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16th of Springrise, 3165.

I, Arte, have just turned sixteen as of two weeks ago. My best friend since childhood, Nimia, has just turn seventeen. The median age of our village is roughly thirty-five—even if you were to double our ages, we would not yet meet the average.

Yet for some reason, in this village filled to the brim with old rotting corpses with mouths who continually lurch their eye-rolling complaints at this concept called "life", it is only us Runners this year who face death.

"Are you heading out, Arte?"

Clementine's sweet-song voice called my attention, but as usual, her words betrayed no frankness—like most of the younger girls in the Valley, she spoke meaningless pleasantries as a precaution. The answer she was looking for wasn't "yes"; Clementine was presently waiting to receive a location, and if I were not to supply her with one, it would distress her until the coming night.

So, to placate her desire, I answered in kind—not to the question she asked, but the question which remained unspoken.

"Ash runs."

"...I see. You are fairly good at Running, aren't you Arte? I heard Gryff say as much during the town's council meeting."

I paused, "You went to a town council meeting?"

Clementine pulled back her brilliant blonde hair—a latent reminder of the divine blessings we Valley folk now lacked—and shook her head. The twirled strands danced, causing the dust on the haphazardly put-together wood kitchen table to bounce with glee.

"—Not exactly. I met him shortly after he returned from the meeting, on my way to the Vineyard."

The Vineyard, huh? I nodded—it was important to note the days in which Clementine was requested to attend the Vineyard, for her own sanity, as well as my own. If I had so mindlessly asked what she did yesterday, as a general question, she would be forced to remember the events which took place. I was not so self-centered a man to ignore someone in distress, and the ensuing panic would likely sap the remainder of the day I had left.

If I were to join the Reserves, I wouldn't have time to waste tending to Clementine's mental state. Plus, I was already late for the Run.

I was often asked why, despite all of this, I still lived with her—honestly, I couldn't tell you. The frail damsel before my eyes was nothing more than a hindrance for life in the Valley. I was wasting my time. And regardless, she wouldn't be here for long. The Elders had already determined that she'd be this decade's "Hollow Blessing". Really, I was wasting my time.

Clementine wasn't even looking in my direction as she continued to talk. As a matter of practice, I had been tuning her out.

It's hard to hold a conversation with someone who won't even meet your eyes.

"—Arte?"

"...Yes?"

"Take care."

"...I will."

I shut the door, ending our conversation a predetermined note, and one that had transpired no less than one-hundred and fifty-two times since we had met. Did I actually know how many times it had occurred? Of course not, but that's what it felt like, and I was a stickler for melodramatics.

Sighing, I looked out onto the Valley below.

Men and women alike carried large urns, called vehicles, from the red river onto the western embankment of Shadow's Pass. Since it was nine, they would soon be heading south of the village, in preparation for replenishing the barriers come nightfall. It was an important task—if even one vehicle was missing, everyone in the village would die in the resulting stampede.

It was back-breaking labor, and no-one who carried the vehicles could speak, so in addition to being labor-intensive, it was also isolating. But it was something that kept each carrier alive. Those who moved urn from river to embankment were the type that could not trust strangers with their own life—to make sure the task was done, they had joined the Movers of their own free will.

Mover, Runner, and Hunter. These were the three jobs available in Shadow's Pass. The day that one decided their path came on their sixteenth birthday. I had chosen the Runners—it was an apt job for those whose distrust for strangers ran so deep, that they could not even trust them with the most mundane task.

I, Arte, held a fanatic hatred for the race called humans.

They were opulent, selfish, and filled with avarice. It was humans who outcast us and spurned us as "devils". Unfortunately, if that were true, life in the Undercroft would be easier. Those of us who were spurned by the Great Civilizations as devils and cast into the Valley were regrettably the most human of all. Shadow's Pass was a breeding ground for desperate men and women who detested life and sought the lukewarm embrace of nihilism—rebuffed from life, and cowards to death.

Shadow's Pass had nine-hundred villagers, but there were only about ten that were still alive. The rest were empty husks dressed in burlap sacks, waiting for someone else to commit to act that they themselves were too scared to attempt.

I adjusted my stance and pointed my foot in the direction of the red river.

"—Curre."

The soot around my feet welled up into the air, swirling around my ankles and dancing across my tendons. A resplendent vigor shot up through my joints, pleasant enough to be compared to a drug, and tensed my bones with a series of wiring vibrations which caused my next breath to be caught in my throat.

My Run would be beginning early. I unclenched my fists and Released the energy I held.

My body shot forwards like a fanged reptile, a feeling which felt a cross between a spring uncoiling and a cold air shiver during a humid night. Despite my ever-increasing speed, the lack of ash and dirt being lifted into the sky was the surefire sign that my Aura had activated properly. I could feel the gazes of a few curious onlookers as I dashed through the village, but a quick glance was all I needed to confirm that the observers were all under the age of sixteen.

To the rest of the villagers, seeing curre was a common occurrence, and of all the Runners in Shadow's Pass, I was nowhere near the finest. My Release control was average at best, and I still performed the Aura as a subset of my conscious thought. And it wasn't as if magic were unique in the Valley, either—magic existed in the Upper North as well, but it was beautiful and extravagant. A sign that the Great Civilizations remained blessed by the gods and goddesses in Eyrie.

Here in Grim Valley, the few Auras allotted to us were twisted approximations of what came naturally above: special magic which only belonged to the Undercroft. Valley folk lacked any true notion of "Heaven", and so we were damned, regardless of deeds, to be cursed by their constituents and believers. This was the power that the gods granted humans as their birthright—a power which extended to condemning their fellow man, woman, and child.

In this fact alone, humans had control over the gods.

Curre had an opposing Aura called celeritas, and despite being two very separate Auras, they both fulfilled similar goals: increasing the speed of the caster. However, it was impossible to deny which was better. Curre only increased the caster's own running speed, and could only be used in the Valley. Meanwhile, celeritas could be used anywhere, and could apply to objects and individuals other than the caster. It was an Aura which more broadly affected "speed", and was only useable by those who still remained blessed by Eyrie.

As if curre weren't restrictive enough, as a resident of Shadow's Pass, it came with another downside: any caster who used curre could not speak until they tired out its duration, or they purposely ended its effects prematurely. Since an ordinary human could only cast so many Aura a day, a wasted curre was something completely out of the question in most situations.

Despite the danger which ash runs posed, a person using curre could not even scream.

This restriction, as you might surmise by it only affecting residents of Shadow's Pass, is not something natural to this world. Instead, it was one of the long laundry list of debts we in Shadow's Pass still paid large dividends for in return for the protection of a god. If it were not for that divine protection, Shadow's Pass would have been overrun by monsters at the moment of its conception, and the hundreds of refugees who were forcefully exiled from the Upper North would have been slaughtered.

Since no god or goddess in Eyrie would dare give a resident of the Valley even a passing glance, we residents of Shadow's Pass were forced to align our values with an Undercroft god: the God of Nightmares, Necrosis.

As a god, Necrosis was all-powerful, but compared to the gods, his strength was rather limited. While the concept of "nightmares" holds true for nearly every human on the planet, divinity was a give-and-take system of seraphic oppression, so while the God of Nightmares had infinite range over the targets of his blessings and curses, said sacristies were low in output. So long as he remained within the Valley, however, the negative energy would fuel his sacristies, and allow him to hold a vast number of followers that he could never hope to match as a god of Eyrie.

This was the only information that the Elders of Shadow's Pass had managed to procure over the two-hundred year lifespan of the village. And since all knowledge came from Necrosis himself, the contents were suspect to say the least—it was well understood by the despair-hardened villagers that Necrosis could easily be multitudes more powerful than his words let on, and as such, no one harbored any feelings of rebellion. There was no reason for an Undercroft god to tell the truth.

As I arrived at the seeding area just outside the red river, Nimia waved at me from across it. Her brown hair, tied back into a ponytail, swayed from side-to-side, as the act of her waving caused her entire body to tilt about ten degrees.

Nimia's energy was one often described as "infectious". Despite living in the literal and proverbial pits, she could often be seen smiling, spouting a joke, or generally goofing around. Most of the Runners who participated in ash runs had begun calling her "nee-san", contrary to the fact that many of them were her senior. As the youngest member of the ash runs, I was the only male who could refer to her as "nee-san" with any sort of legitimacy, but I had since decided that such a fate would never come to pass (not in a million years)—that phase had ended at the eve of my seventh birthday.

Nimia's lips parted to betray her awe-inspiring smile, which greatly complimented her youthful-yet-reliable features. "Hey, Arte! Still abusing your Auras as always, I see."

In order to respond, I cancelled curre and gave a nod.

On second thought, I could've nodded without cancelling curre...

Unlike the other villagers living in Shadow's Pass, my Auras were special. It was a result of my blessing, born on the 1st of Springrise and privy to the God of Nightmare's ninth arrival to the settlement. Since the god only ever visited Shadow's Pass every twenty years, I was a once-every-twenty-year miracle.

The blessing which I held was called the Boon of Necropolis. It was a simple blessing with a useful effect: while my physical body is present in a domain that the God of Nightmares calls his own, I am able to chain together Aura without tiring. In addition, my Releases gain power in direct correlation with my focus, allowing me to run slightly faster with curre then someone else could at my skill level.

Unfortunately, the Boon of Necropolis could not have gone to a worse recipient—compared to other residents of Shadow's Pass, my control over Aura was subpar, something completely up to genetics. The blessing, at most, allowed me to be equal to an average magic practitioner of my age without any such blessings, and that's it.

However, being to cast curre an infinite amount of times a day still made me an invaluable asset as a Runner, even if said curre was only mediocre at best. I could carry messages to-and-from the city, to-and-from Hunters, and collect grim for an indefinite amount of time, which meant resources wouldn't be wasted on me switching out with a partner.

Vehicles, Grim, and Mantles. These were the three necessities of daily life required for Shadow's Pass's continued existence.

The aforementioned vehicles were gathered at the red river by Movers. Mantles were a unique object—crystalized monster cores that had to be extracted in hunts by Hunters. Only five mantles a day were needed to keep the barrier up around Shadow's Pass, but it was tradition to gather six.

Finally, grim. Grim was an energy harvested from higher-tier monsters during ash runs—a type of monster that Hunters would not normally encounter. The miasma that exudes from the monster's skin are stored in special vials called listers, and required radial contact with the monster's emanation for an extended period of time.

This is where Runners come in.

Our job is simple: get the monster's attention, lead it on a chase for five minutes, then escape. Get out alive, and that's one full lister. Each Runner was expected to bring back three lister a day—with my blessing, I was expected to bring back nine, as I replaced the job of two Runners, who were instead recruited to the Hunters.

Over the two-hundred years that the Hunters hunted, the extra mantle they'd gather had eventually added up. Nowadays, we can afford to miss a few days of the Hunt for holidays and the like. The same was the case for Movers, who could store a limited amount of vehicles a day for use in dire straits. The only exception was the Runners—energy stored within listers expired upon nightfall if not used, so we worked every day.

On average, zero Movers would face death in a typical year. There existed some rare occurrences, such as in-fighting within the Moving crews or gang wars, but they were few-and-far between. One or two Hunters may die per year, but that was expected. The average rate was somewhere below one, but over zero. It was not uncommon to have a "safe year".

On average, eleven Runners die a year. The highest number recorded in the history of Shadow's Pass was twenty-three.

Nobody wants to be a Runner.

So every year, twenty were chosen to join the ranks, and twenty would leave. The selection process was determined by the Elders in their ever-elusive town council meetings. Anyone swapped from the Runners could rest assured that for the next three years, they would not be selected to join the Runners again.

There was only one exception. Prime Runners. Those who chose to join the Runners of their own volition. Currently in Shadow's Pass, there were three:

Myself, Nimia, and Gryff—our leader.

"Arte, you're late," Our bearded slave-driver remarked, approaching the disorderly group that Nimia and I had formed. Although his ginger scruff was no more stand-out than Clementine's hair in the Valley, it especially stood out in the seeding area. The ash and soot across the ground painted a monochrome picture of the world, so any sort of color was bound to attract glances. In Gryff's words though, it caught the attention of the monsters easier, so it was more of a boon for a Runner than a downside.

He was also a bit of a narcissist, so that likely played a role as well.

If there was any different between Gryff and Clementine, though, it was that the color of his hair had nothing to do with a blessing—Gryff's head of ginger hair (of lack thereof, since he was bald) was purely a result of genetics. His father (allegedly) was a member of the Proud Manes, and as such, Gryff held the right to the titles of viking. Not that titles meant anything in the Valley, but that didn't stop his drinking buddies from referring to him as "Viking Gryff".

In any case, my response to Gryff's comment was a practiced one.

"I was taking care of Clementine."

"Were you now? You can't keep using that same excuse every day, you know."

I shrugged.

In fairness, it was true about half the time I had used it.

Gryff sighed, turning back towards the carts, "We'll be collecting extra listers today—one each. I'm sure I don't have to remind any of you why?"

Nimia nodded, "The Hollow's Dawn."

Gryff smiled, "You got it, we'll be sending off one of our own to die at the hands of a malevolent prick. Be happy you're in the Runners—you can decide to die on your own terms."

With those words, Gryff returned to the group of officers which had begun to gather around the cart, and Nimia turned to face me.

"So? Will it be Clementine this year?"

I shrugged for the second time today. It was a gesture I had grown all to accustomed to performing, "No idea. The Elders have been secretive—I suspect we won't hear about who it'll be until the Ritual."

Nimia frowned, a little bit of her internal anger seeping into her eyes, "I despise when they do that. For the chosen, there's not even enough time to say goodbye."

I looked on to the Valley's forest beyond as I contemplated my answer, "True, but I think the anxiety of knowing I was chosen, and that there's nothing I can do, would edge me out in the end. I'd rather have it announced and be done with."

Nimia's frown replaces itself with a smile, "That's because you're a coward."

I nod, "Of course—being a coward is smart."

"So why are you a Runner?"

"Obviously so I can pay for college. I'm not planning to be stuck in the Valley forever, you know?"

"Oh? Did you get accepted?"

"With my grades? What do you think? They're bad enough that they'd be a bigger deal than my lack of an Eyrian Blessing."

Nimia giggled, "Pft, yeah I can see it now: 'The student Arte may be a member of the Valley, but let's please go onto more important matters, he got a negative score on his exam'."

"Negative score? You think too highly of me, Nimia—you can't be scored if you refuse to take the exam."

"If you don't take the exam, how are you planning to get into college?"

"With all the money I get from doing ash runs, duh."

"All zero Ener?"

"Plus interest. I don't mean the bank type of interest, of course—I just think that those doing college admittance would be intrigued at the thought that someone sixteen years of age could be broke, is all."

Nimia and I exchanged a glance, then burst out into laughter.

"You're so stupid."

"You're only marginally better."

"Shut up."

"Once the Run begins, you'll get your wish."

"Please, you can cancel curre whenever you want. I'm the one who has to be stuck listening to you with no way to retort."

"Touché."

"Oi," Gryff called from the front, fielded by the sound of the wagons kicking into high-gear, "you two, we're about to head out. Arte, get up here with the fielders. Nimia, prepare to tag-in with your partner."

"Aye aye," "Yes, sir!" Nimia and I responded simultaneously, with Nimia taking the more professional approach (although she still grinned like a miscreant as she did so, causing Gryff to roll his eyes).

When it came to Gryff, a simple "aye aye" was the best response, as it avoided any criticism or conversation. I valued my time more than most, and I didn't have seconds to spare in order to listen to a narcissist jack himself off.

"Ready, Arte?" Nimia smirked.

"If I wasn't ready, then what am I doing here?" I grumbled back.

Today would mark my fifteenth Run. Unfortunately, I was starting to get used to the energy of it all. Nimia was in a similar situation to me—she had been swapped in from the Hunters at the start of this year. When I signed-up as a Prime Runner, though, she had insisted that she join me.

We were a pair of weirdos.

When it came to people I cared for, though, Nimia was the only one who mattered to me.

"If you fall behind, Mister I-Can-Use-My-Aura-Whenever-I-Want, you're not going to live this down."

Caught-up in my own thoughts, I could only nod as we began our trek past the seeding area and into the forests beyond.

Let's hope today is uneventful, huh?

In that moment, I could swear I heard the Valley snicker at me in response.