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- Herausgeber: Passerino
- Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
- Sprache: Englisch
In a dieselpunk dystopian world, set in the fractured 1920s, the Men in Black rule with an iron fist. Harnessing the dark power of a fallen crystal, they have created Falena—living war machines powered by unnatural energy. Symbols of tyranny, these monstrous exoskeletons have crushed every trace of freedom.
Amid the ruins of industry, decaying cities, and poisoned landscapes, a group of rebels rises. They are broken souls and silent fighters, bound together by defiance. Among them is Rae, a young woman mysteriously linked to the stone from the sky, and Tim, a former soldier who has faced the heart of the Falena. Their struggle is not only against oppression, but also against the corruption that gnaws at flesh and mind.
Blending action, introspection, and hauntingly poetic visions, the novel pushes toward a crescendo that questions the fragile boundary between humanity and machine, memory and oblivion, resistance and annihilation.
The story unfolds in three acts: the first explores the meteorite’s arrival in the northern lands and the strange mutations it sparks; the second leaps forward a decade, as rebellion ignites and the Falena takes its first steps; the third carries the heroes to the flying city of Fenice, where a desperate final battle awaits.
Simone Stefano Marcocchi, an Italian author with a passion for speculative fiction and dark, atmospheric worlds, presents his debut novel: The Moth That Danced in the Fire.
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025
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Table of contents
Part One - 192X: The Ascent of the Moth
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
Part Two - 193X: The Moth flies
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
Part Three - The era of the Phoenix, the dance of the Moth
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
EPILOGUE
Credits
landmarks
Title page
Cover
Table of contents
Book start
Part One - 192X: The Ascent of the Moth
CHAPTER 1
Sharp as Blades
In the icy expanses of the most remote northern region ever colonized by humans, the wind blew sharp as razor blades, leaving indelible marks on the faces of those unaccustomed to the inhospitable climate. These days marked the end of the three-horned moose hunting season. The men moved silently among the silver birches, their lever-action rifles gripped in their gloved hands.
The sky was clear, a pale blue that only those latitudes knew, when a deep rumble tore through the air, like thunder without a storm. One of the hunters looked up. An orange glare, a wound in the firmament, was crossing the sky with an unnatural slowness. It was not a shooting star—too big, too close. It was a mountain on fire, with a tail of fire and ash that trailed behind it like a mantle of death.
It was impossible not to be both fascinated and terrified by the sight. "By the Old Spirits…" someone whispered. The meteor began to slow, as if a mysterious force was holding it back, but then it accelerated again, heading straight for the easternmost valley, which was enclosed in a fissure that sheltered it from the most violent weather and the harshness of the climate, but which would soon face a fury of a different nature altogether. In the center lay a village of fishermen and miners nestled between the icy fjords.
A blinding flash lit up the horizon, followed by a roar that shook the earth. The hunters threw themselves to the ground as a shockwave shook the trees and sent the snow flying like dust. When silence returned, it was eerie. Only the distant crackling of flames and the weeping of the wind could be heard. Ruk looked at his team, trying to reassure the young men with his calm demeanor, but among their frightened eyes, he was searching for his wife’s, wanting to be sure she was safe and to find the comfort he needed in turn.
She put a hand on his shoulder. "Let's go back." Ruk nodded and, with a nod of his head, signaled to the others to gather their things and follow him quickly. They weren't far from their village; they had gone out on foot that day, and a single hour's walk was enough to bring them near the herds of three-horned moose. These were wary animals that sensed a human presence from a distance, guided by the wind. Only those who could move with calm and circumspection could hope to approach them without causing a stampede. Over the years, they had also learned to associate the smell of the humans’ horses with that of the men who rode them—a signal of danger to be fled. Those animals carried their worst enemies, and if they found themselves in superior numbers, they would not hesitate to trample those fragile creatures, piercing their bodies with the mighty bone they proudly carried on their foreheads. Every loss suffered by the herd was etched into the collective memory of those beasts, teaching them who to avoid and how to continue to live. But at that moment, on the eve of the great summer migration, the tremor that had just shaken the earth had thrown them into chaos. Every moose was fleeing in opposite directions, trampling themselves and every bush that stood between them and their instinct for survival.
The snow was still deep, but the approaching spring had made it softer. Ruk couldn't afford to run for a full hour with that clothing and the weight of the equipment, but the men who had learned to live in those lands had also learned how to move as quickly as possible, retracing their own footprints etched in the snow so as not to waste energy. They reached the village in a flash. The elders, who had certainly seen the same spectacle in the sky and had certainly suffered the behavior of their animals in the pens, had already brought them all back into the stables. They were used to being fast, especially when living surrounded by wolves whose heads alone were three times the size of a human adult’s, with claws capable of slicing any unfortunate person who stood in their way.
Despite the small stone walls being carefully closed, at the sight of Ruk and his men the lookout gave a quick and decisive signal: the gate could be opened. The village was protected by an irregular perimeter, built with what the earth and the succession of the seasons had granted. Blocks of rough stone, mixed with dry mud, formed the base. Wooden beams, blackened by sun and rain, reinforced the weakest points, while rusty sheets, recovered from old wrecks, had been nailed here and there to cover the cracks. The twisted ropes and bent irons held together that fragile boundary, which was more symbolic than truly defensive. But for those who lived there, it was home.
Nub, the village chief, stepped forward as soon as Ruk dismounted from his horse. "I saw the mountain on fire fall from the sky. A sign of misfortune has befallen us". "I don't know about us, old man, but for those who live to the east it certainly was. We saw it fall in that direction. Does the radio still work?". "No, it's been broken for a while. And we have no way to fix it. It's been a long time since we've been down to the city, or contacted the other villages". "Then we have to go see what happened". "Be careful, Ruk. It could be very dangerous". "It certainly is. But I don't want to wait for a calamity to knock on my door. The men to the east didn't choose the misfortune that struck them. But if it happened to us, I'd appreciate all the help possible, from anyone who arrives. I just need to put together a team that can move quickly and I'll leave right away. Where is my daughter?".
"Rae and her friends went out shortly after you. They wanted to come and meet you, to take part in the hunt. Didn't you cross paths with them along the way?". "Damn it. I told her to wait at least another season. No, we didn't see them. And knowing that hothead, she's probably already gotten herself into trouble. Especially after seeing the meteor in the sky". "I'm sorry. I couldn't stop them. They took the horses; they told me they would just take a ride. But one of them had a rifle, and they took the same path as you. I thought they would have caught up with you".
Ruk turned to his wife. Their eyes met for an instant, and in that instant they said everything to each other, without the need for words. "It doesn't matter. Mae, three other volunteers, and I will get on their trail. We're heading east. Is anyone coming with us?". From the group of hunters, two young men who had participated in the moose hunt for the first time emerged, as well as Nub himself, now a veteran and a great friend of Ruk's. The man didn't have the time, nor the desire, to tell the two young men that they could be putting themselves in danger if they followed them. They had already reached adulthood and had earned the right to be considered adults, and their actions would speak for them. Ruk only hoped their recklessness wouldn't turn against them. On the other hand, they had always proven to be submissive to his orders and diligent in the tasks that had been assigned to them. "Alright, saddle the horses and meet in the square". Accustomed to acting quickly and even more so to being organized, the small team was ready in a few minutes. They changed their equipment to something more suitable for riding, but they did not give up the one weapon that no adult member of the community lacks—the large rifle that every hunter makes sure is efficient, clean, and loaded before slipping it into the saddlebag.
Rae had left the village at dawn, her long dark hair gathered on top of her head with a piece of the same cloth as her bandana. Her light eyes, her mother's inquisitive gaze, and her father's proud posture made her a figure impossible to ignore. A fierce determination, too intense for her young age, could be read in her. Alongside her rode Jax, Keo, Tim, and Zed: young people who had grown up too quickly in a world that doesn’t forgive.
Rae was tall and slender, with lean muscles forged by a life spent outdoors and the natural flexibility of someone who had learned to climb trees before she could even walk confidently on the ground. Jax, the most robust of the group, had broad shoulders and hands marked by work. He carried a rifle that had belonged to his family for generations: a weapon modified and improved over the years, passed from hand to hand like a sacred inheritance. It had belonged to his mother, who for a short time was the head huntress of her village and died during a hunting season, the outcome of which is always uncertain. Jax was just a child then, but he remembered every detail. That rifle was all he had left, and if he could hunt a moose by himself, he would earn the title of hunter, becoming an adult a year ahead of schedule.
Keo was agile and nervous, with eyes always in motion and a scar that cut across his left eyebrow, a memory of a fall from a roof during a thunderstorm. Tim, the youngest, still had a childlike face, but one already marked by dust and fear. His past, the most dramatic of all, was something he didn’t think about or didn't want to think about so as not to feel that sharp, pungent pain, like pins piercing his stomach. Finally, Zed was the quietest. Pale, with an almost unreal air, a creature belonging more to the sky than to the earth, an entity always halfway between dream and reality.
They weren't looking for their parents. They were looking for something different: a purpose, a place in the world, a chance to prove they were more than just kids. They wanted to play at being adults, too young to understand the folly of their action, too old to still feel like children. They had the energy of those who want to take everything, right now. What they didn't know yet was that three-horned moose were not docile prey. Sometimes tamer than horses, other times more ferocious than a wild beast, they were unpredictable creatures. Their enormous jaws, once clenched, could tear flesh and break bones with the same ease with which a man bites into snow.
Under the guidance of Rae, who knew the eastern ridge well, they rode quickly to the white pastures: an open area where the barren vegetation was still covered by a thin crust of ice. There, in the long shadows of the morning, they spotted three moose grazing. Their massive bodies moved slowly, but every movement betrayed a power ready to explode. Rae raised a hand. The horses stopped. No one spoke. The silence was thick, like the frost that still covered the ground.
Staying at a safe distance was the only option. An adult moose, with its imposing size, was almost impossible to take down with a single shot. These young people, however, had been trained from a young age to shoot, reload, and hit moving targets, even from horseback. Yet, nothing had prepared them for the majestic power of those creatures seen firsthand. A well-placed shot, fired from a distance, could take down an animal only if the person pulling the trigger was an extremely experienced hunter. But if the animal sensed the direction of the shot, it could react with fury, charging blindly toward the source of the pain, driven by a mixture of anger and a survival instinct.
Zed found a perfect clearing for an ambush. With a quick flick of his finger, he showed the others the direction, then gestured for silence and told them to follow him. The horses were tied up behind the hill at a safe distance; they were too precious to risk getting them involved in a direct confrontation with the moose.
Jax lay on the ground, prone behind a bush. His stomach was pressed against the stiff grass, which was protected from the snow by a natural dome of flint that had kept that portion of the ground dry. His heart leaped into his throat. The rifle, although resting on the ground, was heavier than usual. A trickle of sweat slid down his forehead, icy despite the cold. He knew exactly where he had to hit: at the base of the neck, just below the head. It was the only spot where a well-placed shot could kill the animal instantly. Shooting at the head was too risky: the moose's skull, thick and robust, could easily deflect the bullet. Moreover, while grazing, the head moved constantly. The neck, although not immobile, offered a larger target, and even in case of a miss, a hit there would cause enough damage to end the animal's life within a few minutes.
Many young hunters, when asked by their parents what the best spot to hit was, instinctively answered: the heart. But this was true for most local wildlife, not for the three-horned moose. That creature possessed two hearts, protected by an extended ribcage with the consistency of armor. The two organs, although communicating, were able to function independently, dividing the blood flow. Even if one was destroyed, the other could keep the animal alive long enough to still be dangerous. With age, one of the two hearts tended to slow down until it stopped completely, but this did not make the moose less agile or aggressive. On the contrary, older specimens were often the most feared: experienced, resilient, lethal.
To face such creatures, local communities had developed special bullets: reinforced, with a flat tip, loaded into rifles with a double-chamber propulsion system. This system guaranteed greater acceleration than a conventional weapon, allowing the bullet to penetrate deeper into the flesh. The flat tip, although less piercing, caused greater damage along its path, tearing through tissues and bones with devastating effectiveness.
Jax had waited for this moment his whole life. Since he was a child, he had dreamed of the encounter with the three-horned moose. He had only seen the carcasses, trophies of the adults' hunting trips, but never a live specimen. Now that he was face to face with that legendary creature, he felt a sudden emptiness inside. He had the impression that all the preparation and years of training were not enough. He wasn't ready. Not really. For the first time, he smelled the acrid scent of imminent death. It wasn't just fear; it was awareness. If he missed the target, he would die. And not quickly. If he hit it, however, he would take the life of a mother, under the eyes of her calves who were grazing peacefully beside her, certain that there was no safer place in the world than there, next to their guide. A fleeting thought crossed Jax's mind: his parents, both of whom had died when he was still a child. But this was not the time for nostalgia. He was a warrior. And he had prepared for this moment with every fiber of his being.
He bit some snow, letting it melt slowly in his mouth. It served to lower the temperature of his breath, to prevent the vapor from betraying him. Then he moved, with slow and controlled movements, ten steps forward. He was now completely exposed to the animal's view, but from that position he had a perfect sightline. The risk was high, but the possibility of a clean shot was just as high. He felt the weight of the rifle on his right shoulder. He pushed it slightly against himself, to ensure the weapon was steady and that the recoil wouldn't throw him off balance. He inhaled slowly, held his breath. His finger rested on the trigger. He fired.
The bullet, a cylinder of reinforced red granite, left the barrel with a deep and vibrant hiss. It began to spin around its axis, trying to escape its trajectory, but each rotation brought it back perfectly in line with the direction impressed by the barrel. Every air disturbance, every turbulence, was corrected by that calibrated rotation, the result of ancient and precise technology. Time seemed to slow down. The sound of the shot dispersed in the valley, bouncing between the rocks and the trunks. The moose raised its head, eyes wide, and for an eternal instant everything remained still.
It took only a few moments for the bullet to burn the target's skin, and it did so with such speed and silence that it took away an entire piece of fur from the neck. But a trickle of blood and a future scar was all the boy got. Jax looked at the animal with a lost gaze, petrified with fear, with the white expanse around his iris occupying almost all the visible space, so wide had he opened his eyes in a mixed feeling of bewilderment and defeat.
On the opposite side, his (futile) prey would soon become a hunter. With eyes injected with blood from pain and anger, the animal prepared to counterattack that "gnat" that had dared to disturb its meal in the company of its offspring. It was, however, at the moment when its hooves were kicking up the earth behind it to prepare for the charge that a large round stone hit the beast's right eye, hard enough to cause intense pain and make it violently turn its head in the opposite direction.
Rae was there, standing, with her slingshot clenched in her hands. The weapon she had had since she was a child, honing its effects over the years, lethal and silent, capable of taking down small animals with surgical precision. But not a moose. Not that colossal creature that now, with fiery eyes and dilated nostrils, had chosen a new target: her. The animal had smelled the fear, and the fear had an odor the girl could not hide.
She darted backward, then turned and began to run. A desperate, impossible race. The moose lowered its snout and charged with the blind fury of an avalanche. She knew her only hope was to use the trees: zigzagging, dodging, seeking cover behind the widest trunks. But the moose didn't seem to care about obstacles. It trampled everything: bushes, branches, stones. It barely deviated, only to avoid the most massive trunks. The ground trembled under its hooves.
Rae did the only thing that could save her life: she lunged toward a fir tree, grabbing onto the rough bark and spinning around the trunk with a half-rotation. She felt the skin of her hand burn from the scratches caused by the bark, but she ignored the pain. She had to move. She had to go back.
The moose, surprised by the maneuver, tried to brake. Its hind legs slipped on the damp undergrowth carpet, raising clumps of earth and leaves. The young woman resumed her run, but now the ground was no longer on her side. She had left the dry, compact area to enter the snowy field from which she had started shortly before. The snow, which covered invisible pitfalls, slowed every step. Her muscles, once reactive, now sank into a treacherous mantle. The moose was on her again. So close it could grab the girl's jacket with its teeth, tearing a piece of it. Rae felt the fabric give way, the animal's warm breath on her neck.
Then, a roar. A dry explosion tore through the air. The shot hit the moose's neck squarely, in almost the same spot where Jax had failed a moment before. But this time there was no error. The bullet, loaded with all the power of the double chamber, passed through the flesh and broke the spinal column like a dry branch. The moose collapsed to the ground with a dull thud, with the roar of a boulder detaching from a wall and rolling down without any control.
Rae turned, panting, her heart pounding in her ears. The animal lay motionless, the snow around it already stained red. It was over. But the silence that followed was not one of relief. It was the silence that follows a storm, when you still don't know if you've truly survived. The only sounds were the wind blowing in the distance and the animal's breath fading away, then nothing.
"You're crazy!".
The girl was still lying in the snow, with the imprint of her body perfectly outlining her shape, and she smiled. "Great shot, Jax… and no, I wasn't referring to the first one". The young people gathered around their hunting trophy, still in disbelief at what they had managed to accomplish. No adult, if they had known how they had obtained that prey, would have spared them a proper scolding. Nevertheless, the village would be able to feed on that meat for several days. The bones would become tools, weapons, and utensils. The thick and warm fur would provide high-quality clothing, a rare privilege. It was their booty, conquered with courage and recklessness.
Zed placed his hands on his friends' shoulders, with a proud smile. "You guys were good. The prize is all yours". Rae patted him on the shoulder, with an ironic grin. "It's ours. All of us. Especially since you'll be the ones to build the transport, skin it, butcher it, and drag it back to the village. That's why we're a team, right?".
They all laughed. A full, sincere laugh that only young people can have when they feel like they have the world at their feet. In that moment they were happy. More than they would ever be again. But they didn't know it yet.
Then, the sky tore open. A deafening roar vibrated the air. A fiery meteorite crossed the horizon above their heads, leaving a trail of green and crimson light, opening a wound in the sky. The impact occurred a few kilometers away, but the shockwave was so powerful that it shook the earth beneath their feet. The horses, tied up a short distance away, neighed in terror, kicking up a cloud of dust and snow. When they opened their eyes again, everything around them was different. Tim was the first to notice. Tiny, iridescent black crystals had passed through their clothes and were stuck in their skin, like splinters of alien glass. He felt no pain, but his brain struggled to comprehend what was happening. Every thought was slowed, muffled; even time itself had lost its coherence. There, where the sky had fallen, a column of thick, black smoke rose, spreading out like a living shadow. And something, in that smoke, was moving.
CHAPTER 2
This Strange Dark Glow
The forest, once alive with sounds and breath, had never been so silent; the flora and fauna had agreed to hold their breath. The trees, tall and proud, bent slightly under the weight of an unnatural quiet, as if they too were stunned, unable to comprehend what had happened. The branches of the fir trees, still heavy with the morning frost, trembled slightly, not from the wind, but from the invisible echo of an impact that had shaken the earth to its very roots. In the distance, looking beyond the line of the hills, where the sun rose every day and where just a moment before it had been there to witness its luminous presence, a column of dark smoke now rose, dense and impenetrable, opening into the sky like a poisonous flower. Oblique, golden, and spectral blades of light timidly caressed the treetops, making the drops of dew shine like suspended tears.
The closer they got to the impact point, the more the vegetation appeared mute and blackened. Life had been sucked out of that place in an instant. Some trunks were broken, others bent in unnatural directions by an invisible force that had struck them with violence. The ferns, which usually opened in the morning like small green hands, lay crushed against the ground, covered by a thin layer of ash. Further away, where that blast had not touched anything, nature watched. The crows were silent. The deer, hidden among the bushes, had stopped moving. Even the moss, which covered the rocks with its ancient mantle, was now darker, damper, giving the impression of having absorbed the earth’s fear.
It was as if the entire landscape had become a spectator to an event too big to be understood. The group of friends advanced in silence. Even Rae’s sharp talk had been replaced by her searching gaze, and the excitement of having successfully taken down a three-horned moose now seemed less relevant.
The hunting trophy, however, was very important for the entire community. They unanimously decided to move the carcass to a location easily visible to a group of scouts, near the road. They covered it entirely with snow to preserve it and built a shelter so that neither the sun nor other animals could reach it. They were not fully aware of what they were doing; in their minds, priorities were confused, and none seemed to have the right weight. Their younger selves pushed them to go home, to safety, to ask for help. But there was also the instinct tempered by survival, the one that knew the thin line between life and death, made of one meal more or less. And finally, the shadow of the adult they were becoming, that voice that urged them to discover what was hidden at that luminous point on the horizon. Perhaps it had crashed in a desert area. Or maybe it had hit a populated center. It could not be entirely ruled out that it was an alien danger, foreign even to their enemies: the men they had fled from, to confine themselves up there and, fortunately, be forgotten. Men dressed in black from head to toe, even when they marched in the snow. Black their armored vehicles, black the souls of those who had forced them to flee their homeland. But this last point was almost immediately dismissed from the mind of whoever had been touched by it. A projectile too big to be ignored fell from the sky with an uncertain trajectory, wrapped in flames that could not scratch its smooth, black, and opaque surface. Inside it, some would have sworn to have seen a light pulsing, a kind of dark heart that swelled and then contracted, following a sinister and constant rhythm similar to a breath.
Too many questions, too many internal discussions that would have no answers, especially no logical or at least correct answers. They finished quickly preparing the moose remains, then Keo gave a light signal. He was the one in the group in charge of preparing flares. Since childhood, the young people had been trained in the various arts of survival, combat, building improvised weapons in the woods, rifle maintenance, building traps, first aid, and signaling. Each member of the group had an element that could excel in each of these areas, even if they all collaborated in the hunt. The hunting parties, which separated into groups to beat as many different tracks as possible over an enormous, seemingly endless territory, always carried three types of flares: red to signal an imminent danger that everyone should pay attention to—and it was often used to signal an attack by the Men in Black—and yellow to indicate that a particularly large prey had been hunted, and for this, the group closest to them would send a return signal that was little more than a crackle, more acoustic than luminous, to indicate that they would help with the transport. Keo had this responsibility and had to know which one to launch. It had been his job to prepare the dark powders for the explosion and grind the colored rocks to indicate the signal, but he wavered on which of the two colors was more logical to warn the others. He thought that everyone had seen what looked like a meteorite and for this, it made little sense to tell everyone that this was a danger since no one had yet confirmed it and even if they had, the result was still obvious. It made more sense to tell everyone that they had a precious trophy to bring back to the village, even though they were very far from it.
An amber mushroom cloud was still spreading in the sky when the young people were already on horseback heading toward the point of impact of the projectile. Probably each of their choices was wrong, but they were still choices and they had the courage to make them. There was still a pending issue that no one had yet voiced, whether internally or externally. What were those tiny crystals that had stuck in the skin of some of them after the shockwave? At first, those formations seemed to have no importance: they had not caused pain, nor were they obvious enough to attract attention, even from those who bent down to observe them closely. But as time went on, those who looked at them began to think that they didn't just reflect light, but generated it. A subtle glow, not external, but coming from their inside: the same dark light that someone had glimpsed in the heart of the falling projectile. Tim and Rae seemed to be the only ones with the fragments embedded. Jax had found some residue on his clothes, but shaking them had been enough to get rid of them, and Jax had been protected by the clearing behind him. He had felt the heat wave of the shockwave, but he had not been touched by the black dust.
While they were traveling, Tim approached Rae. He was tired of that silence and wanted to exchange a word, seeing that his friend was massaging her bare arm.
"I have them too, and I can't figure it out."
"Yeah, they're on the surface of the skin. They seem glued on, but they won't come off. I'm almost tempted to remove them with a knife..."
"Don't do it. It could get infected, and we don't know what they are. There's this strange dark glow, a light that seems to absorb light and pulse in the way a black heart would. Are we going to find out what that thing that fell from the sky is?"
"Exactly, but at the same time, I don't know about you, but I feel almost drawn to it. Don't you feel this force?"
Tim thought for a moment, then shook his head, unable to perceive that invisible thread that bound Rae to the meteorite and forced himself to imagine what she must be feeling. Yet, with every step toward the remains of that mountain of fire, he felt a growing warmth, an energy that seemed to intensify. It was then that he understood what Rae was referring to and that inside himself he had isolated and recognized, giving that sensation a name that he still couldn't formulate. He decided to keep those thoughts to himself and continued in silence, next to the rest of the party.
Mae rode at the head of the group, her eyes fixed on the horizon, where the sky still pulsed with an unnatural light. Her dark hair escaped from her hood, moved by the gallop. Her mare, with an ash-colored coat, wore a saddle worn by time, with the rifle held firmly in the side holster. By her side rode Ruk, her lifelong companion, his gaze tense and his jaw clenched. The tracks left by the group of young people were still fresh, and thoughts tumbled through Ruk's mind: the guilt of not having protected his daughter, the anger for not having been listened to, the visceral love of someone who knows a part of themselves is in danger. And it was not clear to him whether the danger was the three-horned moose that his stubborn daughter, along with her friends, had decided to hunt, or the fiery monster he had seen fall from the sky a short time before. It was crazy to think that his wife wasn't thinking the same things, but she seemed calm, impenetrable, even though her features were so rigid that if the meteorite itself had targeted him, it certainly wouldn't have even scratched her; their daughter was in danger and no one could stop them.
Behind them, Nub, the old hunter, led with wisdom, trying to add a little irony to the group and defuse the tension. His hoarse voice rose above the sound of hooves as he invented names for the younger members of the group.
"You haven't had your Hunting Names yet, but for your courage, I will do it now. You, little arrow, I will call Lua, because you shine with the light of the brightest of stars even in the hunt," He said to the young huntress, who blushed without taking her eyes off the path. Next to her rode another boy, silent and attentive, whom Nub gave the name "Three." "It was the ancient name of the wind, because you are like the air that flows through the branches: silent, but always present."
The group advanced through the barren hills and the woods blackened by the impact. The tracks of Mae and Ruk's son became weaker and weaker until they disappeared altogether.
They rode in silence, the horses' breath mixing with the wind that carried the acrid smell of burnt earth. The tracks of Mae and Ruk's daughter and all the others, light footprints, broken here and there by rocks and undergrowth, signs that their steeds had jumped, run, been spurred and had certainly guided them there, to that point... and then vanished.
Mae pulled the reins with a sharp gesture. The mare stopped abruptly, pawing the ground under her, as if the animal also perceived the anxiety in the air. Ruk got off his horse slowly, his face furrowed, and knelt on the icy ground. He ran his hand over barely visible marks, trying to distinguish the significant tracks from those erased by time and the fury of the impact. But he found nothing. Only dust, fragments of blackened rock, and a thick, oppressive silence that seemed to crush the air around them.
"They were here." He murmured, in a barely audible tone, his mind was elsewhere. "Then... the void."
Nub approached, scanning the horizon with eyes veiled by age, but still capable of catching details that escaped the younger ones.
"The shockwave has swept everything away," he said, in a grave tone. Mae turned to them, her face shadowed by her hood, but her eyes shining with worry.
"What if it wasn't just the wave?" Mae asked, more to herself than to the others. Ruk stood up slowly, his gaze fixed on that still pulsing sky. Inside, his fear grew: it wasn't just the disappearance of the tracks that worried him, but the idea that something unknown was watching, in silence, somewhere among the shadows.
It was at that moment that it happened.
Lua, the young huntress, turned her gaze to a specific point in the sky, pointing to something on the horizon.
"Maybe... it's them."
Her call drew the eyes of everyone present to the point on the horizon she was indicating, and it was then that they saw it: a luminous signal, a column of light that was rising upward with a luminous column. Without the need for words, Mae spurred her mare. The others followed her, the beat of the hooves blending with the beat of their hearts.
"We're close." Ruk said to Mae, showing his intention to console her, but the woman didn't need any consolation. "Are we really close?" she thought, clearing her mind of the clouds that were clouding her concentration.
They rode for a long time. The group of young people had an advantage of almost an hour over their pursuers and had fresher horses. Also, not all the paths were clear of snow and the horses had to struggle twice as hard. They took two breaks so the animals could rest, and while they pushed as hard as they could, killing their steeds in an attempt to get to their destination was certainly the least suitable choice. During the longer break, they were forced to take it at the exact point from which the signal that Keo had launched had come.
It was absurd to think that the young people were waiting for them, but in Ruk's heart, this secret hope resided, but he didn't want to say anything. Mae, meanwhile, jumped off her horse to immediately look for signs, clues, or anything else that could reveal the group's passage, but she was also aware that no one was there anymore.
Three partially unearthed the remains of the moose. It wasn't difficult to find it; they had camouflaged it in such a way that any presence from the village would clearly see that kind of signaling, which would not be the case for any other animal.
Nub looked at the road they had certainly taken. The horses' hoof marks were quite visible to the naked eye.
"They're going east, over there, where the earth is still burning and the great mountain fell from the sky."
"Why didn't they wait for us, damn it."
Ruk let it slip out of his mouth.
"They are young, they are impulsive, they want to be like the hunters and prove that they are older than they are, do you want to blame them?"
"If I were close to them right now, I think I would do a lot more than blame them, but for now our goal is to reach them and do it as quickly as possible. Let's get on our horses and catch up with them. We can cut some corners."
"No, it's too soon." Nub replied. "Give the animals time to recover their strength. It takes time, son. I understand you, I know your fears and your intentions, but if I'm here, it's to try to curb the group's irrationality and tell you things as they are, not what you want to hear."
Nub was sharp; he had always been. But he was also the wisest person in the village, and this was not because he was the oldest. His chronological age had been surpassed by many others. Many of those had then failed, and those who had not known how to take the right steps had ended up tumbling in one way or another. It was Nub, many years earlier, who had led the great escape from the Men in Black. Simple people, miners and some farmers, all of them, directly or indirectly, had lived in a small town, much further south, with very different rhythms of life, even though they already shared a passion for hunting or the habit of surviving in precarious conditions, since it was not uncommon, during the winter, for their village to be isolated for months, with no possibility of getting supplies, food, or electricity. They had always managed to close ranks in the group; they shared everything they owned, and even though a few fistfights were never lacking, among those who loved to drink that extra glass, sometimes going beyond what was lawful to say or do, they all considered each other brothers. They were simple people, used to not having too many thoughts that were not directly connected to their work or family life, and they cared deeply about both, proving generous in giving concrete help to the small needs of the community. The night the Men in Black arrived, no one, honestly, would have ever expected such a thing. The mine and the quarry were all that fed those people. They worked independently for the government, in a serious and scrupulous way, and had been awarded several times for their dedication to their work. They had found a way to lighten the workload on people; they had established flexible shifts, they gave life more importance than work results, and for this, that job had become even more precious, and their professionalism was recognized everywhere. What they didn't know yet, and perhaps they were the only ones to have found out, was that not only their village, but their entire state had fallen into the hands of evil men, who had tried to invade them several times in history, but this time their attempt was different. They had machines, they had weapons, and they were decidedly more belligerent.
They mercilessly killed the few who had the courage to rebel openly. The others, reduced to slavery, were forced to work in the same places where they had once toiled freely. The houses were looted one by one, wanting to deprive them not only of physical objects but of every memory they had accumulated among themselves and among the stones of those houses. For those simple people, used to living with little but with dignity, there was no way out: no possibility of survival, no alternative other than the one imposed by the enemy.
Nub was the youngest among the old mine foremen. He knew the situation well: he dealt directly with the invaders to organize the shifts, which were longer and more inhumane. He knew that the community, strong in heart but fragile in body, would not resist much longer. No one had weapons, no one could fight openly. But there remained one possibility: escape.
Nub began to plan. He did it in silence, with caution, involving only those who could truly make it. Some had small children, others were sick, but determination was stronger than fear. It was an almost perfect, risky, audacious organization. And when the day came, they moved as a single entity, guided by hope.
Many died. But they did so with a smile on their faces, because at that moment they finally felt free. The survivors scattered into the wild lands, far from the enemy's eyes. And there, among hills and forests, they founded small communities, where they still lived today, handing down the memory of that day that corresponded to the beginning of a new existence.
The Men in Black tried to chase them several times. They organized expeditions, tried to flush them out among the gorges and forests, but the biting cold and the incessant snow made their vehicles useless, unsuitable for facing the rigors of a hostile and wild territory. The wind, merciless, wrapped everything in its white mantle, erasing tracks, sounds, directions. Visibility was often nil, and the only true purpose of that hunt was not justice, nor security: it was revenge. Revenge and flesh to be exploited in the mines.
In the end, they gave up.
It was a lifetime ago. Yet, that time remained burned into the memory of those who lived it, like an indelible mark. From the youngest to the oldest, even those who were born free in the new camps, far from slavery, carry within them the echo of that exodus. It is as if they had lived it too, etched in their blood, in the way they listen to and tell the stories of their fathers and grandparents.
Around the fires, on cold nights, those stories have become legend. And the legend, slowly, has intertwined with the ancient myths, with the tales handed down for generations. The stories have been colored, enriched, transformed into tradition. Yet, only fifteen years have passed. Maybe less.
But the anger of the fathers has passed to the children. Like an invisible inheritance, like a flame that does not go out. From one generation to the next, the memory of that pain has continued to live, fueling hope, strength, and the desire not to forget.
Ruk was still thinking these things when, looking around, he couldn't see his wife, and she had indeed been absent for a while. When he saw her emerge from a side clearing, he felt all the breathlessness of someone who had run at full speed, and Mae was an exceptional athlete who had learned to ration her strength and energy, but from how she appeared in front of Ruk, she seemed to have a demon at her heels.
"Load your rifles and keep your close-combat weapons ready, they're coming!"
CHAPTER 3
A Cosmic Mockery
The inhabitants of the eastern village were among the few who had chosen to push beyond all known borders, leaving their small hometown behind. They had done so out of fear, a deep, ingrained fear, more intense than that felt by any other community. When the Men in Black had tried to attack that northern area directly, which had become their new home, they were the only ones who did not resist. They did not fight. And because of this, they were never truly accepted by the others. They were isolated even among the isolated.
But they didn't care. They didn't seek approval or alliances. They lived far away, forgotten. In the beginning, two roads led to their village, but over the years they had dissolved, swallowed by snow and indifference. No one traded with them anymore; no one sought contact. They were simply called the hermits, and over the years, even their name had faded from collective memory.
They were not great farmers, nor skilled artisans. Like everyone, they went hunting when they could. But their true source of sustenance was a rare, unique plant that grew only in that forgotten land: the Arctic Ice-Thorn.
No plant embodies the silence and resilience of the Great North as much as the Arctic Ice-Thorn. It does not sprout everywhere; it only appears in places marked by profound events: death, rebirth, the passage of fire or ice. It does not allow itself to be cultivated, nor does it yield to those who seek it eagerly. It does not respond to desire, but to necessity. It appears where it is needed, where the earth preserves memory, where time has etched its scars.
Its appearance is as humble as it is enchanted. The leaves, thick and fleshy, are arranged in a low rosette, clinging to the ground, as if they want to embrace the earth to protect it from the cold. They are a deep green with blue reflections, and covered with a silvery down that shines in the faint light of the winter sun. This down is not just for beauty: it is a natural barrier against the frost, capable of retaining heat and repelling dew.
But it is the flower that makes the Ice-Thorn a legend. It blooms rarely, and only during the clearest nights of the thaw. It has the shape of a six-pointed star, with translucent petals that seem carved from ice. At its center, a faint light pulses, like a heart beating slowly. Some say it is the breath of the earth itself; others say it is the memory of what has been lost.
Its roots are deep, deeper than one would expect from such a tiny plant. They descend into the thickest ice like patient fingers, melting it slowly thanks to a natural secretion that prevents freezing. This is how it survives, feeding on the water hidden under the frozen crust of the world.
Somewhere, someone also called it "the plant of memory." Not only for its rarity, but because it often grows in places where life has been broken: battlefields, abandoned villages, craters left by meteorites. Where everything seems lost, the Ice-Thorn flourishes and brings life.
The fate of the eastern village was cruel. The mysterious properties of that frost fruit—which for years had nourished the community in extreme conditions—seemed to have attracted, by a cosmic mockery, the very event that had given rise to their survival. Grown in the hollows carved by ancient meteorites that had fallen centuries earlier, that plant had represented life. But now, a new impact had brought death.
It was the meeting of the alpha and the omega, in the most lethal of duels. Where hope was born, destruction now reigned. And the village, which had resisted the frost and isolation, could do nothing against the fury of the sky.
The horses advanced slowly. They were tired and exhausted, but they had transported their riders to their destination, even though the spectacle was desolate: a white and silent desert, broken only by the wind that raised swirling snow between the blackened remains of what was once a small village. The sunlight barely filtered through the low, gray clouds, but it was unable to touch the skin and give it a warm caress. The crater left by the meteorite dominated the scene: an enormous wound in the frozen ground, dozens of meters wide, with jagged and smoking edges, giving the idea that the earth itself was still trying to breathe after the impact.
Around the crater, the snow, melted by the heat of the explosion, had left a dark, frozen slush, mixed with fragments of rock and debris. Some trees, bent or broken, lay like carbonized skeletons, their branches reduced to black stumps. The smell in the air was pungent: a mixture of burnt wood and stirred earth.
Although the village was not the epicenter of the meteorite's ruinous impact, it still could not escape the fury of its shockwave. The explosion reached it violently, sweeping everything away with its miasma of destruction.
Observing what remained of it, it was difficult to imagine that until the day before that small settlement had about fifteen houses. Modest structures, built with what nature offered: timber collected in nearby clearings, stones torn from the beds of frozen rivers or the slopes of the mountains that defined its borders, and materials laboriously extracted from the frozen ground. A condition not dissimilar to other neighboring villages, since this one was also born out of necessity, survival, and the ingenuity of those who had nothing but their own hands.
Those structures were reduced to piles of rubble. Some walls still seemed to be standing, tilted so precariously that they seemed about to collapse at any moment, while others had been completely swept away. The roofs, often made of bark and moss, had totally disappeared, leaving only broken beams that protruded, revealing the broken wooden ribs of a torn chest.
Among the ruins, one could glimpse objects of daily life: an overturned chair, a blackened pot, a wooden toy half-buried in the snow. Everything was covered by a layer of frozen ash, which made the landscape even more spectral.
There were no apparent signs of life, neither animals nor people. Only silence, broken every now and then by the crackle of settling ice or the lament of the wind among the ruins.
Rae and her team moved cautiously, sinking into the snow and mud, observing with eyes full of dismay and respect. They were convinced they had entered a sacred place, a monument to the fragility of man in the face of the fury of the sky: a great mausoleum to witness so many broken lives, even if a single winter would have been enough to cover the traces of what man had built and return the region to what it was before his passage.
After tying up the horses in a small pasture, sheltered from the wind, just outside the town—a tiny oasis that had survived the destruction, where the heat from the impact had melted the snow and revealed the grass that lay underneath—they decided to split into two groups. Keo and Zed would scout the ruins, while the other three friends would head toward the heart of the impact.
The two friends began their search, house by house. Not many remained: of most, only traces on the ground could be distinguished, faded signs of what once defined their perimeter. Everywhere, the landscape was strewn with corpses, shreds of clothing, rags, broken souls, and the remains of poor constructions made of wood, mud, and stone.
The condition was that of a hostile titan, who had put the entire village in a big bag and mixed everything together, then emptied the contents onto the ground. Both Zed and Keo approached some of the corpses from time to time, those that appeared to be in a state of sleep, checking if, by a gesture of fate's kindness, they were only injured or stunned enough to need some help. When one of them bent down to check, he would soon meet his friend's gaze, who would immediately shake his head. As they walked down one of the alleys, they passed by the gutted wall of a house, which, however, maintained its other three sides in their original perpendicular position, which intrigued the two. There was almost nothing left of the roof. The peat, mixed with mud, wood, and dry straw, initially used to insulate the upper part of the house, now dripped inside the only remaining room, while what had not been blackened by the smoke had been completely swept away by the impact of the boulder that had hit the building, destroying everything.
After exploring the rest of that handful of houses, all severely damaged and reduced to ruins, the two found themselves in front of a house that, surprisingly, seemed to have resisted. Almost intact, solitary among the rubble, it pushed them to venture inside. Neither of them explained to the other the reason why, instinctively, they decided to enter. But perhaps, deep down, both harbored the same hope: that the walls of that dwelling had protected someone, that at least one story had remained alive between those boards and stones. Assuming there was still someone in there.
Keo observed the surroundings and noticed that the furniture did not differ much from that of the village he came from. A large fireplace dominated the room, surrounded by tables and chairs hand-carved from the majestic fir trees that grew around the village. Now everything was scattered on the floor, following the trajectory of the large hole that opened in the side wall. That gap, probably caused by the impact, had gutted the wall, which was designed and built to be solid and capable of protecting the inhabitants from the frost and the whistling wind of those inhospitable lands. But it had not been enough. The fury of the blast had overwhelmed everything—alive or inanimate—for kilometers, and no structure, however robust, had been able to resist.
Keo noticed that, in a corner of the room, the rug was slightly displaced. This detail revealed the presence of a trapdoor that led to a lower floor. It was not completely hidden, but probably, without the explosion, it would have remained concealed from view.
In almost all the villages, especially in the early days, when collaboration between communities was still strong, they studied strategies to protect themselves in case the Men in Black decided to attack. The possibility of repelling them was remote, and everyone knew it. The weather conditions were their only truly effective weapon, accompanied by a dose of courage that, in the first direct war, had been enough. But if the enemy tried again with greater cunning and tactics, that courage would not be sufficient.
In that context, escape was considered the most sensible strategy. However, running away in the middle of a blizzard, sinking in the snow, meant condemning oneself to certain death. No one would have a chance. For this reason, many villages had begun to build underground shelters, hoping that at least someone could be saved.
For this reason, the first interventions did not immediately lead to the construction of real houses, an event that would only happen later. Initially, the urgency imposed more immediate solutions: digging in the snow and under the ground to create safe shelters, capable of offering protection and escape routes. The underground tunnels, in fact, allowed the inhabitants to reach points far from the village, even in case of a siege or sudden attack.
In the early years, those tunnels became much more than simple shelters. They were places of meeting, exchange, and study. Food was stored, friends met, and they explored what those apparently inhospitable lands could offer. For expert miners as they were, digging and building underground was almost natural—a piece of cake. And it was thanks to those structures that they managed to survive in the early days.
As the years passed, however, the need for light, to cultivate the land in the milder months, to return to a semblance of normality, pushed almost everyone to abandon the tunnels as the focus of daily life. The tunnels remained secondary service routes, while above ground, shacks began to appear, then real houses. And from that moment on, no one ever went back.
Keo knew that the trapdoor led directly underground. While his friend continued to inspect the rest of the house, he opened it and began to descend. The steps, small and steep, creaked under his weight. They were not designed for frequent use: too narrow to accommodate the entire foot, too cramped for an easy descent. Keo had to lean carefully, advancing slowly in the dark.
Only when he reached the bottom, immersed in a black and silent pit, did he remember the torch. The small porthole of light that filtered from above was barely enough to illuminate his backpack. He rummaged inside and found the flint, which he used to light a stick made from a branch of Ignifloris Eternum—rare trees that grow near the villages, in the few but lush forests of those lands. Their peculiarity is unique: the branches, once lit, burn very slowly. This slowed decay makes them almost eternal, and the flame that is born from them is alive, dancing, capable of offering a suggestive spectacle to those who have never seen it.
The light slowly spread, revealing the environment around him. Now he could see where to place his feet, distinguish the walls, and choose a direction. In front of him, two tunnels: one to the right, where he was looking at that moment, the other in the opposite direction. Neither seemed to offer clues or obvious signs. Yet, something pushed him to search. Who knows what he hoped to find down there.
