317. Ruins of the strong, 6

(Rose)

I went across a crevice using an impromptu suspended bridge made of old cables intertwined.

These electric cables are everywhere around once you begin looking for them, like cob web.

And even more than that now, since spiders are very rare nowadays. These cables aren't.

In the area I'm investigating, I think I have more chances to find an underground stream of water, because there must have been one to feed the numerous squares fountains I've seen along the way.

It's just a hunch. Even my eyes can't really guess where water springs could be. But I suspect there were some specific hydraulics and plumbing works around here. With some luck, something still flows around.

I look for spots where the vegetation would have grown differently over the ruins and inside the crevices.

And for the rifts that became canals linked to the sea, I look for the one that would have a slightly different flow. Something that would hint that there is an affluent feeding it somewhere upstream.

I enter a wide set of decorated buildings that are tilting by a few degrees.

Once a palace. Then a museum. Now, half a museum, and half a warehouse, both long abandoned.

Empty shelves are lined up in the wide rooms.

Many scaffoldings too coexist with mostly empty shelves a little further.

It's like an empty but impromptu library, built with haste and forgotten even faster.

At the end of the main gallery, down the tilted corridor, a missing wall, collapsed, opens to another of these ruptured canals, like titanic cuts deep in the ground, where pieces of lands suddenly moved.

On the floor above me open to the air, I can see from below more paintings now aging in very poor conditions of storage. They've turned into shreds of darken cloth now, with rotting frames of woods. I climb the stairs next to there and visit the aging museum further.

The paintings on wooden panels hold slightly better. I can guess holy shapes lost in brown by the gildings of halos.

That's old... I notice some rust stains over some gold gildings. I thought gold couldn't rust...

Probably it wasn't quite gold. There's also a slight chance that gold now can rust; or at least in this place specifically.

I grab a fallen fragment of carved wood with rusting gold. Better than nothing for our contest for now.

But I'm sure I'll find even better things.

~

I eat a dinner alone again. It's a little refreshing. Though I also miss her.

I eat slowly dry biscuits from another age. The taste may be gone, long gone, but it's still nice.

Inside the top office of what was probably a bank, I find more treasures.

Archaeological treasures. Sculpted eggs of stones, showing incredible craftsmanship. But nothing useful for us or to me.

There are a few ottoman swords on a wall. I try them. They're pretty and nice in hand, but their steel is oddly malleable and soft. I can almost ben the blades with my bare hands and they dent far too easily.

If we had some tools to work metals, I could make use of them in different forms, but not as they are.

I break the handles apart and keep the blades for now in my bag.

Despite the close presence of the sea, this place is eerie quiet.

Well, onto the next couples of buildings we go!

~

Empty shops on streets levels and empty offices over them. Empty restaurants. Not much was left behind on the last day. Not that many vehicles left in the streets either I realise.

From all we've seen and learned, this city fairly seems to fall into the category that were already abandoned and deserted when the white day occurred.

There's no shade of death or plague lingering over the city, because the end of history didn't bring a significant bloodbath around here.

Toxic or repulsive clouds, visible or not, are a fair hint that cities were inhabited when the brutal end occurred. For reasons science has yet found a chance to explain, while bodies disappear much faster than in prior times, something else ghastly will remain instead. Not exactly making the cities haunted in the way I would understand it, but there's something twisted that often grew from there. I guess the same way a cadaver can pollute a river with toxins for a while, places where inhabitants were in the thousands or more, something else was easily created against the other side. Something generally nefarious.

Anyway, cities without these kind of malicious miasma lingering to this day, there's a fair chance they were already inhabited and abandoned for some time already. That's all I can say as a trend for what I've observed.

Who knows why and when such a resplendent city such as this was deserted. I probably never will know. I can't even ascertain what its name was for sure.

Anyway! Let's resume our ventures.

I move gradually from a city block to the next as the days go by, finding nothing really worthwhile.

The only thing remotely peculiar I end up stumbling upon is a foam tree, with balls of foam instead of leaves. It grew over what I believe was a scrapyard and a mountain of abandoned mattresses, near the entrance of a badly damaged hotel.

I kept a fallen leaf, a small ball. As a new life form, it's not bad. This foam tree looks like a giant coral. It smells like Styrofoam. I won't try eating that.

I find a crater the size of a square, with a small pond filling it. Inside is probably another artificial satellite fallen down. I'm curious and the water is actually quite clear, so I undress and go for a dive to check it out. Just in case.

It's fresh water, that's already quite a nice find. I swim to the middle and then dive a few metres downward, holding my breath and my torchlight lamp in hand.

I don't find anything. It's just still dirt and water, mixed with some algae growing now.

Maybe it was an explosion and not a meteor. I'll still claim this pond as a resource of water, whatever its source may be. Maybe just rain water?

~

I go through more beautiful houses, partially collapsed at various degrees. They are mostly empty.

It's getting a little sad at this point.

A few days left before we meet up with Bleue and conclude the competition.

I do see a few birds, but can't catch them. I saw Ana a few times checking on me from an altitude and I waved at her, but that was all she did. She reported to Bleue that I was okay afterward I presume.

I find a police station I think. As empty as everything else. I give up on that and begin to head back. I'll get there one day before the scheduled meet up, but it's alright. I can't always win.

Next time I will.

As I'm heading over there, I recognise this familiar silhouette in the sky. Though today, Ana comes to me.

I brace myself for her landing on my shoulders. She lands in front of me instead. I'm surprised she's able to do that now; as I know how much difficult it is for her to keep her talons so widely stretched open.

Ana looks at me, with open beak.

A - Bleue! Bleue!

I shiver. Ana lifts off already. I begin to run after her.

I can't really tell if I'm more worried that something happened to Bleue, or shocked from hearing Ana clearly speaking her name.

~