Sometimes I wonder how we all got here.

To a state in the world where the very air we breathe is toxic. I pull my mask back up over my mouth and push on through the abandoned aisles of the local convenience store. Any more than a few moments in this air without a mask, and my lungs will collapse.

Since the Third World War, sickness has been running rampant throughout countries. For a while, it seemed like we may have been able to flatten the curve of those infected and stop the spread. But the sickness just worsened and spread further throughout the Earth. The air became contaminated, and those who didn’t wear some form of filtration fell ill and died in large numbers.

Now here we are. A few stragglers among dilapidated cities, struggling to find enough necessities to survive.

I rummage through the near-empty shelves in hopes of finding something to eat that isn’t from the forest and that I must skin alive to cook. My prayers are answered as I pull out a can of bready noodles in indistinguishable red sauce. But I can’t eat it here. If I inhale any more poison, I may not make it back to base camp.

So instead of digging into it ravenously, like I want to, I shove the can into my satchel and begin skirting my way back towards the front door. I blink away the dark spots flitting across my vision as I fail to breathe in enough suitable oxygen and grip the door handle to keep from falling.

The feeling of suffocating fades after a few moments, and I am back on my way. I cross the street, glancing up at the abandoned buildings with a nostalgic tug on my heart. Everything is so different now. It’s crazy to think that nothing will ever be the same after this. It hasn’t been for nearly four years, anyway, so I don’t know why I’m complaining.

Maybe because I’m about ready to give up entirely. The world isn’t what it used to be, and I see no signs of anything getting any better, so why try?

I shake my head, trying to dislodge the thoughts that weigh so heavily on me, and turn to soak in the remaining shafts of sunlight falling through the clouds.

That night, in my plywood lean-to with plastic sheets draped overhead, I light a candle and pull the can of noodles out of my leather satchel.

I mumble a prayer under my breath and then crack open the lid, grimacing as the smell seeps through my cotton mask and into my nose. Being careful not to cut my fingers on the edge of the metal can, I snatch a scoop of noodles from inside and carefully slip my mask down just long enough to toss the food into my mouth and then yank it back up. The noodles are cold and slimy as I swallow, and my mask quickly fills with hot air as I try to breathe and chew at the same time.

I repeat the process until the can is empty, and I promptly dunk it in the tub of dirty water sitting outside of my lean-to shelter. I reread the same novel I’ve had since society collapsed: Les Misérables by Victor Hugo. I’m almost able to speak French from reading it so many times, and by the time I finish two chapters, my stomach is cramping so bad I must lie down.

Maybe it was stupid to eat something from a dented can that expired two years ago.

I toss and turn for the rest of the night, stopping only to vomit into the dead bushes behind my camp multiple times. By morning, my head is throbbing, and my face is blotchy. I wander down to the river and swish some brown water in my mouth in an attempt to get the bitter taste of old food out.

It doesn’t work, and I smell the rancid odour within my mask for the rest of the day until I find some wild strawberries and devour them.

It isn’t until the next night that I realise the sickness I’m feeling must not be from the canned noodles at all.

It’s the sickness in the air. I took my mask off more than usual that day anyways, and I must have wandered closer to a heavily infected area. My head swims as I make the realization, and I decide to head for the next town over. I’ve heard rumors of small communities within the remains of old towns or farms. Maybe they would let me in.

And maybe one of them can help me get rid of the sickness.

I am going to leave today. I have lived here for the past six months, and I was all alone for the three years before that, so I don’t know how to feel about going out in search of other people that I don’t want to see. I’d have a higher risk of getting contaminated with others around anyways, and as these thoughts fly through my head, I start to think that maybe I should just call the whole thing off right now.

But I won’t, no matter how much my hands are shaking or how fast my heart is beating. Because I can’t go on like this. I need to be free. I need a fresh start. And this is the only way I know how to get that.

I focus myself as I walk by listing off all the symptoms of the airborne sickness one by one. Weak muscles, swollen joints, red face, dry mouth, loss of voice, brittle fingernail-

My thoughts drop away suddenly as I hear a shriek come from the sky. A kettle of hawks rushes up and out of the dying trees towering above me, swooping in a huge arch, only to dip and dive to the North.

Almost as if they want me to follow them.

I shake my head. Now I’m just making things up. A group of hawks isn’t going to be communicating to me while I search for a group of survivors.

I want desperately to rip the cloth from my face, to take a deep breath like I haven’t gotten to in years, but then my mind fills with the horror stories I was told of the sickness taking unassuming people who wouldn’t wear masks, conspiracy theorists that believed there was no sickness at all. There were ones that coughed up blood or suffocated to death, others that just collapsed and died on the spot, and still others that experienced such debilitating nerve pain that they didn’t even want to live anymore.

These thoughts are the only things keeping my twitching fingers from my mask, and calmly at my sides. The only things keeping me breathing.

The sun begins setting seemingly seconds later, and I hurry to set up a makeshift tent beneath a dead tree and start a fire nearby. The crunching sounds that echo constantly throughout the night keep me awake and tense, unable to think about anything besides the horror that may lie past the orange glow of the fire.

When morning finally comes, I’m shocked by two things. First, that I managed to fall asleep at all during the subtle chorus of bugs and dancing shadows that raged through the night. And second, that it seems my mask fell off at some point during my slumber. For a short moment, I revel in the feeling of cool air against my lips as I blink my eyes open. Then the panic sets in as I realise why I am feeling anything at all. I shoot up from my cramped position beneath the tattered cloth tent held up by mouldy wooden rods and begin scrambling to find my mask. With one hand rummaging among the dead, decaying leaves below me, and the other clamped against my mouth and nose, I search for it in a panicked frenzy.

Finally, there, I see the crusted, dirt-smeared rag in front of me and grab it, pulling the loops up and over my ears to hold it in place. I take huge gulps of dank air as soon as it’s back on my face and try to force my racing pulse to slow.

I’m going far too slow if I want to arrive in any survivor camp before the sickness takes me. It may be too late already. I pull on my mismatched, tight leather shoes and kick at the embers of my fire until all traces of me are long gone. Then I set out once more to find safety.

I say one more prayer under my breath, that I will find a camp before I’m gone forever. No more than a smudge in the world’s dark, sick history.

By the next evening, my feet are throbbing like I walked a mile with nails in my shoes and my eyes are watering like Niagara Falls. Which ironically, was bombed in the war, and is now no more than a pile of rubble in a pit of stagnant water.

I collapse on top of a hill overlooking a darkened field that stretches out for almost three miles. In the quickly dimming evening, I can’t see anything but a small speck that I assume is a bonfire.

My throat feels raw, and I imagine myself passing away quietly as I sleep. Or waking up in a mad panic and trying to claw at the air while my lungs disintegrate.

I blink away the mental image and decide to push on. I can go one more night without sleep if it means I can find a cure.

But the hope that was so palpable three days ago is waning, and I’d rather jump off this hill than take another step. I feel that my journey, my very life itself, is coming to a close, and even my eyes don’t want to stay open to see the next sunrise.

I know if I don’t get down to that community now, I’m going to die. So, I push myself up off the ground, letting my satchel slip from my shoulder and come to rest in the cold grass beneath me. I drag my feet forward, the uneven terrain drawing sharp gasps and cries of pain from me as my legs weaken.

My lungs are beginning to make a high-pitched wheezing sound each time I inhale, and my eyes feel like a thousand pounds of pressure are behind them. The sickness has its hooks in me, and I can’t see any way out now. Even my muttered prayers are too painful to croak out.

It looks like this is the end, for me. All this way, all these years: For nothing. There is no cure, there is no rest, and there are no survivors. These words spiral in my head over and over again as I make my way down the hill and closer to what looks like an arched gate.

No one will be there to greet me, no one will be able to cure me. I take shallow, bitter smelling breaths through my dirty mask as I limp closer to what seemed like a good idea so long ago.

I finally come to a halt at the abandoned gate, falling heavily on my knees, my palms raking across the dirt path below me. I can almost taste the blood in my mouth as my vision fades. All I want is to breathe.

I open my eyes to find two people above me, arms crossed, heads tilted down, sharing whispers. They don’t notice me until I move, and I notice why I feel terror pounding through my veins at an insane rate.

They aren’t wearing masks.

My hand flies up to my uncovered mouth with a gasp. The two people stare at me, eyes wide, and one leans forward, hands outstretched innocently.

“I need a mask,” I say, my hand muffling my panicked words. The woman behind the first tries to hide a smirk, and the other shoots her a stern look.

She turns back to me with a gentle smile.

“You’re alright, now,” she says. I shake my head, sure that I’m inhaling the sickness every second that I sit here.

“No, please-” I start, ready to begin rambling like mad, when she stops me.

“Listen,” she snaps. “The sickness is gone.” For a moment, the world falls away. She nods and continues. “It ended almost three years ago. It just…died out.” She punctuates her sentence with a shrug, and I blink away nervous tears, hand still clasped against my face.

“No, no,” I mumble, shaking my head. “That’s not- I’m infected, I’ve been sick for three days…” The woman shakes her head.

“We did tests with the equipment we have, and you’re perfectly fine,” she assures me. “Could it have been… Have you ever heard of the placebo effect?” I shake my head again, and I’m sure that by now, I look like a plastic bobble head figure. The woman sighs.

“It’s not that- I know I was sick-” I stammer, struggling to breathe past my hand. The woman seems fed up with my rambling and the other intervenes.

“We have a community here,” she explains. “We have livestock, and homes, and gardens where we harvest our own food. It’s amazing.” She blinks a few times. “And there is no more sickness.”

My heart lifts as I picture the possibilities. No more masks and dirty water. I can breathe and sing and laugh and be free. For the first time in years.

But what if it doesn’t last? I can’t go back to hopelessness after being offered a one-way ticket to freedom and family.

As if she read my mind, the woman adds, “If you don’t try, how will you ever know if anything is safe?”

It’s my turn to shrug, and I plead with my eyes for her to give me a mask. They retreat outside the spacious tent, leaving me on a small, padded cot. One of them stops before pushing out the tent flap and says over her shoulder, “Come outside when you’re ready to embrace the revival of our society.” Then she’s gone, and I’m all alone again. I hear laughter and cries of joy outside the tent, and I wonder if it’s true. If the sickness really is gone.

I stand up, keeping my mouth covered for now. But the woman was right, I’m perfectly fine. My legs feel strong, and my eyes are clear. Even my chest feels light.

I push my way out into the light and am shocked to see the beauty of a recovering community. So shocked that my hand falls away from my mouth and I take a deep breath. Everything is bright, and alive. No death sullies the image of greenery and joy before me.

I’ve found it, this beautiful place where I can start over and feel alive once more. I feel brand new, now that I’ve found what I needed so desperately.

A breath of fresh air. My revival.