You hear the thunder. Tensing, you glance behind you at the high clouds building in the west. They're dark, heavy with the threat of rain, and a wise woman would take cover. You turn your back on the grey ocean and follow a cracked, sandy road inland. It winds uphill through shattered concrete and the dun remnants of vegetation. Here and there, fragments of broken wall jut from the wreckage like teeth. Death nibbles at your scalp, and guts, and bones; it will only grow hungrier with rain. Thunder mutters fitfully above you and a sudden breeze carries the scent of wet dust.
The first drops are falling when you find the cave. It's locked and barred, but that's no real obstacle, and soon you're underground. The rain is heavier now; a thin, spiteful drizzle trickling from a leaden sky. No, not leaden. Lead's a shield from rain like this. Pausing in the guardroom, you shake water from your cloak before entering the complex. The poison it carries is not a direct threat, not to one such as yourself, but it's weakening and, in this land, that's fatal.
Clean, you take stock of your surroundings. You're in a low space, built for mobility but repurposed for defence. The wide room is broken up by barriers of stony rubbish and blasts and bullets have nicked and marred the walls. Someone has scrawled 'Welcome to Hell' on a wall across from the entrance. You know the word, too well, but the sound of it makes you think of younger days and you almost smile as you rummage in your pack for your light. Once equipped, you set out to scavenge, but soon find that the humans left nothing useful when they abandoned this place. They're gone now, safe in the desert where it never rains, where all they have to fear is each other.
You're picking your way around a barricade, sifting through scents, when there, nestled between old blood and stale gunfire, is an unexpected hint of decay. Your breath quickens as you trace it through the fortifications. Rot means life and you had thought this place wholly dead. It guides you to an inner room whose side walls open onto passages leading down. Descending, you find an oasis: sweet water, seeping from the rock of the tunnel wall, has made a garden of molds and slimes of what was once a pile of corpses. Insects scuttle into the bones as you approach, fleeing your light. You make a meal of a few of them, but not too many. You're no human, taking more than you need.
It's safe here, beneath thick layers of sandstone, and you decide to make camp. You place your light on the tiled floor and draw your swords: twin weapons that, even now, you still carry. "Where must we go," you ask your new neighbours as you set the blades aside and see to your cloak, pack, and armour, "We who wander this wasteland, in search of our better selves."