TWO DAYS AGO, SCORIA CITY

It’s the early hours of the day in Scoria city, just about time for Risa to make her daily patrol. As usual, she was to patrol the upper right quadrant of the city.

She started at the lower end of her designated area, moving through her familiar route. Past shops and houses, through alleyways and jumping onto the top of skyscrapers to get a better view of the city. So far there weren’t any issues, which wasn’t surprising, people just casually went about their daily activities. Nothing really happened in Scoria thankfully.

Daily patrols through cities was a common duty of gold clad like Risa. The aim of these patrols was to check on the activity of voyagers in the area, making sure they weren’t causing trouble while serving as a deterrent at the same. This was specific to voyagers, no matter a non voyager did, gold clad were not allowed to interfere in it and would leave it to the relevant authorities.

Risa’s patrol route came to an end just beyond the city on the outskirts. At this point of routine she would take a little bit of time to admire the landscape.

Just next to the city was a volcano about five thousand meters high, its summit scraping the clouds. The landscape around the city where the volcano stood was covered in dark volcanic rock called scoria which was where the city’s name came from.

Risa stood and took in the view Everything was as usual except for one thing. Every now and then, for a week, a rumble would come from the volcano. It was something that never happened in all the time Risa had stayed in Scoria. One might’ve thought that these strange rumbles were preludes to an eruption but the volcano had long been confirmed as extinct.

Now that her patrol was completed she would head for the Centros base to give her report.

In a flash she sprints through the city, moving in a straight path and arrived at the base. It was a large spherical building located near the city center.

Risa was about walking into the building before noticing her superior, a woman named Lena who was the recipient of the report, standing at the entrance and she stopped in her tracks.

It wasn’t just Lena at the entrance, there were five people standing in front of her, wearing black and red uniforms. Stygian division members.

Lately there’d been frequent talks about the Stygian division between gold clad. For some reason their activities seemed to have increased in recent months, making more frequent appearances which was contrary to the more discreet, low profile presence they were known for.

To add to Stygian’s increased activity, there’d been a very subtle tension within Centros but so far the gold clad had not been informed of any issues.

They’d been left in the dark, something Risa wasn’t happy about. But who was she to question the decision of those who headed Centros, she and the rest of the gold clad were all nothing but instruments of their will.

Lena and one of the Stygian members, who seemed to be their leader were having a conversation. Risa kept her distance waiting for their talk to end before approaching Lena to give her report. Lena noticed Risa’s presence and gave her a short glance but doesn’t say anything and continues talking with the Stygian.

The focus of their conversation is the strange rumbling coming from the volcano. In the course of their talk they mention Juda.

Juda was a gold clad stationed at Scoria too and had been here long before Risa had. When she had first been posted to Scoria, Juda was the one who’d shown her the ropes. He also was a really nice person to be around.

A day after the rumblings had begun, Juda volunteered to check out the volcano to see what the cause was. As far as they knew, Juda had made his way into the volcano from the opening at the top but never came back.

Risa missed Juda and badly wanted to go in after him but after Lena gave gave her report of the ongoing situation at Scoria the response was that she was to refrain from doing any further investigation and Centros would be sending in the Stygian division to handle it.

Once Lena had finished giving Stygian details of what they’d discovered, which wasn't much, they headed for the volcano to carry out their investigation. Hopefully they’d bring Juda back with them.

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If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“We jump down at the time.” Instructed the team leader.

A team of four Stygian division members stood side by side at the edge of the crater on Scoria city’s volcano, preparing to jump. From the outside of the structure nothing seemed off which left them no choice but to go in to investigate the cause of the rumblings and the only way to do that was from the crater.

At the leader’s signal they jumped in simultaneously, falling freely to the ground. Not many seconds pass and they hit solid ground. However, the ground they get to didn’t look like the bottom of a volcano neither did it look like Scoria city at all.

“Where is this?”

“Is this an illusion?”

“No, I think that thing is real!”

“What thi- Aaaaaggh!”

“Run! Find the nearest shelter!”

“We can’t escape it’s too-“

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TWO DAYS LATER

It was the early hours of the day and Risa had just completed her daily patrol, ready to give her report.

Lena, her superior, was occupied at the moment so she stood waiting for her to finish. Lena was speaking with someone via her gauntlet. Lena was giving them details of what she knew about the Stygian team that was sent to Scoria city.

Two days had passed since the Stygian division paid Scoria a visit and since then no one had seen them. Just like Juda, they’d suddenly vanished.

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LOCATION : PLANET RUU

Situated on the planet Ruu’s northern hemisphere near a waterfall was its sole warp gate. The sweet sounds of rushing water crashing against rocks mixed with the the hum of wildlife filled the air giving the area around the warp gate a certain serenity.

Suddenly the warp gate whirred to life, interrupting nature’s song with the artificial sound of technology, transporting a single person through.

Immediately Juruno came through the warp gate he began scanning the area, sweeping his eyes across the platform. The first thing that came to his notice was the absence of guards at the gate, or any person at all.

The gate itself looked like it hadn’t been maintained in a long time. There were moulds and creep plants growing all over it’s surface which made it appear aged and weathered.

Surrounding the waterfall was dense forest spanning for miles and miles, cut through by a river the waterfall flowed down into. There were no visible cities or human settlements. This planet was at a point it could be listed as “uninhabited”.

Juruno got down the platform and head off to find his target, the possibly last human to live on planet Ruu.

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Randall Gorn sat in a small room in the ruins of a building people once called home. In front of him was a reading table where the book he was currently reading lay on. He quickly turned the pages consuming the content of each one rather quickly.

A streak of light falls on the corner of Randall’s book, breaking his concentration, and he looks back to see where the light came from. Sunlight streaked into the room through the window behind him. Day was already breaking to Randall’s surprise. He’d been so engrossed in his reading he’d lost track of time.

Lately Randall was spending a lot of time reading. There wasn’t really much else to do and it was a good way to pass the time. He left the reading table and walked over to the window, his eyes gazing at the rising sun.

The view out of the window was a ruined city, devoid of any life. Most of the buildings were damaged, some missing more than half their mass, most lacking any overhead coverage save for few like the one Randall resided.

The earth was charred to black and an endless silence hung over the city. This was Ruu’s great city, a once beautiful city now nothing but a relic of the past.

Randall remained at the window till the sun had risen beyond the horizon before returning to his reading table to finish his book. Once he was done with that, he closed the book and headed out to the city, taking the book along with him.

At the west of Ruu’s city stood its public library. A large building containing a mind boggling amount of books. Randall was heading there to return the book he’d just finished and pick the next one he’d busy himself with.

He leisurely made his way through the city, passing by familiar buildings, sometimes stopping to stare. He’d look intensely, frozen in the moment and the image of a flourishing city from his memory would overlap with the grim reality, sending him back to better days.

But it never lasted and the image soon faded away, returning him to the dark present. Despite all the time that had past it was still hard to accept that Ruu’s great city was now nothing but ruins and grave silence.

He got to the library, a large building that was an oval when looking at it from the top. It was luckily one of the least damaged buildings in the city. He walked trough the double entrance, stealing a short glance at the reception table where old librarian used to be then moved toward the area where books were kept.

He walked past several sections before finding the one where he’d taken the book from. The third shelf of the second row of the left wing, and inserted it back neatly into its space.

No one worked here any more, no one would chide him for not placing it properly or even not returning it at all, but it just felt wrong to desecrate memories of this place.

After returning the book, he inspected that same section for the next read, picking books at random and reading their synopsis. He didn't find anything appealing and gave up, vowing to return later.

Next up was to check on the plant. He left the library and got to a small mound where he was currently trying to grow something. The plant had grown about a foot in height, possessing a handful of leaves now.

The plant maintained rapid growth in its earlier days but it seemed there was no way it would last in this land were all the earth’s nutrients had burnt away. Several leaves were already wilting, in a week or more it would die out, much like every other thing Randall had tried growing.

On another note someone was approaching where Randall stood. Most people who visited Ruu came to loot what was left of it. In the early days he’d fought them off but eventually he gave up as it seemed more and more futile.

Still, most of them completely avoided him when they came but this one was approaching.

“There’s nothing left here for you to loot.” said Randall as he turned around to face the visitor.

“I didn’t come for the goods or the city , I came for you.” replied the visitor. A man with blue eyes, light skin and black hair.

That's a first. "What do you want with a sinner like me?” asked Randall.