The walk down the stairs was, at best, awkward and, at worst, excruciating.

Fyn wouldn't be surprised if the awkward silence he endured could be classified as torture somewhere. However, strangely enough his discomfort had absolutely nothing to do with the many stairs they climbed down, as Fyn now found that no more strenuous than buttering toast.

In the past, he would have to stop to catch his breath halfway down. Sixteen stories was a lot, after all. But now, he felt not the slightest bit tired. It was as though his legs were made of steel and the muscles as durable as stone.

He couldn't help but find this all very strange and spent the majority of the descent in his own head.

A humanist...

He chewed the thought and didn't like the taste. No matter how he looked at it, being a humanist was bad. Very bad. If a single person found out what he was, he would end up like Dr Sill - whose burnt corpse now lay buried below the skeleton of a broken warehouse.

What was most frustrating of all, was that - in a roundabout way - he had asked for this. Every day for the last five years, he had prayed for the chance to become a sentinel. It haunted his dreams hanging over him like a guillotine.

An impossible wish that could never be granted.

Fyn was twenty, and one could not be older than fifteen to join one of the academies. It wasn't a matter of talent or effort. He had simply missed his one and only chance many years ago...

Or so he thought.

Now, it seemed, fate had a wicked streak to it. Hearing Fyn's prayers, Destiny decided to twist his wish and throw it back in his face.

You want to be a sentinel? Fine.

Such things do not come without cost, however.

Lost in his own head, it wasn't until they neared the bottom floor that Fyn piped up and began to ask questions.

"Look," he said, glancing down at Karst, who was a few steps below him. "I've got a couple of questions to ask you about what's going on with me, yunno, about the…" he didn't want to say 'humanist'. Not in public, where people might be listening.

Karst grunted in what Fyn took as approval, and soon, he began to ask away.

"Well, first of all - who did you not want to follow me? I feel like that is quite important for both of us now... considering..."

Karst didn't turn back; however, he did pause for a moment as though deliberating on what he could and could not say.

"If it's something you can't say out here, then that's fine. I just want to know what I should be afraid of, yunno?"

The big man snorted. "No, it's nothing like that. I'm just slow to gather my thoughts, is all." He took a deep breath and rolled his shoulders. "Right... well, it's not hard to guess who might be after folks like us."

"The Church Of The Lighthouse?" Fyn offered.

"Bingo. But the church has two forms. The light and the shadow, sun and the moon, day and night, you get the picture. You see, there's the public side of the church. They act all gooey and give money to the poor and talk about freeing us from our mortal shackles, ect ect. In general, this side of the church condemns us and gives all of our kind a bad name, that sort of thing."

Fyn nodded. He had interacted with that part of the church plenty of times - since they often gave out food during the winter and sent volunteers to the ration centres. More than once, he had been forced to sit through a tedious lecture about the evils of humanists before receiving his free food. The trick he had found was to pretend to be listening. When those grotty old priests thought you were paying attention, they gave out extra food.

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"And then there is the shadow of the lighthouse." Karst's voice was throaty and ominous. "They act on the church's teachings. They kill our kind like a farmer harvests wheat. I can't even begin to tell you how many of our comrades have fallen to them, Sill included."

Fyn shuddered slightly, feeling a cold wind pass across the back of his neck.

"But they don't seem to be following you," Karst continued. "I can usually tell when those lot are nearby."

Breathing a sigh of relief, Fyn was glad he had stayed under the rubble for as long as he did. Perhaps if he had escaped right away, he would have run into the shadow of the lighthouse and ended up like the doctor did. He doubted even he could survive being skewered by a shadow.

With his mind on the topic of his insane endurance, Fyn thought to ask Karst about it.

"So, when they burned down the warehouse, I was trapped inside, and the flames charred my skin. But… but after a while, that just sort of stopped, and as you can see…" Fyn gestured to his thoroughly uncharred skin. "I'm completely fine now."

He looked to the big man for some sort of answer, but the giant kept walking. Although, from the subtle twitch of an eyebrow and the slight tensing of his shoulders, Fyn could tell he was listening.

"Next, I was stabbed through the waist by a steel rod. I thought I would be pinned under the rubble forever, but at some point - I don't know when - the rod vanished. I think I fell asleep… maybe… And when I woke up, the rod had sheared off near the surface of my skin, and the wound had healed. It looked like acid had chewed through the metal everywhere near my skin."

Karst paused in his descent for a moment, frowning. Taking this as a positive sign, Fyn continued.

"Next is my stamina. Ever since I left that warehouse, I haven't gotten out of breath once, despite climbing all these stairs and walking miles down abandoned roads. Even at my fittest, that sort of stuff would have left me panting for breath," said Fyn.

In front of him, Karst nodded as if this made sense and began to descend again.

"And finally, whenever you were grabbing my shoulders there, I could… um… feel the muscles getting stronger as you applied more pressure. It was like, like they knew that's what I needed." Fyn couldn't quite believe what he was saying; it barely made any sense even though he had experienced it.

"It's automatic," said Karst. "Whatever environment you enter, your body will adapt to suit it."

"So what? I'm fireproof now?"

"Pretty much, yeah."

By now, they had reached the final flight of stairs and walked out of the apartment building onto a street that smelt of overflowing sewage and smoke. Every building was red brick and covered in a mix of graffiti and soot.

"Right…" Karst rumbled, taking a left on the street corner and heading for an alleyway. The passageway was so narrow that the big man's shoulders almost scraped against either side. "There's only so much I can say out here, so I would like you to meet me at a… safer location." He shook his head as though not quite believing what he was saying. "I'll go into more detail when we meet later. Just remember, the walls have ears, and the sky has eyes."

Fyn glanced up at the gloomy, overcast sky that never cleared up. It had been like that since the Transit. Always cloudy, always grim. Those born before the Transit often spoke of stars and the moon, but Fyn had only seen things like that in videos and pictures. To him, the sky was just a blanket that smothered the possibilities the sky once possessed. Protective wards be damned.

"Well, where should we meet then?" he asked eagerly. The sooner he could get to the bottom of his condition, the better.

Karst took another turn, heading down a slightly wider alley that reeked of food waste. Up ahead, the hustle and bustle of kitchen staff could be heard. Pots and pans clattered against each other, and chefs yelled at waiters - who screamed back just as loud. Little clouds of smoke and steam poured out of ajar doors at the end of the alley, masking what lay beyond.

Karst paused mid-stride and jammed a hand into his pocket. He was wearing a heavy duffel jacket that wouldn't have looked out of place on an expedition up one of the Alps. It had enough pockets to stuff ten hands in.

Eventually, his hand came back clutching a crumpled, yellow post-it note and a pen. He lent the post-it note against the alley wall and began to write on it as Fyn peered over his shoulder. When he was done, Karst stepped back, almost knocking Fyn over. He turned and thrust the slip of paper into Fyn's hand.

"Be there tomorrow at seven."

Fyn looked down at the note, trying to make sense of a scribbled address. He unfurled it and squinted at the chicken-scratch handwriting that would have made a doctor proud.

"...What?"

He looked up to find that Karst had vanished into the cloud of steam and smoke. Alone in the alley, Fyn stared down at the note again and frowned.

"That stupid bastard didn't say whether it was am or pm." He stuffed the note into his pocket and strode out of the alley muttering to himself.

"What a fucking asshole."