53

How long has it been going on? Days? Months? Years? The last time she saw her reflection (in a puddle of her own urine) she didn't look very old. Lips parched, skin peeling from the sun, many areas of her body bruised and scraped, but she still looks to be in her twenties, even though her real age is listed as 30.

When will you stop chasing death like an idiot and settle the fuck down? This world is not a fucking video game, Erika.

The voice of her twin sister, Alexandra, haunts her from memories.

Alex was always the better furnished of the two, maybe that's why she did get promoted, while she ended up with dishonorable discharge for (according to the court martial) failure to follow orders and violating morale, when everyone knows that there is no female in the world with higher morals than her! Plus, that she's pretty sure she ended up sanctioned for being caught giving good dicks to the wife of a general in her country's air force.

(It's not my fault those cloud chewers don't know how to give a proper shag! So much strap on legs to keep the blood from dancing when they fly, you can see it takes its toll!)

Erika defends the theory that only a woman truly knows how to tend to another woman's body, just as only a native knows the ins and outs of her country. Men, to Erika, are foreign visitors.

(They could learn a thing or two.... Thing or two...)

Her vision blurs.

Ranting and raving helped distract her from the fact what is dying. Her remaining supplies were ruined when she crashed, and after two and a half days without managing to hunt anything or find water, walking on that steaming earth under a sun that pokes its rays like fingers between your vertebrae, added to the emotional stress of avoiding sleep to watch out for predators, and the fact that she failed Chester, it was translating into a cocktail for a sad ending.

(I'll take... A break)

She plops down on the warm ground. She closes her eyes, comfortable with her face stuck in the dust. The world can't tell her she didn't fight. She is a warrior, an exemplary German, the führer will welcome her with open arms in Valhalla, she bets on it.

During her peace with the afterlife, hears a voice with an ethereal tinge that she almost confuses with the galloping of the wind.

Erika...

The mercenary's body and countenance shudder.

Erika, get up...

The voice is sweet, familiar, with a touch of naivety.

Dear friend, please don't die. Chester need you. 

The German murmurs a name.

"Nadjela...?"

She makes an effort, lifts her powdered face, and sees on the horizon a brunette girl dressed in white, who calls out to her with her hands.

"What are you doing here? You should be with the fool..."

Moving as if in a dream, Erika stands up and walks behind the apparition with automatic steps. Her mind was not quite processing what is happening, only the pain in her feet, and the change from the bright scorching heat to more temperate oranges, give her clues to the passage of time. Each time he promises to faint, the princess's voice urges him on.

Stop!

Erika awakens from her trance and jumps a little. She discovers herself on the edge of a precipice in the open field, which leads to a slope where families of white-trunked trees with branches full of intertwined green leaves grow in a cooler environment. The largest of these families is located in the center, and hides a small lake fed by a subway spring.

"Green!"Erika exclaims, with life and cheer returning to her countenance.

Even after satiating herself with the spring water and cooling her body, she kept wondering where Nadjela went, or if it was real. In the end, with all of her submerged in the water to soothe the complaints of her muscles, Erika closes her eyes and chooses to relax.

The waving of some branches unnerves her.

"If you're a caddy or a peeping tom, know that I've got a gun right here and I'll blow your fucking brains out!" Erika shouts it as if she believes it herself.

But those who emerge from the bushes are not slavers, but a dozen very young girls, of different nationalities, and with hunger and abuse marked on their bodies covered by ragged rags. One of them advances and extends a machete in their direction, in her emotionless eyes there is a question or a threat, it is not very clear.

"What the fuck...?" Erika is speechless.