I’ve survived worse, she sighed, packing up the meager belongings on her desk; a stapler, a hole punch, three pens, and a mostly-dead eraser. I’ve survived starvation, poverty, homelessness, and the complete massacre of my hometown. Getting fired? Pssht! No sweat!

Except it was actually kind of a lot of sweat, a big sweat if you will, because for the last five months she’d been sleeping under her desk with no place else to go, which now meant she was once again, say it with me folks… that’s right; homeless.

Apparently it was the night guard who’d snitched to the higher ups about her sleeping arrangements. Loveday was going to make sure that asshole felt ashamed as she rode the elevator down the eleven floors to the lobby and made sure to hold her head high and ignore any snickering murmurs.

Unfortunately, this latest fall from grace was pretty much the nail in the coffin for her ever getting hired by a decent company ever again. Not to mention, her “lack of professionalism in the workplace” meant no halfway decent job would give her a chance either.

It had been hard enough as it is to work her way up over the last few months to get where she was; secretary and general pencil pusher for the official Held liaison. A stressful position where she had to be ready to draft a speech, or organize a meeting, or prepare for a press conference at a moment’s notice.

And now? She had nowhere to go since she’d sold her crappy apartment months ago, she still wasn’t free from any of the old medical debt she’d accrued over the years, and now, she was jobless to top it all off.

Really, a swell start to her twenty-eighth year.

Loveday D’Aboville did not restart her own life a million times just for it to crash and burn now so blindingly. It was clear, probably should have been years ago, but it was obvious to her now that the city no longer cared for her, and she for it.

The powers that be liked to spin the narrative that only the Held were entirely civilized, and capable of economic and political change in the world, but that just wasn’t true. It hadn’t been for thousands of years, yet this gleaming city still hated to admit it.

A long time ago, modern civilization reached a peak of both technological, and cultural advancement. As fate would have it, that utopia was shattered in a single second upon the detonation of a nuclear weapon. There was never a single finger pointed, because almost everyone was dead. The survivors? A little huddle of humans on the far side of the planet, most of whom died out from the severe radiation and weather changes that occurred soon after. Those that didn’t perish, eventually split off into factions and migrated, some moving to the high mountains to ward off the elements, others going underground or even venturing to nearby islands. Thousands of years and a plethora of radiation and environmental-based DNA edits later, “human” no longer had any discernible meaning. You were Held, aka, held in a body, as close to the original as fate and time would allow, or you were… other.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Loveday took her box of crap and staples to the bus station, where she traded most of it with the cashier at a Stop-N-Shop for a sandwich, and a one way ticket out of town.

Not every sub-species liked mingling with the city-dwellers, in fact, most didn’t. Loveday herself had never even seen a single Dracaena or Bastet in real life, and she likely never would. Why would the cats ever come down their mountain, or the snakes out of the ocean now that they had so much going for them, ie a supposedly functioning civilization that required no Held interference. God bless them, let’s pray the humans stay away!

However, there were other subspecies that didn’t mind cultural exchange, they even wanted it. After all, Held were the most technologically advanced and in a modern world, knowledge was worth more than gold…

Noxeir; the humans that had gone underground and stayed there. A strange bunch, seemingly Held in appearance save the sickly pale skin and yellowing eyes. Their clan’s history is perhaps the most eerie and disturbing. What else is there to say about a group of humans forced to turn to cannibalism and then blood-drinking as a way to survive? The radiation which leached into everything, including the soil, gave the Noxeir their first glimpse at redemption, slowly giving them the strength to venture outside and hunt for others to kill and bleed dry.

More recently, their clan has been in close contact with Held authorities (aka her old boss!) and it sounded like their blood-drinking requirements were more or less moot, modern times allowing them access to blood in a less deadly manner.

There was a whole movement when Loveday was a kid about Noxeir being the closest to Held out of the other subspecies. She isn’t sure if that’s true, but the Held freaks who got off on that shit certainly wanted to believe it.

Then, finally, there was the Calleigh.

The bus was agonizingly slow the closer they got to the Held border, as if the driver was literally keeping one foot on the break just in case. In case of what, she didn’t know.

The clan on the other side of the border, which in the past had been welcoming and friendly with Held visitors, was the Calleigh.

While the Dracaena went into the sea and the Bastet went into the mountains and the Noxeir went underground, the Calleigh took shelter and formed their clan in caves. The same caves which to this day, sat directly beneath their massive stone citadel. The one Loveday was watching steadily approach through the streaky bus window.

Loveday was Held, through and through, but she knew the city had been a lost cause for her long ago. She could remake herself again in a new place, with a new life, and if that meant getting cozy with a clan of wolves, then that was between her and god.

I’ve survived way worse, she told herself for the hundredth time that day.

And this time she almost believed it.