When I jumped in there were no screams. I had come to expect something but it was silent. No screams, no backing away. Nothing. The whole place was in ruins. There was no one there.

I don’t think I strayed too far from where I jumped the first time. I thought.

I don’t think you did. This is the right dimension, probably. One moment, I’ll ask my father.

You can do that?

Sh!

I looked around. I might just fit in here. Too bad, really. I dressed like someone off of some nerds poster to stand out.

This is it. It’s just. . . changed. I knew that your government would fall soon, but never this far.

That worried me. If this booming city was suddenly barren then something truly catastrophic had to have happened.

Someone went sprinting between piles of rubble. I moved to walk over to him but never made it five feet. I was hit over the head with a brick. I turned to look at my assalent. He had hit me hard but not hard enough to knock me out thanks to Aurinko.

He was scared out of his mind.

“What do you want with me?” I asked him. I could practically feel him shitting himself right then.

“I-I, uh, s-stay away! I-I-I-I’ll kill you! Right here! Just stay away! I-I-I won’t hurt you if you j-just back off!” screamed the twelve year old boy with curly blonde hair and crappy clothes. It had seemed like in the years I was gone people just killed each other in the streets. “I-I-I swear! J-just go away!”

“No.” was the only response I gave for several minutes while he just looked at me and likely just hoped that I would change my mind.

“Why do you want to kill me? What have I done to you to deserve this treatment?” I was genuinely confused but he seemed to have thought me lying.

“Y-you know why! I-I-I won't fall to your tricks and sorcery!”

“What sorcery? I don’t know magic of any kind, please enlighten me on the world's situation.” he seemed confused at that because it seemed so obvious that everything was a page torn from half of humanity's nightmares that he didn’t know how to respond to that.

“O-okay. . . i-it's not safe here, follow me.” so then he led me to a pile of rubble and walked into a doorway that was intact but at an angle. Behind the doorway was more rubble. He pulled a rock off of the floor and input a code on the keypad hidden underneath. A quiet buzz sounded behind the rubble and a large flat rock on the bottom left side of the wall of rubble opened outward. It was a little bit tight but it was big enough to fit through.

“So you. . . you really don’t know what’s going on here? It's been five years. . .” he questioned. I gave no answer. “H-how? Where have you been for all this time? You can’t have been living under a rock, Pahaääni would have found you, that demon from the desert. He would have sensed your sound. How have you hidden for so long?”

“I. . . I was somewhere. . . um. . .” I trailed off a lot because I didn’t really have answers to his questions.

Tell him that you were on a study trip to antarctica? I don’t know if he would have found you but it would have at least taken some time for him to find you.

“I was. . . studying penguins in antarctica?” I said. It sounded like more of a question but I could just pass that off as me being antisocial.

“Well, if that's your secret then we can’t copy you. The rebellion needs somewhere safe to set up base. You chose a quite inconvenient time to come back. So far we've been changing base locations weekly. We need to kill Pahaääni fast. It’ll only take two years longer for us to start running out of food and clean water. The worlds gone to hell.” he said as he led me through the hole into a larger hole in the ground with weapons lining one wall, swords, guns, and grenades. The other wall held a bunch of computers and earpieces and headphones and had a woman in similar clothes and dark black as night hair sitting at a chair in front of the computers.

“Hey Cori.” the man said as he led me through the entrance. The woman only had one ear in the headphones so she heard him perfectly.

She jumped and turned. She saw him and pressed mute on her computer and threw off her headphones. “What the hell! You were supposed to tell me if something happened, not just drag some spy in here! I’ll have to kill you if you make ONE more stupid mistake or you’ll kill the entire rebelion!” she screamed at him as she stomped over to him and slapped him in the face.

He just looked ashamed.

“And why did Link decide that bringing you here was a good idea?” she turned to me and asked.

“She’s strong! And smart! She was in Antarctica studying penguins so she doesn’t know about Pahaääni and when I threw a brick at her head it didn’t even phase her! She can help!” he was looking at her like a kicked puppy.

Cori put her hand up to silence him. “I decide, if she can help. And she needs to go through The Simulation for that to be proven.” she said.

“No, don’t make her-” I cut him off.

“This, simulation, is it like, VR or some kind of real life battle ground?”

She laughed. It was a pretty laugh, dainty, even. “The Simulation is a test. With three, very intense, questions. Do you accept? Will you help kill the man that ruined the world?”

“I. . . yes. Take me to The Simulation.” I said. I was joining a rebellion.

“What is your name, anyways?” asked Cori.

“Amaterasu” I told her.

“Huh.” was her response.

They took me to a VR headset with hundreds of wires connected to it.

“This is the first question. What would you have done in the event of him finding you. This is a full immersive simulation that measures your real life strength and lets you use it. Please. Sit.” so I sat. they poked and prodded with needles but they couldn’t get it through my tough skin.

“Jeeze, I thought tough skin was just a saying.” said Link. Cori glared at him but didn’t disagree.

I grabbed a needle and stabbed it into my arm which was indeed hard but easy to overcome with just slightly more force than normal. They seemed impressed and told me where to put the needles in and I did as I was told. Finally a large bulky helmet was put on my head and I heard some clacking on a computer.

“Three, two, one. She’s in.”

There was a bright light and I was in. It was so realistic I could only tell that I was someone different because I wasn’t wearing my signature armor and Aurinko wasn’t in his holster.

Someone exploded.

“Listen, you cowards. I want to know where your leader is, or more of you will die. Understand?” said the man that I assumed was Pahaääni.

“Hey!” Pahaääni turned to the man. “Yah! You! Whatever you're doing I need you to stop it and raise your hands and come in peace or I will be required to use force!”

“Ah. you must be law enforcement. I’m simply shaking in my boots.”

No hesitation the law enforcement shot him in the shoulder.

“What was that ass hole?” said the cop.

“Considerable force, I will give you that.” The bleeding stopped and the bullet fell out but it was still a bad wound that would take some time to heal. He looked at the man calmly. “But still, I have abilities that it seems that none of you have. I wouldn’t expect you to have my abilities, I'm one of a kind, but no abilities? That was a surprise when I came here. But what you do have is something I could get used to.”

“I need backup! Call in the military or something!” the police man screamed into his walkie talkie.

“It could be bad, there is no way it is that bad.” came the faint squawk of the response.

“I need it now! This guy’s gonna kill everyone! Get the military here NOW!”

“Military. That’s a funny word. Tell me law enforcement. What does it mean?”

“It means you're dead!” the man yelled in defiance.

“Closest military units in bound” came the walkie talkie.

“Yes! Run you worthless monkeys! Run, run, run!” Pahaääni was yelling excitedly as he blew up a bunch of people. “Hey mister law enforcement! You will take me to your leader. You see, I find that having one of your own betray you is like poetry. I love it. Just let me finish up here real quick and we can get moving.”

It was pure horror unleashed on the human race. People seemed to just spontaneously combust into a shower of blood. This man was terrifying.

“I ended an entire planet of people! I will find you no matter where you hide! I can see every little noise you make and use it against you! There is no point in running! It is amusing though.” he seemed to be enjoying himself.

The military appeared and it finally snapped me out of it.

“No, I got shot once today, I would prefer that it doesn’t happen again.” he killed half of them with barely a glance. The military knew they had no chance so they tried to run but got killed nearly instantly.

“Fine. I will take you to my leader.” said the law enforcement.

“Yes yes, just one moment.” every building in the city came crashing down to a pile of ruble, killing anyone trying to hide inside of them. “Lets go. We don’t have till the end of time you know.” said Pahaääni as he hopped off of his little pile of rubble.

Time for round two. I thought. I couldn’t use Aurinko sadly but there were plenty of rocks I could use. I picked up a big rock that was still small enough to be held in one hand. I ran at him. Fast. I was there in ten seconds.

His response seemed more computerized this time.

“Oh. A survivor. What a pathetic-” he was dead before he could even turn to look at me.

The world dissolved into code and I pulled off the headset and out the needles and looked at them.

Their jaws were practically riveted to the floor.

“You- I- What!?” Cori finally spit out.

“I used what I had and I killed him.” I told them. “What's so odd about that?”

“But, you can’t run that fast! Not if you're human!” Link said.

Cori grabbed Link by the shirt and walked away with him. “Link? Sidebar?”

I couldn’t hear perfectly but I got Link saying “she’s so strong! And she didn’t even have a weapon! We need her!” Cori responded but I couldn’t hear.

They turned. “Question two?” Cori asked me.

“Lead the way” I responded. She nodded and started toward the door.

“Oh! I almost forgot, could you change clothes, you kind of stand out.”

“That's the point.” I told her.

“She’s gonna get killed.” Cori told Link. Link shrugged and walked outside. I followed.

After walking for a few hours Cori and Link seemed tired but I was barely getting warmed up. We made it at about nightfall. It was a building, still standing unlike all of the other buildings in the area.

“This is a guard house. More like a gang home.” came the harsh whisper of Cori’s voice. “Walk around it once without getting killed and come back here. All the way around. That's question two.”

“Easy enough.” I said.

The two rebels burst into laughter just quiet enough not to get caught. “Huh. yah, good luck with that.” said Link.

I took a quick survey of the building. There were guards stationed outside with swords at their waists. They had some armor on but it was just some leather padding. They looked pretty cool but seemed like palace guards more than anything else.

I walked right up to the guards stationed at the doorway, on my way there pulling out Aurinko and making a ring of fire around myself, fire being pushed from the ring making an ever shifting sun under my feet, turning the sand to glass with every step.

“Hey! Who are you! Stop right there!” they said. I continued as if I hadn’t heard them. “Hey!” said one of the guards pulling out a sword, cutting himself with it as he did so, seemingly on purpose. I did not slow.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“I am Amaturasu. Your mystery has been solved.” I said as I got close. The other guards pulled their swords, cutting themselves as they did, calling for help.

One guard jumped over my circle of fire and I absorbed the heat in the air, making a fairly chilly night absolutely arctic in temperature.

He swung his sword at me and electricity danced across the bloodied sword, just for an instant. As more swords were swung at me I saw different types of magic on the swords, probably from the blood. I dodged under a sword and stabbed someone in the stomach. In no time at all I was surrounded. I gathered all my energy at the core of my being and I let it gather there for nearly a full minute as I killed horrible man, after horrible man.

I let it loose. It destroyed everyone within a hundred foot radius, fading off enough to be survivable by the time it got the Cori and Link, ending the entire area like a nuclear bomb had gone off.

The area was practically submerged in heat so I absorbed all of it. The ground was glass for just under a hundred feet and fifty feet later I came across a moderately burned Cori and Link.

“How in the ninety nine hells did you do that?” came Cori’s slightly coarse voice.

“I’m just special.” I said. “What’s the next question of The Simulation?”

“Make a highly secured bunker and survive in it for a week.” said Cori, almost disappointedly.

“I’m sure it’ll be so easy for you,” said Link sarcastically.

“Do I need to have food and clean water there?” I asked.

Cori seemed almost happy to make my journey harder. “Yes! Food and water enough for a whole month.” Cori added. Link just looked at her.

“Okay. see you then.” I said cheerily and I walked off toward the now ruined guard house.

Okay, how will I do this?

Make a wall of spikes out of glass on the inside of a moat with spikes at the bottom, and build a castle of solid steel! Came Aurinko’s suggestion.

Maybe, but we’d need alot of steel. Like, at least a ton. I told him.

Yah, that's what makes it fun! He responded.

You’ve thought about this a lot haven’t you?

Yes. he seemed so happy with himself.

Okay, we’ll start with the moat. I told him about the “compromise”.

So I did. I melted a section of the glass and threw fire at it with enough force that it splashed up, making a small wall on the other side which I took the heat from nearly instantly. I quickly melted the small spikes naturally formed and stretched them out until they became a danger. I did the same at the bottom. And so it went for a month until I finally had a completed wall and moat with a glass drawbridge operated by two steel cranks and a large series of pulleys.

The wall was about fifty feet high and the moat forty feet wide. I didn’t sleep or eat in that month but it was worth it.

“Come on! I swear the explosion was this way, just a month ago! It must have destroyed the guards posted there!” came the voice of a guard walking over.

“Thank you! This is incredible! Once we take this over we’ll be nearly unstoppable! Those troublesome rebels will be no problem now.”

“Agree to disagree. I’m Amaturasu, the sun god made flesh.” I said. It sounded better than my last introduction.

“Go.” he told one of the guards. He ran off to go tell someone. Perfect.

I was in their faces in a flash and ten seconds later they were burning in a heap, some with heads missing and others with large gashes cut in their stomachs. There were only five guards, so it was easy. I let the guard run. That's how I get a story.

I had already desensitized death. I realized. It made me sick, even though I’m immune to disease. I went inside my glass fortress and lifted the drawbridge.

I got to work on a well. I needed clean water to drink and something to fill my moat with. I made an entrance to the well with glass bricks and melted them together. I started evaporating the sand inside of the well, making perfectly smooth glass sides until I found water. It was forced under there by something because it shot out of the hole I had made with enough force to start overflowing. I evaporated enough for me to get half way down and start a hole to the moat but it came back up and I had to evaporate even more. It rained heavily until I finished after the first two days.

It took a week to make a glass hole one hundred feet long and four feet wide. I made bars on it so that no one could get in through it even if they managed to get past the spikes. The moat filled with water.

That fixed the overflowing problem. Now I just needed a steel castle. I was so focused on my work that I hadn’t realized that three months had gone by without seeing the rebels. Oops.

Yah, you should go do that. Came Aurinko’s super helpful comment.

I walked to their hideout. I just melted a hole in the door and melted it back on when I was inside. There was a note taped on to the wall that read

"Hey, Amaterasu, if you just got caught up in doing stuff, then that's fine, just find us two miles south and six miles west in one of the piles of rubble."

-Link

“How nice of him.” I said aloud. I gathered any metal they had left and put it in a bag that I had found in the rubble. I walked around trying to find any spare metal that hadn’t been scavenged by rebels or guards. I had almost a ton of metal and I walked back to my base dragging the metal behind me. I got inside of the walls and got to work.

I melted all of the metal and had little more than a foundation and two foot walls but I needed more. I decided to go find Link and Cori. I left and went to their pile of rubble. I started south.

Even sprinting it took five minutes to go a full two miles so I thought about my life. I had killed at least fifty people by now. I grieved during that run. I had put it off during that work but, just me, Aurinko and my thoughts I couldn’t put it off any longer. I reached the two mile mark and started slowing down. I cried and jogged at what to other people would be a full speed sprint.

It took some time but I reached the proper rubble piles, still mourning the death of those I had killed. They deserved to die, but that doesn’t mean that I had the right to kill them.

You did. You had every right. You are like the interdimensional police. You stop people that travel the dimensions and wreak havoc. You had to kill them. Don’t be sad. You get used to it.

I don’t want to get used to it.

You will.

I started knocking on the piles of rubble. One shook more than the others as if it were hollow. I knelt down.

“Hello?” I said, my voice a little gravely from the tears. “It's Amaterasu. I’m back.”

The rocks moved aside. Link popped out. He beamed at me. “It is you! I knew you would live. I told you Cori!” that last part he yelled back into the fort.

“I, um, I just came by because I need metal. Lots of it. At least ten tons.”

“I- just- uh- come in, we will talk inside.” responded Link.

I followed him in. The base was much the same as the last one, maybe slightly smaller.

“Hey, uh, Cori?” said Link, hesitantly.

“Yah yah, I know she’s back. What do you want?” responded Cori’s calculating voice.

“Um. Cori? Amaterasu says she needs ten tons of metal. At least.”

“What! No way! That’s so much metal! What are you doing with that much metal!” Cori yelled at me as she turned and glared at me.

“Building a castle.” I said. That shut her up.

“Like, a well fortified castle? Like, something we could use as a rebelion home base?” she asked after a few beats.

“Yeah, potentially.” I told her.

“We’ll get you that metal at our next rebelion conference.” she told me. “But for now, just take any scraps you need from surrounding piles of rubble. We’ll help.”

“Thanks, I could use some company other than the crap I’ve had thus far.” I said as I smiled.

I’m offended. You spent months just talking to me. You enjoyed it. I’m sure of it.

Yah, I totally enjoyed your off handed remarks and comments about my idiocy. I thought at Aurinko sarcastically.

“All right, the next meeting is in two months. We have till then to. . . build as much castle as possible? This apocalypse has gone crazy fast.” said Cori shaking her dark hair.

“Can’t be that hard to do, right? I mean, it's just, what, twelve stories? Can’t be that hard.” said Link.

Poor nïave Link. Just didn’t know how hard this task really was.

“Okay. metal. How far are you along in the process of building this masterpiece.” asked Cori.

“Not far, just the foundation and four two foot high walls. I’ve got a well though. And a moat. And a wall.” I told her.

“Link, pack up. We’re moving. Now.” said Cori. “and grab Amaterasu the secondary sled, we’re filling it up with as much metal as we can get. Move!” she yelled at Link. He nodded and went to gather things. ”Come on, we’ll go on ahead and gather as much metal as we can while we wait.” she turned to me and said.

So we left and made a pile of metal, supports, bearings, everything we could find. It took all day so we slept in the sand that night. Cori made good company. As we were laying down to go to sleep I asked her why she was named Cori.

“When the world ended we all had a chance to reinvent ourselves. I knew that the one that kills the most people would survive the longest. So I named myself after a cursed sword from a book. Coritalias. Cori’s just short for that.” she responded.

“And what about Link?” I asked.

“His name is Linken. No ‘reinventing himself’ just, Linken.”

“Huh. Good for him.” I said.

“So what about you. How can you do all the stuff you can do? Why Amaterasu? And where the hell were you really. You don’t get good at fighting studying penguins in antarctica. And the armor, what the hell? You look like some nerd's dream girl, and why didn’t it melt or burn? It just doesn’t add up.” she bombarded me with questions. Normally all those questions would lose someone but my increased mental capacity kept me going strong.

Don’t tell her anything. She would hate you for being chosen for power and protected for five years, and then come back and kill hundreds of the people she spent her life trying to fight.

I told her. I told her everything.

“It started with some weird dreams. The sun dagger. Always trying to get me to pick it up and feel the power run through it. I never wanted to. I just wanted to live a nice, long and normal life. But it started to interfere with everyday life. I would see a man, holding the sun dagger, trying to give it to me. I never took it. After a while I couldn’t take it anymore. So, I went to where I thought the sun dagger would be. I had the wrong place, go figure, so he pulled his magic tricks and burned my ticket and made a new one. And then I was led with a series of visions, turn right, go forward, that sort of thing. Then he made me dig for it. He made me dig into the ground for hours and then I heard a boom. A man showed up and asked how I was doing. I said that it kind of sucked, I had been walking and digging for hours. Then he shot sound at me once I found the dagger. I almost died, but then I went to a different dimension. So there I trained. For years. I still don’t know the full extent of Aurinko’s power, but what I do know is that this is only the beginning. I exist to protect the multiverse from threats like Pahaääni, interdimensional warlords. And I am not alone in this job. There are four others. The biggest threat I have yet to face is family. A corrupted brother.” and that was my story.

Cori stayed silent.

“Good night.” I told her.

I sat for some time looking up at the stars.

Cori finally said something. “You-you. You exist to protect us from people like Pahaääni? And he’s only the beginning?”

“Yah. he will probably be the easiest person to defeat in all my time as the protector of the multiverse. Like a training course.”

“But he has almost unimaginable power, how can you ever fight against someone like that? And he’s the easiest to defeat? He’s a training course for you?”

“I know. The thing is, he has almost unimaginable power, I have way more than unimaginable power, I hold one fifth of the power in an infinite multiverse, made of power. I can destroy dimensions. You should be more afraid of me. I’ve killed hundreds already and I’ve only been here for a few months.” This conversation was kind of a downer so I rolled over and thought about the things I had done in the name of saving people, in the name of protecting the multiverse. Left hundreds dead in a path forged from the blood of my enemies. That road only grows longer as I fight to repair this dimension and all the other ones with problems too big for anyone else to handle.

“You're exactly what we need. We need a killer to take down a killer. We need a killer that kills for the right reasons, not for fun. He can only be taken down by someone like you.” Cori broke me out of my reverie with that statement. “You know, you never told me why you call yourself Amaterasu. It's a name that I wouldn’t jump to take, I’ll tell you that.” she continued. It was almost dawn so I gave a quick answer and got up to get moving.

“Amaterasu is a Japanese sun god. I thought it was appropriate.”

“Yeah” she got up and started helping too. She seemed overly tired. I had kept her up all night.

“Lay down, I’ll wake up Link and he can bring the computers and weapons. You lay down on the metal and take a nap. You need it.”

“Well you- aahhg- do to.'' She debuted.

“Actually, I don’t. Unlimited power.” I debuted right back.

“Kay kay.” she said and layed down on the pile of metal and fell asleep. Our talking and clanging had woken up Link to.

“Hey. Why are we up? The sun hasn’t even come up yet. Go to bed you weirdo’s.” he layed back down. I kicked him.

“Get up. We’re leaving. Now.” I told him.

“Ugh. Fine. Let's go.” he said and got up slowly, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He took the computer sled and started following me over to the castle sight. It was a slower walk even though we were walking in a straight line right to it, only needing to make corrections every once in a while, because of the bumbling slowness that I had left behind years ago. We trekked on until nightfall. The shimmering walls were on the horizon but it was still too far away to get to that day so we stopped.

“You know, we could keep going.” Cori said. “You don’t need to sleep and I just slept all day, just have Link sleep in the sled.”

“That's a grand idea. Link, get in the sled. We’re going.”

“Ockie.” he said. Then he climbed in the sled and we trekked on. I had more of a connection with the mother-like Cori. she seemed so much older than the sixteen years she probably was at times, just looking out for Link and the rebellion.

“So, you made the walls out of glass? Where did you get it?” she asked.

“When you melt sand it turns into glass.” I told her. She seemed impressed.

“So, you only have abilities that deal with heat? I think that's kind of one sided. You become worthless under the water.”

“Not if you can near instantly evaporate it.” I said. Her eyes widened.

“How can you possibly be so powerful? It's just cheating.”

“Not if you were built to fight off destructive gods trying to destroy the dimensions.” it wasn’t my voice. The voice was male, coming from my throat. Aurinko. “Bea- Amaterasu, I have not told you everything, not yet. I’m sorry, but I think it’s time to come clean.” he paused. I used it to look surprised. “We weren't made for no reason. When Suku betrayed us it was devastating. When we lost him we lost an entire quadrant of protection. We lost billions of dimensions at a time. We couldn’t hold them off forever. We tried to kill them but they were too powerful. My father fought with us and still fights, but he sacrificed too much of himself to create the dimensions. He was too weak and likely can only survive for a few more milenia. We must help him after eliminating Suku from the equation. There are an almost limitless number of them. A number humans can’t even imagine. Kill most of them and the rest will back down.” he stopped.

“Now I’m having a panic attack just being near the weight on your shoulders. How can you stand this pressure?” Cori said.

“I have to.” I responded. We had stopped from shock so I started walking again. We walked in silence for the rest of the way over to the castle sight. When we got there I jumped over the wall and lowered the drawbridge like I had a thousand times before, and just like all those other times, it was terrifying.

I used my hands to make blocks out of the stuff that we had brought and we laid them down. Then I went through and melted them all together. We now had four walls of a normal height. But I wanted vaulted ceilings for the first room. That can wait.

Cori had the amazing idea to make a table around the well so that there could be conferences around it. I agreed and made a table with a large hole in the middle for the well. I made it in the shape of a sun because this was my masterpiece and I get final say on everything.

Link and Cori almost died because I forgot to tell them how the drawbridge worked. They didn’t go hunting for food so they almost ran out. I taught them how to use it and they went hunting for food.

Next thing I knew it was time for the conference. We left Link with a phone so that he could tell us if anything went wrong and we left.

The meeting place was a months walk from the castle sight. We walked all day with little to talk about. I asked what happened in the five years I was gone and she responded with a wave of her hand at the barren wasteland around us. At night we watched old youtube videos and laughed at how good life was then compared to now. And so it went.

The third day of walking we found a stray dog. It looked well fed enough. It growled at us. I slowly walked over to it, hoping that we could find enough strays to make a dog sledding team so I wouldn’t have to pull the sled anymore. It was hesitant until it sniffed my hand, then licked it. “We got a dog! Lets name him Apollo. The first in the sun legonair of dogs.” said Cori petting the thing with a fury.

“Okay, just keep him on the sled so he doesn’t run away until we can make or get him a collar. So that we can hook him to the sled.” I said laughing.

“Kay kay” she said as she pulled the dog on her lap and started petting it.

Two days later Cori was sitting with the dog, trying to train it as much as she could on the small sled when she said “be careful, there are guards out here, this is a different sector, you didn’t kill all of these ones.” I had almost forgotten about the guards.

“Kay kay” I said, mocking her. She stuck her tongue out at me and Apollo started licking it.

“Ugh! Apollo! No! Not food!” she said sternly after she got the dog out of her mouth. The dog looked disappointed but otherwise just stayed put. The next few weeks to the meeting place went by smoothly with only a few incidents of guards attacking us.

We made it to the meeting place. It was a small building, it looked like an old guard house. We went in with Apollo in tow and found two seats.

“The way this works is there are two representatives from every sector that come and meet in person, that's us for the Nevada-Utah sector. We come and discuss things we need or changes that need to be made. Simple enough really.” said Cori as we sat down.

Two people walked in an hour later and a strong skinny man walked up to the dias in the center of the room. “Okay, looks like everyones here, first, any changes that need to be made?” asked the man. Only one man raised his hand at that. He was short and spindly, he didn’t look like a survivor, though that’s what most things don’t tell you. Survivors look like they should have already died and have almost given up on life.

“That hasn’t happened in a while.” whispered Cori to me. The man was called up and as he reached the dias he started speaking. He had a thick irish accent.

“I see one change that needs to happen, and it’s a big one.” the man said.

Then he pulled out a sword, cutting himself as he did. Lightning danced across the blade