The Journey Continues

I remember the day she told me the road would end in silence. I laughed then—bitter, unbelieving. But now I know she was right.

We left the ash roads at dusk. The sky was bleeding rust and fire, a bruise stretching over the bones of old cities. Imelda sat beside me, her small frame wrapped in ragged blankets, eyes far too old for a child. Each breath fogged the cracked windshield as we drove, her wheels rattling softly against the rusted floor of the truck. “Keep driving,” she whispered. “Don’t look back.” And I didn’t. Not when the shadows moved. Not when the dead whispered from the ruins we passed.

We wound through valleys of collapsed towers and roads buried in black sand. Road signs stood scorched; their names stripped away by the endless storm. She’d point to a shattered spire or a broken dome and tell stories of what they once were—like she’d lived a thousand lives before this one. Imelda had never taken a step in her life, but every ruin sang to her. Her voice became our compass, her words the only map that mattered in a world lost to dust.

In Devil’s Hollow, where the ash hangs thick enough to strangle a man, the truck skidded and died. I carried her across broken glass while drones circled overhead like vultures reciting prayers. She told me where the earth would crack, where the poison seeped from below. She saw patterns in the chaos, read the fault lines of a dying world.

When we reached a camp of silent watchers—their mouths sewn shut, eyes gleaming with hunger—Imelda stared them down with a fire so bright it shamed the stars. They parted like shadows before dawn, and we passed unharmed. She had that power. Even the monsters of this wasteland recognized it.

At the temple of rust and bone, I watched her wheel up to a dead machine god. Her hands hovered over keys she’d never learned, moving with purpose, tapping out commands I didn’t understand. And the machine blinked awake. The gate unlatched itself, groaning like an old god forced from slumber. I realized then—Imelda didn’t just see this world. She spoke its language.

We rode storms that tore the sky apart, missiles that turned stone to glass. Through mutant fields and blizzards of acid snow, I dragged us forward. And every time I wanted to give up, she sang—softly, a lullaby that rose above the howl of the wasteland. A song that felt like home.

I once asked her why she never cried. She only smiled, eyes shining in the dark. “This chair isn’t a cage,” she said. “It’s how I outfly the dead.”

And in that moment, I believed her.

She said the road would end in silence
I didn't believe her then
We left the ash roads at dusk
The skyline bleeding rust and flame

She sat beside me in her chair
Her eyes too old to still be ten
The wheels clinked softly over gravel
Her breath a fog against the glass

Keep driving, she said, don't look back
And I obeyed as shadows passed

We passed the graves of cities drowned
Road signs scorched and names erased
She pointed at a shattered spire
And whispered stories soft and strange

Imelda never walked a step
But knew each ruin by its song
Her voice became the map I followed
Through night so black the sky fell down

The truck locked hard in Devil's Hollow
Where the ash chokes out the air
I carried her through broken glass
While drones buzzed overhead like prayers

She told me where the currents lay
The faults beneath the twisted ground
She knew the way though never walked
Her mind outran the ruins around

Ash roads behind us, thunder ahead
We follow the voices of the lost instead
Imelda guides through a wreck in flame
A girl in her wheels with the fire untamed

We found a camp of silent watchers
Their mouths sewn shut, their fire cold
She stared them down with silver eyes
And somehow they just let us go

She spoke to a machine god
In a temple built from rust and bone
It answered not in speech but code
And blinked alive when left alone

I watched her hands so small, so still
Tap keys she'd never learned to read
And still the gate unlocked itself
As if she knew just what it would need

A wall of wind, a sandstorm shrieked
We strapped her chair, I lost all sleep
A missile struck the ridge behind
We rode the blast like souls unlined

Through mutant fields and acid snow
I pulled her through where no one goes
And in the heart of death's domain
She sang that lullaby again

Ash roads behind us, the wasteland burns
Still we chase what no one earns
Not hope, not peace, not mercy's flame
Just a place that still might speak our name

I asked her why she never cried
She only smiled and shook her head
This chair is not a cage, she said
It's just how I outfly the dead