To be human is to transform. To produce. To discard what ceased to be useful: from shards of flint, broken pottery, and plastic bags to nuclear waste. The trash we leave behind marks the trail of our history, like signposts embedded forever into the Earth’s surface. The problem is that people tend to decompose much faster than trash.
Almost a century has passed since the Filth devoured the last organized human enclaves. Rising oceans have submerged most of the globe, and the unforgiving sun has charred the rest. Whatever remained, has been swallowed by the dunes of old megadumps in their vast, relentless march propelled by the dire winds. Rivers had flown with rust and acid, and the cities crumbled. But life, as always, does its own thing - it adapts: tames the toxins, unites with microplastic, and embraces the contamination as part of itself. The Earth is reborn in Unnature.
Few human communities, now bereft of civilization, struggle to find their place in this new world. As millennia of collective progress have rotted away, science has given way to myths and superstitions. And when the light of reason fades, old magic rises like smoke from a flickering campfire. In the shadows beyond, old fears take new shapes.
“Taste the water, taste the meal
What is empty we shall fill
Come, recharge, and take a break
Wait till sun comes to your wake”
Beware, ye who failed to reach the safety of the village ere the setting sun, for peril lurks in the night. If the long journey has wearied thy limbs and senses, then takeheed and smack thy face twice, and stuff thy ears with silicon, lest ye succumb to the sweet songs of the Rubble Maidens.
There they sit, fair maidens both sturdy and charming, before a wondrous hut made of brick and glass, the warm glow of electric light shining through the windows still intact. They beckon to weary travelers with promises of cool water to quench thy thirst, food to satisfy thy hunger, and batteries to replace those depleted along the way. Yet, only a fool would believe that such neat havens and people still exist. For those who enter this cursed lair shall not see the light of day again.
As the night falls, demons emerge among the ruins of buildings where the Old People once lived. They spread a poisonous haze around their dwelling - asbestos dust, some say - that stirs one's senses and makes the rubbles seem the most welcoming home, and the demons themselves - fair women with thick black hair and skin as grey as the sky. But come the morning light, they break down back into the debris they arose from, burying down the hapless soul who had spent the night in their company.
Whoever wants to pay a visit to the Rubble Maidens willingly, may be short on wit, but shall not forget to stock up on filters for the toxins. Keep close an unbroken trinket from the days of old, for it will strike a sensitive nerve and weaken the devils. The brawl with the angered brood of Rubble Maidens resembles a wild dance, for the constant need to evade the concrete boulders thrown by them. May you be nimble enough to keep up the pace and you will live to see them break down to dust, as with each hurl they lose a part of their foul body.
“Humpty Dumpty for Glasster went
Humpty Dumpty brought back just sand
All the chief’s horses and all the chief’s men
Made sure that Humpty won’t steal again.”
Among the creations of Unnature, few have no appetite for men or no desire for revenge. Glasster is an exception, yet it too brings woe upon people. A demon of small posture it is, much like a rooster, but bulkier and made of shattered glass, shimmering in the light of day like water seasoned with machine oil.
It is said by the elders that the most colorful of Glassters came from the great cities of yore - where silver towers of glass and temples with rainbow windows once stood,and where people who sought naught but self-gain, stocks, and rewards, gathered. Such is the nature of the demons that arose from the ashes of those places - they hunger for the possessions of others. If petty, yet shiny trinkets vanish from your dwelling, it is likely the act of a Glasster lurking nearby, plundering. It takes its loot to its nest and lays upon it like a hen on her eggs, to incubate. As sunlight passes through its glass body, it is intensified and focused under a single point below the demon's rump, where the gathered baubles melt and form into chicks.
Catching a Glasster is nigh impossible, for one who tries shall find himself with nasty cuts that hardly heal. It fiercely defends its nest to death. It is best to ambush the creature during acidic weather when the rain chimes loudly on the shards of its feathers and deafens it. Striking it with one precise blow, it shatters into pieces, which are highly valued as amulets for wealth. Even in death, the Glasster punishes the covetous ones who ransack its hoard but fail to return a fair amount of the stolen goods to their rightful owners. To their vex, the booty will turn into sand.
"How 'bout we build us a tower, chief? One that's mighty high, whoopin' tall! On top,
we could do us a rite, a funeral, but one that all the folk from the parish could see.
Maybe that way them cursed Filth Wraiths will finally leave us be?"
There be whispers of a time when the world was much bigger and snugger. But then it broke into scraps and pieces, and we, the measly leftovers of mankind, made our home on the waste. But as millions met their end, they were left to rot among the filth. And as all folks know, abandoning the body without a proper burial offends the spirits that once resided inside, for they find no peace. Over time, their wrath grew and tangled what was left of their mortal shells with trash and dirt. When fury boiled over, they came back as Filth Wraiths to haunt the land.
The Filth Wraiths come in many forms, yet they all share a fierce nature, a penchant for malevolent tricks, and a most wretched appearance: humanlike, but as gaunt as the dead, pocked and twisted, often crippled. Depending on how they met their end and where they fell, they possess different powers and manners.
Acid Wraiths dwell in rusty streams and oil-covered ponds. They lurk along the banks, waiting for unlucky folks to come to fill the village’s filtration tanks with water. When they draw near, the Wraiths emerge from the surface and spit on them the most foul liquid, which burns the skin and causes nasty dysentery. Rag Wraiths wander the trails in the guise of elderly women, carrying a bundle of rags on their stooped backs. If any foolish soul moved by reckless compassion approaches and offers to aid in its struggle, a wraith will strike them senseless and then rob them of all clothes. Those wearing more lavish wardrobes, it may strangle to death. The most feared, but luckily also the rarest, are the Fission Wraiths. Contaminated with the most deadly nuclear power, they make their victim’s innards rot with one touch. Catching a mere gaze of a Fission Wraith causes old wounds to reopen and refuse to heal again until one feeds on only blood and marrow for a month. They materialize out of thin air when the afternoon sun counts five minutes between uranium and plutonium. They bring death, then break in half and disappear. It is said, that to drive their corrupt breed from the land, one must seek out their remains and put them in a proper grave. Beware, for Wraiths won’t yield to the eternal rest willingly.
"Ma says that Casimir's gone, for he ne'er swept his nook in the chamber. And so,
the Trashsire came and took him away to the Old Filths for good!"
What our forefathers did save from the savage dirt or what we ourselves have taken from the Unnature and purified, is ours to keep. But once one departs the safe premises of a village and wanders off the trail, one shall find oneself in the estate of an entirely different emperor. His are the rivers of lead, wastelands of foil, and those hills grinning their rusty teeth to the sky, and everything that's beyond. Every creature dwelling in those lands is under his command and protection. Trashsire is his name and legends say he was the first to arise from the Old Filth that had devoured the earth and spit it out defiled.
This mighty demon is akin to a human in posture but tall as three men, slender, and made of all different kinds of trash. His long talons are cast of steel or something even stronger, and his mechanical arms may crush a skull with ease. They say his foul heart pumps pure uranium. The Trashsire wields the power of every filthy element - be it toxic chemicals, the invisible atom, or rubbish of each composition equally. But his worst trait is having a mind as we have, and therefore being prone to whims and grudges.
Hunters say he visits their hideouts and turns the water in tanks into acid. He messes with travelers, tangling the paths they follow and leading them off to the wilderness, where he sets his beasts on them, sometimes to their peril. Others claim they have met the Trashsire on the road, where he appeared in the form of an old man, towering yet pale and scabby, but did them no harm. No one ever faced the Trashsire in battle, and wisely so, for it would be like fighting with the Unnature itself. For our blessing, he keeps his distance from human settlements, surely too neat for his tastes - where the filth is lacking, the Trashsire’s vitality seems to fade. It is only known he visited the parish when the ground in the fields breeds plastics.
