With a monumental effort, I stand. Slow, deliberate, stretching out my aching back as best I can, my arms and legs. The bones in my spine crack and pop in a horrifying chorus; ropes beneath my skin pull taught with sharp, stabbing aches. The wriggle of countless starving bodies is still in my head, under my skin but I push and push and somehow, the feeling goes away.

  The stiffness eases, the pain subsides but a new kind of ache takes its place, a dull, persistent throb in my belly that tells me it's been a long, long time since I ate anything real. That familiar dry, sticky feeling in my mouth and throat, demanding water. Buttermilk gives a tiny, plaintive squeak and my attention turns to her. She needs to eat too. She's not a still shape, she's alive, real, and she's hungry too. There’s no food for her here. The thought of that little pile of stolen junk food makes me feel sick all over again. There's nothing in this school that's going to save us. We have to go outside.

  My eyes fall on the parapet wall where I left my clothes. They’re still there, spread out in the sunshine, a crumpled blanket of familiar blue and white and autumn hues—a vibrant piece of then, of mom’s gentle hands, of something that is just mine. It’s bone dry. How long have I been up here? The boys' uniform I’m wearing is too big, too stiff, not me. It's another stolen thing, another transgression that makes me feel like a stranger in my own skin. I have to be me. I need to be me—just for a little bit.

  It's a sudden, fierce need that I can’t seem to overcome. I can't face that outside world in someone else's clothes, in someone else’s skin. My own clothes, soft clothes that smell like mom, and laundry detergent; my own uniform, I need it. I need something that ties me to Mom. It's a foolish, pointless thought but it won’t go away. What good am I in this world? How can ‘that’ me survive in all of this? I have to grow up or I’m going to die… die, and join all of them out there under the sky but I can’t let go, not yet.

  Shaking just a little, I reach for the skirt and blazer. The boy's uniform feels alien and heavy as I pull it away from my skin. The collar is sharp and coarse and the fabric is unyielding. A gust of wind catches my hair, whipping it frantically around my face, wrapping around me like an icy hug that makes me shiver, but for the first time, the air feels clean and fresh, not suffocating. I breathe it in as I pull on my uniform, piece by piece, rolling my stockings up over my grazed knees, clasping my skirt, buttoning my blouse and dragging on my jersey.

  They’re soft, worn in a way the other clothes weren't. My fingers find the tiny, familiar snag in the weave on the left sleeve and I pick at it mindlessly as the feelings settle. It’s mine. I press my face into the fabric, breathing deeply. It smells like me; it smells like Mom and now, I’m crying again. Silent tears whipped cold and stinging in the wind. A tiny, empty sob escapes me, but it's not the hopeless sadness from before, not in this moment, just a quiet, profound relief that swallows up everything else. The weight of my clothes is a tiny comfort, a whisper from a world that isn't quite gone yet. I look down at my hands, at the familiar blue fabric of my jersey. I'm still me. Just a little bit more than I was a moment ago. I’m still here, still safe.

  With a final tug, I straighten out my clothes. The moment is gone and the world is flooding back in. Stark grey clouds peak ominously from behind the mountain and my stomach drops. More rain. More cold. More misery. At first, a subtle dark line, barely visible beyond the crags, the shadow morphs gradually before my eyes, growing nearer, towering higher and higher. The roiling wall advances menacingly, rolling inward over the mighty stones, blotting out the sky, consuming the world all over again.

  For a long moment, I’m stuck in place. The freezing night and… the dogs. I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to go out there. I’m afraid. But I have to go. Nothing gets easier, everything just gets harder and uglier and somehow I’m supposed to carry on. I have to carry on. My stomach growls violently, a loud, angry rumble that brings me back to the little pile of snacks and junk food in the storeroom. It’s not enough. We can’t survive on chips and chocolate. I need something real, something that will last, and I know where to find it. I have to go home. It's the only real food, the only real warmth, the only real safety left for me. My clothes, my bed, my stuff… But mom, Tim. They’re there and… they won’t be the same. They’ll be… they’ll be like the others. Still, I have to go home. I have to. I have to. So, I take a deep breath and I gather up my pile of washing that’s toasty and dry, bundling the heavy blankets into my arms. A final glance at the coming storm and I turn, making my way back to the storeroom.

  It’s not my safe place anymore. Something has changed.The world has changed, or something in me. The air inside is free of the stink of the corridors but it’s only a matter of time before the cloud finds these hidden halls. I can’t stay here. We can’t stay here. And the rain is coming. If we’re going, we have to go and we can’t take all of this with us. We have to go home. I need… I don’t know what I need but I won’t find it here. My fingers relax and the pile of blankets drops soundlessly to the concrete floor. Home.

  I shove my hand into the pile of stolen snacks and tear open a packet of biltong, spreading some pieces on the floor for Buttermilk and cramming a fist full into my mouth. My tummy is still funny and my throat hurts but I’m starving. The chewy, salty meat is like a tasty medicine and I start to feel better almost as soon as the juices reach my stomach.

  It’s time to leave though, it’s time to go. So I pile the snacks into my stolen backpack and drag it onto my back. Maybe I’ll be back? Maybe I’ll need this place again - but I doubt it. It’s a sort of fantasy that doesn’t belong here anymore. A final glance around the room and a final breath of clean air. “Time to go”.

  Buttermilk trots ahead and I close the door behind us. My barricade, my fortress, my safe place, is gone for good. My final walk through the school is oddly terrifying. This is the beginning of something else, something big and bold and scary like the storm coming in from the mountain. I don’t look at the still shapes but their bloated, stinking forms stare deep into me as I pass. They’re in my head and in my eyes and in my heart… they’re part of me now.

  So I leave. I follow the old, dirty trails left by the dogs and make my way back to the lobby, my little white cat scouting the way. It’s not like before. This is final. The last time, I guess… the last time I’ll ever see this place. All the wonderful memories and… all of this. All of my friends. My teachers. My school.

  “Goodbye.”

  The little white cat pauses at the double doors—waiting, watching me. She sits as my eyes wander, as the memories swirl but the moment passes and I shake myself back to reality. Time to go. On the precipice, I scoop Buttermilk up into my arms, holding her tight as I step across the threshold. I need this now. Her warm, purring form is my only anchor but it does nothing to soften the sight before me.

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  Again, I’m doing this. I’m walking through this field of… of… hundreds of them. Scattered like autumn leaves across the damp ground. Kids, little kids, like me… littler than me. Everywhere. But they are not untouched, not like before. This is not the same shocking stillness from that day, not the distant, abstract horror I saw from the rooftop, no. This is different. This is up close. So close I can touch them. I see their bloodied faces, their pecked-out eyes, their torn clothes, and their exposed, ravaged flesh. Not just ripped. Shredded. Bodies laid bare to the merciless elements… to the animals who’ve already had their way.

  Little limbs are missing, gnawed off at bloody stumps or twisted at impossible angles. Bellies are open, hollow voids of crimson red, maggots wriggling in disgusting heaps within. There are thousands of them. And beneath, under every still shape, dark, slick blooms upon the ground, attracting thick, buzzing clouds of flies that rise and fall like a grotesque, living blanket. Some faces are obliterated, hollowed out, leaving only bone and sticky red, and revolting, wriggling white. Others, others are just… gone. Unrecognisable even, simply as human. They’re just bloody heaps of mangled flesh and shattered bone, smeared and spattered across the earth.

  The sight is seared into my mind in an instant. I look away, I have to, but it’s not enough. They’re there now, in my thoughts, in my eyes. My stomach lurches. I don’t even feel the nausea before the vomit spews from my nose and mouth. My knees buckle but I manage to stay upright, barely. Bent over, everything comes out again. Again, the retching lingers long after my tummy is empty and again, I don’t fight it. I can’t. The stench here is overwhelming. That concentrated, sickly sweet rot that smears inside my nostrils with every breath and coats the back of my throat like some kind of foul violation of sacred peanut butter. I could die and never stop smelling it.

  My legs don’t want to move, won’t stop shaking but I press on, one agonizing step after another, picking my way through the silent garden, keeping my eyes on the empty patches of ground, on the cracked asphalt, the lush green grass, on anything but the faces—the tiny, torn bodies. And there’s this terrible, crushing dread in my bones that I can’t shake. But I just have to keep moving, I don’t have a choice anymore. I can’t stay here, I can’t stay in this tomb.

  Ahead, cascading down the nearby mountain, a towering bank of dark clouds is drawing in, night against the clear blue sky, heavy and ominous. My legs ache, my throat is raw from the vomit, the constant cloying stench. My heart is pounding, muscles stiff and weak but shivering with tension like a compressed spring. I’m ready to explode at the slightest touch. The world is being dragged into the void and I’m just hanging on by the nubs of my fingernails stretching and stretching, waiting to break in two.

  Buttermilk, nestled inside the front of my hoodie, is a warm weight against my chest. Her tiny presence is the only thing keeping the terror, the horror, from swallowing me whole. Every shadow is a dog, every distant sound, the tearing of flesh, the crunching of bone. The still shapes, slumped in cars, on sidewalks, in gardens, line the path home. The decay is everywhere. Every step, every turn, every blink is met with more and more and more and my mind just tumbles helplessly through the chaos of it all, choked, strangled by the thick, sweet sickness in the air that is beyond the power of words to describe.

  My house. It looks the same, but it’s not the same. I can feel it deep inside me. It’s not my home anymore. It’s not inviting, welcoming. It’s menacing, forbidding. Just the thought of going inside sends a shiver down my spine but I press on. I have to. Do I? Do I actually have to? I don’t know but I do it anyway. Pushing the door open, there’s not a single sound inside. The door doesn’t even make a sound, like it’s holding its breath. The air inside is thick, heavy, suffocating with that same appalling stink but still I press on, every breath a taste of death.

  Dog prints in the hall. The kitchen, trashed. The table is oddly clean… but my shattered bowl is still in pieces on the floor, shards glinting in the light. The sickening smell is strong here, mixed with the faint, sour scent of spoiled milk, but overwhelming it, overwhelming everything. In the lounge, dirty couches, torn pillows littering the floor. Tim is here, my big brother. His arms and legs are punctured and torn. Dark, sticky marks line the carpet where he was dragged, dragged from his bed. His body lies sprawled across the Persian rug, clothes shredded around his middle, exposing a horrifying, bloody hole in his belly. He’s torn open, insides strung out across the floor in ribbons, flies and maggots feasting on his meat.

  A choked gasp escapes me, and I look away, my body shaking uncontrollably. “Tim! Oh god, Tim.” The dogs. They were here! They brought him here. I can feel myself losing control, the panic in every shallow breath, every quiver of my body. My vision blurs and I just know I’m going to pee, I just know it. It’s going to happen, I’ve got to get a hold of myself! My fists clench shut so tight that my knuckles crack and my fingernails gouge my palms. My toes curl and I cross my legs, clamping my thighs shut with all my strength, holding my bladder at bay, desperately trying to slow myself down as the world spirals out of control. Buttermilk dives from beneath my hoodie and disappears. I don’t look up. Deep breaths. Deep breaths. I have to focus on each one like a maths problem, if I think about Tim, about… what I’m going to find in Mom’s room… I can’t.

  Forcing myself to move, to stand, my legs stiff and heavy, I stumble towards the hallway. Each step is a battle against the overwhelming stench and the absolute certainty of what I know I’ll find. But something pulls me onward. A hook, a need, a… morbid sense of curiosity that steers me thoughtlessly forward. I stumble to her bedroom door and peak inside, a fleeting glance that tells me all I could ever need to know. She’s there. Collapsed beside her bed, right where I left her all those days ago. The room is almost a snapshot of the way it was when I left, everything in its place except… the blood and filth on her beautiful bed spread, and her. Her face is untouched, but her belly… her belly is a gaping, squirming, bloody well. Her clothes are shredded, torn away from her. She’s exposed like I’ve never seen her, brown, stinking sludge spewed out between her legs, strings of her insides, red spiderwebs across the floor. A dark, sticky mess just like Tim, but worse than Tim. So much worse.

  A silent scream rips through me. My stomach, my whole being seizes and I collapse back into the hallway, hitting my head on the wall and crumpling into a ball as the lights go out. And I’m drifting again, in a dream or, somewhere far away.

  The smell is gone. The air is clear, and I can’t open my eyes all the way.

  The bedroom door always squeaks when it opens, a soft, familiar protest against the night. My bed is warm, and I’m huddled under the covers, staring at the dark shapes the streetlights make on my ceiling, listening to the wind and feeling the small, cold knot of dread in my tummy

  Then the soft footsteps on the carpet, the sharp click of the light switch. The darkness deepens, but it stops being scary because Mom is here.

  Her shadow falls over my bed, big and safe. She doesn't say much—just leans down, her hair brushing my cheek, smelling faintly of lotion and her sweet lilac perfume. I feel the slight weight of her body as she tucks the duvet in tight, tight around my chin, trapping the warmth. She always waits until I look at her, and her eyes, even in the faint light from the hall, are soft and sparkly.

  "Goodnight, my sweet girl," she whispers, her voice a low, perfect murmur against the silence “I love you.” Then she’s gone, and the little knot in my tummy is gone, too. I’m safe.

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