Novels by Grace Kara

The past will always be there” Eli said, standing up and brushing the dirt from his hands. “But it doesn’t have to own you. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you, Maya. Don’t waste it looking back.”That night, as I lay beside Ben in the small room we shared, Eli’s words echoed in my mind. I stared up at the ceiling, watching the shadows dance in the dim light of the lantern, my thoughts a tangled mess.Ben shifted beside me, his arm brushing against mine. “You okay??” he asked, his voice quiet in the darkness.I turned to face him, my heart heavy but full of something I hadn’t felt in a long time—hope. “Yeah,” I whispered. “I think I’m starting to be.”He smiled, his hand finding mine under the covers. “Eli’s a smart guy.”I laughed softly. “Yeah he is.”We lay there in silence for a while, the warmth of his hand grounding me, making me feel like maybe, just maybe, things could be okay.“You ever think about the future?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.Ben was quiet fo

I glanced at him, wiping sweat from my brow. “Yeah. It’s peaceful.”He gave a small nod, his focus still on the soil. “Peace is hard to come by these days. Harder to hold onto.”I knew what he was getting at, but I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t ready to talk about it. Not yet.Eli didn’t push, but after a few more moments of silence, he added, “You’re still carrying it, you know. The weight of everything that happened before.”I clenched my jaw, my hands pausing in the dirt. “I don’t have a choice.”“There’s always a choice,” Eli said quietly. “The past can burn you if you let it. But the future is what you make of it.”I stared at him, the words sinking in like stones dropped into a still pond. I wanted to argue, to tell him he didn’t understand, that he couldn’t possibly know the kind of guilt I carried. But then I remembered what he had told me that night by the fire—. that he had been part of Project Inferno, that he had helped design the weapon that burned the world.If anyone un

The mornings at Eli’s farm were quiet, the kind of quiet that felt almost sacred in a world like ours. No distant gunfire, no grim-faced survivors shouting orders, no smoke curling from the ruins of a settlement. just the soft rustle of wind through the crops, the occasional lowing of a cow in the distance, and the steady rhythm of our footsteps as we worked the land. The air smelled of earth and life. It was a stark contrast to the acrid tang of burning metal and ash that had seemed to cling to me for years.Here, the only smells were simple ones: the sweetness of hay, the faint iron tang of soil on my hands, and sometimes the sharp, almost medicinal scent of the herbs Eli kept hanging in the barn. It had been weeks since Ben and I arrived, stumbling through the farm’s weathered gates with nothing but the clothes on our backs and the weight of our pasts. I hadn’t planned to stay. I wasn’t even sure what had driven me to keep walking after the settlement fell apart. The idea of s

As we ate in the flickering firelight, I couldn't help but marvel at how normal it all felt. Almost like the world hadn't ended, like we were just travelers stopping at a kind stranger's house for the night. But as the evening wore on, I noticed a change in Eli's demeanor. He became quieter, more thoughtful, his gaze lingering on us in a way that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. "You two've been through a lot," he said finally, breaking the comfortable silence that had settled over us. It wasn't a question. "We've seen our share," Ben replied carefully, his spoon pausing halfway to his mouth. Eli nodded, leaning back in his creaking chair. "I've seen a lot too. More than I'd like, truth be told." He paused, seeming to wrestle with something internal. "I wasn't always a farmer, you know. Before The Burning, I worked for them. The government. I was part of something... something I'm not proud of." My heart stuttered in my chest, and I felt Ben go still beside me. We'd

As we got closer, the outline of a small farmstead came into view. It was nestled against the edge of a narrow stream— miraculously still running —and surrounded by a patch of what looked like actual crops. Corn, maybe, or something that used to be corn before the world ended. The sight of growing things, of life persisting despite everything, made my throat tight with emotion."Look at that" I whispered, almost afraid to speak too loudly and break whatever spell was keeping this place alive. "Actual plants. Growing. How is this possible??"Ben shot me a cautious look, ever the pragmatist. "Could be a trap. You know how some groups operate. Make something look too good to be true, wait for desperate people to come running.""It could be," I admitted, remembering all too well the stories we'd heard about such things. "But I don't think we have much choice. We need water, and this place looks like it has it. Besides, if it were raiders, they'd probably have worse security. This place

The wasteland stretched out before us, endless and desolate, a s ea of cracked earth and skeletal trees marking the landscape as a constant reminder of the world we had lost. Despite the harshness of it all, there was something oddly freeing about being out here, away from the settlement and the ghosts of the past that haunted its walls. Out here, it was just Ben and me, two souls trying to carve out something new in the ruins of what had been.Our footsteps crunched against the dry dirt as we walked, the horizon shimmering with heat in the distance. The sun hung high and merciless in the cloudless sky, and the only sound was the wind cutting across the plains, whipping at the tattered edges of our clothes. My muscles screamed with each step, my throat parched and raw, but there was a strange kind of peace in the rhythm of walking. One foot in front of the other. Keep moving. That was the only way to survive in this broken world.I glanced over at Ben, studying his profile as he wa