SILENT WITNESSES STAND

Before the events of SILENT WITNESSES STAND, a single, devastating memory defined Luka’s entire existence. Discover that moment in this exclusive excerpt from the prequel short story, "The Last Lesson."

The box was small, dark, and shiny. The smooth metal was odd in a world of toxic rust and grey. His father’s hand, thin and trembling, had pulled it from a cocoon of frozen mud at the bottom of a collapsed structure. It was surprising that it hadn’t yet been found. For thirteen-year-old Luka, it was the cleanest thing he had ever touched. Intricate patterns were etched into its surface in an intriguing manner.

His father, his breath a wet, rattling sound in the frigid air, turned it over, assessing its worth in components. “Pre-Catastrophe alloy. No corrosion. The hinges are worthless, but the casing… good haul.”

He pried open the lid. Inside, nestled in faded velvet, was a small, delicate clockwork mechanism: a rotating brass cylinder covered in tiny pins and a steel comb with teeth of varying lengths. His father prodded it with a grimy finger. “Junk. Too delicate to scrap.” He was about to toss it aside when Luka, mesmerized by the strange machine, reached out. “Wait.”

Luka’s finger found a small, winding key. He turned it. A soft clicking sound echoed in the cold air, and then, a miracle occurred.

A clean, sad geometry of notes began to chime from the box, a structured tonal sequence that carved something orderly out of the world’s oppressive chaos. It was music -- something he’d never heard before. It was a shape, a feeling, a place he had never known existed.

His father grunted, his eyes narrowing, not with wonder, but with a flicker of old, bitter anger. “Don’t get attached to the noise, Luka. It’s a trick.”

But Luka was already attached. In his eyes it was the most valuable thing he’d ever encountered, and it had nothing to do with scrapcoins and survival.

They were halfway back to their shelter when a figure detached itself from the ruins. The man was gaunt, but his eyes burned with a focused, intelligent fire. “The song,” the man rasped, holding up a hand. “I heard it.”

“None of your concern,” Luka’s father coughed, his hand tightening on his pipe spear.

“It is,” the man insisted, stepping closer, his reverence absolute. “I’m Kael. I collect… things that remember.” He pulled a cloth from his pack, revealing a fist-sized trinket: a functioning, Old World water purifier component. “I’ll trade you. The tool for the song.”

Luka’s breath caught. The purifier meant guaranteed survival. The music was just… beautiful. Yet the thought of it going silent was a physical pain. “Do it, Dad,” Luka urged. The trade was logical.