What fell first was not snow, but ash.

  It came down without cold, a fine dead powder that filled the lungs and turned the north white. After that day, the world did not end at once. It began to fail, little by little.

  At night, lights were laid across the ground in narrow illuminated corridors. They marked the only paths left for evacuation and return.

  Do not cross beyond this point.

  Those going home will pass along the White Line.

  Then the swarms appeared.

  They had no single name at first. Their green-gray flesh bit through metal and ruined joints. Later, people began calling them things like Corpse Moths and Keytela. With every new name, another city vanished.

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  Humanity answered with machines.

  At first they were only work vehicles, built to clear rubble, bridge broken roads, and carry what remained. Armor was bolted onto them. Explosives were mounted. Legs replaced wheels. In time, they became giant humanoid weapons known as RFs.

  Their first mission was not conquest.

  It was to extend the White Line and become a wall for the refugees behind it.

  As long as the buried guidance lines still pulsed beneath the ash, the road endured.

  Those who stepped forward became shields. Even when the shields broke, the White Line was not to be cut.

  In a world that had gone on losing, it was the last thing people could still call a road home.