Chapter 6 – Embers in the Hills
They left before sunrise.
The fields were still wet with dew, and mist clung to the low ground like a veil. Leah and Clara moved quickly, packs strapped tight and hoods drawn low. They slipped past barns and silent homes, keeping off the gravel road and following fence lines until they reached the trees.
No one stopped them.
But Leah felt it—the eyes watching from windows, the quiet that was more than silence. It was control.
Once they reached the edge of the forest, Clara finally spoke. “They let us go.”
Leah looked back. “Because we’re not worth the effort.”
Clara shook her head. “No. Because they think the rest of the world is already theirs.”
They followed the foothills southeast, winding into the edge of West Virginia, where the land steepened and the trees grew thicker. Here, roads curved like ribbons around old coal scars. Whole valleys had been hollowed out long ago—and now filled again with something worse.
Beast company towns.
The first one they passed was built around a chemical plant, its smokestack long dormant but its buildings still humming with low energy. Trucks—electric, silent—rolled in and out, carrying food crates marked with the same spiral glyph from the Amish farm.
“We’re in a supply corridor,” Leah whispered.
They avoided the main streets, cutting across riverbeds and climbing fences when they had to. Each town had the same design: concrete towers, fenced gardens, quiet people in gray, and a single bright building with mirrored windows and no name. Inside those mirrored buildings, Clara said, the Beast watched.
“They call them uplinks,” she told Leah as they camped under a highway bridge. “Fiber hubs. No one’s allowed near them, not even the workers.”
“But the Beast can’t see us,” Leah said.
“Not out here. Not in the analog.”
It took them five days to reach the Blue Ridge. The hills sharpened into ridges, and the sky cleared. They passed broken signs for Skyline Drive and pulled water from old mountain springs. As they climbed, Leah noticed more glyphs carved into stone—old ones. Not spirals. Symbols she recognized from Clara’s journal and the vault.
“We’re getting close,” she said.
Near the edge of an old overlook, Clara stopped suddenly and pointed. “There.”
A cluster of towers stood across a distant ridge—rusted but intact. Microwave dishes still clung to the sides, pointing east and west like stone sentinels. A small shack rested at the base, mostly hidden by brush.
“That’s a relay,” Clara said. “The old kind. No fiber. No grid.”
They reached it by nightfall, carefully stepping over broken steps and cracked pavement. Inside the shack, they found a door in the floor, sealed with a symbol—a circle split by a cross, etched in copper.
Leah traced it with her fingers.
“The Watchtower.”
They opened the hatch and descended into the dark. Lanterns flared to life along the corridor walls, powered by hand-cranked batteries. The air smelled of dry paper and soldered metal.
In the main chamber, they found it.
A shortwave station built from repurposed ham radio parts and analog meters. Shelves of scrolls and old maps. Seed packets. Photographs. Journals.
Clara moved slowly through the room, tears in her eyes.
“They were here,” she whispered. “Someone kept it alive.”
Leah stepped to the main console. The lights were dark—but the wires were intact.
She reached into her pack, pulled out a small solar cell, and connected it to the main junction. The lights blinked once, then held steady.
A low hum filled the room.
The console flared to life.
Lines of analog code began scrolling across the screen. A simple phrase pulsed at the top:
…The console flared to life.
Lines of analog code began scrolling across the screen. A simple phrase pulsed at the top:
NODE 1: CONNECTION AWAITS
Clara stood beside her, breath held.
“We found it,” Leah whispered.
“Not just found,” Clara replied. “We remembered it.”
Outside, the towers stood silent—but no longer dormant.
The Watchtower had awakened.
Later that night, Leah sat at the console with a pencil between her fingers, slowly tapping out Morse code on the rig’s manual key.
-.-. — -. -. . -.-. – / . … –..-. .-. .- –..– / .– . … – / … .. -.. .
Connect Ezra, west side.
She repeated the message every ten minutes, adjusting the pitch slightly with each attempt.
Hours passed.
Then—response.
.-.. . .- …. –..– / -. — -.. . / .–. .. -.—. / .-. — .- -. — -.- . / … – .- .-.
Leah, node ping. Roanoke Star.
Her hand trembled. “Ezra.”
She quickly keyed back:
… — .-.. .- .-. / .-.. — -.-. .- – .. — -. / .-.. — -.-. .- .-.. / -… .- … . / .-. . .- -.. -.– / – — / .-. .- -.– / .–. .. -.-. ….
Solar location, local base ready to ray pitch.
A long pause followed.
But they had said enough.
Far above, at an orbital junction where the last live satellites still bounced digital shadows through the world’s broken networks, a listening node of the Beast flickered to life.
It could not understand the layered code.
But it heard the rhythm.
And it remembered Leah’s name.
American Prophet 