Dust, mud, and sometimes snow. That’s all there was in the wastes after the eruption. The only trees that could be seen were the dead husks of what once had been. Hardened ash still covered much of the gray outskirts of the city.

Geracht was no stranger to this place. A shadow of himself wandered here. It lured him here. He could feel it. There was some long forgotten memory that beckoned him; some whispering echo of his pain.

These houses, driveways, mailboxes. This abandoned suburb in the north-western edge of SOLA held something. Something that Geracht feared, yet had been unable to decode in all the years of returning. However, this time, he was close. He knew it in the deepest parts of his animal soul.

The dust and ash coat his boots in a fine layer. The winds blew strongly out here, kicking up all of the particulates of ages past, blowing them into Gerachts face. He wore a filtration mask to allow him to properly breathe but his cybernetic eyes crust around the edges where they touched their fleshy lids. He rubbed at them, cursing the meat parts that still plagued him.

He peered through the wind and dust, coat flapping with each fresh gust. Why did he still come here? The exhilaration? The fear? It was the only thing he feared. This place. This relic of a neighborhood. He always saw the ghosts out here. Shadows and light in the secret corners. Silhouettes of people that he thought he might have known once, long ago.

His blood chilled as he continued forward into the gray. Fresh illusions crowded at the edge of his vision. They always came when he thought of them. They came to thank him, to worship him, to torture him. The images of those he had killed; but in this place, there were others. People he might have even loved once.

The laugh of a child could be heard in the wind. Geracht turned sharply toward the sound, ghosts still only in the periphery. “It’s nothing,” he thought to himself.

A gust of wind blew a clearing in his vision, and the remains of a house could be seen. Another child’s laugh carried, but from the house this time.

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“No…” Geracht spoke aloud. The ghosts on the edge of his vision crept in closer. He saw small footprints in the ash and sand before him, leading to the skewed front door of the house. “No…” Tears collected in the corners of his eyes and he dropped to his knees. “You can’t keep doing this to me…”

The wind died down to a light breeze, and the ghosts receded. Suddenly, color saturated around him, and the house was whole once again. He saw a man and woman holding a toddler, smiling larger than life. He crawled towards them, still feeling the ash against his hands as he moved. The child laughed as the father tickled her side.

Geracht stood once more and walked to the man, a mirror image of himself, but before any of the surgeries had been performed. “What did you do? WHAT DID YOU DO!?” His confusion mounted to new levels. Feeling the encroaching darkness of past horror, but without the clarity of memory.

A flash of light crossed Geracht’s vision and he was suddenly alone in front of the broken house once more. He wiped the dust and ash from the front of his mask and took a breath. Then he opened the door to the home.

Evidence markers stood in various places to punctuate the horror. Old blackened bloodstains marked the walls and covered the floor. A stuffed bear sat in one of the dried puddles. Geracht clutched at the sides of his head and fell to his knees once more with a scream as loud as he could make.

Memories flooded his mind. He fell onto his side next to the bear, tears carving rivers into the dust on his face. “You were so frail. So small.” Geracht had come home to this once before. The blood, but also the bodies.

The Yellowstone eruption disrupted life to the point that the investigation never went further than this. “So… frail…” The person who had done it was never caught. Geracht’s mind broke that day. That’s when the ghosts first began to visit him.

His breath shuddered as he lay weakly on the floor. He had promised himself on that day that he would never be frail again, but here he was, broken once more. He clasped the teddy bear in his fist, tears continuing to stream from around his cybernetic eyes.

He remained on the floor for an age, holding the bear. Then the ghosts began to return as misty shadows around him, and his memory once again began to fade. “No…” He pushed the bear deep into one of his pockets and stood. The ghost of his daughter took his hand and led him out the door. Then she faded into the blowing dust.

Geracht continued walking back to his IFV.