Embers

Embers (Book One)

Foreword

(This story is still in development give me any advice or tips to help me improve this. If you enjoy this a comment would be awesome. Tell me if there is any grammatical errors so I can fix them. Thank you) (P.S also each "Part" is a separate book that is a sequel to the last I put them this way so that you can easily read through all four of them in order and also I didn't realise the parts feature was meant for chapters and also I already have intervals in which I put chapters.

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Epigraph

It's unwise to travel to anywhere in the vast empty wastes except for one place, one city, the City of Eden.

The word 'Eden' had long since been forgotten. It's believed to have once been the name given to a sanctuary, a sort of safe place in an old religion. The City of Eden is where the last time remnants of humanity rest, it's sanctuary, salvation, but to most hell. Violence is its foundations that run under every building with greed and lust it's flagstones that make up the streets. Blood oozes between every rock, tile and rafter. A deluge of death and corruption pours through the cracks and leaves not a soul untainted.

You have to be brutal to survive.

But also cunning...

The City

There's an old poem about Eden that people used to sing

'Eden the warzone,
Eden the last lake,
if you can take the risk
Then make no mistake,
Just Getting a drink,
Will leave your life at stake.

One of the last water sources on Earth is being fought over for there isn't enough to go around. Water is the most valuable resource in the endless desert wastelands, blood is shed over it and eventually it's all going to end.

The  prophet that has lived for years by the aid of a machine is dying and on the day of his death there will be no one left with the knowledge on how to operate the gods magic and protect the lake. Without him all of the remaining water in the lake will taken.

People mention a story, of a time when mankind wasn't at war with each other. The wise prophet once said that a time like that never existed.  Mankind was always at each other throats, great leaders of huge countries threatening to bombard each other with nukes and artillery.

Eventually famine caught up. When the world had it's back turned the sea ice melted, animals were hunted to extinction, seas overflowed then evaporated. Mankind was still killing before they realised the consequences of their actions, by then it was too late.
The wildfire of humanity that once burned became a flicker and now it is but an ember.

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Chapter 1
Alex

The three of us walked through the darkness followed by the sounds of automatic weapons clattering together. We pushed forward through the night guided only by light of our lantern. We walked, until we wore holes in our sandals and were exhausted, after resting and taping them back up we walked some more. In single file we marched over the sand dune with wind and sand stinging our faces.

When the sand transitioned to soft mud we knew we were approaching our destination. We looked up to see a tiny light far in the distance tucked between bare wind beaten mountains. As we continued to trudge through sand and mud our perspective changed to reveal several more lights.