The giants’ journey back from the desert was far simpler. Having just cleared the route, there was no need to proceed slowly and cautiously. They lit a blue flare and took positions along the ridgeline, maintaining overwatch for anything approaching the plume.

They didn’t have to wait long.

From the direction of the distant mountain, a spray of sand rose high into the air, kicked up by something fast moving toward them. The giants stood still, statuesque in their perfectly reflective armour, like an eerie art exhibit from the old world.

As it drew nearer, the shape of a half-track truck began to take form—a low, armoured silhouette against the shifting sands. The truck’s treads churned through the ground effortlessly, pushing its massive weight up and over dunes and ridges with ease.

As its squat form closed in, the giants remained motionless, not shifting a single inch even as it reached the base of their ridgeline. The truck’s engines emitted a deep mechanical growl that changed pitch as it climbed toward them. Only when the vehicle drew close enough to block their sight lines did the giants finally move. The nearest three climbed into the enclosed cabin, filling the space completely. They strapped themselves into the harnesses inside, metal clasps clicking securely into place.

The remaining four circled around and climbed into the open bed at the back, their heavy boots sending ripples through the suspension. They too hooked into external harnesses, resuming their overwatch positions—one hand gripping the truck’s handles, the other on the handles of their guns.

With three solid thuds from a giant on overwatch, the machine roared to life. The acceleration was immediate as the treads dug into the sand, performing precisely as designed. But still, the giants did not budge, their grip unyielding.

The journey back was peaceful. The sky was clear and blue, the mountains in the distance were beautiful, and even the desert had its own harsh beauty. In this serene landscape hours flew by like seconds, whistling in the wind and whirr of the ending, and slowly the sand grew coarser, and rougher, it turned to gravel, turned to dirt, turned to stone.

Once into the dirt, the elevation quickly grew.

“Shallowest” is a relative term, and even going through the shallowest valleys available, there was no way into the heart of the mountain without a steep, brutal climb—made all the more impossible by the modifications to the landscape. The artificial cyclones, the nuclear pylons, the chemical mist—all of it in the name of creating a barrier that nothing could pass, in the name of protecting the heartland.

The only routes left up the mountain were the way stations.

Despite being debatably the first layer of static defence for the most important settlement on earth, the way station was far less intimidating than one might expect. The half-track pulled into the decontamination garage in front of the parking lot, and the tension finally drained out of everyone’s body. In an instant, they went from precise, mechanical movements that prized economy of motion above all, to the relaxed, casual demeanour of a group of friends about to finally unwind. As one, they checked each other over thoroughly for any holes in their reflective armour. As expected, they found none. It was a precaution—one born of habit rather than necessity. After all, it would be hard not to notice your flesh being torn apart and devoured by either the spores or the radiation. But in the apocalypse, no one survived long without thoroughness, so they gave it their full, undivided attention.

While the truck was being decontaminated—doused in radiation to purge any contaminants, with no worries about damage since it was nearly entirely analogue and mechanical—the giants headed to their own decontamination chamber. They were subjected to a series of alternating procedures, each harsher than the last. First, acids, then alkalines to destroy anything resistant to the initial treatment. Then heat, then cold. Blasted with high-pressure water jets, then the room was pulled into a vacuum. And more. And more.

It took a while.

But eventually, they were done with the lower waystation. There was far, far more to it of course. The Aviary was the most important, but they weren’t on that rota. This cycle, they were hunters.

Stepping into a well-lit room, the giants closed the hermetically sealed door behind them and finally sat down for the first time in hours. The clean room was simple, built for function rather than comfort—stark white walls, benches lining the sides, and reinforced glass that offered a view of the barren exterior as the linkages detached and the clean room was hauled up the mountain on tracks inset into the ground to protect from the wind, the back windows of the funicular showing the waystation falling away behind them.

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One of them, indistinguishable from the others in armour, removed their helmet. A cascade of golden hair fell around a face that, in the old world, would have captivated millions—a face sculpted by a masters hand, the epitome of an ideal to beauty standards harkening back millennia. It was a reminder of what they had become—not just survivors, but a vision of humanity’s potential, untarnished by the apocalypse.

The tension from the mission dissolved into a lighter mood as a second giant reached over, pulling off their own helmet and revealing another stunning face. A different ideal, a different epitome, but flawless, and a masterwork all the same. Laughter rippled through the group—quiet at first, then more genuine, echoing off the clean room’s walls. Their movements were still deliberate, but now they had an ease to them—a familiar, practiced grace that only appeared when they were among their own.

The first giant stretched out with a satisfied sigh, joints and tendons loudly popping as the pressure released. “Well I’m not doing the report, I killed the damned thing!” they roared in good humour.

The second giant shook their head and shot them a teasing smile. “Come on, Jensen, more afraid of a little paperwork than the abominations?” they quipped, reaching beneath their chair for a ruggedized tablet designed to work with their armoured gloves. With a practiced motion, they began scrolling through the mission data.

They reviewed the mission logs and noted everything that happened not out of necessity, but out of habit, a way to decompress and critique themselves. There was a ritual to it—an exchange of observations and stories, their voices relaxed but purposeful. There was little left to actually learn, protocol had been refined over decades, and any new mutations would be analysed by far more precise equipment than what they brought. But it was as much a way to bond as it was to ensure they were always improving.

The second giant unsealed a compartment in the wall and pulled out a pack of treats, passing around small, nutrient-rich fruits and berries as they settled in, the first pick going to the one who sacrificed themselves. It was more a habit than a necessity—another ritual of survival that kept them grounded. They joked and compared notes from the day’s mission, light-hearted jabs passing between them like old friends, easing into the moment as the room hummed softly with the rhythm of their ascent.

“Remember when the truck nearly bottomed out on that last ridge?” one said with a chuckle, running a hand through hair that seemed too perfect for a wasteland. It was an inane comment. It had happened a million times before; it would happen a million times again, and their perfect memories would capture every moment of it. They all laughed again anyway, a release of tension that carried the weight of survival.

Outside the reinforced glass, the mountain climbed ever higher, an entire desolate spectacle, made beautiful by its grandeur. But the clean room was warm and well-lit, insulated from the world beyond. They spoke in low tones, repeating familiar stories and laughing like it was new, beautiful faces momentarily touched with joy. These small moments of camaraderie were precious, they were the fruits of survival, they were all that remained after the death of the world.

The clean room jerked slightly as the funicular rolled over a junction, the tracks carrying it moved tracks slightly as the lower waystations converged on this upper waystation, the machinery humming with a comforting steadiness. They were safe, for now, and their chatter filled the small, sterile space as they continued the slow ascent toward the upper way station. For a while, they could be more than hunters—they could be human, even if just for a few moments.

After several hours of the gentle clicking of the rails, the funicular came to a halt at the upper waystation. Beyond here lay the long and perilous journey to the last uncorrupted forest on Earth, but that wasn’t the giants’ place. This cycle, they were hunters, and they would remain here, at the upper waystation, ready to deploy rapidly should danger arise.

But this cycle was not to be like any other.

The door to the clean room slid open, and the giants stepped into a spacious, serene glass corridor inset slightly in the ground, it’s arched ceiling rising above to frame a glass water pipe that spilled thin rivulets between the glass panes, casting the corridor in a kaleidoscope of rainbow refractions from the sunlight flooding the corridor.

This water fell down into a continuous waist-high alcove filled with plants, left artfully wild but not overgrown. The corridor was as much a welcome as a passageway, a small taste of the vale that lay beyond, of home, to remind the hunters what they fought for.

Then it happened—a feeling. A sensation beyond the reach of any sense, something no neuron had ever transmitted but that every living thing was innately designed to recognize. A great cosmic pulse felt by every living being across the world announcing unequivocally: something was happening to the sky.

Necks craned, whistles echoed, tongues flickered—every creature and every sensory organ turned upward to the anomaly. Mid-step, mid-hunt, mid-death, mid-birth, and everything in between, every living thing halted and turned its gaze toward the sky.

Then as quickly as it had appeared, the feeling was gone.

Footsteps thundered down the hallway, giants crashing down it like an avalanche, trying to get somewhere, anywhere useful.

But they didn’t have time.

It would be utterly impossible to explain what happened. Like trying to explain the colour gold to a blind person. You can explain the cultural connotations, the wavelength, the comparisons, but they would never truly understand it. At that moment, every being opened its eyes for the first time and saw gold.

To put it in English, the sky was lifted. Like it was a cloth that had been laid over the earth, and a single point just northeast of the mountain had been pinched, then pulled upwards. That pinch was the sensation, the pull was what came next.