The man’s lips were so dry they cracked and bled.

He ignored his thirst and the dust that covered him like a shroud. He waited under the smoking ruins of crushed steel beams, listening to the retreating guns and screams of people dying. He waited, paying attention to the sound of iron steps and heavy tracks.

Finally they were far enough. He dashed out of his hole and out to the street. He stood there for a moment, his legs frozen in sheer disbelief. This couldn’t be his City. Where were the tall buildings, and the mighty walls? Where had the beautiful trees and bounties of nature that were grown on every available surface gone? There was none of this. Only smoke, ruins, and ashes.

The tall towers had transformed into pillars of flames, and dark, thick smoke covered the sky, plumes originating from everything he had cared, loved, and protected. One of the towers far away broke in half with a thunderous roar that was somehow muted. The earth shook, and the vibrations kept going for some time as more buildings shattered and fell.

Everything stood unharmed hours ago. It couldn’t all have vanished so quickly. It couldn’t. City Three had lasted for over a century. How could it fall now? What happened to their defenses, why were the cannons silenced, why did the gates open, why did their generators fail at that exact moment when they needed them most?

What had happened to his world? How did they lose everything so suddenly?

The man shook himself off. He couldn’t stand there in the middle of the street. He had to find cover, a safe place. There were bunkers and fallback positions. The main ones were in the part of the city furthest from the walls. He had to make it to one of them. There should have been instructions, voice systems should be blaring across all of City Three, but there was nothing.

The machines would head for them. He could stay behind them and be relatively safe for awhile, until at least more of them came from behind him, or he could try to bypass them and reach safety. If not safety, then a place where he could hold a weapon and fight like he should be doing. They could still hold on if they pushed them back. Everything could be repaired, they just needed to push them back and hold until they repaired the generators and the main guns.

The machines were slaves to their flawed brand of cold logic, one that had worked through repetition and random moments that could have been called insight or creativity if they weren’t completely incapable of it. They wouldn’t rush ahead, but move methodically. That meant that if he moved diagonally in respect to their route he had a chance of making it there faster than them. The machines favored straight lines, even when the roads were blocked. They’d spend hours on clearing a path rather than take a detour, and with all those new ruins in place of where beloved City Three was… he had a good chance. He could make it as long as he was quiet.

He went through alleys, he climbed inside crumbling buildings, and jumped out of broken walls. He crouched and crawled under the remains of the school he had gone as a child, dodging holes and craters.

He stopped for a moment, letting his eyes wander around the small schoolyard that had been allowed to stay empty for the children’s sake. It looked almost normal. On the ground he noticed the markings for a game the children played. He used to play it as well. He remembered his old, sour grandfather, and how he told him he had played this game as well. Nine and one and one. It took eleven kids for the game. Nine of them would be the Cities. One of them would be the machines.

Nine and four and five
Locked up in your hive

And the other one, a secret one, would be… something else.

Eight and one and two
Something's gotten through

God, that song. He hated that stupid rhyme. Ever since he first heard it, but he kept singing it. Almost daily it had been on his lips like a prayer. Every kid, every year, playing their game. Until one day they stopped, grown into the real world where all that mattered was the fight for survival against the machines, with their eyes fixed on stealing back small pieces of the world outside in order to make it another year.

He left the school behind, but something had now tagged along. The rhyme clung in his head like it did the very first time, and made everything worse.

Weapons firing. Plasma meeting steel and damaging it. Plasma meeting flesh and sizzling it, the owner screaming in agony. Those were the sounds that echoed in City Three now, and that he was approaching. The last lines were already under pressure, fighting behind the cover of ruins and the shimmer of shields. The man stood back, watching the machines and their efficient, fearless lines shoot the descendants of their creators and murder victims. One shot per second, never less or more. Never.

The broken, half-melted remains of dozens of machines layered the cracked concrete. The line had been holding, and the machines threw themselves to the meatgrinder with no self-preservation. They never minded the loss. They could always make more of themselves. What mattered was killing people, even if it took an army for them to kill just one; it was a victory to their eyes.

A large one crawled to the front on treads that trampled everything in its path, it’s shape indistinct of anything man like. It had no head or eyes, like none of their accursed brethren, and it should be impossible since the machines had no feelings, but the man almost got the sense that the huge machine scoffed.

It unfolded like the petals of a flower, and support legs braced against the ground as it made the whole of its being into a weapon. Blue energy coalesced, amassing at the bottom, and the men across from it were turning every available power supply, even their own weapons, to the shield. It would all come to whether or not they would be able to hold back the blast. If they did, they could strike back and win this brief scuffle. If not, the machines would have won in a single strike.

There was a sound like a ‘fwoom’ and a rocket headed right for the large machine, leaving a trail of gray smoke behind it. It hit the tank-like machine with almost no time to spare, and the amassed energy increased the power of the explosion. The machines next to it turned into wreckage, and every man in the field had to duck for cover as metal shrapnel filled the air. The shield protected them from the worst, and they all rose up with shouts of triumph.

The man looked where the rocket came from. A strangely dressed man he didn’t know appeared over a broken building, holding a launcher that normally needed two or more men to operate. No wonder he could handle it on his own. He was huge. Even from this long distance he could see enough to stare in awe at the sheer height and size of him.

The City’s militia cheered at their savior, but the man pulled back. He didn’t know this strange savior, and his clothes… He didn’t wear a uniform, or City clothing. He was dressed in a patchwork of cloth and steel. The man noticed that the stranger had tied up the heavy outer leg plates from a machine around his forearm. He was also carrying much more than the launcher. A plasma gun was slung over one shoulder while a mass of small satchels hung from the other one.

The stranger jumped from one ruin to the next, scrambling up and down as he made his way over what used to be homes.

One of the machines was still operating. It burst out of the brickwork it had been covered under, stood up on its barely humanoid body, and aimed its weaponized arm at the stranger so close to him. Its logic dictated that the closest enemy was the prime target. A few of the militia raised their weapons but didn’t shoot. They called for the stranger to get down for he was too close.

The machine was right in front of the stranger in touching distance. The stranger didn’t even bother with trying to use one of his own weapons. He pushed the weapon arm away from him, and then struck again at the highest point of the machine’s torso with a backhand motion using the makeshift bracer. Normally the machine wouldn’t even factor such a strike, but the stranger’s apparent strength and the point he struck unbalanced the machine and made it tip.

It’s logic called for it to attain its balance first, ranking a simple fall as a more immediate threat than a man in front of him. Servos whined as the machine forced itself back on multi-jointed legs.

The man placed one hand at the machine’s ‘chest’ and one at the base of its legs. To everyone’s astonishment he lifted the machine in the air, hundreds of pounds of metal screeching as alarms and digitized warnings blew out of machine’s insides, took three steps like a titan carrying an immeasurable weight, and threw it down to the street from where he stood on the tumbled foundations of a tower.

The machine crashed six meters down with a dull reverberating thunk, but it would take more than a fall to even disorient a machine. The stranger knew that. He fell upon a large piece of mortar, and pushed. His legs scraped against the floor as he struggled seemingly in vain, but the brick and concrete gave away. It fell down the side as well, straight on the machine below. There was one last crackling shriek as proximity alarms screamed, the violent folding of metal, and then just the noise of mortar crumbling.

The militia men howled at the unexpected victory of a single man against a machine with nothing but his bare hands, and beckoned for him to approach with open arms and smiles, calling him to get to safety. The stranger lifted an arm in a friendly wave, and the militia lowered the shield, inviting him in their protected bunker.

The man almost rushed ahead too, but he held back, suddenly afraid.

Six, seven and three
reaper laughs in glee

The stranger kept walking leisurely towards the militia, slowly climbing down the rubble, as if the city wasn’t swamped by the machines. The men now had started taking proper notice of the stranger’s attire as well. Civilians peeked shyly from behind the militia lines, feeling curious about the break in the fighting, and saw the stranger approach.

The stranger took one of his satchels at hand and fiddled with the inside. He raised his arm again, shouting something muffled. One of the militia men asked him to repeat himself, but the stranger shook his hand as if that wasn’t important. He pulled his hand back and threw the satchel in an easy arc, like a friend tossing his backpack to another. Another one followed, thrown hard enough to reach ever further along the defensive line.

One of the militia men jumped to catch it, but the stranger had thrown it too high and fell behind him. The militia had turned their attention to the soldier running after the brown satchel, the one that looked so full and heavy yet the stranger threw effortlessly. But the man had kept hidden, and watched the stranger instead, and he saw him reach for something under his strange coat.

The militia started coughing, and falling on their knees. A few of them turned to the stranger with faces full of betrayal and blood running from their eyes, nose, and ears. The stranger didn’t mind. He didn’t even try to avoid the guns that weakly tried to aim at him. He made sure his gas mask was secure, and kept moving towards the men who were quickly turning into corpses. Only one shot made it in his direction, and it came nowhere near hitting him.

Screams erupted from behind the fallen defensive line as every fighting man was now dead, leaving the sick, women, and children undefended. A poor soul had somehow managed to cling to life. As the stranger went by his hand weakly caught the murderer’s ankle. The stranger didn’t even look down. He lifted his leg, and the boot, covered and repaired with layers of frayed materials, dug its heel in the dying man’s throat. The stranger unshouldered one of his guns, and kept walking. He stopped only so he could gather a few batteries from the guns, and so he could pick up the satchel and throw it again, closer to the survivors. Then he followed along, to make sure he got them all. A merry whistle made it under the mask, and the stranger hummed a song.

The screams had almost all stopped. Almost, but not all of them. The man waited with baited breath to see the flash of shots being fired. He waited, but there was none. What he heard instead was the sound of screams rising in intensity and fear. He heard pleas for mercy. He heard children crying and being silenced. And above it all, getting louder as the crying grew quieter, he heard laughter, devoid of any semblance of joy. It was how the dead would shriek if they could, almost weeping in its repugnance. The laughter grew with each silencing scream, until it was almost a howl of fear and pain itself.

The man retreated, heading for the walls at the other end of the City, determined to find help. The City was getting quieter, as even the explosions and gunfire lessened and faded. At times he believed he heard the scraping of movement, but never called out to make sure. He stuck to staying low and hidden.

Almost twenty minutes later he heard another explosion and looked back just in time to catch the flash of fire. He wasn’t sure, but he thought that originated from another bunker.

He made it to the massive gates of the city, rushed in the defenses post, and found out why the machines came through so easily. Bodies littered the corridors and the rooms. Most had their necks broken, others stabbed with whatever was in reach, and others had their heads bashed against the wall. Only deeper into the complex had the shooting started, when the intruder from the city’s side of the gate had been detected far too late, and failed attempts to stop him were made. He found the controls and wasn’t surprised to see that they had been destroyed after the gate had been opened.

Most of the people in there had been torn apart. Noses and cartilages had been almost ripped off as strong hands used them like handles. Eyes were missing or pushed deep into their sockets. Entrails covered the floor and the blood prints revealed the victim’s desperate attempt to pull them back inside his body. Faces were colored blue, their tracheas and windpipes completely broken and almost pulled off. The inside of their nails were filled with their own flesh and blood as they scratched at their own throats, striving for one more breath they would never get again.

He left the massacre behind him, and outside he saw a tree still standing, though the top branches were slowly smoldering, caught in fire. He saw a friend of his stand against the trunk, and the man thought for a second that he found another survivor. He knew that red, vibrant hair. They had even talked of getting together once, but broke it off as they were too different. That was in the past and no longer mattered though. What mattered was that he found one more person, and that meant there would be even more.

The woman was also dead. Her head had been shoved so hard against a branch that the thick base of the branch managed to penetrate the skull and kept her up, gray matter oozing down the side of her face.

The man stood there for a while, examining her face, tracing the paths of moisture that her tears left. There was dried snot on her face. She hadn’t been pushed while she stood at the wrong place. She had been brought here, and the man suspected that she saw what was coming all too clear. He could see the marks that she left as she tried to dig in her heels to slow her coming death.

She almost bent in half every time she laughed, he remembered. Like she couldn’t contain her mirth if she didn’t half seat herself, and she always covered her mouth with both hands. The laugh always came out muted, but so alive. It didn’t take a lot to make her laugh. She liked laughing. She loved jokes.

Her name was Joanna. She was dragged here, and killed. For no reason. Joanna only cleaned. And laughed. She liked to laugh.

She died crying.

An explosion roared behind him. He saw a tower lean impossibly, and then it crumbled and fell, whole floors almost slipping apart like cards out of a deck. A dust cloud rose, and the destruction continued as other buildings followed along, falling like dominoes. Lights suddenly turned on, flickered, and a few seconds later they died as fire erupted from the other side of the side where the underground generators were housed. The public address system had managed to crackle to life for three or four seconds. All it had managed to say was, “- to forty six are destroyed. All survivors head for bunker fift—”

He wondered how many were left to heed that message, and if it even mattered. All he had to do was look out the gate, and see the glare of the sun as it reflected on a tide of machines heading for them. Generators dead, shields gone, gates open wide. Of course more would come. There was nothing left to stop them with. Without power they had no hope. The city was dead or would be soon. Even if all the machines today were stopped, more would come soon. Even without them…

He looked up just in time to see one of their precious choppers rise over the skyline and its motor explode out of nowhere. The flying machine spun around itself over and over as it tilted to the side. A few shapes fell out of it, their limbs reaching out for help as they screamed. It crashed on the side of a building, the explosion barely noticeable among the spires of flame and smoke.

There was no way out. None other than risking certain death on the outside. How long ago had their deaths been planned? How meticulously had every chance of survival been crushed?

Six, seven and three
No one made it free

He doubted there were enough left alive to stop the coming machines. It was over. City Three was no more, and with it… with it...

The man ran. He decided to take his chances with the machines and the outside. He ran, and he didn’t stop, not until exhaustion took him. When he woke up he kept on running, laughter following him at every step of the way.

Sometimes it was Joanna. More often than not it was the stranger.

There was a scrap of faded fabric around the stranger’s right arm, almost rotten with age. He saw it, but didn’t understand its meaning, not until now. It was blue, and on it, stenciled in a pale yellow, almost invisible, was the number nine.

Not the stranger. He was not a stranger. They knew him.

The reaper.

“We have a live one! There’s a live one here!”

The man screamed at the sound of voices. All these months of running, of evading machines, of only eating fruits, roots, and bugs he found, without stopping even to light a fire, and his end was here. He dashed among the trees, falling on some, and pushing off others, determined to make one last attempt to save his life. It had been the only thing in his mind so far. Run, and stay alive. Run and remember. Remember City Three, and keep it alive in mind at least.

Remember the good laugh. Not the other one.

He had been without water for too long, and food for so much more. He didn’t have the strength for an escape inside the thick forest. Branches and roots caught at him, and suddenly he felt his nightmares come true. Hands grabbing him from behind and pushing him to the ground.

“Get him down, put him down now, and gag him if he tries to shout! Both of you! Search for weapons. Curry, keep a lookout for these fucking robots! Don’t you fucking fall asleep on me, you hear?”

“Loud and clear, sir. Keeping watch.”

They barked and hissed like men, not chirped and scratched like machines, and there were more than one, more than the one reaper. He was still alive, the reaper would have killed him by now. The man wrestled, but only so he could turn and look up at them.

No wonder he didn’t see them among the trees, their armor sported a blotchy pattern of greens, browns and black from head to foot, matching the forest’s colors. Beneath the armor they wore fatigues of the same palette, and their gear had a weathered but well cared for appearance.

At first glance they were all equipped alike, but there were differences when you looked longer. It’s as if they had all started the same, but mixed and matched down the line, replacing gear or making do. Two of them were holding him down, and their grip was as strong as steel. He doubted he’d be able to escape even if he had been taking care of himself.

Their weapons were strange. They certainly looked like the guns he knew, but they were more cylindrical instead of boxy, and there were no warning lights or even battery packs in the stock. They smelled like fire and smoke, and some of them were different, with various bits and kibble clipped on them like different barrels or scopes.

The one who talked before, the one who gave the orders stood still and waited. His eyes were uncovered, and they spoke of a man who had seen much. The man felt a kinship with these eyes, lurking within these ebony hollows. The bottom of his face was covered with something that resembled that gas mask that haunted him.

The apparent leader took off his helmet and breather, and Liam saw he had no hair. The man was completely bald, and his dark, almost black skin shined at the top.

“No weapons. He’s unarmed. Not so much as a knife on him.” Wait, this voice was lighter, smoother than the other two, even if altered by the mask. A woman’s voice. She was holding him down? Just how strong was she?

The leader knelt down in front of the man. “Okay, buddy, can you understand me? Are you still there? Do you understand my language?”

The man managed to hiss out a, “Y-Yesss…” that sounded more like air escaping a can.

“I think I heard him sing something before. He definitely speaks the same tongue we do,” the woman said.

The leader reached behind him, and the man cowered, but all their leader pulled out was a metal canteen. He unscrewed it, and the man could actually smell the water in it. “Come on, buddy. Take a sip. Careful now, not too much. Ease into it. There’s more where that came from.”

Water. He hadn’t realized how much his body needed it. It was wonderful. He felt strong again, stronger than he had felt in days. Some of it was the water. Most of it was the friendly sounding voices.

“Now, what is your name, buddy?”

“L-Liam.”

“Liam. Okay, Liam, I’m Sergeant Darry, Janus Division. This is William, and the lovely lady at your other side is Miny.” Sergeant Darry pointed at a burly man crouching at the top of some rocks high over them. “This fellow is Curry. We’re all friends here, and we’re going to take care of you, feed you and keep you safe. Do you understand?”

Liam nodded. “Y-Yes… Thank you. Thank you!” He couldn’t control himself he started sobbing. He wasn’t alone anymore. There were others out here. He wasn’t going to die all alone.

“No problem, Liam. It’s what we do. Come on, control yourself, buddy. Now, I have a couple of questions. It won’t take long. Can you answer them for me, Liam buddy?”

“Yes. Yes, anything you want. Just don’t leave me out here alone, please!” Liam begged. “I don’t care where you’re going, I want to come with. Please!”

The sergeant’s hand softly patted Liam’s cheek. “No worries, Liam. We won’t leave you behind. Now, what happened here?”

“H- Here? I… I don’t know. I’m not sure where I even am. I was just—”

Sergeant Darry interrupted him. “No, no, you misunderstand me, Liam. I don’t mean this-location here. I mean this-world here. What happened? Assume I just… dropped out of thin air. How did it all become so bad? What’s up with the robots?” The sergeant’s face was completely honest in his question, otherwise Liam would have believed he was being played a joke.

“The… machines,” Liam answered hesitantly. “They… They all went crazy, started killing us. They say bombs rained everywhere for days. Either them or us, we don’t know for sure. We- We all hid in the Cities. Built defenses. Worked out how to discourage them from coming around too often. Kept them at bay.”

“Okay,” Sergeant Darry nodded. “An A.I. uprising, end of the world. Where are these cities? We haven’t found a single one so far. Can you take us to one of them?”

Liam shook his head so violently that Miny had to hold him. “No. No! The Cities are all gone! There’s none left. Everyone’s dead, I think we’re the last ones. We have to hide, we have to hide if we want to live!”

The sergeant put his hand on Liam’s shoulders. “Okay, Liam, relax, I believe you. What happened, can you tell me? Did the… machines manage to win?”

Liam started to cry again. He felt like a mess. He used to be strong as well, others used to look up to him and now… He had seen everyone else die. Everyone! How could he not break? He had broken months ago.

“No, not the machines. The reaper. It was the reaper. The comms failed. The gates opened, and the guns no longer worked. We might have won, we could hold… but we didn’t know! No comms. That’s how every line broke, how it must have been for every City before. We expected the machines, not him. He did it. He destroyed the Cities. All of them.” Liam hid his face behind his hands, and cried. “It’s what he does… Oh god help us, it’s what he did, and he laughed… oh, how he laughed. He broke the defense, piece by piece. Piece by piece. One life snuffed at a time. He made sure no one could run. Where could they go anyway? It’s a miracle I’m not dead so far.”

The sergeant waited patiently, and when Liam was done he gave him his canteen to drink again. “What’s the reaper, Liam?”

Liam uncovered his face. He had to tell them. They didn’t know, and in ignorance laid danger. He sang, quietly.

Nine and four and five
Locked up in your hive
Nine and four and five
Engines came alive

Eight and one and two
City made it through
Eight and one and two
Something's gotten through

Six, seven and three
reaper laughs in glee
Six, seven and three
No one made it free

“Creepy,” Miny commented.

Sergeant Darry nodded once more, completely patient. “OK, Liam, but what is the reaper? Some kind of weapon? An infiltrator machine? A bomb? What?”

Liam shook his head. They didn’t get it. “We didn’t know!” he shouted. “We didn’t know what he is, we didn’t believe he was real! There were stories years ago, ever since Nine fell, teams that found something that wasn’t a machine and were lost, isolationists carrying rumors, and… and he killed everyone. He killed us all! There were nine Cities! Nine! Gone one by one, we thought it was the machines, but it can’t have been. The machines never tried to take down communications first. I never saw them do this or try it. We should have realized the truth. They don’t work like that! It had always been him! There are no Cities left! No one left!”

“Nine…” Sergeant Darry was finally as shaken as he should be. “When did the reaper appear, Liam?”

“I don’t know,” Liam answered, defeated. “Years ago. My grandfather used to sing that song as a kid, and who knows how old it was already back then.” Liam kept quiet for a moment, but he couldn’t keep his silence after so long alone. “I saw him.”

“You saw him? You mean the reaper?”

“What was it? Some kind of huge tank or…” William asked.

“No. Nothing like that. I don’t know what he really is, but… he looks like a man. Just a man. Just a man…” Liam went slack, letting William and Miny keep him from falling prone on the ground.

“A man. What, just a single guy?” Sergeant Darry repeated, his eyes unfocused for a moment before they hardened. “Impossible! Nine cities, one man, and how many years… It can’t be, it’s not fucking possible, not unless- unless he came through from somewhere else like we did and...” Suddenly, he was a whirlwind of motion. “Curry, get on the radio! We need the captain to come meet with us and we have to get the hell out of here!”

“Radio’s dangerous, sergeant. Better we just wait until we make it to the rendezvous. The robots might pick up the signal again. We’re running low on ammo as it is.”

Sergeant Darry swept his arms in front of him, and took his weapon in hand as he strided back and forth in front of them. “I don’t fucking care if they do! Get on the radio and tell the captain that this world has undergone a world-ending event.”

“That won’t be news to him, sergeant.”

“And then tell him that we have confirmation on a possible Ender. Do you understand me now, Curry? There is or was an Ender here! We have possible confirmation and we have a witness! A live one!”

Every soldier’s expression was one of shock. “An Ender, sergeant?” Curry asked, lifting an eyebrow in disbelief. “That’s just a stupid theory, right? That crap’s been recycled for centuries. Hell, I first heard it sixty five years ago. They can’t be real.”

“They have to be, motherfucker! I told you, we might have confirmation. Now get the captain, we have to get out of here. You know what might be coming next if they’re real and they’re part of it!” the sergeant shouted.

Curry pulled back in sudden alarm. “Oh. Oh fuck. This place is going to be harvested? Shit, we don’t want to be here! We gotta run! The gate is a fuckton of miles away! It will take weeks to get there.”

The sergeant went back to Liam, who was watching the whole exchange without understanding a word. “Come on, Liam. Up you go. Help him up, guys.”

“Wh- Where are we going?” Liam asked, standing unsteadily.

“Somewhere far away from here, buddy. Just going to have to walk a little before we can stop and eat, okay?” the sergeant smiled at him like an old friend. “I’ve got a can of spam that I’ve been saving. It’s all yours when we stop, buddy.”

“Sergeant!” Curry shouted after a while.

“What?”

“Captain says we’re to meet with him on the way to the gate, and haul ass! We’re to get there asap and start the random jumps,” Curry answered. “No dead weight. Anyone but your witness falls, we leave them behind with some supplies and carry on without them.”

“Random jumps?” William asked. “As in more than one? We won’t be at home for years! How many? Two? Are we seriously doing two stretched out as we are?”

“Captain says three!” Curry shouted down, lowering the radio. “That goes for even if you get stuck behind. Do the randoms on your own if you can or die. Don’t go home otherwise.”

“Three?” Miny said in disbelief. “We always do three and one. Why do we do three randoms now? That could take decades!”

“Get your heads thinking, morons,” Sergeant Darry raged in low tones at his men. “If this is right that means there is something out there, and one of its real soldiers was or is here. This might be our first real contact with the enemy. No more photos, drawings, scraps of info or mad conjecture with no real meaning. Three jumps, and that might be too little. We don’t want to guide them home.”

“We have no idea if it even works, boss,” William said. “If the enemy’s real then they know how to really work the gates, not the little stuff we do. We might end up pointing them the way anyway.”

“Yeah, well… Not much we can do about that then. The big heads back home need to hear this, and ask Liam the smart questions. We can’t fuck this up. Come on, pick up everything and let’s go. Carry Liam if you have to, and guard him with your life. He must make it to Janus HQ no matter what, and soon. We don’t want this reaper guy to find us, and we definitely don’t want to still be here when the harvest begins.”

Liam did his best to stop them from moving him. He had to know what they were talking about. “W-Wait. What is this harvest you’re talking about?”

“End of the world, buddy,” Sergeant Darry answered as he picked up his gear.

“I thought you said that the end of the world already happened.”

The sergeant motioned for Curry to get down, his attention already turned from Liam to logistics and routes. “It didn’t, buddy. They just took out the worms. Now they come for the apple.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOGgKGVo2pM