Chapter 1

Boom! A deafening boom startled him, waking him from a deep, dreamless, sleep. Scrambling to his feet, his body protested, as he struggled. "I can’t move my head!" "My body won't budge either!" "What the hell is going on here?" Looking around, he seemed to be in the center of a tent, but the dimensions were ....perplexing. If this was real, and he was not asleep, then this tent must be at least a few stories tall, and wider than a football stadium!

The sidings of this massive tent were held up by giant bones. These curved in, like ribs, and were partially buried, deep in the ground. They also appeard to be dipped in some kind of metal on their lower halves. It looked like brass, or maybe even gold? Most likely to prevent rotting.These bones pushed the whole tent out, making the walls appear round. However, if those are truly ribs, then the animal they come from must make an elephant look, insignificant.

Tied to these bones are other, even larger, straight bones on the ceiling. These seem to be hollow, and light. Similar to a birds wings. Though, he had never seen, or heard, of a bird that large. The tall, straight bones, resembled beautiful, pearl white trees, and were adorned with stunning, clear, hexagonal crystals, growing from the center, to the surface, every so often.

These crystals radiate a breathtaking silver-blue light, while bracing against the wind, and weight, of the tent. The straight bones all congregate to the center, and are held together by a massive spine circlet. They are all then connected to the gargantuan tree growing through the base, and top, of the whole tent.

Resting above the tallest part of the tent, and tree branches, was a massive spine. This spine was put together to form a circlet at the center, and used to connect, and hold onto, all of the different bones on the ceiling. This was done by using individual spine pieces connected to form a cuff.

These cuffs would latch onto the support bones, and are held in place with gold and silver cables. These cables were used throughout the entire spine. The construction itself seemed somewhat crude, yet intricate and beautiful at the same time. The whole tent had no windows.

There was only one entrance, and a hole cut near the back, where a massive bon fire was roaring for heat. The tent was not as dark as one might expect though, as red and bluish white stones radiating light adorned the ceiling and supporting bones. This was especially noticeable on the center spine, which sparkled dazzlingly like a chandelier.

Snapping out of his daze, he could feel the floor shaking and hear roaring voices coming from outside. Looking towards the tent flap, he could see a wagon with the wheels taken off, and modified into what appeared to be a couch, or maybe a chair. Whatever it was, it had been thrown over on its side, and looks half destroyed. "This must have been the loud boom I heard."

Looking around, he saw all sorts of strange things made from animal skins, bones, and bizarre objects that seemed magical and strange. Near where he was laid down, he could see a stone table. There were dozens of barrels on top of the massive table, some open, some closed.

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From the smell, it was probably wine, or ale. "Where the hell am I?" "This has to be a dream!" "Am I in the lair of some man eating a monster?" "Calm down!" "Try to figure this out." Thinking as hard as he could, he began to remember bits and pieces of what happened to him before he got here.

"I remembered climate riots. I remembered barren wastelands as far as I could see. Mass extinctions, starvation, and death. Grown men pulling garbage out of babies mouths, only to steal it for themselves. I remember the cannibalism, and the cults.

The true face of humanity. I remembered the elites putting on an act as if “they too" were suffering, wearing, "worn-out Prada and Fendi", and using their private jets to, carpool together. It wasn’t long until a video leaked of the elites and politicians stuffing themselves full at a feast, and tossing out what they didn’t eat.

This being a time where you could get killed for a few grams of meat, the outrage could be imagined. It turned out, they had long ago created huge vaults, stuffed full of food, and massive underground farms. They believed they could just, wait out, the consequences of their leadership, and allow the, "lessers" to deal with the issues, while they laid low in their vaulted kingdoms.

When the video came out, activist groups around the world hacked every satellite and screen they could find, and began playing it on loop. I remember watching the video with a young mother in her early 20s. Tears rolled down her face as the reality began to sink in. She let go of her deceased child. Letting the frozen, skeletal child slide out of her arms. Falling to the floor as the last embers of hope died in her eyes.

I remember the horror I felt, and then, the inevitable war after. Except it was hardly a war, but more like a genocide. It was later found that the reason the video leaked was because the elites no longer cared what we thought or did. A.I. and robotics had advanced to the point where the elites finally outnumbered us.

They could finally tilt the balance in any way they wanted. Their money now had the same rights and weight of life as we did, and the elites no longer had to pretend to care about what we thought or wanted. However, not everything goes exactly as planned. After years of bloody war and death, we too finally got our hands on an A.I. and began a brutal counterattack, leaving almost nothing alive on earth."

Big chunks were missing from his memory, but there was one thing he knew for sure... he died… "Was this the afterlife?" "And why can’t I move?" He tried his best to move his head and neck, putting all his effort into finding out what was going on with his body. It felt like he was tightly wrapped up, like a swath on an infant. He finally managed to get his head to lift, and was shocked by what he saw when he looked down. "I.. am a infant?!" His head started to spin as two massive beings walked into the tent.

The first to walk in was a wild-looking brunette giant. Standing at least 20 feet tall, she had a thick bone bull ring pierced through her nose, with two rubies attached on its ends, and gold inlaid throughout the entirety. Blue and purple tribal tattoos adorned her chin, going down from her lower lip towards her throat, and stopping at her collarbone.

She was built like a professional strongman, with a ton of muscle and a layer of fat above. When was the last time he saw someone with a physique like hers? He had gotten too used to seeing the “starvation physique.” Besides that, how are they so big? The giant next to her was even bigger.