Chapter 45. The Wastelands

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Leaving the relative safety and confines of the city walls was always a sobering experience. 

Love had often ventured out into the areas within the immediate vicinity of the city walls, but she never joined extended scouting expeditions into the heart of the Wastelands. 

The sky, as it was above the outskirts, was clouded and grey. Yet without the perpetual rising of smoke from the city factories, it appeared clearer out here, as though the dark cloud cover threatened to break at any moment. 

The clouds rolled and churned across the sky in vibrant shades of purple and muted grey. 

Occasionally a violent flash of distant lightning would illuminate the vast expanse of land below. 

The after effects of the Last War lingered like a deadly parasite, clinging to the landscape and infecting the sky, the earth and the water.