Year 737 of the Cataclysm

(2,228 Years before settled time)

Northern Shore of the Known World (South Cenoka)

Xirxis sensed their approach two days before they crossed the horizon to the south. Another horde of murderous children spawned from a colony in dire fear of extinction. He weeps inside for these children and the parents that spawned them. How destitute must they have become where their only way out is to birth a generation of soldiers, raise them to be killers, and push them into the wilds of Cenoka when they are barely six years old. This isn’t the first army to come to Xirxis’ compound, his base, his home, and it won’t be the last. He will defend those he cares for with no thought of mercy for the lives of the monsters set upon taking everything from him, as he has done for the last 70 years.

This has been the way of the world for the last seven hundred years. Pockets of colonizers on every continent, huddled in a thousand compounds, fight this hostile planet for survival. The hourly earthquakes, volcanic ashfall, super storms that last for weeks, ground water that is safe one day and poisonous the next, are minor obstacles compared to the danger presented by our brothers and sisters competing for this world’s limited life sustaining resources.

Xirxis reflects on the condition humans have found themselves. He wonders if the label of human even applies anymore. He knows what the word means, he was born with that information along with other words from a dozen languages, knowledge of advanced mathematics, hundreds of survival skills, advanced medical techniques, and worst of all, an exhaustive knowledge for killing humans, animals, and theories to end creatures unknown. When he thinks of the word human, the definition falls short of helpfulness. A bipedal primate mammal and a few descriptions that seem so archaic and out of touch with reality that they are a waste of space in his head. What are the traits of people that distinguish them from animals? That information isn’t in his head. Xirxis has been alive for 82 of this world’s years and he’s never witnessed a person exhibiting a trait he hasn’t also seen in animals. He’s witnessed a mother inu mourn a stillbirth pup the same way a human woman mourns a still birthed baby. There is no difference between the packs of flightless ravishers that hunt our hunting parties as we hunt them. Whichever party surprises the other will murder every adversary present to feed their waiting families. Humans, what are we, why are we here, where did we come from?

Xirxis, will keep his senses attuned to the approaching army. Forward scouts, too few to easily detect will be in the woods on the other side of the meticulously cleared 100-yard perimeter. He has his wall sentries put on a show, comprised of male and female guards with ash rubbed in their yellow hair to make it appear drab and therefor dangerous. Armed with the favored weapons of past armies, the short shovels over their shoulders as they lope around the top of the base’s protective wall, mimicking the gait of past attackers. Such a subterfuge has little chance of deterring the attackers, but it gives the nervous population something to do.

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He doesn’t want to be seen yet, so he absorbs the light as it strikes him. If someone would look directly at him, a black human shape would be seen. A blackness so complete that the brain will pull the edges together forming a solid uninterrupted image. It’s not perfect, his sentries will see a visual distortion at their distance, anyone observing beyond the clearing would see nothing. He strolls around the outside base of their wall. It encircles the base, soaring upwards for almost five and a half yards, topped with more than a yard and a half flat top, it gently tappers outward on both sides continuing underground another five and a half yards. The buried bottom is a quarter as wide as the wall is tall. It was probably once all exposed, until hundreds of years of uncleared ashfall buried half. It was standing unassailable and waiting to be found when his ancestors arrived 600 years ago, or so the story goes. They’ll be standing for another 600 years by all accounts.

Looking at the wall, the odd dimensions always bewilder him. Why not exactly five and a half yards, why not exactly five yards high? Was there something that could get over the wall without the extra inches? These thoughts trouble Xirxis because they lead to others, such as why so many languages? Are humans meant to encounter others that use them. Why are there so many words in their heads that have no context. How come there are things, animals, plants that don’t have words? Who put the words in their memory? His father once posited that we inherit words from our parents’ memory, but if that was the case why after 600 years of facing ravishers do we have to teach the name to every newborn human? There’s a belief that humans were created for a purpose. The nature of that purpose is much debated when libations are flowing. Are they here to suffer this awful planet? Some think it’s a test, but to what reward nobody can say. Some believe we were created for a purpose then abandoned and one day a hero will appear and free us of this hellscape.

Circular thoughts for another time, he pushes them away and finishes surveying the soon to be battlefield then heads inside by hopping over the wall. Once inside and concealed from observers he drops his light mask and strolls to a chair leaning against the closed and bolted main gate. He sits down and runs his hand through his curly blond hair, a trait shared by many in this base. They’ve earned that hair color as well as dozens of generations of children born with green eyes by keeping their people safe, fed, and happy. If that were to suddenly become impossible, they too would spawn a mono-colored murderous army of their own in less than six years.

Leaning his chair back so he can recline with his shoulders against the gate, the familiar feel of an aftershock rattles him into a trance where he can feel the violent mass of people mobilizing a scant six miles from his home.