Thick dust hung heavy in the air, glinting orange in the fading evening light. It drifted slowly in the cool breeze, sweeping up the gentle slope of the hill and over the dead brown grass carpeting the ground. Some caught an updraft, spiralling up, and eventually settling on the hair of the lone boy stood partway up the hill, which was already a mess of various brown shades.

The dust covered much of his clothing too; the original blue colour of his jeans and the mauve of his jacket were barely distinguishable. His face was smeared with mud and dust, save for thin tracks down his cheeks.

Lovino looked out across the vast, empty landscape with desolate amber eyes, rimmed with red. The horizon was lined with rubble and the charred remains of what had once been a proud city. His city. Less than a week ago it had been his home - a vibrant hub of lively social exchange, and the one place that always had seemed constant. But that was all gone now.

He shook himself sharply, trying to break free of the despair that had been clinging to him for the past four days. There was nothing left there now. He had to leave. He'd already left it far too long, searching the city far beyond the point it had become a ghost town. Everyone else - such as they were - had already left.

Tearing his eyes away from his old home for the last time, he picked up the grubby backpack sitting by his feet and slowly walked off. The capital. It was his one last ray of hope now, if hope still remained. He didn't even know if the capital was still there.

Just beyond the bottom of the hill was a road. It too was covered in the plaguing dust - it looked closer to a dirt track as opposed to the tarmacked motorway it had been only a few days ago. Footsteps cluttered the width of its six lanes, intermingled with the tracks of the few vehicles that had survived. The dividing barrier in the centre was almost gone, the few sections remaining studded with dents and cracks. A burned out car stood abandoned on the grass verge a few yards away.

Lovino stumbled down the small hill onto the road, kicking up puffs of dust in his wake. His footsteps seemed unnaturally loud in the deathly silence.

Feliciano. Grandpa.

Once more tears began to track a pathway down his face. Pain arced across his head and clenched tightly at his chest. His vision spun. He couldn't think, he couldn't breathe...he...

It was hitting him again. It had hit him several times a day, ever since the explosion. He couldn't get over it. The impossible-to comprehend fact that he was alone. The only people he knew or cared about were dead. He'd never see them again.

Gone. All gone.

The pain drove him to his knees as he gasped for air. Blackness flickered around the edges of his vision, but, for the first time, unconsciousness didn't take him.

Lovino lay collapsed in the dirt with his eyes closed, unable to move. He didn't care what happened to himself now. If he died, at least he'd be with Feliciano and Grandpa.