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Description
A city full of flowers. A city full of rain.

I watch over it through the gap in the crumbling brickwork. There's a little girl wandering in the street below. God knows how she got there. I can't see properly through the scope of my rifle, but it looks like she's crying.

When I see her face I remember something I haven't remembered for years. I was her age when the evacuations happened. At least they started as evacuations. The word implies that everyone was following a plan, but it was just mass panic within a few hours. Still, we call those days the evacuations, because that was the word they gave us. That's the word my parents used.

I remember I held my mother's hand all the way through the crowds. I remember the way I slipped out of her grasp on a bridge full of violent people. I remember being jostled and crushed by the rabble as I searched for them. I remember the taste of my tears.

I brush my hair away from my eyes and watch her through my sights as she picks her way up the road. Tangles of weeds mark the graves of the infected. One of the tangles moves.

It's a garland man. The girl doesn't see it, she seems to be preoccupied, looking for something. Probably someone. At least she knows enough not to call out.

Another heap of flowers twitches as she gingerly steps over it. She's going to die if I don't do something.

I listen up. The garland men are still in the building. Seven, as far as I've been able to tell. I hid in here and barricaded the door, but if something were to set them off, like, say, a gunshot, nothing would stop them crashing their way in here.

I look at my arm, and the green shoots growing in the festering cut. It itches like hell. The itching is worse than the pain. I've got seven days to live.

I watch as the little girl notices the flower-covered men following her and falls down in the street as she tries to run. My finger moves to the trigger. The garland men are at my door, one way or the other.

I've got seven days to live... or seven ways to die.

The air smells of pollen and petrichor. Full of flowers, full of rain.

Description
A city full of flowers. A city full of rain.

I watch over it through the gap in the crumbling brickwork. There's a little girl wandering in the street below. God knows how she got there. I can't see properly through the scope of my rifle, but it looks like she's crying.

When I see her face I remember something I haven't remembered for years. I was her age when the evacuations happened. At least they started as evacuations. The word implies that everyone was following a plan, but it was just mass panic within a few hours. Still, we call those days the evacuations, because that was the word they gave us. That's the word my parents used.

I remember I held my mother's hand all the way through the crowds. I remember the way I slipped out of her grasp on a bridge full of violent people. I remember being jostled and crushed by the rabble as I searched for them. I remember the taste of my tears.

I brush my hair away from my eyes and watch her through my sights as she picks her way up the road. Tangles of weeds mark the graves of the infected. One of the tangles moves.

It's a garland man. The girl doesn't see it, she seems to be preoccupied, looking for something. Probably someone. At least she knows enough not to call out.

Another heap of flowers twitches as she gingerly steps over it. She's going to die if I don't do something.

I listen up. The garland men are still in the building. Seven, as far as I've been able to tell. I hid in here and barricaded the door, but if something were to set them off, like, say, a gunshot, nothing would stop them crashing their way in here.

I look at my arm, and the green shoots growing in the festering cut. It itches like hell. The itching is worse than the pain. I've got seven days to live.

I watch as the little girl notices the flower-covered men following her and falls down in the street as she tries to run. My finger moves to the trigger. The garland men are at my door, one way or the other.

I've got seven days to live... or seven ways to die.

The air smells of pollen and petrichor. Full of flowers, full of rain.