Pain. All I felt was pain. It was the only thing my senses could tell me. My head ached with an agonizing pain in the back of my skull. My shoulders felt tight and my lower back had a sharp pain that felt like I was being poked in the jelly discs with a crude needle. My eyes slowly opened letting the light hit my cornea full force.

I’m alive? Oh, thank fuck! I thought to myself.

I took notice of my chest periodically rising and falling and I noticed the pain that spiked every time my chest expanded beyond a certain point. It was then that I noticed it was not just my chest and head that ached, it was everywhere. I began to squirm and groan as I tried to move. Eventually my eyes opened a tiny amount, enough for me to gain a general awareness of my surroundings but everything was blurry, I saw lights flickering on the ceiling, soon a shadowy figure approached and looked down at me, it pressed down on my head before it shone a light into my eyes, it hurt. I squirmed as I tried to get away from the pain but it grabbed my head and positioned it upright. My vision began to clear up and finer details started to make sense, the shadowy figure was Thomas!

“Thomas?” I said weakly.

I tried to sit up but he pressed down on me, urging me not to move.

“W-what happened, where are we?” I asked.

Thomas’ eyes were full of despair and anguish. He also looked very tired and his skin was covered in dirt and dried blood. “We are in the clinic,” he said softly. “You took a nasty blow to the head. Tell me; what was the last thing you remember?”

I sifted back through my memories but I found that even that would cause me pain. I rubbed the back of my head to alleviate some of the pain “I remember,” my voice croaked, I felt groggy as I began to sit upright once more, my stomach aches fiercely with hunger pains before I felt something travelling up my throat. “I think I’m gonna throw up!”

Thomas quickly grabbed a garbage can and brought it to me before I emptied the contents of my stomach. I felt terrible and the remnants stuck in my mouth had a highly acidic taste to it, it felt like it was going to dissolve my teeth.

“I… I remember being in our… our apartment,” I started to speak, struggling to recall. “Yes, I remember going to the apartment to get mum and then… I remember seeing an explosion coming from the Barrier and I vaguely recall running but… it's nothing after that.”

Thomas grabbed a cloth and wiped my face before proceeding to wipe the drooling saliva from my mouth which I hadn’t noticed before. His tired expression looked into mine as he spoke.

“Yes, there was an explosion, some chunks of it hit the building and one got you good in the head. I’m just grateful you are alive and awake.”

“How long was I unconscious for?”

“Try not to panic,” Thomas said. “but all that was five days ago.”

I looked into his eyes as mine widened with shock, I was out for five whole days!? Holy crap, I wasn’t unconscious, I was comatose! My surprise showed itself and it hadn’t made the situation less disturbing. “I’m afraid that’s not the worst of it I’m afraid,” Thomas continued somberly, the tone of which he spoke indicated the source of his sleeplessness “after mum and I found you unconscious” he continued. “And after we saw the Barrier had been breached; we took off in a car off the streets and drove like crazy, we tried to cut through the city center but… Some dragons destroyed the roads blocking our escape. So, we hid here in the clinic.”

I let out a sigh, I couldn’t believe it, the Barrier, the wall that protected our society was gone and now the monsters are on our side and wreaking havoc.

“Where is mum, I’d like to let her know I am fine.”

Thomas looked down at the ground, I couldn’t believe but it seemed as though this was not the end. “I am not done yet, you see, after the barrier was breached, all the beasts had stormed Sanctuary Hills and flooded their way all the way as far as Cherrybrook Fields in just over a day and a half. Some of those things used some kind of… magical illusion spell or something because nobody outside Cherrybrook knows what is going on here. And to make matters worse, mum has been missing for the last two days.”

As I stared at Thomas with my stunned expression, it felt as though I had stayed still and we stared at each other for hours, I shook myself out of my stupor as I collected my thoughts. “Hold on, let me get this straight, you mean to tell me that those things are outside the clinic? What are we going to do? I’m not going to be any good in a fight!”

Thomas huffed before he looked back up. “Well, that is where I do have some good news, well, more like, slightly better news. But that’s if you stretch the definition to its limits. You see, after their victory, the beasts decided to be our new overlords of the remaining humans in the affected areas. I can go outside and try to trade for food and supplies, but if somebody decides to get violent, I am not going to rely on the elves to protect me, instead they’ll just attack me and rob me blind. I never thought I’d say this but even the shittiest part of Sanctuary Hills was more secure and safe than this place is.”

I brought my hands up to my head and massaged my temples, it was a lot to take in, Thomas knew I was never any good at adapting to change and to hear all this was too much to handle. Slowly I began to crawl out of the makeshift bed that I had now realized was an assortment of pillows and a sheet, I stood up to find that I was in the waiting room of the clinic: Any of the cleanliness it once had was replaced by scuff marks on the walls and the lights flickered intermittently, the dual sliding doors at the front of the clinic had multiple indentures in the frames, it looked as though somebody pounded heavily on the door with the fists, However, what I found to be more disturbing was the dried up blood that had coagulated on the divide between the two panels. I worried about who it was and how it happened.

I hunched over as another wave of hunger cramps and sickness took hold, I grabbed the bin and lowered my head into it as I heaved into it. I couldn’t believe this was happening, the bin started to shake as I realized it was my hands that had started shaking fiercely.

I looked around to see the decrepit state the clinic was in, all this in a matter of days. Thomas stood up then went straight into the breakroom. I slowly shuffled my way to the front door to examine the outside world, the doors slowly opened in my presence, the left panel got stuck halfway forcing me to squeeze through the panel.

What I had witnessed next might have driven another person insane, the city that I grew up in, raised and became familiar with was in ruins. The balcony outside the clinic’s entrance was littered with newspaper and rubbish that had been left out, bullet shells and ejected cartridges were scattered about. When I looked over the balcony to see the remains of Amaro park, it too hadn’t been spared the madness, palm trees were still on fire, bodies were left on the ground to rot, people or elves or beast men wandered around the empty plaza, which despite the density of people down there, was devoid of life or any meaningful travel for the humans below. On both sides of the balcony where stalls of street food and paupers performing tricks for money once ruled were now dominated by makeshift homes out of cardboard and tents. The denizens that slowly shambled around were dirty and covered in tattered rags; some had even gathered around a makeshift fire out of whatever disposable garbage that could be flammable.

The towering skyscrapers that were once the pride and jewels of the wealthy elite were now in flames. Once, they stood proudly as ominous, brightly neon lit powerhouses dedicated to earning an extra escudo. Now they stood as ruined monoliths to their own arrogance; many were still on fire as smoke continued to billow out of entire floors. A skyscraper nearby had a crashed Police aircraft lodged into the side of the building as the cause of the fires in it. Thomas had grabbed me by the shoulder, I jumped when he touched me, catching me off-guard. He held a cup of noodle soup for me, I took it off his hands and the heat from the Styrofoam cup began to burn my hands but I couldn't care less about the pain, the view of destruction and chaos had already caused me enough pain.

After Thomas had carefully guided me back into the safety of the clinic, I sat down on one of the pristine couches that had surprisingly remained untouched in the otherwise wrecked waiting room. Slowly I consumed my noodle soup as I stared at the reception desk where Anna used to call her work while Thomas’s started to stare off into space..

“What happened to the others?” I asked.

Thomas looked up at me from his thousand yard stare, I could tell he didn’t know what I asked.

“Thomas,” I repeated. “What happened to our colleagues? Are they here or did they get out in time?”

Thomas’ expression changed to one of indifference. “I assume Benji and Thorsten made it out okay… I hope so. Haven’t seen them or heard from them at all. Anna, well, she stayed behind to… well, hehe, lock up of all things” He chuckled.

I couldn’t help but find what he told me to be mildly amusing. “She stayed to lock up the clinic like it’s a normal day? In the middle of an invasion?”

Thomas nodded as his chuckle descended into a fit of laughter, I joined in with his fit of laughter. In between breaths, Thomas spoke of how he thought she would be a good employee when he hired her before resuming his maddened laughter.

“Wha-what happened to her? Did she stay behind to balance out our cost/profit books?”

I continued to laugh at the idea before I had realized I was laughing alone; I stopped my hyperventilating to see the solemn look on Thomas’ face as he stared once more at the industrial carpet, his eyes empty as he recalled the events that had transpired.

“After the city had fallen,” he recalled. “Anna, mum and I stayed here to barricade ourselves as best we could. Then when the elves had free reign on the city some of them had jacked themselves up on some kind of drug that enhances their strength, speed and agility far greater than before. So one comes knocking on the door. Correction, more like he fist-fucked his way through the door and demanded we give him all our anesthetics and opioids. Dumb fucker didn’t realize I gave him only the stuff on the shelves and nothing from the storeroom. As he was leaving, Anna, gods, why did she have to open her mouth!?” Thomas buried his face in his palms while ruffling through his hair with his fingers.

“She quietly called him a junkie and lemme tell ya, those pointy ears really don’t miss a thing. He just lunged at her with reflexes I have never seen before and next thing I knew, he… uhm, well, he uhh…”

Thomas stood up and walked over to the front door and pointed to the center of the door, the dried puddle of blood. “He just grabbed her by the head and kept on slamming her against the doors long after she was gone. He just kept going and going and going. Bloody bastard didn’t stop until his compatriots calmed him down.”

“What are we going to do?” I asked.

“Well,” Thomas said “Now that you are up and about, I had the idea of performing as many diagnostics and repairs as I can in exchange for food and other supplies, thankfully we are sitting on an ultimate deposit of wealth.”

I looked around the trashed clinic trying to see what Thomas meant. “Unless this wealth is invisible, I don’t think we have any here.”

“I was implying that if we perform a much-needed service then perhaps as payment we can get anything we want, no questions asked.”

I sighed in defeat. Thomas spoke of his idea to make the best of a bad situation, when I brought up the topic of finding our mother he merely nodded and said he hadn’t forgotten, I felt bad about leaving her out there in the hands of those things. Thomas left the clinic to let others know that he was still going to work but not before instructing me to clean up the clinic as best as I could, on my knees it had felt counterintuitive to be doing this, I almost considered giving up and to not bother since I am not going to be getting paid. I had swept up the surgical room and reorganized the stock room. I couldn’t help but ponder if there was any point to this. As I locked the front door to prevent it opening prematurely, I had begun to clean the blood and grey matter of Anna off the door, the dent from where her head had impacted told me just how much force it had required to do such damage. Slowly the dried blood started to thin out, the bits of flesh stuck to the door by the dried blood started to peel off.

I looked at a piece of scalp with some hair that had fallen off and I couldn’t shake the thought of the person it used to belong to, I pushed the thought aside as I scrubbed the door. I delicately picked the piece up and threw it into the bin; it may have been disrespectful to her memory but keeping it around would have served as a reminder of the brutality our occupiers were capable of.

“So that’s what separates us from animals, huh?” I said under my breath. “At least we have a conscience, you pointy ear fuckers!”

By the time Thomas had returned I was washing the dirt out from my fingernails, Thomas glanced around the clinic with mild approval at the work I had done, when his gaze had finally settled on the door he couldn’t resist wondering about the blood stain I cleaned up that was once there. He came over to me to thank me, but I didn’t want his thanks or his approval. I was numb after cleaning up the remains of my colleague. Thomas saw this in my face and instead chose to not say anything at all.

I left to go lie on my makeshift mattress of pillows and polyester sheet as I wandered to myself: Is this how life is? Surely somebody is going to notice this occupation and the army will have to come rolling in and save us.

Later that night when two men had shambled their way through the broken door, Thomas looked mildly pleased at the prospect of his idea working. I sat down on one of the chairs as the two parties spoke, Thomas looked them over and noted their prosthetic arms were badly damaged and in need of replacement. He thought about it for a moment before agreeing to do it for the price of a large quantity of food. Both men claimed they did not have the necessary amount, Thomas thought to himself some more before saying he was open to negotiate the price for our services. The two men, Marco and Kinsler, said they had taken refuge in a large firearms shop and were willing to exchange weapons and ammunition; Thomas then thought carefully for a moment about what they had to trade before he asked for two smart rifles along with ten magazines of compatible bullets. Marco hesitated, then he agreed to parting with two smart rifles but not to the amount of ammunition; Kinsler, whose arm was busted, urged Marco to agree to the price at which he offered only seven magazines of ammunition. My older brother looked over to me before he faced Marco once more and told him he would accept the seven magazines if they were to throw in several cans of food to balance it out and they readily agreed.

Thomas proceeded to tell them he would only commence work when they had returned with payment. They hesitated for a moment, I began to think if they were going to pull out a blade and force him to work under threat. Little were they aware that I had kept a surgical scalpel up my sleeve and I hoped to not get in a fight.

Marco and Kinsler then agreed and told Thomas they would return soon. After they had left, Thomas approached me with a wide grin on his face and his arms extended. “And that is how you do business.”

“Guns and a little bit of food?”

He sighed. “Yeah, yeah I know. But we are going to need to defend ourselves, if we can get some decent rifles with sufficient ammunition then we can defend ourselves in case the next person that walks through that door isn’t as amicable as those two.”

Thomas ordered me to prepare the table and set up the diagnostic equipment in preparation for their arrival. One hour later, Marco and Kinsler banged their fist on the door and when we opened the door, they, as promised, were holding duffel bags which contained the weapons, food and ammunition. Marco had set his duffel bag on one of the couches in the waiting room and reached for one of the submachine guns and held it firmly aloft as Thomas brought himself closer to inspect the weapon

“Magnetar KX-5’s” Marco said with a hint of pride. “Standard magazine holds up to thirty-eight twenty-five-millimeter, caseless flechette rounds with target tracking software which automatically links to your optical gear via the palm scanner embedded in the grip” as Marco turned the gun on the side to show the small scanner.

“Each round is also elemental capable, able to be enhanced with all four modes ranging from incendiary to viper but you will need an Enabler for them to work otherwise you just have regular smart rounds.” Kinsler concluded the demonstration. Neither I nor Thomas could hide the boyish smiles as we looked at our new toys. Thomas nodded approvingly; I could tell he was impressed by the smile he wore and the amusement in his eyes.

“And finally, as promised: several cans of beans, reconstituted meat pastes and vegetables, whatever we could spare or didn’t want.”

“I must admit,” said Thomas, having finally found enough time to snap out of his amazement. “I really didn’t expect you guys to actually come clean on this. I had half expected you to return with some buddies and force us to work.”

Kinsler chuckled, “Well, that was our Plan B.”

Kinsler’s attempt at humor brought easement to what had already felt like a tense situation. It helped make it easier for me to focus on the task at hand after finally processing all that has happened since coming to this morning. When Kinsler finally sat down for us to uphold our end of the deal it had become apparent what his issue was. In the past I had the privilege of working on slimmer and advanced models of prosthetics that were ornate in gold and obsidian with precious gems embedded in them. The luxurious items. Kinsler’s prosthetic had reminded me of the mechanical armature’s commonly found in car factories on the production line; bright orange, strictly geometric favoring square and rectangular components, the hand had also looked crude and basic with very few pivot points and a worn rubber grip embedded on the inside of the fingers. The chassis surrounding the elbow joint was badly dented to the point it impacted the proper functionality of the arm itself.

Thomas instructed Kinsler to lie down on the retractable chair, next, I handed the cable for Kinsler to jack into his neural port at the back of his head. His diagnostics and coding were soon displayed in green text against the black screen which was as basic as the design of his arm was. Thomas and Kinsler conducted performance tests, meanwhile I wondered if these men had seen our mother so I promptly reached for my pocket for my wallet and pulled up a photo of our mother to show Marco; after I had asked him if has seen her he responded that he hadn’t.

“Shit!” Thomas had shouted. “The damage is extensive; the interior servos are damaged and I am reading an electrical shortage on two sensors.”

“What does that mean for me?” Said Kinsler as worry had crept into his voice.

“It means I cannot fix this, so I will have to replace it instead. Michael,” He said, looking at me. “go down to the store room and get an arm that can fit a… 9A or 9B type socket”

“9A or 9B… okay.”

In the store room, I never really realized how cramped it was in here. Stacks of boxes that I recently remembered stacking in an organized and efficient manner were in shambles, the integrity of some of the boxes were compromised but thankfully not the product itself. I approached the limbs section of the store room and grabbed a box that was closest to me labelled “Alpha Brutus. Type-III.” On the lid of each box a printed sheet of paper with information was taped onto it, after having scanned the document, I did not find it to be compatible with that of the socket Kinsler had. I thought back to how I organized the parts before redirecting my efforts to the far end of the stockroom, once again I had reached for another box seemingly at random and scanned the document which much to my relief was indeed compatible with a 9A, B and C socket type; after I had checked the prosthetic inside I proceeded to take it back to the surgical room and presented it to Thomas. He looked it over and hesitated for a second.

Our customers looked confused at the look Thomas had plastered on his face; his lip had curled downward on one side as he sucked air through his teeth. I had seen that look on his face before and I knew he was indecisive. Any second now he was going to tell me to go back to the store room and grab another one under the pretext “this one is no good” or “This one isn’t compatible”. Instead, to my surprise he did not say it. When he pulled it out of the box both Kinsler and Marco’s eyes lit up as they observed the arm I had chosen in Thomas’ hands.

“Whoa, is that a real Tyger Obsidian?” Marco said with awe. “I never thought I’d actually get to see one. How much are they worth?”

“Before you get any ideas, these things bond well to their owners. However, I had to pay eighty thousand esses per unit; and that is just the base model. This one comes with in-built capacitors in the palms for self-defense with a fifteen second recharge time.”

Kinsler whistled in amazement. “That would come in very handy should those Night elfs decide to come at me again.”

One hour of carefully removing bolts and disconnecting wires, Thomas and I had successfully detached the ancient synthetic arm, Kinsler insisted on being awake for the entire thing. I handed Thomas the tools as he carefully and methodically inserted each new bolt and carefully held the lead solder for the new wire connections. While my brother had begun to upload the product software for the arm, I had cleaned the table of tools and prepared to clean them and put them back.

Kinsler’s smile grew wide as the arm responded to his commands. “This is truly incredible! There’s barely any delay time and I can actually feel it through the fingertips.”

“Well, you are welcome and thanks for the guns and food. If you ever need anything I am willing to trade for other stuff.”

Marco helped Kinsler off the surgical chair. “Thanks, I’ll be sure to take you up on that. I’ll spread the word on what you did here.”

“Just keep quiet about it.” I retorted. “We don't want any unwanted visitors that aren’t human.”

The duo disappeared behind the sliding doors which Thomas had locked behind them before turning the lights off in the surgical room and walked to his pile of cushions in the corner of the waiting room. He reached for one of the Magnetar rifles and held it in his hands, the stylish paint job along the barrel and down the body of the weapon spoke of magnificent craftsmanship. Thomas practiced with the rifle by aiming at the wall before lowering the weapon only for him to raise it up and aim down the sights in quick succession.

“Would you say today went well?” I asked.

“I’d say so. Nothing bad happened and we have a way to defend ourselves. Plenty of ammunition and some food.”

I lowered my gaze at the industrial carpeting as I began to wonder about this new reality. Thoughts crept in asking if this was to be the new norm? Thomas asked me If I was feeling alright but instead of telling him what was on my mind, I lied… I don’t think Thomas believed me; however, I am grateful he chose not to pursue it any further. Until I had yawned shortly thereafter, I hadn’t noticed how tired I was. I stood to dim the lights inside the waiting room before settling into my makeshift bed. After that, I could hear Thomas doing the same thing and we wished each other good night; but I think that both of us knew it would be anything but that.

“Tom?” I asked softly.

“Yes, Michael?” he replied in an equally quiet tone.

“Do you think this is what our new normal will be? Trapped in this clinic, afraid of the outdoors, unable to trust anyone other than ourselves? I miss what used to be normal. I actually miss not doing anything and collecting welfare cheques and playing computer games, it may not have been glamorous but it's what I was used to. I don’t want this reality to be forever and you are a lot smarter than me.” Before I had noticed, my voice began to crack with sadness. Tears blurred my vision as I spoke. “I want things to go back the way they were. I want to go back to how things were when we were working together and our rides to and from work.”

Thomas stood up and placed his hand on my shoulder, it was comforting to feel his presence.

“I know, kiddo. I know.” Thomas softly said. “Go to sleep, little brother and we will talk in the morning.”