[ IP ] The Red in the Sky is Ours

Jarrett dug into the churned earth with his hands, overturning mounds of the loose soil with ease. He checked with each movement for the hard black shards of rock that had become so common of late. They would poison the crops and too many seasons had gone by without a full harvest. 
 
 He wiped his brow and looked up at the sky, it was always sweltering now. Since the end. 
 
 It had been years, Jarrett himself had n't even been born when the flames purified the unbelievers. According to legend their ancestors had dug into the mountainsides and sheltered from the end. 
 
 Slowly they returned to the surface to find that bands of wild folk roamed the lands with violence and greed in their hearts. They grouped together and built tall walls and fortresses, central locations where all could flee for shelter. 
 
 Jarrett had always counted himself lucky. He'd earned a farm in a secure area at the mountain base, fertile land that received more of the red sun than most farms, and it was protected by two outposts that watched the roads. 
 
 As the night bells rang out Jarrett looked over his field and sent a prayer to whichever gods might hear it. That his crops would be strong and tall this year. 
 
 He dreaded the thought if they were n't. 
 
 They were already weak and spread thin. The outposts had been empty for a full year as it was. 
 
 As he turned to his modest house, something caught his eye on the horizon. 
 
 The flash of glass against the red sun. 
 
 Someone, or some thing, was watching.
