Ashes of the fallen

I waited at our usual spot for him.

The sky was overcast, gray and heavy, like a storm was about to swallow the world whole. The wind howled through the wreckage of our camp, carrying the scent of rust, old blood, and damp earth.

Today was just another day of clawing through the remains of a broken world—another day of searching for scraps, fighting to stay alive.

But Jerry was late.

Minutes turned to an hour. He wasn't coming.

Annoyance flickered inside me. That idiot. He better not be trying to dump all the work on me again. But something gnawed at the edges of my mind, something I didn't want to acknowledge.

I checked his tent—empty. Asked around—no one had seen him. My irritation curdled into unease. He was my responsibility after all...

I searched the camp, dread pooling in my stomach. And then, on a whim, I checked the hill—the place where we last watched the stars.

There he was.

Sitting with his back to me.

His posture was wrong. Too still. Too rigid.

Relief hit me, but it was drowned by frustration. I marched over and smacked the back of his head.

Jerry flinched violently. His whole body seized up—like I had just hit an open wound.

He let out a sharp, strangled sound, something between a yelp and a gasp of pain.

"What the hell was that for?!" He turned, glaring at me—but there was something behind his eyes, something raw and wrong.

"I was looking everywhere for you! You made me worry for nothing! I thought something seriously happened to you!" I smacked him again.

"I never asked you to worry! And stop hitting me!" He snapped, but his voice was weaker this time, like he wasn't fully present.

"Whatever. Get up. We have to go to work."

"Don't feel like it."

The way he said it sent a shiver down my spine.

"Don't be a pain. You know what Ms. Sharon will do to us if we skip—"

"I mean it." Jerry's voice was flat. Empty. His fingers dug into the dirt beneath him. "I don't feel like doing anything today."

"Are you sure you're not just trying to dump it all on me?"

Silence.

That alone scared me. Jerry never stayed silent. He always had some snarky remark, some complaint, something to get under my skin. But now, he just sat there, staring at the ground like it was swallowing him whole.

I sat next to him, my frustration fading into something heavier.

"Alright. Tell me about it."

Jerry stiffened. "There's nothing to tell."

"Jerry." I said his name like Sung Kim used to say mine—firm, unyielding.

"You'll only laugh at me."

"Depends."

He exhaled, long and shaky.

"I had a dream." His voice was hoarse. "And to tell the truth... it's starting to scare me."

I stayed quiet. I had a bad feeling about this.

"A month ago, I started dreaming about two people. I don't know who they are, but every single night, I see them." His fingers trembled. "At first, they were just talking. I couldn't understand them. But then..."

His voice faltered. He grabbed at his arms, digging his nails into his own skin.

"This week... they started fighting."

The wind howled around us, but it wasn't nearly as cold as the dread creeping into my bones.

"I see through the eyes of someone named Caelum." Jerry's breath hitched. "And every time he gets hurt... I feel it."

He looked at me then, and for the first time since I met him, Jerry looked truly terrified.

"It's not just a dream, Caelith." He whispered. "I wake up... and the pain is still there."

I frowned. "What do you mean?"

Jerry bit his lip. His hands shook as he lifted his sleeve.

My stomach dropped.

Bruises. Deep, ugly bruises in the shape of **slashes, burns, punctures—**wounds that had no business being there. Some looked fresh, others weeks old.

"They weren't there before." His voice cracked. "Each night, when Caelum gets hurt... I wake up, and the wounds appear on me."

I couldn't breathe.

"At first, it was just scratches. Maybe a bruise. But last night—" He pulled up his shirt.

Scars. Deep, jagged scars along his ribs, like something had tried to carve him open.

"Last night, I felt a sword pierce through me. I woke up and... and it still hurt." Jerry's voice was barely a whisper now.

"It's getting worse."

I stared, my mind racing. This wasn't normal. This wasn't just a nightmare.

"I can't sleep, Caelith." His voice wavered. "Because every time I close my eyes... I die again."

I didn't know what to say.

I could've told him it was all in his head. I could've told him it was just a bad dream. But I knew better than to lie to someone in pain.

"You don't feel like working today, right?" I stood up.

Jerry blinked up at me, exhaustion pulling at his face. "Caelith..."

"Stay here. Rest. Try to clear your head."

I turned away before he could answer.

Had I known what was coming—what this nightmare truly meant—I never would have left him alone.

A memory flashed in my mind as I walked.

"Survival isn't just about living, kid," Sung Kim had told me once as he ruffled my hair. "It's about knowing when to fight, when to run, and when to hold on to those you care about. Because in a world like this, you never know when you'll lose them."

I clenched my fists. Sung Kim was right. And yet, here I was, walking away when I should have stayed.

I gritted my teeth and pushed forward. The ruins of war stretched endlessly before me. But no matter how much I searched for scraps, a weight settled in my chest. Something was wrong.

And I would only realize how wrong when it was far too late.

-------

I trudged through the B-Zone, arms burdened with an assortment of metal scraps, rusted pipes, and shattered electronics. The sun was beginning to dip beneath the horizon, casting long, jagged shadows over the ruins of what had once been a thriving city. The trek back to camp was supposed to be just another mundane journey, another exhausting return to whatever passed for home. But something felt... off.

The air was too still, the usual distant murmurs of camp life eerily absent. A pit formed in my stomach, a slow, crawling dread that tightened my chest. The moment I reached the outskirts, the first sign of horror greeted me: a severed hand lay limp on the ground, fingers curled as if still clawing for life. The blood pooling around it was dark, almost black in the fading light.

I dropped the scrap instinctively, my breath catching in my throat. I took slow, hesitant steps forward, past the first set of bodies. A woman—Ms. Sharon—her throat torn open so savagely that only sinew and spine remained to hold her head in place. Her mouth was frozen in a scream, her eyes bulging, glassy.

My foot hit something soft, and I looked down to find the twisted remains of a child, his small body nearly unrecognizable—his ribs split open like a grotesque flower, his insides spilled over the dirt. The child's eyes were still wet with tears, his tiny hands reaching toward something unseen. I staggered backward, my breath coming in short gasps.

A few steps ahead, more bodies—limbs torn from sockets, intestines draped over broken wood like twisted ribbons. The stench of iron and burnt flesh filled my lungs, making me gag. Some of the corpses were still warm, their blood dripping, pooling, sinking into the dry earth. I took another step and nearly tripped over what was left of one of the guards—a man who had once laughed heartily at dinner, now reduced to a gaping torso. His lower half was gone entirely, his entrails trailing off like grotesque vines leading deeper into the carnage.

The remains of the tents were smoldering, fire eating away at the fabric, our once-safe sanctuary now nothing but ruin. Bodies were piled atop one another in obscene shapes, faces contorted in agony, fingers twisted in final attempts to claw away from their attackers. Some had their eyes gouged out, empty sockets staring into the void. Others were impaled on jagged debris, their torsos pierced through, blood cascading in sickening patterns down the shattered remnants of walls.

I forced himself to keep moving, each step more difficult than the last. A child's head lay discarded near a pile of corpses, her body nowhere in sight. I recognized the small blue ribbon still tangled in her dark hair. My legs shook, bile rising in my throat, but I couldn't stop. I wouldn't stop.

And then, I saw it.

Near the center of the destruction, where the main gathering space had been, the bodies were... different. They weren't just slain—they were defiled, contorted in ways that defied the limits of human anatomy. Limbs twisted backward, jaws unhinged as if they had been forced open beyond their breaking point. Some were charred beyond recognition, their skin melted to the bone, still frozen in agony.

And then, I saw the worst of it.

Jerry's tent—or what was left of it—was shredded. Blood streaked the walls, handprints smeared along the fabric as if someone had desperately tried to hold on before being dragged away. And there, in front of it, was a trail of deep, dragging marks leading into the dense woods beyond.

The ground beneath me swayed, my vision darkening at the edges. Jerry. He was supposed to be here. He was supposed to be safe.

The silence was deafening now, an abyss that swallowed all sound, all sense of time. I stood among the ruins of his home, the bodies of my people surrounding me, and for the first time in a long, long time, I felt utterly, completely alone.

Then, the wind carried something through the air—a low, shuddering breath. Not his own.

Something was still here.

I turned in place, my breath ragged, my hands trembling. There was nothing left. Only the suffocating silence of death.

Nothing.

"Show yourself!" My voice rang out, desperate and raw. I wasn't sure what terrified me more—the possibility that something was still lurking in the ruins or the unbearable stillness of the aftermath.

No answer.

But I knew something was here. I had heard it. A breath. A presence. Something unseen lingering in the air, watching.

"I know you're here!" My throat burned as I screamed into the abyss. "I heard you breathing! Tell me what happened! Were you the one who slaughtered my family?! ANSWER ME!"

Silence.

The ruins remained lifeless. The blood-soaked earth swallowed my words, offering nothing in return.

Then—

"Go north."

The voice didn't come from around me. It was inside me, slithering through my skull, whispering from within. It wasn't one voice, but many—layered, distorted, neither male nor female, as if countless souls spoke at once.

I staggered, clutching my head. "What—who are you?! What the hell is wrong with your voice?!" A sharp pain pulsed behind my eyes, as if something unseen was clawing at my mind.

"Go north."

Again. The same words.

"No!" I snapped, rage boiling over, drowning the fear. "My people—my family—just got slaughtered, and you want me to run off to some unknown place like a coward?! I don't even know you!"

"Go north."

It was relentless.

I wanted to scream, to demand answers, but I was so tired. My body was heavy with exhaustion, my mind fraying at the edges. I lost everything—again. The last time, it had been Sung Kim. Now it was the entire camp.

Now it was Jerry.

I exhaled shakily, my fists clenching. "You keep saying that, but why? What's waiting for me there? What's so important that I should just walk away from this?"

Silence.

Of course.

"Fine! If you won't explain yourself, then I'm not listening to you either!" I spat, dismissing the voice, shoving my rage and grief down into the pit of my stomach.

Right now, I had something more important to do.

Even if I couldn't save them, I could at least give them the funeral they deserved.

It took days.

Days of wading through blood and filth. Of piecing together what was left of them, collecting scattered limbs, dragging half-bodies into shallow graves. The stench of rot clung to me, sinking into my skin, my clothes—so thick I could taste it.

Some bodies were barely intact. Others were shredded beyond recognition. Heads were missing, ripped clean from their spines. Entrails spilled across the dirt like grotesque murals of suffering. Some children—dear God, the children—had been torn apart as if by something with claws, something that didn't just kill, but devoured.

By the time I buried the last of them, my hands were blistered, my nails cracked and caked with filth. My arms felt like lead.

And yet, one thought burned at the back of my mind, a thorn that refused to be ignored.

Where is Jerry?

I searched. Again and again, I scoured the ruins, overturning every piece of debris, every pile of bodies. But his corpse wasn't there.

Did he escape? Did he run? Or…

Did they take him?

And if so, why?

A bitter laugh escaped me. As if anything about this made sense.

Ever since the government dumped us in the B-Zone, we had lived under the illusion that this was about survival. That we were left to fend for ourselves because there weren't enough resources to save us.

But now? Looking at these bodies—this massacre—I knew better.

This wasn't human. No person, no matter how cruel, could have done this.

Something else was at work here.

Something that could tear a person in half with its bare hands.

I shuddered violently.

My mind told me to grieve. To break down. To feel the weight of everything I lost. But my body—my very soul—felt empty.

Was I just that heartless?

Or had I never truly belonged here to begin with?

Maybe… Maybe I wasn't meant to feel this kind of pain. Maybe my body was rejecting it, just like how the world itself seemed to reject me.

I looked down at my hands. They were shaking.

Was it fear? Or something else?

I didn't know anymore.

But one thing was certain.

I was alone.