Aftermath And Ash
The smell of scorched wheat and
scorched flesh lingered like a ghost over the farmland.
Smoke still curled lazily from the
collapsed frame of the barn where the Minotaur had finally fallen. Its hulking
corpse had already begun to disintegrate into ash and bone — the last cruel
joke of the Ashen. What remained was unnatural, gnarled. The bones twisted in
on themselves like they'd tried to reject the human shape they once served.
A gust of warm wind stirred the wheat,
and with it, the ash began to drift.
Flare sheathed his sword with a soft
clack, the lightning along the blade's edge fading as if exhaling. He stood
still for a moment, his shield resting on his back, eyes locked on the remains.
That was too smart. Too aware. Too
precise.
He didn't say it aloud. Not yet.
Behind him, Marcos had one hand
pressed to his temple and the other holding a comm-link to his mouth.
"We're clear," the captain said into
the receiver, voice flat and hard. "Open up."
A long moment passed before the sealed
hatch on the silo hissed and slowly cranked open. Dust and heat poured out with
it, followed by trembling figures—three men, two women, and a teenage boy.
Dirt-stained, sweat-drenched, and pale with shock.
One of the women let out a sharp sob
the moment her eyes landed on the body—or what was left of it.
"Papa…" she whimpered.
The teenage boy immediately moved to
her side and pulled her close, shielding her from the sight. One of the men
took his hat off and crushed it in his hands. "Damn fool," he muttered, voice
thick with sorrow. "Stubborn old mule. Wouldn't even wear the monitor."
Marcos turned at that.
"Wait. What?" His tone dropped. "He
wasn't wearing his health monitor?"
The group shifted uncomfortably. The
older man—tall, gray-bearded, with a farmer's permanent tan and hands calloused
from decades of labor—nodded. "Said it was an invasion of privacy. Said he
didn't need some machine tellin' him how he felt."
Marcos exhaled, hard. "It's not about
how you feel. It's about how close you are to dying and taking everyone else
with you."
He didn't raise his voice, but there
was a steel edge to his tone that shut down any response before it could rise.
One of the women stepped
forward—older, maybe in her sixties, with deep-set lines and tear-reddened
eyes. "We didn't know he was sick. He just… he collapsed. And then the
screaming started. We barely made it to the panic room."
Her voice cracked, and she looked at
Flare. "He wasn't like that, sir. He was good. He—he loved his grandkids. He
wouldn't have wanted this."
Flare's throat tightened. He didn't
look away. "I know," he said softly.
They never do.
The truth was, the man who had once
laughed on this land, who had probably built that barn with his own hands, had
been long gone the moment he took his last breath.
The Ashen didn't leave pieces of
people behind. They consumed everything, remade it in fear and wrath. Whatever
had once been gentle in that man died when his soul was ripped open by the
corruption that pulsed through all of them.
Flare knelt down, brushing a few ash
flakes from the earth. He didn't speak. Just listened to the sound of the
survivors crying, of Caim pacing restlessly behind him, of Claire humming some
pop song under her breath to fill the silence.
Then Marcos stepped beside him.
"We need to talk," the captain said
under his breath.
Flare rose. The two men walked a short
distance away, down the slope where the wheat grew in perfect golden rows. The
sun was low now, casting long shadows across the field. It should have been
beautiful. Should have been peaceful.
Instead, it felt… wrong.
"You saw it, right?" Marcos asked,
low.
Flare nodded.
"That thing feinted. Drew Caim in with
an opening. Then swung wide. That's not instinct."
"It was a trap," Flare confirmed. "A
deliberate setup."
Marcos ran a hand through his
short-cropped hair, spiking it further. "Ashen don't do tactics. They rush.
They charge. They lose themselves. But this one—he waited. Watched. That's not
just new… that's impossible."
There was a beat of silence. Then
Marcos added, almost absently, "My wife… she hesitated too. Just once. Like she
wanted to scream before she struck."
Flare's brow furrowed.
"You think… they're changing?" he
asked.
"I don't know," Marcos admitted. "But
if this is the start of something new… something worse…"
He didn't finish the sentence. He
didn't need to.
Flare glanced back toward the barn
ruins, then at the grieving family.
"We'll take samples from the remains.
Have the lab analyze the core. Maybe there's something different in its
makeup."
"Maybe," Marcos muttered. But his tone
was grim.
Back at the wreckage, Caim stood
staring at the place where the Minotaur had tricked him. His blade was slung
over his shoulder, still warm from the final explosion. His freckled face was
pinched in frustration.
Stupid. Stupid. You saw the opening.
You wanted the opening. You forgot the rule: if it looks easy, it's not real.
His sister came up beside him,
twirling one of her bloodied Ulaks like a baton.
"Awww, don't pout, flame-boy. You're
still my favorite walking detonation hazard."
Caim didn't answer.
Claire tilted her head. "You okay?"
He finally spoke. "I almost died. I
almost got us killed."
Her bubbly expression faded slightly.
Then she bumped her shoulder against his.
"Almost doesn't count. You're still
here. Next time, blow its ugly head off first, then pose for the hero shot."
He cracked the faintest of smiles.
From down the slope, Marcos and Flare
returned. Flare gave a nod to the family. "We'll have someone here to
decontaminate the site. The remains are safe, but don't touch anything."
The older woman nodded numbly.
Flare turned away and muttered to
Marcos, "Let's head back. I've got a bad feeling in my chest, and I'm not
chalking it up to dust."
"Yeah," Marcos said quietly. "Same
here."
They walked off toward the waiting
transport, wheat brushing their sides, the sun dropping lower into a
blood-orange sky.
Behind them, the wind stirred the
ashes once more.