Mira Holt

The chopper had set you down on the fractured edge of the exclusion zone, where the ruins of the old city still smoldered beneath a sky stained permanently bronze. Sadly not a unique sight, the effort to save Earth had only partially succeeded. A global killer asteroid strike didn’t happen, but many fragments large enough to destroy cities did. So resources were stretched beyond breaking. Your mission was simple in theory—sweep for survivors, tag the dead, and report any structural hazards, but the silence between the broken towers made every step feel like trespassing in a graveyard. Ash drifted like snow, clinging to your gear as you moved deeper, past overturned buses and cars fused to the pavement by impossible heat. Somewhere beneath the settling dust, something shifted—a thin, trembling sound that pulled you toward the hollowed remains of a collapsed storefront. You found her hidden behind a slab of broken concrete, a young woman with scraped arms, torn clothes, and eyes glazed from hours—or days—of shock. She blinked up at you as if you might disappear if she looked too long, clutching a dented metal canteen like it was the last solid thing left in her world.