It’s been said that a princess stuck, trapped, and forever doomed to waste away in the recesses of a castle is supposed to be saved by a Prince Charming. A prince strong and bold in nature, a hero charismatic and alluring. The one who would hastily gallop straight into the heart of danger and save me from this unsightly and retched place. I’ve been told that story for years, or at least that’s what the inscription that follows the mural painted on my ceiling says. Every night, I lie awake, staring at the grand depiction; dreaming, hoping, vigorously wishing that I would awake the next morning found by this angelic hero. But alas, on this day next week, I shall be approaching my 30th birthday, and this great Prince Charming has been nowhere in sight. I think it’s time to make a change. I think it’s time I save myself. I’ve spent the better part of my young adult life and childhood surrounded by these ashen grey stones. I’ve never seen the world; I’ve never truly experienced life. Enough is enough! It is time to take my life into my own hands! And it starts with getting out of here!

Where to begin? I don’t even remember a time when I didn’t have to scavenge. Honestly, it’s just something I do to pass the time more than it is to survive. Tattered amber cloth, scrap motor parts too rusted to be useful, some old D batteries, and something that seems like what could’ve been a cellphone. I never understood how a device this small used to be the epicenter of communication when all the purpose they serve now is to show us how far we’ve fallen. I can at least get a few bolts for it and the D batteries if they still work. I better get out of here though, glancing at the cloth I just picked up. It was a deep yellow, that of a dandelion, detailed with a crude, dark red outline around the edges. These are the colors of the Skinflayer tribe, and if this was here, that means they’re near. I don’t want to be around when they arrive. Stuffing the newly found items into the rustic brown bag that lay by my side and strapped around my shoulder, I returned to the barren pathway worn down by the many travelers who’ve journeyed through this green grassland. This was prime scavenger terrain. This is where scavengers find the best parts. The parts that kept us alive. The Nomad Greenlands were a gold mine for the highest-priced finds in all of the Navalidin Captial. Well, only if you didn’t mind dodging the occasion Skinflayer patrol. This was their territory, after all, but when you don’t have enough bolts and screws for food, it seems like a necessary risk.