“The first that came, were the first gone. As the walls cracked and crumbled, and the radiant light shone through like the boundless stars from the heavens, humanity's weaknesses were exposed like a searing wound in the scorching desert sun.”

- General Sarah Aluri 

The dark gravel poured down the mountain of rubble as my hands, blackened from the dust, churned through the remains, searching for something of interest or importance. Even the smallest of finds, something barely of significance could keep me going for another few months or give me heat or electricity. The cacophony of stone and metal clanging together and falling onto the ground berated my ears and could probably be heard for a half mile. I didn’t care or look around me for safety; there were no wild animals or marauders left to hear the noise, to sneak up on me and ransack my body after they had killed me. Not anymore. Not since the Reckoning all those years ago; too many to remember, and too few reasons to keep track. I lost count after ten years. Now, everything is like a haze, cloudy and dark. I’ll never forget, but I will also bear the burden of never truly knowing what had happened, what had caused all of this. 

I didn’t like wasting the few precious hours of sunlight I had each day, but my bones ached and the harsh dust that caked my face was now irritating my eyes. Even without seeing them, I knew they were sore and red. 

“To see color again,” I thought to myself longingly. “Just one last time.”

I stopped digging in the enormous pile and sat down on a large, cracked piece of stone that seemed stable enough. It could’ve been a fragment of a wall from one of the strongholds, or one of the last remaining cities. I didn’t know and neither did the Earth. Sorrow and pain will etch memories into your core, into your very being that you will always remember, but great sorrow can also make you forget who you once were. The world, once filled with every vibrant color, blooming flower, and tree of every kind, had forgotten its past and took on a new identity, one of destruction, sadness, and remorse. I remained ignorant of the world’s true nature, and it of itself.

I brushed the dirt and dust from my face, barely taking off more than I was putting on. My clothes were filthier than my hands, and they were ripped and ragged. With no haircut in over ten years, I once had to push the hair away from my eyes just to see, but after the infections on my scalp, I decided it would be best to cut it all off. The downside was that my face now had no natural protection from the dust. But I’ve learned to adjust. 

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I surveyed the world from my high perch, my gaze tracing the dull, colorless landscape. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but stone, metal, and harsh terrain. I imagined a time when grass and trees had once grown upon this barren land, although I wouldn’t recognize a tree if I walked straight into it. They had vanished long before I was born, the wars made sure of that. I only know they possessed color, but not which color. I can only remember three distinct colors that I have ever seen; a dull, blood-red marking on stones and pieces of metal that distinguished the different cities and the Sigil of the Founders, our newly established Military at the time, forming shortly after the attacks began; a faded dark blue marking designating citizen only zones, but those were even more rare than food; and of course the green, foaming sea. I’ve heard stories that it was once deep blue and breathtaking, but now, from the war, it was toxic and uninhabitable even to all the sea life that supposedly once lived there. Even stepping in for only a few minutes would kill you within a day or two. 

As a child, I heard stories of the millions of dead sea creatures washing up on every shore across the globe. No one knew the real reason why the sea was turned toxic and vile, or what advantage it was at the time, but everyone had their guesses, the Nameless. 

I had never seen one of them, no one had. Those who did were killed too quickly to share the knowledge, and no records remain that I could find. All were either destroyed or the memory was corrupted on every computer drive across the globe. 

All I know is that they did this. 

The light was quickly fading as my eyes examined the rough, foaming green waters of the ocean that raged with anger and untamed fury. The waves crashed against the shore and the rocky barricades that ran along half of the beach. Rumors spread that the Nameless damaged the moon, reshaping our waters into this monstrous form, but no one knew for certain.

My eyes wandered toward the sky, the usual tan and dark gray expanse, resembling eternal storm clouds that never passed. I had never witnessed the sun, but its feeble light managed to filter through the bleakness for a few hours each day, illuminating the world just long enough for me to scavenge and make it home before the consuming darkness came. According to my Elder Mother, the sun once dominated the sky long ago, shining for almost half the day, and it was warm and possessed such incredible brilliance, that one would have to shield their eyes just to look in its direction. I’m sure that the Nameless had something to do with that too. 

Occasionally, I would see specks of light in the middle of the night. I didn’t know if they were remnants of the millions of broken satellites and ships stuck in orbit, or a few distant stars leaking through the haze, but I preferred to hope they were the latter. 

As the ground began to darken to its usual blackness, I knew I had to get home. Storms came twice a day, once in the night when the colder weather rushed in, and once in the morning when the sun began to heat the ground, and both were as deadly as the Nameless.