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No different from any other day, the boy walked out his front door to school. Looking up, startled, he dropped his books as he saw the sky.
Hearing the howl of fear from her son, his mother dashed out the door. The fine ash on everything tipped her off immediately -- the phages had come through. She'd known this day was coming; it was impossible not to. She'd been raised on the history of the Heat, and the way the world had thrown up the Dust into the air in a desperate attempt to counteract it. Her great-grandparents had told her stories of the disasters that followed, how they barely scraped by when the ecology went to hell.
She steeled herself and set her jaw, knowing what to expect. She couldn't be surprised: the argument had been all over the net for the past couple of years -- the government saying that it was time to bring down the Dust. She'd voted against it: it had been the protection of her parents, and their parents, and it was good enough for her. But politicians never listen.
She failed to suppress a shudder as she looked up at the first blue sky in a century. Then she turned her mind away from the unnatural color, and back to her son, ushering him back inside with a reassurance that he could skip school today, and she would tell him some stories instead...
Hearing the howl of fear from her son, his mother dashed out the door. The fine ash on everything tipped her off immediately -- the phages had come through. She'd known this day was coming; it was impossible not to. She'd been raised on the history of the Heat, and the way the world had thrown up the Dust into the air in a desperate attempt to counteract it. Her great-grandparents had told her stories of the disasters that followed, how they barely scraped by when the ecology went to hell.
She steeled herself and set her jaw, knowing what to expect. She couldn't be surprised: the argument had been all over the net for the past couple of years -- the government saying that it was time to bring down the Dust. She'd voted against it: it had been the protection of her parents, and their parents, and it was good enough for her. But politicians never listen.
She failed to suppress a shudder as she looked up at the first blue sky in a century. Then she turned her mind away from the unnatural color, and back to her son, ushering him back inside with a reassurance that he could skip school today, and she would tell him some stories instead...