POV: Ashen Kade
Pain claws at my gut, sharp and familiar. I've known this agony my whole life. The other scavengers call it hunger. They say the Creator cursed all living things with it, that we're doomed to feel it until we die.
If I don't find food today, I won't see tomorrow.
Tomorrow. That's a word for the lucky ones, the ones who don't scrape by in the ruins. For scavengers like me, there's only now.
I drag myself out of my burrow. The scorched ground burns through my worn-out wrappings, and dizziness hits me hard. Ancient buildings crumble around me, reduced to rubble and bone. Corpses from the skyships rot where they fell. Everything that once stood tall here now lies buried under sand and time.
I'm small against the howling wind. It tears through my black hair, hides my thin face. My body's all angles and scars under dirty cloth. But my eyes work fine. That's what keeps me alive when others die.
I'm maybe fourteen. Maybe fifteen. Hard to know for sure.
Life here follows a pattern. Twenty hours hiding in holes, avoiding heat and cold. Two hours at dawn and dusk to hunt for scraps. Day after day, year after year. Boring, but boring means alive. Anything different usually means dead.
I think about the old man.
He was different from the others. He could read the ancient language from the First World. He knew things scavengers shouldn't know. He loved stories, collected useless things like tools and books and paintings. I was the only one who'd listen, so we became friends.
This morning, the sun rose like always. But the old man didn't climb out of his hole.
At least I buried him. That's more than most get.
I try not to think about what happens when I fall. There's not much meat on me, but starving people aren't picky. The meat merchants would hack me apart, smoke my flesh, hang it on their rusted hooks. Keep some for themselves, trade the rest for dirty water.
This is the Shatterlands. People eat anything, do anything to survive.
Sometimes I envy the ones who don't think about it. But the old man told me once that if we throw away our last shred of decency, humanity's finished.
The hunger makes walking hard.
I drift through the ruins like straw in wind, ready to collapse. The scavengers picked this place clean long ago. Finding food is near impossible.
Will I fail again?
Is this my last sunset?
I sink down, watching the blood-red sun drop toward the horizon. A hawk soars overhead, weaving through clouds. Jealousy burns in my chest. That's why I chose this name, Ashen Kade. I wanted to be like those hawks, free and untethered. But it's just a dream, isn't it?
No. Not yet.
I can't give up. Won't give up.
Footsteps pound in the distance. I spring up like a startled animal, yanking out my sharpened metal shard. This is a mad world. Every day, starving scavengers try to kill kids like me.
Three ragged figures burst into view, running straight at me.
My face goes cold. I take two steps back. I'm too weak to fight wind, let alone three attackers. I'm dead.
Wait.
Something's wrong.
Their faces look savage, but they're not hunting. They're terrified. Running from something.
They're prey, not predators.
Black shapes explode from behind them. Ten, maybe more. Dog-sized, with rabid red eyes.
My mind goes blank except for one screaming instinct.
RUN.
Death brings out everything you've got.
My starved body finds strength I didn't know I had. I don't look back. Don't need to. Those mutabeasts are killers, and scavengers are at the bottom of the food chain. We can't fight things like that.
A woman falls first. She's slowest.
"Save me!"
"Save me!"
"SAVE ME!"
Fangs tear into her neck. Blood sprays like a fountain. More beasts pile on. They rip chunks from her body, drag out her guts. Bloody. Brutal. Terrifying.
Her screams chase us like death itself. Some beasts keep coming after the rest of us. Too fast. Three seconds later, another scavenger goes down.
"AHH!"
"NO!"
The sound of breaking bones turns my blood to ice.
I round a corner and despair hits me. Rubble blocks the path. Dead end.
What do I do?
The third scream rings out.
Three beasts leap past the last corpse. They move like black lightning, coming for me.
Death closes in. If I hesitate, I'm finished.
Going back means dying. I've got one choice.
I charge the rubble, dive into a narrow gap. No adult could fit. I barely squeeze through. Behind me, something rustles as a beast tries to follow.
It's so close I smell its rot.
I keep crawling. The gap ends. Nowhere left to go. The beast growls, ready to attack.
This is it. Life or death.
I don't hesitate. I turn with my metal shard ready. The dark shape lunges, red eyes gleaming, fangs like knives. It wants to tear me apart.
I roar and stab wildly. The shard plunges into its eye.
It howls and crashes into me. Claws rake bloody lines across my body, but I pin its head down. The gap's too narrow for it to escape.
"DIE! DIE!" I'm more savage than the beast. I stab its head again and again. Foul blood soaks everything, covers my face, my hands, my clothes.
Two more beasts circle outside but can't fit. When they hear the dying howls, they leave. I can't move. I pant, dizzy from lack of air. Don't have energy to lift a finger.
After that burst of strength, exhaustion crashes over me. My body demands payment for what I squeezed out of it.
I finally look at what I killed.
Sleek black fur. Long claws. Red eyes. Looks like a giant mutant rat. Doesn't matter what it is. What matters is there's five kilograms of meat on it.
Food.
Excitement surges through me. I tear through its tough skin with my shard, carve out fatty chunks and shove them in my mouth. Sour. Pungent. Crude. But to us wasteland survivors, it's the best meal there is.
I usually eat ants, beetles, grass. It's been forever since I had meat. As it slides down, warmth spreads through my body. Pain fades. Satisfaction fills me.
I eat until my shrunken stomach bulges. Then I stop, feeling blessed.
The beasts outside left long ago. I drag my kill back toward my burrow. Five kilograms will last me days.
But as I pull the corpse from the gap, a rough voice growls, "Put the meat down."
Four or five adults block my path. The leader's sturdy, his face covered in savage scars. Looks dangerous.
These scavengers heard the commotion, hid nearby hoping to scavenge bones. Instead they found a kid with fresh kill.
The fatty meat makes them drool.
The scarred man growls, "Put. The meat. DOWN."
I stare at them silently. My face shows what I feel. Dangerous. We size each other up like beasts. In this age, the line between man and beast doesn't exist.
Put it down?
I nearly died for this meat. They want me to just give it up?
I don't waste words. Like an enraged animal, I throw myself forward and punch the scarred man's face.
There's no question who wins. I'm a half-grown kid. How can I beat multiple adults? Best case, I take a beating and watch them steal what I almost died for.
Night falls.
I slink back to my burrow covered in wounds, like a beaten dog. I don't hate the scavengers who took my kill. Growing up in the camps taught me the rules.
In the Shatterlands, there are no principles. Only the law of the strong.
The strong get food, slaves, women. The weak get enslaved, abused, robbed. That's how it is here. In this world, this age, this place, morality doesn't matter. Being weak is a sin.
Moonlight flows into my burrow with bone-chilling cold that blankets can't stop. I curl up, but wounds keep me from sleeping.
Instead, I sit up. I grab a metal box, blow off the dust, lift it like it's treasure. Slowly, carefully, I pull out the bright-colored objects inside.
I stare at these pictures, gaze distant and dreamy. The old man collected these over many years. Proof the First World truly existed. But countless years made them fade, become unrecognizable.
Every time I look, my heart beats faster.
Every time I look, pain and hunger and injuries fade slightly.
Every time I look, no matter how much despair I feel or how dark the world seems, I see flickers of light.
The ancient, lost era of the First World. What kind of magical, dream-like world was it?
Back then, people were clean and handsome. Cities prospered. No danger, no terrifying mutabeasts, no brutal mutant humans, no scavengers struggling to survive in desolate ruins.
Did that era truly end?
Does it maybe survive somewhere unknown?
My black eyes blaze with eagerness. I want to wander the camps, wander the Shatterlands.
It's like a metal seal locked deep in my soul. This desire appeared when I was young. The old man asked me why. The camps are dangerous, the ruins are dangerous, the Shatterlands even more dangerous. This path means certain death.
"Because I was born into this world! Since this world chose me, I have the right to see it!
"Sooner or later, I'll go searching. I'll find that paradise, that heaven-like place. If I can glimpse it, if I can press my lips against its ground, even if I die the next instant, I'll regret nothing!"
The old man fell silent.
From that day on, he kept me close, shared his food, taught me to read. I spent years straddling the line between life and death. But that desire didn't fade. It grew stronger.
The old man once said some people are born free, like hawks. They might grow up in a chicken coop, but sooner or later they'll spread their wings and soar.
Will I truly get that chance?
I can't even escape the ruins, much less wander into the endless, unfathomably more dangerous Shatterlands.
The old man often spoke of destiny. Everyone has their own destiny, he claimed. No one can escape it, no matter how hard they try.
Is this my destiny? I won't believe it.
I've eaten my fill of the Shatterlands' torments, but I'm still filled with untamed spirit. My eyes still shine with an indescribable, irrepressible flame. I slowly place the metal box under my head, use it as my pillow. Only then does my exhausted body finally fall into deep sleep.