Making it from our base in the dam to the town of Elektrozad was a weekly occurrence. Doing it more frequently would represent too high a risk, but too infrequently would represent the equal but opposite risk of starvation. The risks were tenfold; infection, bandit gangs, ghillie snipers and zombies. Instead of banding together, as you would expect of a country where the group is paramount, it had become every man for himself.

Dilkov and I walked along the tree line to mask our visibility. Concealing yourself was of the utmost importance as the gangs and the snipers were not necessarily after your resources. The apocalypse had them filled with nihilism and resentment for the world and therefore they hit back at existence in the best way they could postulate: making sure as many people die as possible.

In a way I could understand it and was even tempted many a time. These people have most likely seen family members die at the hands of other people and believe that the best solution is the join them. It makes sense. There is only a finite period on which human survival on our island is realistic, therefore acting as if there is meaning is difficult as you really will not have to face the consequences. No one is coming to save us so you will never be held accountable. People are just making justice prevail as they see fit.

As we walked along the tree line Dilkov scanned the hill with his binoculars. Having such chronic anxiety regarding being hit with a .50cal bullet for so long meant that we were adept to seeing Ghillie snipers outlines where the untrained eye could not. Dilkov signalled with his palm to get behind a tree. I squinted to see what he was seeing. It was a sniper, moving position. We watched him set up on the hill opposite us. As he was setting up, we begun to jog further south-west so we could head towards Elektro but also over the peak of the hill and out of the snipers line of sight.

As we got over the hill, a thud kicked up the mud between us. That was a sighting shot. We sprinted over the hill and to safety.