The Beginning Of The End

In the year 2110, Earth was a graveyard. The oceans boiled, the skies blackened with ash, and the last scraps of farmland turned to dust. The powerful had drained the world dry, and when there was nothing left to take, they fled.

Their salvation was a ship called The Kings — a floating palace built for politicians, generals, and tycoons. With fanfare and fire, it launched into the black, leaving billions to starve.

But hubris has a way of catching up with men who think themselves gods. Not even reaching orbit, The Kings lit up the night like a false dawn. Its engines exploded, tearing through steel and fire, raining wreckage across the wastes. Those aboard, who had thought themselves untouchable, died screaming in silence. The mighty were gone, their palace a broken scar across the land.

The crash reshaped the world. Whole regions burned beneath the falling debris. Cities crumbled, forests were swallowed by flame, and seas boiled where fragments of the ship plunged into the water. Tens of millions were erased in an instant. When the dust settled, only a few tens of thousands remained in scattered corners of the earth. The land that survived was a cruel parody of the old world — cracked soil, twisted steel, and skies that never cleared.

One of those places was what had once been a remote stretch of the United States. Somehow, the region endured. The air was breathable, the heat not unbearable, the winters survivable. In time, the last remnants of humanity clawed together small towns and villages, fragile sparks in the long night.

It was here that Rex West was born.

He was the firstborn son of the West family, and for a brief moment, there was happiness. His parents laughed, sang, and tried to raise him in a world that no longer deserved joy. But when he was just three years old, bandits came. They tore his parents from him and left nothing but grief in their place. Rex survived only because of his grandfather, Ozzy.

Ozzy was a hard man, but not cruel. He carried the weight of the old world in his bones. He had seen rivers flow, had walked through fields of grass, had breathed air that didn’t taste of dust. He spoke of it sometimes, in hushed tones, painting pictures Rex could barely imagine. To Rex, they were like fairy tales — too bright, too impossible to be real.

Ozzy taught him everything he knew. How to track a trail through shifting sands. How to listen for danger in the silence. How to aim a rifle steady, or gut a deer clean. Under his guidance, Rex grew sharp-eyed and strong, his hands steady and his instincts quick. By the time he was fifteen, he was taller than most grown men in Red Rock and tougher than all but a few.

Red Rock was a small place — a cluster of weathered shacks, wagons, and scrap-metal roofs clinging to life in the canyon’s shadow. A hundred people at most. Everyone knew everyone. Rex grew up among them, working the hunts, hauling supplies, sharing fires at night. He knew the children, too — even the quiet ones. Colt was one of those.

Colt lived with his uncle near the east gate, a lean boy with pale eyes and restless hands. He wasn’t a fighter like Rex. More often, he was found working the stables, tending to the few horses Red Rock had left. He spoke little, kept to himself, but Rex knew him enough to nod when they crossed paths. That was the way of small towns. Nobody was a stranger, not really.

That morning, Rex had ridden out alone into the canyons. Sometimes the weight of Red Rock pressed too heavily on him — the same faces, the same routines, the same reminders of what had been lost. Out there, among the rocks and silence, he could breathe. The air was dry, the wind sharp, but it was quiet. And quiet was a rare gift.

He didn’t stay long. A few hours, maybe. Just enough to clear his head.

When he returned, silence was all that remained.

The town was smoke and ruin. Shacks were blackened skeletons, wagons splintered, the air thick with the stench of blood. The streets where he’d played as a child were littered with bodies. Friends. Neighbors. Faces he had known his whole life.

Rex staggered through the wreckage, his chest tight. His voice broke as he called out: “Grandad? Grandad!”

No answer came.

He searched desperately, stumbling past charred beams and collapsed roofs, past people he’d grown up alongside. The silence was unbearable, punctuated only by the crackle of flames. His hands shook, his heart hammering in his chest.

Then, movement. From the corner of his eye, a wooden crate rattled near the edge of the square.

Rex whipped his revolver up, finger on the trigger, breath caught in his throat.

What crawled out wasn’t a bandit.

It was a boy about his age, dusty, pale, and wide-eyed.

“Don’t shoot!” the boy cried, hands raised. “It’s me — Colt!”

Rex froze, recognition flooding him. Colt. The quiet one from the stables. He lowered the revolver slowly, his throat tight.

“You’re alive…” Rex muttered.

Colt stumbled forward, shaking. “I—I was hidin’. Under the crates. They didn’t find me.”

“Who?” Rex asked, though the answer was already carved into his heart.

Colt swallowed, his gaze flicking to the ruins. “Bandits. A whole damn army of ’em. They rolled through here like a storm. Took what they wanted… killed everyone else.” His voice cracked. “My uncle’s gone. They’re all gone.”

Rex’s hand trembled on the grip of his revolver. He wanted to deny it, wanted to believe there was still hope. But the evidence was all around them. His grandad. His friends. Red Rock itself. Gone.

Colt’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I heard them talking. This wasn’t just a raid. They’re gathering. Building something bigger.”

For a long moment, the two boys stood in the ashes of their world, surrounded by smoke and silence. Rex’s chest rose and fell, his grief sharpening into something harder.

“If what you say is true,” he said, voice low and cold, “this ain’t just about Red Rock. They’ll do it again. And again.”

He looked at Colt, really looked at him — not just the quiet boy from the stables, but the only other survivor of their home. His grip tightened on the revolver, not in fear, but in resolve.

“Someone’s gotta stop ’em.”

The words hung in the smoky air like a vow.

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