Empire of Ash

The sky possessed no blue. Kael had never seen the color blue, not in the heavens, anyway—only on the shattered shards of glass from the dead skyscrapers of the Old World. The sky of the present was a thick, suffocating blanket of lead-gray and turbid orange, where the sun was nothing more than a pale, sickly ulcer trying desperately to burn through the eternal layer of ash.

Kael adjusted the strap of his gas mask. The worn rubber chafed against his cheekbones, leaving raw, stinging red welts, but it was a cheap price to pay for the privilege of breathing. The air in The Deadlands wasn’t just dirty; it was acidic. To inhale a full lungful without a charcoal filter meant your lungs would liquefy from the inside out in under an hour.

“Damn it,” Kael hissed through the static-laced voice modulator, his grip tightening on a crowbar fashioned from rusted titanium alloy.

Before him lay the carcass of a terrestrial Leviathan—a massive military transport ship from the Great War, now lying askew, half-buried in the sea of black ash. It looked like the skeleton of a metallic whale beached in a desert of destruction.

This was Sector 7, a zone the Obsidian Council had declared “Forbidden Territory.” But prohibitions were only for those with full bellies. For “Dust-Divers” like Kael, a ban simply meant less competition and better salvage.

Kael slid down the ash-covered hillside, his heavy boots finding purchase in the porous dust. The wind whistled through the gaping wounds of the ship, creating ghostly, hollow sounds, like the weeping of souls incinerated in the fires that consumed the world three hundred years ago.

He squeezed through a jagged tear in the ship’s hull. Inside, it was pitch black, save for the pale blue beam of the flashlight mounted on Kael’s shoulder, cutting through the gloom. The air was thick with the smell of stale metal and ancient mold.

“Alright,” Kael whispered to himself, a habit developed to maintain sanity in the silence. “You need a Level 4 air filter. Or an Isotope power core. Don’t get greedy, Kael. Find it fast, get out fast.”

He ventured deeper into the belly of the ship. Desiccated skeletons in tattered uniforms lay scattered about. Kael stepped over them without hesitation. In the Empire of Ash, the dead were the only thing in surplus.

He stopped before a steel-reinforced door, faintly stamped with a symbol of the Old World: A star enclosed in a circle. It had been sealed tight, locked down for centuries, but time is the greatest lockpicker. The hinges had been eaten away by corrosion.

Kael wedged the crowbar into the door jam. He grit his teeth, channeling every ounce of strength in his lean, wiry frame into his arms.

Screech... BANG.

The door popped open, sending up a cloud of dust.

Kael coughed, waving his hand to clear the air. As his flashlight beam swept across the small room, his heart skipped a beat.

It wasn’t an armory. It wasn’t a dry food storage. It was a mini-laboratory, or something similar. And in the center of the room, resting on a metal pedestal, was a box.

No, not a box. A cube.

It was porcelain white, absurdly clean amidst this wreckage. Not a single speck of dust clung to its sleek surface. It was the size of a grapefruit, and hairline grooves ran along its surface, pulsating with a rhythmic blue light.

“What the hell is this?” Kael stepped forward, pulling off his thick leather glove to feel it.

The moment his fingertips brushed the cold surface of the cube, a pulse of energy shot up his spine. It wasn’t an electric shock. It felt like... a whisper.

He quickly shoved the cube into his frayed canvas backpack. Whatever it was, it was certainly worth more than a month’s worth of rations. Maybe he could trade it for medicine for Elara. The thought of his little sister, bedridden with the “Black Cough,” snapped Kael back to reality instantly.

He turned to leave.

And that was when he heard it.

Click-clack. Click-clack.

The sound of claws skittering on metal. It wasn’t the wind. Something was in the ship.

Kael killed his flashlight immediately. Darkness swallowed him. He pressed himself behind a large cargo crate, pulling a dagger made from a truck leaf-spring from his belt.

The noise drew closer. Accompanying it was a wet, wheezing breath. The overpowering stench of rotting meat and sulfur assaulted Kael’s nose, piercing right through his mask’s filters.

It was an Ash-Stalker.

These mutated abominations were the nightmare of every Dust-Diver. They used to be human, or dogs, or something else entirely, but radiation and chemical runoff had twisted them into pale, eyeless monsters with hypersensitive hearing. They hunted by sound and heat.

Kael held his breath. His heart hammered against his ribs like it wanted to break them. If it beat too loudly, the monster would hear it.

The Ash-Stalker stepped into the dim light filtering through a crack in the ceiling. It moved on four legs, its limbs elongated and twisted at unnatural angles. Its skin was translucent, revealing the black muscle fibers pulsing beneath. Its head was bald and featureless—no eyes, just a wide, gaping maw filled with jagged, needle-like teeth.

It stopped. Its head tilted to the side. It was listening.

Kael gripped his knife. He knew he couldn’t outrun it in these tight quarters. The beast was faster than him.

Suddenly, a small beep echoed from inside Kael’s backpack.

The cube.

The monster let out a piercing shriek and lunged straight for the crate where Kael was hiding.

“Damn it!” Kael yelled, rolling to the side.

The monster’s claws shredded the metal crate as if it were wet paper. Kael sprang up, swinging the crowbar with his left hand.

CRACK!

The metal bar slammed into the monster’s skull. It roared in pain, stumbling back. But the blow wasn’t enough to kill it. A Stalker’s skull was as hard as rock.

It whipped its long, barbed tail toward him. Kael jumped back, but not fast enough. The barb grazed his shoulder, tearing through his protective suit. A searing pain flared, but Kael didn’t dare check the wound. If the suit was breached, the acid in the air would begin to eat at his flesh.Black blood, thick and scalding hot, sprayed out, drenching Kael. The monster convulsed, shrieked, and then collapsed to the floor, pinning Kael’s leg under its dead weight.

Kael groaned, using every ounce of strength to push the reeking corpse off him. He scrambled to his feet, his breath coming in ragged gasps that fogged his mask’s visor.

“Gotta go,” he muttered, his hands shaking as he checked the tear in his shoulder. Luckily, the inner lining was intact. “Before the whole pack shows up.”

He grabbed his backpack, glanced at the corpse one last time, and bolted out of the shipwreck, running for his life toward the gray horizon.

Three hours later.

The walls of the Fortress City of Ironhold loomed before Kael, black and towering, blocking out all view of what lay beyond. This was the only place humanity still existed—or at least, the only place Kael knew of.

Massive smokestacks from the smelters spewed pillars of black smoke into the sky, merging with the eternal cloud layer. Ironhold wasn’t a paradise; it was a giant steel cage where humans sold their labor in exchange for clean water and breathable air.

Kael merged into the stream of ragged people lining up at Gate 4. These were scavengers, hunters, or outcasts returning from the Deadlands.

The Obsidian Council’s guards stood on the watchtowers, heavy laser repeaters aimed down at the crowd. Their sleek black armor contrasted sharply with the patched, mismatched rags of the civilians.

“ID card,” the gate guard growled when it was Kael’s turn. He wore a high-end gas mask, the kind with red LEDs and a dual-filtration system.

Kael held out his chipped plastic card.

“Kael Vane. Resident of The Slums. Occupation: Dust-Diver,” the guard read, his voice dripping with disdain. “What did you scrounge up today, sewer rat?”

“Copper scrap and some old circuitry,” Kael lied, his voice hoarse. He could feel the heavy weight of the cube in his pack. If they searched him, he was dead. Or worse, they would take it, and Elara would get no medicine.

The guard stared at him through the dark lenses. He poked Kael’s backpack with the tip of his baton.

Clang. Metal hit metal.

“Get lost,” the guard waved him through. “Remember to pay your tax at the end of the week.”

Kael nodded, hurrying through the decontamination arch. Chemical steam hissed out, blasting him, scrubbing the radioactive dust from his exterior.

Once inside the city, the air changed. It still smelled of coal smoke, but at least the acid bite was gone. Kael pulled off his mask, taking a deep breath. He coughed violently, spitting a glob of black phlegm into the gutter.

He walked quickly through the Industrial District, where massive steam engines groaned day and night, heading toward The Slums nestled at the foot of the elite’s towers.

The Slums were a labyrinth of shanties made from rusted corrugated iron and plastic tarps. Sewage ran freely through the black mud streets. Skeletal children sat in doorways, their large, bulging eyes watching Kael with hollow stares.

Kael pushed open the tin door of a shack located at the end of a dead-end alley.

“Elara? I’m home.”

Inside, it was dark and cold. On an old mattress in the corner, a young girl was curled up under a blanket. She was thin, her skin pale and translucent, blue veins standing out starkly.

Elara opened her eyes—gray eyes, identical to Kael’s. She tried to sit up, but a violent coughing fit seized her, tearing at her chest. When she lowered the handkerchief from her mouth, it was stained with black blood.

The “Black Cough.” Her lungs were slowly petrifying from coal dust.

“Kael...” her voice was weak, like a whisper of wind. “Are you okay? I see blood on your coat.”

“Just a scratch,” Kael rushed over, hiding the pain in his shoulder. He took his last bottle of clean water—a luxury—and helped her drink. “I found something good today, El. Something really good. Tomorrow I’ll sell it. We’ll buy the real medicine. The Amphora-B stuff the rich people use.”