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the world that surrounded her, breathing all of it deep into her lungs. She could feel it fill her chest and rush around every bone, fibre, capillary and nerve. As she exhaled, her hand reached automatically behind her to pull the door shut and she set off sharply into the forest, treading determinedly along the path that had waited for her, only her, all morning.
    After a couple of minutes, she came across the narrow stream that gave her the water she needed. It was almost completely obscured by the green shoots that arched languidly towards its flow, a casual passer-by would have missed it completely – not that there ever were any out here.
    Strangers never came this way. There was nothing on the map, it was miles from anywhere, and the proximity of the Chute – with its stinking breeze and nightmarish landscape – was enough to make most people take a detour. There had only ever been four visitors to Eve’s little clearing in all of the years she had been there.
    There was the young couple who had appeared out of the trees one day, soaked through from the rain and looking like they hadn’t eaten in days. Eve had let them stay for a while, whilst they regained their strength and worked out the route they would take to find the Lifers. They were full of new love and adventure and their energy flooded into the hut whilst they were there. When they left, Eve waved them off from her door, so enchanted by their smiling faces that she stood there long after their voices disappeared back into the trees. When she stepped back inside she picked his picture off the wall, curled up on the floor and wept like a child for the youth that had left her, drifting away on an almost imperceptible current of time as she waited for her love’s return. It was the start of a deep depression that engulfed her for several days.
    Then there were the two men who had knocked at her door, as the winter sun dipped behind the frosted trees one evening. They were dressed in heavy coats and stout boots, each with a knapsack and rifle slung over their shoulders. They had said they were lost, had been walking for days and needed some shelter for the night, so Eve let them in and gave them soup and spirit.
    She could tell they weren’t Lifers. They clearly had money, and were too clean and freshly shaven to have been on the road for any length of time. Perhaps they were about to go over and touring for sport before they did, spending a few days on safari hunting luckless Ghosts and Lifers to clock up a last few physical pleasures and dark fantasies to take with them to their endless new existence. Perhaps they were Drones from AarBee, keeping people away from power banks, server farms and the Chute. Either way, she didn’t trust them. If something bad didn't happen to her, she felt certain it would happen to someone else. So she waited until they were asleep, until their breathing fell into the rolling rhythm of deep slumber, and despatched them both with her hunting knife.
    They rested now in the bluebell clearing just behind the hut, buried with their knapsacks and rifles. Eve hadn’t looked in their pockets or bags, she didn’t want to know.
    The battered water bottle glugged as Eve plunged it deep into the water, angling it expertly against the flow. The surface was home to bugs, sticks and scum, the fresh water was deeper down and keeping the bottle turned away from the flow stopped the fry and animal droppings from drifting in.
    She brought the bottle back up to the surface, held it up to the light and then drank the whole lot down. It was her first drink of the day and the water charged icily down her throat, washing away the dryness of the morning. She filled it a second time, checked it against the light again and twisted the top on firmly before tucking it into her backpack.
    The path through the wood was abundant with summertime plants and smells. Broad green leaves lolloped at its edges, hiding the last puddles of dew under their canopy,