Step into a world reshaped by forgotten calamities. This epic ruined post-apocalyptic short story follows Lex, a lone scavenger navigating the skeletal remains of civilization. Driven by whispers of a sanctuary called Shard Point, he undertakes a perilous journey through blighted lands and crumbling megastructures. But the silence of the wastes hides unseen horrors, and the destination might hold terrors worse than the journey itself. Survival is a moment-to-moment struggle against decay, mutated creatures, and the crushing weight of solitude in a world that has moved beyond humanity.
Chapter 1: The Grey Ash
Lex moved through the skeletal buildings. Silence pressed down. Not empty silence. Waiting silence. Dust and grey ash coated everything. It muffled his steps on the broken pavement.
He carried a crossbow. Bolts were few. Each one mattered. His pack held little. Water filter, scavenged food tins, a knife. Survival tools. Nothing more.
The sky was always grey. A thick, permanent haze choked the sun. Light was dim, diffuse. Shadows stretched long and thin even at midday. Nothing grew here. Only rust and decay flourished.
He scanned the windows of a collapsed tower. Dark rectangles stared back. Empty eyes. Something skittered inside. Metal on concrete. Lex froze. He listened. Small sounds. Many legs.
Skitterlings. Fast, hungry. He gripped the crossbow tighter. They hunted in packs. Best to avoid them. He changed direction. Moved down a wider street. More exposed. But faster.
A low moan echoed. Not Skitterlings. Something bigger. Deeper in the ruins. Lex ducked behind a rusted vehicle shell. He peered through a shattered window. Nothing moved. The sound didn’t repeat.
Just the wind, maybe. Whispering through broken steel. Or maybe not. The ruins played tricks. Sounds carried strangely. Fear was a constant companion.
He needed supplies. His water was low. The filter was old. He spotted a sign. Faded letters. GROCERY. Most of the building had collapsed. One corner remained. A dark opening beckoned.
Danger lived in dark places. But so did resources. Lex checked his crossbow. Approached cautiously. Ash puffed around his worn boots. The air inside was thick. Stale. The smell of old rot.
He clicked on his hand-crank flashlight. The beam cut through the gloom. Toppled shelves. Spilled goods, long spoiled. He swept the light around. Rats scurried away. Normal rats. A good sign.
He found sealed cans. Old labels. Beans. Fruit Cocktail. Heavy. But food. He stuffed them in his pack. Then he saw it. A water dispenser. Plastic tank still half full. He checked the seals. Looked intact. Clean water was gold.
He worked the pump. Filled his canteen. Drank deeply. The water tasted flat. Metallic. But safe. He filled the canteen again.
A scraping sound. From deeper inside. Not rats. Lex aimed his light. Two red points glowed back. Low to the ground. Then another pair. And another.
Skitterlings. They had found him.
He backed away slowly. Toward the entrance. They flowed out of the shadows. Insectile bodies. Too many legs. Sharp mandibles clicked. They moved fast. Jerky. Unnatural.
Lex raised the crossbow. Fired. The bolt hit the lead creature. It screeched. Collapsed in a twitching heap. The others didn’t slow. They surged forward.
He turned. Ran. Burst out into the grey daylight. He didn’t look back. He ran hard. Down the street. Away from the grocery ruin. The skittering sounds faded behind him.
He ran until his lungs burned. Leaned against a crumbling wall. Gasped for air. Safe for now. But the ruins were never truly safe. Always watching. Always hungry.
Shard Point. The name was a whisper. A rumour. A place untouched by the rot. Clean water. Maybe people. Maybe safety. It lay far to the west. Across the Shattered Plains. Through the Whisperwind Canyons. A long, dangerous journey.
But staying here meant death. Slow decay or quick violence. He had to try. He adjusted his pack. Checked the sun’s position in the haze. West. He started walking. Each step a small victory against the grey ash.
Chapter 2: Twisted Woods
The city ruins bled into wasteland. Cracked earth stretched out. Then, the trees began. Not normal trees. Twisted. Blackened bark. Grey leaves that never fell. The Twisted Woods.
The air grew colder here. Damp. The ground sucked at Lex’s boots. Mud and decay. Visibility dropped. The gnarled branches laced together overhead. Blocking the dim light.
Sounds were different. No city echoes. Just rustling. Wet drips. Strange calls from unseen things. Lex moved slower. Listened more. The crossbow felt heavy. Comforting.
He found tracks. Large ones. Three-toed. Claws dug deep into the muck. Gloom Hound. Big. Fast. Hunted by scent. Lex checked the wind. Tried to stay downwind of the tracks.
He needed to cross the woods. The Shattered Plains lay beyond. Faster travel there. But the woods were unavoidable. A dark barrier.
Days blurred. The grey light barely changed. He ate cold beans from a can. Filtered stagnant pool water. Sleep was brief. Fitful. He dreamed of skittering legs and red eyes.
He found a stream. Water flowed sluggishly. Brownish. He followed it upstream. Hoping for a cleaner source. The banks were thick with thorny vines. Progress was slow. Tearing at his clothes. His skin.
Then he saw the cabin. Small. Made of dark wood. Mostly intact. Smoke curled from a stone chimney. Thin. Wispy. Someone was here.
Hope warred with caution. Survivors were rare. Often dangerous. Desperate people did desperate things. Lex approached slowly. Crossbow ready.
He called out. “Hello? Anyone there?”
Silence. Only the gurgle of the stream. The drip of water from branches.
He moved closer. The door was thick wood. Closed tight. A small, grimy window beside it. He peered through. Darkness inside. Maybe a flicker of firelight.
“I’m just passing through,” Lex called. “Looking for water. Mean no harm.”
The door creaked open. A figure stood silhouetted against the dim interior light. Tall. Gaunt. Wrapped in patched hides. Holding a long-barrelled rifle.
“Keep moving,” the figure rasped. A woman’s voice. Rough. Wary.
“Just need water,” Lex said. Held up his empty canteen. “Stream’s foul downriver.”
She stared at him. Eyes hidden in shadow. The rifle didn’t waver. “Water ain’t free.”
“I have supplies. Canned food.”
“Show me.”
Lex carefully lowered his pack. Opened it. Showed the cans.
She considered. Then nodded slightly. “One can. For a canteen full. From the rain barrel. Clean.”
“Deal.”
He held out a can of beans. She took it quickly. Never lowering the rifle. She stepped back. Pointed to a large wooden barrel under the cabin eaves. “Fill it. Then go.”
Lex filled his canteen. The water was clear. Cold. He drank some. Best he’d tasted in weeks. Maybe months.
“Where you headed?” the woman asked. Still cautious. But a flicker of curiosity.
“West. Heard talk of Shard Point.”
Her short, harsh laugh startled him. “Shard Point? Fairy tale. Nothing out there but dust and death.”
“Maybe,” Lex said. “Have to see.”
“Suit yourself. But the woods ain’t kind. Watch for the Hounds. And the Still Ones.”
“Still Ones?”
“Things in the trees. Don’t look like trees. Until they move.” She shivered slightly. Pulled the hides tighter. “Now go. Before nightfall.”
Lex nodded. Secured his canteen. Shouldered his pack. “Thanks for the water.”
She just watched him. Rifle steady. He turned. Walked back the way he came. Feeling her eyes on his back.
He didn’t follow the stream further. He cut north. Away from the cabin. Away from the woman. Trust was a luxury he couldn’t afford.
Night fell quickly in the woods. Absolute darkness. Lex found a hollow log. Crawled inside. Pulled dry, grey leaves over the entrance. He ate half a can of cold fruit cocktail. Listened to the sounds of the woods.
Rustling. Snapping twigs. A low growl, far off. Gloom Hound? He gripped the crossbow. Waited. Sleep wouldn’t come. He thought about the Still Ones. Things that looked like trees. Until they moved. The woods felt alive. Malevolent. Watching.
Chapter 3: Shattered Plains
Lex broke free of the Twisted Woods at dawn. Or what passed for dawn. The grey light strengthened slightly. Before him stretched the Shattered Plains.
Flat. Vast. Broken land. Cracked earth stretching to the horizon. Littered with debris. Twisted metal shapes. Half-buried structures. Remnants of something huge that had fallen from the sky. Long ago.
Travel was faster here. But exposed. No cover. Wind whipped across the plains. Carrying dust and grit. Stinging his eyes. Chapping his lips.
He walked for days. The landscape barely changed. Just endless, broken flatness under the oppressive grey sky. Water was scarce. He found occasional puddles in depressions. Filtered the gritty liquid. Food ran low. Only one can left.
He saw movement. Far off. Figures shuffling. Too far to make out details. He changed course. Avoided them. Didn’t know what they were. Didn’t want to find out. Solitude was safer.
One evening, the ground began to slope downwards. Gradually. He saw strange formations ahead. Tall spires of rock. Twisted into unnatural shapes. The Whisperwind Canyons. The last major obstacle before Shard Point. According to the rumours.
The wind picked up as he neared the canyons. Moaning through the rock formations. Creating eerie whistles and groans. Whisperwind. Aptly named.
He needed shelter from the wind. And the night. He found a narrow fissure in the rock. Barely wide enough to squeeze through. It opened into a small cave. Protected from the gale.
He risked a small fire. Using scavenged scraps of dry material. The tiny flames pushed back the darkness. Offered meagre warmth. He ate the last can. Beans again. Savoured each bite.
The wind howled outside. Sounds echoed strangely down the fissure. Whispers. Almost like voices. Lex told himself it was just the wind. But the hairs on his neck prickled.
He checked his crossbow. Only three bolts left. He had scavenged a few arrows that might fit, but they were poorly made. Unreliable. He needed to make each shot count.
Sleep came fitfully. Haunted by wind-sounds and hunger. He woke suddenly. The fire was embers. Something blocked the entrance to the cave. A shape against the dim light filtering down the fissure.
Tall. Thin. Long limbs. It didn’t move. Lex held his breath. Slowly reached for the crossbow.
The shape unfolded. Not blocked. It was the entrance. Part of the rock. Or something pretending to be rock. A Still One? No, something else. Thinner. More fluid.
It seeped into the cave. A flowing shadow. No distinct features. Just darkness given form. It absorbed the faint light from the embers. The cave grew colder.
Lex scrambled back. Heart pounding. Nowhere to run. He raised the crossbow. Aimed at the centre of the shifting mass. Fired.
The bolt struck. No sound. No resistance. It just vanished into the shadow. As if swallowed whole. The shape paused. Then flowed forward again. Faster.
He grabbed his knife. The flashlight. Cranked it desperately. Shone the beam at the creature.
The light hit it. The shadow recoiled. Hissed. A sound like tearing fabric. It writhed. Flowed back towards the entrance. Thinned out. Vanished.
Lex slumped against the cave wall. Shaking. Breathing hard. What was that thing? He kept the flashlight beam pointed at the entrance. Cranked it whenever it dimmed. He didn’t sleep again.
When the grey dawn finally arrived, he crawled out of the cave. Exhausted. Hungry. Two bolts left. The canyons stretched before him. A maze of twisted rock and howling wind. And unknown things hiding in the shadows.
Shard Point had better be worth it.
Chapter 4: The Drowned City
The canyons were a nightmare. Wind screamed constantly. Disorienting. Dust filled the air. Lex navigated by instinct. Keeping the faint sun-haze to his back. Moving west.
He saw things. Flickering movement at the edge of vision. Shapes that seemed to shift in the swirling dust. He ignored them. Kept moving. Conserved his focus. His energy.
He found water trickling down a rock face. Collected enough to survive. Found tough, pale lichen growing in shaded crevices. Chewed it slowly. Bitter. But it filled his stomach. Barely.
After two days, the canyons began to widen. The wind lessened slightly. The ground became marshy. Soggy underfoot. Pools of stagnant water appeared. Growing larger. Deeper.
Then he saw it. Through the haze. Buildings. Tall structures. Broken. Crumbling. Rising out of dark, still water. The Sunken City. Shard Point.
It wasn’t a sanctuary. It was another ruin. Drowned. Silent. Eerie.
Disappointment hit him. A cold wave. Followed by weariness. He had come so far. For this?
But maybe the rumours were partly true. Maybe something remained. Supplies. Shelter. People? He had to investigate.
He skirted the edge of the water. Looking for a way in. Found a collapsed bridge. Jagged concrete slabs formed a precarious path. Leading towards a cluster of partially submerged towers.
He tested the first slab. Seemed stable. He started across. Carefully. One step at a time. The dark water lapped below. Oily sheen on the surface. Nothing moved within it.
He reached the first tower. Found an entry point above the waterline. A shattered window. He pulled himself inside.
Darkness. Dripping water. The smell of mould and decay. Worse than the city ruins. A wet, pervasive rot. He used his flashlight sparingly. Battery was low.
Floors tilted. Walls were slick with slime. He moved upwards. Searching. Hoping. Found nothing. Just empty rooms. Waterlogged furniture. Silence.
He crossed to another building via a fallen girder. Then another. The city was vast. A maze of concrete islands in a black lagoon.
He heard a sound. A low hum. Faint. Seemingly coming from below. From the water? No. From deeper within the structure he was in.
He followed the sound. Down crumbling stairwells. Deeper into the tower’s core. The humming grew stronger. Vibrated through the floor.
He reached a large chamber. Machinery. Old. Rusted. But some parts still glowed with faint blue light. Power? Here?
The humming pulsed. The light flickered. In the centre of the room, something floated above a metal platform. A sphere. Dark. Mottled. Like diseased tissue. It pulsed in time with the hum. And the light.
Lex felt a deep unease. A wrongness. This wasn’t technology as he knew it. This felt… alive. And sick.
Was this the source of the rot? The decay? The grey haze? He didn’t know. But it felt dangerous. Malevolent.
He backed away slowly. The sphere pulsed faster. The humming intensified. A low growl echoed in the chamber. Not from the sphere. From the shadows.
Red eyes opened. Many pairs. Skitterlings. But changed. Bloated. Greyish skin stretched tight. Moving slowly. Purposefully. Guarding the sphere.
Lex raised his crossbow. Two bolts left. He aimed at the sphere. Maybe destroying it would stop… something.
Before he could fire, something else moved. From the water-filled lower levels. A shape rising. Huge. Tentacles of slime and shadow uncoiling. Eyes like milky pearls opened in the amorphous mass. It radiated cold. Despair.
The Skitterlings ignored Lex. They turned towards the rising thing. Chittering defensively.
Lex didn’t wait. He turned. Ran. Back up the stairs. The sounds of screeching and tearing echoed behind him. The humming stopped abruptly. The faint blue light died.
He scrambled back across the girder. Towards the broken bridge. Didn’t look back. He half-ran, half-crawled across the slabs. Reached the solid, marshy ground.
He didn’t stop running until the Sunken City was just dark shapes in the distance. He collapsed onto the soggy earth. Gasped for air.
Shard Point wasn’t safety. It was something else. Something ancient. Something sleeping. Something he had maybe woken up.
He was alone again. Low on supplies. Two bolts left. No destination. Just the vast, ruined world stretching out before him.
He got to his feet. Picked a direction. Away from the drowned city. And started walking. Survival wasn’t a destination. It was just the next step. And the one after that. Into the grey unknown.
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