ASHES OF THE DARK SKY

The air smelled like copper and burnt plastic. Kim Yena moved through the husk of a pharmacy with the silence of a ghost. Her boots didn’t crunch glass anymore—she’d trained herself to walk on the edges of her soles, to glide over wreckage like fog. The windows were blown out, the shelves gutted. What little remained was rotting, or had fused together in the firestorm that devoured the block three months ago. She paused in the doorway, eyes scanning. One blink at a time. Left corner. Right shelf. Top beam. No movement. No sound. The quiet was not safety—it was camouflage. Noise was honesty. Silence meant something else was already hunting. Her stomach cramped, a low twisting pain she’d long since stopped reacting to. Three days since the last food. Seven since real protein. She licked her cracked lips, moved toward the counter. Behind it: a corpse. Fused into the linoleum. Just bones in a fetal curl, fingers still clutched around a child’s inhaler. A pharmacy tech? A mother? Yena didn’t look long enough to decide. She stepped over the ribs and pulled open the broken drawers. Dust. Plastic wrap. Nothing. Then—beneath the far shelving unit—something glinted. She dropped low, muscles coiled like a feral cat. A canister, half-buried. She yanked it free: a vacuum-sealed ration tube, uncracked. Real government issue, pre-apocalypse. It felt like holy scripture in her hands. She didn’t smile. Didn’t even breathe deeply. Her first thought: someone else missed it. Her second: someone else left it on purpose. The hairs rose on the back of her neck. She straightened slowly, scanning again. Still quiet. Still wrong. And then a voice—hoarse, familiar—broke the silence. “Yena?” Her head snapped to the side. Behind a splintered shelf, half-shadowed in the ash-fall, stood a man in a hooded jacket too big for him. Beard overgrown. Left eye milky white. Gaunt frame swaying with each breath. “Hyun,” she said. Her voice scraped her throat. He laughed weakly. “s**t, it’s really you.” She didn’t lower the makeshift blade in her hand. “You’re limping,” he said. “You need a place to rest.” She didn’t respond. “I got a bunker. Small, tight. Good seal. Just a few blocks. Food too.” No one said the word safe anymore. Not unless they were lying or insane. “You followed me,” she said. Hyun rubbed his hands together. “No, I—s**t, no. I’ve been holed up. I saw you through the wall c***k. Swear to God.” He’d sworn to God once before, right before he stole her boots in Year 6. She hadn’t seen him since. Still, she stared at him. Not trusting. Just calculating. He was too thin to overpower her. Probably. But the ration might be worth it. Even just for a chance to sit indoors. Yena nodded once. He smiled like a drowning man offered rope. — The sun was beginning to melt behind the ruins by the time they reached the so-called “bunker.” It was a half-collapsed daycare center, its entrance hidden under a tilted emergency slide. Inside, the air was sour and thick. But real walls. No wind. She didn’t put down her bag. “You still got your knife?” Hyun asked casually, sitting on a crate. “You know I do.” “Good.” He laughed again. “Just like old times. You, me, surviving hell.” She didn’t sit. “You ever think about before?” he asked. “Before all this? You had family?” She shook her head. He looked at her too long. “I did. Had a sister. Pretty. Smelled like flowers. She was the first to go.” Yena looked at the door. “I only ask,” he said slowly, “’cause sometimes, it’s better if you don’t have anything left.” That was the moment. Her fingers tensed on the hilt. She pivoted left. Too late. Three shapes burst through the back wall. One tackled her. She hit the concrete hard, the wind exploding from her chest. The blade skittered. A second body slammed her down—hands clawing at her pack. Screams. Not words—just hunger and rage. She twisted. Elbow to jaw. A c***k. The third grabbed her hair. Yena roared. Not in fear. In fury. She slammed her head back—felt a nose crunch behind her. Rolled. Elbowed the second in the ribs. They didn’t let go. She grabbed a jagged plank and drove it through soft flesh. Wet heat exploded across her hands. The attacker shrieked and fell. Hyun shouted, “I said don’t kill her!” That confirmed it. She launched at the one behind her—bit his throat. Felt blood fill her mouth. He collapsed gargling. The last one—she didn’t remember killing. But she was standing over his body, panting, dripping, when she realized the room was quiet again. Except for Hyun. He was near the wall, staring in horror. “f*****g hell,” he whispered. “You’re not human.” Yena staggered. Her side burned. She looked down. A jagged chunk of metal stuck out beneath her ribs. When had they—? She pulled it out. Blood spilled slow and black. “Guess I’m not,” she said, and turned away. Hyun didn’t follow. — The streets were empty. The fog was rising. Her legs barely worked. She pressed one hand to her wound, the other clutching the ration tube. She wasn’t sure why she still held it. Like it mattered. Her vision blurred. Not from pain. Not anymore. The sky had changed. The clouds above swirled in oily spirals, red veins pulsing in the dark. No sun. No stars. Just a vast, devouring murk that was watching. She stumbled through the shell of an old bank, up the stairs, past corpses. Some old. Some new. On the rooftop, she collapsed against a bent railing. Wind hit her face. The world stretched out below—broken and blood-colored. She looked up. And the sky split. From its core, a red meteor streaked downward, trailing tendrils of black light. Then another. And another. They fell like rain. One struck far off. The ground shook. A sound like all the metal in the world screaming. She didn’t flinch. Yena exhaled. For the first time in years, she felt no need to move. No need to survive. Only… stillness. Her body was cold. Her hand relaxed. The ration tube dropped from her fingers, rolled once, and stopped. The last thought she had was not of fear. It was: I should’ve killed Hyun slower. And then— Light. White silk sheets. A faint scent of orchid oil. Eyes—her eyes—snapped open. The ceiling above her was smooth, gold-trimmed. The hands before her were pale. Clean. Masculine. A young man’s voice gasped—her voice. A servant said from the corner: “Young Master Seo-jun, you’re awake!” Kim Yena opened her mouth. And screamed. .......