Escape from the Ash

I thought about entering the dystopian story competition, but I couldn’t upgrade from over here in the UK, so this is my non-entry - a dystopian story that features a heart-shaped locket.

Escape from the Ash

People can be so evil.

Before the ash had come the burning. It ran in rivers, swamped our homes and caused the deaths of many. A few of us survived the initial onslaught and then, just as we started to rebuild, came the ash. Poisonous and white, it took the lives of many who thought at first that it looked harmless.

The world as we knew it had ended. Many were killed instantly by the weapons that had been unleashed, others died a slow and often painful death. Survivors were aimless, homeless and helpless, lacking direction and leadership. How could, how would, we continue?

Slowly, we survivors found each other. Somebody was huddled behind shelter, somebody else had been out of area when the disaster happened and others were just plain lucky. I was one of those “lucky” ones – although I wonder now if the ones who’d died quickly were the lucky ones – and just happened to be out of direct range of the burning and the ash. The bedraggled group of survivors had one thing in common; none of us were ready to die just yet. In all other ways we were very different; some old, some young, a couple of leaders, a couple of petty criminals and a mix of industrious and lazy.

Most of us agreed to travel to a safer area – not that we knew whether anywhere was really safe. It wasn’t a hard decision to make really; our homes had already been destroyed by the burning rivers, pretty much all of our food had been ruined or contaminated and honestly, there was nothing to keep us here and so much to indicate that we should just get out. Tony summed it up simply, “Far away can’t be worse and it just might be better”. We knew he was right, but even Tony couldn’t say how far away we should go.

We started our long journey, all of us carrying as much as we possibly could on our backs. We sent scouts ahead to make sure it was as safe as possible for everyone, young and old. it was horrifying climbing over and skirting around the bodies of those who had previously been our friends and neighbours, seeing how they had died in pain and alone. I felt the tears come to my eyes if I allowed myself to think of the decent burial they deserved. But I knew there was no way we could even think of stopping to bury them; quite apart from the danger of disease, we didn’t have the numbers or strength to dig so many graves. I mouthed a silent prayer asking an unknown god to care for all of our friends and neighbours who had not survived. Even as I did this, I railed at the god for letting this happen – so maybe my prayer was impotent, who knows?

More than we had expected had struggled back to their homes to die. This was a huge blow to our group as we had hoped to scavenge in empty homes for food and water to keep us going on our journey. There was no way we could even consider scavenging or breaking into places that might be contaminated by the ash, even indirectly. And we still didn’t know whether the whole world had been destroyed or whether the disaster was relatively local. Not that having knowledge would have changed anything. All we knew is that our whole community had been destroyed and there was no news coming in from anywhere else at all. Complete radio silence.

We very quickly learned to avoid the ash like the plague, as contact with it caused inevitable pain and death. Somehow it was worse when somebody who had survived the first ash storm then became a victim from something as normally innocuous as a wind flurry. We learned the hard way to not only avoid contact with the ash, but to keep a safe distance from any piles or drifts. Our journey was long and tedious and at times we had to travel four or five times the distance just to avoid the ash. We were thirsty, hungry, hot, irritable with each other and wondering why nobody came to help us.

Tony, who had become our natural leader, suggested we travel one goal at a time. Our first goal was a fairly close town, where he had a brother, hopefully still living. It took us several hours to get there and what we found almost caused us to give up there and then. The whole town had been devastated in exactly the same way as ours. Did this mean the entire world, or at least the country, had suffered it too? I found Tony silently crying, out of sight of the rest of the group, and he swiped his tears away when he saw me.

“Tony, nobody blames you. We all know what it’s like to lose somebody and to have our last hope taken away. Crying isn’t anything to be ashamed of, but right now, we need you and we need to move on.”

Quite possibly in shock at my unusual assertiveness, Tony gave me a quick hug, visibly took a deep breath and rejoined the group, ready to lead again. He ordered us to eat a little from our supplies and drink a little water, warning us that it would have to last and that we had no means of carrying anything other than on our backs. This was particularly difficult for those with young children and my heart went out to those who sneaked their own rations to their little ones. I shared mine with a young mother and I saw others doing the same. This gave me hope that we would become a good community and compassion wouldn’t be lost amongst the harsh conditions and trials ahead.

Far in the distance we could see an abandoned structure. It looked like it had been extremely well constructed as the burning rivers appeared to have left it undamaged. With unspoken agreement and tired gestures we made our way towards it, hoping to have sanctuary for the night and a much needed rest. Hopefully, we might find some untainted water or even something safe to eat to supplement the supplies we had brought with us.

For the first time, we had got lucky. The building was surrounded by a chain-link fence and the way in wasn’t even locked. The building had two distinct rooms and although there was evidence of the burning rivers, there was no real damage from them and best of all, no ash in sight. The building was surrounded by potential foodstuffs and some vegetables were pretty well ready to pick. Inside we found clean water and like the gent he is, Tony tested it first and waited a while before declaring it safe to drink. We dined well that night on freshly picked vegetable stew and drank our fill of water.

And that turned out to be our last supper. Our luck changed in an instant and the only warning we had was a child’s voice screeching out “Muuuum, I’ve found my locket! You know, the one Auntie Sue gave me for my birthday. The heart one. Oh YUCK, it’s swarming with ants. Where’s the ant kill powder?”