1

It started with the smell. A strange and suffocating thickness in the air that clung to the back of my throat, like I’d swallowed dirt. I remember stepping out of the hospital after a long shift, the Seattle skyline stretching out in front of me, and feeling like something was wrong. The sky was a dull gray, not the usual drizzle or overcast we were used to. This was darker, heavier. I called Chloe.

"Hey, are you seeing this?" I asked, squinting up at the murky sky.

"Seeing what?" Chloe’s voice came through, light and distracted. She was probably painting or working on one of her sculptures. She had an artist's mind, always somewhere else.

I glanced at my watch. 3:15 PM. Too early for the sun to set but too dark to be anything normal.

"The sky, it’s... weird." I couldn’t put it into words at the time. Not that it would’ve mattered. Words wouldn’t have saved us.

"Relax, Maya. Probably wildfires again. You know how summers have been the last few years. I’ll be fine."

I’ll be fine.

I can’t count how many times I replayed that conversation in my mind. I should've insisted she come to the hospital with me, should’ve made her leave her apartment. But I didn’t. I let her stay. And then the world ended.

The first bomb hit an hour later.

I was in the ER when the ground shook, a slow rumble at first, like thunder that didn’t stop. The lights flickered, and then the building trembled—a violent jolt that sent monitors crashing to the floor. The power flickered out, screams echoed down the hallway, and that’s when the panic spread.

People with half-sewn wounds and broken bones tried to get up, pulling out IVs and limping toward the exit. I remember shouting for people to stay calm, but no one listens to reason when the world is shaking apart beneath their feet.

The second bomb hit not long after, farther away but still close enough to rattle my bones.

I ran outside, expecting to see smoke, fire, something that made sense. But what I saw instead was worse.

The sky had turned black.

A thick, swirling cloud of ash and smoke filled the horizon, blotting out the sun. I could taste it in the air, feel it in my lungs. It wasn’t just Seattle. The emergency broadcasts started rolling in on every frequency, static-filled reports of cities burning, bombs falling.

'The Burning,' they called it. I don’t know who coined the term, but it fit.

I tried calling Chloe again. No answer. I called her ten, maybe twenty times, each call going straight to voicemail. My heart pounded in my chest, the world around me growing more chaotic by the second. People were fleeing in every direction, like ants scattering in a fire. Some had cars, some didn’t. Most just ran, faces streaked with soot and fear.

I had to find Chloe. I had to get to her.

I made it to her apartment just as the fires started. By then, the air was thick with ash, visibility down to a few feet. The city was already in chaos—people smashing windows, looting stores. I pushed my way through the panicked crowds, my mind singularly focused on one thing: Chloe.

When I reached her building, the flames were already licking at the base of the structure. Thick black smoke poured from the windows, and I could hear the crackle of the fire spreading. I screamed her name, running for the stairwell. I barely made it two flights up before the heat became unbearable. The air was too thick, too hot. I couldn’t breathe.

"Maya!" I heard her voice. Faint. Desperate.

I tried to push forward, but the flames were too fast, too aggressive. I remember coughing, choking on the smoke, my skin burning as I reached for the door to her floor. It was hot, searing pain shooting up my arm. I pulled back, tears streaming down my face. I couldn’t get to her.

I couldn’t get to her.

"Chloe!" I screamed, but my voice was swallowed by the roar of the flames.

I don’t know how long I stood there, the fire raging all around me, before one of the neighbors dragged me out. I fought them, clawed at them, screaming Chloe’s name until my voice gave out. But it didn’t matter. She was gone.

The weeks after The Burning are a blur. I wandered the ruins of Seattle, the sky perpetually covered in a blanket of ash, the fires never fully extinguished. The air was thick, toxic in some places. People died from simple things—smoke inhalation, dehydration, infection. The world had turned into a graveyard, and I was just another ghost haunting the ashes.

I don’t know how I survived. Maybe because I didn’t care if I did.

I scavenged what I could, moving from one burnt-out building to the next. There were other survivors, of course, but we didn’t talk much. Trust was a luxury none of us could afford. People killed for food, for water, for a pair of shoes. The worst ones killed just because they could.

I kept moving, kept to myself.

That’s when I found the radio.

It was buried under a pile of rubble in an old electronics store, half-crushed but still functional. I don’t know why I started fiddling with it. Maybe it was the silence that got to me, the oppressive quiet that had settled over the world in the wake of the destruction. Or maybe I just needed to hear another voice, even if it was just static.

I turned the dial slowly, listening to the hiss of white noise, my fingers trembling. I was about to give up when a voice crackled through the static.

“…help… survivors… if you can hear this… Eagle’s Nest…”

I froze, my heart racing.

Survivors.

I pressed the radio closer to my ear, adjusting the dial as carefully as I could.

"…repeat, if you can hear this… survivors at Eagle’s Nest…"

Eagle’s Nest. A group of survivors. Maybe it was a trap. Maybe it wasn’t.

My mind raced, torn between hope and fear. Could I trust them? Could I trust anyone?

I glanced around the charred remains of the city, the weight of my solitude pressing down on me. How long could I survive on my own? How long did I want to survive?

I didn’t have a choice.

I slung my pack over my shoulder, took a deep breath, and stepped out into the ashes.