As often in such small villages, the drugstore, the Apotheke, shared a building with the post office and had also once sold organic food, if only the very basics. The building's door stood wide open, and a whiff of stale, dusty air she took when she stuck her nose in told her that no infected had been here in a long time, if ever. The place most likely didn't have a basement, and with that much light getting in, this was not the place to be for stinkers. She inspected the door, saw it would even shut, yes, there was a bunch of keys still dangling from the keyhole. She tried it, and it moved willingly enough, so, she locked herself in. She had already made her way around the building once, her usual careful inspection of the possible exits to determine optional escape routes.<br/><br/>With a pull on the string, she slowly and noiselessly closed the blinds, now, if she kept her head down, her movements couldn't be seen from outside, just in case. She planned to exit over the roof, anyway, so, her not seeing what went on outside didn't matter much. Not that it was very likely stinkers would venture out into the glare of white light that reflected back from every surface, but even if, she'd hear them in time. Her gaze moved over the shelves, there was little among the food that stood a chance to be still edible and had not been attacked by insects or rodents at some point. Raspberry jelly - sealed. She opened a glass, stuck a finger in, hooked it, lifted the jelly to her nose to sniff it, then sucked and licked her finger clean. Really good.<br/><br/>She spotted a container of honey, too, and soup powder, expiration date 12/2020, then a bar of lavender soap, still smelling so fresh, so clean and good, a can of cocoa flavoured energy powder, 06/2018, still good, though, surely, and for a moment, she struggled, torn between greed, the overwhelming desire to pack everything they could possibly use from out of here, and reason. She forced herself to look for the medicine first. A bottle of elder and blackcurrant juice in one hand, her jelly in the other, she wandered into the room behind the counter, miserably eying endless rows of flat drawers, all filled with pill bottles and packages. She had no idea where to start. Methodically, she worked her way through row after row, from top to bottom, up the ladder to down on her knees.<br/><br/>Endless names and package inserts later, she had become familiar with a number of diseases and symptoms she had never heard of before, still had found no likely candidates among the pill bottles, nor figured out how the system of sorting them worked. Her juice and jelly were empty and she felt high from all the sugar. Lightheaded and with sticky fingers, she continued her search. Then, her eyes grew wide.<em>Femilibra</em>? Her heart leaped, then raced. She took the first of the packages, turned it: 12/2021. With trembling fingers, she opened it and read. Just as she remembered, no cooling necessary, injection intramuscular, and then, three years of no fertility, guaranteed.<br/><br/>She counted eight packages. That was a treasure she'd not leave lying around, each package even had the necessary needles inside! Bea would want one, Sylvia, Jenny, Katrin, maybe Dunja, but if only one wasn't needed or wanted in their group, what wouldn't people give for it, at least a month's worth of supplies for the entire group. A sense of elation, enforced by her sugar-high, made her want to shout with joy. No more jokes about her sexual abstinence or subtle, concerned attempts to talk to her about her phobic reactions to the idea of pregnancy. With this protection, why wouldn't she want to have sex with some guy, maybe Ragnar? One injection, and she'd be fixed. She could even do it herself, she knew how. She read the instructions again, carefully, pondered for maybe ten minutes, then peeled herself out of her trousers and stuck the needle smack into her left buttock.<br/><br/>Her muscles were tense and tight in her excitement, there was an instant hissing, burning sensation so sharp it brought tears to her eyes, but she made sure to inject the fluid very slowly, then waited, rubbed the spot as described - only without a disinfectant, having none. Then, hurriedly, she struggled back into her pants and controlled everything was back in place where she needed it, and began with utmost concentration to pursue what she really had come here to find, the heart medication old Willi needed. She cursed the computer organised system, the endless drawers labeled with nothing but codes she couldn't make sense of, but she knew, just knew, this pharmacy was well sorted and stocked, somewhere in here she would find what she needed.<br/><br/>And so she did, at seven-thirty in the evening, her head numb with all the tiny script she had deciphered while searching the listed ingredients for the exact chemicals in the exact right amounts and combination. She stuffed all the pills into her Rucksack, added bottles full of diverse painkillers and other useful pills she had discovered, dashed back into the shopping area and plundered the food area for all it was worth, then added a bottle of shampoo. She could still carry the lot, it wasn't too voluminous, too big a risk. Or so she insisted on telling herself. She was hungry, knew it came from the sugar, the fastness with which her insulin had dealt with it, demanding more now, and also knew it had been friggin' idiotic to eat a whole glass of jelly. But what was done was done, now it was time to head back, she'd be forced to spend the night dangling from some tree in her hammock, anyway.