Armpit Journey in a Faraway Galaxy

*Phew!*

The smell of the deodorant hit me first, but I didn't even have time to enjoy it as the smell of sweat and piss hit me harder than a baseball bat. I was expecting this, but my legs were still weak and I stumbled for a moment before getting my feet back under me.

I had been searching for days before finally finding them. They didn't have many supplies, but enough that, if rationed carefully, would last them months. It wasn't just them though, someone else was there as well. The smell told me that much, but who it was I couldn't be sure. They all smelt like they hadn't showered in weeks.

I had been lucky enough to find an apartment block with an elevator that still worked and so made my way up floor by floor until I found them, three floors above ground level.

There were two men and one woman. They were sitting at a desk littered with empty cans and bottles when I burst in through the door. One of the men had gone for his gun but the other man stopped him with a raised hand. "What do you want?" He asked breathlessly.

"Food and water," I replied looking down at their empty stomachs with disgust. "I don't care what you did to get here."

"We're not going to share our food with you," said one of the men shaking his head whilst pulling his shirt over his nose in hopes of blocking out some of the smell coming off me.

"That's fine," I replied walking over to their fridge opening it up and taking out what little food there was inside, leaving only a few bottles of water behind for myself. "You can eat your own food."

"You're not going to leave are you?" Asked the woman looking up from her position on her bed next to the window. Her eyes were red, she was clearly crying recently, but she seemed fairly calm still which struck me as odd considering how hungry they all looked.

"No," I replied grabbing one of the bottles of water before returning to the fridge and pulling out two more bottles before closing it again and placing them in my backpack which was on my back at all times these days. "I'm going to stay here until it's safe."

I walked over to the woman who got up from her bed slowly before reaching out and squeezing her shoulder softly as I passed her by on my way over to one of the windows where I sat down and drank deeply from one of the bottles before handing another bottle over to her so she could drink as well. She took it gratefully and drank deeply herself before wiping away some tears with her fingertips before handing it back to me after having emptied it entirely without pause for air or anything else aside from perhaps some brain function that allowed her body to think about putting something into her mouth in order to quench her thirst without any thought being given as to where that water might have come from or whether or not she should even be drinking it in the first place given where she was and what she had apparently done in order to get there. There had been no real need for us too talk any more after that moment either as we both knew where we were now standing in relation to each other even if we didn’t know what either of us had done in order to get there or how we knew each other before now or any other kind of details about either party involved aside from what we could tell simply by looking at each other from where we stood at that moment without saying a single word between us until we left those bodies laying behind us bleeding out onto the floorboards beneath them after making our exit together through that same door through which we entered earlier today when everything was still normal and nothing smelled bad or tasted unpleasant or made us feel sick inside any more than we already felt deep down inside ourselves knowing full well that whatever damage they had done or whatever damage they would eventually do is something that neither of us wanted to be responsible for anymore than they wanted it done towards themselves or anyone else they cared about least they wanted it done towards us or our loved ones first if they ever found their way back into our lives again *if* they ever found their way back into our lives again because right now nothing is certain at all anymore except that things are different now because we are different now because nothing is ever quite going be normal anymore never again*