A letter between two unknown persons,

My brother, I hope this letter finds you well. I know it infuriates you when I refer to you this way, but your attempts to rewrite history will not change the fact that the same blood flows through our veins. Your title is nothing to me, as I will always remember you as the small boy that followed me around, much to Mother’s dismay. She always thought I would be a bad influence on you … Ironic isn’t it?

The soft wind blows through the trees, rustling the branches and leaves of the oak tree that hides Kat from the beast below. Her face is coated in paint that she managed to find in the hunting store, her piercing blue eyes shining from within the green camouflage, and her deep chocolate brown hair lies in a mussed ball. She isn’t particularly tall, standing at around five foot six, but her body doesn’t have a hint of fat, comprised of nothing but wiry muscle. An athlete before Genesis, Kat had always been one for silence and introspection, never concerned with the social trappings that so many others had spent their days worrying about. Lacking that extreme connection to their previous lives, she had adapted far better than most, falling into her role as the most accomplished of the Hunters, minus Peter of course.

None of this is on her mind, however, as she slips the bow off her shoulder and begins to string it in complete silence. Below her is another of the Mutated Rage Elk, this one Lvl 12, that have become their targets recently, a request that had managed to make it to them all the way from Everwall. At one and a half times the size of its pre-Genesis cousin, the beast aggressively munches on the grass without a worry in the world. Its brown fur glistens from the morning dew, catching and reflecting the beams of sunlight that manage to make it through the heavy blanket of branches above it. Kat barely notices the beauty of the moment, too focused on the imposing antlers that rise up out of the beasts head. In an almost web-like lattice, the antlers jut upwards and branch outwards in incredibly sharp protrusions. Unlike its normal cousin, the antlers of the Rage Elk are also covered in thousands of tiny red spikes, giving off an angry aura that seems to be the basis of its name.

Kat isn’t particularly worried, as she has knowledge of their weak spots that were discovered by Peter in one of their other hunts. Silently drawing an arrow from the quiver on her back, she nocks the base of it against the string of her bow and lines up the metallic silver arrowhead with her eyesight. Other members of the Hunters swear by the recurve bows and red dot sights that they managed to loot but she refuses to let herself develop bad habits. Who knows if they’ll be able to make recurve bows in the future? Better to learn from the ground up with a simple wooden longbow and let the Skill knowledge from Genesis rapidly improve her growth.

In one smooth motion, Kat lets out her breath, lines up her sight for the weak spot, and lets go of the string, which leaps forward with a twang. The arrow launches forward, metallic head catching the sunlight and finally betraying her presence. Sensing the change in lighting, the Elk curiously raises its head just as the arrow makes contact. She watches the pain register in its eyes as the arrow hits it directly above the right leg, penetrating five inches before stopping. The pain quickly turns to rage, but the beast collapses onto the ground, still alive but unable to move its lower body.

If she hadn’t seen it work before, Kat would never believe that there was such a sensitive bunch of nerve clusters just above the right leg. The Elk continues to rage, baying and yelling as she hops down from the tree, landing in complete silence, and walks over to it. Still able to move its head, the beast tries to gore her but she keeps her distance, approaching it from behind and always keeping herself at least five feet away from the dangerous antlers. She then draws out her hunting dagger and lines it up with the beast’s heart, using her body weight to push it in and end the annoying yelps.

With the beast finally dead, she lets out a satisfied sigh of a job well done. This Elk will help feed the Hunters for the next few days, as well as help them fulfill their contract with Everwall. She feels nothing but disdain for the city that is quickly becoming a home to all the weak refugees, but even she understands the importance of being friendly with your neighbors. Especially one with enough people to become powerful if they ever get over the change and accept their new reality. Picking up the back legs of the Elk, Kat places them on her shoulder and begins to drag the kill back towards the camp, a hike that should have her arriving just before the sun goes down.

The next few hours pass quickly, her only companions being the sound of the carcass dragging through the grass and the wind rustling through the branches of the surrounding trees, an almost melodic sound that sets Kat at ease. She’d always found nature beautiful but now even more so. Genesis had brought back the power of nature and given it the weapon by which it could regain its forgotten power. Once again man and nature were in balance, fighting their endless battles of dominance.

Halfway back to camp, Kat decides to take a break at the old library. Her shoulders and legs ache from the hike but it is the comfortable ache of a good workout, one that can be easily satisfied with a good meal and a long night's sleep.

Resting on an overturned bookcase, her eyes take in the building in all its ruined majesty. Half of the building was ripped away and transported elsewhere during the initial change and the leftover parts of the building hadn’t fared well in the last fifteen days. Vines had quickly covered the rest of the building, their growth seemingly accelerated by Genesis, and given the library the appearance of being a forgotten ruin of a dead civilization. In a way, the change has amplified its beauty. The dilapidated books, damaged by the dew and rain that falls through the cracks in what is left of the roof, dot the ground, their covers morphing into a wet kaleidoscope of colors.

Just as she’s about to leave, her body and Stamina fully recovered, a light begins to form just twenty feet away from her. Initially consisting of nothing more than a spark the size of her pinky, the light quickly grows in both size and brilliance until it is so bright she can’t stare at it without damaging her eyes. Without warning, the light seems to explode, a sharp crack followed by a deep boom breaking through the silence before the light disappears.

Kat turns back to the light and, to her absolute surprise, finds a lean young man standing there. Clumped and brown hair, poorly cut in the front so that he can see without brushing it aside, hangs down to his upper neck. His face is covered in a young man’s stubble and is angular, appearing as if he hasn’t had a full and complete meal in years. He wears a strange shirt that seems to be nothing more than a purple animal skin and a pair of pants that are extremely dirty and cut up, looking as if they’ve been worn for years. He doesn’t have any shoes on his feet and they seem to be completely brown, covered in dirt that looks as if it has fused with his skin. It also appears as if there are strange winds around his feet, causing the pages of the books around him to rustle, but Kat dismisses this as a hallucination brought about by the light.

Despite his ragged appearance, the man’s piercing eyes look around him in a way that reminds her of the beasts that she has just started to hunt, endlessly searching for danger and always on guard.

Her mind instantly classifies him as someone dangerous and, never one to take risks, she whips her knife out of her sheathe and throws it at him, turning around and kneeling down behind the bookshelf to string her bow. The process only takes a few seconds, the quickest among the Hunters, and she nocks an arrow before rising up from behind the bookshelf and releasing it at him. Or at least where he had been standing. The arrow is out of her bow before she realizes that the man is no longer there.

Fear floods her heart and she spins around, bringing out her second knife that she keeps stored in her shoe and holding it blade side down. She knows basically nothing about knife fighting, only having reached Lvl 4 in Knife Mastery, but it is better than nothing.

Its then that Kat notices the man and her eyes widen in complete surprise and disbelief. He's fifteen feet in the air and a few feet in front of her, having launched himself through the sky over her. He lands gracefully, holding her knife by the blade in his hand that now seems to be covered in a strange grey stone gauntlet. Her eyes can barely comprehend it, the stone seeming to move as if it wasn’t a solid and unbroken chunk of rock.

Despite her disbelief, she uses her hand to grab her bow off the ground and jumps backward as she nocks another arrow, intending to aim at his head this time. Just as she gets the arrow to the string, she watches as the man bends his knees and launches forward, moving faster than she can track. Within a millisecond he is standing next to her and rips the bow out of her hand, snapping the string and throwing it to the side.

The stone gauntlet then comes down on her shoulder and she freezes in fear, unsure of what she is going to do. Kat may have accepted the terms of her new reality but acceptance and mastery are two very different things.

The man then moves his face so he can make eye contact with her and doesn’t move, just staring at her as his body stops moving entirely. She feels the fear flood through her but now it is accompanied by confusion. Why is he just starting at her like that? The fear begins to abate as the process continues for a few seconds and then the man starts moving again, letting go of her and taking a step back.

A smile breaks out on his face, a strange countenance to see on the person that had just held her within his complete grasp. To her surprise, it takes away from his strange intimidation, making him look like a regular, if somewhat downtrodden, kind young man.

“Do you mind taking me to Peter?”

She freezes and stares at him, her suspicions that had begun to lessen with his smile snapping back into place.

“How the hell do you know Peter? And who the fuck are you?”