You were a tree branch grafted onto a different family tree. In fact, everyone in your family unit seemed to be pieces from a different puzzle, pieces that never quite seemed to fit no matter how hard you tried to put them together, no matter how much glue held you all together.

It wasn't uncommon, most families in Chicago were all from different lineages, had never even given a second thought about one another before the first bomb fell. But after the hell the survivors went through, some sort of mutualistic understanding coexisted between the dwindling human race. Shared experiences, losses, griefs seemed to bind each and every one of you together.

Your biological parents had been incinerated the night the first bombs fell, off in some work party in San Francisco. Your brother had died of radiation poisoning a few weeks later, and you could only watch as he slowly deteriorated before your very eyes.

But like every one else, it seemed, you had been pulled to Chicago, to perhaps the last hope that the human race had. Society seemed to exist here, there was hope, hope for a better future, a new start. Everyone here was contributing something to society, every one was part of the oiled machine. There was a new and respected understanding of human life and the value it held. Because after a world of seven billion had been incinerated into a populous that was barely pushing five thousand, trivial things like murder and war were distant memories.

Humanity was in a stage of rebuilding.

Humanity, you noted wryly as you draped damp laundry over your second floor apartment balcony. Monsters were a completely different story.

They were the blame, the cause and derivation of all human suffering. In the eyes of the survivors, they were the reasons the bombs fell in the first place. Humans, it seemed, were always looking for something else to blame, some common enemy they could rally behind, most likely from the inherited belief that humanity was simply too perfect to bring about the end of the world.

But hadn't it been a human to launch the first missile, not the monsters? It wasn't their fault that they had been locked away for eternity, only just now finding their way to the Surface, only to be rejected once more by humans. And now, ironically, the remnants of both races were crammed together in the last surviving city, at a mutualistic cold war that could seem to go on for eternity.

"Proud mother gives birth to triplets," your mother read aloud, picking the daily newspaper off the ground. It was a sign of normalcy, you supposed. Newspapers had been something so overlooked back when there was the luxury to cast aside such objects, but now they were the survivors' lifeline, small glimpses into the life they once had.

But in stark reality, they were nothing more than glittered propaganda, highlighting in every detail the countless sacrifices of Mayor Grimes, who in your opinion, had long since outlived her term as elected mayor. There was nothing, not one detail, on monsters. To any outside observer, not like there was anyone left but those in Chicago, it seemed that monsters were simply a figment of the humans' imaginations, nothing more than a story.

Plot twist.

"Aren't they beautiful?" Your mother held up a newspaper with the front page displaying a photo of three screaming infants, looking rather displeased with life. Of course, the woman standing before you wasn't your biological mother, but rather the woman that had been assigned to your family unit the day of Reassertion, as Mayor Grimes had put it. New chance, new start, new lives, new families. But she was the closest you had to family, and that was all that mattered.

"Hey Todd," you nodded as your younger brother walked into the worn-down apartment. There was a haunted look that rimmed his eyes, dark bags that highlighted his eyesockets, sleep looking like a rarity that came to him. His clothes were oddly dusty, pertaining to such an amount one would have thought that he had rolled around in such a substance.

But did your mother pick up on this?

No.

It was hard to piece together the pieces like these. Adults sometimes turned a blind eye to instances like these, instances that showed the flaws of the new society that humanity had built. Because who cared if on average twenty monsters were slaughtered each day? Who cared if anti-monster riots sometimes combed the streets, when the electricity was on for an hour a day?

And so things like these, these small unnoticed details, were left with the younger generation to pick up, the new generation that would grow up in this hell hole of a world. You had never seen Todd like this, so cold and so distant, completely withdrawn in himself.

You cast one look at your mother who had already begun to tear open her second pack of cigarettes before following after Todd.

"Hey," you whispered, placing a hand on his shoulder. He jumped back as if you were a predator ready to clamp its jaws around his throat rather than the person he had grown to know for the last six years since the fall of Western Civilization. You knew the answer, it was so damn obvious as you pulled back your hand, rubbing your index finger and thumb together, staring at the fine layer of dust that now coated your hand.

In fact, Todd was coated in the substance. From head to toe, it looked like he had been playing in it.

"What do you want?" he asked, his voice oddly quiet. You bit the inside of your cheek, fear beginning to claw at you. This wasn't Todd, not the one who you had read a story to every night, comforted when he often woke up screaming in the middle of the night about how the world was on fire.

And it was then that just barely visible below his shirt sleeve, you saw the knife.

Todd has always expressed disdain towards monsters, filled to the brim on the propaganda that the government practically handed out on monsters and their dominant role in the collapse of society. But for him to take action? To actually kill one?

"Oh kiddo," you whispered, running your hand through your [H/C] hair. "What have you done?"

"I'm cleaning up the messes that our ancestors didn't," he replied coldly and then continued walking down the hallway, slamming his door shut. You felt your blood run cold at the mention of the line that so many humans were fond of expressing. The one line that seemed to be burned in everyone's mind, the complete and utter desire to pick off the monster race one by one.

Because, it seemed, it was a free for all. The police turned their head in the other direction, women drew back their shutters, the whole city of Chicago was coated in a fine layer of dust. But despite all of this, the monster population took up two thirds of all of Chicago, and the thought of a civil war, after so much loss, was unthinkable.

But now your head was spinning. Your brother, adopted in this sense, was the last piece of normality you had. But now the stark reality of the outside world was creeping in, the dust slowly pouring in through the cracks and crevices you tried so hard to keep shut. "I-I'm going to step outside," you murmured, not bothering to care if your mother heard you.

But could you be the only damn human with any emotions? You couldn't, wouldn't believe that you were the last human with any humanity that still resonated within them. Despite the others, you cared for the monsters, felt disgusted when people took sport in hunting them down, tearing them from their houses.

And now Todd was one of them.

Your feet carried you out of the worn apartment complex you had been assigned to, straight into the bustling commerce of Chicago. People passed by without a word, all hustling to some unknown location. Not one monster was in sight, they were practically in another world.

More than anything, you wanted to go home, back to the house you had really grown up in, the beach house on the shores of California that overlooked the Pacific Ocean. You missed your mother and father, your brother...

And then there was a scream.

Joined by another, and another, until it seemed that the whole city had been thrown into turmoil. But upon closer inspection, none of the humans had joined in on the caterwaul. A goat woman tore down the street, a crazed look in her eyes. "My son!" she let out a cry. "Has anyone seen my son?"

She searched the sea of humans, hoping to earn a reaction from someone, anyone. She was met with placid reactions, ducked heads, people carried on with their lives. "My son!" She continued to wail and her brown eyes met yours. For a moment, something seemed to pass between the two of you, a shared understanding of the true witness to the cruelty of humankind.

But then the police were marching in her direction, a clear line that humans did pay attention to, parting like the Red Sea for Moses as they wound their way through the city, closer to the goat woman who had sunken to her knees.

In fact, people were paying attention to her, stopping about their daily routines to watch as the police formed a semi-circle around her, fingers clasped around the holsters of their guns as if they expected her to suddenly lash out at them. Cynical sneers were shared amongst the witnesses as the policemen kicked her once in the side, knocking her onto the pavement.

"My son!" It was the only coherent thing you could make out from her as she was tasered once, shaking violently before going still. Two men picked her up and carried her out of sight, out of the minds and lives of the rest of the city.

Things like this weren't uncommon. The police force was reputable for putting down any monsters that made their presence known in the 'human' side of town.

But despite this, you couldn't quite shake the feeling that something was different. This time, you thought for a moment, the monsters wouldn't take so easily.

And yet the world still turns.