changed Justine > Ana, and Amanda looses her pet name.
No idea where is this story set in, I'm a history student instead of a geography one, and I don't really study maps, oops.
Also, this chapter is quite peaceful, I need to set up the background information and all, action will come, eventually.
The first two years was hard, humankind had to reclaim their cities slowly, some people migrated by themselves and claimed areas of their own.
During then, 2 billion people died because of the changing, then the famine that came took another 2 billion or so.
Poorer countries like Africa suffered, while countries with lower gun law regulations survived better, and in the city I was in, it took back 30% of their city starting from the middle of the city, while a part of the north area was claimed by the changed migrants.
In the seas were an estimated 3 million of changed humans who had either transformed or changed enough to survive in the waters and not on land, not including those that can survive on land and water.
Winged humans took to the skies and claimed mountains, chasing off humans who resided there.
The rest either took parts of cities or completely took it for themselves, many towns overtaken by only a small groups of people.
Four years ago, on the ninth day of the start of the apocalypse, I woke up without any memories, screaming in the middle of the night of unspeakable horrors I couldn’t remember.
With a strange expression mixed with relief, guilt, sadness and many more I couldn't put my finger on, he gave me a big hug as he explained how I was his Sister, and we lost our parents in the start of the apocalypse.
Todd, my Brother.
Currently, we lived in a small town about a five day trip from a changed human friendly city. The town boasted a population of roughly two hundred, with few adults, many children and the leaders we recognised, old man Faren and his Wife, Miran.
Currently, winter had just passed, and all the children who hibernated just started to wake up, each of them going about to hunt to replenish our individual food stock, usually if one wasn't injured, sick or disabled, they had to hunt for themselves, though the things they hunted could be traded for other things.
"Deer or eggs?" Todd asked.
"Deer?" I asked hopefully.
"Both it is." He muttered, "I'm craving them."
Having just woke up a week ago from winter, his appetite made its appearance as he choose fussily about what he wanted to eat. With his towering height of 2.10m and toned thick body at 18, he ate like a cow, but meat instead of grass.
Perhaps for years ago, one would wonder how taking eggs from chickens would be harder than shooting a deer, but somehow the standard had switched places. Luckily, I could fly.
With a sigh, I looked up at the impossibly tall tree before me, and the humongous bird nest perched on it.
"Come on, it's fine."
"I hate you." I muttered before flapping my wings, taking to the sky as I placed both of my hands on my sword handles, "Shout at me if you see anything coming my way!"
"I didn't sleep my brain to nothingness, you know?"
Snorting, I quickly landed on the nest the length of a single bed, and throwing the eggs the size of school bags down on an unobstructed route we had cleared branches out of before winter, I quickly cleared out the nest.
"Come on, hurry up, won't want the Mom back, we need her eggs for the future too."
Thankfully, the bird beast situated here was a human turned one, with no particular mates around, though on the third year she produced some baby birds, but that was the only exception. If it were to see us raiding its nest it would attack, considering that we ate her only batch of fertile eggs and every batch of her infertile ones.
Once it flew towards us with a furious cry and all I could do was throw my sword at it, luckily it didn't die.
Afterall, we stole that batch of fertile eggs.
It was quite scary to crack it open to find a small dead bird inside, goo, blood and all.
"This can sell for a good price, should we sell four and keep two?"
"Watch me eat it."
Containing the urge to roll my eyes, I spoke again, "Let's go drop it at the house, you can't be carrying five fragile bags around if we're going to hunt."
"The children spotted a dozen red eyed bucks, we should take it down, it's presumably a family that changed from another city or town and took control of a herd." He muttered.
Red eyes were a term we coined for humans who had transformed into monsters, their eyes red and their body stronger than the others.
Their direct offspring had pink eyes and matured extremely quickly and had power similar, but slighter weaker than their parents. while as the bloodlines got more diluted, pink and red eyes became rather rare.
And the best thing is, since the winter, ever since Todd wasn't around to mark all over the forest like the animal he is, the herds started to come back, and they could hunt near their town instead of running too far.
"Or, we could always lead them to the city?" I suggested.
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"Bucks the size of cars mowing down countless houses as well as red eyes half the size of trucks? Good idea." He said with a smirk.
One thing he really liked to do was to harm the city with a distance that took three days of walking at human speed, we would always attack or lead herds, packs, prides to its doorstep for the heck of it.
That city was named Kleane, the surname of the president who had shamelessly named it after himself.
Kleane was a city founded on hunting, be it normal beasts, red eyes or changed humans, they dealt with them similarly.
Yet how were they able to attack the changed or beasts? It was all to a phenomenal change that happened to some of those that did not change, and small amounts of the changed.
The growing of a ruby Gem at their bodies, some appeared on foreheads, back of hands, chest. And what it did was allow the usage of—magic.
That city in particularly had many magic users, perhaps by pure luck, or by migration.
Of course, being able to wield it didn't mean certain death to monsters like us, our body had a certain resistance to magic, depending on our constitution.
And towns with changed that had high resistance usually provided their men to attack that city, since that city was a threat to our lives.
With Todd running at an incredibly speed below the flying me, the both us quickly returned to the town, and giving the egg filled bags to a girl that lived with us to do odd jobs in exchange for food, she promptly went to cook and store the remaining eggs.
In our town, the single adult that had came here to live three years ago had taken the role of being a blacksmith, with metals importing to our small town in exchange for food.
Ever since his arrival, more and more children who had feared battle would pick up skills from him, albeit the girls preferred to learn to make clothing and many other things with the leather of beasts.
Those that couldn't hunt, be it normal humans or young children, they learned either to cut and separate our prey, smith, work on crafts first, and by the age of fifteen, they are given a customary hunting trip with the older teens, if they were to fail or deemed unfit to hunt, they would be forced to returned to do the job they were doing.
Everyone else that graduated from labor work would hunt for themselves, though everyone had to take turns hunting for the children and workers, our system worked out.
Our village had about sixty three people working, including children, while the hundred and thirty seven other people worked to feed their own parties.
Parties were when someone was unwilling to hunt or live themselves, and forms a group with their family or friends. Those that partied together are given houses corresponding to the amount of people partied together.
Thankfully, when the old man brought us in, he was already settled in on a small town that could easily house five hundred people.
Within the first year, we had about fifty people, and at first we had to split between hunting and building wooden fences to keep away humans and beasts, though it wouldn't do much if they were purposefully trying to get in.
Currently we were in discussion to consolidate with the neighbouring town, it wasn't too far away but one town had to choose to move in with us, though the negotiations were far from complete.
Before we left the town earlier we had already thrown on our armour and sheathed our weapons, my twin swords at my sides while Todd's axe rested against his back, pressed against by his bag.
With my wings, it was extremely troublesome to carry large bags, the only thing I had was a pouch I could fasten to my thigh, carrying my identification card as well as some pink coins.
Currently, the universal currency was coins made from eyes of beasts, though there were beasts with one or more than two, it really depended on luck.
Upon the beast's death, the eyeball would subsequently harden, and with heat applied to it as well as force, one could flatten it to a convinient size. Usually, it's value depended on its size, with small pink coins worth less than the larger ones.
"How long do you think this will take?" I mutter, hungry and lazy, digging into the cooked meat, wrinkling my nose in disgust.
It was meat that had been siting in our refrigerator from a week ago.
Eating a portion of meat and eggs with a bowl about 1.5 times bigger than a soccer ball, I stared dumbly at the three bowls of the same size in front of Todd, all finished.
"A day or two? Let's bring a party with us so they can bring back the meat and we go to the city, it's been a while since we took some jobs."
On good thing about living here was that there was no freedom limiting rules, as long as you contribute to the town, don't start fights with fellow towns folk, live in your own assigned houses, you can come and go as you've wished.
Even for residents who had not returned for a year had their home waiting for them, since our population was still Low and the town we took over was plenty large for all of us.
"Then, Kleane followed by Bariso?" I asked.
"Yeah, why not?" He said, his mouth full of meat and eggs.
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Fumu, what a lying sack of potatoes, Todd you evil evil man.