Countdown to ash

Twenty years after the Cataclysm, humanity dropped from eight billion to two and a half million. Ash choked the sky. Volcanoes swallowed cities whole. Mutant beasts stalked the wasteland. The Dome hoarded what was left, dragging ability users into basement labs where eight out of ten didn't walk back out. Colt Hayes was eighteen and at the bottom of the Rust Tribe's pecking order—a scavenger breaking his back every day just to hit a five-kilo scrap quota. That changed when he cracked open a sealed basement in the Forbidden Zone and found what his mother left behind: a metal sphere etched with "S-1000 Metal Memory Extraction" and a vial of midnight-blue serum. "Colt... if you're reading this... I'm sorry for what I've dragged you into..." The second he touched that sphere, her memories flooded in—and with them, the truth about Project Noah. The Cataclysm wasn't an act of God. Someone made it happen. But power doesn't come free. Every time he used his ability, his ash value climbed. Hit 100% and you turned. There were only five Reversal Agents left in the world—each one worth a life, or the end of everything. Colt put down his first friend himself—Thomas, a pyro at 95% ash saturation. With his last breath, Thomas gave him one warning: "Noah was a curse. These powers are a bill that comes due. If you get the choice, don't take it." But in a world buried in ash, staying powerless just meant dying slow.