Somewhere.

[whatevermaycome]

[Time's lost its meaning, somewhere in between a cry for help that left his head ringing and the endless sunrises, heat and stench of a town bereft of life but not corpses.

It's been long enough that the smell had attracted flying worms to the feast, darting in and out of homes once full of life to gorge themselves on the available meat, the slow but steady breeze carrying it for iles. Sooner or later larger worms would arrive, to feed on the little ones or whatever meat was left, and larger ones after them, but the desert was beginning its relentless claiming of the now mostly barren town, wind and sand scouring the bloodstains from streets and walls bit by bit, and bleaching the red bones left behind in the open by the worms towards ivory. Left alone, the sun and wind would turn them white, but not yet.

Aside from the worms, the only other thing more or less intact in the town is a blond haired and filthy lean form tucked in the shadow of a tall metal post, still chained there by the wrist as he had been since the world shook like a snowglobe in the hands of a particularly enthusiastic toddler. He's slumped in an uncomfortably boneless way that at first glance suggests he's as dead as everyone else in this town, a missing arm and red raw stump furthering this idea. Except the actual dismembered arm some short distance away shows obvious evidence of rot and having been chewed on presumably by worms, while the boy, nearly a young man, has no such decay. Just dirt, blood and grime and missing shoes, but he's terribly still, not so much as twitching as a faintly glowing flying worm, still round from its last meal, descends to investigate a new one.

Only once it lands does he suddenly spring to life, twisting like a cat to smash the insect creature against the post with one bare foot just enough to drop it twitching to the ground. A closer look reveals the scattered bits of a number of other worms, a leg here, a wing there - survival necessitated some pretty damn gross stuff, but Vash hasn't made it this long, even as young as he was compared to others, by simply giving up. And feet and toes will do in lieu of the hands he no longer had access to.

Someone would come, eventually. Eventually. He just had to last til then.

At least the taste of worm, dirt and filth was no longer nauseating.]