For the second time in thirty years, the entire world has fallen asleep...
Thirty years after the Greymen caused the decimation of her people, high school drop out Rain Collins spends her days learning to pickpocket and hold her booze. Yet she long...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The Speaker led Beth, Dr. Farrah, and myself toward the Wilds. A few paces behind and expressly separate of us, Icarus grumbled to Orion. Though the Wilds were purportedly the most dangerous place in the world, particularly for women and children, we followed our Master guide without question: even the most seasoned, largest groups of bandits would find their weapons a poor match against our Regressives' own skills.
My father would have been horrified to learn I was stepping into the Wilds, especially with his old friend; he'd never let me out of the city before. Not that his demands had ever stopped me before, of course. Kayle and I had ventured beyond the city's borders more than once to explore ruined buildings and scavenge for passed over treasures and climb the tall trees in the ragged forests. But we'd always stayed relatively close to the city, and never ventured nearly as far as the actual highway.
A single road led past our farm, toward a thick bramble of forest, and to the endless stretching band of pavement that supposedly spanned sea-to-sea. That road was barren, scraped clean by the clean up crews that rebuilt our world after the First Big Sleep. As we reached the end of the small road, the Speaker stopped us in our tracks.
"We should speak as little as possible until we reach the Sanctuary," he said. "There are not many of us, and I will not use my powers, so the Masters should not feel us here, but we must be careful not to draw their eyes to us. If they focus on this area, it won't be good for your people or mine. You understand?"
The three of us nodded at once.
"Good," the Speaker said, turning to the highway. "Let's go."
The highway was crowded with rubble and rusted cars, scattered luggage and discarded rubbish. After thirty years of scavengers picking at the remains, all that remained was decayed and useless.
Including the corpses.
Almost every car, truck, van, bus, or other form of transportation on the road had at least one rotting body strapped into its seats. Most had more than one. Here and there, a pile of charred bones lined the highway--clean up attempts of the past.
The further we got from the border, the more chaotic and common the waste became. Burnt-out husks of buildings sat surrounded by their own rubble, while the forest crept ever closer to shattered windows, creeping vines and brambles reaching, grabbing, taking over.
The Speaker stepped off the highway at an unmarked and unremarkable spot. We followed the old Regressive for awhile before he turned, gave an exaggerated wink, and bowed. As he rose, the world shifted, warping like a vision from the Masters. Before my eyes, an empty stretch of field transformed into a wide cave mouth. As the cave came into view, hundreds of tall, skinny, wooden towers popped into existence before my eyes. The cave mouth grew larger as we approached, but at a much faster rate than we walked.
"Can we talk now?" Dr. Farrah asked.
The Speaker nodded. "Yes, we're under Sanctuary protections now."
