One thousand, four hundred and fifty six days. That’s how long it has been since I last felt the rain fall from the sky and send the tingle through my skin. Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I can still smell it. The moisture in the air, calling to a primal sense, a gift from those who walked the land of Muskeeget centuries before. Before the water stopped flowing into Tabth, and society as we knew it crumbled. Before I was driven from my home, and pushed to these god forsaken mountains in search for a new beginning.

In the beginning, the sky drying up was not the end of the world. Food still came in from the hills, until the rainy season came and gone, leaving not a drop. It was not bad at first, little more credits here and there for the simple things. A bushel of carrots, and loaf of bread. As the weeks rolled by and the riverbeds dried up, the situation grew worse. Caravans from the lands started rolling to the city gates. The fields were cracked through with no ability to bear life. As if a giant walked the lands, sprinkling salt with every step. The once luscious rolling hills, teeming with vegetative wealth that made Tabth the epicenter of the continent, grew barren, withered, dead.0

As the weeks stretched on, the city soon started to fill to the brim. More and more peasants, displaced from famine, found home within the safety of the Walls, hoping for the chance to parch their thirst and fill their ravenous hunger. Although sturdy, the walls could not keep out the desperation, and as a plague, deprevity extended its tendrils deeper and deeper, streatching as far as it could to the core. Sunken eyes, prevalent ribs, split lips and crusted tongues. There was no escaping it. With each passing day, the Council tightened their rations, with only the wealthy having the mandatory credits to purchase their weekly share of food and drink. For everyone else, survival was what you could make of it

Looking back, I now realize that The Breaking started when the first cats and dogs went missing. Soon it was the street urchins, and then the beggars. A gloom settled over the city, as steel Gates rose around The Core, keeping the putrid and diseased public away. Wells, once a rich source of life, became tombs to enshrine the deprived for eternity. The Gates remained shut, expect for the weekly round up of criminals, sentenced to live out their few remaining days within the dungeons at the based of the tower.

And here I was, amongst it all, watching from the safety of The Core. My father, the archduke, ensured that our family never went hungry. That my lips and tongue stayed moist, my sanity in check. I knew the reserves were nearly empty, but yet, the water kept flowing, so I kept living and continued with my studies, as one day, this dusty brown stone city, once renowned for its lush gardens, would be mine to shepherd. Of the sheep, I only hoped there would be some left.

On a particularly hot and dry day, secluded within the study, I pause to admire my last remaining portal to a better age. The ceiling above, made of the finest crystal, provides a clear view of the devastatingly clear sky and the Tower. The water from the reserve starts at the very top of the tower, and trickles, ever so slightly, down the side and into the haphazard vegitatation disbursed amongst outcrops along the way down. The Floating Gardens. Once a symbol of Tabth’s prosperity, now nothing more than a lifeline to the very few privileged Council members, and their families, who resided in the Core. I doubt anyone from outside the Gates would see, as we were so high, and the dripping, yet constant, stream so small. But for me, when the waning sun hit the water just right, it was visible. A reassuring connection to the new beginnings I could bring to the land.

As with any good daydream, my thoughts carry me to another place. Another Tabth. One where I replace my father and guide the Council. The steeled Gates of the Core broken, and the reserves flow freely to the masses. I glance out to the mountains, and dream of what could lay on the other side. Can I lead my people to salvation? I’d like to think so. When I ask my Father why he does not do the same, he reminds me that the cycle moves ever one, and rain or shine, Tabth must remain the epicenter of Muskeeget. It is my duty to follow in his footsteps and preserve the reserves for generations to come. How he imagines a supply of water with no rain, I cannot fathom. I’m never allowed to join on his council sessions.

My trance is suddenly broken by a shout and coinciding crash a thousand glistening crystalline pieces, reverberate through the study. I run to the grand window overlooking the Core, and that’s where I saw him. An urchin, no older than 11, running from the base of the tower towards the locked gate. Blood trailing each step, cheeks sunken in deeper than I thought imaginable. A auspicious cord, running from the base of his neck, drags behind him, lashing every which way with each frantic step. Guards running for him as if their lives depended on it, but he was too quick. Like the primates from the circus of better times, the kid evades the clumsy grasp of the guards, scales the gates and dissipates into the masses on the other side. Nothing remaining, but the end of a bloody cord, dangling as if a loose thread from the barbed gate threshold.

The riots start two nights later. I awake in my sleep, another night passed out on the faded leather couch in the study, to the sound of explosions. I hurried to the window, and see the gates rocking on their hinges, a frenzied mob, moving as if a uniform mass, climbing over each other to get to the top. “Let them free” the crowed yelled, as a few valiant husks of men manage to climb over and run into the courtyard to the base of the geat tower. To the dungeons. The trickle turns into a flood, as the guard is swiftly overwhelmed by the starving masses. I feel the bile building in the back of my throat, as limbs are torn and offal spilled. Everyone consumed by the wave of depravation.

I turn from the violence, knowing I have limited time to make my escape. I climb up the stairs to the top of the top of the tower. Forbidden to those outside the council, I run to the source of the reserve to store up my canteen before making my daring escape to the far off mountains. As I bend down and dip the vessel into the pool, I notice something is off.

Whether it is the moonlight, I can’t be sure, but the water at the top glistens with a hint of crimson, and the tangy scent of iron fills the air.