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Cooper woke up He couldn&039;t re by thelast night, staring out into the darkness and listening to the rain but, other than that, nothing He noticed the discarded face-mask on the floor and recollections of what had happened to hi and he still had a pulse As far as he could tell he was still fit and healthy and alive Surely the disease would have affected hi to affect hi outside was dry and, despite the sky being dull and overcast, relatively bright The heavy s over the city like a dense cloud of polluting fog, tainting everything with its abhorrent scent Now that he had discarded his breathing apparatus the stench was inescapable Regardless, Cooper quickly decided that it was just about preferable to the processed and recycled air that he&039;d been forced to breathe for most of the last two and a half weeks He ree city and that the air would surely be cleaner and more palatable elsewhere

There would undoubtedly be better places than this For a short tiht aboutthe return trip to the base He&039;d already made basic mental plans and preparations before the realisation dawned on hio back there if he didn&039;t want to It was only the sense of duty and h years of military service that had made him think that he should return

No doubt the other soldiers who had left the base with hiiven him up for dead by now - the officers would be more surprised if he did find his way back there now than if he re in action He suddenly found himself in a relatively fortunate position

He was free from the restrictions of military life and the confines of the bunker and, it seeer else What remained of the rest of the world was potentially his for the taking For a while Cooper alternated between feeling free and feeling compelled to return to his duties He looked down into the alley below theand watched a single bedraggled figure trip and stu to try and help here? Could he really disappear selfishly into the distance and leave everyone and everything else to rot? It was the scale of the disaster that ulti he could do What did he think he could possibly hope to do for the thousands of diseased people? It had been indicated that this was a global crisis Even if he returned to the base, what could a handful of soldiers possibly do to helpcitizens? Fro it was painfully obvious that society and civilisation was as dead as any of the decaying bodies still lying face down in the gutter

Feeling suddenly stronger and more confident Cooper decided toto do or where he was going to go, he just knew that there had to be somewhere better than this cra profusely in his heavy suit (it had kept hiht just ended) he peeled it off and dropped it to the ground, stripping it of any useful equipment He felt cold and the sudden unco back to reality and reminded him of the enormity of the catastrophe that had befallen the country For a while he considered trying to find his friends and family Much as it hurt him to do so, he knew that it was better to believe they were already lost If he did try and find the and there would be nothing he&039;d be able to do for theht, he seemed to have survived the disease, so why shouldn&039;t they have done so also? What if his ie to think that his survival thismay well have only been possible because of soly by his parents

He cautiouslyhis way and, with his autoently pushed the door open and peered out into the corridor He glanced left and right and, once he was sure the as clear, stepped out into the shadows His footsteps echoed loudly on the linoleum floor and he soon heardwas reacting to his movements As he crept cautiously towards the staircase he had used yesterday, Cooper found hi about the other troops who had been sent into toith him If they had made it back to the bunker then he knew exactly where they&039;d be now - locked tight in the deconta? Empty Lifeless They had seen the extent to which the world had been destroyed and they were probably more aware than anyone else of the apparent hopelessness of the situation He guessed that they would be locked in the cha let back into the main complex

He was sure that the hours and days which then folloould be spent being debriefed by the senior officers And as there to look forward to after that? Nothing Just erous excursions beyond the safety of the underground bunker followed by ly slow decontain again Cooper slowlycare with each individual footstep to avoid round level he questioned what it was the senior officers in the bunker thought they were going to achieve? As far as he could see the human race was over Destroyed in less than half a day by a virus of uniinable ferocity The soldier&039;s stealth and silence allowed hi seen or heard He pushed open a heavy glass door and stepped outside The rey cloud so prevalent earlier was now beginning to break up letting occasional patches of blue appear It was an exhilarating feeling seeing daylight again It had been good yesterday to get out of the bunker but this was a thousand times better For the first time in weeks he was free

For the first ti to feel like a huain He turned towards the heart of the city,down the alleyway in the same direction in which he had run yesterday Another listless, bedraggled figure traipsed towards hiht autuht which had suddenly spilled across the scene Cooper thought carefully for a moment, not sure how he should deal with it Should he attack it before it attacked him? The pathetic creature looked so weak and weary that he was instinctively sure it didn&039;t pose a serious threat to hiuard up he stood still and watched with morbid fascination as it moved closer and closer towards hi only his eyes The figure stuly oblivious to his presence The unexpected sunlight disappeared when the pitiful body was alongside him Despite the shadoas still able to clearly see the full extent of the decay and deterioration of the creature&039;s skin Once his as clear Cooper ainst the wall to his right, hiding in the relative darkness he found there At the end of the alleyas a junction

He followed a long, gently curved stretch of road round and found hie public square In spite of all that he had already seen, the sight which greeted him took his breath away Cooper had last been to this city on a waro The tiered square had been a popular publicplace and a well-known city land with friends outside a bar, drinking, laughing and generally wasting the day His ht about the time he&039;d spent here He could al water which had previously cascaded froe, modern fountain at the top of the square and run down decorative steps to a large shallow pool just a few meters away from where he stood Today the steps were dry and the waterfall and fountain eerily silent

Last tiht Today what renant There was a bloated body floating in the deepest part of the pool There were figures nearby He started toas he matched their slothful speed he didn&039;t seem to attract any unwanted attention These people were catatonic -but the eons would land in the square with a sudden burst of unexpected noise andbirds would cause the bodies to turn aardly and lurch and stagger towards theely invincible His immunity to the disease or virus or whatever sees he could see around him The fact that he could still control his speed and e, almost like an unexpected shield of protection or a cloak of invisibility

It really was as if the people couldn&039;t see him unless he made it obvious that he was there The lone soldier&039;s choices were endless but also strangely limited In theory he had the rest of the world at his disposal, and yet at the same time nowhere was safe Too much remained unknown and uncertain Whilst he was as sure as he could be of his apparent iht happen toerously distracted, he tripped up one of the large concrete steps and dropped his rifle It landed on the paving stones with a loud clatter that shattered the silence &039;Shit,&039; he cursed as he stooped to pick up the weapon Before he had even lifted his head again he are of theures, pouring out from the shadows

For a few seconds it was all he could do to look around helplessly, desperately searching for a way out of the exposed public area There see his way past the nearest few He glanced back over his shoulder and saw thatafter him Their speed was not a problem but their sudden sheer voluled to contain hispanic Instinct forced him to run, but he knew that it was his noise and s on either side of hi to them easily Desperate, he wrenched open the door of a telephone box and forced his way inside Pushing away rotting hands that reached after hiround With his back pressed against one side of the box and his feet pushed hard against the other, he looked up and watched with disgust as body after body slass cubicle

In seconds he was in alht outside blocked out by the ainst the phone box Cooper dropped his head and closed his eyes Wait for a while, he thought, and they&039;ll disappear