her legs have grown strong.

her feet are covered in callouses.

still she walks.

one day, she reached the edge. the edge of the coast, where the sand met the ocean. the shore.

there was a storm building in the sky. she could see the flashes of lightning and hear the rolling of thunder. she knew she should leave, but she was fascinated.

she took a step and it was one step too far. the world seemed to shift. the sky turned from blue to dark purple. the storm spread out in tendrils.

the sand had turned black.

she saw this and turned to run. she almost missed her window. she could feel the shore reaching out to her, trying to bring her back, but she ran and pushed herself harder than she ever had and she found herself back where the world made at least a small amount of sense.

she stays away from the shore now. she moves inland.

she still remembers how the black sand glittered under the stormy sky though.

she cried later on. she cried for her family, for the old man, for the time before.

every time she cries, she resolves that it is the last time she shall cry.

she knows this is a lie.

it was soon after her family died that she was given the rifle.

she had walked back from the wreckage of the camper until she reached a small town. most of the town had left and she walked down the middle of the main street, counting broken windows and empty shutters.

and then a voice called out to her: 'girl! girl, get in here!'

she turned and there was an old man. he was standing in the doorway of a shop and waving his hands at her, urging her to come inside.

she did. 'what're you doing, girl?' the old man said, his accent thick as molasses.

she was silent. what could she say?

'where's yer family?' he asked.

her face collapsed like a burning building. she wanted to cry, but her eyes couldn't, wouldn't. she never forgave herself for not crying at that moment.

'shhh,' the old man said, 'it's okay. it's gonna be okay.'

she looked at him as if to say 'how?'

the old man smiled at her and walked into the back room. he emerged with a rifle. she recoiled, but he said, 'don't worry, i'm not gonna shoot you. it's for you. it's so you can protect yerself.' he handed it to her. 'i'll show you how to use it and everything.'

over the next few weeks, he taught her how to shoot and how to hunt. they hid from the flocks and hoarded food.

and then, one day, he said, 'you can't stay here, girl. i've been seeing more and more of those huge storms. them birds are making them, i know. this place won't be here much longer. you have to go and find someplace else.'

she motioned to him as if to say, 'what about you?'

'me?' he said. 'nah, i'm too old for that. that's why i didn't leave here. but don't you worry about me. look in the back room there.' she did and then turned back to him. he smiled a reassuring smile. 'i got 'em from the old quarry. they were just lying around. when them birds come for me, i'll light the fuse and then...well, at least i'll take some of 'em with me when i go.'

she grasped his shoulders and tried to make him go. 'it's no use, girl. i told you, i'm too old. but you got many years left in you. you can survive, i know it. please go.'

so she did. she slung the rifle across his back and gave one last look at the old man.

then she started her walk.

sometimes she cries.

she was young when the first of the flocks came. when the storms hit. she was only a teenager.

her family tried to flee. they piled themselves into a camper and they drove off, hoping to find a place where the flocks could not find them. where birds could not go.

they didn't know yet how strong a flock could be. a big flock, one composed of thousands of birds, it could tip over a large camper. it could take them no matter where they went.

she had been near the door. when her mother had twisted the wheel, had tried, uselessly, to swerve away from the inevitable, she had been flung against the door and the door had burst open.

she fell outside, hitting the hard pavement and rolling. she was lucky she hadn't broken any bones.

she was also lucky that the flock ignored her in favor of the rest of her family.

sometimes, when she's walking along a long road, she will think of that day. she will consider different scenarios in her mind, different ways she could have saved them. none of them would have worked, but still she considers them.

out in the middle of nowhere, she finds a mall. the sign reads 'ontario shopping center.' the magic doors, that once opened for anyone who moved, now are as unmoving as a corpse. she breaks the glass and enters.

she remembers watching a movie a long time ago, in the time before. it involved a group of people who hid in a mall when the dead came back to life. they were able to survive for quite a while until another group of humans ruined it for them.

it is obvious that this mall is not like the mall in the movie. there are no stores with food. there are no gun stores. there is a knife store, where she manages to find another hunting knife, but other than that, the mall is useless except for shelter.

in the movie, the dead could not enter the mall since the entrances were blocked. but even if she were to block the entrances to this mall, she could not stop a flock from entering.

because there is, of course, a skylight. a window to let in the sky.

she leaves soon after arriving.

each night, she digs a hole in the ground to sleep in. out here, where shelter is harder to come by, she has had to sleep out in the open more often. and that means more risk.

so she digs a hole and she gets inside and she pulls the dirt on top of her. she sleeps under earth. she hopes it is enough for them not to find her. if she is under earth, they will not take her when as she sleeps, she reasons. she hopes.

sometimes she stops digging and looks at the hole she has made. sometimes she realizes it is not a hole, but a grave. she has been digging her own grave and sleeping in it each night.

she used to walk with others, a man and a woman. they were husband and wife and they had stayed together during the time when the sky was filled with wings. they told many stories of the time before, stories of buildings tall enough to scrape the sky. she enjoyed their stories, though she stayed silent.

one night, when they were on the edge of one of the ruined cities, the woman was nested. a bird, she could hardly tell what kind, flew into the woman's mouth. she choked and her neck bulged and then the bulge subsided. then she cried because she knew what that meant.

the woman begged her husband to kill her, but he couldn't. she did it instead, using her rifle.

minutes later, she heard chirping from the dead woman's abdomen. the skin rippled. she cut it open with a hunting knife and saw the baby birds in their nest of viscera. she raised her rifle and made sure to kill each one.

a few days later, the man let himself be taken. she was not surprised.

she has not had a companion since.

she finds food in abandoned places. supermarkets, restaurants, houses. she stays away from hospitals. there are things there she does not wish to see.

she remembers one day, not long ago, when she was injured, when a flock had almost taken her. she had had to find supplies then, had gone to a hospital.

she had seen dead bodies before. those weren't the ones that disturbed her.

it was the bodies that were still alive. the ones that begged for mercy. the ones that pleaded with her, that cried to be cut open.

she has not returned to a hospital since.

she walks down the ruined road, passing the cracks where lightning has struck so many times before. there is a rifle slung across her back. she has used it before and will use it again. it'll stop one or two of them, but not a whole flock.

not a storm.

she walks with a weariness in her bones. she walks without pausing, without stopping. she walks.

let us follow.