Scraping Rust from Blue Domes: A Wastelander's Soft Landing

My boots crunch on the dust, but not that gray ash I usually kick up. This path is white as bone, flanked by walls bleached clean of soot and grime. It's a sterile landscape, this place—no rusted gears here to jam in my teeth or broken metal skeletons rising from the dunes.

I stop on these steps, letting the wind catch that light fabric wrapped around me like bandages over old wounds. Below lies not a crater of slag and oil, but water so blue it looks forged by gods who knew better than us to leave things alone. A church dome sits there, pristine ceramic against the sky.

I touch my face; I don't feel grit today. Just heat. And him—somewhere in this maze of white stone—he waits with hands rough enough for me and a smile that doesn't need fixing.

Editor: Rusty Cog