There was nothing left.
He walked amongst the rubble, trying to find some shred of his former life. A yellow piece here, a brown piece there. Nothing he recognized.
He feared he would find something he didn't want. A body. Parts of a body. Even worse, a family member or someone else he knew. But he didn't expect to recognize them anyway.
It was still too early to tell. It was still the phase of missing persons reports, of desperate family members putting up notices asking if anyone had seen someone they loved.
Maybe that's why he was there, but he didn't want to admit it. "I just want something to remember my old life by," he would repeat to others and to himself. But there was nothing left, and he walked amongst the rubble, kicking over stones.