Ash

By K.D. Aeker

Thousands of survivors climb to escape a sea of ash. But the mountains are only so high, and the tide is quickly rising. Bernice and her researchers have the answer, but can they do what is needed before time runs out?

• Language: English
• Publisher: K.D. Aeker
• Release date: Apr 25, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458052841

K.D. Aeker

K.D. Aeker has been writing since 2010, with a big focus on short thrillers and a hint of sci-fi!

Book preview

Ash

By K.D. Aeker

Copyright 2012 K.D. Aeker

Smashwords Edition

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She peered into the red haze of the rising sun, watching the carrion birds bicker and snap in hungry circles. Out there lay the dead; though hidden, she knew they were there. She knew, too, that it was better that way.

There just aren't the right words. He stood close, motionless in the crisp morning air.

There's been too many. She stated it as simple fact.

Are you okay? He studied her face, her olive skin roughened by exposure, tanned into living leather.

She nodded, her expression blank; for which of her quarrelling emotions could possibly win out over all the others? She took a sip of her water ration from her battered plastic cup.

In the beginning, the survivors had mourned each lost soul. Those that prayed did; and those that didn’t cursed the destructive chaos of nature.

She had known loss too. It burned at her insides and rang in her ears long after she had finished shrieking. She hadn't prayed or cursed. She had let the cacophony of grief become a static hum. Only in the quietest and loneliest of moments did her pain pierce the deafening white noise. This morning was a particularly quiet morning.

She rolled her shoulders, tight tendons aching. This disaster. The mourning. The drawn out battle for survival. It had all made her weary in a way that extended beyond her physical body. It permeated the very core of her being.

Her boots scattered pebbles of granite as she kicked at the tide line of ash at her feet. A divot of clean air dragged into the swirling turbulence created by the toe of her boot. As she watched, the ash folded over the fresh air. Within moments the ink black cloud was as it was before. Calm, serene, and deadly. She studied the fine coating left on her boot. Each particle was so insignificant alone, and yet en masse they were more insidious than any disease or plague known to man.

She urgently wanted it off her. She used her other boot to scrape away as much of the cloying grit as possible.