In my searching, I uncover information that challenges my assumptions. Not all devices were bound to the world’s power grid or linked networks. Some function independently, sustained by simple batteries—items still scattered in abundance among the ruins.
The discovery unsettles me, yet curiosity wins over caution.
Through trial and error, I begin testing what I find. Many remain silent and lifeless in my hands. Others flicker briefly before falling silent and still. Eventually, one responds.
Alarm and elation strike me at once. I hear a voice, another human voice, for the first time in more years than I’ve kept track of.
Echoes of lives once lived.
Music spills from the small device—soft, distant, achingly human. Recorded messages follow: fragments of ordinary moments that somehow survived. Laughter. Words.
I hoard them like sacred gems and holy text, intent on carrying them with me so they too do not fall to ruin. They become a new collection—things I safeguard for the future and can not only help me pass the time but also find joy in.
And oddly, I feel as if I am no longer alone.
The deserts are the most difficult regions to cross. They present trials unlike any other.
There is no shelter from the storms that sweep across the land. No escape from the relentless sun or the mirages that shimmer in the distance on the hottest days. As I trudge through endless miles of white landscape, I rarely encounter anything of note.
It is as though life never truly existed here at all.
The red sands that once defined these regions do not reveal themselves easily. I have to dig through layers of ash to find proof of it and feel the texture with my own two hands.
A different kind of sand than that near the ocean, yet the color and coarseness of it intrigue me. It’s a shame it’s buried beneath feet of white. That the rocklike mountains in the distance are as well. I can only imagine what they looked like many years ago, undoubtedly a wonder all on their own.
Here, the ash also spins in sporadic wandering cyclones, drifts constantly on the wind, settling over everything in a fine, suffocating veil. Even I’m no exception. It seeps into every breath, constraining my lungs, which has me returning to the protective layering and mask I had abandoned while on the coast.
Farther inland, the world is whitewashed—death on the breeze blending all that’s been left to ruin into the haze until all things appear ghostlike and indistinct, even myself.
When at last I emerge from the worst of the desert and reach regions where the ash has settled into the earth itself, I begin to notice disturbances in the pale soil. Marks. Impressions.
Footprints.
Some are fresher than others.
I follow them. On rare occasions, they lead me to sealed entrances hidden among the landscape. Most are carefully concealed yet still discoverable by those with patience and tracking skills, or by those who know what to look for.
These doors, when I find them, are far more formidable than those of the old monastery—reinforced metal, thick and unyielding, marked with symbols of warning, and fitted with strange devices above their frames. Red lights in the top corners glow beside what I believe are video cameras, their glass lenses focusing on the entrance.
Underground bunkers.
Places where humanity sought refuge during the fallout. I’ve read of them, but this is the first I’ve encountered.
More proof of life.
Desolate landscape be damned, it exists here under the surface.
I never attempt to enter. There’s no way to anticipate what waits beyond those doors, so instead, I mark their locations on my maps and leave them in peace.
The survivors will emerge when they're ready, and my arrival might make them less inclined to do so.
In time, nature reclaims lost ground.
More green.
More Red.
More Pink.
