"Did you find it?"

The voice was thin. It scraped against the silence of the cave like a dry twig against stone.

Elias did not turn. His back was to the entrance. The light outside was a pale, bruised purple, the color of a dying sky. He looked down at his hands. They were caked in red dust. The soil of the Wastes had a way of getting into everything. It found the creases of the palms. It settled into the nails. It turned the skin into something else. Something rough. Something dead.

He picked up the object. It was small. No bigger than his fist. A shard of glass. Or perhaps plastic. It was clear. It caught the dim light and fractured it. A thousand tiny rainbows danced on the cavern floor. They were brief. They vanished before they could be named.

He held it tight. The edge bit into his flesh. He did not flinch. Pain was a good thing. Pain was real. In the Wastes, reality was a luxury most people could not afford. They lived in the grey. The grey of the smog. The grey of the ash that fell like snow. The grey of their eyes.

"I found it," Elias said.

His voice was low. It lacked volume. It was the voice of a man who had forgotten how to speak. Or perhaps it was the voice of a man who had decided that words were no longer necessary.

A shadow detached itself from the wall. It moved with a fluid, predatory grace. It was not a shadow. It was a person.

Mara.

She stepped into the center of the cave. Her face was obscured by a mask of woven wire. Only her eyes were visible. They were dark. They were empty. They held the same void as the sky outside.

"Show me," she said.

She did not ask. She did not plead. She commanded.

Elias raised his hand. He extended his arm. The shard caught the light again. It pulsed. A soft, rhythmic beat. Like a heart.

Mara’s eyes widened. Just slightly. A micro-expression. A crack in the armor.

"Is it... alive?" she whispered.

Elias looked at her. He studied her face. He looked for the fear. He looked for the hope. He found neither. He found only the hunger. The endless, gnawing hunger that defined their existence.

"It is not alive," Elias said. "It is memory."

Mara stepped closer. The wire mask clinked softly. A harsh sound in the quiet dark.

"Memory is useless," she said. "Memory is poison. We must move on. We must take it to the Center."

"The Center," Elias repeated. The word felt heavy in his mouth. It tasted like rust.

The Center was a myth. A story told to keep the children from weeping. A story told to keep the adults from breaking. The Center was said to be a place of green. A place of clean air. A place where the sun was yellow, not red.

Elias knew the truth. He had always known. The Center did not exist. The Wastes were all there was. The horizon was a line of fire. Beyond that line was only more fire. More ash. More silence.

But they had to believe. Belief was the only currency that remained.

"We will leave at dawn," Elias said.

Mara nodded. She turned away. She walked back toward the entrance. The purple light stretched her shadow long and thin. It stretched across the cave floor. It reached for Elias’s feet. It did not touch them.

He remained still. He held the shard. He watched the rainbows dance. He watched them die.

The journey began.

The air was cold. It bit through their clothes. It seeped into their bones. It was the kind of cold that did not freeze. It just numbed. It took away the sensation of being alive.

They walked. They walked for hours. They walked for days.

The landscape was a blur of grey and black. The ground was cracked. It was a mosaic of broken earth. The sky was a solid dome of smoke. There were no stars. There was no moon. There was only the glow of the distant fires.

Elias walked in front. Mara walked behind.

They did not speak. Words were heavy. Words required energy. Energy was scarce.

Elias’s legs ached. His feet bled. The dust covered everything. He could not see his own hands. He could not see the path. He walked by feel. He walked by instinct.

Instinct was a dangerous thing. It led you to the edge. It led you to the cliff.

He stopped.

He heard a sound. A soft, rhythmic sound.

He listened.

It was coming from ahead.

He moved forward. Slowly. Carefully.

He found it.

A figure.

It was sitting on a rock. It was small. It was wrapped in a tattered coat.

Elias approached. He knelt.

The figure was a child.

The child’s face was pale. Its eyes were closed. It was breathing. A faint, rattling breath.

Elias reached out. He touched the child’s cheek. The skin was cold. It was like stone.

"Who are you?" Elias asked.

The child did not answer.

Elias looked around. The Wastes were empty. There was no one else.

He looked at the shard in his hand. He held it up. The light from the distant fires hit it. It glowed. It pulsed.

The child’s eyes opened.

They were wide. They were clear. They were not grey. They were blue.

Elias froze.

Blue.

He had never seen blue. Not in the Wastes. Not in the sky. Not in the water. Not in the eyes of the living.

Blue was a color of the past. A color of the before.

The child looked at Elias. It did not speak. It just looked.

Elias felt a surge of something. It was not fear. It was not anger. It was sorrow. A deep, ancient sorrow. It rose in his chest. It pressed against his ribs. It almost broke them.

He looked at the child. He saw himself. He saw his own face, young and unscarred. He saw his own eyes, before the ash had clouded them. Before the hunger had hollowed them.

He saw the truth.

The shard was not a memory. The shard was a mirror.

It did not show the past. It showed the present. It showed the core of the self. The part that was not destroyed. The part that was not consumed.

The child was a reflection. A fragment. A piece of Elias that had been lost. Or perhaps a piece of the world that had been lost.

It did not matter.

The child closed its eyes. It sighed. It was a sound of relief. A sound of release.

The child’s body slumped. It was still.

Elias sat down. He placed the shard on the ground. He placed his hand over it.

The light faded. The glow dimmed.

The blue in the child’s eyes faded. It turned grey. It turned dark. It turned into the void.

Elias opened his eyes.

The child was gone.

The rock was empty.

The Wastes were silent.

He looked at his hand. The shard was still there. It was clear. It was cold.

He picked it up.

He looked at Mara. She was standing ten paces away. She was watching him. Her mask obscured her face. But he could feel her gaze. It was sharp. It was hungry.

"Is it done?" she asked.

Elias looked at the shard. He looked at the empty rock. He looked at the horizon. The line of fire. The endless grey.

He thought about the Center. He thought about the green. He thought about the yellow sun.

He knew it was a lie.

But the lie was necessary.

The lie was the only thing that kept them moving. The lie was the only thing that kept them from stopping.

If they stopped, they died. If they moved, they suffered.

Suffering was a form of life.

Elias stood up.

He held the shard out to Mara.

She took it. Her fingers were cold. Her grip was tight.

"Thank you," she said.

Her voice was flat. It was devoid of emotion.

Elias nodded. He turned away. He began to walk.

The wind picked up. It carried the ash. It stung his eyes. It coated his tongue.

He did not blink.

He walked.

The shard was in Mara’s hand. She held it close to her chest. She did not look at it. She did not look at Elias.

She looked ahead.

The horizon was a line of fire.

The fire was beautiful.

It was the only beauty left.

Elias walked into the fire.

He did not look back.

He knew that the fire would consume him. He knew that the ash would cover him. He knew that he would become part of the grey.

But he walked.

He walked because he had to.

He walked because there was nowhere else to go.

He walked because the shard was in Mara’s hand.

And the shard was clear.

And the shard was cold.

And the shard was real.

The journey ended.

Or perhaps it began.

In the Wastes, there was no difference.

There was only the walk.

There was only the ash.

There was only the silence.

Elias closed his eyes.

He saw blue.

It was brief.

It was beautiful.

It was gone.

He opened his eyes.

The world was grey.

He walked on.