I pushed through the doors and marveled at how the pot plants of the lobby had become a lush jungle like growth. A foot of water covered the ground floor and I quickly found the stairs, checking the office map on the wall. Five first aid stations were marked on the twenty story building. I sighed as I began to climb the stairs to the first floor. Although, intellectually, I knew the stench of death and decay was long gone…the building seemed to reek of it to me. I slipped along the corridor until I found a door marked with a green cross. Glancing back over my shoulder and down the hall I pushed through the door and my heart sank.

The room had been ransacked. Rolls of bandages and cotton wool were scattered across the floor. I moved into the small room and picked up the odd medicine missed by the previous ravagers. I kicked an empty bottle of paracetamol across the room and span on my heels to leave. As I did so my eyes registered something and I reached for my back and I pulled the crossbow I carried there quickly in-front of me. Cocking it as I moved…and stared into my own face. It was a large mirror. I gazed at myself…my long black hair had now been left growing for nearly 12 years. A long pony tail that reached my butt…it was sodden and hung heavily against my back. I couldn’t remember the last time I looked in a mirror…and I touched my face, as if to remind myself of what I looked like.

I slid the crossbow back over my back and pulled my rucksack off instead. Stashing the few remaining medicines and supplies inside its waterproof interior. Leaving the room I wondered whether to bother climbing the stairs to the other rooms. Clearly this was a known scavenge spot. I decided to cut my losses and quickly began the descent. There was a noise in the lobby, a splashing sound of movement and I froze on the stairs. Voices…men…I pulled the crossbow from my back once more, sliding a bolt into place and knelt to ensure I had perfect aim for the corner of the stair well and the lobby.
“We had better find some other exit while they are concentrated here..” The voice brought me up sharp. It was a strong male voice, one of command. This wasn’t a mere band of crazed scavengers then. In fact, they seemed to be hiding from whatever was screaming and slamming outside the lobby doors.

The first lumbering fool came round the corner, he held a gun in his hand and he wasn’t really looking my way as he seemed more concerned with the noise banging against the front doors of the place. He gasped as he saw me squatting there…and lifted his hand quickly. I didn’t pause for a second and my finger released the trigger. The bolt leapt through the air and slammed through his neck. The gun fell from his hands and clattered down the stairs as his hands went to his now spurting wound and fell backwards.

Fortunately he fell onto his companion and in the time he took to register his alarm and then take aim I was able to lock and fire another bolt. He screamed and leapt backwards…but not before the bolt pierced him high in the thigh. His yelp of pain was closely followed by a bellow of rage from another down in the flooded lobby. I smiled a tight small smile.
“You fucking BITCH!” the wounded man screamed back.

I moved a little further down the stairs, careful not to slip on the blood still pumping from the big man that had fallen and listened to the others in the lobby. The wounded one cursing and swearing as his compatriot undoubtedly pulled him out of range. I wondered at my options, I suppose I could go down into the car park levels…but surely they would be flooded and offer no escape. I could try the roof, the buildings around this part of London were so closely packed together I might be able to jump…but, that seemed impossible too. So I picked up the dead mans gun and pocketed it…and moved closer to the lower steps into the lobby. Would these people give up and move out or be incensed by my actions and come for me?

It was getting darker in the lobby as the rain clouds above the building seemed to gather even further. I lifted the gun, more for effect than action and peered carefully around the corner. I couldn’t see anyone at first and then a spear of lightening lit everything up like a thousand light bulbs. A burst of gunfire tore into the wall next to me and I leapt backwards and scrabbled back up the stairs…I needed time to think.

It was only after I moved into the third floor office my brain caught up with my senses. There had been a woman down there. Her eyes seemed…broken…no, no that wasn’t right. As I moved a heavy desk against the door to the room I was hiding in I tried to capture the right word for what I had seen in her wide eyed stare. I had seen plenty of broken people during my life since the disaster…but…her eyes held something else…something altogether more frightening.