The Last Ember
In the distant future, when the Earth was no longer recognizable, the skies above were scorched copper and the oceans had evaporated into memory. The once bustling cities had turned to rusting monuments to the arrogance of humankind. This was the world left to those who remained, a place where hope had become a whispered legend rather than a tangible thing. The few who endured did so beneath the sprawling megadome cities, ancient relics of humanity’s last desperate effort to escape the ruin of the surface.
Within Dome Seven, the largest and most advanced of these shelters, a woman named Ember Vale struggled with the futility of survival. She was a scavenger by trade, tasked with venturing outside the dome’s protective barriers into the Wastelands to recover anything of value from the ruins. There were still things worth finding out there — rare metals, lost technology, artifacts of the old world — but each trip was more dangerous than the last. The Wastelands were not empty. Roaming the decimated terrain were the Ashwalkers, mutated remnants of what had once been human, their bodies twisted by radiation and starvation. They prowled the ruins like feral predators, hunting any scavenger who strayed too far from the safe zones.
Ember was preparing for another foray beyond the dome, securing her survival gear and checking the charge on her plasma pistol. She had never been one for faith, yet she found herself whispering the words her mother had once said to her before each mission: “May the stars guide your path.” The stars themselves had been lost behind layers of dust and ash for centuries, but the words still held a kind of resonance for Ember. Her mother had been a scavenger too, until one day she hadn’t come back. In this world, loss was inevitable; survival was the real challenge.
As she slipped through the airlock and felt the pressurized hiss of the chamber seal shut behind her, Ember breathed in deeply through her filtered respirator. The air was stale and metallic, a stark reminder of the hostile environment outside the dome. She took her first steps into the Wasteland, the cracked earth crunching underfoot as she headed toward the twisted remains of an ancient skyline in the distance.
Today’s target was the remnants of what had once been a research facility. Rumor had it that Dome Seven’s power reserves were waning, and they needed more than just metal scraps and circuitry — they needed a miracle. Some said there had been a prototype energy source developed at the facility before the world fell apart, something more than nuclear, more than solar. It had been called the “Infinite Ember,” a power source designed to burn forever.
But if such a thing existed, it had long been forgotten — buried under the weight of collapsed buildings and centuries of neglect. Still, the dome’s Council believed in it enough to send scavengers out to die for it. Ember wasn’t sure if she believed in miracles, but she needed the rations and the credits this job promised if she wanted to keep her meager apartment in the lower levels of the dome.
The journey was perilous; her path took her through the Boneway, a desolate stretch marked by the skeletal remains of structures that had once reached for the heavens. Rusted girders jutted from the earth like the rib bones of some ancient beast, and debris littered the ground in every direction. Every now and then, Ember would catch sight of a faint shimmer in the air — a telltale sign of Ashwalkers prowling nearby, their strange cloaking devices creating mirage-like distortions.
When she finally arrived at the ruins of the facility, she felt a strange sense of déjà vu, though she had never been here before. The building was half-buried in the dust, its entrance blocked by collapsed walls. She had to climb over heaps of debris and squeeze through a gap in the twisted metal to get inside. The interior was pitch dark, save for the dim glow of her helmet’s visor light. The air was thicker here, laced with a faint, chemical tang.
She moved cautiously through the hallways, the ground strewn with fallen ceiling tiles and shattered glass. Faded warning signs in a language long outdated lined the walls, and every so often, she would pass a doorway leading to pitch-black rooms, their contents unrecognizable. It wasn’t until she reached what appeared to be a central laboratory that she found something promising.
There, in the middle of the room, surrounded by toppled machinery and cracked monitors, stood a cylindrical device encased in a glass chamber. It was no larger than a human heart, pulsing with a faint amber glow — almost like a living ember. A label on the chamber’s base read: “Proto-I.E. Reactor — DO NOT OPEN.”
Ember approached the device slowly, her breath catching in her throat. It seemed too easy; could this really be the Infinite Ember? She reached out, her gloved hand trembling slightly, and brushed the dust from the chamber’s surface. The glow intensified, casting warm shadows across the walls. But just as she began to lift the chamber from its mount, a sharp noise echoed through the facility — a scraping, shuffling sound that set her instincts on edge.
Ashwalkers. She could see them now, emerging from the shadows, their bodies hunched and gaunt, their eyes glowing with a sickly blue hue. There were at least three, maybe more. They must have followed her scent, drawn by the vibrations of the reactor coming back to life. With a quick snap, Ember drew her plasma pistol and fired off two rounds, the bright blue bolts searing the air. One Ashwalker crumpled to the floor, but the others kept advancing.
She grabbed the reactor and sprinted for the exit, weaving between machinery and debris as the Ashwalkers pursued. Her heart pounded in her ears, and her muscles burned with exertion. She could hear the ragged breath of the creatures closing in, feel the heat of their irradiated flesh.
Bursting out into the Wastelands once more, Ember activated the emergency beacon on her wrist. She had to reach a safe zone where the retrieval drones could find her. The nearest one was two kilometers away, a grueling distance with the Ashwalkers on her tail. She ducked and weaved through the Boneway, climbing over wreckage and sliding down embankments. Her pistol was nearly out of charge; she had only one shot left.
When the nearest Ashwalker came within striking distance, she spun on her heel and fired her last round. The plasma bolt struck true, disintegrating the creature’s skull in a burst of blue fire. But the effort cost her; she stumbled, falling to her knees as exhaustion gripped her body. The other Ashwalkers were closing in. She could see them, smell the rancid stench of their decay.
Desperation surged through her veins as she activated the reactor in her arms, hoping its energy might provide some last-ditch defense. As the Infinite Ember roared to life, it emitted a wave of heat and light that drove the Ashwalkers back, their forms dissolving in the blinding brilliance. The reactor pulsed with power, a deep and resonant hum that seemed to reach down into the Earth itself.
For a moment, it felt as though the very fabric of reality was being unraveled and rewoven around her. The skies above, once a muted copper, flickered with glimpses of a star-filled night — a night that hadn’t existed for over a century. Then, just as quickly as it had begun, the light dimmed, the stars vanished, and Ember was left alone with the reactor still pulsing faintly in her arms.
When the retrieval drones arrived to take her back to Dome Seven, Ember clutched the Infinite Ember tightly, as if it were the last remaining link to a forgotten world. She realized then that perhaps the reactor’s power was more than a source of energy — it was a reminder of what had been lost, and what could be reclaimed.
As the drones carried her back, she looked out across the desolate Wasteland and whispered the old prayer once more: “May the stars guide your path.” For the first time in her life, it didn’t feel like a wish. It felt like a promise.
