Ashes of the Empire

The tunnel narrowed again as they walked — the rebel leading the way, Elias behind, silent. Her name, she said over her shoulder, was Lina. That’s all he got.

They emerged through a rusted hatch and climbed up a ladder that led them back into the surface world.

When Elias stepped out, his breath caught.

The city… it was barely recognizable.

Where once glass towers pierced the sky, jagged skeletons of steel remained. Buildings leaned drunkenly, windows blown out, their facades scorched black. The streets were ruptured, some split open like wounds. Weeds and wiry shrubs burst through concrete, nature's slow revenge.

A rust-covered bus lay on its side across a freeway overpass, half swallowed by a sinkhole. Billboards peeled and hung in the wind, sun-bleached and meaningless. One still read:

“Hope is a Choice.”
The rest had been defaced with red spray paint:
“HOPE DIED WITH THE GRID.”

The air smelled of rust and rot. Somewhere distant, the faint crack-crack of automatic fire echoed, but no one reacted. It was background noise now — like birdsong in a forest that forgot its name.

Down below, in what used to be a neighborhood, the outlines of burned homes remained, blackened ribs of former lives. Someone had scrawled on a wall in charcoal:

“This was my house. I loved it. I’m still here.”

Lina led Elias through a maze of alleyways, past makeshift barricades of trash and twisted rebar. Movement flickered in shadows — children in rags, elderly hunched in corners, mutts sniffing the remains of yesterday’s scavenging. Everyone wore layers, hoods, masks. No one spoke.

A drone — not one of theirs — buzzed overhead.

Everyone stopped.

No one looked up.

They just froze until the sound passed.

Then motion returned, like clockwork winding up again.

“We call this place the Ashlands now,” Lina muttered as they ducked into a warehouse, its roof missing. “Used to be called Central District. They hit it first when the riots started. Gas. Then fire. Then silence.”

Elias looked around. Inside, dozens of people milled between makeshift cots, fire barrels, a rudimentary comms station powered by car batteries. Books were stacked in corners, dry goods guarded like gold.

“This is what’s left?” he asked.

Lina didn’t answer right away. She just looked out at the horizon, where the charred skyline met a gray, dead sky.

“No,” she finally said. “This is what’s beginning.”