Chapter 10 (Anna’s POV)

  The city’s veins pulled me onward, drawing me into a deeper labyrinth of ruin that lay far from the battered door. Each block felt heavier than the last, as though the concrete itself conspired to slow me, sapping my dwindling energy with each footstep. Hunger coiled in my gut, a gnawing constant that made every lungful of air more laborious, every thought more desperate. Rusted steel beams jutted out from collapsed architecture, and skeletal towers reached skyward, their remains casting warped silhouettes across cratered streets. At times, I caught the ghostly echo of my own footfalls, magnified by the hollow wind that slithered through broken windows and fractured walls.

  Where once I’d relied on my old baseball bat for a semblance of security, now it lay strapped to my pack in two sorry halves: one length like a splintered club, the other barely more than a ragged chunk of wood. During a vicious run-in with three roamers, I smashed the weapon with such force against the final creature’s skull that it gave under the blow, sending cracks spidering through the bat’s core. That fleeting taste of survival left me nearly disarmed—reduced to a jagged stub if another threat emerged. But discarding it entirely felt like discarding a piece of myself.

  Food proved maddeningly scarce. The occasional half-rotten tin of beans found in the back of a scorched cabinet; a stale energy bar scrounged from an abandoned waiting room—these were meager trophies in a city that refused me anything resembling comfort. Water came from peeling pipes that dripped more rust than liquid, or from rooftop puddles gone brackish with debris. Each gulp tasted of desperation, and more than once, I woke trembling with stomach cramps, cursing whatever filth I’d forced down to stay alive. Yet in this world, staying alive was all the victory there was.

  And the roamers—those tireless, unholy silhouettes—never let me rest. A few days back—maybe it was a week, though time had become a blur—I stumbled across a half-burnt pharmacy. Its front was charred, the shelves blackened husks. But desperation lured me in, promising the faint hope of medical supplies. The moment I stepped into the back storeroom, three roamers lurched forward, flesh sliding from their frames in wet, sickening ribbons. Their vacant eyes gleamed with a predatory hunger. The stench was overwhelming, something like an open cesspit ripened by the humidity.

  My battered bat—still mostly intact at that time—connected with the first roamer’s face in a nauseating crash, turning its head to a pulp of decomposing tissue and brittle bone. A wave of revulsion threatened to empty my stomach, but I couldn’t falter. The second roamer seized my pant leg, forcing me to hammer my knee into its abdomen until it crumpled. By then, sweat poured off me, and the rattle of my breath filled the cramped hallway. The third beast lunged, jaw unhinging with a wet snap, forcing me to pivot and drive my foot into its torso. I felt bone snap under the impact—a grotesque, splintering crunch—and the creature sagged, twitching as if it hadn’t realized it was dead.

  I nearly collapsed as the last of them went still, the enclosed space clogged with the stink of rancid fluids and the mechanical buzz of flies that swooped in, frantic for fresh decay. Swallowing the bile in my throat, I forced myself to rummage their pockets out of habit or hope—my hands trembling with fatigue. One creature carried nothing but a rusted key chain, worthless in this dead city, but the second had a small stash of old-world money tucked away in a grimy fold. Paper currency—obsolete as it was—still triggered something in my battered psyche, an echo of a time when green bills solved problems. I didn’t need it; it could buy me nothing here. Yet I tucked it into the depths of my pack, adding to the growing hoard I’d amassed over the weeks. By now, it totaled around thirteen thousand dollars—foolish on my part, but the act of collecting it soothed a piece of me still tethered to the world that once was.

  Each new day I ventured further from that battered door, the city’s horizon more ragged and the nights longer. Sometimes the roads stretched on as if they’d never end, and I was certain I covered less distance than I believed. Hunger and exhaustion eroded my sense of direction, turned each building into a half-remembered shape. Every groan in the distance, every shuffle of debris, braced me for another roamer or, worse, the Empire’s men. I had no illusions about my odds if confronted again—I might manage to fend off a single roamer with my splintered bat, but that would be the last push of a desperate person with no real weapon left.

  The Empire’s patrols turned out to be a harsher ordeal than the roamers – which seemed a cruel joke, considering the walking corpses were bad enough. I had three run-ins with them over the course of my wandering, each encounter leaving me more on edge than the last. It wasn’t just the threat of a bullet tearing through my ribs or the inevitability of a stronger weapon. It was the memories of my family—those images seared into my mind—rushing to the surface, stoking that toxic blend of rage and terror. Facing the Empire was never just about dodging bullets; it was about fighting off the ghosts that wouldn’t leave me alone.

  The first encounter happened in the cavernous remains of an old manufacturing plant. I had been moving as quietly as possible through a rusted maze of decaying machinery, each step a gamble on whether the metal floors would hold or give way under my boots. I was hunting for a break room rumored to lie somewhere in the back—maybe there would be bottled water, or a package of stale crackers overlooked by previous scavengers. The stale air smelled of dust and corroded steel, the entire skeleton of the plant making subtle groans whenever the wind rattled its beams. That alone had my nerves on high alert.

  Then came the whistle—a short, piercing note that shot ice into my veins. Freezing in place, I slowly tilted my head over the edge of a dismantled conveyor belt. Two men in patchwork body armor, each with a rifle slung casually across his shoulder, stood not twenty yards away. The dull glint of the Empire’s crest on their gear made my teeth clench until my jaw hurt. I loathed them. Remembering how my parents died, how my little brother was dragged away, was enough to make me want to rush them in blind rage. But I knew better. They laughed in low voices, joking about “cleaning out” a refugee hideout as though it were some casual chore on their to-do list.

  Instinct and training—for survival, not formal combat—told me to hide. I slipped behind a skeletal scaffolding that once supported the assembly line, pressing my body flat against a beam, every nerve taut. Each movement felt magnified in the haunting silence, like a loud drumbeat announcing my location. Somehow, they never caught sight of me. They ambled around, still joking, their boots leaving echoes across the deserted factory. My heart pounded so hard that I expected them to hear it. A stray spider crawled over my wrist, but I didn’t dare flinch. My body remained coiled, ignoring the acute burn in my calves, until their footsteps faded down some corridor. Only then did I exhale, knees nearly giving out from the tension. I might have hated them with every fiber of my being, but I wasn’t suicidal. I couldn’t fight two heavily armed men with just a battered baseball bat.

  The second encounter, a few days later, caught me off-guard at a small convenience store. If I was lucky, I’d find an unopened can of fruit or maybe a dusty bottle of water. The front windows were half-boarded, and the aisles had mostly collapsed from old fire damage, leaving blackened shelves and debris everywhere. As I slipped through the ruins, I heard voices outside—again, that curt, commanding tone I recognized. Empire. My stomach twisted. I ducked behind a toppled freezer, half expecting them to pass by. Instead, they came into the store.

  One roamer apparently decided to test them, lurching out from behind the checkout counter. Before I could blink, one of the soldiers fired a shot that tore straight through the roamer’s skull. The sound thundered in the enclosed space, and I watched gore splatter the floor. My stomach lurched, but I forced myself to remain still. The soldiers cursed, bragging about their kill count, how “roamers were a cinch compared to culling living scum.” The words stung, conjuring memories of how “culling” had destroyed my own family. My bat felt useless in my clammy grip—what good would it do against men who barely needed to aim? So I stayed hidden, heart pounding loud enough I half feared it’d give me away. They rummaged for any salvageable items, then strolled back out. By the time I dared to move, the place was stripped clean of anything edible. Another day I’d go hungry, choking on fury and resentment.

  But the third time, I couldn’t avoid direct confrontation. I’d limped into an abandoned apartment building, worn down by hunger and an infected-looking cut on my leg from outrunning roamers the night before. Climbing the stairs alone felt like scaling a mountain. My thigh burned fiercely with each step, and the sting of the wound pulsed in a dull, relentless ache. In a dusty bedroom—where the walls had peeled into curling strips of old floral wallpaper—I rooted through a dilapidated dresser, praying for fabric to bind my wound. That’s when footsteps pounded in the hallway. I stiffened, the broken bat clutched in one sweaty palm. My heart hammered with raw panic: the Empire. I recognized the rhythmic stomp and the tone of their bored curses.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  I had seconds to react. Sliding behind a splintered wardrobe, I tried to blend with the shadows. Everything in me screamed that this was a losing hand, but I had no choice. I heard two distinct voices: one man had heavy boots and a constant grumble, complaining about the heat or something. The other was quieter, footsteps measured, a constant squeak of a rifle’s strap. My leg felt like molten lead. If they found me, I had a battered stick to defend myself against bullets—a bad joke of a standoff.

  Then they kicked open a door in the hallway, rummaging around, cursing “worthless scum” that they apparently missed somewhere. My entire body trembled. I clenched my teeth, forcing slow, shallow breaths. If they searched here, I was done. But maybe they’d skip it? Maybe… no. After a short pause, I heard the quieter man sniff the stale air.

  “Smells like something rotting,” he muttered. “Think we got a roamer?”

  My pulse slammed into overdrive. A second later, he yanked the warped wardrobe door open. I froze, our gazes locking for a heartbeat that felt like an eternity. My old injuries flared, but adrenaline roared. I swung the bat blindly, smashing it into his ribs with a dull, sickening impact. He howled, stumbling into a broken side table. The other soldier spun, rifle raised. My mind went white with terror. No, no, no—

  I ducked behind a ruined couch as the gunshot thundered, plaster raining down in a choking cloud of dust. I squeaked out a choked gasp, leg throbbing from the fresh exertion. The battered bat was near useless. Another shot cracked, sending a bullet slicing past my cheek. I felt the heat of it, the savage hiss as it punched through the couch. My entire body shook with raw fear, tears stinging my eyes. Fight or die. Summoning a last jolt of desperation, I shoved the couch, using it as a wobbly barricade. Another bullet ripped through the cushions, missing me by inches.

  Snarling, I lunged around the side. The soldier’s rifle muzzle flicked in my direction. An explosion of noise hammered my ears—searing pain bit into my upper arm, warm blood trickling. Gasping, I pivoted, jamming my bat’s jagged tip into his thigh. He let out a ragged scream, the rifle slipping from his grasp. Triumph flared in me, savage and bitter, but vanished in an instant as the second soldier—the one I’d hit first—slammed into my side. We crashed in a heap of flailing limbs, the breath knocked from my lungs.

  His face contorted with that fanatic hatred I knew too well from the Empire, spit flying from his mouth as he tried to pin me. My wounded leg collapsed under the weight, tears burned. I did the only thing I could, smashing my forehead into his face. Cartilage crunched under the blow, hot blood spattering my forehead. He reeled, howling curses. I tore free, half-crawling for the door. My mind reeled with the taste of copper—was it his blood or my own?

  Bullets ripped into the walls as I scrambled across the threshold, stumbling into the apartment hallway. My leg screamed, fresh blood blossoming across my makeshift bandage, but I forced myself to run—if you could call it running. My lungs bellowed in ragged gulps, tears streaming. One more bullet whined past my ear, biting into the plaster. With raw desperation, I hurled myself down a side stairwell, half-tumbling in the gloom. My body rag-dolled on the steps, pain sparking in every nerve. But I didn’t stop. Cramming through a busted window at ground level, I half-rolled into a trash-littered alley.

  My chest felt on fire, each breath a stabbing ache. I couldn’t see the soldiers anywhere—didn’t see them leaning out the window. Maybe they’d given up or decided I wasn’t worth the bullets. I collapsed behind a reeking dumpster, tears hot on my cheeks, blood throbbing from my shot arm and torn-up leg. The taste of salt and iron coated my tongue, the aftershock of near-death leaving me trembling like a leaf.

  I waited there until their shouts faded, pressing a filthy rag to my wounds. The muzzle flash and the thunder of gunfire still rang in my ears. Eventually, I limped away, hollow, furious, and exhausted. My voice wavered in the hush as I whispered a string of curses. I should’ve died in that apartment. But life here wasn’t that merciful. My battered bat was nearly worthless, my body riddled with half-healed scrapes and bullet grazes, but I was still breathing. And so I kept going, no matter how each step brought me closer to the brink of collapse. Because if I didn’t, the Empire and the roamers would win, and I wasn’t ready to hand them that victory.

  The wounds I’d earned two days prior still throbbed with relentless persistence, each step sending a sharp jolt through the ragged laceration on my leg. The meager stitches I’d fashioned from torn cloth served more as a stopgap than a cure—just enough to keep infection from claiming my flesh outright, but not enough to stop the fevered tremors that crept in each night. Sometimes, at the edge of twilight, I’d feel chills raking down my spine, muscles twitching with a weakness that made me clench my teeth in defiance. Yet I had no luxury to rest, no true refuge to lie down and heal. The city’s heartless sprawl devoured any notion of safety.

  My baseball bat, once a steadfast companion in countless fights, was now an irreparable ruin: a length of splintered wood strapped to my pack as a useless talisman. The collision that shattered it—a final, desperate strike against a roamer’s skull—left me with barely half a weapon, and I felt oddly naked without that reassuring weight. Clutching the remnants served as a bitter reminder that in this apocalypse, even reliable tools succumbed to decay.

  Hunger gnawed at me like a persistent animal, and each day the city offered little more than scraps: a half-eaten can of beans discovered behind a collapsed fridge, a moldy energy bar nestled in some office drawer. These sorry rations hardly staved off the dizzy spells that prowled at the edges of my awareness. Water, too, bordered on the undrinkable—collected in chipped plastic bottles from the occasional drips of rusted pipes or precarious rooftop puddles. Some nights, my stomach twisted itself in knots, and I’d waken gagging, cursing the filth I was forced to swallow. But an empty belly didn’t offer me the luxury to be picky.

  Compounding my discomfort, the roamers were a constant, unrelenting presence. Their ragged silhouettes roamed the streets and alleys, drawn by any sound or flicker of motion. A few nights ago, one of them nearly caught me as I dozed under the hollowed-out remains of a school bus. I’d awakened to its guttural hiss, milky eyes set on my form. My heart hammered as I jerked backward, bashing it repeatedly with my shattered bat, the sharpened splinters gouging into its half-rotten torso until it collapsed in a twitching mass. The stench of its decomposing innards lingered, a reminder that I could not truly sleep soundly, not even for a moment.

  Yet, in spite of everything, I’d somehow taken to collecting old-world money. Paper bills that served no purpose here—no one I encountered placed any value in them. But every time I pried open a dead roamer’s pockets or scavenged a long-abandoned wallet, I’d pocket whatever cash I found, tucking it deep into my pack alongside my meager supplies. Thirteen thousand dollars so far—maybe fourteen if I counted all the grimy singles wadded together. A pointless obsession, but in this ruin of a civilization, old habits clung tenaciously, providing a peculiar anchor in a sea of chaos.

  I hid whenever I heard footsteps belonging to the Empire’s patrols, crouching behind shattered walls or the hulks of rusted vehicles. My entire body felt like lead, hunger and fatigue making every limb heavy. The day’s sunshine held no warmth for me, the night’s darkness offered no solace—only more hours of scanning corners for roamers, picking my way through debris, and listening for the telltale clang of Empire boots. Sometimes tears escaped me, unbidden and hot, fueled by the swirl of exhaustion, fury, and deep-seated grief. My family’s ghosts hovered at every turn—my mother’s gentle laughter, my father’s resolute stance, my brother’s bright eyes. The memory of them kept a raw edge in my chest, a permanent ache urging me to survive if only to spite a world that tore everything away.

  In my darkest hours, like now—perched on the crumpled hull of a bus near a partially flooded tunnel—I teetered on the verge of giving up. I contemplated letting the city swallow me, letting the thirst, infection, or roamers claim whatever remained of my battered form. But even as I flirted with surrender, a spark of defiance snapped in my mind. I could picture my father’s determined scowl, or my mother’s gentle encouragement. They might have told me never to let evil triumph without a fight. The Empire’s cruelty burned that lesson into me, and I still refused to be an easy victim.

  Glancing at the dirty bandage encircling my calf—already stained a foreboding shade of crimson—I swallowed down my dread. I wasn’t a doctor; I had no idea how bad the wound might be. Each attempt to clean it involved trickles of questionable water or stolen scraps of antiseptic if I found them. Still, I continued forward, half-limping, half-dragging myself across the city’s battered sprawl. The wad of useless bills in my pack weighed more than the meager supplies I carried. It was absurd, a bizarre comfort in a realm where currency no longer held sway.

  But each day I remained alive felt like some twisted triumph, a testament to the ugly resilience bred by desperation. Even so, I sometimes allowed myself a sliver of irrational hope—maybe that door in the plaza would creak open once more, spitting out the coddled city boy who boasted of a different world. A part of me knew it was foolish. Another part clung to the faintest dream that someone might bring more than empty promises—a means of fighting back, or at least surviving with an ounce of dignity.

  Regardless, I pressed on through debris-littered corridors, seeking any crumb of food, any half-flooded basement that might provide a rest from the Empire’s gaze and the roamer’s reach. Day by day, the city’s gloom thickened, dulling my senses, burying me in the slow ache of hunger and heartbreak. Sometimes I closed my eyes and felt it closing in, a monstrous presence made of rust and despair.

  And still, I trudged forward, gripping the splintered handle of my once-trusty bat. In the echoing hush of each morning, I’d think of how unbelievably hopeless my journey had become, how easily the apocalypse might chew me up next. Yet I endured. Something in me—maybe foolishness, maybe rage—compelled me onward. And in the back of my mind, a voice whispered: Tomorrow might be worse… or tomorrow everything could shift. You’ll never know if you stop now.

  For the present, I had only this: a wounded leg throbbing with each step, a near-useless bat that had once been my salvation, and a bag weighed down by green slips of worthless paper.