Distant sirens and gunfire resound across the sprawl of March, a group catching their breaths within a bombed out building from an urban meatgrinder long forgotten. Upon rubbled brick and reinforced concrete they consume themselves either leaning against half-destroyed walls or splayed out against ground.

Alto Carrin’s lungs burn, breaths of cold air somehow only adding to the suffering as biology forces him to cough. A mind of faith begging gods above for relief, an unresponsive pantheon letting him lie in his own purgatory.

Twins in a disconnect, Samantha in a similar position as she throws up a previously consumed dinner all over the ground. Calories wasted in a starving world, her sibling keeping his mouth quiet as he stands against a half-destroyed support pillar. Augmented musculature preventing the state of tiredness within his body, the feeling instead replaced with a growing, voracious hunger within his abdomen.

Madeline McCormick’s own personal fitness manages to save her, a physiology derived from the pure bloodlines of Centralis allowing for an unusual perfection. A form just doubled over, she chuckles to herself in a madness which she aims at the old man. “Hey gramps, you feeling alright? Cause uh, you kinda died on us back there.”

A body repaired by arcane devices, a practiced muscular mass upon the old form of Judge John Murphy allowing for an insane recovery from physical exertion. Leaning upon brick and stone, the man simply works through a quick inventory of present gear upon his bodily form as he ignores the criminal’s questions. Cold gaze kept upon them, he is the first to make the sudden realization at the sixth within the group.

They all make the realization of him, the boy at the center of the scattered five unmoving, unblinking, unbreathing in his existence. A lifeless corpse that still lives, yet some archaic instinct held within humanity rushes forth into a singular thought.

A first reaction of protection; of such a pure, harmless soul betrayed by the witnessed miracles performed minutes prior. A dichotomy of innocence and divine power played within psyches, the Five unable to speak as they simply stare at him.

At the One.

“Who are you?!” Madeline recklessly asks. “I mean… thanks for saving us but still…”

His clerical education reaches into the eons of history, of a great war once fought against old gods of unbelievable power written down in scripture and passed on through ceaseless generations. From the corpses of betrayers marking the Salvation Line, to the glassed fields and dead craters of the Northlands; his own evidence found within the ancient beasts roaming the deserts of Armin and the remnant battlefields of the old war scattered across the wastes.

Verses of old demons disguised as mortals written by ancient prophets admissible only in their translations, suddenly turned to reality at the form within their midst.

Alto cautiously augments the question, even voice attempting to hide his lack of usable munitions within his revolver. An aimed insight alongside wording forcing a direct answer, he says it. “What are you?”

A single thought within his consciousness questions itself, an actual answer from the thing too much for his own comprehension. Regret at the words, unable to take it back as Samuel supplements the question with his own statement through augmentation and academic knowledge. “It is not human.”

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His sister points the rifle upon the form, Samantha’s unsteady hand attempting to keep a barreled centered upon the torso of the monster. Aligned sights of the anti-armor rifle shaking in movement, ignored by the thing.

The distant life of the world enters their microcosm, Judge John Murphy speaking up as he reaches towards an anti-mage grenade at his utility belt. One order barked out, a recovery delayed in preparation for battle. “Answer them.”

Pale blue orbs locking on two; both the young woman and man are targeted within crosshairs as the originators of the inquiry.

The One’s voice is crafted to perfection, emotionless yet holding a tragedy within its implication. An entire history spanning even further than humanity’s collective memory, a great irony within the thought process as he gives the answer. Translated for their kind, for their desires, one word and one character in their language. “My designation is Ar.”

There is no meaning to the amalgamation of letters, instead brought upon humanity to extrapolate its definition:

A name taken from beyond the holy walls, something so alien the basis of which is barely comprehensible for mortal souls. The remnant fragments, standing before them all.

The Five exchange glances, between the northlandic wanderer, the midland judge, the centralian brigand, and the two children of Armin. The bloodlines of the world, united beneath dead gods above.

Ar.

The demonic presence is there, staring at them.

“This isn’t true.” It needs to stop here, a world doomed by the answer to the question of Alto Carrin. To the man, the scriptures give him the knowledge. “He’s an old god…”

Madeline scoffs to herself, a sudden stoppage of humor as she processes the title. “Wait… like those demon things from the old war?”

Judge Murphy takes the unsolicited advisement alongside gathered evidence, the pin pulled upon his anti-mage grenade and a throw prepared. “Do not move, Ar.”

Samuel and Samantha exchange glances, stances prepared for a hopeless fight against a very fragment of living divines.

He specifies the inquired answer, the creature’s mastercrafted language unplaceable in accent. “You refer to the old gods as individuals who once sought annihilation during the conflict you refer to as the old war. I’m not part of those individuals.”

There is a lie of omission there, caught by the insight of Alto. Something more to the statement unspoken, something more dangerous and terrible beyond the dead gaze of the child. He makes the objection. “You’re lying.”

The passive sensor suite of Samuel fails, augmentation unable to sense the nonexistence of a heart rate and facial muscles. One individual beyond even those of the deep desert, an enigma taken as augmentation makes a fatal decision.

Eyes glow blue, a mind left open as the scan of the One commences.

He is nowhere.

An augmented soul standing amongst a bottomless void, nothing except a brain floating within the nothingness of an endless space.

One door, molded from ancient cedar, stands at the very forefront of Samuel’s incomprehensibly small form. A surface filled with carvings so intricate the perfect mind fails to comprehend it all, of a history and library vaster than a thousand worlds combined.

He needs to know, to understand everything. A step taken towards it, an action stopped by the presence.

The One stands alongside the terminus, the monster’s gaze turning from the door onwards to the intruder. One voice larger than a million more, the softly spoken warning nearly drowning the young mage in a torrent of data. A mind almost breaking against the single booming word, an infinite flood of information spliced together and subsequently jammed into his skull. “Don’t.”

He is back in the world, beneath five dead suns. Augmented eyes fading away as a massive headache washes over the feeble mind, artificial lungs exchanging air in a desperate attempt at stabilization. Samuel begins to fall over before his sibling catches him, his immense mass bringing the woven pair onto their knees.