Arna and Neri had followed the sunrise to find an age-old ruin from the time before, taking refuge in the brick shell as the morning glistened in puddles the rain had left behind. Positioned at opposite sides inside the barely standing walls, they rested until the heat of the early afternoon woke them.

Arna opened her eyes, not yet lifting her head from the pillow of her paws, and the first thing she saw was the warrior already awake and watching her. Neri had her back against the far wall, the bricks a rusted red vibrant against the cold sheen of her sword and the pale white of her skin, the blade resting atop her crossed legs as it had been before they had slept. Green eyes blinked as they met glowing amber.

"Morning," greeted Neri with a small nod.

Arna raised herself off the ground, broken dirt crumbling beneath her paw pads as she stretched out her legs, her bone and furred jaws parting wide in a tongue-lolling yawn. She shook the last remaining fogs of sleep before sitting back down. "Good afternoon," she returned with a nod of her own.

Neri squinted at the sun's position in the sky. "We should start moving if we want to get somewhere we can camp before night falls again."

Arna felt that touch of unease again when thinking about heading to Atsylei. There was only one way she could approach the city close enough to even see the gate - and that was by doing something she hadn't done for even longer than not speaking, and that might still not be enough.

Neri picked herself up from the floor, sheathing her sword in one fluid motion, and ran her fingers through her brunette hair. "You can begin your story while we walk, if you wish."

They left the small ruin and started the journey east where the sand would become dry cracked plains, then a rolling green valley dipping down before the cliffs of Atsylei. Perhaps if Arna told her story the warrior would understand when they parted ways – surely Neri wouldn’t really need an escort all the way to the city. The moment the city was in sight, Arna could leave knowing the woman would be safe and no one would be put in danger.

“What of my story do you want to hear?” she asked, walking by Neri’s side with a good arm’s length between them, out of reach of both fang or blade.

“All you are willing to share.” Neri kept a casual hand on the hilt of her sword, sweat already beading and falling along her neckline.

“You may not believe it,” warned Arna.

The warrior scoffed, not unkindly. “I’m talking with a large cat creature with half a skull on its head and glowing orange eyes. I think I can believe what you have to say.”

Arna sighed, the memories swimming and focusing like debris caught in the currents of the sea, billowing in and out with the breath of the past. She allowed her mind to settle on the memory that began it all.

“I was an orphan,” she began. “These days an orphan is common place, more so than a complete family. I lived in a place called an orphanage – a children’s home for those with no home to go to. I grew up there, a larger mouth to feed with every year, so when a couple came to take me, they didn’t even bother to do a background check. They just gave me away gladly – a 16 year old was a drain to resources.”

Neri made a noise to show she was listening but did not yet comment, although Arna was confident the warrior already had a few questions.

“I was naïve. Innocent and so naïve, full of hope and excitement. I didn’t even stop to think why my new home was within a laboratory compound, surrounded by chain-link fences with every door keypad coded. I wasn’t the only orphan they’d picked up either, but I was the only one who passed their tests.” Arna let the memory consume her as she spoke, her life swarming around her and fading away in the same moment. “I was 17 when I had ticked every box – mentally, physically, genetically, biologically, spiritually, magically – and the others vanished while I was…upgraded…”

Arna had stopped asking about the other children after a few weeks. The pretence of family from the people who had taken them in halted suddenly as if a taunt elastic band had been cut. They had undergone constant tests performed by men in white lab coats and men who had tattoos of a sun melting into a dripping crescent moon burned into their brows, wax-like black ink tracing their cheeks and jawlines, melding into a single branded line that wrapped around their throats like a thick constricting collar. The children had been dancing monkeys before the scientists and cultists, all dressed with fake smiles uttering lies of comfort and encouragement as they moved to their tune. Test after test, all done eagerly with the hope of pleasing their new family, never second-guessing the blood tests and strange questions, the dark rooms with eerie whispers and the full body scans, wires attached to their skulls.

When Arna was the only one remaining, she was moved to a new room of her own. She had been so excited, if not worried that she was alone. It didn't take her very long to realize her trust had been deeply misplaced. The smiles vanished, replaced with focused and stern expressions. Kind words dissolved into barking orders and the backs of striking hands. She was bound, fastened down in cold plastic chairs, her skin pocketed by endless needles taking and giving vivid and translucent. They put her in unforgiving, merciless near-death situations, they opened and closed her up again, they summoned darkness from somewhere beyond and drowned her in it until she couldn’t breathe or know what was real or not. They watched her responses like executioners waiting for the command to let the axe fall, and when she passed one test they shoved her into the next, forcing upon her even harsher experiments.

They told her little at first but as time passed, they spoke more amongst themselves in whispers she slowly began to easily hear. There was hard proof that the world was descending, that humanity was on the precipice of doom, and the scientists had the goal to create something that could save them - but science alone couldn't give them the results they needed in time with the limited resources and technology they had available. So, they invested and worked with a group of cultists – soothsayers; people who toyed with something beyond humanity and normal sanity, who wielded magic like soldiers carried guns and warriors held swords.

Magic, demons…it had all been a child’s imagination gone wild in a crazy man’s mind, but it was very much real. The cult had called themselves the Presagers and Arna knew that there were still a few scattered around the debris of the present – she had been chased by some over the years after the end. The Presagers said they knew that humanity was rapidly approaching its demise, scientists knew resources were low and diseases were becoming rife and resistant to medicine. So, within the laboratory compound, surrounded by technology and shifting shadows, they poked and prodded the girl from adolescence into young adulthood. They had ripped her body and soul apart, changing the very fabric of her genetic scaffolding, DNA cracked open and waiting for the final piece of their puzzle. And so they stole the last piece – an equally broken being the cultists had dragged from beyond, something barely fathomable which may have never tasted life nor death, only an existence of nothingness with eyes of the abyss. They tied it down as they did her, and tore her apart once more to meld her own being with it.

The years that followed were spent constantly having new science implemented and experimented on her, seeing how far they could push the boundaries of their creation and seeing how much it worked. It did work, in a sense. They had created a human-demon hybrid which had a longer lifespan, incredible healing speeds, both agile and strong with amazing senses, blood resistant to all poisons and diseases with an immune system that easily produced antibodies and cures to anything they injected her with or transplanted into her. They had created a creature capable of transforming between two visages – they had something that could fit so many different scenarios and still be the victor on the other side.

They were so close to perhaps finalising this creation but it was too late. Global resources had depleted too much too fast, diseases and illnesses spread like wildfire over dry bracken and bone with no way of halting or treating them, desperate wars started and ended across the planet in mere blinks, destroying land and homes, countless lives uprooted and eradicated. Humanity was devastated.

And yet Arna still went on. She managed to escape her chains, her barred cage, the many locked doors, treading bloodened glass until she too walked the dust and ash the planet had become. Billions of humans had once existed – now only thousands dotted across the land and cast lost to the wind.

What remained did manage to recover; humanity always somehow managed to scrape and claw out of the deepest of holes. With the lack of numbers, skills, and knowledge, the modern technology and science suffered. Doctors and nurses were rare gems worshipped far and wide, teachers and professors were oracles for the old and young, farmers and tradespeople were coveted and respected. Hospitals were medicine banks that quickly ran dry, supermarkets were raided empty, and with no one to keep things running resources like electricity, gas, communication lines and the internet disappeared as if taking one last deep breath as time passed.

The growth of technology ceased with no electricity or minds behind it, so when the power hit the bottom of the barrel everything was torn apart and scavenged, used to build new settlements, defences, armour, and weapons. Planes and tanks were abandoned or became part of people’s new homes. Guns and bombs had mostly been used or ruined during the years of desperate wars, and the guns that remained were mostly useless – bullets weren’t made and metal was better used elsewhere. Those who did have guns now were the guards at Atsylei or raider leaders, while others wielded the weapons of history and makeshift monstrosities; spiked bats, swords and shields, crossbows and catapults, axes and weighted chains, all fashioned with the remnants of the near past.

It took time for humanity to pick itself up, but the world as it was now soon stepped forwards. Travellers and hunters, caravans of traders and nomads, small settlements of citizens, camps and parties of roaming raiders who scavenged and murdered, the larger cities that were the first new homes of humanity… Arna had watched it all fall and rise around her as she moved over blackened plains and dusty fields, stalked forests new and ancient, crawled over old ruins and through new villages, avoiding life unless it came chasing her down.

So many years had passed and Arna wondered what was the point of her even still being here – she had been twisted into this form to save humanity from this fate and it had all been worthless. One day this humanity would ultimately succeed or fade away with the rest. Yet here she was, with no purpose or reason.

“I disagree.”

Arna blinked, as if startling awake from a deep dream. Neri had stopped walking and gazed down at her from the slope of another sandy hill they were climbing.

“I disagree,” the warrior repeated. “Without you I would have died or suffered an even worse fate.”

When Arna didn’t respond, Neri let her weight give her the momentum to descend the sand as if it rolled beneath her feet, stopping in front of the gleaming white saber skull. “You were an orphan. I am an orphan – most people are, for whatever reason. Do you think I never doubted why I still lived? I doubt my existence every single day just as I’m sure many others do, but I found a purpose in the Warrior’s Guild – to become strong and protect people.” Neri paused, clenching a fist and glaring at it. “Do you think I’m worthless now that I’ve failed the very people I swore to defend?”

Arna didn’t even try to quench the growl rumbling in her throat. “Of course not.”

A small smile flickered on her pale lips. “No. No, because there’s so many more to protect. The Guild won’t reject me – they’ll let me gather my strength and send me elsewhere.”

“It’s different,” Arna argued, turning her face away from the earnest look in the woman’s clear eyes. “You have found your place.”

Neri was quiet. Then she carried on back up the hill before softly saying, “Let yourself find yours.”