The Charred Lands: City of Ash Read online

  The street was cast in shadows, two rows of tall, decayed buildings loomed on either side of us. These buildings made the ones in Warrington look minute. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I had seen some of the effort that went into simple renovations on the shacks back at Haven – the time, effort, and machinery required to construct these must have been incredible.

  I suddenly began to feel very much like a schoolchild, on a museum tour. The life my Grandpa had once been used to now seemed ancient – everyday things like cars, money or electrical equipment were nothing more than useless artefacts that seemed as though they should belong behind a piece of glass with a tour guide to explain their uses.

  “Have you ever been in a city before?” I asked Azaria, the words leaving my mouth before I had properly thought them through. Of course, she didn’t reply – instead she shot me a look of pure venom before returning her attention to our surroundings. How typical of me; only I could ask a girl that was born and raised in captivity such a question. I was tempted to apologise, but I knew such efforts were fruitless.

  Thus far, my attempts at starting any kind of conversation with Azaria had fallen flat – it was hard enough to get her to acknowledge my existence, and even when I did, she seemed ready to throttle me. I was filled with mixed feelings about Wayne. For the second time in my life, I had killed a man – this time it was practically in cold blood – he had given up, apologised and surrendered. Yet still, I killed him. I had to kill him. He was ready to flat out murder me over this damned egg, just as my uncle had my father. This cursed thing seemed to make people do crazy things – once again I found myself loathing the egg – but still, it was my only hope of surviving out here. I may have hated it, but I needed it.

  “Zach!” Azaria screamed from behind me, hearing her voice made me near jump from my skin. It had been a good while since she last spoke – so instantly, I knew something was wrong.

  “What?” I yelled, spinning around to face her, but she didn’t reply. For a split second I stood in silence, without the slightest idea as to what had startled her, until I looked at her eyes, they instantly gave it away – they were locked on the sky above. To me, this meant one thing.

  I heard it before I saw it – a ferocious roar bellowed out from high up above us. I squinted against the orange sky, desperate to make anything out, then I saw the creature, soaring through the air, circling us like a predator hunting its prey.

  “Get inside!” I screamed, scanning the buildings around us for any signs of escape. Most of them looked derelict, but not safe. Just to my left, I saw what was left of an old convenience store, its door looked to be slightly ajar.

  “Here!” I pointed, as I took off sprinting for cover. Once again, the dragon ahead let out a roar, this one sounded closer. I ran across the streets as though Satan himself were chasing me; truth be told, Satan would have been preferable.

  The glass at the front of the store had long been smashed; I jumped over the window ledge and landed straight on to the floor in one swift motion. I landed with a crunch of glass below my feet, since entering the city I had become accustomed to the sound, it seemed as though every glass in the entire city had been smashed, making the ground a carpet of small, dangerous shards. Without stopping, I scanned the store as I charged for the back of the store; the entire place seemed coated in an inch thick layer of dust which clung to everything, giving the place a dark, gloomy feel, but luckily, it appeared clear. Nevertheless, I kept my wits about me, always ready to reach for my gun in case some hidden danger lurked behind one of the stores many dingy, empty display cabinets. Behind me I heard another crunch of glass as Azaria climbed through the window into the empty store.

  “Thanks for waiting!” I heard Azaria spit as I tried to force my way into the stockroom behind the old counter. I pushed against the wooden door, expecting to charge straight in, but was stopped dead in my tracks. The door hardly budged, something was blocking it on the other side. I took a deep breath, stepped back, and gave the door a solid boot. I felt a sharp pain shoot up my leg, but it wasn’t anything too bad – the pain was quickly forgotten when I saw the door budge slightly inwards, whatever was blocking it was heavy, but it was movable. I placed my arm between the gap in the door, pressed my shoulder against it, and pushed with all my strength. My muscles began to burn, and my shoulder ache as I pushed against the unknown object on the other side of the door, slowly, but surely the door began to inch open. It wasn’t until Azaria reached my side and began pushing that it opened far enough to enter.

  I took another quick look around the derelict store, as though I was expecting the dragon to climb through the window in pursuit of us – but of course, the store remained empty. I took a deep breath, and slipped through the narrow gap into the dark room.

  Azaria slammed the door behind us, cutting off the light from outside. We were cast in complete darkness as the door fully closed, as though someone had switched off a lightbulb. I did however, manage to scan the small fraction of the room that had been highlighted by the beam of light from outside. From what I could see, it looked as though it had been a stockroom, and it was completely empty – the tall metal shelves which seemed to stretch from the floor all the way up to the celling had long been picked clear. I knew that it would be extremely unlikely to find anything of use in this store, anything that wouldn’t have expired in the many years since the Rise had long been looted, but even so I had been hoping that I would find something of use in here.

  I suddenly became aware of a foul smell lingering in the air – the room felt rotten. The smell seemed to seep up my nostrils and cling to the hairs. It was nearly enough to send me charging right back out of the room, but I knew I had to hang tight and wait for the danger outside to pass. My mind pondered on what might have been creating such a smell – it felt somewhat familiar, but this was worse than any I had ever smelt before.

  “What’s that smell?” Azaria whispered from somewhere beside me – and it was at that exact moment, I remembered where I knew the smell from. It had been just after the dragons attack on Haven, when I discovered the bodies of Andrea and Laura at the ranger’s cabin. Already that felt like a life time ago; but whatever was in this room, had been dead a lot longer.

  “Hold on, let me get my flashlight.” I mumbled, as I reached around for my backpack. I swung it off and placed it on the ground, before reaching in. I reached past the dragon’s egg until I felt the cold metal grip of the flashlight. I pulled it out and switched it on – a beam of light cut through the darkness, highlighting small spots of the room. I wanted desperately to know what had been blocking the door, so I scanned the floor first, and thus, revealing what had bogged the room with such a foul, odorous stench.

  A boy, not much older than myself lay on his side. A bullet had ripped through the roof off his mouth and exploded out the back of his skull – painting the door in dark blood, chunks of hair, and shards of bone. In his hand, he held an old, rusty revolver. The stockroom floor was covered in a thick layer of dried red blood and pink jelly like brain matter.

  It was hard to say exactly how long he had been there, slouched against the door, but his skin had become a strange, off colour and had begun splitting where small hideous bacterial spores had formed. If I had anything in my stomach, I would have surely emptied it. I wanted to turn away and do my damn hardest to try and erase the grisly image from my mind, but then, the Charred Lander in me kicked in. I noticed a large backpack on the boys back – a part of me filled with hope.

  “What are you doing?” Azaria gasped from somewhere in the darkness, her voice thick with disgust.

  “He might have something we can use.” I said, gritting my teeth as I leant down towards him, I didn’t think it possible, but as I got closer, the smell got worse. First, I placed my hand on the cold metal revolver and slowly pried it from his dead fingers. Rigor mortis had long set in, consuming him in the stiffness of death. He was as rigid as a statue, I had to bend and twist his fingers off the grip of the gun,
it was almost as though the corpse was reluctant to release the weapon – finally, the gun slipped free of his grasp. I checked the cylinder; the gun had five bullets left. I had to resist the urge to thank the lord above, this almost felt like a life line. I had never fired this particular weapon before, but I had heard about them. They packed a tremendous punch and had a hell of a kick – I needed to make sure I was prepared for the power of the weapon if I was about to fire it. Something told me that out there in the city, I would need to before the day was over.

  I placed the weapon aside, and turned my attention to the backpack, shining the flashlight on it. It looked fairly full – if my luck continued, there could be enough supplies in here to last us through to the Church of Fire. I prayed that it would be packed full of ammo, food and other useful survival supplies.

  I slowly pulled on the rusty zip; every now and then it would jam and stick, only adding to the anticipation of what loot may wait inside. I had always been told of a massive, worldwide annual tradition called Christmas; at Haven, we did our best to celebrate it as much as we could, but it was never anything truly special, or anywhere near as good as my Grandpa described it to have been – right now, I supposed I was feeling what a child might have on that special day, all those years ago. I felt like hundreds of presents would spill out onto the stockroom floor when I opened the backpack. Suddenly a felt a little disgusted in myself, comparing the contents of a dead man’s backpack to such things.

  Much to my surprise, the supplies inside the backpack nearly did spill out; ammo, food, water, a few candles, and everything else that I might have needed. I couldn’t help but let out a little cheer, Azaria even did the same.

  “I hope you know how fucking lucky we are!” I laughed, letting my voice raise above the volume that I would have deemed safe. I scoured through the supplies, placing each one aside as I searched for another, it seemed as though every time I moved one item, it unveiled another goodie, it almost felt like the backpack was endless.

  “Lucky?” Azaria questioned - the smiled drained from her face.

  “Well… yeah.” I figured, I couldn’t help but stop searching through the backpack to turn to her. Still I knelt by the corpse, the smell no longer seemed to bother me quite as much.

  “We’re hiding away from a dragon, searching through the supplies of a dead boy.” She almost spat, once again the look of hatred returned to her eyes – of course, it had only been a few hours since I had killed her boyfriend in self-defence, but already I was beginning to suspect that she wasn’t going to get over it as quickly as I had hoped. I felt like she was ready to snap at me for every little thing, as a passive aggressive way of attacking me for what I did.

  “Look, I’m sorry. I’m going to make it up to you. You’ve just got to forgive me and help me complete this mission, then we can get into the Legion of Light. We can live a safe, happy life Azaria.” I quickly retorted, staring at her with wide, sorrowful eyes. The young girls gaze fell to the floor as she backed against the wall behind her.

  With a sigh, I continued searching through the backpack. There were countless loose bullets lying around the inside of the pack, all in different shapes and sizes for different weapons – most seemed to be no good right now, It didn’t appear as though this boy had any other guns on him aside from the revolver that he had used to blow out his brains. I carefully placed all of them aside and tried to place them in order of size, as to try and work out which ones suited my new revolver, I decided to do that later though, I was still eager to reach the bottom of this care package like find. Aside from ammo, there was also plenty of drink and water too.

  It was hard to tell exactly where this boy had come from. He was young, probably around fifteen. Despite the swelling, I could tell he had a boyish face, without a single facial hair to be seen. For a Charred Lander he was quite well dressed – aside from the blood stains, his clothes seemed quite clean. It was sad to see his young, dead face – I couldn’t help but find him scarily reminiscent of myself, it chilled me to the bone to know that I could have ended up looking like this poor lad on countless occasions, it was only down to pure dumb luck that I was still here breathing, going through this lad’s backpack, which was another point of interest too; the bag almost seemed as though this boy had come from somewhere just like Haven - the vast amount of supplies that he had seemed to only enforce this idea.

  Aside from the food and water, he also had a spare change of dirty clothes, a switchblade, some batteries, and a letter on an old, torn piece of paper. Though I knew it was likely private, I couldn’t help but unfold it and give it a read, praying that it would colour in some of this boy’s backstory. I shone my light on it, revealing a small paragraph of neatly written hand writing.

  ‘Dear Davey, father won’t allow me to speak to you directly, so instead, I’m writing you this message. I’m so sorry about what happened, and I know it was my fault. I can’t thank you enough for taking the fall for me. I did absolutely everything I could to stop them from banishing you, but they’ve made their minds up. I’m so sorry that this is happening to you, but I know you have what it takes to survive out there, Davey. You’re tough, dependable, and brave. I’ve managed to gather some supplies for you to help you along the way until you find somewhere more permanent. I’ll never stop thinking about you, Davey - Forever and always, Lulu.’

  I sat there, for a few seconds, staring at the letter. I felt a sudden mix of emotions begin to rise, deep within me, as though they were being sucked up by a huge tornado, and then thrown all over the place. I couldn’t help but feel so, so sorry for this boy. He was an innocent lad that had taken the fall for someone he loved, and now he was dead. Perhaps the fear of living alone out in the Charred lands was just too much for him – forcing him to shove the barrel of his gun into his mouth and end it all. Then a thought occurred to me; Wayne’s voice echoed in my mind, I remembered every time he had told me that you had to look out for yourself out here. I had previously found myself and this Davey to be scarily similar, but this letter highlighted our differences. He took the fall for a girl he cared for, and now he was dead – whilst I did the selfish thing and abandoned Lizzie in Warrington, and I was alive. That was the difference.

  I forced the thoughts to the back of my mind and continued searching through his bag. I found yet more evidence that this boy had come from a home of what could be considered luxury, the bag containing long mouldy bread was another giveaway. Only people staying at a permanent place were able to produce food like that.

  “Do you think it’s still out there?” Azaria asked, referring to the Dragon, as I stuffed my backpack full with the useful supplies I had found on the boy. The thought of heading back out to check on the creature didn’t fill me with happiness, but I knew I had to. Before replying, I stood up and placed two candles in different corners of the room. I carefully lit each of them, sending looming shadows across the dark stockroom. The candles revealed a door at the back of the room, with large crates full of empty glass bottles blocking it off, it looked fairly secure. I imagined Davey had done it to secure the place before he killed himself.

  “I’ll check now.” I sighed, as I threw her one of Davey’s water bottles.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The orange sky outside was beginning to turn black, in the distance I could hear thunder, and every now and then the world would be illuminated by a distant bolt of lightning which made the dark, gloomy city almost shine. A storm was coming. We decided to stay in the derelict store for a little longer, to enjoy some of our new found supplies, come up with a plan of action, and wait out the storm. Rain was rare these days, but when it came, it fell hard. Azaria wasn’t happy about stalling – but I told her she needed to get over it.

  The dragon appeared to have moved on – I spent quite a while crouched by the window, looking and listening for any signs of the beast. For the first time, I had come across a dragon and hadn’t witnessed it end someone’s life, I hoped it was the first of many.


  I decided to drag the dead Davey out of the stockroom and place him outside. I felt a little bad leaving him to likely be eaten by whatever vulture discovered him, but it was the best option. Even touching Davey made me gag, his skin had begun to rot and every time he moved, yet another god awful smell was released. I would have liked to bury him, but there simply wasn’t the time, nor could I imagine finding soft dirt in this concrete jungle. The whole thing made me think back to my dad – I didn’t even have the stomach to touch his body, let alone bury it, instead I left him propped up against the tree that he died on. I prayed that someone wondered across his body and had the decency to give him a burial. I hoped that on my return from the Church of Fire, on my quest to find the Legion of Light, I would have a chance to return to where he died to give him a real send off.

  I sat myself back down in the stockroom and picked up the last of Davey’s homemade crackers, Azaria had done a good job of eating the majority of them whilst I was out disposing of our friend. I would have wanted to preserve them a little more, but there was still a good amount of supplies left.

  “Pass me another cracker.” Azaria mumbled from across the room.

  “No.” I instantly snapped back.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’m sick of you ripping through our food supplies. You ate the last of mine with Wayne, and now you’re going through these too fast.” I ranted, feeling myself grow a little red in the face. I tightened the bag of crackers and slipped them back inside my backpack, hoping that would be the end of it.

  “Well I’m sorry, but I do need to eat.” She protested.