Chapter 6
A New Shoot
It started the day Eren Xiao watched the sky tear open.
Before that day, everyone's phones had been flooded with news that the asteroid Apophis-II was about to hit Earth—but people were full of confidence.
In the little more than a decade since AI first appeared, human life had already changed beyond recognition. Online they were calling it the Smart Revolution, another upheaval people set beside agriculture and industry.
People around the world had reason to believe the great powers could handle an asteroid impact.
But disaster came anyway…
For the first few days, survivors could still catch stray messages on emergency broadcasts. After that, things spiraled further than anyone had imagined.
Earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions… then disease, hunger, cold, riots…
When it finally quieted, people found the world they knew was gone.
Eren was lucky. He lived.
Maybe to honor the dead, maybe because they did not want to remember the life before, the survivors marked the year of the disaster as Year One P.I.
Eren had already gotten through nine winters. Nowadays winter was far harder than summer. The post-impact dust no longer blotted out the sky, but sunlight still had not returned to pre-impact levels. With industry dead, there was less waste heat bleeding off, and the years ran colder.
When Eren found him, the boy was standing at the edge of a dry riverbed a kilometer outside the village. The channel had long since gone empty. All that remained beneath was a layer of gray-white hard mud and clumps of sharp dead grass. Farther on lay badland no one wanted to go near. The boy gripped half an iron rod in his fist. Grass burrs had torn his pant legs; skin was scraped off one knee. His jaw was set hard, like crying would prove he was lost.
Eren stopped a few steps behind him and did not go closer right away.
"Boy—what are you doing out here? Lost?"
The boy whipped around. When he saw who it was, his shoulders eased for a moment, then squared again. "I'm not lost."
Eren glanced at the sky. "Which way is the village?"
The boy pressed his lips together and pointed.
"Wrong way."
The boy's hand froze midair, then slowly dropped.
Eren took two steps closer, crouched, and looked at his knee. The wound was not deep, smeared with a little dust. He took the flask from his belt, poured a little water into his palm, rinsed the grime away, and handed the flask over.
"Rest a bit. Drink."
The boy took it, sat on the ground, sipped, and gave the flask back.
Eren took the flask and sat beside him.
"What'd you come out here alone for? It's not safe this way," Eren asked.
The boy stared at his toes. A long while passed before he said, "I just wanted to see what's outside. Grandma and Grandpa always say I can't go out there, can't go to town alone, definitely can't go to the badland. But you go out every day."
"I go out to work."
"Then I can find work too, someday."
Eren hooked the flask back on his belt.
"Sure you can," he said. "But nobody's paying you for this trip."
The boy looked up, something stubborn in his eyes.
Eren pointed at the half rod in his hand. "And next time bring something decent. That thing barely scares a stray dog."
The boy tightened his grip on the rod. "My dad used to go out looking for work too."
Eren looked at him.
The boy dropped his head again. "Grandma says he never came back after he left. Grandpa won't let me ask."
Wind scraped down the dry bed. A few stalks of grass rasped against the hard mud.
Eren was quiet a moment, then stood. "Come on. Grandma and Grandpa are counting on you." He turned back toward the village.
The boy followed. After a few steps he could not help asking, "Can I tag along with you later?"
"I don't haul kids who don't know their way home."
Back at Bridge-Pier Village, several people had already gathered at the gate. The moment the boy's grandmother saw her grandson, she nearly fell against the doorframe. Grandpa stood beside her leaning on a wooden staff, face white, lips moving—no scolding came out.
The boy had meant to look unbothered. Close up, his grandmother pulled him into a hug and he went rigid at once, face buried in the old woman's shoulder.
"Good you found him," Auntie Li said from the side, sharp as ever. "Any later and half the village would've been out searching."
The grandfather came back to himself, fished a few Crystone coins from inside his coat, and tried to shove them into Eren's hand. "Can't let you run for nothing. You take jobs—take this."
Eren did not take them. He pushed the old man's hand back.
"Village looks after its own. No charge."
The old man got anxious. "You were out most of the day. Can't have you lose on it. A run into town pays more than this."
"Town's town," Eren said.
Auntie Li glanced at him and cut in, "That's his way. You really force it on him, he'll find some way to pay you back."
Someone else chipped in, "Look at Eren—handy, always helping us out. Me, I'd be jelly-legged before I got far from the gate."
Eren waved it off with a small smile and said nothing more. He only brushed dust off his pant legs.
Mrs Chen laughed from the edge of the group. "Speaking of which, you ought to find someone and settle down. Running alone out there, nobody at home—while you're still young, start a family."
Eren gave an awkward smile. "My life's too unsettled. Wouldn't be fair dragging someone into it."
With that he nodded to the boy's grandparents and turned toward his own hut.
Behind him the boy, held by his grandmother, still looked back. Eren did not turn. He only waved once over his shoulder.
That day passed quickly. Someone still needed a wall patched; someone else heard grain prices had risen in town; under the bridge piers the usual arguing went on. The lost-child scare got talked over for a few days, then faded into everything else, like any other village fuss.
At dawn Eren pushed the wooden door open as he always did. He wore a roughly stitched outer coat, pant legs tucked into worn high-top leather boots, dust still clinging to the uppers, and went out back.
Behind the house stood a small plot of fuzz-clump wheat. Eren checked it every day. The stalks hugged the ground, heads wrapped in soft fuzz—from a distance they looked like gray-green fuzz balls pressed flat to the earth. The stuff was drought-hardy and could take nighttime cold. It did not ask much tending; water it on schedule and you got grain for the pot. It suited Eren.
From the edge of the plot, not far off, a bridge pier rose—something left from the old world. Below it, row on row of small houses made up the village where Eren lived: Bridge-Pier Village.
Bridge-Pier Village was not large—roughly a dozen households, all people who had washed up here after the disaster. The earliest settlers had built against the solid piers for shelter; the concrete handled small earthquakes better than scrap walls. Later arrivals filled in around them.
Eren had arrived two or three years ago. The spots near the piers were already full, so his hut sat farther out on the village edge. Railton was a twenty-minute walk—close enough to pick up work in town without sleeping there.
Today was no different. After a quick look at the wheat plot he meant to head into town.
He stepped back inside, took a leather jerkin from beside the pillow—stitched himself from hide and rough cloth, iron plates hidden at chest, shoulders, and forearms, usually worn under his coat without showing.
Once dressed, he lifted his short faceted war hammer from the bedpost and clipped it to the strap at the small of his back. He had modified it himself. The head came from a scrap gear off a large machine—eight broad radial ridges, thick and blunt-heavy, the crown only slightly peaked. The haft ran through the gear's center, bound outside with iron hoops—a rough industrial take on a war hammer.
Years of surviving had taught him one thing: keep what matters within reach when you sleep. Sometimes that saves your life.
Fully kitted, Eren took the flask, hardtack, and coin pouch from the table and stuffed them into his belt satchel. A gray cloth cloak hung on the peg by the door—useful on long roads against wind and grit. He pulled it on, did not draw the hood tight, only let the collar sit over his coat, and stepped out.