Fallen, The Red Sands: Introduction

She remembered. She remembered the smell of the salt air, filling her lungs with warmth, comfort and contentment. She remembered the feeling of a warm breeze gliding across her face, easing away the days tension. She remembered the sound of gently rolling waves meeting her at the shore, tickling her toes with a childlike invitation to play. She remembered the sight of the sun shining down on blue, glistening water- prisms of light and ancient magic.

She remembered home....before the war turned their world barren, and dark. Where oceans once covered the surface with abundant beauty, they now fled into the endless crevices of the earth’s crust. Taking with them, life, and hope for mankind.

There was no hope now. Only survival. Communities of people co-existing in compounds, bunkers, or, like Amria, in an old prison. Each community had names. Hers was very simply called “The Prison Campers”. It wasn’t a name they had chosen for themselves, but the other communities would refer to them as such, and so, it became who they were.

Clusters of survivors covered a now much less populated, world. Reverting humanity back into a time where groups of people fought for their land, and their right to live on it. The more walls they built, the more they lost touch with what it was to be human.

When The Fall began, many communities welcomed survivors with open arms, shelter, and food. As the reality and terror of what was happening to their world set in, powerful leaders took over, feeding into the fears of the people. Manipulating them with lies, and eventually causing them to reject any who weren’t their own - turning groups of people from being part of a community, into being part of a sect, or, in extreme cases, a cult. The cults were the most dangerous of the survivors, killing anyone that did not conform to their ways - or, for merely not looking like them.

Amria had heard stories of other communities, who called themselves "tribes". These tribes had not lost touch with their own humanity, and welcomed survivors escaping the dictatorships of the communities that had formed during The Fall. They had escaped to areas which still had some semblance of the world they once knew. She even heard there were areas which still had access to natural running water and sunlight. But these were just stories, and as far as she was concerned, where new world fairy tales.

She sat atop a large mound, looking out over their prison camp. The Red Sands spread for miles. When the plant life began wither away and die, it was quickly replaced by a thick red liquid; a byproduct of PKO. PKO was a biological warfare weapon that was used during the war. With unforeseen side effects, the weapon wiped out three quarters of the human population, and most of its plant-life. The red liquid swallowed anything it touched. That is, underneath it’s cover, plants, animals, and even people disintegrated and disappeared completely- leaving no trace of its existence behind. It was nightmarish, and terrifying. 

In a frenzy, news stations everywhere began referring to the liquid as the “Blood Wave”. Once the liquid dried, it’s color and consistency changed to a dark-orange rust-like substance, that now covers every inch of the surface. It came to be known as The Red Sands. That seemed to be easier to deal with than the reality of what is was: ash and death beneath their feet.

The ocean, as if it were its own living organism, rejected PKO and was not affected by its destruction. Instead it was swallowed by the earth itself. Hiding from the the very thing that destroyed its home: humanity. 

The prison siren sounded three times, bringing Amria out of her thoughts, and signaling the start of her shift.