The Caravan

Sliver didn't know how long he had been walking since then. His body moved because it had to. A hunger gnawed like a caged animal at his belly. His tongue was stuck on the roof of his mouth. His skin cracked in the sun and the dry odor of iron and rot drifted on the breeze.

Then there was the sound.

Not the gusting winds of the Wastes. Not the distant hiss of Rift storms.

Engines.

He moved, or at least he tried to. It was hard to know if he really did or if his body was only leaning in exhaustion. His knees buckled, and the last thing he noticed before the darkness took him was a shadow blurring across the dunes—tall, armored, and the outline of a convoy of vehicles.

He did not dream this time.

When he opened his eyes, he was wrapped in coarse canvas, on a padded floor. The air was still dry but no longer hot—cooled by a whirring fan above. He blinked, recovering from the dim light.

Voices whispered close by.

"–he's awake."

Footprints approached. A woman leaned over him. Her face was seamed and bronzed by sand and sun. Her crew-cut hair was silvered at the roots, not age but something chemical—like she'd weathered an exposure most hadn't.

"You're fortunate we found you," she said. "Or perhaps unfortunate, depending on how you look at it."

Sliver tried to speak, but his throat groaned.

She extended a bottle of water. Actual water.

"Slowly," she warned. "Don't drown."

He swallowed.

It was like imbibing fire and ice simultaneously.

"Name's Kera," she stated, sitting back on a crate. "We're a mobile migrant unit. Traders, for the most part. But we don't turn away survivors."

He coughed. "Sliver."

"Horrible name," she stated.

He said nothing.

Kera gestured around the cabin. "This is Unit 4. We've got six of us in total. Thirty people, give or take. We're headed out to the Wall."

Sliver gazed at her, confused.

"You don't know?" she exclaimed, surprised. "I suppose they didn't teach you much in the Hive."

He shook his head slowly.

Kera sighed and shifted forward.

"After the voidlings stopped pouring, the world didn't get better. It just got. quieter. The animals they brought—mutated beasts, plague-ridden things, demonic beings—they didn't leave. Some say they were born from the tears. Others that they're pieces of Earth, twisted by whatever Heaven actually is. South America was the first to go. The rainforests withered into reddish swamps. The Andes broke and opened into something worse."

She paused.

"Africa followed. Too many reactors. Too many rifts. Entire countries vanished overnight. Some cities were temples to those monsters. Others were black holes where time worked improperly."

Sliver swallowed hard, the water in his stomach churning.

"North America sealed its borders," she continued. "Solidified its defenses. Burned its neighbors. Anyone who wasn't 'pure gene-stock' was kept out or made into cannon fodder."

"And Australia?" he croaked.

Kera's face turned serious. "They had time. Their Fluxtron reactors were deep in the Outback. Remote. Isolated. When the voidlings showed up, Australia hadn't broken the Veil altogether. They were able to mobilize. Military still operational. Cities with shields. Superior air power. They held."

She stared out a small window.

"Asia was different. When the north provinces collapsed, China and Russia consolidated. Became the Eastern Union. Occupied everything east of the Urals and surrounded it. A continent turned fortress."

Sliver steeped it in. The past was implausible. Like a story told too late to matter. The world had shattered, and nations had remade themselves as cowering refuges behind massive steel curtains.

"And now?" he asked.

"We're heading to the last open gate," Kera said. "The Wall dividing the Eurasian Wastes from the Inner Cities. From Mongolia to the Black Sea. Five hundred meters high. Ringed by plasma rails and Rift stabilizers. Not many checkpoints left that still accept refugees. They call them Sanctum Gates."

"Why?"

"Because once you pass through… you live."

He didn't know what to say to her. Live was something he didn't know. He hadn't lived in the Hive. He'd counted days. He'd been.

"You're not the first stray we've picked up," Kera said, standing up. "But you might be the last before we get to the checkpoint. Sleep. You'll need your strength."

She turned and walked away from him by himself.

Sliver scowled at the ceiling.

The hum of the engine vibrated along his spine.

For the first time since he'd escaped from Hive Nine, he didn't feel like he was dying. Not quite, anyway. And that little change—no matter how tenuous—felt almost like hope.

But something bothered him.

Not hunger. Not thirst.

A question.

Why had the Wastes allowed him to live?