Last Ember:ashes of the World

Chapter 23: Chapter 23: The weight of What's Left



The world outside the Vault of Echoes was no quieter than the one beneath it. As Jack, Lena, and Veyne emerged from the crumbling ruins, the cold night air hit them like a rebirth. The sky above was veiled in ash-gray clouds tinged faintly with red—a constant reminder that the Mist was never far, and neither was the end.

They didn't speak for several minutes.

Each of them carried a silence too loud for words.

Jack's hands trembled faintly as he wiped the drying blood off his brow—not from wounds, but from strain. The fight with the clone… or whatever that version of him was… had taken more than strength. It had drained something intangible. A memory, maybe. Or perhaps a sliver of soul.

> "We need to move," Veyne finally muttered, scanning the horizon with his cracked goggles. "We're still in Level 5 quarantine territory."

Jack nodded, but his eyes lingered on the Vault's collapsed entrance—just a mound of shifting rock and glowing dust now. He wasn't sure if he had buried a threat or a part of himself.

---

They made their way through a collapsed freeway that once fed into the heart of the old city. Everything was skeletal. Towers of steel bent at unnatural angles. Roads had merged with root-like growths of crystalline Mist. Time hadn't just passed here; it had withered.

Lena walked behind him. She hadn't spoken since the Vault. Jack could feel her eyes on him, could hear the question she was afraid to ask.

He stopped.

> "Say it," he murmured without turning.

She blinked. "Say what?"

> "Whatever it is you're holding in."

> "...Back there," she said, softly. "That thing. That you. It knew things. About you. About the resistance. About me."

Jack nodded slowly. "It wasn't just my copy. It was made from my Echo. My thoughts. My regrets."

> "So then... when it said you could become like them—"

> "It was right."

He turned toward her, and the glow from the Mist-bleached sky reflected the shadows under his eyes.

> "I felt it, Lena. The power. The pull. For a second, I didn't want to resist."

Her expression didn't change. She simply stepped closer.

> "But you did."

> "And next time?"

> "Then I'll remind you who the hell you are."

A long silence passed. Then Jack gave a ghost of a smile. Not joy, not relief—just a flicker of gratitude.

---

That night, they found shelter in an abandoned subterranean bunker—half-destroyed, but stable. The systems powered up briefly, enough to activate heat and dim lighting. The three sat in a circle around a broken reactor, using it as a fire pit.

Veyne sharpened his blade methodically. Jack stared at the wall, lost in thought.

> "When I was a kid," Jack began, voice quiet, "I used to think the world would fix itself. That grown-ups had a plan. That someone… somewhere… was making sure everything made sense."

He chuckled bitterly.

> "Turns out they were just scared like everyone else. Just better at pretending."

Lena tilted her head. "And what about now? What do you believe?"

He didn't answer immediately.

> "Now?" Jack muttered. "Now I think it's up to the broken people. The ones who know the world doesn't make sense. Because they're the only ones angry enough to fight for something better."

Veyne looked up. "We're not just fighting anymore. We're building. You started something back there in the Vault, Jack. That surge—we felt it. Across the grid. Mist levels dropped. Creatures stopped moving. You didn't just survive. You shifted something."

Jack blinked. "You think I changed the Mist?"

> "I think... you talked to it. And it listened."

The room fell quiet again. But this time, it wasn't heavy. It was filled with possibility.

---

Elsewhere…

A tower stood in the ruins of Sector Delta. From its top, a figure cloaked in violet and gold robes gazed toward the southwest—toward the Vault's remains.

A mechanized drone hovered beside her.

> "The resonance spike confirms it," the drone said. "He accessed the core's conscience."

The woman turned, revealing glowing irises like molten obsidian.

> "Then the boy is no longer just a carrier."

> "Orders?"

She smiled, cold and slow.

> "We watch. For now. But when the time is right, we harvest."


Tip: You can use left, right, A and D keyboard keys to browse between chapters.