ASHBORN

I don’t remember when the ash in Ostrava stopped being gray and turned white like bone. I only remember the burning. It still flakes off my jacket as I run, little pieces of poison falling from me like feathers from a dying bird.

My name is Elena Kovaříková, and ever since I can remember, Liberty has followed me like a curse.
I’m seventeen, small enough to slip through places others can’t, but strong in the strange, tired way kids who grow up around factories become strong. My hair used to be black now it’s streaked with pale strands from the toxins. My skin is dull, dry, already marked by white blisters. And my eyes… My mom says they used to be bright. Now they look like someone dimmed the lights behind them.

They say the collapse of Liberty was an accident. A malfunction. A leak.
But I know better.
I grew up in the shadow of the chimneys; I know the sound of steel screaming.

Now everything screams.

My lungs rattle like empty cans as I climb over the twisted fence at the edge of the restricted zone. The heat is stronger here, pulsing from the ground, melting the snow into a soupy black sludge. Mom would kill me if she knew I came here. If she were strong enough to leave the bed at all.

The hospital said the toxins had gotten into her blood. “Too long breathing Ostrava air,” the doctor said. As if any of us had a choice.

The memory that haunts me most:

When I was just a few months old, during the harshest winter Ostrava had seen in decades, my parents smuggled me into Liberty.

Everyone needed special permits to enter the huť back then. People joked that Liberty was stricter than the border. My parents didn’t have a permit but they didn’t have a choice.

A blizzard had swallowed the city. Snow hit the windows so hard it sounded like fists. The power was out, and our flat became an icebox. Mom wrapped me in three blankets, then tucked me under her coat, pressing my tiny face against her heartbeat to keep me warm.

Dad drove.
The roads were empty, buried under drifts. When they reached the Liberty checkpoint, two guards stood outside, shaking from the cold. The wind screamed so loudly they could barely hear each other.

One guard lazily waved them through without checking the car.

Dad used to laugh when he told the story:
“They were too cold to care, Elenko. Blizzard saved us.”

But standing here now, breathing air that cuts like knives, the story feels different. Like Liberty let me in on purpose.
Like the huť marked me from the beginning.

I’m here now for the filter cores. Rumors say they’re hidden inside one of the old steel halls. Cores that could clean the toxic particles from the air for weeks. Enough time to get Mom out of the city. Enough time for me to survive the blisters creeping up my arms.

The first one appeared two days ago.
Then another.
Then ten more.

I’m turning into the same thing that coats the city.

Keep moving. Don’t think.

The wind rips at my hood as I crawl under a collapsed conveyor belt. Inside the old hall, the heat is unbearable. The steel beams glow dimly red veins in a dying beast. The floor bubbles with chemical puddles. The fumes stab my eyes until tears blur everything.

I blink hard.

Someone stands at the end of the corridor. A worker? A survivor?

“Hello?” My voice cracks.

The figure twitches. Not a step, more like a spasm. Another. Then the head lifts.

His skin is mottled with white patches, his mouth open too wide, his eyes glazed like the ash-covered statues in Poruba. His eyes glazed like the ash-covered statues in Poruba. He moves, but it doesn’t feel like life.

When he lunges, I don’t think. I run.

Shapes shift in the dark. I hear their wet breathing. The toxins didn’t just poison people. They changed them.

I squeeze into a maintenance shaft and slam the grate shut. Something claws at the outside, scraping steel with bone or metal I don’t want to know. Hot breath fogs the grate.

My hands shake so much I almost drop my flashlight.

“Mom needs me,” I whisper. “Mom needs me.”

That’s the only thing keeping me from collapsing.

I crawl until my knees bleed. At the end, I tumble into a storage room. And there under a layer of soot lies a crate marked:

AIR FILTRATION CORE – EMERGENCY USE ONLY

I choke on a sob.
I found it.
I actually found it.

But when I open the crate, my hope collapses.
The cores are heavier than I expected. I can only carry one.

One core = one mask.
One mask = one life.

My mom or me.

I fell to my knees. The ash burns my skin when it mixes with tears, but I can’t stop.

A deep rumble shakes the hall. Something is shifting beneath Liberty, something big.

I grab one core and run.

Halfway to the exit, steam explodes from a pipe, throwing me to the ground. My vision whites out. When it clears, I hear footsteps. Slow. Dragging.

They’ve found me again.

I force myself up, legs barely working. At the doorway, a figure blocks the light.

Another twisted worker. Or… no.

“Mom?”

She steps forward.

In the steam, I see white patches on her skin.
Spreading.
Like mine.

Her mouth opens.

The building groans behind me, ready to collapse.

If I run, maybe I will survive.
If I stay, maybe I can save her.
Or maybe neither of us makes it out.

I hold the core against my chest and inhale the burning air one last time.

I must choose.
And I do.

But whether I run forward or back
whether I save her or myself
That's a story the ash will keep.

Forever.