To the Shore-Aubrey Auert

October 18, 885

	I don’t recognize myself anymore. This is my first time getting a glimpse of my reflection in months. “Husk” is a word one could use to describe me. A ghoul, even. Just a shell of my old self, and the dust covered mirror doesn’t do me any favors. My skin and eyes are greyer than usual. My black and purple hair reaches the bottom of my back. It was time for a haircut. Pulling back my matted hair let me see how thin my neck was, and how bony my shoulders were.
I used to be chubby by necromancer standards, but now I can see each of my bones. The castle has been my cage since it rained fire, so I’ve been living off of rat roaches and non perishables from The Hall. I don’t know how long it’s been but the food shelves were meant to last maybe a couple months for everyone who lived in the castle. But it’s just me, alone. I reckon it’s been a few years since the dragons came, since my city was scorched and infested with ghouls. Pretty sure I’m the last living resident of my country, but I wouldn’t know for sure, and I don’t want to find out.
I’ve only had a few encounters with ghouls before, but they were all here in my home. I know this palace like the back of my hand. Every room, every secret tunnel, I had to know this. I was The Protector of the Soul Taker, Vaelaar. His official title was Sikiri, and I had to know everything about everything if I wanted to serve him and the royal family. He died in the Fire, just like everyone else. I don’t know if I could ever face a ghoul outside in the remnants of my city. I have Vaelaar’s staff but I could never use it as efficiently as he did. The Sikiris used the staff to take souls and power our city with them. It doesn’t really have much of a use now, does it?
It only took a few minutes to give myself a messy pixie cut. Appearance doesn’t really matter anymore, so I didn’t put much effort into making it even. After sweeping my hair from the counter onto the floor, I began to head back to the Hall to take inventory. Black mold grows all over the walls. It made me sad being unable to see the intricate designs so many artists and architects included in the palace. So many details are lost forever, just because of some war. I try not to touch any of it because I’m already so weak from borderline starvation, a cold would probably end me. The mold was thick and slimy. I assume it probably traveled with the ghouls that made it inside because it stank almost as much as they did. There wasn’t really a good place to put the bodies and I was definitely not going to risk going outside to dump them, so I just hid them in a chamber I knew I would never go in. “Out of sight, out of mind,” right? Wrong. The rotten blight grew under the chamber door and covered a whole side of the castle. I don’t go over there anymore, but it doesn’t really matter. There was so much, even if there was none on my skin, there was probably some in my lungs.
I made it to The Hall and began to count through the jars, although that didn’t take me much time. In the beginning, I would count out loud. There were so many jars and cans and magically preserved goods, full of anything from hobbleglobs to raaqs. Counting out loud just made it easier. I would talk about everything out loud. I guess it was my way to cope, but I’ve come to accept that I probably won’t ever talk to another soul again. The ghouls don’t count, they don’t have souls, trust me. 

Full of dread, I picked up the last jar of flower cat petals. 
Ten, I thought. Ten jars. Ten days. 
I will have to leave soon.


October 28, 885
	
	The ten days went by slowly. For a moment, I thought it’d be better to starve to death than to face whatever’s out there, but I still have some dignity left. I’m not that much of a coward. 
	After eating the last petal from the last jar, I began my preparations. Staff, goggles, scarf, and an empty bag. I never went anywhere without my staff, and I definitely wasn’t going to leave the castle unarmed. I was oblivious to the outside world, I had boarded up the windows two days after the dragons came. The last thing I remember is fire and grey skies. The goggles were for my safety too. With a city full of ghouls and ash, I don’t want to risk anything getting in my eyes or lungs, which is what the scarf is for. I don’t have anything to put in the bag, but I’m going out to look for stuff, so I need to bring something to carry it in, right? 

	The whole night was spent rustling around my bed. I was anxious and afraid, but a small part of me was excited. I haven’t seen any real action since I fought in the war. The past few years have been boring, to put it lightly. I know I’m going to be on edge the whole time I’m out there without cover, and I know there’s a good chance I’ll die… but isn’t that part of the fun? 


October 29, 885

	I don’t know if I’m going to be able to return, or if I even want to, so I took one last walk around the castle. There was beauty and detail in every nook and cranny. The purple paint has chipped and dulled, but I think it adds character. This place has been my safe haven for years, even before the war. How could I not see the beauty in it? Not only did I make friends here, but I found a family. My memories of them are fond, but now when I think of them, I only think about how they died.
	They would be disappointed in me. I know I’m just pitying myself, but no one’s here to see it, so does it really matter?
	For the first time in a while, I actually spoke to myself out loud, probably to soothe the insane load of fear and anxiety I was carrying on my shoulders.
	“What the hell was I thinking?” I grunted as I pushed the dozens of shelves out of my way so I could get through to the gate. Finally, the last shelf was moved out of the way, and I saw it. The only thing standing between me and a city of ghouls was a single door. It was surprisingly in good shape, just a little dusty. I took deep breaths as I pulled my scarf up and my goggles down. I’m not ready for this, but I don’t think I ever would be. 
	
	The gate creaked open, and I squinted my eyes, not wanting to be swarmed by ghouls or blinded by the sunlight that I haven’t seen in years. But there was no sun, and there were no ghouls. The skies were still grey, but the land was dark and desolate. Remnants of structures stuck out of the ground, as if trying to remind me of what was. A rotten stench filled my nostrils. 
	“Ugh!” I whined. Hopefully, I’ll get used to the smell.
Now on high alert, my eyes darted all over the place, trying to spot any movement. Once I was sure I was alone, I stepped down the many steps and made it from the gate to the ashy ground. The earth below me was soft. I’d hoped to see some sort of vegetation, but there was nothing. I chose to explore. Who knows what could be out here? Maybe there are some preserved foods but if I want to safely look for supplies, I need to know what I’m dealing with. Are there even any more ghouls? Come to think of it, the last time I encountered one had to be a few months ago. I always thought they snuck in from outside, but I’m not seeing any out here. Am I really alone?
The question was answered the moment I thought it. My head whipped around as soon as I heard a wet groan from behind me. So there are ghouls out here. Are they hiding? Cautiously walking towards the light groaning noises, my hands begin to sweat and my grip on the staff slips. I drop it. 
“Rarghhhh!” The ghoul sounds angry. Or maybe it’s hungry? I wipe my hands and pick up my staff, one side of it is covered in ash but it makes it easier to hold. The growling grows louder as I inch closer and closer to it. Now I know where it’s coming from. I’m walking into the remnants of the rich folks’ bazaar. The ghoul must be hiding behind one of the walls sticking out of the ground.
I lunge forward and see the ghoul. It’s trapped between a wall and a big boulder. It’s reaching for me, but I don’t even flinch. It can’t get to me. I wonder what it would do if it did get me. Not wanting to find out, I stick the bottom of my staff into its head. It’s usually unnecessary to use magic to kill them as they go out pretty easily. Black goop stretches from its head to my staff as I yank it out of its skull. I stare at the body for a moment. This used to be someone. It used to have a soul. He used to have a soul. 
But he doesn’t anymore, does he? I think to myself, shifting my gaze to the end of my staff. I’ll wipe the “blood” off later. I don’t know what to call it. Maybe it’s the ghoul equivalent of blood? Who cares?
I climb up the debris of a collapsed building not far from the ghoul I just killed. I figured I could get a good idea of where to look for stuff with a bird’s eye view. There’s not much black mold on the part that I’m climbing on, but I’m seeing more the higher I go. Finally, I see the top. The pile of broken stone and clay is probably about 60 feet high. The sky has become a darker shade of grey. I can’t see the moon or any stars, but it’s probably evening. A couple stones fall as I stand up straight on top of the hill of stone I just conquered. First, I look behind me. I have to admit, I’m kind of proud of how far I’ve come. I really did think I’d die, like, 5 minutes after going through the gate, but I’m still here. After reveling in my pride, I turn forward and my heart drops. 
Apparently, ghouls travel in hordes. Whole. Damn. Hordes. And there was a horde of at least a couple hundred below me. The single ghoul I killed must have strayed from the pack. This horde was traveling south east, which is where I planned to go, but I guess I’m not anymore. My hands trembled as I tried to unfreeze my body. I haven’t seen this many ghouls in my life, let alone in one spot. They’re just walking. Their eyes are lost and they’re just following the ones in front of them. 
Can they see me? Sweat drips down my nose. Can they hear me? Smell me? I’m on the verge of panicking. But I don’t. Instead, hoping they can’t detect me, I turn around and head back down the rubble. Of course, I slip.
After plunging and tumbling, I crash right onto my left wrist. “Aah!” I cry. My hand is limp and I’m feeling a pain in my wrist worse than any pain I’ve ever felt before, meaning it must be bad considering I used to be The Protector of the Sikiri. Tears roll down my cheeks and pool up in my goggles. Regardless, I keep them equipped. 
“Mmmph!” I grunt as I fail at getting up. I shouted pretty much the whole fall so I had no doubt there were some ghouls coming after me. I don’t know what to do, my thoughts are all scrambled. Wrist! Ghouls! Wrist! Staff! Stars, the pain! How am I supposed to survive when my dominant hand is broken? Gahhhh! The… I… Ah! My-
Stop! Shut up, and think! Ghouls are coming. My good wrist is useless. I can’t go south east and I can’t go back to the castle. Where is my staff?
My eyes dart around, looking for the Sikiri’s staff. The ferrule landed perfectly into the ground just a couple feet away from me. I slowly get up, being careful to avoid putting pressure on my wrist. My feet drag as I reach my staff. It feels odd in my right hand, but I’ll get used to it. The groaning of the horde gets louder. They did hear me, and now they’re coming for me. I high tail it.


October 30, 885

	I spent the rest of the night running. The ghouls are fast, but I’m faster. At least, I was faster until the fatigue and hunger began to kick in. I ran for hours, not getting a second of sleep. Now, it’s time to rest. I’m too on edge to sleep, but too tired to keep walking. I chose the nicest building I could, and in my whole journey here, this was the only one that was even slightly intact. Suddenly, my stomach rumbled for about a minute. Food! How could I expect to not eat for a day, run for 8 hours and be fine? 
Groaning, I reluctantly stand and search for food. Yeah, a blanched, desolate, wasteland. What a perfect place to look for food. It’s a long shot, but I have a better chance of finding stuff by looking than by sitting around and feeling sorry for myself. The morning was peaceful and quiet. I would have taken a deep breath of fresh morning air if it wasn’t for the soot and ash that covered literally everything. 
The pain of my stomach almost overpowered the pain in my wrist. Almost. My fingers were turning black, and my wrist had a bruise the diameter of an orange. I’ve started to tune the pain out, usually by distracting myself with dumb questions like, “What will I do once I get out of here?” or, “Is there anything left of Mancom?”
The silence was overwhelming, but I didn’t really care as I was way too deep in my own thoughts. That is, until I heard a scuffle. My head shot around and I froze in my tracks. Praying it’s a rat roach, I tiptoe towards where I heard the noise. I’m drooling at this point, and my hunger leads me to be impatient. I trip and land on my wrist again! 
“Holy f-!” My face planting into the dirt keeps the profanities from leaving my head. “Arghhh,” I growl as I roll over. 
“Son of a-” This time, it wasn’t falling on my face that stopped my words, but the sight of a little boy.

Both of us were frozen. He didn’t wear a mask or goggles, but he was a mimic so there was a good chance he just shapeshifted the parts necessary to be resistant against whatever’s in the air. His light brown hair just barely met his narrow shoulders. He was pale and skinny, but he was here, right in front of me. I was in awe. I was overcome with confusion and happiness. Until the kid started to hit me.
He was relentless with his hits, but quiet, probably not wanting to attract ghouls. 
“Hey! Hey, stop it!” I grabbed his arms and pulled him off of me, forcing both of us to stand. Wincing, I tossed him to the ground and gently grabbed my broken wrist. “What the hell is wrong with you? Damn!”
Finally, he spoke, “You’re alive?” His voice was soft and shaky. 
“Boy, do I look like a ghoul to you?”
He lightly shakes his head. 
I sigh, “Don’t move,” I scowl at him as I walk over to pick up my staff.
“You’re a necromancer?”
I nod. As far as I know, it’s just him and me in this wasteland. I’ve got nothing to lose so there’s not really a point in lying. 
“How old are you?” I ask.
He ignores my inquiry, “That staff is pristine! Where’d you get it?”
“Hey, I’m asking the questions here,” I crouch so our eyes are at the same level. His irises are a dark blue, the scleras a pale turquoise. He is definitely a mimic. “How old are you?” I ask one more time. 
“12. You know, I got a community. We could use a necromancer like you,” he smirks, “but if you want to join our safe haven, I gotta get to know you. So, you should let me ask the questions.”
I raise my eyebrows, “Yeah, no.” 

“Let’s play a game then. We’ll take turns asking questions.” 

I stare at him blankly before giving him a response, “Fine. How many of you are there?”

“‘Bout 50. I get two questions now.”

“But-”

“I’ve answered two questions, now I get to ask two questions.” 

I roll my eyes and gesture for him to continue.
“How many of you are there?” He uses a snarky tone.

“It’s just me.”

“Where have you been the last few years?”

“In the castle-”

“The castle?” He interrupts me. “You’ve lived in the castle on your own for five years?”
“Hey, it’s my turn. And I-” realization hits me. “Did you say five years?” He nods and I stare at him in shock. I’ve wasted five whole years of my life cowering. I shake my head. “You don’t have any necromancers in your community?”
“No,” his expression darkens, “they all died in the Fire.” 
He didn’t ask a question right away, I think he was giving me time to process. For a 12 year old, he’s not too emotionally unaware. 
“Hey,” he began, “you don’t seem so bad. How ‘bout we ask questions on the way home, huh?”
“Home?” I stand up.
“Yeah,” he hesitantly stands up with me, and I let him, “your wrist has seen better days, no?” 
“It has.”

“We don’t have any mantids or anything like that back home, but we’ve got some herbalists who could take a look.”

Home. I thought. I could have a real home that wasn’t just some isolated stone ruin. 
He holds out his hand, “My name is Aasir.”
“I’m Saren,” I grab his hand and shake it.


November 1, 885

	Aasir has taught me a lot the past two days. Apparently, rat roaches camouflage perfectly in the ash, and they love to tuck themselves into cracks and crevices. I’ve had my fill of them, but the less hungry I get, the more disgusting they are. He says we should reach his home by nightfall. I don’t know when exactly nightfall is, but he seems to know everything about our new world, so I trust him to tell me when it’s time to sleep. In turn for the food and knowledge he’s given me, I protect him from the ghouls we’ve encountered. I’m able to take on three at a time, but I bet I could do better if my wrist wasn’t broken. Speaking of, I’ve learned that I can use my staff to prevent necrosis, it’s nothing compared to a mantid’s healing powers, but it’s something. 
	He gave me a whole timeline of the war between the dragons and mages. I knew everything about the first four years of the war, but nothing about the last. There had already been high tension between the two most powerful magical groups of Alymadia. The mages wanted all the magic to themselves, they didn’t want to have to share it with dragons. So, in 876, they killed King Fedoga’s baby boy, starting a whole damn war. Fedoga, the king of the taragons and dragons, retaliated, obviously. Crone’s biarchy of necromancers and mimics ruled peacefully and neutrally until the mages spoke to the vampires, and the vampires spoke to my queen, Astra. In 878, Queen Astra was convinced to join the war. I personally advised against it, but she didn’t listen to me. 
	“Your job is to protect Vaelaar,” she told me, “not to advise.”
	I accepted it. She was going to lead all of Crone into a war we have no business being in. She would have grown to regret it, but she died in the Fire like everyone else. This is where things get blurry for me. In 880, the dragons came. They scorched all of Mancom, killing all of the mimics and necromancers. They left the vampires as a “show of mercy.” 
	Every species on Alymadia has a stone that grants an all powerful ability to the user. The Ravestite stone belongs to us, the necromancers. Stones are known to have a mind of their own. Ours summons ghosts. The stars decide if someone died too early and has unfinished business, the Ravestite stone brings them back. It has been this way since the beginning of time. The stone needs the presence of necromancers to function properly, we all carry some of it in our blood. Now, with only one necromancer left in the world, it doesn’t know what to do with itself. It’s tried to summon the ghosts of necromancers and mimics, but with no one there to keep it in check, it’s gone wild. That’s where ghouls come from. Mangled ghosts with nothing to do and nothing to eat. Aasir says a bite or a scratch from one of them will cause your skin to decay, and your organs to shut down. Victims usually die, but if you last long enough, your brain will rot too, you’ll go insane and you’ll just be one of them.
	He says the dragons stopped coming to check on them in 884. That’s when he thinks the war ended. It’s been about a year since then, according to his calendar.
	I didn’t just learn more about the war and the ghouls, I learned more about him. Aasir’s parents died the year the necromancers joined the mages, when he was 5. His neighbors took care of him and when the dragons came. They let him in their huge bunker along with 97 other mimics. Since then, about half of them have been eaten by the ghouls, been bitten by them, or gotten sick and died from the mold. I guess it was smart for me to wear the scarf over my face. I learned little things too. His favorite color is purple. His favorite food is hobbleglob, but they’re too fatty for me. He doesn’t like the shape of his nose, and the only reason he doesn’t shapeshift it into the way he likes is because it takes too much energy and he needs to spend that on keeping his lungs in shape for the mold spores. One day, he said I didn’t need the goggles. So I took them off for five minutes but the dust and ash in the air irritated me too much.
He made a splint for my wrist and he was so proud of it. I don’t have the heart to tell him that my magic was what’s making it feel better, not the splint. I kept it on though, it’s not like I’m going to be able to do anything with that hand anyway.

“We’re close,” he does a little skip. His face lights up every time he gets the chance to talk about his home. He makes it out to be this huge village with shops and farms, but then he says there’s only 50 people so I don’t know what to believe. He talks a lot. Normally, It’d bother me, but this is the first person I’ve talked to in years, so I actually enjoy the non stop blabbing.
I was a little nervous about meeting the mimics in his home. The Sikiri was never popular among the common folk. That’s what the Protector was for. The souls used to power Mancom were taken from common born citizens. It was for a greater cause. Crone was known as the most technologically advanced continent in all of Alymadia, and it was all thanks to the necromancers. Our greatness never could have been without the souls. As the Protector, I was also not so loved by the people. I know it doesn’t matter any more, but part of me worries that once Aasir’s people realize who I used to be, they might kick me out.
	Finally, we reach a wall. He told me about it but it’s a lot smaller than he described. He has to go through it every time he goes out for supplies.
“You said it was huge.”

“It is,” he holds his arms up as far as they can go, “just look at it!”

“In case you need a reminder, Aasir, you’re, like, 4 feet tall. Everything is huge for you,” I pat him on the back and begin to climb the wall.
“Wait! You gotta check for ghouls on the other side. They like to travel along here,” he says as he peeks his head through a hole in the wall. 
I roll my eyes and continue climbing until he lets out a little gasp, making me freeze.
I whisper, “Are they there?”
He looks at me with worried eyes and nods. I hop down and crouch next to him.
“What do we do?” I grab his shoulders.
“I- I don’t know, Saren.”
	My heart was already racing, but it felt like it was going to pop out of my chest when I heard the growls behind me. The horde was splitting in two, and one of the groups was walking on our side of the wall. Behind me, there were at least a couple dozen of them and they just kept coming. Aasir was trembling in my arms. I grab his hand and lead him behind a boulder. We sit there for a moment and he whimpers as I put my finger up to my lips. The ghouls walk past us and Aasir’s grip on me tightens. The ghouls are dumb, and their vision isn’t great, so as long as we didn’t move or make a sound, they wouldn’t notice us.
	I thought we could just wait them out, but I was wrong. Aasir’s scream rang in my ears as he was grabbed by a ghoul and it was trying to bite him. All the other ghouls in the area were now turned on us. The rotten biter was now on top of Aasir, and he was about to over power him. I didn’t know what to do. My fear was taking over. Run! I should run. Run! But I didn’t. I saw Aasir struggling to keep the ghoul’s mouth from reaching his skin and my old habits returned. 
I lunged at the ghoul, pushing it off Aasir and getting on top of it. I will not run. Black goop splashes out of the ghoul’s head as I stick the ferrule of my staff into it. I turn to Aasir to see he’s about to get swarmed by a dozen more. I run to him and protectively push him behind me. Ignoring the pain in my wrist, I grab the staff with both hands and raise it above my head. I am not a coward! The ghouls come closer. I am The Protector! A glowing sphere appears in my staff as I shout my incantation.

“Ai devak ne’ar!” 

I plunge the staff into the ground and a dome of glowing, purple energy shoots out from the staff. It grows to stretch over 50 feet, decimating every ghoul that touches it. After the hex was over, I fell to my knees. This was the biggest spell I’ve casted since I’ve attained the staff, and it exhausted me. The magic didn’t get rid of all of them. More were heading this way, and I did not have enough energy to conjure up another death dome. 
“We have to go!” Aasir grabs me from behind, trying to pick me up, “We’re so close. We can make it if we run!”
Groaning, I grab my staff, using Aasir as a support to lift me off the ground. He leads me up and over the wall and we manage to avoid every ghoul that heads our way. On the horizon, I see a building almost completely intact. That’s where we’re heading. 
The smoky skies grow completely dark as he leads me inside the well kept building. He lets me sit on a couch, the first thing I’ve touched in days that wasn’t covered in ash. This house was clean. This is obviously someone’s home, but there’s no one in sight. There’s a vintage feel to this place, like old people used to live here. Aasir pulls back a rustic rug to reveal a trap door. He knocks on it five times in a “shave and a haircut” pattern. A couple minutes later, it opens from the inside. Aasir grabs me and leads me in. The ladder goes down a long way, and I’m so exhausted, I almost fall a few times.
We make it to the bottom and I feel like I’m about to pass out. The climb was very hard on my wrist. We must be in the bunker of Aasir’s neighbors. It’s huge. The whole thing is lit up by fireflies that glow a bright yellow, and all of the mimics are just staring at me. I don’t know what to do or say. This is the most people I’ve seen in years. The only thing breaking the silence is murmurs and whispers among the crowd. Finally, a pair of footsteps interrupts them, and an elderly woman emerges from the group.
She is short and pale with long, white hair. She walks slowly and with caution. Her gaze moves from Aasir to me. He bows his head and so do I. I don’t know what kind of customs they have here, and I want to be as respectful as I can. She looks at my staff and then back at me. 
“You can remove your facial protection. The air down here is clean,” she inches closer to me, inspecting carefully as I remove my goggles and pull down my scarf. I hear a little noise come from Aasir and it occurs to me that this is the first time he’s seeing my whole face. The elderly woman brings her hand up to my ears. Mimics have round ears, necromancers do not. That’s what I assumed she was checking for. She gasps once she touches the tip of my pointed ear.
She turns to Aasir, “You found one?”
“Yes,” he looks too proud of himself, “Her name is Saren.”
She looks back at me and grabs my hands. I wince as her grip on my left hand tightens a little, but I don’t pull it back. Her gaze shifts to my wrist and her grasp loosens, knowing I was in pain.
“My name is Kanna,” she smiles, “you have no idea how happy I am to see you.”
“Uh, you too?” I awkwardly return the smile.
“You must be a powerful necromancer to have a staff like this,” she brushes her fingers along the shaft.
Aasir blurts before I can get the chance to reply, “She is! She blasted a whole crowd of ghouls and killed them all. She used to be The Protector.”
Kanna’s smile drops and she turns to me with a hardened expression. She takes a step back, “The Protector… of the Sikiri?”
I hesitate before nodding. The crowd returns to their murmuring as Kanna and I stare at each other. Some of the mimics were so outraged, they shouted insults at me. 
“She’s killed our friends, she’ll never help us!” 
As hard as it was to hear those words, I didn’t break eye contact with Kanna. This is their bunker, they could kick me out at any moment, I didn’t want to seem weak. After a long while, she takes a deep breath and turns to the crowd, silencing them. 
Addressing the entire bunker, she speaks in a stern voice, “Our city is long gone. There are no more kings or queens, and there are no more sikiris. Whatever sins any of us might have committed before the Fire should be forgotten,” she glances at me, “There is no longer a sikiri to protect. Now, you protect us. Refuse, and we can send you back out with the ghouls.”
Too tired to argue, I simply nod.
Kanna leads me to my new room. Aasir went off to reunite with the others. The walk to my room was a little tense. I could tell no one here liked me, but Kanna’s word seems to be final. She didn’t like me either, but I wasn’t going to ask why she wanted me here. Being surrounded by people that hate me is better than being surrounded by things that want to eat me. 
Once we reach my room, she opens the door for me and gives me the basic rules of the bunker. Don’t leave without permission. Don’t steal. Follow the security protocol. Generally, just be a decent person. She put me next to Aasir’s room since he seems to be the only one that’s okay with my company.
She turns to me before leaving me alone, “You should get some rest. I will come get you in the morning.”
She shuts the door and I’m left by myself. For the first time in five years, I’m surrounded by people, yet I still feel alone.


November 2, 885

	I woke up early, but decided to stay in my room to wait for Kanna to come get me. I was up for about an hour before she knocked on my door. After taking me to the cafeteria for some breakfast, she gave me a tour of her bunker.
	The bunker used to belong to her and her husband, but he died a couple years ago from a bite. She’s raised her son, Jano, to lead the bunker after she dies. Although, she’s done a good job herself. They’ve got a whole farm under here, along with a school and little play shops for the little ones. Most of the residents spend their free time in the cafeteria, they send scouts of all ages out to scavenge for supplies or survivors. So far, I’m the best they’ve found.
	Kanna takes me to what she calls the Council room. The council consists of Kanna, Jano, and a girl a bit younger than me, named Reis. She’s here to give Kanna and Jano insight on the others. Kanna sits at the head of the table, Jano and Reis sit across from each other. Jano is hunched over like an old man, but I assume he’s my age so his garbage posture is probably just because he doesn’t care enough to sit up straight. Reis on the other hand sits up straight as a board, and hasn’t taken her eyes off of me since I entered the room. Kanna tells me to sit at the other end of the table, and I do. 
	“How old are you?” she asks.
	“I was 23 when the dragons came, so I guess that would make me 28 now.”
“Hm, and how is your wrist?” she asks in a softer voice, as if she’s spent the night giving thought to my previous status as The Protector.
	“It’s been better.”
	Jano rolls his eyes.
	“I have a deal for you,” she leans into the table, “You promise to uphold your end of it, and I can get your wrist feeling better in just a couple weeks.”
	Intrigued, I give her a curious nod.
	“We cannot live here forever. Soon, we’ll be having babies and infants,” she shoots a glance at Reis, “Mancom is gone. Our, once glorious, island has been reduced to ashes. I want to get my people to the mainland. To Crone. And by people, I mean the 50 other people in this bunker, including you. If you accept the deal, that is.”
	I tilt my head, “And if I don’t?”
	“It’s like I said yesterday,” she smiles, “‘Refuse, and I’ll send you back out with the ghouls.’ My quest for you will not be easy. But by declining, you’re ensuring the death of yourself, and of us.”
	“What do you want me to do?” Get to the point.
	Reis chimes in, “To get off the island, we need to get through the sea. It’s not like we could make a bridge, and we don’t have the stuff to make boats either,” she stares at me, waiting for a response, but I still don’t understand what they want me to do.
	“What can I do that’ll help you guys get over the sea?” I ask.
	“You’re a necromancer,” she looks deep into my eyes, “the last necromancer. Surely, you know the power that the Ravestite stone grants to your kind.”
	My face drops as I realize now what they want me to do, “The ability to completely reconstruct matter. You want me to go all the way to the arena, take the stone, and use it to make you some boats? All while fighting ghouls? You must be joking!”
	These people expect me to die for them? 
	Kanna speaks up, “You are the only chance any of us have. Yes, you might die, but if you don’t even try, then we all die anyway. Please-”
	“Ma, forget it!” Jano interrupts her, “We should send her back out just like we planned to last night.”
	Kanna shoots him a dirty look. They speak to each other through their eyes, giving me a glimpse of their strong connection. She then shifts her gaze towards me and gives me a nod, wanting a reply.
	Deep down, I know what’s right. Getting the stone would make up for all the deaths I’ve caused. It would make up for my five years of hiding. Plus, it’d guarantee me a steady amount of food until I met my end. Of course, I was also thinking about Aasir. He’s too young for all this. I’ve only known him for a couple days but he was the first person I’ve talked to in years. He gave me a chance, and I can’t let him down.
	“I’ll do it,” I say as I stand up, “but if I’m going to risk my life for these people, I want to be able to walk through the halls without getting a nasty look,” I glare at Jano.
	Kanna smiles, and I know it’s genuine because this meeting has taught me that she cares about her people more than anything.

	I ate dinner with Aasir. He doesn’t have too many friends, and clearly, neither do I. He already knew what they were going to ask me to do, but he didn’t want to scare me off. There was literally nowhere else I could go, so I don’t know where he expected me to run off to. 
	“When are we going?” he demolishes the plate of rice and broccoli in front of him.
	“When my wrist is better. Kanna says that should be in a week or two,” I’d already finished my dinner, now I’m just waiting for him. Kanna is sending me to the Arena with Reis and Aasir.
The Arena is where the greatest tournaments were held. It’s where the first Sikiri took her first soul. Legends say that during a tourney, the first Sikiri used her staff to destroy her opponent, but her magic was so strong, she extracted his soul and the ground of Mancom absorbed it. The affected earth glowed purple and everyone watching felt rejuvenated. During the war with the dragons, the stone was kept there to be protected and guarded. It’s about a hundred miles away from where we are now, if I had to guess, so it should take about a week to get there and a week to come back. Not too bad.


After dropping Aasir off at his room and wishing him a good night, I walk into my own room and lay down on my bed. Today was absolutely exhausting, and all I did was talk to a few people. I almost drifted off to sleep before remembering the incantation that Argan, the herbalist, told me to practice every night. He was very skilled and did his research, so I trust him. The tea he gave me earlier was working wonders, I didn’t feel a thing in my wrist.

“Helara an kei.”

I whisper the incantation a few times before falling asleep.


November 9, 885

	We’ve spent the last week preparing for our journey. It shouldn’t take that long, but it will be treacherous. Kanna is in a rush to get the stone and leave this miserable island, can’t say I blame her. I’d be in a rush too, except my wrist isn’t completely healed. I’ve tried to tell her that I’m physically not ready to go out yet, but she’s convinced I’ll be fine. I’ve also pointed out that Reis has been puking a lot lately, but Kanna insisted on sending her with me. Amazingly, Aasir, the twelve year old child, is the only one out of the three of us in perfect shape. We spent a lot of time together, so we could learn to trust one another and work well together. Today, I ate breakfast with both of them. Reis and I were able to speak one on one while Aasir left to use the bathroom.
	“Have you ever gone out to scavenge? Like Aasir does?” I ask, wanting to gauge her experience.
	“I used to, a few years ago,” she looks down.
	“Why’d you stop?”
Before she could respond, Aasir returned and our conversation was cut short.
Having Reis by my side has gotten a lot more of the mimics to trust me, and I’ve gone about two days without getting stares. Although Jano still enjoys giving me sour looks. He doesn’t really like me, and I don’t really care. I’m more worried about his mom’s opinion of me, and I think she’s still on the fence. Getting this stone is my chance to prove myself to her. It’s my chance to prove myself to everyone.
Kanna spent time talking to us individually and privately. First, she spoke to Aasir, telling him that he needs to think before he acts. Then, she spoke to Reis, but Reis wouldn’t tell me what they talked about. Finally, she called me into her room. 
“You leave tomorrow morning. Are you ready?” she asks.
“Aside from this?” I hold up my wrist, “Yeah, I’m ready.”
Her tone shifts, “Saren.”
I fix my posture as she speaks in a stern voice, “I am putting everything I have into you. You are our only chance,” she grabs my hand, “If you have to choose between the other two or yourself, choose yourself.”
“What?” I back up.
“All that matters is that you return with the stone. Reis and Aasir are only there to assist you.”
	“Aasir is just a kid. I’m not going to let him die out there,” I storm out of her room. 
How could she ask me to choose myself over her own people? 
	Waiting outside her door was Aasir.
	“What’d she say to you?” He smiles.
	I stare at him for a moment before putting my hand on his shoulder, “She told me to keep you safe,” I return his smile.
	
	We packed our bags that night. I thought about telling Aasir what Kanna told me, but I didn’t want to scare him, and I didn’t want him to think I would actually do that. But then I thought, Would I actually do that? I didn’t want to think about it, so I went to bed right after packing.


November 10, 885

	Aasir and Reis say their goodbyes to everyone while I stand awkwardly by the exit. Finally, they finish up and begin to climb up the ladder. Before I can follow them, Kanna pulls me aside. 
	“Our survival is in your hands,” she glances at Aasir as he ascends, “Remember what I said to you last night. Do not let us down.”
	I nod and turn to follow Aasir. We climb for about a minute or two before reaching the trap door. Reis grunts as she nudges the door open. She waits for a moment, making sure there’s nothing on the outside, then she opens the door all the way and climbs out. We follow her. She makes her way to a window and pulls the curtains back just far enough for her to get a glimpse. She shakes her head.
“It’s snowing,” she pulls a map out of her bag and rolls it out on the table, “the Arena is North from here,” she continues with her fingers on the map, “The snow will only get worse the further we go.”
“How much will that slow us down?” I ask.
	“Not too much, hopefully. We should make it to the Arena in a week, maybe a couple days more with the weather,” she sighs.
	Aasir chimes in, “Will our food last us that long?”
	“We have three weeks worth,” she rests her hand on her stomach, “it’ll be tight, but I think we can do it.”
	She returns the map to her bag and I look out the window.
	I turn back to them, “I don’t see any ghouls, let’s go.”

	I think the last time I saw snow must have been a decade ago. It’s not the same. The snow now is grey and not the kind you want to play with. Once it began to pile up on the ground, it turned into more of a slushy. My boots were soaked and my feet were freezing, but I didn’t complain. Aasir was very alert, more than usual. I think our last encounter with the ghouls spooked him a little. He did almost get bitten, I’d be spooked too. We walked silently for a few hours.
After those few hours, Aasir was starting to feel better about being out here. He started talking and acting like his normal self. He spoke about the dragons. Not how they destroyed our home, or how they killed everyone we ever loved, but how cool they looked. That’s what he wanted to talk about, so I tried to let him.
“My favorite is Zora’unthu, the Golden Shadow!” he does a little skip, “Isn’t he the largest dragon that ever lived?” he asks Reis, but she doesn’t respond, so I do.
“That’s what they say, but he’s also one of the dragons that caused all of this,” I gesture to the wasteland around us.

“Yeah, but he didn’t decide to do that. It was his rider.”
	
“Some say that dragons are smarter than people. I bet he knew what he was doing.”

	“Whatever,” he shrugs, “which one’s your favorite?” 
	
	“I don’t have one.”

“C’mon, just pick one.”

I sigh, “Um, I guess the Wisp was pretty cool?”

“Oh yeah, I forgot about that one! She was cool.”

Reis was silent the whole time except for a few chuckles here and there. After a few more hours of walking and talking, the skies began to darken. Reis wanted to rest but I argued that we should keep going to make up for the time the snow would take from us. Aasir pointed out that we’re out in the open, there isn’t even any rubble to hide behind. 
“We could be swamped by a horde at any moment,” he exclaims.
“We’ll take turns keeping watch,” she yawns, “and we can walk more tomorrow night.”
	“Fine,” I reluctantly agree, “but you’re taking first watch.”
	“Fine,” she responds.

	
November 11, 885

I was woken up in the middle of the night by Aasir.
	“It’s your turn,” he whispers.
	I rub my eyes and sit up, gesturing for him to go back to sleep. We decided to split the watches into thirds. Reis stayed up in the beginning of the night, Aasir in the middle, and I watched until morning.
	Thirty minutes into my shift, I hear Reis's voice. 
	“I woke up an hour ago,” she turns to me, “and I can’t go back to sleep.”
	I didn’t want to talk to anyone right now. I am not a morning person and can’t make proper conversation this early. “Try harder,” I respond.
	It was hard to see in the dark, but I’m pretty sure she rolled her eyes. After a couple minutes, she sits up and stares at me. I stare right back at her. Her long blonde hair is soaked from the snow, so she tied it up, keeping the cold, wet strands from touching her skin. The fire’s light drowns out her orange eyes, but it reflects nicely over her almond skin. After getting tired of looking at her, my gaze shifts back to Aasir.
	“Do you really care about him?” she asks.

	I glance at her, “Of course I do.”

	“You’ve only known him for like, two weeks.”

	“That’s longer than I’ve known you or any of your people, and look at what I’m doing for them.”

	The rest of the morning was silent until I decided to wake Aasir up. I thought he’d gotten enough sleep at this point. But mostly, I woke him up because he was having a nightmare. Reis and I agreed not to tell him that he mumbles in his sleep.
	The snow was worse today, so we walked even longer than we did the day before to make up for it. We had to take a couple of breaks in the morning because Reis kept puking. Watching her almost made me puke, but I didn’t. Thank the Stars.
	I shook my head, “I told Kanna you were sick, she insisted on sending you along,” I pull my water bottle out, “Do you want some?”
	“No, thanks. I have my own,” she wipes the puke off her lips and I grimace in disgust.

	Later that day, we encountered a small group of ghouls. There weren’t enough to call it a horde, but we were still hiding behind a boulder. Reis told me to use my magic, but Aasir explained to her that it exhausts me.
	“The stone will help with the exhaustion,” she whispers, “It’ll improve your magic. You know, make it easier to cast more advanced spells. It’s supposed to go in your staff.”
	I stare at the space between the two prongs of my staff. Vaelaar kept the stone there before the war started. 
	“We can either go around them,” she continues, “or fight them.”
	“Going around them might slow us down,” Aasir says.
	“Fighting them might kill us,” I respond.
	“They might see us if we go around,” Reis turns to me, “can you actually fight or does your staff do all the work for you?”
	I roll my eyes and peek over the rock. I speak without turning my head, “There’s six. I think we can take them.” After giving them some time to think, I turn to Aasir, “Can you do this?”
He gives me a stern nod and I smile. 
	We split up. I walk in front of the ghouls and shout at them, praying that there aren’t any others in the vicinity. All six of the ghouls turn to me and begin to head in my direction. My heart is pounding. They don’t take more than a few steps before Reis and Aasir come up behind them and stab two of them in the back of the head with their daggers. I run up and bash my staff into one of their faces, quickly swinging around and stabbing the prongs into another. A ghoul runs up behind me but Reis pushes it away and stabs it in the head. I turn to see Aasir backing away from a ghoul much taller than him. 
	“Aasir!” I shout as I run in his direction. 
The ghoul doesn’t even turn its head. Aasir trips backwards on a small rock and the ghoul crouches on top of him. Running as fast as I can, I know I won’t make it in time. Without a second thought, I aim my staff at the ghoul and blast it. The ghoul explodes and Aasir is covered in black goop.
“Yuck!” He tries to wipe it off but to no avail.
Ignoring my fatigue, I run up to him and try to help him clean.
“Are you okay?” I ask, “Are you bit?”
He smiles, “I’m okay, really.”


November 17, 885

	It’s been a week since we left the bunker and we’ve barely made it halfway to the Arena. Two days ago, we found a sturdy building and made the mistake of spending the night in it without keeping watch, as all three of us were exhausted. We got snowed in and haven’t made any progress since then. The snow is starting to melt but now there’s the concern of food. It’ll take us another two weeks at best to get to the Arena and back. Any longer and we’ll have to start hunting rat roaches.
	The three of us grunt as we push the door open. The snow is keeping it shut but we should be able to open it with enough force. I’m able to push with all I have, now that my wrist is healed. Although I still feel a little pain in it occasionally.
	“Are you even trying?” Reis asks me.
	“Yes!” I shout, “You know, I’m real tired of you accusing me of not pulling my weight! Why don’t you shapeshift some big muscles and help us out here, huh?”
	We both stop pushing at this point and she furrows her brows.
“You want big muscles?” she asks, “I’ll show you big muscles!”
	She grunts and her arms grow to be the size of her body, with biceps the size of her torso.
	“Guys,” Aasir’s voice is drowned out by the built up frustration I have against Reis.
	I grab my staff and wield it in a combative stance. I would never really use it to harm her, but she wanted to put on a show, so that’s what we’re doing.
	“Guys, stop!” Aasir gets in between us, “Reis, you know those muscles are just for show.”
	Reis rolls her eyes and her arms return to their normal size.
	“C’mon,” he continues, “this trip should bring us together, not apart.”
	He’s got a big fat grin on his face, but Reis and I are not amused. I sigh and use my staff to blast a hole in the door. I’ve spent the last few days practicing my magic. The more I use it, the less exhausted I get.
	“That helpful enough for you?” I ask Reis.
	She scoffs, “Yeah, thanks.”

	What’s her problem? There’s been tension between Reis and me ever since we left the bunker. It’s like every little thing I do is not up to her standards. It really gets on my nerves. She walks through the hole first, then Aasir, then me. He’s been acting as a buffer for us. He told us we should try to talk it out. We did try, and we got nowhere. 
	

November 18, 885

We walked for a full 24 hours before deciding to rest. Reis was anxious about the food, but Aasir assured her we’d be fine. He’s great at hunting rat roaches. 

	Even though the three of us were exhausted, we couldn’t fall asleep. We sat in silence by the fire, just taking in each others’ presence. 
	Eventually, Aasir spoke up, “What was it like? Being all alone for so long?”
	Reis usually tunes out of our conversations, but she looked willing to listen this time. I had to think before answering. I hadn’t really talked much about the years in the castle. Infact, I’d barely thought about it since meeting Aasir.
	“It was dark,” I began, “All the time, it was so dark. I couldn’t upkeep the whole place myself, so it just fell apart over the years. I guess I did too. It was hard. Having to walk through halls that used to have hundreds walking through it every day. It was scary, thinking about how I’d inevitably run out of food. I felt like a coward, not knowing what was out here, and not wanting to know. But mostly, the worst was not knowing if I’d ever talk to someone or even just see someone ever again,” I wince at the memories, “At some point, I thought I was going crazy. I would see things moving in the corner of my eye, I would hear the voices of people I used to love before I went to sleep. I thought, if starvation didn’t kill me, I’d do it myself. I-” I paused for a moment, realizing that I was about to open up to these two in a way I’ve never opened up before.
	I take a deep breath, “I did try. To do it myself, I mean. In case you didn’t notice, it didn’t work out,” I chuckle, but they don’t find it as amusing.
	“I’m sorry,” Reis speaks in a soft voice.

	For that moment, it felt like the barrier between Reis and I was disappearing. She couldn’t see my eyes with the goggles on, but I looked deep into hers, and I saw things I’d never seen before. Not that I was ever willing to look into her eyes long enough to catch a glimpse of her. But I’m willing now.
	

November 24, 885
	
	Things have gotten easier for Reis and me since that night by the fire. We’re able to have a conversation that doesn’t involve a snarky comment or awkward silence, and it’s nice. She’s actually kind of cool once you get to know her. She’s a good fighter and she has a passion for poetry. It makes me cringe but I don’t want to ruin what we have, so I let her recite all of it to me.

	The Arena is in almost perfect shape. With some mold growing here and there, and a couple stones missing from the walls, it’s still as beautiful as ever. We made it here a couple hours ago, but Aasir got a peek and saw that it was filled to the brim with ghouls. Makes sense, the stones like to protect themselves from getting in the wrong hands. Except, the Ravestite stone being in no hands is the same as being in the wrong ones.
	Here’s our plan; I’ll use the staff to blast through the gate of the Arena, and I’ll use my magic for as long as I can while Aasir and Reis watch my back. Finally, since Aasir is the fastest out of the three of us, he’ll run up the stage and snatch the stone from its pedestal, all while Reis and I keep the path clear so we don’t get trapped in the middle of a thousand ghouls.
	I am not okay with this plan, but majority rules.

We arrive at the gate. It’s cracked open just enough for us to see the ghouls right on the other side, but they’re too dumb to see us. I tell the other two to step back as I aim the prongs of my staff at the gate. 

“Synterri vohasaar!”

My staff emits a humming noise and a purple glow so bright, I have to close my eyes and turn away. A few ghouls hear the noise and come through the gate, but before they can find out we’re here, they get blasted. With a whoosh and a boom, every ghoul within 40 feet of my blast gets obliterated. The gate is absolutely destroyed and I almost tear up at the thought that I ruined something so integral to my home’s history. 
Out of breath, I rush in with the other two. The spell took a lot out of me, but we’re able to make it halfway to the pedestal, so I think it’s worth it. Ghouls come at us from every direction and I begin to shake. They’re dumb, and weak on their own. But when they’re in numbers? Whoof.
I stay close to Aasir. I want to grab his hand and get him out of here, but I don’t. He’s only a kid, but I know he’s capable of making his own decisions. So far though, I’m not sure if he’s capable of protecting himself. 
We take out a couple ghouls the old fashioned way; with melees. I need a few minutes to recharge, and Reis is pretty good with her blade. Aasir observes every ghoul before he decides to attack it. He steers clear of the tall ones, as he can’t reach their necks, so he wouldn’t be able to kill them. Despite that, he takes out quite a few of the shorter ones. Once I’m feeling better, I get ready to cast another spell. I get as close to the ghouls as I can, wanting to take out as many as possible. Too close for comfort, in my opinion. I decide to recite the very first spell I casted to take out a group of ghouls.

“Ai devak ne’ar!” 

Just like the first time, a bright purple dome extends from the prongs of my staff 50 feet out, turning the ghouls into dust. The clearing reveals the pedestal in plain sight. It’s pristine. The marble of the pedestal has not one single scratch in it. There’s no dust or dirt or mold. It’s exactly how I remember it. I tell Aasir to run, I got rid of enough ghouls for him to retrieve the stone and return to us. He sprints past us and we fight the ghouls, wanting to keep a safe clearing for Aasir to pass back through with the stone. 
Reis gets surrounded by ghouls. I don’t have enough energy to cast another spell so I run to her and fight them by hand. I pull a ghoul off of her and she stabs it. We nod at each other before returning to the battle.
In the distance, I hear Aasir, “I got it!” 
I turn to see him jogging down the steps of the stage holding the black and purple stone above his head. Before he makes it off the last step, a ghoul tackles him and he drops the stone a couple feet away from him. Without hesitation, I head for Aasir, Reis heads for the stone. 
A dozen more ghouls come for Aasir and panic rushes through me, but I don’t let it control me. I yank a ghoul away from him but the momentum causes me to fall and drop my staff. The ghoul lands on top of me. Thick, black goop oozes from its mouth and onto my goggles as it tries to sink it’s teeth into my skin. More and more ghouls come for me and they fill my field of vision. I whimper and grimace as I try to keep them from biting me. The spells took a lot of my strength and I find myself struggling to hold them back. The ghoul right on top of me is too strong. My arms give out and he clamps his teeth right onto my neck. I let out a blood curdling scream as tears leave my eyes. Then I realize, I felt no pain in my neck. The scarf! The ghoul’s teeth couldn’t get through my damn scarf! Hot diggity damn! I feel enough relief to chuckle a little, but then I remember the situation I’m currently in. Not a good time to be smiling.
In the corner of my eye, I can see Reis with the stone in her hand. She’s running for me and I shout for her, trying to let her know I’m still alive. She stabs all the ghouls on top of me, drenching me in their blood. 
She grabs my arm, helping me up, “Let’s go! Grab your staff and make a run for it!”
I retrieve my staff but realize I don’t see Aasir. I grab her shoulder to keep her from leaving, “Aasir! Where is he?” 
Her eyes dart towards a pile of drooling ghouls just quick enough to tell me where he is without a single word. My eyes widen and my brows furrow. She chose me over him? She was going to leave him? Ignoring my disgust, I run over to the pile of ghouls where Aasir is fighting for his life. Please be alive. Please be alive. I prayed to the stars that he wasn’t scratched or bitten or eaten. There were too many to fight by hand, so using the last of my energy, I aim my staff at the hill of ghouls.

“Synterri devak!”

	The mountain of ghouls goes up in violet flames. The flame I casted is special, it won’t harm Aasir, just the dead ones. Unable to breathe, I collapse. My eyesight is blurry and I’m so dizzy, but I keep my grip on the staff. My entire body begins to cramp up. Pain shoots through me and I wince as Reis tries to drag me away. I see Aasir climb out of the flaming pile of ghouls. My hearing is muffled but I know he’s calling out for me. He runs over and helps Reis carry me out. My vision blurs even more, eventually turning dark. I pass out in the Arena.


November 25, 885

	I had a dream. I wasn’t wearing my scarf in the Arena. The ghoul did bite me. I felt it tear the flesh from my neck as my blood sprayed out onto the ground. 
	I sat up and let out a scream as I came back to the real world. I pant, trying to catch my breath. Then I see Reis and rage starts bubbling up inside me. Ignoring my soreness and exhaustion, I stand up and pin her to the side of a boulder.
	“You were going to let him die?” I spit in her face.
	My arm presses on her neck, but she manages to get her words out, “Kanna told me,” she wheezes, “if it came between you or the kid, choose you.”
	I understand why she would tell her that, but it makes me even angrier, so I press even harder.
	“Saren, stop!” Aasir shouts.
	I keep my arm on her neck, but remove the pressure, giving her time to breathe. She was going to let him die. She was going to let a child die. We could have saved him together, but she insisted on leaving. He- he would have died! Of course I’m upset! Letting my anger get the best of me, I pull back my right arm to punch her.
	Before I can make contact with her face, she yelps, “I’m pregnant!” I freeze, and in the corner of my eye, I can see Aasir’s jaw on the floor. She repeats herself with a whimper, “I’m pregnant,” tears well in her eyes. 

	“You’re pregnant?”

	“Yes.”

	“How long have you been pregnant?”
	
	“About two months now.”

	“Does Kanna know?”

	“Yes.”

	“Kanna sent you out here, knowing you were pregnant?”

	“Yes.”

	Sighing, I let her go. She brings her hand to her throat.
	“I want my baby to live in a world where it doesn’t need to worry about things wanting to eat it. I was always going to choose that chance over anything,” she looks me deep in the eyes and all of my anger towards her dissipates. Shaking my head, I turn and walk to Aasir, giving him a hug. 
	“Are you okay?” I hold his face in my hands.
	“I’m okay. Are you?” he gives me a sympathetic smile.
	I nod. After a pause, Reis calls for me.
	“Saren, the stone,” she reaches into her pocket and pulls it out. Then, she offers it to me. I grab the stone and grab my staff, putting the two together. First, I take a moment to admire the necromancer’s rock. A closer look reveals the black part was just grey crystal with flecks of black sprinkled throughout, and the purple was bright violet specks condensed in one place. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life. Gently, I placed the stone in the space between the prongs. When I let go, it simply hovered. No matter how I moved the staff, it would always stay right in the center -occasionally spinning or bobbing- unless I pulled it out. I could feel the stone’s power surging through me already. My exhaustion disappeared. 
	My focus shifted on the staff. Just by looking at it, I could feel every groove in its surface. When I looked at Reis or Aasir, I could feel every strand of hair, every eyelash, every pore in their skin. Woah. It was overwhelming, until I realized, I could change it if I really wanted to. My staff didn’t have to be wood, it could be metal. Of course, I would never make such a huge change to such an ancient artifact, but I totally could if I wanted to. And it was all because of the stone. I could feel my heart skip a beat. I had two of the most powerful artifacts in my possession. These were the same items the sikiris used to take souls and power our kingdom, and I was going to use them to make some boats. Impressive. I thought sarcastically.

	I forgave Reis for choosing to save me over Aasir, and we continued on our journey home.


December 9, 885

	It’s been two weeks since we found the stone. We ran out of packed food a week ago. I offered every rat roach I could to Reis because of the baby, but she refused every single one.
	“The damn thing’s gonna come out skinny, anyway,” she’d say. That always gave Aasir a chuckle.
	
	We make it back to Kanna’s house and Aasir knocks on the trap door just like he did the first time I saw it. 
	“I hope they don’t think we’re dead,” he snickers.
	After a few minutes of waiting silently, the door creaks open and Reis climbs down first. We make it down to the bunker, and only Jano is seen waiting for us.
	“Do you have the stone?” he asks.
	“Yes,” I look around, “Where is Kanna?”
	“Let me see it,” he takes a step toward us.
	I show him the stone in my staff, and ask once again, “Where’s Kanna?”
	He lets out a sigh of relief upon seeing the rock, then he finally responds, “She’s in bed. She’s been in bed for the past week. It seems her old age has finally caught up to her.”
	Reis approaches him and grabs his hand. They whisper to each other, but I can’t hear what they’re saying. After giving him a hug, she turns to us, “Come, she wants to see the stone before she goes.”
	“Goes?” Aasir asks, “You think she’s gonna…?”
	Reis sighs, “Just come.”
	We make it to Kanna’s room. She’s lying peacefully with her eyes closed, and Argan is sitting next to her with her wrist in his hand. I assume he’s monitoring her pulse.
	Jano approaches her and speaks in a gentle tone, one I’ve never heard from him before, “Ma, Reis and Saren are here to see you.”
	Kanna’s eyes flutter open and she stares at me for a moment. At first, I was angry at her for telling both Reis and me to sacrifice Aasir if need be, but now that I’m seeing her like this, I only feel sorry for her. 
	After some thought and hesitation, I walk closer to her and show her the stone.
	“It’s beautiful,” she says. 
She grabs my left hand and holds it tight, I ignore the slight stinging pain in my wrist. I look into her eyes. I don’t need to hear her voice to know the gratitude she feels for me. She trusts me now. I’m one of hers now.


December 30, 885

	We have the stone, and everyone is stacked up on supplies and goods, yet we haven’t left the bunker. It’s Kanna. She wouldn't be able to travel 800 miles to the coast, but it doesn’t matter anyway because everyone knows she doesn’t have much longer left. So we’re just waiting. 
	After Kanna passes, there’ll be exactly 50 of us. I don’t think all of us will make it to the coast, but I haven’t expressed those concerns to anyone, not wanting to destroy the first glimpse of hope these people have had in years.
	I used the last three weeks to practice with the stone. I could turn a rock into wood. Or a coin into cloth. If I wanted to, I could turn a person into a hobbleglob, but that’d be too cruel. Anyway, I still need to work my way up to bigger things. Even turning a book into a plate was a bit tiring for me, so I’m not sure how I was supposed to make enough boats for all of us to cross the sea. Aasir went ahead and got me some bottles of ash to see what I could do with them. I could turn the ash into bite sized pieces of food. Which was incredibly useful, except that expending my energy on that made me incredibly tired and hungry. So, a win-lose situation?
Aasir and I spent today the same way we spent the past nine days; prepping each other and all the other mimics for the journey. We’ve implemented a buddy system in case the group gets split up at all. Aasir is my buddy. Reis's buddy is Jano, which I found odd at first, until I realized, He’s totally the baby daddy. 

	After sending Aasir to bed that night, Jano came to my room. He walked me to his mother’s bed and she sent him away, wanting to speak to me alone.
	“You are leaving tomorrow,” she whispers.

	“What?” She’s implying that she’s going to die tonight.

	“Yes, tomorrow,” A tear rolls down her cheek, “I won’t get to meet my grandchild.”
	I open my mouth to speak but think better of it.
	“My dream,” she continues, “is for the baby to be born on Crone. I want it to be raised by both parents. I want it to-” she starts coughing before she can finish.
	I grab her hand and look into her eyes. I understand.
	“Protect Reis,” she closes her eyes, “When the baby comes, protect it too.”

	I stayed up late that night. I couldn’t go to sleep, I just had this nagging feeling for hours that something bad was going to happen.


December 31, 885

	Kanna died this morning. 
	Jano was furious about the fact that I was the last person who spoke to her before it happened. He didn’t make a show of it though. He’s in charge now, he can’t let his feelings get the best of him.

	I was the first to leave the bunker. After checking that the outside was clear, the other forty nine mimics followed. Aasir grabbed my hand as the last of the mimics climbed out of the bunker. We stared out of a window, watching the grey snow gently land on the ground.
	“Do you really think we can do it?” he asks, looking up at me.

	“We have to.”

	Reis and Jano brief everyone on how it’s all going to work. Best circumstances, we make it to the coast in 2 months. But these aren’t the best circumstances, are they? There are fifty of us, ranging from all ages and sizes, some ill, some pregnant. It’ll probably be snowing for two more months. We’ll have to deal with ghouls and rough terrain. We’ll only get more exhausted the further we go. My hope flickers the more I think about it, so I just don’t think about it. Instead, I try to adopt Aasir’s mindset. We can do it. We will do it.

	Reis has started to show. She’s three months along and incredibly skinny, so her belly has become very obvious. Despite the nonstop food offers everyone has given her, Reis refuses to be pampered, and I respect her for that, I guess.
	We begin our trek. 

	The younger ones -by younger, I mean under twenty- complained nonstop for the first 5 hours, but eventually they found that whining exhausted them almost as much as walking did. We didn’t make it that far today. The gentle snow quickly became an unforgiving blizzard. We tried to stay as close as we could to each other, but there were many times when the snow blocked our vision so badly, I could only see Aasir’s hand in mine.
	We lost two.
I don’t mean “lost” as in lost sight of, I mean “lost” as in they died. Their buddies were assigned to each other. I wish I could say that was that, but it wasn’t. As expected, that really put a damper in everyone’s mood. Aasir was quiet that night by the fires. I know he was happy to finally be leaving, but I think he was only now realizing the risks that this journey came with. I could see the other mimics second guessing Jano and me. He was seen as their ruler leading them into death. I guess I was second in command by default of the stone, and they would never be out here if not for my arrival at the bunker.


January 16, 886

	Despite the nonstop snow, the population of Mancom has remained at 48 for the past two weeks or so. People were still grieving, but hope began to sink back in as we woke up to a blizzard free morning. We were heading south, to the coast, so hopefully, the snow should lighten up the further we go. Winter is supposed to be over soon, but who even knows at this point?
	It was hard to travel on foot with this many people. Constant complaints and questions, I was almost starting to prefer the company of my castle’s echoes over these guys. Aasir and Reis were the only things keeping me sane.
	The relationship between Reis and Jano was odd. My last conversation with Kanna confirmed that Jano was the father of Reis's baby, but they didn’t act like a couple. The most physical touch I’ve seen them have is a hug after Kanna died. They hold hands when the wind is strong, but that’s it. They don’t sleep together, they barely talk to each other. I don’t think they know I know this, but they argue at night, usually about the baby or about our people. Reis blew me off when I asked about her and Jano, so I dropped it. I didn’t want to talk to Jano about anything, let alone something about his personal life, so I didn’t even try with him.
	Ignoring the drama between them, I would spend a lot of my walking time practicing with the stone. Matter reconstruction is a power not many can say they’ve possessed. But I can. I’ve got to admit, having this stone and its power in my hands gave me a bit of an ego boost. It took everything I had not to boast about it to the other mimics when they shapeshifted in front of me. Yeah, you can change your body into any imaginable shape, but can you change the dirt of the ground beneath you into gold? No? Yeah, I didn’t think so. Of course, the amount of gold I have doesn’t matter right now. It’s not like I have anything to spend it on.
	We’d been lucky enough to have exactly zero sightings of ghouls the past few weeks. But I knew our luck would run out soon, and it did. The pair of scouts we sent out had returned with news of a ginormous horde just a mile ahead of us, heading in our direction.
	“Can we go around them?” Jano asks.
	Loraine, the young mimic, shakes her head, “It’s huge, Jano. The largest horde we’ve ever seen. We’ll have to go through it.”
	“No, hold on,” Reis suggests a different approach, “hordes don’t stop moving. If there was someplace we could hide until they passed over us, we could wait them out. Did you see anything?”
	Loraine shrugs. 
	I speak up, “The crypts! Reis, pull the map out.”
	She unravels the map from her bag and I’m thankful the snow decided to stop today so I could actually see what she was holding up.
	“We’re about a hundred miles from the bunker, right?” I ask.
	She nods. The bunker was marked, so all I had to do was use the scale and travel a hundred miles south with my finger.
	“There were crypts planted throughout Mancom in clusters. People use them to bury the bodies of those whose souls were taken for the city,” I grimace, “They’re underground, so the dragon fire shouldn’t have destroyed too much of it. If this map and my knowledge of the city are correct, then we should be heading right for a cluster. For all we know, we could be standing right on top of one. If we could find a crypt, we could wait the horde out there. We just have to get to it before the ghouls do.”
	Reis thinks about it but Jano speaks first, “You can’t just make us some big cobblestone building with that rock of yours?”
	I roll my eyes, “I can’t do that yet.”
	Reis turns to Jano and shrugs, “It’s worth a shot.”
	It only took thirty minutes for one of the mimics to spot an opening to a crypt. We sent the pair of scouts in to check for ghouls before sending the rest down. We only get about half of them into the crypt before the horde comes into sight. We couldn’t see them through the fog, so they were a lot closer than they should’ve been.
	“They’re here,” I hear Reis mutter under her breath.
	To our surprise, they came from the side as well, attacking the mimics left outside. I was on my way to help them but one of the mimics got bit. I froze, only seeing the image of that ghoul in the Arena. I see the empty sockets where its eyes once used to reside. I see its rotten black teeth sinking into my skin. Before I could return to reality on my own, I was tackled by a ghoul. I drop my staff and wrestle with it. Tears pool in my goggles as I try to redirect my focus on the real world. The ghoul in front of me is so close to sinking its mouth into my skin, but all I can think about is the one at the Arena. At some point, I can’t tell which one is real and which one is the memory. Before I can meet my end, Aasir comes to my rescue.
After stabbing the ghoul in the head, he helps me up and hands me my staff. He saved me this time. Then I remember, he almost died that day too. Even with all these reminders of that day, he’s still present. I take a moment to catch my breath and tighten the grip on my staff. I see 4 other mimics being eaten by ghouls as the rest defend themselves. 
“The crypt!” I shout, “Get inside!” 
A few of them make it in, but the others are too busy keeping the ghouls off them. I see Reis struggling to fight off a couple ghouls. Jano tries to help her but they’re out of sync and he fails to protect her. I watch as a ghoul aims its mouth for her throat. I reach for her, but I’m too far. I call for her, but I’m too quiet. I scream as I feel the magic of the stone course through my body and out of my hands. The ghoul that was once about to get a mouthful of Reis's neck was reduced to smoke. 
“Get her inside!” I shout at Jano. 
He grabs her and leads her into the crypt. 
I turn to Aasir, “Go inside.”

“But I’m your partner!” 

“Go inside!” I shout at him. 
He hesitates before following my order. 
I tremble as I head for the other mimics. Erasing the ghoul from existence had tired me, but I couldn’t just leave them out here. I used my staff to make a death dome and lead them into the crypt.
After shutting the crypt, I leaned against a wall, trying to catch my breath. I left my scarf on, I didn’t know what mold could be hiding in the crevices of this rotten basement.
Aasir stared at me from afar. He didn’t ask if I was okay like he normally did, but I could tell he was concerned by the look in his eyes. Before I could even decide to approach him, Jano ran up to me and pinned me against the wall. My exhausted body couldn’t fight back, and I released the grip on my staff.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” he spat, “Five mimics died out there because of you! Because you, what? Froze up? Got scared?”
Ignoring his digs at me, I pant, “Stars, I’m so sick of your pretentious face. You’re supposed to be leading these people but Reis and I have made all the decisions out here. I’m the reason Reis and your unborn baby aren’t dead right now. So how ‘bout some gratitude, huh?”
He rolls his eyes and lets me go before going back to Reis. They talk too quietly for anyone to hear. 
I shift my gaze to Aasir. He’s leaning against a wall looking down. I’ll talk to him tomorrow. I just want to go to sleep.


January 17, 886

	That morning, I cracked open the entrance to the crypt to catch a peek of the ghouls. They were still there. I sighed knowing this was going to slow us down. I thought, since we were stuck here, I might as well talk to Aasir now.

	“Hey,” I sit next to him.

	“Hi.”

	I turn to him, “How’re you doing?”
	He shrugs.
	“Um,” I continue, “sorry for snapping at you yesterday,” he’s silent, so I try to explain myself, “You know, it’s just with all the ghouls and Reis almost getting bit, I… I was just scared,” I take off my goggles to look him in the eyes.
	He nods, “I was scared too. But we’re supposed to be partners,” he looks up at me, “We’re not supposed to leave each other behind.”
	I smile, “Is that why you’re upset?”
	“Yes,” he responds, “I haven’t seen you that scared before, and I guess that kinda scared me.”
	“Oh, Aasir,” I chuckle, “I’m always scared. There hasn’t been a moment since I left the castle when I wasn’t terrified or anxious.”

	“But you’re so brave.”

	“I spent five years in hiding. That’s not brave.”

	“But you’ve fought all those ghouls-”

	“Yeah, for you. But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t scared.”

	We’re quiet for a moment before he continues, “I’ve been scared lately. We’ve lost seven people. Who’s to say we won’t lose the rest of them before we make it to the other side?”
	“I’ll say it,” I stand up straight to face him, “People are bound to be hurt or die on this journey. But we will make it. It won’t be all of us, but I promised Kanna I’d get her people to the other side, and I’m a woman of my word.”

	After spending a whole day resting, we decided to make the move at night now that the ghouls were gone. It was dark, but I was able to use my staff as a lantern. Reis and Jano could be heard bickering at the front of the group. Everyone was nervous because of it, but it just made me irritated. Sick of their arguing, I decided to confront them. If they stopped squabbling even for just a day, it would make everyone happier.
	I jog up to them, “Hey, I don’t know what’s going on here,” I gesture towards them, “But can you guys sort it out a bit quieter. You’re putting everyone on edge.”
	“Maybe they’re on edge because we’re walking in the dark and there could be a horde just waiting for us,” Jano responds.
	I roll my eyes, “Yeah, maybe. Or maybe it’s because their leaders have been arguing nonstop and no one knows why,” Jano tries to speak but I cut him off, “Yeah, I don’t care what it is, just fix it.”
	

January 18, 886

	We walked all day, waiting to rest until the sky darkened again in hopes to fix our schedule. That night, while Aasir was dead asleep, Reis came to speak with me.
	“Hey, Saren,” she takes a seat next to me.
	I smile, “Hi.”
	“I just wanted to let you know that Jano and I are going to try to sort things out.”
	“That’s great,” I nod.
	“Mhm,” she continues, “Kanna didn’t want Jano to be with me.”
	Oh, I realize she’s about to go into detail and I shoot her a side eye. I really, really didn’t care about the drama so long as it stopped. Although, it did seem like she needed a friend so I sat and listened.
	“He was the reason I stopped going out to scavenge, he didn’t want me to get hurt. Kanna told him I was a good scavenger but Jano didn’t listen,” she chuckles, “He would have gone to the stars and back for me. He ignored his mother and chose to stay with me and keep me safe in the bunker, even though I tried to tell him I was good out here. Then, of course,  he knocked me up. Oh, Kanna was furious, I never thought I’d see her that angry. You see, our farms weren’t growing fast enough, and our preserves were running out. Jano and I grew apart in the month before you arrived. He didn’t want a baby yet... He still doesn’t,” her expression drops before smiling again, “But we’ll figure it out. I mean, we don’t really have much of a choice.”
	I don’t know how to respond to all that so I just nod.
	“Thanks for letting me talk to you,” she stands up, “I know you used to be The Protector, but you’re not that bad. I’ll try to get Jano to cut you some slack,” she smiles before walking away.
	Before Reis can walk out of my sight, we hear a scream.

	“Ah! He’s bit!” 

	Reis and I run to the scene where we see Argan twitching on the ground. We stop a few feet away from him, wanting to keep our distance.
	“What happened?” I ask.
	Argan’s partner, Heath, responds, “He just fell and started convulsing on the ground. His jacket slipped and I saw the bite on his shoulder.”
	The scream woke Aasir and I ask a question as he runs over, “Is there anything we can do?”
	“It’s too late,” Reis pulls me aside to whisper, “You have to end it.”
	I don’t respond. For a moment, I just stare into her eyes while listening to Argan struggle to keep the infection at bay. Finally, I turn to walk to him. Without hesitation, I plunge my staff into his heart. His last breath is more of a gurgle.
	My hands shake as I yank the staff from his chest.
	Forty two, I thought. Forty two people. Forty two lives in my hands.
	I know the number will only shrink the further we go.


March 14, 886

	I was right. The number did shrink. We lost five people in the last two months, which brought our numbers to thirty seven. Not great.
	Reis has gotten slower. She’s 6 months along. On the bright side, she and Jano have gotten much closer. They’re in sync now. They know how and when to protect each other. In the last few encounters we’ve had with ghouls, they’ve fought perfectly side by side. It’s honestly impressive. I wish I could say the same for Aasir and I. He keeps trying to push himself, which is great, until he goes too far. He’s almost gotten bit twice. I’ll admit, I’ve become a bit overprotective of him since those moments, and he’s fed up. I think he turned 13 some time this month,  which would certainly explain his attitude.
	The thirty seven of us were walking through the Badlands. Towers of grey rock and stone stood so high above us, we couldn’t see the top of them. It was extra foggy in these parts, so we all tried to stay as close to each other as we could. Any noise we made bounced off the stone right back to us, the echo was incredible, but also scary. All of us were as quiet as possible, we had no idea how many ghouls could be lurking behind the rocky pillars.
	Loraine returned to us once again with a warning of a horde. 
	“It’s a small one, maybe we can climb the pillars to wait them out,” she suggests.
	“No,” Jano responds, “We don’t know how high they go. We could pass out from exhaustion before we ever made it to the top.
	“He’s right,” Reis backs her partner up.
	We think for a moment before I ask, “How small is it?”
	“Mmm, less than fifty maybe?” She answers. 
	I look at Aasir, then to Jano, “I think we can take them on.”
	Jano nods, “If everyone tries to take out 2, we definitely can. The question is, can we all take out 2?” 
	We look at the older members of the group. They’re far enough away so that they can’t hear, but close enough to see the looks of concern on our faces.
	“I’ve got the stone,” I begin, “All of us here are good fighters. We can pick up the slack.”
	“What about me?” Reis rubs her belly.
	“We’ll pick up your slack too,” Jano winks at her.
	“They’re coming,” Loraine warns us.

	We all hid behind pillars as the horde traveled through them. With a nod from Jano, I circled behind the horde and turned the ground beneath them into 2 feet of mud. That was the most I could do with the stone, but it was effective. At least 20 of them got stuck, so we were able to focus on the other thirty that were still up and about. Looping back around, I saw Aasir stab a couple in their necks, making sure to avoid the bigger ones like I told him to, even though he had grown an inch in the past couple months. 
	I tried to give him space like he wanted, but a little voice in the back of my mind was telling me something was going to go wrong. To his frustration, I ran up behind him to protect him against the ghouls he had his back turned on.
	“Stars, what the hell!” he shouted, “Do you just not trust me?”
	“Of course, I trust you,” I stab a ghoul in the chest with the ferrule of my staff, then pull it up, ripping the top of its body in half.
	“Then why can’t you trust me to protect myself?”
	“I do! It’s just, we’re partners, and you’re young. I just want you to be safe.”
	I hear him scoff. Jano runs by us, a goop covered dagger held tightly in his hand.
“Maybe save the bickering for a better time?” he suggests.
I’m a very intuitive person, I trust my gut more than anyone and right now, it was telling me that something was wrong. I didn’t tell that to Aasir though, he would just think I was giving him excuses. So, I walk away from him, letting him deal with a ghoul on his own, but I don’t take my eyes off him. I run over to Reis and help her instead. She’s still a good fighter, though she’s lost some of her agility. 
Before I’m able to let her know I’m here, I got knocked into a pillar by a ghoul. My head hits a protruding rock, and for the first time since we’ve left the bunker, my hands are empty. My staff! I reach for it while trying to keep the ghoul from crunching down on me, but another gets in my way. Before I knew it, there were five of them trying to get a taste of me. The pillar I’m being pushed against is very thin at the bottom. I mean like only a couple inches thick, and it’s supporting a tower that gets up to five feet thick. 
In the corner of my eye, I see Reis and Aasir running up to me. But it’s too late. A loud crack echoes through the Badlands and the tower I’m pressed against begins to tilt. Aasir makes it to me and stabs two of them in the head, Reis gets rid of the other three. 
Frozen in shock, we stand and watch as the tower falls, landing on another, causing that one to fall as well. Domino effect. A dozen other towers fall onto each other and it takes a few minutes for the echoes to stop. We take a moment to realize that the fallen pillars have cut us off from the rest of the group.
“Jano!” Reis calls out, “Are you there?”
The only response she gets is the echo of falling rubble.
She turns to me, “Do you think they-”
“No,” I shake my head, “They would have gotten out of the way fast enough.”
She nods, reassuring herself. I scan the ground for my staff, but I don’t see a trace of it. My breathing quickens as my anxiety swells. How am I supposed to kill the ghouls without my staff? I run my hand through my hair. Aasir, seeing me stressed, approaches me and slips me one of his daggers. 
“We’ll be okay,” he reassures me. We stare at each other for a moment until suddenly, his head perks up, “Did you hear that?”
Reis answers, “Yes.”
“Hear what?” I ask.
Reis walks up to me and grabs my shoulders, “Listen.”
A quiet shout echoes through the fallen Badlands.

“Reis! Saren! Aasir!”

“It’s Jano,” Reis says, “I’m sure of it. Jano!” She shouts back, “Are you okay?”

“Yes. Are you?”

“Yes. Where are you?”

“There aren’t really any unique features where I’m at. Are you inside the fallen pillars?

She smiles, “Obviously.”

“I can’t find a way in. Do you see an exit?”

The three of us look around. The walls are tall and we can’t see the ends of any of the pillars. After seeing not a single opening, Aasir and I turn to Reis and shake our heads. 
“No,” she sighs.

“Saren, use the stone to make an opening or something.”

“Yeah, I don’t have it,” I respond, “I think it’s on your side.”

He’s silent for a minute. We wait anxiously, curious as to what he’s doing.

Finally, we hear his voice again, “I found it.”

“You did? Is it in good shape?”

“Pristine.”
I sigh in relief.
Reis calls out to him, “Jano. You need to take the group to the shore,” she rubs her belly, “We’ll catch up with you on the way there, or we’ll meet you there. Either way, we’ll end up back together. Just like we always have.” She leans her forehead against a rock and closes her eyes, as if imagining he were here with her.
After a minute of what I assumed to be consideration for Reis's suggestion, he responds, “Okay.”

Reis was right to send them away. They were safer on the move than staying here out in the open. After saying their goodbyes and doing one last scan of the area, Jano led the group away. They left a bag of food outside the pillars for when we got out, since none of the three of us had any on our person. 
I couldn’t stop fidgeting with my hands. This is the first time in months that I didn’t have the staff in my reach. For stars’ sake, I slept with the damn thing every single night. We spent the rest of the evening searching for a way out with no luck.


March  16, 886

	We’ve gone two days without food. Worried about Reis, I kept a close eye on her. I’m no doctor, but I’m pretty sure malnutrition and stress affects the baby, the mother too. Though, I didn’t talk to her about it. After realizing that the rat roaches were all scared off from the collapse, we decided to stay silent in the hopes that they would return and we’d have something to eat. The only noises we made was the sound of falling rubble as we attempted to climb the fallen pillars.
	We tried everything. We tried digging, hoisting each other up, using our daggers. Nothing worked. If only I had my staff. I found myself thinking those words every second of every day. It felt like withdrawal. It sucked. This sucks.
	
	There was an area where two pillars had crashed into each other. I peeked through the  pile of rocks and saw the outside. We spent all day moving the rubble around. Combining all of our energy into doing this was risky, but if we were successful, we’d be able to get out quicker than if only one of us was digging.
	We spent the rest of the night moving rocks out of the way until there was an opening large enough for Aasir to get through. He could have shapeshifted his way through the smaller opening, but with our lack of food, he didn’t want to waste energy on trying. He crawled through and started moving rocks on the outside too. Him being out there alone made me nervous. I know he wasn’t really alone -we were here with him- but if something attacked him, I wouldn’t be able to protect him. My anxiety simply motivated me to move faster.

	After about forty five minutes, there was enough room for me to fit in between the rocks. I slipped through and helped Aasir move stones all while staying on high alert. 

	Finally, we had moved enough for Reis to come through. On any other day, she would have been my size or skinnier, but today she happened to be growing a baby in her belly, so she needed a bit more room. She nudged herself half way through the tunnel we dug. Before she could get any further, we heard a loud rumble and a crash.
	“The tunnel! It’s collapsing!” She wiggles her way towards us.
	I grabbed her arm and pulled her out just in time to see the tunnel collapse on itself. Had I been one second later, she and her baby would have been crushed. 
	Panting, I ask her, “Are you okay?”
	She nods, “Thanks.”
I help her stand up and brush the dirt off of her. She smiles as I put my hand on my stomach. Then I feel a kick.
“Oh my stars!” I back up.
“What? Is the baby okay?” She leans forward.
I smile and grab her hand, placing it on her stomach so she can feel it too. After a moment, she smiles. She calls Aasir over and he puts his hand on her belly, chuckling once he feels the baby.
“Isn’t it incredible?” She looks at me and I nod.

After finding the food Jano left for us, we head southbound, to the coast. Jano didn’t leave my staff with the food. I was angry until Reis reminded me that the wind blows harshly in the Badlands, even leaving the food was a gamble. It could have easily been blown away, and with artifacts as valuable as those, he probably didn’t want to risk it.
Now, it’s just the three of us. An unarmed necromancer, a pregnant woman, and a child. What a trio. 


April 6, 886

	We’ve been trying to move fast in an attempt to catch up to the rest of the group, but -as much as I hate to say it- Reis has been slowing us down. They’re moving faster than we are, and their tracks are growing faint. But that shouldn’t matter too much, we’re all heading to the same place. 
	Aasir has been quiet lately. Even though I’m worried about him, I keep my focus on Reis. I’ve been trying to give him space to grow confident in himself and Reis is literally growing a baby mimic inside of her, so win for everyone, I guess. Thankfully, Aasir has dropped the attitude so at least I don’t have to deal with that. Although, part of me misses his bickering. I think he’s worried about his people, I would be too. So, I decided to talk to him about it.
	“Hey, Aasir.”

	“Hey, Saren,” he keeps his gaze forward.

	“You feelin’ alright?”

	“Mhm.”

	“I’m always here to talk if you need it,” I hesitantly put my hand on his shoulder. 
	He looks up and shoots me a genuine smile before nodding, “Thanks.”


May 28, 886

	Reis is practically waddling at this point. She should be about 8 months along now, and it definitely shows. Because of this, we’ve made sure to avoid any and all ghouls we see. Reis's unborn baby is more than just a baby. It’s going to be a new life made from nothing. Her baby will be a symbol that life always goes on, and I have to protect that no matter what. Our goal is to make it to the coast within two weeks, so we can cross the sea and her baby can be born on Crone instead of this wasteland. 
	
	We should be near the coast. The land has gotten flat with the occasional cavern here and there. Aasir has been talking more and he’s been working double time to make sure Reis gets the amount of rat roaches she needs, but I don’t think it’s enough. Although, Reis seems satisfied.
	That evening, our walk was quiet. Not the awkward type of quiet, but the peaceful kind. At least, it was peaceful until growls began to peep through the air. We froze so we could listen and find the source of the noises. Once we figured that out, we started jogging in the opposite direction, but there were ghouls there too, so we turned around. Dead end. We were met with a huge, unmovable boulder. Now the fear was kicking in. 
	Ghouls began to pour out from behind the stones sticking out of the ground. I ordered Aasir to stay with Reis -more for her protection than for his- and he obliged. I stabbed a couple ghouls in their foreheads and didn’t stray too far from the other two. After spending the past couple months practicing with a dagger, I was feeling confident in my skills.
I was doing well and so was Aasir, until we heard a trickle. We froze, but once I heard the slosh, my head whipped around to see Reis staring down at herself in shock. It looked like her eyes were about to pop out of her head.
She groaned, “Erghh, the baby! It’s- ah! It’s coming.”
“You’re not due for another month, I thought!” I say as I plunge my dagger into the back of a ghoul’s neck.
“Well, it’s coming now!” Her grip on her belly tightened. She tried to waddle over to me but she tripped and fell. She screamed in pain. I looked around for something, anything! Then I saw the opening of a cavern
“Aasir, take her inside of that cave!” I gesture to the opening before stabbing another ghoul. He grabs her and leads her to the cave’s entrance. I take out a few more ghouls before following them. There’s a boulder by the opening so I call Aasir to help me push it into the entrance so the ghouls can’t follow us. Before we’re able to close up the cave, a ghoul sneaks its way past and heads straight for Reis. I leave Aasir to push the rock on his own and run up behind the ghoul, stabbing it in the head just before it can reach her. After tossing the body away and making sure the boulder is secure, I check on Reis. Our only source of light is from the crack at the top of the cave, but it doesn’t provide too much so I can’t see if Reis is covered in amniotic fluid or blood, but I pray it’s the former. 
She frantically pulls her pants off and groans, “Arghh get this thing out of me!” 

I shake my head, “What am I supposed to do?”

Aasir runs over to us, “Uh, can you see the baby’s head?”

“No, I can’t see anything!” Even without seeing her face, I know Reis is probably crying or freaking out, so I tell Aasir to hold her hand.
“Alright, Reis, I’m going to uh, feel around for the baby, okay?”

“I don’t care what you do, just get it out!” She moans.
	Gently, I feel for the baby, but I don’t feel its head. Instead, I touch what seems to be a tiny foot. 
	I shake my head, “Reis, the baby isn’t in the right place, I can’t pull it out.”
	“Move it!” she cries.
	Before I can respond, I feel liquid spread on the floor. It drenches my knees and quickly covers both of my legs. The light hits it just the right way for me to see Reis's bright red blood covering the floor. I turn to Aasir to see him shaking his head at me as the blood reaches his boots.
	“Reis, you’re bleeding,” I gently pull her arm into the light to see her normally tan skin is almost as grey as mine.
	“That’s normal,” she pants.
	
	“No, like, you’re bleeding a lot.
	Her eyes widen as she realizes it’s her blood that paints the floor. Then she starts shaking.
	“No, no, no, don’t freak out,” I grab her arm before turning to Aasir, “Help me out here!”
	Aasir crouches by her to grab her hand, drenching his knees in blood.
	
	“I don’t want to die.”

	“You’re gonna be fine,” Aasir wipes her sweat covered hair out of her face, “No one’s gonna die. We’re gonna get your baby out and make it to the coast, then we’ll sail to Crone and raise the baby there,” he smiles at her.
	I say nothing. She won’t survive this. She knows it. I know it. Deep down, Aasir knows it too.
	I reach for the baby one more time, still feeling its feet. Aasir and I stare at each other. After shaking my head at him, I see the hope drain from his eyes.
	Dread fills my voice, “Reis, I have to cut it out.” 
	I could see in that moment that she accepted what I was about to do, and even though she isn’t ready to die, she is ready to create a life. She takes her hand out of Aasir’s and reaches into her pocket, pulling out her blade. She hands me the knife before pulling me closer to whisper in my ear.
	“The baby’s name will be Hessa. Protect it,” a tear rolls down her cheek.
	I stare into her eyes before reassuring her, “I promise.”
	Aasir gives her a hug as I look for a dusty rock to mark where my incision will be. I’m no doctor, but Reis is my friend. She wants her baby to come, and I’m going to make it happen.
	After marking her stomach, I hold the blade of the knife gently against her skin. I look into her eyes one more time. They’ve lost their color, as if her soul has already abandoned her body. Hessa will inherit your soul. I try to communicate with our eyes, but she’s gone. Tears fall from my eyes and collect at the bottom of my goggles. Ignoring Aasir’s cries, I keep my head down and cut into her stomach. Reis doesn’t scream, she doesn’t groan or cry or whimper. Her body just lies there as I cut her open. 
	Only a few minutes passed, but it felt like an eternity. I told Aasir to turn away but he refused. I didn’t want him to see me cut up our friend’s dead body, it was horrifying, but he didn’t see it that way. He saw it as me fulfilling her last wish, so I tried to look at it that way too. 
After making the incision large enough, I slipped my hands through her stomach and into her womb. Gently, I pulled the baby through the slit in my friend's abdomen and held it up as its cries echoed in the small cave. It was short and skinny. I suppose it still had a month of development to do, but it obviously didn’t care much for schedules. Aasir handed me one of his rags so I could wipe and wrap the baby up after cutting its umbilical cord.
	My hands were shaking so bad, I thought I might drop the little thing, so I handed it to Aasir.
	“It’s a girl. Her name is Hessa,” I gently placed her in his arms and sat against the wall of the cavern. 
He smiled at Hessa, but all I could look at was her mother. She just sat there, still and unmoving. War, dragons, ghouls, starvation, even poison air. For me, none of it compared to what I just had to do. 
I shut my eyes.


May 29, 886

	I woke up to Aasir shaking me awake. Hessa was crying, and she wouldn’t stop. 
	“She’s hungry.”
	I nod and search through Reis's bag. She prepared for this. After mixing the powdered baby formula with some water, Aasir handed me the baby and sat back to watch. 
	“I stayed up all night with her.”

	“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have fallen asleep so quickly.”

	“It’s okay, I would have.”
	I look up and smile at his tired eyes.
	“Do baby mimics know how to shapeshift?” I look back at Hessa.
	He nods, “They don’t know how to, their body just does it for them. She’ll be okay breathing in the air from the outside. Promise.”
	I see him look over at Reis's body.
	“I’m sorry,” my voice cracks, “I wish there was more I could have done.”
	He smiles, “Did you know she wanted this baby more than anything? She would have killed for her. It’s just… it’s too bad she’ll never get to see her.”
	He starts to cry, so I hold my arm out to give him a hug. He crawls over to me and rests in my arms alongside Hessa. I let him drench my shoulder in tears. What the hell am I doing? I’ve got two kids in my arms, and I’ve still got to deliver them to the coast.

	Following Aasir’s breakdown, I hand Hessa back to him and move the boulder covering the entrance to check for ghouls. I walk outside and scan the area. Nothing. I sigh, but I don’t return to the cave just yet. Just one second, that’s all I need. Crouching on the ash and dirt, I bring my fist up to my forehead and hit myself a couple times. Tears stream down my face and I actually have to remove my goggles despite the irritation. Hyperventilating, I collapse into the ground and sob. For a moment, I sounded exactly like Hessa, crying nonstop. She’ll never get to meet her mother. Her amazing, wonderful, courageous mother. Catching a glimpse of my blood covered pants made me want to tear them off. Then I saw my hands. I never got the chance to clean myself, so I was covered in parts of Reis. Part of me wishes she had never gotten pregnant in the first place, but I held no resentment towards Hessa. She’s just a baby after all. 

After pulling myself together, I return to Aasir to let him know that it’s clear, but I only find him asleep against the cavern wall. My hand instinctively moves towards his head to rub my hand through his hair, but I think better of it. He already has Reis's blood on his shoes and hands, he probably doesn’t want it in his hair too. Instead, I walk over to Reis's body. For a moment, I just stare. After reminding myself what she meant to me, and what Hessa meant to her, I grabbed her by the shoulders and dragged her outside of the cave. She deserves a proper burial, but there isn’t much I can do, I don’t even have any shovels for Stars’ sake. Using a spade shaped rock, I dig out a hole deep enough to completely submerge her body. It would have taken me an hour to bury her, but I was emotionally and mentally exhausted, so it took me three. After resting the last scoop of ash and dirt on top of her, I went back into the cave and sat next to sleeping Aasir, being careful not to wake him.

He’s all I have.

A couple hours later, he wakes up on his own and I lead him to Reis's grave. We both give her silent prayers.
We decide to spend one more night in the cave, taking turns watching Hessa. She cried throughout the night, yearning for her mother, but Aasir and I were all she had. Now, I just needed to get her to her father. Oh stars, her father! I hadn’t even thought about Jano, and I didn’t want to. We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.


June 6, 886

	We haven’t been traveling very fast the past few days. Between the needy baby and my lack of magic, it ain’t looking so good. But as exhausted as we were, I promised Reis I was going to protect Hessa, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do. 
	Aasir has been almost silent since Reis's death. He only speaks when spoken to, or when he’s trying to get Hessa to eat -she’s a very stubborn baby. I cry all the time, but I don’t let him see or hear. I’ve convinced myself to stay strong for him. The moment I break down is the moment everything falls apart. Everyone is counting on me, I can’t let them down again. 
	
	That night, Aasir worked on the fire as I held Hessa. Her skin was lighter than Reis's. She got Jano’s green eyes and brunette hair, but everything else came from her mother. I stuck my pinkie in her mouth so she’d stop crying. Aasir sat uncomfortably by the fire. He’s seen too much for his age. It made me sad to see him so quiet when he used to be so loud. I told him to look away. But he didn’t look away. He watched me cut into our friend. He kept his eyes on her for me. I realize now that he didn’t want me to deal with it alone.

	Breaking the silence, I open up, “I used to have a little brother,” I kept my eyes on Hessa, but Aasir turned to me. “He was 12 when the war started, died at 16 when the dragons came.”
	He thinks about what to say before deciding on a question, “What was his name?”
	“Bo,” I close my eyes to remember his face, but all I see is Aasir, “He had the same hair as you, except the bottom half was purple like mine.”
	“Do you think about him often?”
	I nod, “He was so sweet. Snarky, but sweet,” I smile and turn to him, “I see so much of him in you.”
	“He must have been pretty great then, huh?”
	I chuckle, “Yeah, he was. He lived in the castle with me. His room was right next door to mine, so when he had nightmares during the war, he’d come to me and I’d take care of him. I never told him about my nightmares though. He thought I was the bravest person alive and I wanted it to stay that way. During the Fire, everyone left the castle but us and the Sikiri. The Soul Taker left to ‘protect’ his people. He ordered me to stay, but my brother went with him. He’d say, ‘I’m going to take your place one day,’” I smile at the memory.

	“I’m sorry.”

	“It’s okay. I got you now, right?”
	He smiles and nods, “You know, if you ever have nightmares nowadays, you can tell me about ‘em. I’ll still think you’re brave, and I bet he would’ve too.”
	He scoots closer and holds my hand as he uses the other to rub Hessa’s head. 
“Jano and the rest of the group, do you think they’re still alive?” He keeps his eyes on the baby.

	“They have to be.”


June 20, 886

	We plan to reach the coast tonight. Aasir has been bouncing around in excitement so I had to grab Hessa in fear of him dropping her. He’s never seen the sea before, let alone the mainland.
	“You better not be hopping around like this on the boat I make you.”
	 
	“We’ll see.”

	The thought of my staff and the stone returning to my hands excited me as well, but I didn’t let it show, and I certainly wasn’t going to hop around like a child. Sometimes I felt helpless without my magic, but I know I’m more than that, so I don’t let it get to my head.
	Finally, we make it to the sand. Now that I think about it, I haven’t seen the beach in like, 7 years. It isn’t white like it used to be, now it’s grey. Slimy, black rocks litter the shore, but it doesn’t matter. We’re leaving soon anyway. We walk until we see the sea. He giggles and runs to the water like a little boy. I warn him not to touch it, but he ignores me. I roll my eyes and scan the shore. The fog clears up a bit and I’m able to see a figure sitting on a rock. I squint and recognize the crappy posture and my staff in his hands.
	“Jano,” I mutter. I turn to Aasir and raise my voice, “Aasir, I see Jano!”
	He runs out of the water and we sprint to him. Aasir calls out for him. He stands and walks in our direction. Finally, we get close enough to see each other’s faces, and I catch a glimpse of the worry in his eyes. 
	“Where’s Reis?”
	We freeze and he jogs up to us. 
	“Where is she?”
	I shake my head slowly. He hands me my staff and I show him his daughter for the first time. At this point, I can’t even feel enough relief to smile at my staff, I simply hand him his baby and watch as he realizes what’s happened to the mother of his child.
	“I’m sorry.”
	But he doesn’t look at me. He just stares at Hessa, and I can’t tell if he’s angry, sad, happy, or maybe all three?
	“Her name is Hessa?”
	Realizing they must have discussed her name months ago, I nod and so does he. 
	Eventually, he smiles and I feel relief finally wash over me, “She looks just like her,” he rubs her head. 
	“Where are the others?” Aasir asks.
	Jano looks at us, “In the lighthouse. It’s the only building those damn dragons forgot to burn.”

	We open the door to the lighthouse and see our people huddled up. By my count, there’s only twenty four of us left, including Aasir and myself.
	“What happened?” I whisper to Jano.
	“Ghouls.”
	Nodding, I turn to the rest of the group, “Come on, let’s go. We’ve got a sea to cross.” 
I watched the hope return to their eyes as they stood. It had been a while since I used the stone, but now that I could feel its power surging through me again, I knew I’d be able to get these people -my people- off this dump of an island.
After walking them out to the beach, I used the stone to turn the sand into a boat. My right hand held on tightly to my staff as I lifted the other in front of me. The grey sand below my arm rose up in the air and my stone began to glow, as did my eyes. The sand flew around in a circle until the grains came together and solidified, creating a boat large enough to fit 4 people. I couldn’t make them bigger than that, so I just had to make 6 of them. We sent four people in the boat and into the water. They smiled and laughed once they realized this was really happening, We’re really leaving.

I repeated this process four more times, making five boats. As my energy depleted, it took longer for each boat to be made. The stone exhausted me and by the time I finished the fifth boat, I needed a couple moments to rest. Everyone else was waiting for us on the water, all that was left was to make one for Jano, Hessa, Aasir, and myself. 
I move my gaze from the staff to Hessa in Jano’s arms, “I’m sorry.”
He looks at me, “For what?”

“I couldn’t save her. Reis.”

	He winces, “No one could have known the baby would come a month early. You were unprepared. Aasir told me what you had to do. It’s okay. If you didn’t do what you did, I would have lost both of them, but you brought Hessa back to me. In a way, you brought a part of Reis back to me.”
	He brings his forehead to mine, a symbol of utmost gratitude among the mimics. 
Our moment is interrupted by the sound of gurgling and growling. I turned to see dozens of ghouls emerging from the fog onto the beach. In an attempt to make the final boat so we can escape, I lift my arm up but a ghoul lunges at it before I can make anything of the sand. I feel a stinging pain in my left wrist as the ghoul throws me into the earth. My staff falls to the ground, and the ghoul swings its hands in my face, knocking my goggles off. Sand gets in my eyes but that’s the least of my concerns. A dozen more ghouls come for me and I worry I won’t be able to save Hessa and Aasir like I promised everyone I would. The ghoul throws its head back to bite into me, but I put my left arm in between us, using my right one to reach for the staff. Finally, Aasir kicks the staff to me and I use it to turn the ghoul into sand which piles on top of me. Without a moment to think, I stand and lift my staff into the air, shouting my incantation as I do so. 

“Synterri syga Devak!”

With the plunge of my staff into the ground, every ghoul in sight went up in purple flames. After the last ghoul collapsed into ashes, I crashed into the beach from fatigue, trying to catch my breath. I expected Aasir to run over and help me up, but he didn’t. Instead, I used the staff to lift myself off the ground. 
“Gee thanks,” I roll my eyes but they just stare at me.
After dusting myself off, I walk towards them but Jano backs up, pulling Aasir with him, “Saren, stop.”
I freeze.
Softly, Aasir peeps, “Your wrist.”
I look down at my left wrist to see a chunk taken out of it. I’m bit. My glove was torn and black goop speckled over the bite. My hands trembled. My blood was already turning black, and I could feel my heartbeat begin to slow. I looked up at Aasir and for a moment, the world stood still. I didn’t see Jano or Hessa, or the twenty other mimics in the boats behind them. Just Aasir. I thought I was going to cross the sea with him. I was supposed to cross the sea with him. 
The twisting pain in my stomach brought me out of my haze and I knew I couldn’t just let them watch me die. Using the last of my energy, I created a small boat for the three of them. I offered to help push it to the water, but Jano told me to stay back. He didn’t mean it to be rude, he was putting the safety of his daughter above all else. I would too. 
Aasir held Hessa as Jano pushed the boat into the sea. I watched as he boarded the boat and took Hessa from Aasir’s arms. He bobs his head at me, a sign of respect.
For the first time since before the dragons, I pull my scarf down and take a deep breath of outside air. What’s it going to do? Infect me?

Aasir puts one leg into the boat but he hesitates. He turns to me and we stare at each other for a moment that feels like an eternity. Suddenly, he takes his leg back out of the boat and bolts at me. Dropping my staff, I get on my knees as he jumps into my arms. He cries into my shoulder and I can't help but let a couple of my own tears go. I’m careful to keep my bitten wrist away from him, but I don’t back out of the embrace. Neither of us do, until Jano calls for him. We pull apart and I hold his face in my right hand.

“Goodbye, Aasir.”

“Goodbye, Saren.”

Finally, he walks back to the boat and joins Jano. They take off from the shore and meet up with the rest of the group.


June 21, 886

	I waited until Aasir was out of sight to collapse back into the sand. My organs were shutting down. Aside from the pain, I was content. The sky was a blinding purple, so I shut my eyes for the last time and sat in my thoughts. 
	I know who I am now. I’m not The Protector. Just a protector. And I think I did a pretty okay job.

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