Ashes of the Earth

By Calum Morton

My name is Ethan Briarson.

My name is Ethan Briarson and I am a survivor.

My name is Ethan Briarson and I am a survivor of the Undoing, the event which devastated most of the Earth. 

Of a population close to ten billion less than ten million likely remain. But none of that matters to me. Not today, not yesterday and I sure as hell won’t care come tomorrow. All that matters to me is finding food, shelter and enough filters for my gas mask. It isn’t safe to travel on the surface without one anymore because the Undoing threw so much ash and a poisonous dust into the atmosphere. Some of the older people say that the dust is radioactive and maybe they’re right. Doesn’t really matter in the long run, all I know is it kills you slowly if you don’t have a mask on. People call it the lurgie, it kills your lungs and eventually you just drop dead.

I live in what’s left of the United States of America. Most of the country is a wasteland but there are some pockets of organised civilised people still clinging to life in this hellish nightmare of a land, in the deserts under the burning sun and in the mountains to the west and even in the swamps of the south. Life goes on, it always does, sure the world ended, but life, well, you’ll never snuff out everyone. People are just too stubborn.

But enough about that, I’m sure you’re dying to know what I’m doing lying in an old highway drainage ditch with the stench of filthy, poisoned water filling my nose and a whole heap of shit going on just above me on the highway proper. Well I’ll tell you what’s going on! Mogs, that’s what! 'Mogs' is short for Mogazi, they’re like us humans but they’re mutated and less intelligent than your average human. Trouble is that they’re stronger than us and they hunt in packs. Shit! Where did I put my gun…ah, there it is.

Okay, sorry, where were we? Right, right, Mogs! So I was minding my own business travelling north to Dee Cee when I see this huge plume of dust and smoke coming from the south, probably from Fredericksberg, and I think to myself “Ethan, get your ass of the highway right now or you’re dead meat.” So I throw myself into this ditch and not a minute later I hear the engines roaring as this pack of Mogs hares past but they must have spotted something on the road near me that took their fancy and now I’ve been here for an hour and they haven’t gone anywhere. I’m so fucked! Okay, come on Ethan, calm down. They don’t know you’re here and even so, maybe they aren’t hungry? Oh shit who am I kidding? Mogs are ALWAYS hungry!