Humanity has always feared the things it cannot control. They fear the winds, they fear the rains, and they fear the cracking earth and the fiery torrents that spout from it. They fear invasion by new, possibly great and terrible creatures. They fear what they cannot explain, what they don’t understand. Yet in reality, it is themselves they have most to fear, for they truly do not understand one another.
Prologue
Words have always possessed an incredible value in this world, and since the Slay passed over the world, picking at the lives of billions of people and seemingly devouring the world whole, they’ve seemed to become even more than that to me. These words, these words that are the very thread of the fabric that hold my long and sometimes desperate story together, also hold something more for me. They hold an insurmountable amount of hope, and this sometimes tiny sliver of hope that’s been laced through my life has kept me alive. It has kept me strong. And most of all, it has brought me diligence I never thought I’d know. I’ve gone through hell since the end, but I still persevere.
This story is about my life; where I’ve been, where I’m going. It is a story about losing everything and attempting to reclaim what is rightfully yours. God knows I deserve some peace after what I’ve been through.
Life since the end has brought me so much anger, so much hate, and so much pain. I have no family left, not a soul whose blood is the same as mine. Along with my family, I have lost every single person who I had ever considered a friend.
I am a survivor, a lonely vulture in the desert of life-- picking at the dead and everything that was once theirs. I am twenty-one years old and I have the pains that a fifty year old would possess. I am trapped in my own body; slowly dying due to the air that I’ve been breathing in for the past five years. It’s like bleeding inwardly—I know it’s there and I feel it, but there’s no visible sign of it. It’s a ghost, killing in the dark.
You may wish to call me a vagabond, a drifter, or maybe a nomad; but in reality I am searching for something solid, something whole, a new life, or something that could give life to the tiny sliver of hope left in my heart. This is certainly a bleak world. If anything I am on a scavenger hunt, hoping and praying for something to truly call my own in a world where I have nothing. I sometimes fear that this life of mine will end suddenly, without reason, and I am wise to expect that. There’s no such thing as dying in your sleep in old age when you live in a world like this.
I have learned to do things in this life that I never thought would ever really be necessary for my survival. I have learned how to steal, how to trespass, and how to protect myself. I have done what I must to protect myself. These are dark times.
This journey of mine has been hard, but I know I must carry on. For the memory of my family and for the hope of my future, I know that I must. The incredible force within me is driving me, pushing me harder than I’ve ever been pushed before. I know I will live, and I hope to meet worthy folk along the way.
This is my story. You can call me whatever name you please, but at birth I was given the name Aidan-- which, according to my grandmother, means fiery. To be honest, before the end, I never thought my name really fit, but now I’m starting to wonder if it truly does.