Leanne pushed the large wheelbarrow carrying her husband through the open doorway.

Happy Tails Veterinary Clinic offered the only medical care available in the war-torn city; survivors all brought their wounded here.  Her foot slipped in blood covering the tiled floor, and she lurched forward; a sharp metallic smell filled her nose.

She prayed the lone veterinary assistant treating the city’s victims could handle the bullet wounds to her husband’s chest and stomach.  For over a kilometer Leanne had propelled the wheelbarrow through rubble-filled streets, grunting and crying and begging him to survive.

She didn’t realize he had stopped breathing a block away from the clinic.  It didn’t matter; the first waves of odorless but lethal gas were already drifting through the city streets.  Her huffing and panting had drawn the gas into her lungs and she would join her husband long before she had a chance to mourn him.