Burning Ash  

CHAPTER 1: THE END BECKONS THE COLD

The village was laid in ruins. Clouds of ash lingered over the people, blocking even the tiniest rays of light. Battle cruisers soared through the orbit, blocking out even the largest sun. This is unnecessarily repetitive. The sight was a thing of nightmares for the boy. He was a victim of the battle that had been fought in orbit. A few barrages of lasers had missed their target and hit their land instead. One stream had caught his house in the blast. As if by some cruel play of fate he was not there to witness the massacre of everyone he loved. Some of the teenagers of the area had thought it would be cool to see the fight, thinking it would be the same as any other light show.
They never got to see anything entertaining in the slightest. Ships from their planet lined up in rows in multiple, convoluted angles to prepare for an invasion. As soon as the enemy was through their slip stream they would unleash a large barrage to decimate the troops. The clever plan never worked. The enemy ships greatly outnumbered theirs in the first wave. Within a few short moments, horror was struck upon everyone. The young boy went home to hurry and warn his family. Upon his haste, he saw a beam of light explode in the direction of his home.  “No please no!” he thought as ran faster to get home.
He was horrified by the sight. A few kilometers away from his house was a crater caused by the explosion the blast was strong enough to remove every bit of foundation around the house.  Mounds of rubble concrete were scattered all over the property. Instinctively the boy ran to where the living room had been. He dug through the mounds with all his strength, bloodying his hands and an arm, hoping none of his family was buried underneath.
The young male felt daggers in his throat. Upon removing a slab of rubble he found a mauled hand. It was still connected to an arm, making it easier to tell who it belonged to. It was thin and fragile; he could tell it belong to a woman. Upon her index finger was a ring attached to a few remaining bits of skin and flesh.  It was his mother.
“M-mom?” he managed to mutter from his dry throat.
Almost as if in response the arm began to move in violent sputter.  The fingers spun and twitched in an unforeseen pattern as the arm began to try and make contract back into the boulder. Hope filled his mind as he began to rapidly tear away the rock. Movement was a sign that his mom was still alive, breathing at the least. One slab that he removed should open her head up to air.
After he saw her face, it was clear why her body was moving and sputtering so horrifically. The face was completely mashed in, covered by a mound of matted hair entangled with blobs of flesh and brain matter. The body was exhibiting death movement, much like a c***roach with his head removed.
“Mom no please!” The boy was crying unable to move at the horrific sight
“This can’t be happening! I just wanted to… why should I be alive when you aren’t?”
He threw his hand in the ground in a clenched up fist cursing at the world.
“Damn them! Why do we have to suffer?”
“Seems like the universe threw you a bad hand,” said a voice from behind him.
There stood a large figure in the glistened sunlight. It was shaped like a man but was covered from head to toe in armor. It was laced on every end with fine contours and flashing lights. It wore a helmet that concealed its face and muffled its words to hide its identity. On his chest plate it wore a crest signifying its origin. The insignia contained 3 entangled snakes and a bloody spear penetrating them all. The boy turned white with fear. It was the insignia of his attackers.
“You know,” the man started, “this job is a real bullshit one you know?”
The boy didn’t answer; he was full of anger but couldn’t express the rage he felt deep down inside him.
“Look kid, I’m sorry about your mom, this happens all the time, when two powers struggle, one is bound to break, your government lost, and now its citizens have to pay the price.”
He remained transfixed on the soldier, not saying a word while trying to observe his actions.
“I get tired of seeing it you know? Casualties of war, broken families, disease, all of it I’ve seen countless times before”
“Damen!” the boy yelled out, hoping that someone would hear his plea. It was clear this man was going to kill him.
“Huh, damen,” The soldier said confused, “That must be your word for demon huh?  Guess you figured out who I am. Now the truth I guess, I was given order to clear out this area and establish a new base for the foot soldier which means clearing out all the inhabitants.”
The boy gritted his teeth.
“Naturally that would involve killing everyone but you see, this area was hit by so much debris that the entire population practically died on impact.”
The boy looked down, he thought of all the people he had left behind so many words left unsaid.
“There’s really no point in having to kill you but you know,” The soldier said pulling out a pistol, “I got to follow his orders no matter what or else I won’t get my share of ration.”
The boy was as pale as a ghost. “This is really how I’m going to die?” he thought looking at his mother’s lifeless hand, he smiled. At least he’ll be able to see her soon. The man lined up his sight to the boy’s head. “At least it’ll be quick” he thought. He closed his eyes and awaited the kiss of death.
The sound of a bullet cracked the air; a silent moment passed nothing was heard. The boy slowly opened his eyes; he wasn’t in the other world but still next his mother’s corpse. He looked over to where the soldier stood. To his amazement he was the one killed instead of him. Right next to the soldier’s corpse stood another soldier; this one wore the same type of armor but had different colors on it. His helmet had purple line drawn across the visor.
“F*** orders!” He said to his comrade’s body.
Three hours have passed since the incident. Not much conversation was exchanged between the two. The past few moments consisted of traversing between the trees in the woods. The soldier gave off a cold aura that scared the boy despite him being his savior. Possibly the worst part of the whole thing in the kid’s mind was that he was unable to see who the man behind the mask was.
As they were walking, the soldier came to a solid stop. He signaled for the boy to follow his lead. Among the dead silence, they could hear what sounds like a million hornets soaring through the black ashen leaves. Where the man was from, they were looking for him, as if he were some marked slave. They sat among the green crouched low to the height of mill worms. Nothing could be heard but the unending hums and the sound of two distinct heartbeats. The beats were loud to the boy’s ears; the man had the same repetition as to the boy’s heart. Why would a stone cold killer have the same amount of fear as him?
After a while they were safely able to resume their travels to an unknown location.
“Um” the boy started to say, “Where are we going sir?”
The boy didn’t expect much of a response since he said it in his own language. Within the contents of the soldier’s helmet, lights began to flash and flutter. In a few seconds, the man began to respond as if fully fluent in the language.
“I’m taking you out of here kid,” he said.
“Wait!” The boy said in complete astonishment, “You can… understand me?”
“Off course, my helmet can translate nearly 20,000 languages that are frequently used within the human clusters.”
“Then why didn’t you say something earlier?”
“Seemed like too much of a hassle, you were too busy grieving so I figured the best method was to simply say let’s go.”
“That seems a bit too analytical…” said the boy a little irritated.
“It comes with the profession.”
“So why are you protecting me so?”
In that moment the soldier stopped. All bit of open the soldier had been gone. It wasn’t that he was reluctant, but it was the fact that his motives were too personal.
“I’m sick of it all,” he said, “All we have ever done is steal and kill trillions; I figured that I can do right by saving at least one person.”
“Huh,” pondered the boy out loud.
“I have a pod for you, were going to meet up with someone and get you out of here, any feeling of sentiment you have toward this planet you should drop. Pretty soon it’ll be nothing but a desolate wasteland.”
“Are you coming with me?”
“No, it was hard to get the pod, they’ll be able to track you, can’t have that.”
“Oh”
“Yeah, now if you don’t mind, we should be quiet or we might get caught.’
A while later they had arrived at a clearing with a single monopod in it. Standing outside the pod was an alien that resembled the shape of a human female. Her skin pigment was that of a different shade than theirs though. While the boy had a skin tone about the color of sanded down wood while as she herself was almost a sky red. They approached her and he noticed that her eyes were almost a various different types of white. She smiled at the soldier.
“Hey.” She said to them expecting a response. All that the soldier did in response was waved his arm to signal a hello.
“Is the pod ready?” he said to her.
“Yup, got it all set to take the survivors out. Got to say though, I was expecting to see more people than just one boy though.”
“Well collateral damage was a lot more than we had originally expected, not to mention that Charlie and his platoon had already beaten us to the scene. I had to kill one of our own men.”
“Oh no!” she said almost depressed in what she had heard, “but if they find out it was you that did it then.”
“Yeah I know which is why I want to get this kid out of here as quickly as possible.”
The alien nodded her head as she started to press a button. In that instant the pod released open and gave of a giant sputter of lights. Steam expunged from the inside of the ship and exposed a few cushioned seats. The entire inside was laminated by black decor and a few light on the rim of the ceiling. The boy wondered how it was going to feel being alone inside of the pod alone.
“Alright, it's time for you to get going kid.” Said the soldier, “but before you go, I’d like to know what your name is.”
The boy hesitated for a moment even though this man had saved his life twice. But soon he had figured that it would have been better if he had a friend in a strong place.
“I’m Barrow” he said.
The soldier took a moment. He grabbed the edges of his helmet and began to lift up to reveal his face. In contrary to what Barrow originally believed, the soldier was young man about the same age as him. He had a scar horizontally spread across his face, and was much thinner in the face than he had thought. The soldier let out a warming smile and spoke in a tone much softer than he originally had.
“That’s a good name, I'm Zeke.”
“Alright time to go before the core gets notice of us.” said airy wistfully.
Barrow looked at the ship and took a breath. He didn’t want to leave behind his world but he wanted to keep on living, as anyone would. Once he was strapped on board, the pod closed. It was a robotic ship with an autopilot as set to a distant world. Smoke erupted from the engine and after a while of warming up, the ship began to go into orbit. The battle was being fought outside of the pods directed path, so he had no worry of being attacked. He had never been in space before and was now retreating to it to stay alive. All that had just happened seemed to be a bad dream and he just wanted to wake up. Today stood as a reminder to him that reality is not set in stone.
A few hours had passed and Zeke was awakened by a metallic object jabbing him in the stomach. His eyes were faced with a gleam of light and three faded figures stood in front of him but his eyes lacked the concentration to pan them out. It wasn’t as though he needed vision to tell where he was this was a normal routine for him. He figured that by the amount of moisture in the air and the feel of the wall’s chains he was somewhere in the brig of the RSS Revenant.
“Welcome home Zeke” said a taunting voice.