Embers of Change

Prologue: Ashes of Earth

Multimedia: the creature described in this part, although instead of hands it has pincers.

There was an unsettling silence ruling over the environment. I walked through a cave barely lit up by the light coming from a flashlight attached to my suit. Every person who wanted to witness what had happened to our original home had to wear heavy special suits that offered strong protection against the horrors released to the atmosphere. No one really understood how our dear Earth turned into such a hellish place, but deep down, everyone accepted that humanity had been our planet's demise. I felt guilty myself as I stared at the blackened soil below my feet, crunching as if I was stepping on scorched bones.

Planet Earth had been a beautiful paradise filled with all kinds of flora and fauna. The once cerulean sky was now tinted in a dark gray, slowly decaying into a red tone as one moved their eyes toward the horizon. Small motes fell from it, undoubtedly ashes from our former glorious home. Guilt grew stronger inside my chest as I observed the chaos before me when I reached the cave's end. Far from my position there were several massive tornadoes spinning fast and destroying anything that came in contact with them. There was also a storm raining devastation onto a dead forest, which rapidly caught fire as the merciless lightning stroke it relentlessly. When I was told to come here, I never expected to find such a depressing view.

There was no life. Even though I couldn't breathe the dusty air outside my suit, I knew it was loaded with dread. Everything humanity once considered as constant and unchanging suddenly became this. It was hell itself. I took several cautious steps outside the cave, immediately being able to distinguish a purplish glow located along a street that was almost completely torn apart. It floated in the middle of the road, the energy forming it rippling as if it was composed of violet water. That was the real reason I returned to Earth, to find the substance that fueled our technology; the same that had sundered our dear planet and turned it into a desolate place.

I'd been tasked to retrieve that glow. A single gram of orum—the name the purple substance received—could feed an entire mega city for a whole day with absolute efficiency, but more importantly, it maintained our life support systems online—the ones that offered us the possibility to colonize other planets located not so far from Earth. Other means of fuel had been used before, but none of them were nearly as efficient as orum. Most of them produced pollution, radiation or any other kind of harmful effects on the environment*. Orum simply did not.

As I reached the purplish glow, I felt my heart racing inside my chest. I produced a small rectangular device from a pocket located on the right leg protector of my suit. It had a small cavity at one of its sides which served as some kind of vacuum that absorbed the violet substance. When I turned it on, the machine beeped once and began working. It would take about three minutes for the orum to be completely absorbed, so I decided to take a look around meanwhile. I deposited the device on the ground and stood up. Then, I began walking toward the nearest building which was located quite close from my position. My heart was beating so fast I could feel my breathing becoming heavier.

The edifice I walked in formed part of a small town now in ruins. The walls were all cracked, as if there'd been a powerful earthquake, even exhibiting holes through which was possible to look at the street outside. The building had served as a market, so there were various shelves, most of them fallen on top of each other. The ones that still stood straight were filled with all kinds of canned foodstuff. The floor was littered with tons of products, the vast majority already expired. After all, Earth's demise had happened around a century ago, when life was still barely sustainable. As I moved toward the counter, I heard a soft sound coming from a contiguous room, accessible through a door located beside a vending machine that surprisingly seemed to still be working. I remembered immediately the reason: almost all electronic devices had small reactors integrated that were capable of producing energy for extremely long periods of time.

As I got closer to the door from where the soft sounds were coming, I took a deep breath to calm myself. I didn't know if it was possible, but my heart raced even faster than before, fueled by fear and anticipation. When I posed my hand around the knob, a sudden shiver ran down my spine as a sharp scream echoed through the market. Thanks to the terror filling my chest, I was unable to figure out from where it'd come. Without second thoughts, I began running toward the outside street where the vacuum was absorbing the orum. I didn't know what caused it exactly, but my ears seemed to have gone deaf.

When I finally reached the orum's location, I quickly knelt before the device that was about to end the process of absorption. I looked around desperately, hoping nothing would come out from the edifice I had just abandoned. As the violet glow extinguished, I was able to hear another sharp scream. My nervousness began forcing me to commit several mistakes that only made me lose precious time. I had to get out of that place before whatever that was producing those sounds came looking for me. When I put the device inside the special pocket located on my suit's right leg protector, I started racing toward the extraction point—the place where a ship would come to take me back to the space station.

I went through the cave to the other side, where even more chaos awaited. The ruins of a former glorious city stood at my right, the left being ornamented with mountains covered in flames, the dead forests burning thanks to the extreme heat. My legs began aching, but I couldn't stop. Somehow I felt as if something was chasing me. My breathing soon turned into desperate gasps and my vision began to blur. In the exact moment when I thought my body would collapse due to exhaustion, the sound of thrusters gave me back some hope. A gray ship was hovering above a plaza that was now in ruins, littered with all kinds of rubble. When the hatch began opening, another sharp scream echoed through the buildings surrounding me. Fear surged from my gut up to my throat, as if it was a gelid wind.

"Do you have it?!" a voice from inside the ship's cargo hold asked. I was too scared as to make out who it was.

I just nodded as an answer. A pair of strong hands pulled me into the spacecraft. Immediately afterwards, the gate began closing and the ship took off toward outer space. Nonetheless, before we could reach great altitude, a horrendous creature came out from a building located near the point of extraction. It lacked eyes, although the empty sockets where they had to go seemed to be staring at us. Its mouth—which was a circular orifice—had twitching tentacles that exhibited small and sharp fangs on them. It had a regular man's torso, with arms that ended in powerful pincers which seemed capable of tearing flesh and bone without any inconvenience. Eight thin legs served as support to its body, arranged like those belonging to an arachnid. Finally, its skin was a pale gray, similar to a human's one when blood no longer run through their veins.

I swallowed heavily while trying to stay calm. The man that had helped me hop into the ship was also staring through a small window at the creature, which quickly became smaller as we gained altitude. No one was capable of producing any words. We were all astonished, since the unmanned probes that had been sent before this mission didn't show any signs of living beings inhabiting the surveyed areas. The only thing clear so far was that we needed to deliver the orum and report the existence of that monster. Although it hadn't attacked me, nobody knew what its intention was, how it worked or what had created it. Had it been a product of mankind's careless management of Earth's resources? I didn't know.

"Are you alright, Ethan?" the only man in the cargo hold apart from me asked. His name was Drake, a forty three years old soldier who had run several survey missions in different planets where colonization seemed possible. He had his strong arms folded, his black eyes set on me. I nodded a couple of times as answer. "Did the monster catch your tongue, boy?"

"You didn't have to face it, Drake" I retorted while standing back on my feet. We had already reached outer space, so the turbulence caused when piercing through the atmosphere had long since stopped. Thanks to the ship's own gravitation field, we could stand normally as if we were on Earth. "The probes didn't read any signs of life, how is it possible?"

"I don't know" the man answered bluntly while unfolding his arms and walking toward the only door available which led to the cockpit. "Rest for now. You deserve it."

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* Antimatter is the second most used fuel in this universe. However, when antimatter enters in contact with ordinary matter it produces a process called annihilation which unleashes great amounts of energy capable of vaporizing anything the burst reaches. This is the reason why orum is considered much safer, since it isn't unstable at all and doesn't require special security measures.