Did you know, my little Kelly, that today is the day the world ended?

Yes, my little kit. You are living in the end of the world.

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful faerie queen named Enaid, who loved every living thing.  She loved all beings so much that she gave her life to save a magical white stag, the last of his kind.  A hunter was prowling the forest and came upon him grazing in a clearing.  Thinking him an unusual deer, the hunter took aim, intent on bringing him down and taking him home to display his beautiful white fur and horns proudly on his trophy wall.  Enaid, in the forest admiring the stag, saw this and dashed in front of the beast as the hunter pulled the trigger.  The bullet struck her in the chest, right through her loving heart.

The faerie king, Dorcha, heard the gunshot and her scream and came running to find her.  He burst into the clearing to see the hunter kneeling over Enaid’s fallen form, panicking.

Now, Dorcha was not like Enaid.  He did not love everything that walked the earth.  No, he only loved one thing in all the world: his wife.  When he saw that man bent over her, pressing a hand to her bleeding chest, he charged the man and buried an ax between his ribs, taking the queen in his arms and disappearing into the trees.

In the safety of the dense woods, Dorcha held his wife and watched her blue blood stain her milk-white dress.  Not gifted in the art of healing, he could do nothing for her but beg her to stay.  Enaid, knowing she had but moments left, simply smiled at him and whispered, “I love you, my moon and stars.”

Enaid died in Dorcha’s arms, and Dorcha’s heart turned to stone.

Now cold and filled with rage the likes of which no mortal man has ever seen, Dorcha looked to the sky and said, “I will not rest until every single human pays for what happened here today.”

And he ended the world.

You see, my little Kelly, mankind had forgotten that faeries were real once.  When humanity learned how to wield iron, the metal that burned and sickened the fae, they went into hiding, living deep in the wilderness, where humans stopped looking for them.  As the years went by, more and more people forgot that the fae had ever truly walked the earth and called them stories.  Faerie tales.

Dorcha made them remember, though.

Calling upon all the citizens of the Unblessed Court, for that was the name of the realm he ruled, Dorcha declared war on all of humanity and sent his armies forward to destroy every mortal being in their path.  He told them to do so by any means necessary, even those that had become taboo among fae-kind in their centuries of hiding.  Fae used their magics to enslave humans and drive them into the iron-soaked cities they could not set foot in, telling them to kill any and all they saw.  In the countryside, where the iron wasn’t as strong, fae came crashing down on towns and villages, eradicating all who lived there, leaving only ghosts.

Mankind fought back as hard as it could, but they were no match for the power, the force, the anger of the fae.  Desperate to survive, humans fled into the hearts of their cities, hoping the iron would protect them.  That is why we live here, deep inside Halifax.  The buildings and the fences keep us safe.

It’s been thirty years now and mankind still lives, but barely.  What little of us remain, we are all the hope humanity has left.  But we are a mere candle flame in a sea of darkness, emitting the smallest flicker of light amidst the shadow.

But don’t worry, my little Kelly.  It will be okay.

I know the world will come back someday.

Kelly blinks and the image of her mother begins to fade away, replaced by the empty grass where she once sat.  She remembers that moment vividly, the last time her mother ever told her a story.  The last time she ever existed in the daylight.  She’d been five years old when she heard that story, sitting in the grass and pulling blades of it out as she listened.  The grass had long since grown back, any evidence she’d ever done such things lost to time—thirteen years’ worth of time.

“I’m so sorry…”

By the time she’s home, her father has breakfast ready and on the table.  Oatmeal.  She mutters a quick thanks as she takes up a bowl and settles at the small card table tucked into the corner of their kitchen to eat with him.

Robert is silent for several moments as they begin their meal, then finally clears his throat.  “So, big day is almost here, huh?”

Kelly looks up at him in the middle of chewing a mouthful. “What?” she asks, the word muffled by the food.

“School is almost over,” Robert clarifies. “You’re going to be an adult soon, out in adult society.”  He chuckles a little at his own comment, holding out his hand and letting it cross from one side of himself to the other, as it taking in a scene.

Kelly barely holds back a snort before she swallows, grinning. “Oh yeah, going to take on the world.”

Robert’s smile softens as he looks at her, settling his hand back on the table. “Your mother would be very proud of you, you know.”

His words make Kelly think of her morning memories, of her mother’s almost-constant smile and dreamy eyes that always seemed to be looking at her and something else at the same time, and her smile is somewhat lopsided.  “I know.  I wish she could be here.”

She gets up and grabs her bowl, rinsing it and setting it into the sink before heading for her bedroom to grab her smartphone and check the time.  Swiping up with her thumb, she presses the music app on the bottom bar of the screen and scrolls through several songs before settling on one.  A soft melody drifts through the still air.  Kelly shoves the phone in her pocket speaker side up and kicks off her shoes, making her way to the chest of drawers.  It takes no time at all to choose her clothes for the day, most of her wardrobe being fairly similar.  Jeans, some shorts, snug T-shirts, a jacket, a coat and some scarves for when it gets cold.  She pulls out an outfit without paying much attention, humming along with her phone as lo-fi plays.  She makes her way to the bathroom as the song rolls over.  Kelly sets her clothes on the bathroom counter and drops her phone on top, still playing.

Halifax, Nova Scotia is fortunate enough to still have running water.  Most of the big cities do; it’s the small communities that dare to exist outside the metropolitan centers that are lacking in what was once considered necessities.

As she showers, she looks at her reflection in the mirror hung on the tile and her thoughts drift off to other childhood memories.  Once upon a time, she was a little sister, not an only child.  Her brother’s face still lingers in the corners of her mind, growing fuzzier with each passing year.  Many had thought she and Ken were twins with their matching black hair and brown eyes, but he had been nearly two years older.  Kelly reaches up to run her fingers through the shorn side of her jet black hair and into the long top, pulling through it until it released from her hand and slapped back against her wet skin.

People often liked to mention how much they looked like their mother, too.  It was purely the physical features, Kelly came to realize.  Her father had brown hair, bright eyes.  It was natural for people to look at Haruka with her ink hair and dark gaze and think, ‘Oh you look so much like your mother.’  But looking at herself now, Kelly knows that’s as far as it goes.  The wistfulness of her mother’s face is not present in her own, the serenity in her eyes absent.  Haruka looked at the world like it was a thing that could be saved.  Kelly looks at it like it needs comfort as it draws its last breath.

Kelly looks away from the mirror and picks up the shampoo, squeezing a glob into her hand and scrubbing it into her hair.

That wasn’t the only thing they said about Haruka, though.

That Haruka was always an odd one. I bet she gave her boy to the fae. I bet they took her too.    

Her father has always maintained that the fae stole them away against their will, and Kelly keeps up the facade of believing it, but the memories of that last night linger in her mind.  For all she could tell, Haruka had left on her own.  Maybe she should have been bitter, or angry, but after all these years it’s just left her confused.  Why would her mother leave?  And why take Ken with her?  In thirteen years, she’s never come up with a reasonable answer to that question.  At least, not one she was willing to accept.

She feels the inklings of thoughts better left as feelings begin to creep up and try to form words, and she shoves them down, leaning her head into the spray of water to wash out her hair.

She never speaks to her father about these things. The first time she tried he kept his composure, probably because he didn’t want to scream at a ten-year-old who didn’t know better, but she could tell he was seething under the surface. She can still remember how his fists were gripped so tightly that his nails left shallow divots in his palms.  Nothing would change his mind about what happened, and to insist otherwise is to invite his fury for the fae onto you.  Even watching it happen to someone else made her anxiety twist in her chest.  Thankfully, no one seems to poke at the subject anymore.

Twisting the shower nob, she steps out onto the rug and grabs her towel, wiping water off her face, then draping it across her chest.  She makes quick work of drying off and getting dressed, then goes to her room to grab her tablet off her desk and settles in their tiny living room to study her notes.  Her father mentioning school reminds her that exams are Monday.

Like running water, some cities manage to still have electricity and Halifax is one of the lucky ones.   Devices like computers and tablets still work, but there is no Internet.  They can be charged, but not updated.  New items of this nature are not invented, mankind does its best to preserve the ones they still have.  It’s easy enough to do.  Technology outnumbers humans.

Half an hour passes this way before Kelly sighs and tosses the tablet to the other side of the couch, where it lands with a muted thwump.  “I know it well enough.”  She lies splayed out on the couch, mulling over what to do before finally deciding she’s going to find her dog, Bear.  He isn’t in the apartment, from what she could tell, which means he must have been let out last night.  Her father often lets Bear stay outside overnight in spring and summer to wander around and enjoy himself instead of being cooped up in their small home.  A tiny two-bedroom isn’t always the best space for a big dog like him.

“I’m going out!” she shouts as she heads for the front door.

“Don’t forget your keys!” Robert calls back.

Kelly pauses mid-step and backs up to grab a key-chain off the hanger on the wall, giving it a jingle, then stepping out.