Ages of Irony
Chapter 1: Network Error
This is a new start.
Our story started somewhere completely different from before. We were there.
Now, we are here.
Ada trodded away from the vast plain. She stumbled towards the rows of grey trees in the distance.
Her uniform, once a perfect, white, flight suit, was now a spectrum of browns. Dark and dirty at the bottom. Ada’s ankle cuffs were ragged. The muck slowly faded upward to dull ivory at the collar.
The trees, in a comparable condition, were all nearly barren of leaves. Ada imagined that they had been planted in long rows. They were arranged in all shapes and sizes in some undetectable order.
Ada stepped up to a leaning wooden sign at the edge of the skeleton forest. She pulled her matted orange hair out from in front of her eyes.
The red skin on her forehead was sore. Ada could not see them, but a few freckles had appeared near the corners of her eyes. Gifts from the sun and the wind.
Ada read the faint white words painted on the sign and could tell they had been written in rough English.
“HELL
You ched the Gates
The me has come to play a role.
Cho sely now or pay the toll.”
