The morning after was not morning at all.
The sun hadn't risen in years—not properly. Just a smear of pale light pushing through the ash-thickened sky, painting everything in grays.
But after the night we survived, even that was enough to feel like a miracle.
We left the school at dawn, or what passed for dawn. The boy walked now, unsteady but stubborn. His glow had dimmed, threads of light hidden beneath his skin like cooled embers. Karis hovered protectively, one hand never leaving his shoulder. Harlan limped, jaw tight, a line of blood still caked along his hairline.
I carried the pipe across my back. Bent, bloodied, slick with marrow, but still solid. Still mine.
The city was quiet. Too quiet.
---
The Road
We followed a cracked highway leading out of the ruins. Cars were rusted husks, fused into blackened lumps from the firestorms that had rolled across the earth. Every so often, a skeleton lay curled in the driver's seat, hands locked on steering wheels that would never turn again.
Karis murmured, "Where are they?"
She meant the Ash.
I scanned the ruined streets, every shattered window and melted billboard. "They're close. They always are."
And they were. You didn't have to see them to know. You could feel it in the air—the weight, the waiting.
The boy looked up at me suddenly. His eyes were too old for his face, as if the glow inside had burned childhood away. He whispered, "They're walking with us."
Harlan cursed under his breath. "What does he mean?"
But I already knew.
---
The Whispers
It began softly.
A whisper. Not from one direction, but from everywhere. It curled from the ruined cars, the shattered glass, the open mouths of drains. A sound of many voices speaking at once, layered atop one another, all too quiet to understand.
The boy's glow flickered. His veins shimmered faintly in answer.
Karis clutched him tighter. "Don't listen."
But I did.
I couldn't help it.
The whispers weren't words, but they had rhythm. Cadence. A pattern that tugged at the mind like a half-forgotten memory. My chest tightened. My hand ached around the pipe. I knew, with a certainty that hollowed me out, that if I kept listening, I would understand them.
And if I understood them, I wouldn't be myself anymore.
Harlan shouted, breaking the spell. "Shut it out! Keep moving!"
We walked faster. The whispers followed.
---
The First Sign
It was Karis who saw it first.
A reflection in a puddle, stretched wrong. Not us, not the road, but something watching from the other side of the water's skin. Long limbs, clawed hands, hollow sockets glowing faintly.
She gasped and pulled the boy back.
Then the puddle rippled.
And the reflection stepped out.
The air cracked as it emerged, thin and pale, its body dripping with liquid that hissed as it hit the pavement. Its chest bulged with ribs jutting outward, and in its hands it carried a spine, still wet, rattling with every step.
The whispers swelled.
From every puddle, from every shard of glass, from every reflective surface—they came. Crawling through like flies through torn fabric.
The Glasswalkers.
---
The Run
We didn't fight. Not at first. There were too many.
We ran.
Boots pounding across fractured pavement, breath tearing my lungs raw. The boy stumbled, Karis lifting him, forcing her body to move faster than her strength should allow. Harlan fired shots behind us, every crack echoing like thunder, buying us seconds at a time.
The Glasswalkers didn't chase like normal creatures. They didn't need to. They appeared in front of us, stepping from windows, from the hoods of burned cars, from the surface of water collected in craters. Each time, their whispers grew louder, drowning thought, bleeding into the marrow.
One clawed hand caught my shoulder, ripping fabric and skin. I swung the pipe blindly, shattering its skull like glass. It crumbled into fragments, vanishing in a hiss of steam.
But for each one broken, two more slipped through.
---
The Stand
We reached a bridge—half-collapsed, one side falling into a chasm where fire had chewed through the earth. No way back. No way forward but across.
"They'll corner us!" Karis shouted.
"They already have," I said.
The whispers filled the air now, vibrating inside my skull, pulling me toward them. My legs trembled, not from exhaustion but from the weight of the sound.
The boy screamed. His glow flared blindingly, spilling from his skin like fire breaking free of stone. The Glasswalkers shrieked in answer, staggering as if struck.
That was our chance.
"Harlan!" I shouted.
He understood. Together, we turned, side by side, weapons raised. Karis crouched behind us, shielding the boy with her body as his glow pulsed against the night.
The Glasswalkers came in waves, whispers rising, claws scraping, reflections bleeding from every surface.
We stood our ground.
Pipe.
Pistol.
Glow.
The bridge became an altar of violence, ash swirling around us like smoke from a pyre.
---
The Aftermath
And then—silence.
The whispers cut off, leaving a ringing void in my ears. The Glasswalkers were gone, dissolved into shards of light that melted into the air. The puddles and glass lay empty.
But the boy had collapsed, his glow dimming to almost nothing. Karis held him, rocking, whispering his name.
I leaned on the pipe, blood dripping from my arm, lungs burning. Harlan reloaded with shaking hands, face pale beneath the soot.
The bridge creaked beneath us, threatening to collapse. The city behind us whispered with what still lurked unseen.
We had survived again. But survival was beginning to feel like a curse.
---