Ash Burrows Eternity

On the back of the paper Ash sends to the archives is part of a list of the dead. The names are printed neatly, bureaucratically, as if they had never been anything more than letters on a page. Some are struck through roughly, others ticked off. Most are unmarked. There has been so much death; too much to keep up with.

You wanted us all to tell our stories, right? In pursuit of the truth.

Well, that kind of is my story. I’ve been telling the truth for years, and for years nobody listened. There’s a way out of the Underground, I said, and the Exile - Cicero, I mean, I guess - knows about it. I was right, more or less, on both counts - and yet it was only when people started dying that anyone began to pay even the slightest bit of attention.

Even then, it wasn’t easy. I hallucinated, several times. I was burned; my arms are just as much scar tissue as flesh, now. I was exposed to radiation, I started to lose reality - there are still shadows hiding in the bright corners - and I got infected with a deadly, bone-eating parasite. I nearly burnt this entire fucking place to the ground. And still, and still, people didn’t believe me until they saw it for themselves. They believed the Director, instead. They believed zir lies just because zie stood on a box and said it all with authority. Katrina claiming to bomb the Underground was the best thing she ever did.

Of course none of it was ever true! You don’t send a man to his death without any real reason if you’ve got nothing whatsoever to hide. But it took a few of us risking our lives over and over and over again to prove to the world what was clear to see - what had been blindingly obvious from the start. And all the while, the bodies kept piling up.

I’m leaving now. I’m leaving with my job left unfinished, with goodbyes left unsaid - not that anyone, I don’t think, will miss them. I’m leaving and if I have half a say in what happens next, I’m never coming back. There is a beautiful world out there, and I intend to explore it. I’m tired of being trapped in the dark! If anyone’s reading this in ten, fifteen, fifty years - I hope you’re never overawed by the sight of the sun blazing over Principality like I was, by the golden light reflecting off the sand. I hope it’s nothing special. I hope you see it every single day.

The government spent our whole lives lying to us all. I don’t know if that’ll change. I hope so. I think it might, but all the same, I don’t exactly plan on sticking around long enough to find out.

- Ash Burrows.

Written by Eloise P.

Ash had only gone back for the flower. Only that; nothing else. The room hasn’t changed - it’s got the same black walls stained blacker by soot, the same coals glowing gently in the furnace (if Ash opened the vents like so, and fed the fire like so, it would roar back to the same crimson, hungry, ferocious life as always, too), the same shelving, the same desk. Just this morning, she’d have been perfectly content to walk right out of that room knowing she’d never see any of it again, without so much as a single backward glance.

So why can’t they?

One last time, she traces the perimeter of the room. Ever since they were old enough to work, they have spent more time in this place than most other people would want to in their entire lifetimes. For all that they’ve run from here as much as everywhere else, the morgue has been far more bearable than the rest of the Underground. It’s been a safe haven, a retreat; somewhere to be alone and quiet and peaceful when the rest of the Underground got too much to bear. Somewhere familiar; somewhere warm. Somewhere without politics or lies or hidden secrets.

The Overground won’t have those things either.

Time to go. Come on.

This job will fall to someone else now. Someone new. Someone who resents the work, who won’t find peace in the silence of the dead. They won't appreciate how it's less lonely surrounded by people, either.

Ash rubs the petals between their fingers. They, too, are dead now. She is the last living thing left here - and even then, only just.

See? You don’t belong here any more. Did you ever? This has always been a place for the dead.

Above ground, there’s life. There are other people, other places, chances to start again. Chances to build a life, this time. A real one.

And even if not - the world, unlike the tunnels, doesn’t end. Wherever they go, no matter how badly it ends, it doesn’t have to be the end any more. Ash never wants to lose hope that way again.

And that requires getting out of here, Ash.

She puts the flower down, picks Mirax’s rations up, and leaves the morgue without so much as a single backward glance.

Written by Eloise P.

There it is, the ocean. Announcing its arrival by the crashing of waves far below, birds of a hundred- of a thousand different varieties call out their different songs joining an orchestra of sound from their cliffside nests. Wind races up the coast carrying with it gliding birds and sea spray. It’s salty, fresh and wholly new. The shimmering waves stretch out to the horizon in all directions, an endless expanse of opportunity, of freedom.

And on the top of that cliff, after walking for so long, after being in the dark for all their lives, are Ash and Azriel, now standing at the gates to the rest of the world.

A harbour town sits nestled between the great cliffs on the coast. Small boats ferrying people, goods, and whoever knows what else are scattered across the bay. They are slowly making their way across the vastness, to whatever waits for them on the other side. Birds flock around crafts in the sky, climbing up and up and up, towards the clouds, towards the setting sun, taking their passengers far and wide.

This is only the beginning.