Scattered Ash: A Young Adult Dystopian Novel (Wall of Fire Series Book 2) Read online

  SCATTERED ASH

  MELANIE TAYS

  Copyright © 2020 by Melanie Tays

  MelanieTays.com

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without express written permission, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Published by Goldlight Enterprises LLC

  Published in Queen Creek, Arizona, USA

  ISBN: 978-1-952141-03-4 (paperback)

  ISBN: 978-1-952141-02-7 (ebook)

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  SANCTUARY

  A Wall of Fire Companion Novella

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  Tech-savvy and independent, Mara has never felt like she belongs in the perfect utopia of Sanctuary. When the opportunity arises to leave and explore the treacherous, unknown world beyond, she volunteers. But in training she discovers that success could be the ultimate failure.

  Chapter 1

  Nerves charged like live wires, I take Vander’s hand and step through the shimmering gateway that exiles us from The City. Prepared to fight or run, my head whips from side to side, surveying the Ash for Roamers who may be poised to attack and take what meager supplies we’ve brought with us from The City.

  This place is called the Ash for good reason. Even now, decades after the firewall burned to protect the inhabitants of The City while the barrier field of the Safe Dome was constructed, the landscape is gray and bare. In the distance, though, I can see trees and I’m not sure if they belonged to the forest that was set ablaze to start that fire, or if they’re new growth that has sprung up from the ashes left behind.

  Nothing about this place feels familiar. Even the air somehow smells wrong. This isn’t the safe, filtered air of The City. This air could be infected with any number of things, including the Withers. I pull the neck of my shirt up to cover my mouth and nose, hoping it can serve as a layer of protection from this foreign atmosphere.

  Vander seems far more concerned with where we’ve just left than what we’ve walked into. He rips free of my grasp and dives back for the gateway, his only focus on getting back into The City. But the passage has already closed, locking us outside the protective shield of the Safe Dome. From this side, the barrier field covering The City appears to be a solid, shimmery, golden dome. The gateway we just passed through is marked by an arch with a dull, shifting luster. Vander frantically beats his fists against the sealed gateway, but no matter how hard he pounds on the impenetrable barrier, we will never be granted entrance again. If I try to stop him, I’m sure he’ll just turn that rage on me, so I let him work out his angst against the barrier.

  No Roamers lie in wait to ambush us, and no ravenous animals are poised to pounce and devour us. The ashen plain is wide open and bleakly empty, and I sigh in momentary relief.

  Vander, Mieka, and I were the only three contestants to fail the most recent round of the Burning, the trials that determine our place in The City. In our case, the Council determined that we have no place at all.

  Mieka has already run off. The only remaining sign of her presence is the hasty footprints trailing across the gray, ashen landscape to the woods a hundred yards away. That’s fine with me. Neither Vander nor Mieka are who I would have hoped to be here with, but of the two, I’d much rather have Vander with me, and I don’t want to be alone. He’s at least sometimes nice and helpful, even if his behavior tends to swing between extremes—trapping me in a thorny briar in one instance, and soon after inviting me to dinner. But Mieka has never been anything but menacing from the moment I entered the Burning.

  My chest tightens and I struggle to breathe, though it has nothing to do with the air. I can’t think about the Burning right now. It’s too much to unravel—too many questions I may never get answered. Just a few short hours ago, I was eating breakfast with Eason—the boy I’ve loved for as long as I can remember—believing we were about to embark on a mission to deactivate the Safe Dome and free the inhabitants of The City from the tyrannical Council.

  He convinced me that the Council was our biggest threat. Eason promised that he knew how to save everyone.

  And I believed him.

  But now, here I stand in the wasteland of the Ash. And Eason is still inside The City as the newest member of the Council. His father, Breton Crandell, is also a member of the Council—a fact I learned far too late.

  I close my eyes as though I can block out the confusion and find order and meaning in the blackness inside my own head. I thought I knew what was true. I thought I was doing something that mattered. Now, it hurts to think at all.

  I open my eyes again and let the light flood in. After a lifetime of fearing the outside world—a place ravaged by disease and without civilization—I have to admit that our uneventful arrival has left me just a little disoriented.

  Fluffy, undulating clouds pepper the sky, captivating my attention. For a moment, it’s easy to forget that anything existed before this moment. The sensation is dizzyingly blissful. I let down my guard a little, uncovering my face. I’ve never seen the real sky before—only a hollow projection of a perfect blue canopy to block out the world beyond. The sun hangs high and stings my eyes when I gaze directly at it, so I look back to the clouds. As I watch, I can detect subtle shifts in their position and appearance. I want to feel wind, but the air is still, just like back home, so I guess it only blows sometimes. I’ll just have to wait on that.

  Still, the sky is more enchanting than I’d ever imagined. It makes the whole world feel alive, like there’s no end to the possibilities it affords. I laugh and spin in a circle and feel gloriously free—which is probably really stupid because I might be dead soon if we don’t find food and shelter…and maybe a weapon.

  Vander is still waging war on the barrier, but it’s his yelling that snaps me back to the reality of our current situation. Despite the anticlimactic start to my new life in the Ash, it’s dangerous to let my guard down.

  “Stop it!” I command. “If any Roamers are nearby, you’re going to draw them right to us.”

  But he doesn’t stop.

  I take my bag from my shoulders and swing it right at his head just to get his attention.

  “Ouch!” he yelps, rubbing the back of his head where my pack connected with a thud.

  “What?” I mutter, startled. There’s not much I was allowed to bring with me from The City. Could a whack from my toothbrush really hurt that bad?

  Vander slides down and sits with his back to the barrier, cradling his head like a wounded child, but at least he’s quiet and not wasting valuable energy that we’re going to need to find food. Deep crimson blood trickles from the back of his head and down to his neck, so I know he’s not exaggerating—at least not entirely.

  I sit down next to him and slide open the zipper to see what could have hit him so hard. I dig down to the bottom of the green canvas bag, and my hand finds a fist-sized, oblong object that doesn’t belong. I grasp it and pull it out, turning it over in my hands.

  “Why did you bring a lemon?” Vander asks. “If you were going to smuggle food out, you could’ve at least brought something good.”

  But I wasn’t the one who placed this in my bag, and I’m sure it wasn’t meant for sustenance. Eason must have slipped it in this morning when he opened my bag at breakfast. He’s trying to remind me about the lemon he gave me in the greenhouse, and the significance he tried to tie to it—something about how the things we fear are sometimes the key to overcoming a greater danger.
r />   I scowl and toss it to the ground. I’m not in the mood for any more of Eason’s games.

  “Don’t be stupid. It’s food, after all,” Vander says, scooping up the discarded lemon. He’s right, of course. Even a lemon is better than starving. My anger at Eason is clouding my judgment.

  The lemon isn’t heavy enough to harm Vander, though, so I dig around some more. This time my fingers find a rectangular wooden object tucked under my spare clothes. When I pull it out, I immediately recognize it as the box that Eason had in his room, the one with the hidden compartment concealing the intercuff key. I wonder if it’s still there. But what use would I have for it out here? Our intercuffs were removed before we left The City. If anything, Vander wants his back, not to remove it.

  I hold up the box to Vander. “Sorry, I didn’t know this was in here. I guess this is what knocked your head. You can blame Eason for that.”

  In fact, we can go ahead and blame Eason for everything.

  “What is that?” Vander asks with interest, all signs of his panic attack finally dissipated.

  “It’s just a box that Eason used to hide things in. He must have slipped it in my bag at breakfast this morning.”

  “Don’t you want to see what’s in it?”

  “Not really,” I mutter, letting Vander take it from me. I’m done being a pawn in Eason’s twisted games, which he clearly means to continue even now.

  Vander flips open the lid at the top of the box. I don’t bother to tell him about the hidden compartment underneath. He pulls out a small black, metal cylinder. There is a single button on one side, which Vander wastes no time in pressing. The device emits a puff of air that blows right into his face. He jerks his head back in surprise and coughs once, but other than being unexpected, the puff of air doesn’t appear to have any effect. We stare at the strange device, but it’s silent as a stone and appears about as useful. Still, I don’t like how careless Vander is being.

  “Vander, you should probably leave that alone,” I caution.

  For all we know, this is some kind of tracking device or a weapon that Eason has planted on me to kill us once we were out of The City. It doesn’t seem like something we should be so capricious about until we know what it is.

  “Why would he give you this?” he asks, appraising it as though it might contain deep mysteries that can be unfolded by an adequately focused stare.

  “Why did Eason do anything he did?” I huff, annoyed.

  I don’t want to talk about Eason right now. I would be happy if I never had to think about Eason ever again, but there’s not much chance of that. I toss the box back into my nearly empty bag and zip it closed.

  “We should get moving. We’re going to be hungry soon,” I say. “We need to find food and shelter.” It feels good to make a plan and regain a semblance of control.

  Since it’s obvious there’s no food or shelter in the ashen plain immediately surrounding The City, I stalk off toward the trees, figuring that’s the best place to start.

  I hear Vander fumbling with his own bag behind me. “Wait up,” he cries, rushing to catch up to me. When we reach the trees, he pauses and turns back to the brazen dome of The City. “We won’t go too far, will we?” he asks, reluctant to leave.

  “Not today,” I agree, mostly out of pity.

  I don’t point out that it doesn’t matter if we’re one inch or one million miles away from The City—what lies past that barrier is equally, inexorably, and forever beyond our reach. The sooner Vander accepts that fact, the better.

  Chapter 2

  The wide branches of the trees are laden with vibrant green leaves so thick that the sky is nearly completely obscured from view once we enter the woods. It has an ominous feel about it, as though anything could be lurking in the shadows and around the wide, rough trunks, just waiting to attack.

  It’s not long before I start to feel an odd tickle in the back of my throat, and I can’t help fearing that I’ve already contracted a deadly Ash disease. Is this how the Withers begins? But I remind myself that the Withers passes from person to person, and we haven’t seen a single soul since leaving the City, so it can’t be the Withers—can it? I cover my face again, even though it’s probably already too late.

  I tell myself that it’s silly to be afraid, but how can I not be? We’re in the Ash, the place of every child’s nightmares, the threat worse than death that looms over every citizen of The City. I let my footsteps drift closer to Vander, feeling safer next to him. Unfamiliar and foreboding noises echo through the trees, making it impossible to discern their origin. I let my arm brush against Vander’s just to know that I’m not alone. I’m tempted to wrap my arm around his, linking us together, but before I do—

  “Blazes, Emery, can you give me some space?” he says, shoving me away and knocking me into a tree.

  I shouldn’t be surprised that Vander has no interest in being a gentleman—or even a decent human being—in this terrifying and potentially deadly situation. But I’ve seen Vander be kind and gentle. I guess I’ll just have to wait for that half of his personality to show up again.

  Still, I’d rather be with anyone than alone, so I try to make peace. “Sorry,” I mutter, putting a few feet between us. “You know what’s weird,” I say after a few minutes of silence.

  “What?”

  “The shade of your eyes seems to shift with your mood.”

  He stops walking. “What do you mean?” His deep emerald irises appraise me through narrow slits, making me feel stupid for saying anything. It was just a silly observation, not anything he should get all upset about.

  “It just seems that the fouler your mood, the darker your eyes get. On the rare occasions you’ve actually been nice to me, your eyes looked…lighter somehow,” I explain, awkwardly. When he doesn’t reply or shift his gaze, I stammer on. “Sometimes you just seem to have a bit of an alter ego, and I always wonder if I’m going to be dealing with Nice-Vander or Mean-Vander. But…forget it. It was probably just the lighting or something. It just struck me as…interesting.”

  He rolls his eyes and huffs in disgust. “You know, people like you have always been my worst nightmare.”

  “Like you’re such a dream yourself,” I shoot back. “What do you mean by ‘people like me?’” I demand.

  He starts walking. “People who spend too much time noticing other people, and not enough time minding their own business.”

  “So you’re mad at me for noticing that you can be a complete jerk sometimes?”

  “Ugh… Just shut up, already,” he hisses.

  I let the issue drop, more certain than ever that Vander isn’t completely stable. At least my irritation at him distracts me from all the awful things I was imagining here in the Ash, dialing my fear back to a manageable level.

  We walk in silence for a few minutes before I speak again, saying something I think we both need to hear. “Listen, Vander, I realize neither of us wants to be here, and I’m probably not who you would have chosen to have with you.” He gives a single huff, and I know I’m right. “And you sure aren’t my first choice, either. But, like it or not, we’re all we have right now. If we help each other, we have a lot better chance of getting through this alive. I’m not your enemy, and I’m hoping you’re not mine. We’re in this together.”

  He doesn’t reply, and we keep walking in silence. But I feel a change in the air between us. Maybe it’s in my imagination, but I think he’s considering my words, and maybe he’s softened toward me.

  The sun warms the air uncomfortably. In The City, the temperature is always constant and perfectly calibrated. Here, the air is hot and seems to stick to you. Even though the exertion of walking through the woods is nothing compared to what I’m used to, sweat runs down my face and back.

  We walk slowly, our feet crunching the twigs and leaves carpeting the ground. No matter how far we go, it’s just more and more of the same trees. We can use the branches to build some kind of makeshift shelter that would get us through th
e night, but that’s not going to help the rumbling that’s already growing in my belly.

  “Does anything look edible to you?” I ask.

  Vander has more experience with how food looks when it’s in its original state. I grew up on nutrition rations, which just look like highly processed gray mush. Nothing here looks like the food I’m used to. Not that I’ll miss it, especially now that it may be poisoned—

  I cut off the thought.

  The food isn’t poisoning anyone. I don’t know how the Council or Eason got Liam to tell me that, but it was all part of the deception that convinced me to trust Eason.

  It had to be.

  My little brother, Whyle, is probably already back at school today—bright-eyed and rosy-cheeked. Weeks from now…months from now…years from now, he’ll be healthy and continue to be a ray of sunshine in a sunless place. I did what I set out to do—I got the medicine to save Whyle’s life. So it doesn’t matter that I’m here now. That was a risk I was willing to take. Even with the Curosene I garnered, making me believe that Whyle only had weeks to live was nothing but a cruel extension of Eason’s game, or test, or whatever it was. But it doesn’t matter now.

  There are several different varieties of trees, and Vander pauses to inspect each one. “These aren’t trees that I recognize. There’s no fruit growing on any of them.”

  “What about the leaves?”

  “I’ve never eaten leaves before,” he says, doubtfully.

  “How hungry are you?”

  “I’m more thirsty. We need to find a water source.”

  At the mention of water, my own parched throat burns angrily. In this heat, I feel as though I’m being dried out in an oven. “Doesn’t water fall from the sky out here?”

  “Rain?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t know how often that happens,” he says. “We’d better look for a stream or ocean or something.”