The small town of Grith sits just beyond the border of New Proxon. The small town barely keeps a population of 2,000 people every year. The town is ancient when compared to its neighbor–gleaming lights and buildings that tower above the clouds. Girth is home to the poor energy harvesters that work tireless hours to meet their weekly quotas for New Proxon’s energy corporation, Xi Quin Energy. The job of an energy harvester is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world for humans to have; while also being the least paying. Sadly the town’s people do not have a choice in what they do as this is their punishment.

Grith raised up an Immortal 37 years ago. That Immortal grew to hate New Proxon and its people. He turned evil and began slaughtering innocent civilians and began killing Immortals as well. He was eventually killed after the “D3” squad was deployed. D3 stands for “Death 3” or the “Death Trio”; they are a group of Immortals that work for the police department to handle out of control Immortals. Each member is immensely powerful and has many abilities that no other Immortal has been able to wield yet. The squad quickly rid the world of the stain he left. There was not even a body left to bury.

This one Immortal caused all of Grith to become an enemy of the city and was put on trial. The overseer–highest ranking official in the justice system–gave the city two options. The city could willingly forfeit their lives and be erased from the world, or they could live to serve the city as energy harvesters forever. The town must pass down the torch to their children and their children’s children. The only members of the town that do not have to harvest energy are any of the ones that live to see the age of 80. The overseer strictly set the age of 80 as the cut off. Most thought this was the city being kind to the elders; however, the city officials just believed that it would be a waste of effort for someone of that age to be working and slowing everyone else down. The elders take on other jobs in the town such as: bar owners, farmers, and traders.

Grith barely maintains the resources to stay functioning. The energy that they harvest is prioritized to the city and as such they are left with very little to keep their own technology working. This has caused many problems with how the future of Grith operates. Every year they have to lose something or change how they function as a town all together. This year they chose to lower the age for kids to start working on harvesting energy. In the past the age was 12 years old or older, but due to the lack of energy to keep the town running the age has been set to 8 years or older. The kids have not enjoyed the change, and many of them struggle every day to help do their part. The town leader, Jeremy Hevix, hopes to be able to change the fate of his town one day.

“Yo, Mr. H!”, a cheerful voice sounds. “Why are you staring at the clouds?”

Jeremy looks down at the young man standing in front of him. The boy is dressed in torn black pants and ripped gray shirt. His eyes are bright purple with messy black hair.

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“Hey, Zahn, sorry… I was ju-”, Jeremy begins to say as he is immediately interrupted.

“Yeah yeah yeah. I know. You were just thinking about what it would be like to live in the clouds like those big buildings in the city.”, Zahn says in an exhausted tone. He spoke as though he had been told this same reply a thousand times over.

Jeremy smiles to the boy, “Yeah, you got me again.”, as both of them begin to laugh.

“You know what tomorrow is right, Mr. H?” Zahn says with a wide grin that looks as though his skin were made of rubber.

“I do”, Jeremy replied. “Happy early birthday, Zahn! Now before you sa-”, the eager boy stops the man in the middle of his sentence again.

“I will finally find out if I’m Immortal!”, the boy screamed.

Jeremy looked at the boy with a smile, but that smile only hid his true feelings. Jeremy did not want Zahn to become an Immortal. It was not a personal offense. He just simply feared what the officials of New Proxon might do if they discovered another Immortal was in Grith.

“Maybe you will be! I wish you the best of luck!” Jeremy said with a smile.

“Bye! I’ll let you know how it goes tomorrow, Mr. H!” Zahn yelled as he ran down the path to his house.

Immortals are not born naturally. They are not created through artificial means. They are awakened. If one is destined to become an Immortal, their power awakens when they turn 18 years old. There have been rare cases where some awakened early and some even awakened late. Once awakened, Immortals are immediately enrolled into a prestigious academy for Immortals. This academy strives to train them to become stronger while also shaping them into role model citizens. This is done to try and prevent them from turning down an evil path. The success rate of this has been nearly perfect for the last 3 years.

Zahn arrives to his house with little daylight left. He lives alone. He was always alone since he was 7 years old. Zahn lost his parents 11 years ago during an incident in the energy mines. An Immortal came down there trying to absorb the energy to boost his power. D3 arrived to end the threat, but the resulting battle left 48 citizens of Grith dead. If it had been any other town, the city would have given them ample amounts of compensation or even tried to resurrect them, but not Grith. Grith must always suffer.

Zahn lives in a rather luxurious home. Every home in Grith is like this. The walls and floors are marble with leather furniture in a matching color. The house has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. There is a second floor as well as a basement with an Immortal bunker. The only problem with the houses in Grith are the energy needed for them to function. Zahn only has one working light in his home. The light shines in his kitchen. The light spreads to the living area of the home, but quickly disappears after a short distance. He takes his shirt and pants off and changes into a pair of shorts and t-shirt. This is the only set of clothes he has without rips and tears in them.

“Time for bed! Tomorrow, I’ll be Immortal!”, Zahn says as his smile fades away. “I have to.”