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TW: This book contains discussions of abuse and trauma, sexual content, and other adult themes.

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It's been decades since the day they arrived.

I'll never forget the way the world changed that day.

I was a normal kid, playing in the backyard with my brother and sister - completely unaware that the world was about to end.

I don't remember what we were arguing about. Something stupid, I'm sure. That's what siblings do, of course - argue about nothing.

As the middle child, I enjoyed stirring up trouble for no reason. My little sister liked to play the victim, and she was very good at it. My big brother was right at that age where he wanted to be both a protector and a pain in the ass - also very good at it.

It was a beautiful day. Sunny, warm... a good day to play in the garden without any concerns for tomorrow.

When they arrived, they literally ripped through the very fabric of our reality and flooded the world in an invasion unlike the world had ever seen.

One moment they didn't exist, and the next they were on every street in every town in every country around the world.

The war was brutal.

We were too far from civilization to find safety in numbers, too far from the cities to hide within their walls.

We were left to die while humanity fought to survive the scourge of aliens that came to claim the planet.

I'm not sure if they knew that a single scratch from them mutated a human. I'm not really sure of anything, really.

I do know that within three years there weren't any 'humans' left - not really. There were those of us that were infected and survived with our minds... and then there was... everyone else. The ones that lost their minds to the beast the infection pulled from within - a warped version of the very creatures that tried to invade.

Well, they didn't try... they very successfully invaded.

They didn't, however, walk in and crush humanity in an instant. Instead, they met resistance. Humanity adapted. It fought back. It gave no ground willingly even as millions were slaughtered under the unrelenting tide.

The aliens were strong, sure, but they were fewer in number. Mixed with the mutations they brought to the human race as they tried to eliminate the threat... well, it wasn't the easy victory they probably expected.

Unfortunately, it wasn't a victory for us either.

I have seen enough evidence to know that I'm not the only person left on the planet, but I have no real idea how the rest of the world has fared since the invasion. I do know that where once the world struggled to accommodate the growing number of people... that is no longer a problem.

Even the planet changed when the rips came. It affected the weather, the land, and even the plants and animals.

Perhaps some smart scientist has already figured out why.

I wouldn't know.

I do know that the battles weren't the only things that killed people off, they were just the start.

My brother and I's mutations were a blessing, and they helped us keep our family alive for a long time.

My brother and I became the providers. The protectors.

My father was the guardian at home, keeping my mother and sister safe. He wasn't as strong as the two of us, but he was strong enough to keep them alive while my brother and I fought for food, for supplies, and for the very ground we'd claimed as our own.

We lost him first, our father.

Infuriating to lose him to something as simple as an infection that only a few years earlier we could have cured with a pill.

There are no pills when the world ends, it turns out.

My sister was next... the fucking aliens sometimes go invisible. We didn't know that until that day.

We were too late to save her.

My mother's broken heart simply couldn't take it - between my father and sister, she gave out from heartbreak.

Then, when I woke up four years ago... my brother was just gone.

Four years I've been alone, walking the deserts of what's left of the world. I haven't seen another soul in that time, but I've seen evidence that humanity still exists beyond just me. Signs in the towns I move through, in the land as I travel - there are others out here.

I just don't know where, and honestly... I'm not sure if I care.

The bunker we'd lived in became a tomb, and I simply couldn't handle staying. I left a letter in case my brother ever returned and a small journal of everything that happened since the invasion in case I didn't... and I left.

It's not like I had much to live for anyway, and my abilities gave me a particular advantage as a traveler through the hell of the new world. I've spent decades fighting for each breath, and I figured if I'm going to die I'd rather do it while taking out as many of those fuckers as I could.

Blue skin, sharp fangs, black eyes, long claws at the end of long, lankly arms... the new face of terror was a creature unlike anything the Grimm brothers could have come up with. Humanoid, but only just barely - looking half-beast, half-man and driven by the urge to conquer and settle.

I've spent too long in the deserts learning about them. What makes them tick. What makes them fight.

What makes them die.

A long study that left me with a strange opinion of the creatures.

They simply followed the orders of their queen and the generals that led them. The men of their species are obedient soldiers - strong and worthy opponents, but not the real threat.

The women of their species though... those are the real ones to fear. Stronger. Fiercer. Meaner. The ones in charge.

Perhaps that's why they killed the women first... they were seen as the threat.

Perhaps that's why they hesitate when they see me now, because now I am the threat.

Perhaps. I wouldn't really know. All I have are guesses and a lot of anger that doesn't get me real answers.

They don't speak - at least not any language I've learned to understand. They growl and roar. They scream in pain when you cut their limbs off. They huff in irritation when you capture them before they starve themselves to death out of pride.

Their faces even emote. It took me a while to recognize their emotions since they're so different from ours, but they do have them.

They're intelligent warriors with their own society beyond the tears they leave open like gates when they rip into our world.

Learning to close those took forever, and honestly was only possible because of my ability. Without it, I wouldn't have been able to watch while unseen as one of the creatures pulled the wand from his pocket and sealed a rip right before my eyes.

Now, as I walk through the deserts I seal every rip I find. It won't stop them from tearing new ones, of course, but it closes the old ones and I like to think that's at least inconvenient for them.

Sitting within my own tear, I look out into the desert as the sun comes up through the window of the place I now call home. It's different from the tears that the aliens create - mine seems to be just for me.

I wanted so badly to pull what was left of my family into it. To keep them safe inside while the storms of the world raged around us.

I tried until I nearly passed out in those early days - but apparently it doesn't work like that.

It's a small rip that I've started calling my pocket of space - there was nothing here when I first stumbled in. Hell, the first time I couldn't figure out how to get out at first.

Over the years I've mastered the skill, though, and even built myself a little cabin inside. It's simple, sure, but it's mine. It has all the basics.

No electricity, of course, but that's okay.

Instead I've gone a completely different route. I've been walking through abandoned towns for years now, and I've collected a lot of books. It's what I filled the second bedroom with - bookshelves with how-to guides on everything I could find. How to make candles, how to sharpen blades, how to garden, how to dig a well... if I could find a how-to or instructional, I put it away.

Each night in the final hours before the sun rises, I study.

I built a small fireplace in my library, and I managed to drag a nice armchair in here a few years ago - getting something that big in nearly knocked me out at the time, but it was worth it. Now, I sit under a ragged blanket and read by the light of the flames until the sun rises.

The ability to light the flames with a breath is very convenient, and ensured we didn't have to eat raw meat all these years. Now the flames keep my little home warm as I sleep - this pocket of space is cold as hell.

Sleeping through the day is practical in many ways, not the least of which is because it's fucking hot outside. Our little town used to be in what we called the 'south' of our country, so it was already warm... but after the rips came along and the weather changed - the rain stopped. The whole area dried up long ago, and now going out in the day is for the desperate and the fools.

The night is also when the creatures come. I don't know much about the science of it all, but I figure it's because they learned humans prefer to sleep at night. Even after mutating, many humans don't have the greatest night vision. The night is when humans are most vulnerable, and the creatures like to use that to their advantage.

So that's when I hunt. I've gotten impressively good at it after all this time.

When my abilities first formed my brother was by far the stronger one. His skin became like steel and his strength was far greater than anything one could call human.

My ability to grow vines was... well it was weird and sad. The fact that I can feel them - as if they were my own limbs - made them sensitive. I was weak, and my ability seemed weak too.

Dad couldn't fight though. His leg had been crushed long before the invasion, and his ability to pull water from the air was useful - but not in combat. My mother, from what we could tell, never developed an ability - she needed to be protected because she was the weakest of us.

My sister's ability to grow things from the ground is what got her killed... she could grow any seed to ready to harvest in minutes. She was harvesting food for us in the garden outside the bunker when the beast came.

My vines are extension of who I am - like extra appendages I can grow from literally any part of myself. When I fully transform into my mutated state, I look like a weird-ass tree made of wiggling vines from hell.

In the beginning I spent more time training than helping my brother hunt. I couldn't even mutate completely for the first few years - barely able to grow a single vine, let along whip it around or stab something with it.

In time, though, I learned to sharpen myself into every bit the weapon he was.

Does it still hurt when my vines get caught? Yes. Getting a vine caught in a door? The literal worst. The fact that I can basically stub my toe but on any vine I grow from myself is actually very annoying.

Still, I've toughened up quite a bit after having them literally chopped away from me.

The pain of re-growing a limb is unlike any other pain, and I genuinely wish it on no one. I suppose the fact that getting my foot chopped off in those early years didn't leave me hobbling around is a blessing, though, so I've just had to accept that pain is a byproduct.

Well sensitivity. They hurt when they're cut or beat up, but they feel more than pain - if I trust someone enough to grow them outside of battle.

My brother loved to tickle my leaves... because of course he did. The few leaves that pop out from vines are ridiculously sensitive - even more so than the vines that grow from my waist, which he also tickled relentlessly.

I miss him every day.

I miss them all. So much.

They weren't perfect, but they were mine.

It was my job to provide for them. To protect them.

I failed.

I carry that failure every step through the desert like a physical weight, and I force my fury into my vines when I sharpen them like blades.

I don't care that it hurts when I shove them through the bodies of my enemies the same way a fist throbs when it connects with someone's jaw. I don't care that they slash at them and I bleed white from the amputated vines that scream in pain as I force new ones to grow in their place.

I only care that the bastards that took my family from me pay for what they've done.

For the hole that bleeds in my heart and I can't fill no matter how many vines I regrow.

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