064. Revolution, 6

(Zeslinry)

Myls was even smaller than she was when we met, back when she had to flee. By a few millimetres probably.

When she was leaving that escape train in fires and billowing smokes behind. The ideas pained me.

She had seen how this odd deadly plague was dissolving everything and everyone. And now she was alone, as far away from a burning house and falling town as this odd train had been able to roll.

She could see green clouds rolling closer from the north behind. For her it felt like the veil or tsunami she had to flee from was approaching.

As terrified as she was by the unknown world ahead of her, this looming threat was greater.

Feeling as if everything of her body was torn between giving up on her or fighting to the bitter end, she walked away from there across the fields starting there.

She held together her nerves and pushed her feet to walk briskly toward the next road after, and from there...

From there into the terrifying and lonely unknown.

~

Myls had jolts when she encountered more dying people.

A couple she met in hiding by the next farm building were as lost as she was. They tried to help each other for a while.

It lasted a few hours at least. Until the woman vomited blood and flesh, spooking her to death.

From the nearby towns that were now ablaze or abandoned, survivors had been scattering in every direction.

Making some of them fleeing the same fear now bump into each other.

All of them terrified, not all of them smart or still masters of themselves.

The few people Myls had then joined along, they improvised their way southward.

And somewhere further along the empty roads, they met another group just as traumatized in the middle of nowhere.

They were all hungry and scared. They came from the other way with the same questions, fears, and anger.

Myls noticed the heat rising and fled discreetly before the first hits were even thrown.

As she crawled through a ditch to get out of everyone's sight, she heard a gunshot. Then more yells.

She tried to disappear, shutting her eyes and covering her ears. Her stomach was in knots.

Thankfully she was in a small trench, and found a fissure in the ground where to hide like a cornered animal. She pushed herself inside.

When her mind left her, she was still inside that hollow in the ground. She had cowered like a field critter and thankfully survived.

When she woke up from her exhaustion, she could barely breathe, her muscles aching from how she had spent nervously immobile this evening and night.

She silently, cautiously returned to the dreadful meeting point, a stone throw beside.

Stains. Melting fleshes and clothes, as if dragged by the roadsides. Pieces of them had crawled away for a metre or so.

Myls was feeling weird, albeit glad to still be alive.

Other people were again approaching by the side. Most likely other survivors from elsewhere, calling out to her as their first encounter...

But right then Myls was terrified. She ran away from them before she could think about it.

And she ran even faster as they pursued her. She couldn't bother listening to their reasons or consider whether they were rightful.

For now all she could see were danger, and young Myls ran for life until she found herself alone again, and lost regardless.

But she braced herself with more resolve than tears to waste.

~

Myls saved her energy, made the choices to drop some of the clothes she had carried along so far, but were not practical enough. She probably had been wearing fancy clothing, and decided to scrap it herself.

She changed rapidly her behaviour as she coursed the land.

Avoiding the places where the plague was heavy, and the people who might not be friendly.

She lost weight rapidly because she grew hungry.

But after a few weeks of eating nothing but mushrooms weirdly growing inside cars, she lost all semblance of spoiled behaviour.

When she found sealed food still edible in a container or trunk, it was more than relief. No it was a feast.

She also quickly learnt to clean her water one way or another before drinking it, after suffering painful times of diarrhoea.

Though after a while, she tried to do both. She tried instinctively to mythridatize herself to the effects of the reasonably clean waters microbiomes.

It didn't provide obvious results, but she pushed this aim only while feeling reasonably healthy, trying to build some resilience gradually.

Myls kept going rather aimlessly southward, away from the cloud of death she didn't see anymore. The chances of meeting other people were dwindling to unlikely.

She kept to herself cautiously in the rarest ensuing occasions.

Unlike me, she didn't really depress over feeling lonely. She was too focused on surviving to even think or feel about it.

And she made her way further, avoiding miasmas and filling her pockets and bags gradually with more purposeful clothing and tools. All the fancy clothing of her childhood had been replaced by warmer and sturdier denim. Dull pocket knives were gradually replaced by real kitchenware.

And eventually, in a small abandoned garrison building, she found her fascinating treasure.

A pistol. One not too big, which she could handle herself.

She knew full well what such weapons were. She had enough chances to hear, see and witness for herself the action and purpose of it.

She also knew she was still a child without the weight nor ability to fight with a knife. This however, was the tool of power and strengthened independence that would suit her. Myls recalled how she unlocked the safety for the very first time. How she loaded it and checked the chamber. Every sensation was written in her.

She spent her first nights with campfire reading over and over the cleaning manual that came in the handgun case.

Myls read it until she knew it by heart. She carved this knowledge she knew would be crucial to her survival, for when a really bad day would come.

She kept the handgun, the grease, the bullets, and discarded the box and even the manual. Myls used its paper to light another fire once she felt confident about losing it.

She was very afraid of training with it because of the noise it would make. At first she was.

Meanwhile, she kept it in hands like her newfound child's comforter, getting accustomed to its weight in hands and slightly greasy smells.

She noticed how the chamber's lubricant could pick up and hold some fainter smells sometimes.

Myls began to realize she also had been counting on her good nose instinctively. Now she could consciously utilize her sense of smell, with more awareness of its subtleties.

What she didn't come to realize immediately was how much she was in the meantime losing her childhood memories.

I think her brain couldn't process everything, and made these choices as a matter of efficiency.

As if time was stretching oddly in front and behind this child, all she had left behind was fading rapidly.

~