The second day, doubt crept in. Her calls echoed back empty, and every street she checked just turned up more bodies. Maybe she really was alone. The thought hit her harder than she wanted to admit.
By the third day—today—doubt had transformed into something darker. Not despair, exactly, but a cold recognition that her situation was far more precarious than her pride wanted to acknowledge. She was lost, alone, and running out of the academy rations she'd had in her badge's pocket dimension.
The battlefield stretched endlessly in every direction, a grotesque tapestry of death that seemed to mock any hope of escape. The corpses varied wildly. Petra couldn't begin to guess at their origins. The smell had become a constant companion, a mixture of decay and dried blood that clung to her clothes and hair no matter how much she tried to avoid the worst areas.
