Matthew Vale

The sickness and the cure.

The heat was stifling, even in the abandoned concrete sarcophagus that was once a thriving supermarket. Sophie hadn’t been here for long, but long enough to realise that something didn’t feel quite right about the place. It felt like the walls had a story, and it wasn’t a pleasant one. The afternoon sun beams filtered through the dusty air, casting shadows onto the smooth marble-look tiles, as Sophie took another step into one of the aisles. The dust crunched under her size 5 runners and for a moment she glimpsed movement out of the corner of her eye. The Supermarket aisle was mostly empty shelving, some intact on the racking, and some strewn across the dirty floor. Broken potato-chip packets, miscellaneous liquid stains and dispersed flour framed boot prints fleeing the scene, now ghost-like in the absence of a body. She slowly crept deeper into the isle in the hope of finding some sort of food. Supplies were scarce in this world since the cataclysm, and there was always someone, or something searching for the same things she was.