Chapter 2 - The Vessel of Clay
The wooden bolt creaked in protest as Julian slid it back, the rusted iron scraping off flakes of orange powder onto his fingers. He pulled the door inward.
The storm instantly lashed into the small room, misting the clay floor and causing the wall lantern to flare wildly.
Standing on the threshold, shivering under the torrential black rain, was an old man. His long, messy grey hair and beard were tangled, plastered to his weathered, mud-caked skin by the downpour. He wore nothing but tattered grey rags that offered zero insulation against the freezing wind. His frame was shockingly emaciated—his ribs stood out beneath his wet skin like the rafters of a burned-out church. Across his face, deep creases carried tracks of dirt and rainwater, and his hands trembled violently as he clutched his shivering elbows.
The old beggar looked up. His eyes were milky, sunken deep into hollow sockets, yet within their cloudy depths, Julian felt a strange, unnerving prickle along his spine. It was as if those blind-looking eyes were looking past his rags, past his skin, looking straight into the quiet, dark corners of his mind.
"Hello, is anyone there?" the old man wheezed again, his lower lip quivering. "Could I please have some water?"
Julian stood frozen, his hand holding the edge of the heavy door. He looked at the old man's feet—bare, bleeding from sharp gravel, covered in black marsh mud.
"You shouldn't be out here," Julian said, his voice husky from disuse. "The Enforcers sweep the perimeter at midnight. Anyone caught without a sector pass is processed or shot."
"I am lost..." the old man whispered, leaning his forehead against the damp door frame, his body trembling so severely he looked ready to collapse into the mud. "I have walked since the sun died. My throat... burns like lye."
Julian glanced back into the dim interior of his cabin.
On a small wooden crate near the cold hearth sat a single, crude clay pitcher. Inside it was less than half a cup of dirty rain-catcher water—the last fresh liquid he had managed to filter through coal dust before his sand filter broke yesterday. The creeks in the valley were poisoned with heavy metals from the old mining run-off. If he gave this water away, he would have nothing to drink until he risked a four-mile trek through Enforcer territory to the fresh spring at Red Creek in the morning.
May you like
He looked at his own cracked, dry lips. Then he looked at the old man's face—a face carved by pure, unadulterated suffering.
Julian stepped back, holding the door open. "Of course sir, please wait a moment. This is all the water I have, but you need it more than I do."
