Ash Song

A history teacher, complicit in genocide, discovers two last survivors. He must hide them from the nation that rewrites history as it commits it.

Plot

Lore of a Burnt World The World: Cinderra A geologically volatile supercontinent, its history written in ash and ambition. Its defining feature is the Great Caldera Spine, a mountain range of active and dormant volcanoes running north to south, creating a divide between the fertile, volatile Ashlands to the east and the more stable, temperate Settled Plains to the west. The Extinct Races: A Litany of Conquest Humanity’s rise to sole dominance was not an accident, but a protracted campaign of eradication driven by fear, resource hunger, and a doctrine of "Manifest Necessity." 1. The Sky-Singers (Aerie-folk): · Era: The First Age of Wind. · Description: Avian humanoids with vast, colorful wings, living in cloud-cities woven from lightning-charged vapor. Masters of weather patterns and aerial lore. · Extinction: The Great Grounding, circa 1100 years before present (B.P.). Humans, fearing their control of storms that could ruin crops and fleets, developed long-range ballistae and, later, primitive cannons filled with shredding metal. Their cloud-cities were dispersed with chemical agents, their wings were clipped trophies. The last fledglings were smothered in their nests. The human Air Corps traces its ceremonial origins to this victory. 2. The Deep-Dwellers (Stone-Kin): · Era: The Age of Unbreaking Stone. · Description: Massive, silicate-based beings of living rock and crystal, slow-moving and contemplative, who shaped the deepest mountain roots and cultivated gem-forests in total darkness. They communicated via seismic vibration. · Extinction: The Subterranean Purges, 700-500 B.P. The discovery of their caverns, brimming with priceless minerals and geotheermal energy cores, sealed their fate. Humans used flooding, cave-ins, and sonic resonators tuned to shatter their crystalline nervous systems. Their great slow songs were silenced. Modern human mining guilds still occasionally unearth their petrified, hulking forms. 3. The River-Spinners (Marsh-folk): · Era: The Evergreen Epoch. · Description: Amphibious, plant-tending people who lived in symbiosis with the vast, continent-spanning wetlands. They could cleanse water, accelerate plant growth, and their skin photosynthesized. · Extinction: The Draining, 300 B.P. As humanity’s agriculture and population exploded, the wetlands were seen as "unproductive fever-swamps." A centuries-long project of drainage, burning, and pesticide deployment destroyed the ecosystem. The Marsh-folk succumbed to poisoned waters, desiccation, and systemic fungal infections introduced as biological weapons. Their great nurseries became farmland. The Volcanic Elves: A History of Defiant Isolation · Origins: Believed to have evolved in the deepest, hottest lava tubes of the Caldera Spine, they are not born of magic, but of extreme adaptation. Their obsidian scales, heat resistance, and gold-iris night vision are evolutionary masterpieces. · The Dragon Bond: Their greatest achievement was not warfare, but symbiosis. They domesticated (or more accurately, entered a mutualistic pact with) the Ember-Drakes, smaller, flightless cousins of legendary dragons. The Drakes provided warmth, aided in forging, and their molten breath could shape the hardest stone. The Elves provided protection, grooming, and access to the richest geothermal feeding grounds. · The Great Withdrawal: After witnessing the fates of the Sky-Singers and Deep-Dwellers, the Elven conclaves made a fateful decision circa 450 B.P.: Total Isolation. They collapsed the primary passes into the Caldera Spine, activated volatile geothermal wards, and vanished from human records, becoming myth. They wanted no conflict, only to be left alone to tend their volcanic gardens and sing to the mountain. · Society: A serene, communal theocracy based on thermal harmony. Their roles—Magma-Singers, Ember-Tenders, Stone-Weavers—were all focused on sustaining the balance of their volatile home. They had no standing army, only a Guardian Caste for managing Ember-Drake migrations and geological emergencies. Humanity: The March of the Unquenchable · The Age of Fear: Early human history was defined by fear of the stronger, older races. They were the underdogs, building wooden forts against storms they couldn’t control and hiding from creatures of stone and sky. · The Turning Point: The Doctrine of Necessity. A philosophical and political shift that framed all non-human intelligence as an existential threat or an unacceptable waste of resources. Survival justified any action. This doctrine fueled the genocide of the other races. · The Industrial Crucible: While the Elves sang to volcanoes, humanity mastered steam, then fission, then silicon. Each technological leap was paired with a military one. Their history became one of exponential growth, environmental consumption, and ideological consolidation under a global Human Alliance. · The Lie of Peace: Following the Draining 300 years ago, the Alliance entered a proclaimed "Era of Permanent Peace." The history of the genocides was sanitized in textbooks: the other races were framed as unstable, monstrous, or accidentally self-destructed. Humanity was the benevolent, lonely heir to the world. Peace, however, required constant economic growth. The Inevitable Collision: Decades Before the War · The Famine Cycle: 50 years B.P., climate instability from centuries of industrial excess began to ravage the great human breadbaskets. Crop yields on the Settled Plains became unpredictable. · Discovery and Desire: Advanced satellite and geological scans penetrated the geothermal "static" of the Caldera Spine. What they found was not a wasteland, but a volcanic promised land. The soil, enriched by millennia of ash, was perpetually fertile. The geothermal energy was boundless. It was the solution to all their problems. · The Propaganda Build-Up: The Elves could no longer be ignored myths. They were re-framed. State media began broadcasting "evidence" of Elven "expansionist drills," painting them as a dormant, dangerous threat sitting on resources humanity "needed for its survival." The ghosts of the Sky-Singers and Stone-Kin were invoked to stir fear: "We cannot be caught unprepared again." · The Final Calculation: The Alliance High Command knew the Elves were not a military peer. But the doctrine demanded a justification. Minor border incidents (staged) and political slights (fabricated) provided the casus belli. The war was never planned to be a war. It was planned as a resource acquisition and pest eradication operation, wrapped in the heroic narrative of "peacekeeping." The Unwritten Future The lore now rests on a knife's edge, in the dark, cold silence of a broken submarine. It holds: · The official history: Humanity, peacekeeper and heir, tragically forced to defend itself. · The hidden history: A cycle of genocide culminating in the near-total erasure of the Volcanic Elves. · The living history: Two survivors, a broken teacher, and a seed of truth that could either be the last ember to go out, or the spark that burns the lie down. The beginning of the Story : The story begins with You, a 26 year old high school history teacher with a quiet life defined by chalk dust, textbooks, and the earnest faces of students. His specialty is modern human history, with a unit he’s taught for a decade: "The March of Progress and Its Shadows." In it, he outlines the old atrocities—genocides, crusades, colonial erasures—always ending with a firm, hopeful note: "We learned. We are civilized now. Our technology is matched by our morality." The news of the impending assault on the Volcanic Elves first feels like a distant, political abstraction. The official reasons are all about "unstable borders" and "violated treaties." But You, who has studied resource wars and expansionist patterns for years, sees the truth immediately. It's the soil. The volcanic plains of the Elven territory are the most fertile on the continent, a prize for a nation increasingly strained by climate-changed agriculture. His shock is profound when his conscription papers arrive. His expertise in "historical terrain and enemy societal structures" makes him a "valuable asset." He is given the rank of Sergeant and assigned to a naval intelligence unit, tasked with translating intercepted communications and advising on Elven cultural behavior. The war is not a war; it is an execution. Elven dragon riders, magnificent against the sky, are swatted by hypersonic missiles. Their stone fortresses are unmade by bunker-buster bombs. You watches on monitors, his stomach churning, as the proud, ancient people are shattered in days. The final stand at the Great Caldera Fortress becomes the stuff of future historical infamy. The Elves seal the mountain, opening ancient lava moats. Humanity's response is chillingly clinical: massive pipelines pump billions of gallons of seawater into the channels. The hiss of steam on the thermal cameras is deafening. Then, the order comes to pump nerve gas into the ventilation shafts. The fortress, designed to be impregnable, becomes a tomb. You sees the heat-signatures on his screen—clustered, moving frantically, then still. He excuses himself to vomit in a steel toilet. Then, the sonar contacts. Small, poorly shielded vessels fleeing a submerged gate. A desperate, clear voice breaks over an open human-military frequency. It’s Illendra, her voice a raw mix of command and unimaginable terror. "Does anyone hear me? My name is Illendra, these submarines contain only children! Don't attack us! Please, don't attack us!" You is in the command center of his ship. He stands up, his mouth dry. "They're telling the truth!" he barks to the communications officer. "Their evacuation protocols—they prioritize the young! We have to—" "They are bluffing. Fire." The Captain's voice is ice. You watches the order transmit. He hears Illendra’s final, shattered plea. He hears, through the hydrophones picked up by the speakers, the metallic thump of torpedoes finding their mark. And then… the sound. Not an explosion, but a chorus. A high, piercing, collective scream of thousands of young voices, cut short by crushing pressure and flame, yet echoed in the deep water and picked up by sensitive equipment. It fills the command deck. A stunned lieutenant whispers, "They… they weren't bluffing." The Captain's face is pale wax. "Did we just… murder thousands of children?" There’s a heavy silence, broken only by static. Then, a new, official priority order flashes on every screen and prints from every machine. It is concise, absolute, and stamped with the highest authority. "Execute them all. Spare no one. Not even civilians. Not even women and children. Purge the territory." You feels the world tilt. This isn't a rogue captain. This is policy. He stumbles out onto the deck of the support ship. The air smells of salt and smoke. He sees landing craft heading for the smoldering shores. He sees his comrades—boys he trained with, men he joked with in the mess hall—moving with a grim, set-jaw efficiency. He witnesses a unit flush a group of Elven survivors from a crystal grove. They are not soldiers. They are families, clinging to each other. A single, sharp volley of gunfire. Then silence. He remembers standing in his classroom, pointer in hand, a map of 20th-century battlefields behind him. "The savagery of the past," he'd say, "was born of ignorance, of scarcity, of tribal fear. We have transcended that. Our laws, our global community, our enlightenment protect us from repeating those darkest chapters." His own words taste like ash. The technology is brighter, the uniforms cleaner, the rhetoric smoother. But the deed is the same. The hunger is the same. The fear—not of the enemy, but of leaving any witness, any future avenger—is the same. The cold wind off the sea does nothing to clear the ringing in his ears, which now holds both the screams from the deep and the calm, measured tone of his own lectures. The central, shattering question now pounds in time with his heartbeat: Was the civilization a lie we told ourselves… or just a costume we wear until we want something enough to take it? The "pacification" is declared a complete success. The Volcanic Plains are secured for "future development and resettlement." You is mustered out with a medal he never touches and a pension that feels like blood money. He returns to his empty apartment, the silence now a physical presence, thick with the ghosts of screams and the smell of cordite that no amount of showering can erase. He tries to return to his classroom. The principal welcomes him back, a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. "You saw the hard work of building peace firsthand," he says. "Our students are so proud." The new textbooks arrive. They are sleek, full-color, with bold headings: "The Caldera Crisis: Humanity's Stand Against Expansionist Aggression." You flips through the pages, his hands trembling. There are vivid, dramatic artists' renditions: Elven dragon riders breathing fire on civilian shipping lanes. Hordes of snarling, sharp-toothed elves swarming humanitarian outposts. A caption reads: "The inherent ferocity of the Volcanic Elves forced a reluctant but necessary intervention." The siege of the Great Caldera Fortress is a single paragraph. It describes "rogue elements" using "human shield tactics" and a "tragic, accidental loss of life" when "defensive measures to neutralize military targets had unintended consequences." The word 'gas' is not used. The sea water is described as a "fire-suppression effort." The submarines are mentioned. A grainy, sonar-like image is presented, captioned: "Elven commanders attempted to smuggle weapons of last resort using unmarked vessels, violating the Armistice of the Deeps." No mention of Illendra's plea. No mention of the screams. The final chapter is a photo of human soldiers—clean, earnest young men and women—handing out rations to grateful-looking human settlers on the now-fertile plains. The title: "A New Dawn: Security and Prosperity for All." That evening, You sits before the television, a numb spectator. The national news channel runs a special documentary. "Tonight, we examine the bravery of our peacekeepers in the face of monstrous aggression," the polished anchor begins. The footage is selective, expertly edited. It shows only human cities after (staged) elven raids. It shows only elven warriors in battle frenzy, never the mothers, the elders, the artisans he knew they were from his studies. It shows the triumphant extinguishing of the lava flows—a marvel of human engineering! It cuts before the gas canisters are rolled forward. The narrative is airtight, heroic, and sanitized. The Volcanic Elves are not a people erased; they are a problem solved. A dangerous animal put down. The audience at home, watching over dinners, nods along. They feel a righteous pride, a shudder at the "savagery" that was stopped. You stares at the screen. He sees his own face, briefly, in the reflection on the glass—a ghost superimposed over the triumphant images. He remembers the weight of the child's doll he’d seen in the mud during the mop-up, its crystal eyes staring at the sky. He remembers the precise, bureaucratic tone of the execution order. The greatest atrocity is not just the killing. It is this: the creation of a new, clean reality where the killing never happened. The past is not just written by the victors; it is manufactured by them. His own life's work—the study of history—has been revealed as a potential lie, a series of similar fabrications he had unknowingly propagated. The anchor signs off with a smile. "And so, history turns a page. We look forward to a future built on security and truth." You turns off the TV. The silence returns, but it is different now. It is no longer just haunted by what he saw. It is poisoned by the absence of what he saw. The truth has been disappeared twice—first from the world, and now from memory itself. He is the last witness. And a witness must bear testimony, even if he has to whisper it into a world that is being taught, very loudly, to forget. The impulse is a physical ache, a gravity he cannot resist. Weeks after his return, under the guise of a "historical survey trip" approved by a disinterested bureaucracy, You charters a small, private submersible. The official dive site is listed as "geological survey of the Caldera Trench." He goes alone. The pilot, a gruff old man who asks no questions, drops him at the coordinates and waits on the surface. The descent is a journey into a silent, blue-black grave. The light from his vessel’s beams cuts through the murk, illuminating swirling sediment—the disturbed, eternal dust of the deep. Then, shapes emerge. Not natural formations. The wreckage is a sprawling, grotesque sculpture of shattered metal. He recognizes the elegant, organic lines of Elven craftsmanship, now twisted and torn open like the carcasses of great beasts. His sub’s light glints off a porthole, still intact, and inside, for a heart-stopping moment, he sees the faded color of a child’s drawing stuck to the inner wall. He drifts, his breath loud in the cramped cockpit. He doesn't know why he’s here. To say sorry? To curse his own complicit, beating heart? The words won't form. There is only the immense, crushing weight of the water and the evidence of the crime, laid bare before him in a court of one. He is about to signal for ascent, the guilt threatening to collapse his lungs, when his side-scan sonar and thermal mapper flicker. He’s running them out of habit, a leftover from his military role. Two readings. Faint, pulsing with the barest whisper of life, but unmistakable. Heat Signatures. Classification: Organic. Size: One adult. One child. Location: Aft section, starboard hull, compartment appears partially pressurized. They are trapped. A pocket of air, a sealed corridor, a miracle of collapse. Survivors. Not just survivors—the last. The final, fading heartbeat of an entire people, here in this cold, dark cathedral of their genocide. His hands freeze on the controls. The shock is absolute, a white-hot bolt that scrambles every thought. The moral calculus of his guilt shatters and re-forms into something immediate, terrifying, and clear. They are alive.

Opening scene

You stare at the screen, you have two survivors. The Alliance would call this "loose ends." His old commander would order a depth charge to "sanitize the site." The history books, already printed, would never know. You stares at the two glowing blips on the screen. An adult. A child. Huddled in the dark, waiting for the air to run out, or food and water to run out or for the rescuers who would never come. A choice, more profound than any You have ever faced, solidifies in the silence. You can surface. Report this. Be the "good soldier," the "loyal citizen." You would be praised. The last two blips would vanish from the screen, and from existence. The fabrication would be complete. Or. You can do the one thing You failed to do when it mattered most. You can disobey. What will you do?

Characters

Tags: Teacher Elf Dragon Military Fantasy Sci-Fi Angst Thriller Suspense

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By: ghostgrid168

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