Fight or Flight

Ash was remarkably like snow.
Soft and vanished at the slightest touch, melted against skin in a fine residue rather than moisture. Pale. So pale and light-
Remarkably small and insignificant for something that was once the greatest structure in the world.
Adrian trembled, more from shock than anything else. She had never felt much pain, never much cold- so why would the numbness that had served her so long feel so wrong now? She half-crawled, mostly dragged herself along the thawed ground. Her leg didn't hurt- did it? But it wouldn't hold her, her arms at least seemed to be in working order.
Things smelled, stank even through the mask. Like burnt hair and hot metal? She felt something brush against her knee, something light and flexible, grass? She glanced down (hands seemed different, mottled? Pink and raw, but they didn't hurt, did they?) and started at the dry yellowed-green tufts, stronger and more numerous than the few feeble blades that wormed their way up, sometimes, through the cobbled city streets.
She struggled ahead until she reached... a tree? Was that what this thing was? Rough-skinned and thin many-limbed, faint fluttering things clinging to those furthest up. It was solid anyway, that was the important thing. Adrian hefted herself up to it, managing to position enough to lean back against it, facing west where the orange glow still burned, taking the empire with it. Near enough she could still make out the city walls, the tower that still stood and the one that had collapsed, near enough to see figures still staggering away- near enough still to smell?
The air was crisper here, clearer as she took the mask off at last, but she still caught traces of burnt meat, burnt hair and wood and smoke and coppery blood.
Far enough away at least that she couldn't hear the sound, not truly- but the crackling still echoed in her ears, crackling and snaps, shrieks and thundering feet, the bells before they fell from their places. A cry for help.
For her, her name screamed in a tone she'd never heard from the man before, raw and desperate as she abandoned his side for the first time, driven by- by what?
The same thing that made her twist away from every blow her instructors had aimed at her, that they told her was so very important and what made her so very swift, that she would either kill or be killed. That was what she'd done, wasn't it? The situation had been non-viable. There was nothing left to be gained.
Adrian's hands trembled.
Or was it her entire body?
It wasn't stopping either way, violent shivers through her spine, her limbs, her chest tight and breathing shallow, fast, too fast and she couldn't get in enough air; couldn't feel herself and that was very, very wrong, wasn't it?
She was only dimly aware of something on her cheek, running down along her jaw; something light and fleeting but joined by more. Ashes- had to be ashes, or had the snow started again?
But ashes would make more sense, the way her eyes stung, ash and smoke and nothing more.