Brienne had never been so excited and relieved as when she found the sword.
She had spent years doing fencing, and though the weapon was of Japanese rather than European origin, it still felt natural to use and allowed her to make quick work of the bloodthirsty monsters roaming the streets.
As she headed down the road (she hadn't noticed its name, not that it mattered anymore) she cut through several of them with ease. She had quickly discovered that severing their heads was the easiest way to destroy them, and though she didn't really care for the idea of destroying these creatures when she thought of how at some point they had been human, had lovers, had families, had friends – it was a necessity, and so she killed them.
"'m sorry," she mumbled habitually as she took the head off of the nearest of them, a middle-aged woman with chestnut hair.
It was evening, the sun was sinking, though it had done its job in making the streets unbearably hot. Though it was cooler now than it had been earlier, the pavement was hot and the air sticky and humid, causing strands of her straw-blonde hair to stick to her forehead as a result.
Although she did have a specific mission in mind, in the grand scheme of things, for this street Brienne had a much smaller goal; food. She hadn't eaten in a day, and she hoped to scavenge a few supplies from any of the houses down here, unless they had been scavenged already. Hopefully they hadn't.
As another of the shambling monsters approached her, she took off its head and muttered another apology.
Water would also be nice, although running water was essentially nonexistent and she somehow doubted anyone would have a nice collection of bottled water lying around. Her lips were dry and cracked and blistered; her apologies were almost painful to speak.
She walked, sword gripped tightly in both hands, towards the closest house. It was a fairly sizeable one, as were most of the houses down this lane, and – she took the doorknob in hand and turned it, letting out a sigh of relief – it was unlocked. Brienne had long fashioned a lockpick, although she didn't care any more for breaking into houses than she did killing the monsters that had once been the citizens of Westeros. However, like killing them, breaking into abandoned homes to scavenge had become part of her way of life in the past couple months, since the outbreak of the zombie virus.
She stepped quietly into the house, knuckles white as she gripped the blade, and swung it around to meet the neck of one of her many foes who had hidden in this particular home. It had snarled at her, but its voice was cut short as Brienne's sword met its throat, and blood gushed from it as its head rolled about on the floor.
"Sorry."
She wished so badly every day that this would be a dream, a nightmare, that she would wake up and it would be back to normal. But it never was.
Brienne found herself standing in a well-decorated living room, with wooden floors and blue furniture that reminded her of her father's home. A pang of sadness throbbed in her chest, and she shook the thought and carried on in search of anything useful.
It had been scavenging that had found Brienne her trusty sword, and she hoped that today's search would provide her with even more useful gear. Her flashlight had to be running low on batteries, so either more batteries or a new flashlight would be fantastic, or any sort of weaponry in case her sword should be lost or broken, or of course, she thought as hunger gnawed at her stomach, food.
In the next room Brienne found a desk, and opened its drawers hopefully, but found nothing but sheets of paper and pens and documents that meant nothing to her. No batteries, no new flashlight, nothing of use to her. Pity.
She was thankful that the next room she headed into was the kitchen, and though she had to slay another of the monsters which lurked there (her sword cleaved its soft skull in half as though it were a watermelon; she had to wonder just how detrimental the disease was to their bodies if it was that easy to do so), it was well worth it.
She opened to the cupboards to find a number of abandoned boxes of non-perishable foods, and several cans of soup.
Brienne felt even more gleeful when she opened a drawer in the kitchen to find a lighter, and she found herself standing in the backyard making a fire using paper from the office and a number of twigs, and she cooked herself some of the chicken noodle soup.
The sun was setting even lower, and after it was cooked she quickly headed back indoors as not to attract more of the creatures with light form the fire. The house seemed to be empty now, and she sipped at her soup in peace, stomach relaxing a bit as Brienne gorged herself on soup and stale crackers. It was a meager meal compared to what she might have eaten in the days before the incident, but it was certainly better than nothing and it was welcome in her stomach.
Brienne continued her search of the house, and found little else of use, but threw the remaining boxes and cans into her backpack, and pocketed the lighter, silently thanking the smokers everywhere for having gifted her with a tool with which to make fire.
She continued down the street, picking a few more houses to scavenge from, and finding little in any of the next three. It was getting very dark now, and her flashlight was beginning to attract the attention of the creatures. It was time to find somewhere to settle.
The next house she picked was the largest on the street by far, and was locked. She cursed under her breath, but determined, pulled out her trusty lockpick and set to work, wriggling at the lock until she was able to spring the door open and walk inside.
She shone her flashlight back and forth, and found, thankfully, none of the monsters lurking about, at least not out in the open. She wasn't sure if that calmed or worried her.
Brienne carried on, but in her search for additional supplies and a place to sleep was cut short when her flashlight suddenly decided that its batteries were not enough for her, and out of nowhere its light dimmed, and went out. "Shit," she hissed under her breath, trying to feel her way around what she thought was the living room.
She took a step forward, and found herself crashing onto the floor as her foot caught onto a piece of furniture and she tumbled noisily to the floor.
Well, that had gone well.
Brienne swore again.