Shades of clay



Prologue

-The Price of Solitude-



Overhead, the midnight sky looked as though it was a large vintage television screen, one just turned off, still tinged a fuzzy gray. All around, the air was filled with small particulates that floated like microscopic plankton. A long path lay amid the charred carcasses of steel sentinels long past, carving a petrified river of solid rock straight through the graveyard of constructs. Along this path, only a single being stirred, daring to disturb the silence that now rested over the graves of many. A man, clad in clothes of dark tan, walked along the rock path that was laid out many years before. His gait was slow as he trudged on, pulling the collar of his black parka up, for the night was cold. Then, the man slowed even more, and eventually stopped his pace. Looking to the rough asphalt ground beneath his feet, a sentence happened to escape his mouth.

“How long has it been since you last tread upon the surface of this Earth, Ambrose?” He whispered, just to hear his voice, and the sound of his name.

Taking a deep breath, Ambrose began to walk at the same slow gait as before, raising his head up, taking in all that was in front of him. In a way, this was what he always wanted; solitude. He always wanted to be alone with his thoughts, wandering freely across open land unchecked. Ambrose had finely received what he had always wanted.

But as with everything, freedom is not free.

That solitude came at the price of millions of lives.

Millions…