[Royal Writathon April 2022 winner]

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They say it was a war that blocked out the sun. They say it was poison bombs that reduced the land to rubble.

The blind wastelands were what it was called now. Where there were once sprawling cities, farmlands, and crops that grew in the sun, sparkling waters that shone like diamonds, there was now darkness; a cloying, viscous darkness that filled men’s hearts with dread and sunk their bellies like stone. What remained of humanity scattered away from the darkness as much as they could, banding together in settlements lit with gas lamps and bonfires.

A young man named Yunkef leaves his home at Settlement 41 to join a Scavenger team to bring back much-needed resources for his Settlement but finds there are much worse things in the darkness than just the beasts. He meets Lady Black.