere.

I'm tired...

But I must move forward. There is nothing to eat nor drink along this road. Just hopefully, in the next city there might be...

I want to find a nice farm.

Whatever weird things come around me, I feel like I must run for my life now, everything too hazardous, unknown and potentially so hostile.

The nights are terrifying and I prefer to stop early if I find a really good shelter. Usually a vehicle or a building that still holds itself well.

In the swamps around, otherworldly abominations are growing, taking odd shapes and colours.

It's not just mould, nor exactly trees. Nor anything I can identify clearly.

Just... Things alien looking are growing in massive volumes along the way.

I glare at these shapes in a partial daze, out of curiosity and bewilderment.

The shapes are shifting, slightly flowing around, and changing colours.

I don't have a clue what I'm even looking at. Alien flora is how I would describe it.

Growing in bulbs and swamps. I stay away from these monstrosities before a tentacle would be to grab my ankle and dragging me inside.

And I'll miss that chance if they're edible, but I just cannot try it and gamble my life that way.

I'm growing hungry, finding nothing but weird stuff to eat along my way.

I fall to the level where I cut the big mushrooms that grow inside cars on occasions. I boil them as long as can, trying to insure I destroy as much noxious compounds they can have.

I have just a bite.

I then wait, breathing heavily from stress more than a reaction. I'm starving but hold myself back, because I don't know what I'm eating...

I'm sobbing a little, but I eat more.

Night falls and I try to sleep, hiding under my rags inside the next car.

What if I'm the last one alive, I worried for a while...

There won't be much grander purpose left, but there never really were any to begin with.

I'll try to survive in what my environment, social or wild, gives me.

And I'll try to live as safely and happily as I can balance for the rest of my life.

The night is scary.

Every rattling and unidentified noise is a source of concern. But I do wake up safe and alive the next day.

My ganglions aren't as swollen as the previous day even I notice. Maybe I'm even getting a little better.

As I harvest more of these mushrooms to cook them on this finer morning, I begin to think about it.

Maybe I'm gradually getting better and wiser about it; surviving in this wilderness.

So maybe my dream of a farm isn't impossible onward. I mean, something weird happened out here, but it doesn't mean we can't work around it.

I just hope it's not as insidious as radioactivity, but so far it looked different. And there is only so much I will ever know or be able to act against either way...

I hope I don't die from a thyroid cancer next year, but I won't be able to tell nor do anything about it right away.

All I can do now is boiling everything I eat and drink beforehand, and staying away from the weirdest novelties that seem to spread in growing diversity.

My eyes feel alright now. It's odd. Everything is full of complexity and I feel unsteady along my way. But I push further to that next hopeful dot on the map I keep in hand.

Someone else thought it was a place worth checking, and I'll take this memory along with me.

A glint of hope at the end of this long road.

~