The ground was littered with splintered wood and ash, the remnants of what had once been the great city of Elmridge.
Maya Delacroix crouched among the ruins, her crimson cloak fluttering in the acrid wind, scanning the scattered timber for anything untouched by the inferno. Her hands, cloaked in leather gloves well-worn from toil, grazed the remnants of a fallen sculpture—a sculpture she had carved herself three years prior. It had been intended to guide future travelers, a towering oak sentinel meant to outlast the ages. Now it was nothing but charred stumps. The sound of distant footsteps sent her heart into overdrive. She turned sharply. Someone else was here.
Her attire was practical yet eccentric for the dystopia in which she now lived: a sturdy corset with rivets of bronze, an emerald-green riding skirt slit up one leg for movement, and tall leather boots stained with soot and dried mud. On her hip rested a hammer made of polished ironwood, its shaft wrapped with strands of colored leather—an heirloom passed down through her family from generation to generation, ever since the time they had founded the Guild of Carvers. To Maya, the hammer was more than a tool; it was her identity. It was her shield. Yet ever since the Guild fell during the Great Collapse, wielding it made her a target.
“Drop it,” a voice barked from the shadows.
Maya froze. Slowly, she looked over her shoulder and found herself staring down the barrel of a rifle held by a woman in a tattered aviator’s jacket. The barrel gleamed dully in the fading sunlight. The stranger’s hair was cropped close to her head, and dirt was smeared across her forehead, but there was something distinctly soldier-like about her stance. She had the aura of someone who had been fighting far too long to care about appearances.
“I’m not here to fight,” Maya said coolly, one hand still resting protectively on the ironwood hammer. “Only scavenging.”
The stranger cocked an eyebrow. “That weapon strapped to your belt? You think I don’t know what that is? That’s Guild craftsmanship if I’ve ever seen it.”
Maya’s fingers tightened around her hammer. “It belonged to my family.”
The rifle twitched in the stranger’s hands. “Then you’re Guild, whether you admit it or not. And that makes you my enemy.”
“I didn’t choose the Guild Wars,” Maya said, her voice sharpening. “I’m not your enemy. Not unless you make me one.”
The standoff lingered in the growing twilight. Finally, the stranger lowered her rifle slightly, though her expression tightened. “If you’re serious about scavenging, you’re wasting your time picking through this place. The Assembly swept through here days ago. Took anything of value.”
Maya’s stomach soured at the mention of them. The Assembly had been responsible for dismantling the Guilds—Woodworkers, Blacksmiths, Masons, and others who, for centuries, had been the keepers of humanity’s crafts. They had dismantled knowledge and replaced it with automation, roaring machines that blasted through forests, rendering people like her obsolete. What once had been artistry and labor was now a desolation of factory-like uniformity, churning out hollow imitations of true craft. And when the guilds pushed back, the Assembly decimated them. Sometimes with fire. Sometimes with propaganda. Always with cruelty.
“Why are you still here?” the stranger asked, her tone laced with suspicion.
“You wouldn’t understand,” Maya replied, stepping over a charred beam to inspect the broken remains of a fallen carving. “It’s not about scavenging for scraps. It’s about recovering what they tried to erase.” She carefully picked up a small intact piece of carved wood—a delicate flower etched into its surface. A fragment of beauty in a sea of destruction. “This was my father’s work,” she muttered under her breath.
The stranger lowered her rifle fully now, finally allowing herself a moment to study Maya. Her eyes softened. “Rebuilding the past is a dangerous ambition,” she said. “Especially with the Assembly combing these lands for Guild survivors.”
“And what’s your ambition?” Maya asked, rising to meet the stranger’s gaze. “Waving that rifle around? Surviving without purpose?”
“Survival is purpose enough,” the woman replied, though her voice carried the weight of uncertainty. That much was clear to Maya.
In the quiet that followed, the crackle of distant fire carried through the winds. The Assembly wasn’t far. Maya turned her attention back to the woman. “If you really want to survive, you should leave this place,” she said. “They’ll be here soon.”
“And you?” the stranger asked. “What’s your plan?”
Maya’s grip tightened once more around the haft of her hammer. “I’m going to finish what the Guild started.”
The stranger let out a soft laugh, though it seemed devoid of humor. “And what makes you think you can do that? The Guild’s gone.”
“Not yet,” Maya said, her green eyes aflame with determination. “As long as one craftsperson remains—one who still remembers how to carve, to build, to create—we’re not truly gone.”
The stranger gave her one long, searching look, then nodded toward the ruins. “I know where they keep some of the old Guild tools. Assembly storage in the Ashmar worksites. Locked up tight, though.”
“Then we break it open,” Maya said, her voice filled with newfound resolve. “If you want to do more than survive—if you want to fight back—help me.”
For a moment, the woman hesitated, her fingers brushing the stock of her rifle. Survival was one thing, but purpose? That was a dangerous gamble. “Name’s Lila,” she said finally. “Don’t make me regret this, Guild girl.”
The two figures set off into the fading light, shadows pooling around their boots, toward the Ashmar worksites where industry reigned and the embers of rebellion waited to be kindled. In her pocket, Maya carried the carved flower. And in her heart, the hope that wood could once again tell stories no machine could replicate.
Genre: Dystopian Adventure
The Source...check out the great article that inspired this amazing short story: What is the difference between woodworking and carpentry? - Explains the basic distinctions between woodworking and carpentry, helping beginners understand the scope of each.
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