Broken City

At first she thought she was deaf.

Then she heard a croaking noise coming from her own throat, and she realized she could hear just fine. Then she thought she was blind, because no matter where she turned her head, darkness followed. But then she waved her hand in front of her eyes and could faintly make out the outline of it.

And then she thought her entire body was numb, because she couldn't feel her fingers. But the pain told her otherwise as she stumbled to her feet, fell over, and landed face-first on the solid concrete.

The darkness was chased away, and as the girl picked herself up off the floor, she could see partially-destroyed buildings illuminated in the glow of the moon.

The moon. The girl looked up, turned her head, spun around, and blinked ten times. But no matter what she did, she couldn't spot it anywhere in the midst of the night sky. Shrugging, she stood up and took a hesitant step forward. Luckily, she didn't lurch towards the ground again. Two more steps. Then three. Then she was practically walking for miles, but the scenery didn't seem to change a bit.

No people lined the broken streets. No dogs tugged at their owners' leashes and barked at her feet. The emptiness of the demolished city filled the lonely girl's heart, and she assumed that she had either gone crazy or she was dreaming. She quietly hoped it was the latter.

The silence was filling her from her toes up to her head until she couldn't breathe. She wanted to break the silence, to scream, to shout, to kick and cry. But instead she kept walking. The changeless streets were like a drug, except the opposite of addictive.

And hours, days, maybe even years later, the girl fell and didn't get back up.