This was why Ocean was sometimes tempted to return to the stained sidewalks and allow the world around her to dissolve into shifting patterns of fancy. It would be so much easier not to think about the little knot in her stomach that somehow felt hollow and painful all at the same time, the hunger that was her constant companion.
It had been an entirely different world back then. While not exactly abundant, it’d still been possible to pry dented cans of food from the piles of brick and broken glass like a prospector working a seam. The contents of the cans were usually congealed with a thick, jelly-like substance that coated the roof of her mouth with a musty grit and slid down her throat as easily as snot. But it had been nourishment, and there had been enough to keep them strong, to ensure that they could fight or run or climb rusty towers and then work their way along a route of half-fallen poles and crumbling rooftops back to safety.
Now, those memories seemed like remnants of a dream she may once have had. The smooth flesh of pre-pubescence had been replaced by skin as dry and cracked as drought-baked earth and her once silky hair hung in scattered clumps, so thin that her scalp showed through like a mirage. Even when she was able to find food, swallowing wracked her throat with sharp, needle-like pains that made it seem she were being punished for her continued survival. Everything hurt, in fact. The slightest movement caused her joints to feel as if they were grinding against each other and her muscles ached like she’d been beaten with a stick. Sometimes the world seemed to grow hazy, as though a dense fog had descended over the ruins of the city, and her eyes would throb with agony as she tried to peer through the misty haze.
Even now, the simple act of lying on her back caused her spine to feel like the concrete had somehow managed to strip away the layers of tissue beneath her filthy smock. Small pebbles were like knives plunged between vertebrae and the sun overhead jabbed her eyes with cruel claws. She had to remain as motionless as the chunks of concrete surrounding her, no matter how bad the torture became.
Her jaw hung open and the air just above her was thick with the buzzing of flies. They darted about erratically, swooping and swerving and changing directions without rhyme or reason. Only her green eyes tracked their movements, watching this troupe of aerial dancers with what she hoped to be the most minimal of movements.
Within seconds, Ocean felt one crawling across her upper lip. It’s tiny legs tickled and her arms tensed as she fought the urge to reach up and flick it away. Even that undercurrent of movement caused the insect to take to the air however, and it rejoined the dark cloud that swarmed around her head. Inside, she felt like crying as frustration squeezed her in its vise-like grip, but as her mother had so often reminded her, tears were nothing more than a waste of water. Instead, she took a breath though her nose so slowly that her chest didn’t seem to rise at all.
Gotta stay calm…
Soon, the fly—or one just like it—returned. It crept across her face, the movement feeling like the tip of a feather faintly brushing against her cheek, making the corners of her mouth want to twitch. This time Ocean was able to subdue her instincts; she remained perfectly still and allowed the small creature to explore her face with its hairy appendages.
Just a little further…
The tickling sensation moved from her lips and become muted as the insect crawled across her tongue. Ocean snapped her jaw shut and the fly responded with panic. It buzzed through the inside of her mouth, ricocheting off the soft lining of her cheeks and brushing the ridges just behind her teeth with its wings. She swallowed hard, ignoring the little vibration in the back of her throat as the struggling insect was carried down into her gullet. Then all the little movements disappeared and Ocean opened her mouth again, resetting the trap for the next unsuspecting victim.
Seven flies later, Ocean began to smell them: that putrid reek that seemed to seep through the molecules of the air like a spreading cancer. The stench blossomed slowly; at first it was only enough to make wrinkle her nose as if her nostrils were trying to close up with an instinctive reaction. Shortly after, she realized that she had begun breathing exclusively through her mouth in an effort to further shield herself from the invading odor. Experience had taught her that before long the smell would be so thick and rancid that it would flood her mouth with its greasy, thick pungency. The stink would taint what little saliva still moistened her throat and would rise like waves of putrid gas, leeching into her sinus passages as if the smell were actually emanating from somewhere deep within her own body.
And by then it would be too late. There would be nowhere left to run and the suffocating smell would wrap around her like a moldy funeral shroud.
It was definitely time to move on.
She sat up slowly, dispersing the nebula of flies into a scattered throng of dark specks. Peering above the slab of concrete closest to her, she saw a street with clumps of grass sprouting through the cracks in the pavement. Shards of wood and chunks of brick littered the ground amid glass that sparkled in the sun where a telephone pole had snapped in half and crushed the remains of a car that had been skeletonized by fire so long ago that no trace of ash remained. There was no sign of movement out there in the wastelands… not yet.
Ocean scrambled to her feet and, for a second, the world around her swooned. She closed her eyes, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet as her hand clutched the jagged edge of the concrete. This had been happening more and more often lately. When she moved, it would sometimes seem as if it took reality a few seconds to catch up with her and during that time, she seemed to float and drift like her soul had become untethered from her body.
In addition to this, she had come to suspect that she wasn’t alone in her own head. Sometimes it felt as though there were someone else in there, someone who looked out through her eyes and saw the world as if from a great distance. She suspected that this other presence was what caused the lag in her perception of time. In those few brief seconds, she felt her experiences overlapping with those of the intruder’s and all the sensations of life were filtering through two observations.
Of course in the same light, Ocean also suspected sometimes that she wasn’t real, that she was nothing more than the leading character in someone’s dream. If she only managed to stay alive long enough, the dreamer would eventually awaken and free her from the torment of life. It wouldn’t be like dying. She would simply wink out of existence with no pain or regrets or remorse.
Until that happened, however, she had to keep her ass alive. Which meant she needed to get moving… and now.
Ocean zigzagged through the wreckage of a society she’d never known in a slight crouch, staying low and moving as quickly as her weakened system would allow. Every few minutes, she’d duck behind the crumbled remains of a building or some formless hulk of metal. She’d remain as still as her surroundings, listening for the slightest sound with her head cocked to the side, sniffing the air like an animal. The stench was still present but not as thick… which meant she was heading in the right direction. How many screams had she heard because people who thought they were heading to safety were actually delivering themselves into the clawing hands of death? Too many to count, and she was determined not to be one of them.