Sarafyn gave up the name Scott. That was another life. He’d had far too many of those and needed the stability that could only be found by returning to the beginning, but in name only. There were still memories he was trying to forget. Wferium was dead and gone. There was no reason to dwell. In fact, the only connection he had left of his old life was his only son, Jason.

The strength he sought was to resist the weakness brought about from Aryl’s death. His wife hadn’t deserved such a grisly fate. Revenge would help restore his strength quite nicely. It had with Wferium and she was his sister. It would only be easier with Carmen, Aryl’s murderer. Yet he also sought wisdom in how to deal with his son. The odds were it wouldn’t be handled the way he’d originally planned, which was to welcome him back, kicking and screaming, but with love. Then to explain his reasons for secrecy, teach him how to use his newfound abilities and warn him against the prophecies, especially the ones that involved him.

Anger, fury and vicious thoughts of revenge were overshadowing whatever love remained for his son. Why? These things weren’t his fault. Jason chose to abandon him. This was a lie he told himself to propagate the rage soon to envelop all that remained of his soul. It was true Jason turned a blind eye to his repeated warnings, but that was attributed to adolescent fury. Sarafyn could barely remember, but he had that wild streak once too.

A permanent separation was never the plan. Jason was supposed to get unlocked, but eventually escape Wferium’s overbearing grasp with a lesson well learned. He’d then find his way back to his father and hopefully a reunion meant to strengthen their bond, not shatter it. Hell, that was more Sarafyn’s design than his sons, though Jason never would’ve guessed it. It backfired, just like so many other things in his long life. He wanted to believe it was a problem that could be fixed, but still, the rage boiling in his veins would not be denied.

He knew what he was battling against. What the reality of his decision entailed, but he was still in blissful denial of it. It wasn’t something he’d ever wanted before. There was a part of him that still didn’t. Of course, there would be a price to pay. He may never be able to forgive himself. He told himself he’d deal with that later. For now he must find his son. He must end the prophecy. He had to kill Jason.

He couldn’t see any other way. He’d tried time and time again, but the prophecy still plagued him. It always had. Not the Firstborn Prophecy, but the other one that also come true. This was the one that concerned himself . . . the Outcast Prophecy. In the beginning, he wasn’t even sure it spoke of him. Not for over a century. The reason was simple. He hadn’t been cast out. He and his first wife, Mychelle, left of their own free will and it was her idea. She’s the one who’d convinced him.

What neither had been willing to accept was the complete and utter absence of free will, which the prophecies stole away like a thief in the night. 300 years ago he was of the Humatran Elect. They both were. That wasn’t something anyone just left, but they both had their reasons, which were if nothing else, based in morality. This was strange because over the centuries in hiding he’d committed acts of atrocity far exceeding the horrors he fled. He’d always convinced himself he’d been pushed into doing such things by those who hunted him. If they’d just left him alone everything would’ve been different. It took a long while for him to understand the Elect deemed them both outcasts shortly after they left, if only to save face and prevent others from defecting.

That happened so very long ago. It was before the rupture. They weren’t called ancients back then. They were all so young. Most hadn’t even experienced a youthing . . . at least not from a human. The group was little more than newly created humatrans on the run. The idea began in innocence, as most things do. The idea was to form a cohesive group to take a stand against tyranny and form a haven for other humatrans fleeing global genocide. Back then humans were the monsters. In Sarafyn’s mind they always would be.

That seemed a hard thing to say, seeing how his parents were human. Yet when unconditional love starts having conditions is it still love? Was it ever? He wasn’t born with the desire to kill his family members, but it was inbred and festering inside of him. His parents wanted the same thing when they’d found out what he was . . . for him to die; him and his sister both. Not that he remembered of those feeble years, but the others told him so and he had no reason to doubt them. Not that he could trust what they’d said now, but he was made to believe it after he’d seen proof of what they were. His parents were not nice people, but then nice people didn’t last long anymore . . . especially not back then.

<><><><>

The Atra war was devastating. Whole cities were practically disintegrated. No one knew how for sure, but there were rumors of advanced unknowable forms of telekinesis. This was based off the fact no Atra needed to be present for it to happen. If it was a weapon it was an invisible one. They did possess spacecrafts of a sort but they seemed interdimensional, phasing in and out of existence. Not so much as teleporting, but fluctuating in some sort of haze, as if a ripple of space-time were moving through them at random. Never once did the whole thing appear or disappear. It was terrifying.

So were the Atra themselves, who only came down to the surface after the planet was in ruins. They didn’t come with white flags of truce or offer any terms of surrender. No. They came to finish what they’d started. They didn’t need to do much. One look seemed enough to kill. Not one look at them, though that sometimes was enough, but one look from them, which was inherently hard to avoid. It seemed they had a single thick eye that wrapped around to the back of their heads. This was misleading. Their eye was actually millions of tiny eyes. They were compound like that of a bee, so very little escaped their notice.

The rest of their bodies were covered in what seemed like tentacles or vines, which were multiple shades of green. Beneath that seemed to be some sort of exoskeleton with bodies divided into multiple sections. These were all connected by long, hard, black cylinders, like a hollowed out pole made of steel, but gracefully shaped as if a work of art. It was assumed they were hollow for blood flow and they weren’t made of steel, but more of the extremely hard carapace. All parts of their bodies could compact to minimal proportions about the thickness of a fit human waist, but they could also expand outward like a peacock in a frightening display of threat. This was only done in front of crowds of humans. A small group had very little chance of surviving since a single concentrated glance seemed to promote mental and physical breakdown. They found out later the Atra were far more powerful than this. That the first waves were not scouting missions testing humanity’s defenses, but much closer to toying with them, as if torturing a pet or playing with your food.

The invasions occurred more frequently after the cities fell. Whole militaries launched against just a few of them and still sometimes failed. The Atra could die and did, but always at great cost. No Atra took prisoners, but humanity needed to, for study. This didn’t work out as planned. Their very mind was a weapon which humanity had no means to nullify and they were cunningly smart. Sometimes they’d allow capture only to eviscerate every scientist in a lab with a single thought.

Humanity hadn’t faltered to the point of extinction, they’d just moved to more rural locales. Everyone knew the Atra’s focus would soon shift. There was little anyone could do other than hide, but they didn’t need to for long. The Atra seemed to be leaving as if it were all just some sort of genocidal warning. Yet they soon returned. However, these were different. They generally all looked the same, but most of these moved differently. They were generally less fluid and more lethargic. They were slower to attack as if it were physically harder to do. Even with their minds, concentration was a strain; an arduous and seemingly painful task. Only one thing mattered to the people of Earth . . . they were easier to kill, which they did with vigor, fueled by revenge.

They may have been weaker, maybe older and perhaps even dying, but after the annihilation their species wrought, mankind wasn’t about to let them exit peacefully. The feeble Atra garnered no sympathy. It was true the remnants of humanity were determined and more prepared, but even a weakened Atra proved deadly in large numbers or against small numbers, especially if underestimated. Thousands more people fell to this weaker wave in battles fought on nearly every inch of the globe and even at sea against naval forces.

Eventually humanity gained the upper hand. The Atra were falling prey to their own varied frailties and the strategic advantages this offered humanity in warfare. The war would soon be won. That was in the year 2215. The Atra had arrived a mere two years prior and without warning began to raze the planet. Not much would remain after the dust settled, but survival trumped all else, so no one was complaining, having rethought their priorities.

Then it was over, despite the stragglers. Across the globe Atra regressed from a state of war into that of hiding, but these were hunted down whenever possible. Fighting against cornered Atra in strategic positions cost humanity hundreds more lives, but most were eventually slaughtered. Every now and then another would be found and killed. Even afterwards it was suspected more existed, but only a scant few . . . less than 20 over the whole of the planet. As unacceptable as this was, there wasn’t much for it.

It was finally time to declare victory and start the grueling task of picking up the pieces of a now lost civilization. People survived and could salvage some of what remained, but much would never be recovered. A global effort to unify humanity soon began, but not everyone agreed. Aside from the expected looting, minor wars broke out for control of precious resources. Many more died because of it. Humanity had never really needed the Atra’s help to destroy themselves. No one was better at killing humans than humans.

<><><><>

Neither of Sarafyn’s parents witnessed the war, but they’d both been born into the aftermath. Both were devastatingly poor, but then that was the state of things everywhere. Sure, there were a few wealthy people who hadn’t lost quite everything or other leeches who profited from disaster, but most people suffered year after endless year. They were living hand to mouth, scraping by on next to nothing. Things would get better, but not in their lifetime. It would take the better part of a century before any real semblance of recovery took hold.

Even so, a year after the end of the war, construction began on hospitals, orphanages, homeless shelters, soup kitchens and all manner of other essential services. Over the next decade less critical buildings began to rise over the rubble of the old. The cities were slowly rising once again. People were being helped, but only in small percentages. Luck and timing played a big part in whether or not help was given or received.

Sarafyn’s parents were Tony Coltrain and Claire Tdena. They were both Americans, though that was a loosely held term back then. The country, like nearly all others, was in shambles both economically and literally. Claire Tdena was of Italian and Russian descent, while Tony Coltrain was purely southern. They were both born and raised in the tiny border town of Threet, Alabama, which was largely spared the devastation that claimed nearly every major city across the globe. They’d gone to the same high school, such as it could be called. They were drawn to each other by “forces unknown”, or at least that was their whimsical name for it. Sarafyn never once believed they were anything but human, having no Atran significance. It was just a mushy romantic thought.

He was convinced simply because he knew what self-righteous bastards they both were, but aside from this the timeline wasn’t right. The dead Atra hadn’t had nearly enough time to develop into seeds. For the moment the whole of humanity was safe in blissful ignorance.

Whether or not they actually loved each other couldn’t have mattered less to Sarafyn. They gave him the gift of life. The rest was shit covered in piss. Whether or not they loved him wasn’t really a question . . . they didn’t. The time before they found out what he and his sister really were couldn’t have been much worse, even if the twins had been human. During such a time, children, especially babies, presented little more than an unbearable burden. He owed them nothing. He owed their memory even less; certainly not his love. The fact he remembered them at all was their only legacy. What he didn’t know was filled in after the fact by those who raised him. It was more than most had and more than they deserved.

In any age, in any tragedy, the youth will prevail. Youth was callously resilient. Otherwise, overwhelming depression and seemingly eternal oppressiveness of loss would’ve turned humanity to dust long ago. That was not the case. Youth saw everything, including death, through rose-colored glasses. Fields upon fields of rotting corpses became a playground. A human skull became a toy. The previous generation’s tragedy devolved into little more than a story. Not untrue, but neither relevant to what mattered most in their lives . . . freedom.

Such was the case with Tony and Claire. Threet held nothing for them, aside from the safety and complacency of those doomed to rot. They’d heard of the devastation just beyond their small borders and cultivated a need to see it, regardless of the chaotic danger. The threat of danger made the prospect real. It made it fun, which in turn made their lives worth living. It was their drug of choice and would not be denied.

Neither would sex, despite the fact condoms were not so widely distributed as in their parents’ generation, which seemed nothing more than a fairy tale. Sex required nothing of love, though they believed they had that too. At their age, in the shit ass end of nowhere, there just wasn’t anything better to do. So sex became an everyday occurrence for them. Even when they left, the pure adrenaline inducing aphrodisiac called freedom demanded they pull over their refurbished motorcycle as often as possible to enjoy their favorite pastime. It was only a matter of time before Claire became pregnant.

Though they never let something so unimportant stop them from experiencing all that life had to offer. It was a miracle Claire’s devil may care, reckless behavior hadn’t caused her to miscarry or at least ended her baby’s promising existence in stillbirth. They’d gotten lucky. The only problem was they hadn’t seen it that way. The bigger and further along she became the more of a drag it all was to her wayward lifestyle. She would’ve loved a miscarriage and he had no real reason to believe she hadn’t purposely tried to bring one on. It would’ve been a double loss. She didn’t know she was carrying twins. No. That disastrous knowledge came afterwards.

They’d been traveling for months. They ate and slept when and where they could. The devastation laid waste to many areas which had since become ghost towns and ghost cities. Even so, many hadn’t. Many were still populated by the vestiges of humanity, some of whom were a fair representation of mankind at its worst. Some even resorted to cannibalism after the decimated grocery stores ran dry. Why they hadn’t moved on was best described as personal problems. Most steered clear of such areas for obvious reasons, but Tony and Claire saw the places for what they were . . . a scavenger’s treasure trove.

Food could still be found if one knew where to look, which was a skill they both learned from youth. Not to mention, a toughness that belied their “innocence”. It was their weapon when caught in bad situations. Play stupid. Play dumb. Play innocent. Then when their backs were turned, murder the dumb fucks. Then take everything they had. They thanked them afterwards for going to all the hard work to gather the necessary items for them. This included weapons, which only made future encounters all the easier to handle.

In the beginning, they were both glad Claire had gotten pregnant. It was the perfect ruse. Pregnancy implied helplessness and they used that trick to the fullest. That was until it actually became true. It was useful, then a burden, then next to impossible. They’d stashed up on weapons, which allowed them to survive the last few months, but traveling and killing were no longer fun. They had to find a place to have their baby.

The plan was for Claire to give birth and then abandon the baby to continue their chosen lifestyle, but death wasn’t a part of that plan. This meant finding a hospital, which meant finding a civilized society. Actually, there were plenty of those, but only on the inside. Life all over the planet now resembled something out of the old west far more than anything civilized. Many towns now sported barbed wire fences and guarded borders. The goal was to keep the good people in and the bad people out and they meant business.

Even though both Tony and Claire knew they’d fallen well into the “bad people” category, they still figured a pregnant woman near her due date would be taken in. They were right about that to a degree; the goal being to cater to the next generation . . . only. They planned to take the baby and kick the riff-raff out. That was fine with them. They didn’t want the baby and they sure as hell didn’t want to stay anywhere civilized. That just wasn’t them, but first they had to find a place that could help her with the birth.

At the time, they were heading west, after first heading east and then north. These basics of directions were the limit of their travel plans. Freedom did not require a destination. They had already cut well into Oklahoma, past the ruins of Oklahoma City. There they’d scavenged what they could, but winter was well upon them. Nothing was easy anymore. To counter the cold and snow they’d ditched their motorcycle in favor of a car . . . a hearse actually. It suited their lifestyle and gave them a place to sleep. Perfect.

Afterwards the nearest place they could find with a working hospital was Geary, about 35 to 40 miles further west. Of course, El Reno was half the distance but it’d been leveled by the Atra. It was one of the many medium sized towns they’d passed over the previous year literally erased from the map. Even the rubble had been flattened to a large plain of debris. It was too small to survive a focused attack and too worthless to repopulate, even for the burrowing denizens of humanity, as some had resorted to living underground. No one lived above or below El Reno, except the animals and plants that reclaimed it.

Geary didn’t have much to offer, but a gun to the face and a compelling suggestion to move on. Some towns didn’t even trust pregnant women. They had their reasons. Most who reacted this way had been burned before. They had no doubt Claire was actually pregnant, but that didn’t make her harmless. It certainly didn’t mean she or her “significant other” would leave without taking a few of them to the grave. They’d told them as much and would hear none of their excuses to the contrary. They simply had to go.

Weatherford was different. They were nice enough to give them the dried up husk of a meal, but nothing else. They told them their hospital still stood, but was now more or less apartments. They had nothing else to spare from their meager medical supplies to help outsiders. They were lucky to get what they got, but in light of their worsening situation, hadn’t seen it that way. They tried to force the situation and disrespected the town’s hospitality. They too drove the couple away at gunpoint.

They would’ve taken their hearse as rightful compensation, but everywhere Tony and Claire went they parked a good distance away and walked up to the town gate. Of course, it was a lie, but the tragedy of the situation was best displayed by making everyone believe a pregnant woman had been walking from town to town in the dead of winter. Aside from this, they never knew what would happen. It could be a trade, which was unacceptable. They could take the vehicle outright, which was also unacceptable. Or they could invite them in and the town could claim the hearse as payment while she was giving birth. The only acceptable situation was for them to leave with the hearse, which meant it had to be hidden.

The couple attempted entry into many other towns, but all ended with a colorful variety of reasons why they couldn’t be helped. Some weren’t even fenced in. Some of them had no hospitals but did have doctors with pregnancy experience, who’d rerouted into farming or some other menial lifestyle after the war. Some desired to help, but without medical equipment or other necessities couldn’t accomplish the job with any acceptable degree of safety. Some had everything needed, including a deep loathing of outsiders.

The two began to wonder if they’d have to enter Texas or just have the baby in the fucking snow, but then they wandered near someplace different. In truth, it was little more than a wasteland, but still more. Take El Reno, for instance. It was simply gone. There was nothing around it. It was a total loss, but that wasn’t always the case. Certain places once wiped off the map had since begun to be rebuilt upon the ashes of the old, but others grew around ground zero. In such instances the old wasteland proved the epicenter of the town springing up all around it. Perhaps this was done for easy access to scrap metal and other building material, useful in the construction of a level playing field with a clean foundation and no excavation required. If this was indeed the case then by the time the new town was finished the old town should be clean, unspoiled land once again, ready to build on.

Such was the border town of Durham, Oklahoma. The old Durham was gone, but the new Durham had just begun. That wasn’t quite true. They’d been working on it since before either of them were born. They even managed to construct a new hospital, which marked the epicenter of town. It wasn’t exactly up to code, but safety regulations weren’t exactly a priority anymore. People built what they built. No building permit needed. No rules to follow. No laws . . . except for that of gravity. The structure had to stand to be called a structure. It was the most basic principle. A decent earthquake would likely bring down the whole town, but that could be said of most everything built postwar planet-wide.

The town sported a fence like most all others, but the vastness of it gave way to weak, unmonitored areas. After all, it had to cover both the new town and the old. In light of that, it was an admirable job. The two likely could’ve simply slipped inside with a little effort, but what then? It wasn’t the first time they’d had that option or tried it. The populations were small now. Everyone knew everyone. No one new just popped up. They found they couldn’t “blend” in because of it and were summarily escorted to the gate and let loose with a warning of death should the attempt be made again. They made sure to tell them in no uncertain terms the only reason they still breathed was because of Claire’s pregnancy, as they wouldn’t kill an unborn child. They said the world shouldn’t be rebuilt on such atrocities. They were, though. Things like that happened every day. They’d just gotten lucky enough to slip into a town with morals. It was more than could be said of themselves.

They knew better than to try that again. Maybe they would if the town was large enough, but Durham wasn’t. Sure the borders were, but the actual town was only half that size. So they took the friendly approach and knocked on the door. Unfortunately, Durham was no different than many other towns. They had little resources to spare, but possessed a heart that still beat. They had a compassion about them few other towns could claim. Still, though they’d brought them a meal, they told them unfortunately, sadly no. Though they were open to expanding their population, they had little enough to support themselves during the harsh winter. They said maybe if it was spring or summer. They said to return then and things would be better.

Then, with little warning, the unavoidable finally happened. It was the bitterly cold morning of December 15th, 2247. Claire began to go into labor right at the gate. They’d already begun to walk away, resigned to enter Texas, but it was too late. They’d have to have the baby in the snow and the cold. That marked the turning point no truly compassionate town could turn away from. They were taken in . . . directly to the makeshift hospital. It was there Claire gave birth to her twins. It was a torturous labor that proved true their belief she would’ve died in labor outside of civilization. They’d told her as much. The obvious reason was twins, but it would’ve been too much anyway. The pain made it an easy thing to believe.

Both Tony and Claire made up their minds long ago not to name the baby, much less two, because they’d no intention of staying. It only would’ve made everything harder, which was evidence neither of their hearts had hardened completely. They denied this to each other and to themselves. It was easier that way. How else could they give up their child and move on as if it never happened? They should’ve known better. They supposed they did. It was all strictly denial. Well, that and anger. The baby represented a pause, if not an end to the lifestyle they’d led. The baby was stealing away everything they knew and loved. This resentment made the whole idea of giving him or her up easier to cope with, even if it meant the child’s death.

Yet things had changed. The people of Durham called it the miracle of motherhood. Claire found that she wanted to keep her babies. To a degree, so did Tony, but he was eager to get back to what they knew. He wanted to leave and they both knew they couldn’t take their children with them. It only made things worse when the town, despite the shortages of winter, invited all of them to stay and remain part of their town. There was an argument and during it certain things were revealed. The first and foremost was that love, at least from Tony, had never really existed. The people of Durham told Claire how to define love. It meant willing sacrifice.

Tony seemed to have that trait, however begrudgingly. He’d taken Claire from town to town to endless town. He could’ve simply ditched her as excess baggage and told her as much. The fact that he’d considered it didn’t really help his case, but he said he hadn’t done that because he loved her. He hadn’t wanted her to die. Well, yes, she could see that. Not the love, but the not wanting her to die part. He was horny and made little effort to hide it. Well, she had to admit she was too. It was just another burden the pregnancy had caused. They both wanted to be rid of the whole ordeal so their nomad life could continue and a big part of that was their sex life. Of course, that meant the threat of new pregnancies, but they’d both sworn to stock up on condoms wherever Claire ended up giving birth.

Things were different now. Tony felt that Claire was taking sides, choosing her babies over Tony, their lifestyle and sex. He was feeling betrayed, but then so was she. She felt he should have higher priorities and his lack of responsibility in this proved to her something she should’ve seen before . . . he’d never really taken much responsibility for anything in his life. Claire had to admit she hadn’t either. It was the main reason they’d run away. They just didn’t know it at the time. Then responsibility was forced upon them from the pregnancy. They both loathed it, but now, after seeing her babies, Claire felt differently. Tony didn’t and it couldn’t be reconciled. So Tony left not only her, but her babies, their lifestyle, their sex-life, the hospital and the whole damned town. He simply moved on, as if such a thing were so simple. Of course, it wasn’t, but he wouldn’t know that for a very long time.

Many feelings laid siege to Claire that fateful day . . . hopelessness, desperation, despair, weariness, weakness, exhaustion, hunger, thirst, hope, pain, amazement, joy, love, worry, anger and loss. Most of all bitterness set in, which led right back to hopelessness. Far too much happened in too short a time. She’d given birth to twins and lost Tony and the hearse. She was stuck in Durham, but at least she was welcome. She wouldn’t die, but a huge part of her wanted to. It was true she bore the greater part of responsibility throughout the entirety of their yearlong journey, but that wasn’t saying much. She did what she had to do because there was no other way. It was her own body that chained her. She may have been free, but was now faced with responsibility on a scale she couldn’t even imagine.

She had little time to think about that before new feelings started to inundate her. She hadn’t planned to name either child, but now felt compelled to do so. This went beyond motherly instincts to something more, but she couldn’t have known that as she’d never before been a mother. She didn’t know what to expect so naturally thought everything she experienced was normal. It wasn’t. It was expansive, but not overwhelming. It was like a million hints on a million different topics. It felt, she supposed, exactly how a sixth sense would feel or maybe a motherly instinct. The eyes that every mother was supposed to have in the back of their heads seemed to cover her body both inside and out. It was an intense feeling of utter clarity, but it didn’t last long. She believed it welled up from a previously unknown place deep inside her. It didn’t. It came from outside of her.

Among other things, the subtle voice, which she believed was her own inner voice, was telling her what to name her children. The names didn’t make any sense, but inexplicably they did to her. They were Sarafyn for the boy and Wferium for her little girl. She hadn’t expected everyone to think she was crazy because to her she wasn’t. What truly crazy person ever actually thought they were? Wouldn’t knowing it and being aware of it, be an irrefutable sign of sanity? Claire didn’t think about these things. To her the names sounded no crazier than John and Jane, to the point where all other names would’ve been ludicrous. To her the names were familiar ones that had been used before and if anything, overused. She’d considered something more unique with at least a dozen characters each, but simplicity suited babies.

The strange thing was no one thought the names were weird. Well, they did, but they’d gotten used to it. It wasn’t long before Claire realized there were other babies with similar names inside the hospital, but it was more than this. She’d been told by a nurse named Joy that her own five year old girl was named Cylystygian. There was something else too. Joy told her there were adults their age with similar names. It was funny though, because all the teenagers and most other twenty-something people in town only had fathers. Their mothers were dead and gone before any reached age 10.

Even so, Joy didn’t seem worried in the slightest. She said this as something of trivia, a passing of the time, even though she was a patient in the bed next to Claire. She’d wistfully told her that nurses get sick too and she’d be well soon and back to work. She added that she was here due to migraines . . . nothing serious. Apparently, the only reason she was in the “maternity” ward was because their hospital didn’t have one. Their hospital didn’t have the luxury to make such distinctions. A bed was a bed . . . unless of course you were contagious, but she wasn’t. So here she was. Happily, stupidly suffering like some damned sheep set for slaughter.

That’s precisely what Claire thought, because she was still able to make the distinction. She was able to put two and two together and they didn’t equal four. No. They equaled death. It got her to wondering, near to desperately after a time, what the fuck was going on around here. It wasn’t that she’d thought the names were suddenly inappropriate. No. If anything made sense to her at all it was the names, but she hadn’t been in town for very long. Only two days. She couldn’t have known this, but those who lived in Durham all their lives had been summarily swayed by an Atra to think all these things were normal. Claire, herself, hadn’t been there anywhere near long enough to be influenced to such a degree. Her mind, though affected, remained far clearer than anyone else’s.

Yet for them it never began with the naming of the babies. It began from conception. There was plenty of time during the course of the pregnancy to lobotomize the expectant mother. Of course, as the years passed other problems could’ve arisen; worries which sometimes turned frantic. The euphoria that normally would’ve accompanied a baby on the way could’ve been replaced by the fear of death, but that wasn’t the case. With full knowledge of future events all such possibilities were accounted for simply by swaying earlier, but that became years earlier. Upon doing so, the future worries and eventual panic of the husbands, fathers and basically everyone else in town had to be taken into account and swayed.

The Atra knew there was an inherent danger in this, but then there wasn’t. It knew there was no danger, just that there could’ve been. All such things had been foreseen. The swaying of a human, no matter how slight, always resulted in their untimely death. A human mind couldn’t take the abuse, but that death took years to run its course. Less if the influence was stronger or more constant. It all meant that every human in town would soon be dead. Over thirty years had passed since the end of the war and the assimilation of the whole town was nearly complete.

The Atra, whom every humatran resident of Durham would one day know as Tyndystylyn, had already foreseen the arrival of Tony and Claire. It could’ve swayed her early enough to have accepted the way of things, but the future chosen better suited her confusion, which would generate both anger and fear, all seeming both irrational and pointless. It would, in essence, further widen the growing chasm that already existed between humans and humatrans. This, as Sarafyn now knew, would strengthen allegiance to the Atra. It worked, but not quickly. It took time for incessant brooding to rot into destructive loathing.

None of it would’ve mattered if not for Claire. Every other human in Durham was either dead or dying and they didn’t even know it was happening. The continual migraines were just a symptom of the growing tumor. Two more years would end the last of them, save for Claire. The insinuation of the names marked her untimely doom, but she still had seven long, painful years to wait. Yet this was true only if the debilitating illness in her mind ran its full course, which it wouldn’t. She would die an equally unhappy death long before then, as would Tony who was fated to return some years later.

For now the confusion took hold as she looked at her babies and began to wonder what was happening. She began simply enough by asking questions. After enough of them she learned the hospital itself had been built over the remains of an Atra. It was done, they said, to impose their victory directly. To say, “We lowly humans are above you.” Claire couldn’t pinpoint exactly why, but even though she agreed and would’ve done the same, she knew, she just KNEW this had been a terrible mistake. However, she hadn’t voiced her opinion too much on the subject because she feared turning the town’s hospitality into something blacker. Not to mention she had no reason for it. At least not one she could explain. Not even if there was anyone left in the town with a mind open enough to actually consider her concerns, which there wasn’t.

So this confusion blossomed into frustration just as Tyndystylyn had foreseen. The Atra wouldn’t interfere any further. Coming events would naturally take it’s desired course. Allegiance was something earned, not bought. Not one of the Durham humatrans knew any of the Atra still lived; much less their whole town was being influenced by one. The future it wanted forbade it. The Atra would introduce itself later and present itself as savior to the oppressed. It would be a guide when all went dark and it would. More humans were coming and with them tragedy . . . and death.

Every humatran in town had abilities. Some were more cultivated than others. Some were even honed to perfection and used much as a shaman to many of the humans who remained after the war. Every humatran within Durham’s unstable walls was inbred with the distinct knowledge they were different than humans; that they were better. From this, as they grew older, viewed humans as sheep that needed herding. As far as the humans in Durham were concerned, it was true. They were all dying and were blissfully, ignorantly happy about it. They were of kind hearts, but this was derived from the simplicity of lambs led to slaughter, just as Claire had envisioned. They didn’t know any better. Not anymore anyway. However, one still did, or was trying to.

Claire proved to be the anomaly they couldn’t control. Of course, to a point they could. She was new and recently abandoned from the life she’d once lived. She’d accepted her need of a certain amount of guidance, so she fit in, but this was only temporary. This began to change as the humatrans made subtle attempts to take her children from her. Every humatran in Durham felt, as if by instinct, the intense desire to separate themselves from humans. That meant parting mother from baby. It had never been a problem before. The mother’s had always handed them over gleefully. They wanted to know why it was so troublesome now, but then some already knew.

These were the older ones who’d exercised more control over foresight. These could see the trouble in store for them from Claire. Even those with clouded vision could read her thoughts and they were not ones that fell in line with the other humans. They were grounded in the need for answers and the determined rebelliousness to seek them out. This soon coupled with an intense, but currently repressed anger, whenever they tried to remove her babies from her bosom. Each attempt only made her hold on all the tighter. The time was coming, they all knew, when the subtle approach would no longer work. Of course, there was no other choice. Sarafyn and Wferium could not, under any circumstances, be allowed to remain with Claire, much less any human. The reason why was simple. Sarafyn and Wferium were not human. Not anymore, if ever they were.

So then, after one final, but failed attempt to take them while she slept, they came in force, twenty-fold, to remove the blessed children from the human curse that plagued them. There was a screaming unlike anything they’d heard before. The town’s humans had been too domesticated, but Claire wasn’t. This was horribly new, but only to most. Others knew. It had been foreseen, but decided necessary. That is, the pain had been foreseen. It was a foresight never completed. Everyone who’d seen it screamed from it, because though they were seeing the future, the pain of the moment was very real. What they didn’t know was why. The pain from the screams were attributed to growing pains; that of the unlocking and affected each humatran to different degrees.

Claire’s screams tore through their heads like nails through wood, pounding harder each time with the necessity of added force each new stroke required. Eventually the nail would go completely in and suddenly stop. That didn’t happen. The part of them still coherent enough to think was grateful for it, because they’d come to the natural conclusion that stopping meant dying. Still they tried, but Claire had become feral in the protection of her offspring. She attacked with whatever she could tear free. She slowly began to realize nothing she could hit them with compared to the damage her screams could inflict. So she screamed all the louder and with considerably less pausing. Though she did have to breathe and the humatrans surged forward with every breath like a tide coming in, but continuously denied the beach. It was eventually too much for the best of them and they all retreated to regroup.

Claire would have no more. She jumped up, still screaming and slammed the door, locking it behind her. Everyone seemed to be screaming now and it was hard to tell what was being said or where exactly every voice was coming from. That became horribly clear once the doors slammed shut. There were terrible screams coming from behind her, from the bed . . . from her babies! Then she screamed one last time through the door, “What the FUCK is going on?!!! Stay the FUCK away from me and my babies!!!”

Her wish was granted, but she knew they’d eventually try again. She couldn’t concern herself with that at the moment. Right now she had to calm little Sarafyn and Wferium. Right now she had to try and figure out just what was happening. Right now she had to plan a way to escape this room, this hospital and this whole fucking town. At least she had some idea what was waiting for her on the outside. There was a good chance a freezing cold death awaited her, but that was better than this, because it was something that made sense. Nothing in Durham did.

Yet leaving wasn’t a possibility. She could scream her way out the front gate, but she’d probably kill her own babies in the process. What was wrong with them anyway? Whatever those maniacs had, obviously her babies had too. Maybe some sort of incurable condition attributed to this town. The odds were just too astronomical for anything else. If it was an epidemic why wasn’t she affected? Sure, screaming hurt her head. Hell, she had a fucking migraine now, but it wasn’t anything like what they all had. They were holding their heads as if they might actually explode. She was sure Sarafyn and Wferium would’ve done the same had they any control over their motor functions.

Slowly, Claire’s thoughts began to turn from what they had to what they were. It was by no means an easy transition. It felt akin to sacrilege to think her own flesh and blood were, well, not like their mother. Of course, everyone was different, but this . . . this was just unnatural. She began to glimpse a tiny piece of the truth . . . that the Atra were somehow responsible. It wasn’t such a far reach. Ever since humanity had known of that alien race, anything and everything that didn’t make sense was summarily blamed on them. This was different.

She’d heard tales of the Atra. Of how powerful they were and the horrible things they could do, but never had they bothered to invade a mind they hadn’t planned to kill. That at least could be respected. This was some sort of manipulation and she sincerely believed taking her children far away from the dead Atra buried beneath this hospital would cure the problem. She’d convinced herself it was all about proximity as if the putrid rotting thing were somehow radioactive. That if she could get everyone away from Durham that everyone would be alright again, but that was impossible.

There was only one other choice and she was loathe to make it. Remove the Atra from the premises herself and get the damned thing away from Durham. Then everyone would surely go back to normal. Of course, if it was all about proximity then even touching the thing could kill her, but what choice did she really have? A part of her knew removing the remains was an utter impossibility, so she devised a different plan . . . burn it. She’d figure out how as she worked her way to the basement. The other problem was that she couldn’t take her babies with her and she couldn’t protect them when she was gone. If she left them, they would take them and she may never see them again. Even so, she had to believe once the Atra was gone they’d come to their senses and give them back to her. She’d have to give her babies up in order to save them. It was her only real hope.

Claire didn’t know it, but the moment she’d made up her mind, nearly all the other humatrans knew of her plan and they considered it sacrilegious. They’d deduced long ago that the dead Atra was something holy. It could not be disturbed, much less destroyed. Even thinking of setting their holy icon ablaze was blasphemy. Not that a human could know any better, but that didn’t excuse it. Right then, right there, they came to the group consensus that this woman needed to die. They’d foreseen and agreed upon the future that allowed her to try, so they could take the babies unharmed. Then they’d catch her and destroy her, or at least they’d try. Their visions couldn’t extend past the screams.

Claire was far from stupid. She was just out of options and desperate. She knew when everything became quiet and night fell, the odds of her walking into a trap were very high. It was possible they were just trying to calm her down to avoid her screams. Not that that wasn’t something they’d wanted, but they hadn’t given up. They wouldn’t. Not so damned easily. She didn’t know much about them, but in her time on the road she’d met more than her fair share of fanatics and maniacs. Both were wild and nearly impossible to restrain, but only the fanatics were aware of what they were doing. These people were fanatics. They had a cause. Something they believed in. Right now that led them to her babies because they had something in common. It was something bad, whatever it was. Something was wrong with their heads. Something that could begin to affect her at any moment, but she figured it wouldn’t. She figured babies were more susceptible. Adults took time. How much time, she couldn’t know. She suddenly found herself wishing she’d gone away with Tony. She felt so damned alone.

Then she smelled something; something good. Suddenly her stomach came alive. She’d denied all else for the protection of her babies, but now that things briefly calmed down all her basic human needs were assaulting her. She was so damned hungry and thirsty. She had to go pee and likely take a shit too. This makeshift hospital had no bathrooms in the rooms themselves. Not that it mattered. She was used to life on the road where the word “bathroom” was something from a foreign language. After drinking whatever lukewarm water remained, she took care of her business in the empty ice bucket that had been brought days ago. Then she wiped herself with a pillowcase and tossed that in the bucket too. She did the same for her babies and breastfed them one last time, taking great care and extra time for the knowledge that she wasn’t likely to get another chance. She even sang to them what little she could remember. Then with the intimate knowledge of impending and eternal loss, she felt love . . . for the first and last time.

Then she steeled herself to the task she’d set before her. In so doing she turned away from Sarafyn and Wferium. It was hell to ignore their cries, but she had to. If she took even one more look back, she wouldn’t be able to leave them. So she literally forced herself to unlock the door and walk through it. Tears streamed down her face all the while, dripping off her chin and soaking her clothes on their way down to the grave. She wiped them away, but still they came. She focused on the smell, which she knew was roast pig. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d actually had bacon. No! That was a temporary thing. It was a needed distraction . . . a fucking trap. She needed to go away from that succulent smell. She did. She forced herself to.

Everything was empty, but that was to be expected. She was sure it was the opening sentence in the book titled “Setting a Trap for Dummies”. They must’ve read it. She found the stairs, which really weren’t much more than wooden planks held together by a wooden frame. Every step creaked loudly; an inadvertent alarm system, but unneeded. They already knew where she was. They were watching. She could feel it. It was a miracle they’d managed to erect a structure three stories high, but they did. As luck would have it she’d been on the third floor. She wondered momentarily if the building collapsed, would it be safer to fall two stories or have two stories fall on top of her. She figured it didn’t matter. Death would find her either way. Right now death would be an escape, because her attempts at distracting herself from her now helpless babies just weren’t working. Her feet and legs were begging her brain to let them run back before it was too late. The tears that momentarily stopped, now resumed.

Her mind was torn away from these things by the sound of a footstep. She stopped and waited nervously for more, desperately wanting to protect her babies, but not daring to move an inch. A full minute passed, then two. No more came. She thought maybe she could trick herself into believing it was all in her head, but she already knew better. For the life of her she couldn’t remember whether that solitary step had come from above her or beneath her. Her own creaking steps had nearly disguised it altogether. She didn’t know where the fucking danger was coming from, but the safe bet was to assume everywhere.

Claire purposely shifted her weight to cause another creaking sound. After another full but torturous minute of nothing, she’d managed to convince herself it was just her stomach screaming at her. It was too. She had to hold back the moans rippling through her from the hunger pangs. Why bother? What were the chances her moans were louder than the creaking steps, or her own shivers for that matter. It was cold here. The room was slightly better, but it was winter and nearly fucking Christmas! They may have built a three story hospital from scrap metal out in the middle of nowhere, but they couldn’t equip it with a furnace? She imagined babies were put on the third floor only because heat rose, but heat that didn’t exist couldn’t rise. The difference was barely felt inside the building. Outside was a different story. She could see a storm brewing outside a tiny plastic window. Her own room had no windows and she doubted any other room did either.

Going outside was suicide, but so was going to the basement, if there even was a basement. Was there a foundation? The hospital wasn’t huge, but it wasn’t small either. Where on the ground floor was she supposed to dig? If she could, dig with what? She suddenly realized her plan wasn’t all that great after all. She had to rethink things and the best place to do that was back in her room with her babies. She’d begun to turn around when she heard a flurry of footsteps followed by a grinding sound. No voices and all the sounds were coming from above her! She looked back and saw the opening to the third floor was smaller and shrinking with each grinding sound. They were sealing the entrance! They were blocking her from returning to her babies!

Without another thought she used the only real weapon she had . . . her voice. Her screams shot out of her like a cannon in the direction of the top floor. She ran while she screamed. She had to beat this blockade before it was in place! She had to get back to her babies! There was a noticeable pause in the progress of the metal file cabinet, but it started up again, slowly at first, but then in haste. Still, she knew she could make it! That was before someone shoved an ancient, rusted wheelchair through the shrinking entrance directly at her. She wasn’t expecting it. She tried to avoid it and did for the most part, but it clipped her ankle as she dove for the other side of the wide stairs. The wooden planks shook in response, angry at the abuse and threatening to collapse because of it. Still, they held.

She regained her feet and then fell from the pain in her ankle, which she knew was sprained, if not broken. So she crawled, still screaming toward the entrance that was only five steps away. It was still large enough for her to get through and she had time, but then hands wrapped around her ankles, legs, feet and eventually arms. They’d come up from behind her! She screamed directly in their faces, but nothing more happened than normal. They flinched, but little else. If anything it seemed to further enrage them. It was night. It was dark. Still, she realized these were not the same people as before. They were older. They weren’t affected like the others. One of them was Joy, the nurse she’d met the first day here . . . the one with the migraine. Claire doubted she was making that any better. She was right. She backed off, backed up, and fell backwards with her hands over her ears. A sudden scream came from her followed by a silence . . . at least in her direction, as the nurse fell over the railing.

Some of the others also had their hands over their ears. Whatever she was doing was working! So she screamed even louder. She figured she’d been right all along. It took time for adults to be affected by the dead Atra. These were nearly converted, but not all of them. More were coming. Claire hit and kicked and punched and bit. Eventually she felt the abrasiveness of rope being wrapped around her wrists. She ripped a hand free before the knot could be tied and punched some man in the gut at the same time. He doubled over, but she caught him with her foot and shoved him down to meet whatever fate the nurse had met. At least two more on comers fell when he did, much like dominos, but she knew they’d soon recover. Only two remained on top of her. One was a woman, who she elbowed in the jaw. She suddenly let go, dazed by the vicious attack.

She was starting to think she really could get away. These people were passive and protected by their borders. Claire, herself, had been fine-tuned with violence. She knew how to defend herself. Of course, her recent pregnancy had significantly weakened her, but she’d gained much of that strength back when the town was trying to placate her with food and care into doing “what was best for the babies”. Well, they fucking fucked up, didn’t they?! She would fight to the last. She’d already decided she was willing to die for those babies. She still might, but she knew she at least stood a chance.

As if proving it, she wrapped her arms around the head of the last man, put her mouth up to his ear and screamed louder than she thought she could. He screamed himself, trying to pull away, but failing. She kept going a few seconds longer. He suddenly became weak, then limp, then dead. She released him the moment she knew, but risked a look only to find a tiny, but constant river of blood flowing freely from the unfortunate man’s ear. Something inside had imploded. She’d killed many times before, but never like this. In her shock, she realized she now knew exactly how to finish every last one of these mother fuckers.

Claire rolled the man off of her with precision timing and tripped two oncomers in the process. She broke free and clambered up the steps that were buckling against the weight and the violence. At first her head was down, but when she raised it she saw no entrance, none at all. The distraction had worked. She was cut off. In the distance she could hear her babies crying and cried back to them. She pounded on the file cabinet, trying to push it over. She could tell it was possible, but held in place by more of those fuckers. So she screamed louder and the file cabinet gave a little.

Then they were on her again from behind. She knew she had to fight again and in that pause of changing gears she let go of the file cabinet. Whether they knew what they were doing or not, the humatrans on the other side did not let go. They kept on pushing hard, possibly expecting resistance. When none came the entire file cabinet began to tip downward toward the stairs. They may have lost control. They might’ve let it fall. They may have helped it fall. Whatever the case, the heavy metal file cabinet did fall. It crushed four people, including Claire as it went.

She wasn’t dead. Not yet. She could feel her bones crushing and screamed with the newfound pain, but then things became infinitely worse. Something snapped . . . finally snapped. Then another snapped and another and another. The whole staircase was tearing free. Claire knew it but was helpless to do anything about it. She was horribly pinned. She could feel everything coming apart beneath her even as she was dying. She knew she was dying. She only had seconds left. Even if it was possible to survive the collapse, her body had already received far too much damage. Even if it hadn’t, she didn’t really think that the town would forgive her what she’d done. No matter how it was spun, death was on the way . . . and soon.

Then the supports started ripping apart like a zipper. Claire could feel every single one of them. The whole thing suddenly tilted at the bottom, tearing one end loose to where the lower planks were now vertical. There were more screams as her pursuers fell, but not too far. Not like she’d soon fall. Then the rest snapped in two. She felt herself swinging and falling as the filing cabinet scraped down over her face, taking a decent chunk of her skin with it. She could feel her fingers snapping backwards and then tearing off as they caught on this or that. Her clothes were being torn off and were stopped only momentarily by her breasts. Through it all, she tried to scream, but couldn’t. Her lungs were crushed, her secret weapon dying with them.

Then she fell. The filing cabinet fell too, but flipped backwards as it did so. She was above it for the moment and could see it out of the one good eye she had left. The other one was either pooled with blood or simply gone. She couldn’t tell which. Whether the drawers were locked or not, they weren’t now and came flying out with papers and other files flapping like a flock of spooked birds. Then, because they were heavier, the whole lot came crashing down. One particular drawer bounced violently back upwards and smashed one of her pursuers in the face. Aside from the obvious damage, he’d gotten lucky. His whole head snapped backwards along with his neck. He was dead before he landed, which wasn’t pretty.

Claire, herself, was falling headfirst. She hadn’t flipped or anything like that. She’d just slipped out of her confines like an arrow shot from a cloud, her face being the tip, though not nearly as sharp. She’d gotten a good, but momentary view of the file cabinet right below her. It had reached its final resting place, completely drawer free, open faced as if they would simply slide right back in. Instead, Claire’s head took their place, hitting the dividing bar and splitting open like a watermelon. Her final thoughts were of failure. Not just to Sarafyn and Wferium, but to Tony and everyone else she’d abandoned back home. It seemed like a lifetime ago.