Hot.  So hot.<br/><br/>The body stirred where it had been laying on the floor for long hours.  The movement sent hundreds of flies to panicked flight, flitting about in a black, buzzing cloud so thick it obscured the faint, golden light coming from the lone window in the room.  Their buzzing was an incessant noise, something that could not be ignored.  That weak stirring strengthened a moment, and then the figure pushed itself slowly to hands, quivering with the effort.<br/><br/>Bleary, dark eyes regarded the room.  Lank red hair hung across her face, for this was a women.  She wore a stained dress that hung from her body like a sack, as if tailored to a woman twice her size.  It wasn't surprising, really.  The flesh had melted from her bones, leaving her hollow eyed and cheeked, skin a pallid hue that was more reminiscent of paper than flesh.  Her arms were bony, too, where they were exposed from the sleeves of the dress, a dull brown of course woven wool.  After a long moment, she laboriously managed to get into a sitting position, shivering slightly.  It was not cold, but those shivers told of winter's heart.<br/><br/>Pain flickered across the woman's eyes.  She was in her parents bedroom, and there was no other sound here than her ragged breathing and the sound of flies.  Two misshapen lumps on the bed told the tale succinctly.  In the night, they had both perished, amidst their flailing limbs and nightmarish proclamations of beasts and demons crowding round close to steal their souls.  And had their souls been snatched away by some base creature?  The woman - the girl - could not say they had not been.  The vile specter of death had descended on Milan Creek some two weeks past, and that particular beast had slain all.<br/><br/>Including those she held most dear.  She stared stupidly at the bed and the corpses it held, eyes glazed and unable to see the maggots that writhed in their bloated, blackened flesh, nor the flies that obscured most of that diseased flesh.  All she could see was what her memories supplied, vibrant people full of life and love.  Gone now, forever.  She was so tired, so very tired.  She could not she a tear now, for she had her own concerns.  Most pressing a demanding thirst, the lesser all the varied hurts.  Looking around, she could see that the chairs and other things within the room had been toppled.<span style="font-style: italic">Why are they all askew?  What happened here?</span>she thought, but they were hazy.  Distant.<span style="font-style: italic">Where am I?</span>swiftly followed, confusing as it was amongst all the other tattered thoughts floating in her head.<br/><br/>With extreme difficulty, she managed to gain her feet, levering herself up using the corner post of the bed.  She did not look at what lay in that bed.  The smell was enough to let her know she did not want to see it, memories or no memories.  Feeling like an invalid just out of bed after weeks of dire illness (and why shouldn't she, for that was more or less the truth), she managed to stagger through the room, nearly tripping over fallen things before reaching the door.  The living room was in scarcely better shape; pots and pans lay where they had last been used, dirty and filled with vermin.  She felt revulsion thrill through her as she watched a fat barn rat waddle from one of the side rooms, so engorged from the plentiful feast that it couldn't be bothered to run.  Perhaps it sensed that she couldn't catch it anyway.  Beyond that door lay her brother's room.  She didn't wish to pry to closely as to what it was the rat had been feeding on.<br/><br/>Feeling suddenly claustrophobic, she made her ungraceful way through the room, tripping over an overturned chair and sprawling on the floor.  The added bruises from that would amount to nothing beside her pounding head and sour belly.  She finished her exit on her belly, gamely crawling to the door and pushing it open, out into the late afternoon sunlight.  The air was cool, but not cool enough to elicit the shudders that ran through her.  Mid-autumn, it was not ye time for the heavy snows to quilt the valley and village feet deep, but it was plenty cool enough.<br/><br/>She managed to make it to the edge of the porch before she vomited.  It was amazing, she would have thought had she not felt in true misery, just how much you can spew despite eating next to nothing for an indeterminate amount of time.  But it came, a rush of vile black stuff that tasted as horrid as the stench of decay within the house smelled.  She lay there for a moment, before rolling over on her side, staring out over the open land.  The mountains rose in the near distance, domineering giants of granite that clawed at the heavens.  This late in the season their flanks were mantled with snow down into the treeline.  Here, in the heart of the wide valley between ranges, the land was cleared for as far as they eye could see.  Crops had been planted, but without anyone to tend them in the last weeks, they were beginning to suffer from neglect.  Beyond the farmlands, in the distance, lay the village.  As she lay there, dull eyes watching, she could see the carrion birds flapping their ungainly bodies airborne.  The feast must be particularly rich down there.  She had to turn her eyes away from that sight.  She had known most of those people, and their passing cut deep, if not as deeply as what lay behind her.  She pushed<span style="font-style: italic">that</span>away.  She needed objectivity here, not emotional meltdowns.  There would be time enough for that later.<br/><br/>She slowly sat up.  She still felt as weak as a kitten, but it was no longer a newborn kitten.  Whatever effects her malady had had were fading at least for the moment.  She had to make use of that time.  She had to go into the Milan Creek and see if anyone else yet drew breath.  She didn't dare consider what she would do were she the only one.<br/><br/>Rising to her feet, snatching a long walking staff from where it leaned against the weathered porch, she leaned on it, not quite looking at the village ahead of her.  She couldn't help the eerie, disconnected quality of her thoughts at the moment.  She was alive, she had survived, and she would make sure that remained the case.  If the village proved as lifeless as it looked...turning to look at the forbidding mountains, and at the tiny notch in their side.  The road out, out into a world she had occasionally heard tales of but never seen.<br/><br/>Gamely, using the staff far too much to suit and far too much to allow much speed, she made her way towards Marin's Creek.  Hoping, but not really expecting to find anything beyond what she was leaving behind here.