A red sky, a dark sun, a scorched earth. The scent of dirt, of mud long since dried, cracked and dusty underneath. The soft rustle of the wind through the grass, the groan of trees bending in the gusts. The stems of plants hiding footsteps once tread through soft earth. These are the trails and paths she walks.

Perched upon a fallen tree, split in half by lightning during a storm long ago, she surveys the area. It has been so long since these lands have seen rain. Still life perserveres, somehow. She marvels at it. Plantlife still survives in this wasteland. The earth will survive this, she thinks to herself as she alights from the tree. It is her job to patrol. It is her job to watch. No one gave her this task, but still she finds herself compelled to do it. She hasn’t seen another soul, sentient as herself, for many months now. One must give themselves structure to survive monotony.

Things changed so quickly, but it was surprising how easily it came to her. She donned the mask, the gloves, the coverings to protect herself from the toxic air, the poisonous breath of the infected. She forgot social normalcies, forgot sociable manners, forgot everything about being “human.” She became the watcher.

That is all she does now. Watches. Watches for others only to better avoid them. It’s been so long but she is still alert. Her anxious ticks still tick, her heart still beats fast when she sees a shape on the horizon, and her breath still catches when she hears a twig break under footsteps, as she does now.

She hops back up onto her perch on the broken tree. Surveys. Listens. Watches.

There.

The split tree sits in the middle of a vast open plain, tilled earth never sowed, grasses taking over, emptiness lined with trees freshly green with spring. The wood is not dense; it is easy to see into it. There she sees a shape. Something vaguely humanoid. She knows that she is seen as well.

There is a stand-off. The two survey each other from far away. She is sure it is not a threat.
There is a silent pact that has been reached. No one knows who has the virus, so everyone acts as if they do. This is the only way to be sure. She has encountered many other beings, and they all have stopped, stared, and moved on.

Not this one.

The shape suddenly breaks into a run, a full-on sprint, over the field towards her. She almost falls off of the tree in surprise and shock. Barely catching herself, she leaps off the tree and flees towards the opposite end of the field, her breath loud in her ears under the mask.

She is a fast runner, feeling as though she is flying across the grass. Her skirts rustle and catch on the occasional thorn, but she has traversed this terrain many times. It is no hassle to her. But she hears breaths behind her, footsteps. This one is not nearly as graceful as she, tripping and flailing about in the furrows left by hopeful farmers. It is a desperate, clumsy pursuit. She knows she is probaby safe from this one, but just to be sure, when she reaches the edge of the field, she alights into the nearest climbable tree and climbs to the highest point. She looks down.

It is there.

It is not something she has seen before.

It is a shadow, a monster, something else entirely from anything she knows. It has no eyes, only darkness for a face, but she knows it is looking at her. Hungrily.

This is not someone with the virus, at least, not in the usual sense that she knows. Something must have happened. This is a new product of the virus, a new creature born of shadow and darkness and mistrust and pain, a mutation of the soul wrought by despair. Isolation and breaks in quarantine bore many new things into the world, but she had seen nothing of this. A new threat. A new being entirely. Before her eyes, it dissipates into nothing, wind in the air, a shadow lost in the overcast. She looks up. More strange happenings.

Clouds have moved into the sky without her noticing. The sky is clouded and grey, and quickly growing darker. The wind has picked up. She sees the flash of lightning in the distance, followed by the rumbling of thunder that she feels deep in her heart. It has been months since she has seen, or felt, rain.

She knows not what to make of this new monster, of this new threat, but she needs to feel the rain. She needs to. It is so dangerous, she knows, but reason sometimes leaves the mind when the spiritual soul needs to be fulfilled. Sometimes one is compelled to do things without explanation simply because of an innate need.

As the first drop falls she flies down from the tree, making her way slowly to the split one in the middle of the field. By the time she reaches it she is soaked through, and scrabbles up to perch once more under the clouds, the dark sun barely peeking through the thickness of the sky.

She looks up. The drops fall thick and heavy onto the glass goggles of her mask. She puts her gloved hand to her cheek. It has been so long since she has felt her own skin. She feels tears upon her face. She cannot wipe them away, and so lets them fall. The rain through her clothes is enough. She welcomes whatever comes next.

Lightning strikes more frequently now, all around her. She cares not for it. She stands under the storm, arms open, welcoming in an event she has not witnessed in so long. How her body yearned for it, for the moisture, for the cleansing fall of rain onto the earth. The smell of rain on sun-baked dirt fills her nostrils, even through the filter, and she relishes it. The smallest resemblence of “before” sends her into a trance-like reverie, and she nearly doesn’t realize the shadows have formed around her, until it is almost too late.

But she does, because she has been doing this a while.

However foolish it may have been, she doesn’t regret it.

One so easily forgets the joy of a storm.

But she is a rider of lightning.

She is a caller of wind, and she calls it now, to lift her up and away from the shadow creatures. They snarl and snap underneath her, forming one giant shadow, a coagulating, writhing mass of darkness, and her heart beats fast. But she has seen much and hardly anything truly surprises her now. She looks upon them almost academically, another threat to factor in as she watches and wanders the wasteland. One must be careful but calculated about these things.

Many things have happened. Many things will continue to happen. Most things she cannot control, and so she just exists through it. She cannot end it all, she cannot find the cure, she can only do what she can, and avoid everything until it’s over. There are no heroes here. One can only watch. One can only wait. One must stay vigilant.

Thankfully, she is very good at all of these things.

The storm passes as quickly as it came, and the sky is red once more, the dark sun beating its strange rays down upon the earth, so hot and dry that any trace of moisture is soon sucked from the air. The shadow creatures swarming about the tree dissipate in the sun’s rays. She breathes in the staleness, the new normal.

But what a joy the smallest bit of rain brought her, if only for a moment, and at the risk of her life, which, to be fair, is a rare thing to value in this time of decay and disease. But value it she does, so she does not give in this day.

Best to find a new valley to call a temporary home, though, probably. These shadow creatures are a new concern, but they can’t be everywhere, she thinks.

Looking a smidge longingly at the great perch of a tree, she turns her back on the valley and begins making her way through the valley, in a different direction this time. Somewhere new. To watch. To wait. To see what happens.

When the only thing certain is uncertainty, all you can do is keep going.