"No!" A loud voice screams through the mist of a murky moonless night. The screams, whimpers and last gasp of a caravan of travellers can be heard from a nearby valley. Smoke rises in the distance. 

Screams of "Please! NO!" echo in the distance and fade away until all that's left is a profound silence. As if the world itself is holding its breath. This is a place of grief and mourning, something great has been taken from the world. 

Over the crest of the hill leading into the now ominous place, a grizzly man walks out of the mist. Drawn by the sounds of distress, he appears with his weapons drawn. Two double edged tomahawks clutched in his fist, and his hounds the size of wolves alerted at his side.

"Louis! Hera! Search!" He commands in a deep gravely voice. The dogs set out to look for survivors as the man approached the devastated camp site. The caravan of cobbled together mobile homes and mechanical horses that pulled them are left in burning pieces, as the last evidence of the people who once called them home turns to ash. 

The only thing left of the identity of these poor folks is a torn cloth that the man finds draped over one of the carriages. The faded symbol of a raven surrounded by a silver spiked crown. A bark in the distance draws his attention, as his hounds signal the possibility of a survivor amidst all the destruction and death.

"Show me what you've found." The hounds lead him to a cluster of bushers, creeping out barely able to be seen in the dying light of the fires is the pale foot of a young woman. As the man pulls the bushes further to try and help her, he notices another smaller body wrapped in her arms and protected by her. 

He lets out small grunts, as he works harder to get to them. Hoping to salvage some life from this disaster. When he finally drags them out, he can tell that the woman does not have long. He wants to try and save her anyways. 

"Come!" He barks towards his hounds.

"We're going home." The hounds bound after the man as he makes with haste towards his hovering bike. Like a beacon in the dying light, its sleek metallic design is reminiscent of a horse with black wings and deep blue highlights shining with its own internal starlight.  The man secures the woman and her child to the front of his bike. As they begin to leave the broken remains and ruins of the caravan, a hand grabs his wrist.

"Wait!" the woman gasps as she abruptly comes awake.

"In the...in the box." Her hoarse voice croaks.

"You have to bring the box" She begs.

The man looks around, he doesn't remember a box, and he doesn't believe they have time to waste looking for one. 

"I haven't seen any box," he rumbles, "and you need help now."

"She's going to need it." The woman pleads, looking at the young girl in her arms. "I know I'm not long for this world, please, for her."

The man sighs and rests the woman down by his things, "I won't be long, hold on. She needs you too." The woman grasped his wrist again as he turned.

"My name is Robyn." She says with a small smile.

"And this is Wren." She continues with both love and grief, looking down at the child in her arms. "Thankyou," she whispers, as more of her strength begins to leave her.

"My name is Henry, hold on, I'll be right back." As he leaves the woman is surrounded and protected by his two hounds. Henry hopes that he isn't making a mistake.

Making his way back to a cluster of bushes from which he had dragged the woman and her child. Henry can see something glinting in the light, a flash of silver half buried in the earth. He has to crawl a bit to get to it, but manages to dig out a small ornate silver box the size of his hand.

Getting up and dusting the dirt from his worn jean overalls. Henry clutches the box to his chest and makes his way back to the woman. Well Robyn. As he arrives at his bike. He sees Robyn lying where he left her. Still holding Wren and surrounded by his hounds. But she is still, she is not breathing. It's as he had feared, Robyn had passed.

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Henry releases a deep and heavy sigh, weary at the world and the struggles that come with surviving in the messed up wasteland. He wraps the woman in one of his spare blankets and swaddles young Wren to his chest.

"Home!" Henry barks. As his hounds begin to run. Kicking the bike into gear, he leaves the horrors of man's greed behind him, never looking back once. A dusty expanse looms out before him as they make their way home. In the distance, tall trees towered by an ice capped mountain range. There is home, there is Holden.

On his way back to Holden, Henry made the decision to raise Wren as his own. Showing up with a dead woman and an unconscious toddler was not a good look for anyone. But, Henry was notorious for being quirky and a little out there. 

He was lucky that the settlement of Holden has since been the stomping grounds of his family from its birth.

The morning light started to fill the sky as Henry approached the tall walls that blocked off the outer farming areas of the tightknit community he called home. 

In the distance, he can see a young man with short dark hair in black leather, leaned against the heavy stainless steel doors that protected one of the three points of access into the lands under the leadership of Holden. 

He pulls up in a cloud of dust, startling the young guard out of his daydreaming.

"Bowery!" Henry barks.

"Is this how you guard our home? How can you see enemies approaching if your eyes are watching your eyelids?!" Henry rebukes the young man as he leaps from his bike.

Startled, the young man named Bowery snaps to attention from his slouched state. "Henry," Bowery greets with a yawn and a salute, his left hand fisted above his heart.

"It's good to have you back, people were starting to worry." He murmurs with watery eyes.

"It's been almost three months since you left, and we hadn't heard from you. Did something happen...pen?" He pauses as he notices the extra guests Henry has brought along with him.

"Henry, who's that?" he asks with confusion, already anticipating the trouble Henry has brought to their doorstep.

"Oh no Henry, the rest of the councils are gonna throw a fit. What's going on?" he asks exasperatedly

"You know, we can't just bring strangers back to Holden. There's a process, checks and balances!" He exclaims loudly while waving his hands around.

"Don't tell me what can and can't be done lad." Henry sternly states.

"My family helped write those rules, and I've learned them at my father's knee since I was but a boy." He lectures in return.

"Now open these gates before I open them myself." He says with a hard stare at Bowery.

Bowery sighs and scratches his regulation sheared head, wondering if it's worth the hassle to try and stop Henry.

"Henry...I" he stops, takes a breath and concedes.

"Fine. But if the council catches wind of this..." Bowery pauses, looking around with worry. "I tried to stop you." He says with a slightly distressed voice.

Bowery pulls something out of the black leather satchel attached to his belt. He looks down at a bulky tablet. 

After typing in some information, he says, "Okay, you're free to go. Scan yourself in on the other side, well, you know the drill."

"Henry." He says, "Be careful, things have been tense lately, especially since you've been gone."

Henry looks at Bowery, really looks at Bowery and notices the details he had missed previously.

He has known Bowery since he was a babe, and has watched the lad grow up to take over the post he currently guards. 

However, to Henry's knowledge, Bowery wasn't supposed to start his duties for another few months. Something must have gone wrong during his time away, it seems.

"Don't worry lad" Henry says, "I'll set things right! Ain't nothin that goes on in Holden that we Metis don't know about."

Bowery sighs deeply and worryingly fiddles with his tablet as Henry walks through the gates into Holden. Wheeling his bike and dogs walking beside him.

"I hope you're right Henry," he whispers, "I truly hope you're right."

As Henry rolls his bike through the deep steel and stone bricked archway behind the gate. His hounds beside him. He can't help but wonder what had gone so wrong in Holden while he was gone these last few months.

"Nothin, I like better have burned down." He mutters to himself, "Again." His grumbles echoed through the empty hallway.

Passing through the checkpoint. Henry comes to a dead end, there is only a wall of metallic stone in front of him. The exception being a steel post shoved into the ground. White LED light lit up its body, and a circular hollow hoop is connected to the top of the structure, also glowing with the same bright white light.

A robotic monotone voice asks Henry to "Please insert your PCAi into the scanner for registration."

Henry roughly shoves his hand through the lit up circle. Noticeable under the glow of the lights, wrapped around his wrist, is a sleek sliver metal band with a single strip of white LED light visible across the surface.

Green lasers scan the band, and the light turns blue as the walls behind the machine pull apart layers deep to reveal a vast expanse of farmland and rolling hills of golden wheat.

Henry bites his lip as he removes his hand and climbs back onto his bike.

"Stupid Port", he grumbles, rubbing his wrist. "I thought Greta was going to fix that."

Shooting out of the archway, with his hounds striding beside him. Henry admires the safety and calmness of again being behind the fortified walls of Holden.