The adrenaline-induced high from her first ever fight had well and truly faded.

  Her breath was laboured and the stitch in her side was quietly killing her, as were the blisters forming on her feet, but she kept on moving through the narrow gaps between the houses that sat on the incline - an incline which led to the ruined shell of a tower at the top.

  It was a gamble, but one she’d judged worthwhile. She panted, giving a pep talk to keep herself going, just like her father had when she’d crammed for exams - providing moral support if not actual help - but with language he’d never have used.

  “Allez, magne ton cul. Just another hundred yards. What does it matter if it is uphill? Uphill means good vantage point. Good vantage point means watchpost. Military watchpost means supplies. Water. Water means we can rest.”

  It was a mantra that had kept her going for the last ten minutes since she’d decided to make the attempt - creeping down quieter streets, hiding in alleys and houses as undead shambled past, smashing the one or two that she couldn’t avoid, slowly making the approach.

  It was exhausting on both body and nerves, but even if there was nothing of use up there, it would still give her a place to scout out the rest of the surrounding area from.

  “Worst case: no water. So, we look for other places. Where do we look Marie? Well Marie, we look for squares or marketplaces; if they originally lacked plumbing they must have had wells in places where people could gather, which then turn into communal spaces.”

  The idea of responding to herself might have given Marie cause for concern on a normal day, but nothing about the last twelve hours could be called normal, and the growing angry fire in her arm was making her irritable, as was the headache she was getting. She wiped the sweat from her brow. She felt hot.

  “And what if they don’t have wells in their marketplaces Marie? What then? Well Marie, then we look for big important places. Temples perhaps, or rich people’s houses. Everyone always wants water. We want water, do we not Marie? Yes we certainly do. Marie would love a cool bath right now.”

  A part of her registered that it was strange she was so hot when the dead city was cold, but that part of her consciousness was pushed to one side by the larger part that wanted to get up this damn hill.

  She almost cried relief when she reached the summit. A glimmer of moisture did appear in the corners of her eyes when she saw a low circular stone structure to one side of the ruined tower.

  She stumbled over to the well and only when she reached its cracked facade did she realise the problem: there was no bucket.

  Not only was there no bucket, but there was no rope or winch or pulley.

  The hint of tears almost turned into weeping, but Marie forced herself to adopt the practical approach.

  Someone had made the well. It was a big city. In medieval times on earth they would have needed to maintain it. There was a chance that there were-

  She almost cried for a third time, this time in relief, as she carefully leaned over the lip of the stone ledge and saw hand and foot holds cut into the stones of the well, leading downwards.

  The only problem was that they started a good few feet below the surface level.

  She was so close, she could almost taste the cool, sweet water that sat beyond her reach.

  “Okay. We can do this.”

  She couldn’t afford to go somewhere else and risk not finding another source. Not now when it was so close at hand…

  All she had with her besides her clothes and the leather pouch she’d found was her spade.

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  So she worked with what she had.

  In a faint haze of delirium, Marie took off her boots, wincing at the pain of blisters forming on her feet. Then she stripped off her jeans, nose wrinkling at the sight and smell of them, holding them at arm's length as she addressed them.

  “You are a secondary priority right now.”

  Taking the jeans, she pulled one leg over the handle of the spade, adjusting it until the other leg hung down in the middle. Then she went over and inspected the ring of stones that made up the top layer of the well. The stones didn’t budge when she pushed them, which was a relief, so she picked two of the deeper cracks and wedged the spade in, trouser leg hanging down inside the well.

  Not trusting to the state of her bare feet, she spent a minute massaging them before returning them to the boots and doing up the laces. Extra tight. Just in case, she also took off her glasses and rested them carefully in a large enough crack in the side of the well; she wasn’t that blind as to need them to get herself in, and there wouldn’t be enough light down there to navigate by anyway.

  It will be just like caving.

  She almost believed herself.

  It was just as she was about to lower herself over the side - to attempt what she never would have if she hadn’t been both slightly dazed and incredibly desperate - when a sudden fear struck her.

  Feeling around on the ground, she found the smallest, cleanest pebble she could - one she might have used for skimming in happier circumstances - and, heart in her mouth, dropped it down into the well - and counted.

  One. Two. Three.

  A faint splash filled her with both relief and dread.

  There was water.

  But three seconds for the stone to reach it…

  …a hundred and twenty feet? A hundred and thirty? Surely not more than a hundred and fifty…

  She looked back down at the fuzzy shape of the hill that had taken her a minute to climb and realised it made sense.

  What choice did she have though.

  Giving herself another minute to prepare, she massaged her legs and arms, avoiding only the raw, red area that was pulsing in time to her heartbeat.

  Then with a deep breath she climbed into the well.

  Desperation outweighed fear and, as she lowered herself by her jeans, fingers digging like claws into the fabric and praying it didn’t rip, she felt only a sense of urgency to get to the cool water below.

  Her feet scrabbled for the holds in the wall, followed by her hands as she shuffled down, finding the cut-stone mercifully dry and curved slightly for gripping.

  Breathing out, she took the first step down, then another, and another.

  She kept count as she descended. Fifty. A hundred. One hundred and fifty.

  The minuscule amount of light filtering down from the circle far overhead was barely enough to see a few feet, and Marie was making her way more by feel than anything else, aching hands clenching the dry rock in something close to a death-grip.

  It was smooth, worn away by centuries or millennia, and that was the only thing saving her much-abused skin from tearing.

  She’d stopped glancing down and it was only the slight decrease in pressure and the gentle splash that echoed above the sound of her ragged breathing that alerted her to the fact that she’d reached the bottom.

  For the briefest part of a second she bowed her head, and let the coolness of the water seep through her boot and bring some relief to her ravaged feet, but the knowledge of how dirty her shoes were and the condition of her feet made her pull it out of the water as soon as she could face taking a step up. She was here for one main reason, and she now faced a new challenge: working out how to drink.

  It would have been an impossible manoeuvre to turn and get her face close enough to take a sip - or even to lap at it like a dog might. There was no way she’d be able to lower herself with one hand and reach down with the other without falling in.

  Nor was the well narrow enough for her to brace herself with only her feet and reach down with her hands.

  Her t-shirt was too filthy to dip in and suck the moisture from.

  That left…what?

  She’d come too far to be defeated now.

  What alternatives were there though? She-

  Wait a minute.

  There was something in her bra. She’d put it there when she’d taken her jeans off, for safe-keeping. It’d bothered her at the start of the descent until greater discomforts had forced it from her mind. The little leather pouch. It was a container, of sorts.

  Pulling herself as close into the curve of the wall as she could, Marie took one hand off the carved holds, reaching into her bra and withdrawing the pouch. She almost laughed in relief and determination as she gripped the edge between her teeth and gently teased the drawstring open with her fingers, reaching in and withdrawing the coins and stone one by one and slotting them back into her bra outside the pouch now.

  It took her less than a minute to be left holding the empty pouch, dangling by the string in one hand.

  Her arm and leg muscles were on fire, and her back was protesting at the unnatural position she was holding even as her hand in the well wall tried to cramp up, but the pouch gave her almost another ten inches of reach as she dangled it down towards the surface of the water, and that chance was all she needed to hold on.

  Going slowly, carefully, despite the intensity of her craving for the cool refreshing liquid that was almost within her grasp, she reached down and dipped the opening of the pouch into the water…

  …and something reached back up.

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