Earth: An advanced inhabitable world in the ideal colonizable range for many sentient species. Moderate temperatures and consistent weather patterns make this planet an incredible resource, along with a wealth of animals and wildlife beyond most worlds. Inhabited by the sentient species self-designated as “Humans,” Earth would likely have joined the galactic community of its own accord. Levels of technology in local populace indicate a sharp trend towards interstellar travel, but still needs to make the last push to acquire reasonable interstellar technologies. Up until quite recently, Earth has not been a fully classified planet and was largely unknown. Due to biotic activity in the quadrant, however, attention has been drawn to Earth and many other possibly habitable planets in the regions, primarily for quarantine and control purposes.

Someone once told me that all life is precious. That all animals and creatures, humans included, deserved to live.

That someone lived in another age than I do, though only six months of time separated us. It was amazing how much six months could change someone’s opinion.

Specifically, six months ago, I said those words to myself. Looking back, I can’t help but laugh. Nowadays, I spend nearly every waking moment wondering how to kill them in as many ways as I can.

I digress.

Sitting in a bush with a rifle braced against my shoulder lets my mind wander. What also lets my mind wander is the prospect of actually finding something goddamned edible in this forest. Not roots, not vegetables - though, yes, I admit I have finally found my taste for them after nearly starving - but actual food. I wanted a steak, a burger, damnit, I wanted chocolate again.

Before this crazy situation, I didn’t even take a second glance at chocolate and cheeseburgers. Now? I’d literally shoot my best friend in the foot to have a bite.

Okay, not literally. Daniel would probably shoot me back.

Oh boy. Long wait. But, it would pay off, if the deer was even still alive. We tracked it for hours, now I was the only one on the trail. I was all that was needed.

Or so I pumped myself up as, I couldn’t go back without that deer now. Daniel wouldn’t let it go, and I’d get to listen to him jab at me about not getting any venison or ammo for the next week. I breathed out slowly, steadying my nerves, expanding my awareness as much as I was capable. Having been a city dwelling college student half a year ago, I’d never had any experience hunting, or hiding. I counted my lucky stars that my uncle was a marine and had trained me well enough that I could compete professionally in marksmanship.

The other skills got good fast when the alternative was being eaten alive, though.

I froze as it came into sight, a young deer. It was healthy, vibrant even, and for a moment I appreciated the innocent beauty it carried. Nearly soundless, I sighted the rifle with careful hands. My heartbeat thundered, I would kill this creature.

My heartbeat slowed as I breathed deeply, calmness overtook me.

“Thank you.” I whispered, offering the only thing I could to the animal that would die to ensure I could strive forward. The bullet bit into it, piercing its heart in a single lethal shot from my rifle. It screamed, an awful sound that bit into me, hitting the steel wall that I forced my emotions to become. I’d had practice.

It ran several paces, collapsed, and wheezed briefly. As I approached, it stopped all of that, going still.

Six months ago, I could barely imagine killing a rat, let alone something like this.

I didn’t have time to field dress the deer. The sound might have let them know that someone was in the area, the blood would draw those that investigated here, and then to the deer.

With a tremor betraying my inner turmoil, my hands found the plastic bag of herbs in my pack. I pressed it against the wound, mixing it, a strong scent of mint, lavender, and other assorted smells assailed me. The overbearing smell of blood would prevail, but this would confuse them, supposedly, enough that I could get home.

I leaned down, hefting straps under the deer and strapping those to a harness. I looped them around me and grit my teeth as I stood.

“Damn, you’re a heavy one.” My legs shook at first, but that faded as I started on my way, my rifle hanging, cradled from an arm. It’d be a long walk.

Most of the monsters didn’t come this close to town very often, so I shouldn’t have a problem leaving the area.

The shaking of bushes to my right froze me in my tracks. Eyes wide and breathing shallow, I knelt with the kill across my back, nearly falling face-first into the forest with the imbalanced weight.

Come the hell on, are you serious? I looked around, wondering if I was already found. If I had, I could take on a couple of them, but not a swarm. Maybe if I emptied my rifle, but generally if there were enough to bother with the gun, there wouldn’t be enough bullets.

And then I saw it, the hulking figure moving out of the trees. Six feet tall and two hundred and fifty pounds of athletic power.

“Daniel? Son of a--You gave me a heart attack, man!” I stood, hefting my prize and counting my lucky stars it was just him.

“Yo!” He laughed, stepping through the underbrush as expertly as I did, “Niiiice! You got a deer.” He walked up, his pack absolutely brimming with herbs and vegetables.

“Wanna swap?” He asked, pointing his chin at the bulk of the deer that obviously weighed on me.

“Definitely.” No shame, this thing was heavy. He nodded, setting his pack down as I did the same. A few seconds after, we swapped packs, and I gave him the rifle. I was the better shot, but he wasn’t bad himself. In return, he gave me the atrocious excuse for a spear he had.

It was a street sign pole with a dagger at the tip, kept in place with a copious amount of duct-tape. The cloth grips along the length were a nice added touch.

“Alright, lets get outta here.” I flanked Daniel who stoically marched. The man was a tank, he barely strained with the deer on his back.

The deciduous forest around us was eerily quiet, scant sunlight filtered through ashen skies. Overall, it painted one of my favorite sights as a kid in a ‘just wrong’ kind of filter. It made the whole situation feel more like a nightmare than reality.

Yet, reality it was.

“What should we exchange the credit for?” Daniel pondered.

I glanced at the rifle, “Well, we need more bullets.”

“Did you use them all already?”

“Nah, I only used one, it was a clean shot,” I shook my head, “I’m saying for… You know.”

He sighed, “Yeah, I don’t think bullets is what we need. Need a small army.”

“Well, too bad we can’t buy a small army for credits, then.” Annoyed, I glared at our surroundings.

Daniel chuckled, “Well, nah. I can’t say I blame ‘em, we’re both kinda crazy to be out here in the first place. Nobody else is gonna attempt to raid a hive, let alone for our sakes.”

I kept my eyes forward, “That hive needs to burn.”

We stayed quiet as we walked. It wasn’t an awkward silence, we both knew that there wasn’t much else to be done about the hive. Back when the meteorites hit, a lot of damage was done. Almost a billion people died in the initial hits, everybody had someone that they knew that was dead now, not just from the impact, but the aftermath. Those monsters birthed from the rocks like some hellspawned horrors, hives forming as the creatures roamed the world.

It was at that moment that a warped howl sheared through the air. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, and wordlessly we exchanged looks painted with fear.

We swallowed it down, they might have found the blood trail, so panicking would only make things worse. Daniel began trotting forward, as fast as he could with the kill on his back.

“Well, that’s good.” I rolled my eyes, “The one time they’re nearby enough is when they’re in position to be the biggest pain in my ass.”

“Do you wanna take the rifle, by the way?” Daniel asked, holding it out.

I shook my head, “You’ve got that on your back, I’ll stick with the spear. Just back me up if we need it.”

We moved through the trees, following the game trail as much as we could until the forest started to thin out. In five more minutes we’d be in city limits, they might not follow us there.

The howl let loose again as we both staggered to a stop. It sounded like it was to our right, just ahead of us. I grit my teeth, hating the fact that they got smarter a month ago. They used tactics now, though only simple ones.

Simple, but effective. We’d be running right into them at this rate.

“Alright… this is bad.” Daniel murmured, dropping the body off of his back and sighting the rifle.

“Yep.” I breathed, trying to extract every detail of the landscape around us as possible. “Swap me the rifle, there’s at least four.”

“Shit, you sure?” He murmured. I wordlessly nodded as he quickly exchanged weapons. “Matt, if I distracted them, you could get into the city. I’ll figure something out on my own.”

Silence greeted him as he kept his eyes focused on the forest.

“I’ll be fine,” He continued, “I wasn’t training for the military for no reason,” a grin plastered on his face, turning around to look at my face.

“Matt?” Frowning, he realized that he was alone in the woods. With a snicker and rolling his shoulders, he muttered, “Damn, dude, that’s cold.”

He turned, keeping his eyes on the forest around him, standing over the kill. It wouldn’t matter now if he ditched the body, they’d go after fresh kill over old any day.

Then the first one stepped into view from around a tree, on all fours it stood at half the height of Daniel. It resembled - albeit distantly - a wolf, sniffing the ground and looking for the source of fresh blood. Wry framed, the creature lacked a great deal of fur, grey-black flesh that looked like it was in the process of crystallizing into obsidian shone in the dim light. Pale glowing eyes peered with a distant emptiness.

When it looked at Daniel, that emptiness somehow seemed to grow. Somewhere between a bark and a howl, the thing bolted towards the big man, streaking towards him faster than he knew he could run.

“Alright, bring it, bitch!” He shouted, stepping into a low stance as the “Wolf” closed. It jumped through the air, its jaw distended and gaping like a snake, black glass-like teeth framing its tar matte maw.

It was a fatal mistake against a skilled opponent; jumping made you vulnerable, no maneuverability.

Unable to change path, Daniel grimaced as he impaled the things chest where the heart ought to have been. Its body cracking, the improvised spearhead pierced the animal, silencing it almost instantly.

Hanging there, the wolf weighed a great deal. With a grunt, Daniel flopped it onto the ground and hefted the spear from its latest victim. They weren’t durable, breaking the pseudo-organ in the head or chest would bring them down in one go. No fighting, no twitching, just dead.

He turned and knew that doing that to the other three was going to be impossible. Two, maybe, the third would be chewing on him before he could get the spear out.

They rushed him just as suddenly as the one before. “Damn, Matt counted right,” he grinned, meeting his possible demise with a smile. A lot had happened for the both of them, they were the only family they had left, not that they were actual blood… but, sometimes, you could get something closer than blood.

I murmured under my breath, “Two bullets.”

The rifle barked out a retort, bullet streaming through the barrel and air. One wolf fell in a heap, half of its crystalline fleshy head gone.

“Three bullets,” I steadied myself, firing again while being glad that I’d opted to not take the bolt-action rifle. The shot hit center mass, just barely close enough to the wolfs psuedo-heart to shatter it.

“You beautiful bastard!” Daniel roared a laugh, the final hound running straight at him. He lashed out with a quick kick, supporting his weight with his spear. The wolf’s head snapped to the side and its running gait staggered. It corrected, but not before Daniel was already pushing the spear through its durable ribs and killing it.

Someone once told me life was precious.

These things probably wouldn’t count.

“Man, I thought you actually ditched me for a second there!” Daniel breathed deep, sweat dripping from his face as he sat on his knees. Letting the moment catch up with him.

I frowned, “Thanks. I especially like the bullshit part where you were telling me to save myself. Who’re you trying to impress?”

“It helps with my masculine charm?” A plastered shit eating grin nearly earned him the butt end of the rifle to his head. Instead, I helped him up, unable to keep from smiling in spite of myself.

“Well, that’ll need some work. If you only have it when you’re about to die, there’s not much point.”

“True that, let’s get the hell outta here.”

“Yeah. Before more show up.” I mocked vomiting, “They’re always so easy on the eyes.”

We wrapped up quickly, leaving the bodies where they were. Invariably, they would begin to rapidly decay over the course of a day, often less. And, so long as they weren’t chasing someone actively, they generally were revolted by the smell of their own dead.

It was doubly a shame that their blood couldn’t be preserved, it’d be pretty handy as a repellent. Already one of the bodies shined briefly, part of its body turning to ash.

We picked up the pace the rest of the way back, the pain of losing two more bullets outweighed by the four wolves we killed. It was annoying that we couldn’t get credit for killing them, too many people had faked killing one every time they went out for a stroll. After that, nobody got anything. The only thing you could do was cut a part off and bring it with you, but anything small enough would break down in minutes. Bigger, and it would not only be heavy, but incredibly disgusting.

After winding through the streets, inured to the sight of abandoned cars and a lack of electricity, we started seeing signs of life. Most of the outer reaches of the city were steadily being reclaimed by nature. In some places, splotches of red indicated where someone had lost the battle against the wolves. Many of these were still fresh, a month ago the hike in the wolves intelligence cost a lot.

Power had been down for three months now.

Contact with the outside world was limited to short-wave communication and anyone who had the good fortune to have a generator and could still connect to a satellite.

The military, spread thin after the first onset of the disaster, had grounded themselves through several cities. Governmental structure as a whole broke down, but for the most part things had somehow remained stable enough in our city, Gilramore.

Perhaps the only good side of the wolves getting smarter was that people were more afraid of the monsters than they were of each other, for the time being at least. That helped cooperation, especially considering the humbling figure that probably only about 5 billion people were left alive on earth.

It was a painful reduction, half the population was expected to be dead, but that number wasn’t accurately reflected anymore. Regions were busy enough trying to procure resources and get rid of the hives, let alone trying to collect that kind of information.

The empty military tank told me all I needed to know about that front. Hives had broken up supply lines to major bases. Word on the wind was that major military installations were busy clearing and securing their local areas. That was good, except logistics had become a nightmare in the wake of the meteors.

The depressing thoughts kept rolling in. Saving ourselves was definitely the best option. And the guys sitting on top of the cobbled together wall, a mix between soldiers and militia volunteers, were responsible for getting that done. Bulwark Red, as they called themselves, did their best to organize the people that were left in the city.

We strode up, hailing them at the ramshackle gate. “Yo! We’re back!”

“Hey, Dan, that was fast. You guys got some goodies, too!” A man in a gray tank-top grinned, “Sec, lemme get it open.”

I nudged Daniel, “Who was that one again?”

“Jake something, I don’t remember.” Daniel shrugged, a motion I mirrored. There were a lot of people who knew our names these days. Getting as much information in the wilds as possible was a dangerous job, and Bulwark Red gave the ever-so-prestigious title of “Scout” to anyone who was dumb enough to go out and check things out.

We had our own reasons, getting supplies being the most common. Other people, even scouts, didn’t really go out as often as us, save for a few people that I’d only really heard about, but never met..

“Wow, that’s a good kill. Did any of wolves show up?” Jake asked, looking between the two of us.

“Yeah, four, they’re dead now. Might be more later.” I shrugged, not especially concerned. A few stray wolves wouldn’t get over the walls, no matter how crappy they were put together. Their intelligence levels made me wonder at how they didn’t accidentally kill themselves by walking off of cliffs.

“Yeah, anyways, I gotta field dress this deer before any longer,” Daniel beamed, his charismatic personality always much better than mine.

“Gotcha, well thanks for the heads up, we’ll keep an eye out.” Jake shut the gate behind us.

I cast a bleak glance over my shoulder, seeing five guys just sitting on the wall doing little else irritated me to no end. At the least they could form a kill-squad and get rid of some wolves.

The wolves were getting worse with time, everyone knew that, it was an impossible to ignore fact. And yet, everyone was terrified of instigating them; they liked the thought that the wolves might leave us all alone. It was a pipe dream. We fought off one horde two weeks ago, nearly two thousand wolves at the walls and they broke through in several places. If people like me weren’t waiting for that to happen, who knows how many more casualties we’d have had.

There wasn’t any clear intelligence in an individual wolf, but recently it seemed that they came up with tactics that they shouldn’t have had the capacity to even execute with their meager brainpower.

But no, we’ll just sit on our hands while the problem gets worse.

“You’re death-glaring again,” Daniel chuckled, moving to a station set up for field dressing.

“Ah, oops.” I exhaled, “Bad habit, must have picked up the tendency for bad habits from people sitting on their asses too long.”

“Eh, let them, someone’s gotta sit on that wall. I’d rather not have some random wolf come over and eat a kid in the night.”

“Touche,” I answered, getting up helping to gut the animal and bleed it out the rest of the way.

We worked in silence until my grin widened, “Wonder if there’s any better rations today.”

“There’d better be for this,” Daniel scoffed, “I want me some venison.”

“Mmmm… some jerky would be nice too.”

“Hell yeah.”

“Well, at least finders get to keep a third of a kill. We got a lot of herbs and stuff too.” I chucked the bucket of organs into another container that we’d take with us.

After we finished, we moved through the camp, a surprising number of people moving about. While there wasn’t anyone starving, there weren’t a lot of full stomachs either. If it wasn’t for the fact that Bulwark would lock you up without rations, I suspected more than one person might have a go at stealing it from us. Granted, enough people knew about scouts to know that we weren’t going to hoard it to ourselves.

We weren’t stupid, after all. Hoarding resources in this situation just resulted in getting beaten half to death and ending up with nothing.

Ahead, we could see the trading hub, really just a huge building repurposed to help handle a large volume of goods going in. Not a lot of people were in line just yet, we were before the rush. Walking up to counter, we found the lady that we normally went to, though I thought it strange that she was here so late. I tried getting all of my trading done before noon, but meat was a rarity.

She was tall, blonde hair, blue eyes, and probably worked as someone’s secretary before this whole mess occured. Luckily, formal attire died with electricity, she wore a warm turtleneck sweater and skirt, complimenting her body type quite nicely.

“Gentlemen,” she greeted us as she had any other time. If she was surprised with the deer slung over Daniel’s back or my bulging pack of herbs and vegetables, she did not show it.

“Miss Delia,” Daniel’s beaming smile expanded. Internally I chuckled, he had quite the crush on the lady.

“I see you’re manning the counter late, no hunting today?” I frowned.

“Hmm? Ah, yes, well with activity from the wolves increasing and the number of willing bodies to man the counters decreasing…”

“Short straw.” A wry smile graced my lips, Daniel briefly elbowing me.

“He’s tired and grumpy. Don’t mind him.” He shot me a dirty look.

She chuckled, “It’s alright, it’s true. But if I don’t do this, who will?”

A sentiment I could agree with. I shook my head and breathed, “Story of our lives. Anyways, we’ve got a lot to turn in.”

I hefted my pack onto the counter, Daniel moving to a side counter that had wax paper covering it so that the deer carcass wasn’t sitting on the desk, along with the container of organs.

“Alright, we’ll go ahead and check out the weight of the deer and evaluate these vegetables. For now, we’ll credit you both with three hundred and modify that pending the results. Does that sound fair?” She smiled, knowing that the deal was quite fair.

“Yeah, that’s great,” Daniel was enraptured in her smile, “Wanna come hang out with us again tonight? I was thinking of making some venison stew.”

She chuckled lightly, “That’s tempting, I’d take you up on that if I didn’t have other plans tonight.”

“Date?” I asked, pretending to ignore the momentary stiffness in Daniel’s body.

“Nothing like that,” she sighed, “I’m… visiting my sister today.”

My light commentary died on my tongue, “I see. Well, say hello for us.”

Daniel stirred at my side “Take this too, I found it a while ago, you said she liked these.” He quickly produced a small music box.

Fran Delia took the music box with a hint of sadness in her eyes, but gratefully said, “Thank you, maybe you can visit with me one of these days. Company is always appreciated.”

“Just tell us the day.” I nodded, “We’ll be there. Maybe we’ll go release some stress on wolves afterwards.”

They nodded, Fran showing a brief moment of a familiar kind of hatred before she recollected herself. She hated the wolves as much as I did.

“In any case, is there anything else I can help you guys with?” She returned to her business mode in a flash.

Daniel nodded, “Well, did anyone else find another gun? We definitely need ammo too.”

“Ah, I’m afraid that while someone found a gun, it was traded for earlier. As for ammo, I take it you’re looking for ammo for the hunting rifle?”

“That’s the one,” I nodded, “The accounting for the bullets we used are three in total. One for the deer, two more for two wolves.”

“I see, thank you,” she wrote down the information, “Then there won’t be any particular restriction. I can give you a case of ammo for one hundred and fifty credit.”

“Sounds good,” Daniel nodded, “Just deduct it half and half, he saved my ass again.”

“You make great bait.” I answered, to which he shook his head, Fran laughing at what wasn’t at all a joke.

“Alright, I’ll be right back.” She moved from the desk into the back area, metal shelves full of goods. We knew that the ammo and any reserved weapons were in lockup near the back, but even knowing that we didn’t have any designs on them. While I was a great shot, Daniel was only passable. We couldn’t afford to try to practice his shooting either, every bullet after the power went out was being accounted for. If you showed you were incompetent with them, then you’d be limited in what you could purchase.

At first glance it might seem unfair, but with the fact that there would be no guaranteed way of finding more bullets, you didn’t want just anyone wasting shots.

For the fifth week in a row, I held the 100% accuracy goal along with a few others, though I rarely used many shots. Most of the others were army, but some were civilians. That usually gave me enough credit alone that people didn’t bother me. Wasting shots was virtually criminal, now.

“Here you go!” She hefted the case on the counter before leaning in, “The chief said you could have a little extra.”

I kept my excitement in check, only a grin showing. Daniel beemed, “Tell him thanks for us. Anyways, see you around.”

“Always a pleasure, you two stay safe.”

“Likewise,” I waved over my shoulder, hefting the bullets under my arm. It felt like it was more than just a ‘little’ extra. Too bad I didn’t have an automatic rifle, or a bigger clip.

We made small talk with each other, Daniel saw several people that we knew as other scout’s and exchanged information directly. He was the one that talked to most people, but a few times I’d be asked a question, mostly tips on the lay of the land. It wasn’t unpleasant, and by the time we got back home, the sun was nearly setting.

Our home, as it were, was a three story tall office structure near town center. We’d done a good bit of work on it, converting office spaces into livable quarters. Scouts were mostly the people who lived here, an unspoken association. We worked together and jammed the stairwells with desks and furniture that weren’t needed, leaving only one stairwell remotely accessible. Sometimes, we used the elevator shaft with rope to climb up to the floor we stayed on.

None of us felt safe living on ground floors after the wolves raided the outer area of the city. Our fortified building would double as an emergency bunker. Our last stand.

It was hard when only half of us had guns, though.

Still, we climbed the stairs to the second floor, switching to the other stairwell to get to the third. We greeted those that were living there, talkative, but mellow. It was even tamer than the already sparsely packed marketplace earlier, or the communal area outside. We took an executive office overlooking city hall and a small fountain area in front of it. Across from us, city hall bustled with activity from Bulwark Red trying to organize more people into more efficient roles. It was an ongoing process, many people had starting to just give up and do nothing.

“We’re all screwed at this rate,” I muttered, seeing the people too preoccupied by who had to put up the next tent, or fix the next shelf. Somehow, reality hadn’t clicked with the majority of people yet. It was easier to believe a painless lie than to face the agonizing truth. This situation wasn’t going to be getting any better. No one would be saving us.

It would only be getting worse. Much worse, if my gut had anything to say about it.

“Yeah.” Daniel uttered, catching me off guard. He continued, “What, I’m not allowed to agree with you if you’re right?”

I huffed, tossing him a granola bar from our stash, “Makes me sound like an ass.”

“Only most of the time.” Grinning, he opened the wrapper, “But at least I know you’re not two-faced. Most of the people down there? They’d get to know me, be my friend, but that’s only skin deep. They’re just using each other, not thinking about what needs to be done. Not thinking about the future they’re throwing away.”

An uneasy quiet settled then, but I resolved that with a snort, “I know that, but let me be the nihilist, you’re no good at it.”

“What?” He paused, then with a smile he clicked back into his usual self, “Well, I mean, I thought I played it pretty well.”

“Well, a true nihilist would admit that our situation is perfectly hopeless as is. We’ll wake up one day with wolves gnawing on people down there, and realize that it’s too late to mount any real resistance. Then, it’d just be a game of dying slower, and knowing that because everyone else was too busy being lazy, humanity died.” I sat back, smiling in spite of myself.

“Dude…” Daniel trailed off, and my smile wiped away. Yeah, that was a little much.

“Sorry man, that was uncalled for.”

“No, dude, look the hell up!” He smacked the glass panel window, pointing at the sky.

I flinched, whatever could make him shout like that had to be something interesting.

The sound hit me at the same time I searched for what he was pointing at. The percussive impact and the hundreds, if not thousands, of flaming trails ripped across the sky filling my vision.

“No… more meteors?” My heart nearly stopped, cold sweat broke out across my body. The culmination of human technology had only managed to break the first meteor into smaller parts. Even if this was another bunch of smaller ones, what could we do now?

“There’s one coming this way.” Daniel stated, standing upright, his posture rod-straight. I always expected him to meet death head-on. We both lost all of our family in the first impacts, all that kept us going was the will to survive. That, and the hunger for revenge.

I stood next to him, putting a hand on his shoulder. He nodded to me, before we turned out gaze back to the balls of fire.

“Hold up… it’s slowing down?” I blinked, glaring at the orb of fire. In the first place, it wasn’t as bright as it should have been.

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. This isn’t a meteor.” I grit my teeth, immediately snapping up the rifle and loading it with bullets. I stuffed a handful into my jacket, there was a chance things were still about to get very bad. Daniel pulled on makeshift armor that he’d been working on. He only had the arms and legs done, but they’d have to do.

“Wish I had a gun right now.”

“I wish we had a real army. Help me with this desk.” I started hauling the oversized wooden desk to the window. If the glass shattered, I’d rather be behind cover. We nestled in, watching the object approach and get larger, and larger.