The End of Sett.

Tarqwine dove under a burst of fire from a Roamer’s hand cannon. The shell exploded behind him. Wasting no time, he shoved his father’s speargun into the opponent’s chest. He could feel its heartbeat through the weapon. With a cry of agony, the Roamer collapsed onto the ash covered ground, dead.

Tarqwine dropped to his knees, exhausted. The speargun hit the ground beside him. Around him fell a haze of silence and ash. Tarqwine breathed a sigh of relief. It was over. The swishing noise of running boots broke the silence.

“Are you okay?” a breathless masked feminine teenage voice behind him asked.

Tarqwine watched as his twin sister Lyllyvyn knelt in front of him. “I am unhurt, but I am tired.”

“Let me carry the speargun for a while, I can fight.”

“No. Dad made me swear to protect you. I will not dishonor his spirit.”

“If you keep pushing yourself like this, you will die.”

Tarqwine straightened his back and glared at her through his full faced filter mask. He was angry at her for pointing out the obvious, yet he knew she was right. He was weakening and it would only be a matter of time before another Roamer would kill them.

“How much further?” Lyllyvyn asked, hoping to break the tension she sensed in her brother.

“I don’t know.” He paused and reached into a pocket of his haz-suit. His hand wrapped around a heart shaped locket. “Dad didn’t either.”

“Why did any of this happen?”

“Dad thought Mom might know. It’s why he sent us after her.”

Lyllyvyn looked up at the sky. “I wish things could go back to the way they were.”

Tarqwine closed his eyes. It wasn’t like this.

At one time, the planet of Sett was a paradise. The water and air were crystal clean, the plants, vibrant shades of emerald. During that time, he lived in the floating city of Edrina with his sister, and their parents, Anndaro and Myna.

Back then, life was good. Anndaro was a world-renowned poet. Myna was a government researcher. Meanwhile, Tarqwine and Lyllyvyn were focusing on their last year of school. Then two events happened which changed their lives forever.

The first was Myna left for a research assignment. This wasn’t unusual, she seemed to always be gone for months at a time on assignments. However, when her family asked about this assignment, she replied it was highly classified.

The second came a month later. Caradran erupted. The island sized super volcano sent trillions of tons of lava and flaming ash into the sky. What plants and animals weren’t burned to death were buried alive.

The people fared little better. The eruption happened in the dead of night, meaning most were asleep. The sudden loss of breathable air meant they suffocated in their beds. The desperate survivors gathered in small underground vaults, hoping to ride out the cataclysmic disaster. It was not to be.

Stockpiled supplies dwindled away. When combined with the cramped conditions of the vaults, most were driven into a primeval madness. To survive, cannibalism became the order of the day.

In the end, only the strongest member of each vault lived to return to the surface. These survivors, called Roamers, traveled the world, searching for anything to eat. Yet they only ever found each other. When they did, only one survived the encounter.

He opened his eyes, looked at Lyllyvyn, and shook his head. Despite her concern he was pushing himself too hard, he knew she was the one they both needed to worry about. With her asthma, they had to take every precaution they could to insure she was getting the purest oxygen. Yet, despite her frailness, she was proving resilient.

He rose to his feet and helped her up, before pulling her into a gentle hug. Before his father was killed by cannibals while escaping their vault, he told Tarqwine be strong and protect Lyllyvyn as best he could. Feeling her head rest against his shoulder reminded him of the duty he had, but also made him feel like she was the stronger one.

A growl broke the silence. Tarqwine released his sister and spun to face the noise. “Stay behind me,” he ordered.

His eyes scanned the falling ash until he spied another Roamer coming towards them. Tarqwine picked up speargun. He pointed the half-moon shaped spear tip at his opponent.

“Stay back!” Tarqwine barked.

“Fresh, meat,” the Roamer moaned, drawing a scattergun from its back. It closed to almost point-blank range. Its finger pulled the trigger. The only sound was a click. It was empty. Frustrated, it tossed the scattergun aside. It crouched, then lunged at Tarqwine.

The two men crashed into the ash. The Roamer’s hands went for Tarqwine’s throat. Oh no you don’t. Grabbing its wrists, Tarqwine tried to stop it. Ash began to cloud his field of vision. Air was getting harder to obtain. Unless things changed, Tarqwine realized he was going to lose.

A gunshot rang out. The Roamer released his grip and collapsed dead. Rolling the body off him, Tarqwine rose. He turned to see Lyllyvyn holding the first Roamer’s handcannon.

“How did you not kill me at the same time as the Roamer?” Tarqwine asked in awe.

“Lucky shot?” Lyllyvyn replied hesitantly.

“Does it have any shells left?”

“No.”

“Then ditch it and let’s go.”

* * *

After another day of staggering through the ashen wastes, the pair approached the entrance to another vault with extreme caution. The entrance was a half hexagon shaped structure with a circular door.

“Is this the one?” Lyllyvyn whispered.

“I hope so, we don’t have the strength to find another,” Tarqwine replied. He pulled out the locket and pushed a button at the top. A key slid out of the locket’s bottom. His eyes traveled over the vault’s steel door, looking for a keyhole. After several minutes, he found it hidden on the backside of a support brace. Here goes nothing.

Tarqwine pushed the key in. It was a perfect fit. He turned it a full clockwise revolution before withdrawing it.

The rumbling sound of metal grating against metal made them clasp their hands to their helmet’s audio receptors. When silence returned the doorway was open. The two ran inside. Tarqwine drew his speargun and took the lead. Another rumbling sound caused them to stop and look around.

“Behind us!” Lyllyvyn cried out.

Tarqwine spun around in time to see the door to the outside world close. He ran back, only to collide into an invisible wall. Was someone watching them? He returned to Lyllyvyn’s side.

“Stay very close,” Tarqwine whispered.

Lyllyvyn wrapped an arm around his. With the speargun pointing forward, they crept down a dimly lit hallway.

A few meters later, the speargun’s tip ran into another invisible wall. Tarqwine backed up. He brushed against another wall. He grit his teeth in frustration. They were trapped.

Minutes passed by until a figure approached them. As it approached, Tarqwine began to take note of its features. Based on its movements, Tarqwine saw it was female.

When she got closer, other features became more apparent. The figure had auburn hair, with tiny streaks of silver showing, placing her age in the mid-forties. What skin wasn’t covered by her white suit and lab coat was pale. Finally, he could make out her sapphire eyes. There was no question in his mind, it was their mother.

“Who are you?” Myna called out, pulling a gun from her pocket.

“How pure is the oxygen here?” Tarqwine responded.

Myna cocked her head in confusion. “Pure as the surface should be.”

Does she not know what happened? Tarqwine decided to take a chance. He pulled off his helmet. Myna wasn’t lying, the air was as pure as the surface had been before the eruption. He nodded at Lyllyvyn, indicating it was safe to take her helmet off.

“Tarqwine?! Lyllyvyn?!” Myna said, holstering the gun.

“Mother!” Lyllyvyn exclaimed.

Tarqwine didn’t share his sister’s enthusiasm. He didn’t know what it was, but something about this vault wasn’t right.

* * *

After a decontamination shower and acquiring their own white suits and coats, Tarqwine and Lyllyvyn sat down for dinner with their mother and the rest of her team, Yackmore and Brut.

“What is the purpose of this vault?” Lyllyvyn asked between small bites of a white fluffy dish called mash.

“The Caradran Vault was built to study issues with Sett’s core and mantle,” Yackmore, a rail thin man, explained. “Around two years ago, we found an alarming pressure spike in the mantle. It took a year and half of planning, but we were able to send a team of droids to dig ventilation shafts in order depressurize it.”

“You were on the surface,” Myna said, “How did the measures work?”

A smirk crossed Tarqwine’s face. “They worked really well,” His smirk became a frown. “Everything on the surface is dead, because Caradran erupted.”

Myna began to shake her head in horror. “No, nononono, it can’t be! The calculations were correct! Caradran shouldn’t have erupted!”

“Well, it did and everyone we know is dead!”

“Sett is an ashen wasteland,” Lyllyvyn confirmed. “We’ve been traveling across it for two weeks.”

Tarqwine watched as the confused scientists stood up and huddled together. Anger began to fill him. These monsters had killed Sett. He stood up and pulled out the speargun. It was time they paid.

His first shot killed Brut. Yackmore and Myna turned and pulled out their guns.

“What is the meaning of this Tarqwine?” Myna shouted.

“Sett is a dead ashen wasteland! All because of you!”

“We’re trying to figure out where we went wrong?”

“Why? So you can kill the rest of us?”

“No, we…” Yackmore said before another bullet went through his throat. Tarqwine began to approach Myna.

“Tarqwine, wait, listen to me!”

“I’m done listening to your lies about trying to help the planet! This is for father and everyone else you killed!” Tarqwine roared before plunging the speargun into her abdomen. Blood poured from the wound as she collapsed to the floor gasping.

Lyllyvyn approached, glancing from her dying mother to her enraged brother.

“Let’s go Lyllyvyn,” Tarqwine said, grabbing Myna’s gun. “She deserves a slow death.”

* * *

“Tarqwine, wait!” Lyllyvyn called.

“I don’t want to hear it Lyllyvyn,” Tarqwine yelled back. “I don’t want to hear anything about those monsters.”

Lyllyvyn’s reply was drowned out by the sound of the vault’s door closing. As silence set in, Lyllyvyn spoke.

“I just wanted to say, shouldn’t we have grabbed our suits?”

Tarqwine cursed himself as reality set in. In their anger to leave, they’d forgotten to grab their haz-suits. Now the ashen wasteland would kill them, unless. He checked his pockets. Dammit. He’d left the locket in the vault. They were trapped out here.

He turned to Lyllyvyn. She was struggling to get air into her lungs. She would be dead soon. There was only one way he could think of to make their ends quick.

“Lyllyvyn, could you take a look at the door and see if there is a backup way to open it?” Tarqwine asked.

Lyllyvyn nodded and complied as the air mysteriously began to clear.

Tarqwine pulled out Myna’s gun and pointed it at the back of her head. One shot for each of them should be enough to end their suffering. He closed his eyes, unable to watch his sister’s last moments.

“Put it down,” came a harsh whisper beside him. Tarqwine turned to see a skinless man dressed in a black robe. “I understand your hopelessness. However, I can offer you another solution.”

He walked over and put a hand on Tarqwine’s shoulder. An ice blue and a mechanical golden eye stared at him, inspiring him with fear and hope. “Come with me. You can start a new life far from here.”

Ashamed, Tarqwine wordlessly let the gun fall to the ash and accepted the man’s offer.