Ashen Dreams

The land was barren, the sky was black, and the a sulphur vent hissed in the distance. The ash was especially deep today; there must have been another falling that brought it to her hip. It was difficult to breathe, let alone move, but it was a life Audrey had gotten used to.

For the better part of a decade she had scavenged these lands, crossing back and forth, looking for anything of value beneath the ever present fields of ash. Audrey was close now. She has scrimped and saved everything she dared for passage to the coast. She had sold her snowshoes, search-pole, and most of her scarves she used as breathing barriers, but still remained a breath away from escape. Less than a breath, a whisper.

In truth she had already combed through this plateau. Some said a city lay underneath and the treasures that lie untapped were limitless. Audrey didn't buy any of that. It was the sort of lie the suppliers spouted to keep new Pickers coming to the mountains- a hope burning in those they had trapped in their service. No, what had brought Audrey was not the desperate hope of finding a priceless artefact, but the need to find something, anything.

For whatever the reason, there were picks to be had on this plateau, and it was accessible. This place had also been her very first pick. It felt fitting to make it her last so Audrey found herself waist deep in ash, trudging through like so many years ago, one last time.

It had been a long time since she had been on a pick without snowshoes and longer still without a search-pole, but the skills had not left her. Audrey lowered herself to eye level of the ash and scanned the horizon for subtle mounds across the grey, windswept landscape. Occasionally these mounds were indications of the ash shifting from below or from the natural ebb and flow of the environment, but more often than not, it was the result of previous digs. A Picker could only take back what they could carry and there was usually leftovers. A person could make a decent life savaging off their fellows if they knew where to look and Audrey didn't need anything special.

There was a few possibilities around. Audrey set forth to the nearest site. She probed along across the desolate plain. Her excitement at the prospect of being done with this life once and for all threatened to push her too quickly. One misstep and she would fall beneath the ash. She had found more corpses on her digs than she cared to remember and had no wishes to join them.

Audrey turned to look back as she approached the dig site. It was a habit she had developed. She liked looking at her trail through the ash. It gave her a sense of progress; a footnote she was and where she had been. As she did, her foot slipped. Her eyes shot wide as she felt herself turning sideways. She reached up to the sky, but it too fell beneath the surface of the ash as her world went dark. It was thick and her foundering did little to improve her torment. Panic set in and her motions became more violent. Her twisting and contorting of her upper body and neck loosened her scarf and a flood of ash poured into her screaming mouth. In the flailing maelstrom, she was almost unaware her foot caught something. The thought forced it's was into her mind. She had found something. That was the bottom. She pushed her feet down and could the hard bottom and put everything she had into standing.

Light greeted her as she breeched the surface and threw into a coughing fit to vomit up the ash that had entered her body. She was weak, alone, and scared. She had almost died. She should have died. Audrey desperately tried to calm her spinning mind.

Her foot. She had caught something. It hadn't been the ground. It was different, small, and smooth. She steeled herself and rose to stand tall. The ash around her was tossed and turned. It was her overturned grave. Audrey trembled and lowered herself to shoulder depth. She was shaken but felt around for what she had found. She moved gingerly through and groped searching with her hands.

Her finger struck something deep in the ash. She grabbed at it but pushed it deeper. she pushed she cheek against the ash and felt it again, but only barely. It was hard and rectangular. She felt tears streaming against her face and moistening the ash against he flesh. She took a deep breath and plunged beneath the grey once more. She grabbed the object and broke through again. She blinked and brought her focus tightly on her treasure, releasing her breath. She turned it over in her hands.

It was a a book. The pages were stained at the edges but she cracked open the cover to gaze upon her deliverance: Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut.