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Part 1

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In these times, the sky was a bleak, sinister smear of yellow and acid, toxic and cruel to all life. It had long since replaced the blue of life, becoming a signal of something no living being would ever live for. It was a time to be sheltered, as the world was rotting, breaking down, burning everything it could consume. The rains were the main threat, especially as humidity rolled down after a period of dryness. Those who belonged to the start of the New Era cheered when the rain returned; they were the first to fall.

Under this new, yellow sky, shelters were built for those who could survive. They came and went with time, especially in the first decade, but eventually found their footing. Fortunates, a self-defined term that grew in popularity, were the ones who inhabited them. Naturally, they were anything but.

Regardless of the terms of which people used, there was a clear divide in the world. This divide would come to be known as the Old and the New Eras, where the Old was long forgotten. And those who had the true fortune, those lived in both?

---

June Farahey was such a creature. 

“Stop, please stop thinking about it,” he hissed aloud with his raspy, boyish voice. His eyes were raw from tearing up in a frenzied rage in the hall, and his trembling was dangerous in his new place. “Please… please.”

His fingers crawled into his sides as he aimlessly wandered the horizon. He’d never been outside before, and his little amber eyes were wide with fear. For someone who was one of the original survivors, everyone else after him treated him like utter shit. All he could grab before they forced him to fend for himself were a rough pair of boots and his own gloves. 

They stole from him, the people he let inside his own base. And on his own now, if he even stumbled… The thought made him inhale with a hiss, nails clawing and rubbing up his lower sides. 

The environment he found himself in was rugged, mean, and hostile. He saw it out the window, he would snap and send other people to die there, but himself? The natural rasp of his voice grew even harsher from the exposure, and his long lashes did little against his tears. A cough, or any large breath for that matter, would suffocate him. His tears could lead to burns and infections.

“June” was one name self-given; In a time with no celebrations, he wanted to remember the simple pleasure of a birthday. Tiny things like this were all he had, all he wanted to take. He had never been a taker, but now things like that mattered little. All he had to do was stop crying. Keep upright and keep moving, try to find a new base, and stop crying for nothing.

The drought itself was thought to be caused by a rock falling into the planet. It itself was yellow, and it shone as if it were a rare stone. People gathered to see it, study it, perhaps even grow rich from it, someday. 

A rock of pure wealth, that’s how he heard it told to him as a child. He thought about his life since then, as after it fell, people shifted just a little. As he grew, he became preccupied with a life of his own over petty conspiracies. He was growing up, achieving his own wealth and happiness. He wanted to smile so badly, to finally be something of importance in a life and legacy of shame.

He took a tonic to forget it all after it came crumbling down. His last memory of his family, his mother, was one of burning and melting. Fourteen, fear of the sun, fear of life and the world. He shut the door on her and the outdoors, then never opened it again. He forgot all of that, or at least tried to, but he dreamt about her the day before–

“Shut up–!” He stomped on the ground, dragging his heavy boots through the rot as he took shallow breaths into his shirt. Nothing could stop his human mind, however, not even world-ending calamity.

He could do nothing but falter, falling to a crouch with his hands beneath him. He tilted his head down and cried, letting his tears fall straight down. It was a moment of weakness learned from another, who most likely learned it from another still. Whatever rot lay beneath him shimmered in a slick, colorful pattern when tears fell upon it. 

Something marbled and beautiful that his own eyes were too cloudy to see.

“You’re so… stupid…”

“Stupid doesn’t make it feel better,” said another, slightly hushed voice from behind him. In the same moment, a hand darted out to grab the back of his shirt. As if predicting a fall, June’s arms came from under him, scrambling mid-air for just a moment in time with his slight surprise. Even with the steadying, he still twisted in stance and crossed his hands. It was an awkward flip, but it amused the stranger at the very least. 

In this new view of the man, June could see how bare he must look. The figure before him was dressed in a one-piece set of gear, but it hung loose near his neck and waist. He had a neck guard, yet his face was bare, save for a pair of goggles and a mask about his mouth. Black hair was tied back in a ponytail, but that was about the only identifiable feature about him.

“You’re not from out here. I can tell.”

June hesitated in answering, pulling at the burnt tips of his hair that touched the ruin. “The hell? I…”

“Hey.” The man spoke louder, less personal. At the audacity of the tone, June’s eyes fell into a slight mix of a scowl and deep, reactory pride. “Men don’t scav in gloves and boots alone. Are you a suicider?”

June growled at him a little, the way he had done time after time. The lessers among lessers learned such things, where it became currency to be tougher than another. But here, in front of an outside party, the growl stowed itself back inside as he was mocked for it with a smooth chuckling.

A scoff. “Fourth base behavior. Exiled?”

“Back,” he tried to growl, but the tang of the air hit the back of his throat, mangling any sense of speech.

“Animals, the lot of you.” The man teased him, shoving him down to the ground, straight into the rot. At once, June growled and howled, proving himself to be nothing but such a beast. The more June would cry, the more the stranger would push. “You won’t last long out here. Animals died in the last Era.”

“Fuck you!” He cried out, a booming, raw sound as he staggered to get up. All to be met with another shove into the ground, his face pressed to the dirt. Was this man a punishment for him, for all the exile he did? He had suffered so much in that base, took so much of other people’s problems, all to be kicked out himself. In this situation, where another would falter, he would kill God to stay alive now.

With a thrash of his body, he ripped the legs from under his attacker. His injuries mattered little under the hazy grip of pure adrenaline, the moment where the caged animal lashed out. He ripped off those goggles and that mask first. He wanted to push  him into the ground, but those eyes that glared back at him gave him pause. Orange, fiery irises, glassy and reflective of the yellow tinge of the sky. And then, after the pause, he realized this man hadn’t made a single move to stop his assault. No sound was uttered, and no defense was made.

“Hey…” June started as he leaned back just a little. But this hesitation, even on that day, was always his grave weakness. In the same moment, those eyes squinted, twisting into a form of predictive amusement. And in the next second, two gloved hands shoved him back and pinned him to the ground by his throat. It came to him, all in a slow motion rush, that he was doomed from the beginning. Doomed from the shut of the door, from the exile, and from this stranger.

Just as he closed his eyes, expecting to die…nothing happened. Or, more accurately, he assumed his throat had snapped, what with the pain he felt at its base. But, just at the same time as he opened his eyes, he began to understand he felt nothing at all. The world became numbed to him in an instant, but he still felt the gravity of his body. 

As he tried to stand up, a strong hand came to his upper chest. 

“Down,” said the other man, looming over his body with an odd look in his eyes. He wiped his mouth for a moment before returning the hand to its duty. “I intended on taking just any of the scrap those violent beasts whored out to the world, you know. But this is a… rare form, perhaps is the best way to describe it. Not worth a meal, much more valuable to train it.”

June tried to lurch forward, swipe at the man, but he was slapped down onto the ground once more. He had him by the mouth now, with fingers creeping across his face, down to the jaw. The stranger leaned in close, as if musing over his prize. “That tongue can be cut out later, if I have to. For now I need to tell you a name, one called Asthë. Something I was, once.”

“Asshole…” June strained against the grip that held him, wild eyes glancing everywhere else for leverage. Distracted by his own restraints, he barely even noticed that his burns were healing. Nor did he acknowledge that he was back to the rot, which was a death sentence in the highest. “That’s what I heard, sorry,” he trailed off, watching this “Asthë” squint in slight annoyance at his tease.

Asthë let out a deeper, scowling laugh at the remark. He leaned back and let him go with a twist of his wrist, not even hiding the roughness with which he chose to handle him. “Staring into the face of death, into your savior’s eyes… What kind of mother made you so? I give you a new life in the sun, and you grow livelier than ever. I can feel your heart pounding in your chest, but those eyes...” 

Asthë paused, looking for some reaction. A question on his state, remorse, escape? But all he saw were wild, amber eyes paired with rough brows lowered in a curious manner. He was a boy, and a boy he would be, it seemed. 

“Uneducated,” he continued, “Wild, turned loose to spare her the shame, maybe..” He held his weight on June’s body, but elsewise leaned back to let him have space. “You had a realization before you died, see it again. And then you’ll know what you’re in for if you can’t say one simple name.”

June squirmed and growled helplessly as he tried to escape. Thrashing and throwing himself with effort against Asthë and the ground, he managed to give himself some room. His captor made no effort to stop him, who knows why… It was the lack of chase that made him simply stand in place when he did get up, only to look back and meet his gaze once more.. 

“You can go far, mingle with others, but you will not be let in. You have yellow eyes by birth, but… Certain others have it by choice of their own, be it a more deliberate, blazing color, although not unheard of to be amber. I believe you had to have been the first among men to be established wherever you holed up, and that alone is all that saved you so far. If you go far, you will be mistaken for said others who have the same mark. You are nothing but a petty human, but, still: go a base anew, you would be gunned down before you can even approach another human in the wild. And when you are, I will retrieve you, and we can try this one more time.”

At Asthë’s warning, June glanced off at the distance, darting between the open world and what seemed to be his potential captor.

In the same moment, a familiar sense picked up in the air. Silky chills, alien to the new world swept through the rotting land. With it carried a faint memory of the past, something like the air before a wild storm. The stray nostalgia matured the desire to flee, but it felt foolish not to, at the same time.. If he abandoned himself and ran off to the next world over, then what would happen to him? And if he went with this man, who he was sure meant no good, would he die all the same?

“Asthë,” June called out warily, feeling brave, but not yet daring enough to turn around. “Tell me what happens when I say that.”

“Look at me,” was all that was said, and June felt a chill tugging at the hairs of his neck. Something unnatural, it drew him into an involuntary shudder as his muscles tried to warm themselves again. His neck slowly drew courage to turn, and with one foot, he turned his body to face Asthë’s challenge. Eyes to the ground, he slowly peeled his gaze upward, but it froze at the sight of his legs. Whimpers caught in his throat as he peered at greyed flesh, rotted away and baring bone. They moved towards him as he stepped back, and a stronger, more sharper hand caught his jaw once more.

With his gaze forced upward, he let out a gasp as he covered his mouth on instinct. He trembled as his ankles crossed over one another, sending him falling at the feet of his new acquaintance.

“Please, don’t.. I’m sorry!” June whimpered, crouching on the ground in a huddle.

“Sorry? Whatever for?” 

Asthë was a monster in the truest form, it seemed. His one eye was covered by bands of skin, webbing themselves together as if to hide what lay underneath. It was as if he was burnt once and the skin insisted on growing thick and vinelike across his face to shelter him. Yet, under the skin, a presence could be felt, even if not visible. And on the other side of his face, a dull, grayed eye stared at the world. A sliver of silver and black served as a pupil, and the slitted dot stared directly at June. Cheekbones were hollowed out, almost visible straight through, but the real highlight was the teeth! A set of thin fangs, straight down to the jawline and almost curving down to meet the bone positioned themselves every so often as he settled his smile. On his pale, gray skin, all his features were grayed, but they all came back to those eyes.

And all June could do was stare, he who was just a human man. How long had he been inside?

As Asthë leaned down to pick him up, he could see that the vine-skin went all the way down his neck, getting thicker and more tangled as it travelled. The withered nose of the creature he was, where there were but two nostrils, breathed with the effort of hauling his weight. “It has been some time since I was named Asthë. A name holds power, surely mages on this world told you so, even in past days?”

“Get away–!” June shoved him back, but Asthë barely moved. He grinned at it, only snatching back control by the wrist.

“You spoke it, so we are bound, forever and after, until I die. And I have not died in a meaningful way in a long time. And with that…” Asthë bit him on, then through the center palm. Those dusky eyes looked into June’s as the fangs recoiled into his skull, letting him bite and inject them. The rip and crunch of the sound made the bearer physically react, but, oddly, there was no pain. And when he was let go, June tore himself away, thrusting his own nails into his forearm. Even as he bled, there was no pain to stop him from destruction.

He looked around himself, then, and then at himself. “The rot…”

“You will not rot, and this rot will not decompose you,” answered his new friend. “However, if you betray me, then it will all undo in an instant. And, further, what is paid will be owed.” As soon as he finished speaking, June watched in horror as the monster’s skin broke apart, unraveling itself at the skull and bone, remaking itself in the image of skin and hair that he spotted before. Two tanned eyelids opened softly and gracefully, and the eye of flame stood before him once more. “But, at the same time, one would not betray their savior. You know all about that, don’t you?”

Part 2

(Click Here to Return)

June sat huddled in a corner, having been caged in a dark place from the moment he got into this hole Asthë stashed him in. Asthë installed a steel cage door to the front, one which he failed to procure a lock for. “The lock would be metaphorical,” he had said as he installed it, swinging it back and forth. He would occasionally bend down and over, peering upside down into the bar. Even as only a silhouette, the small slit of silver gleamed dully in the dark.

“There are no books in this era, but I will teach you fine literature and stories from my own mouth. I will tell you fables of my own invention, and they will teach you. How old are you?”

“I don’t know,” June rasped instantly, muffled by the shirt in his mouth. His eyes were puffy with tears, body heaving with tears and trembling. He had expected terror and abuse, but Asthë gave him space and took it easy on him. Over all, even with the tension  easing, it was clear that this was not to last.

“Ill get started early, let’s see..” Asthë crouched lower on the ground, fangs retreating into his skull as he pushed his long hair behind him. “I will tell you a story about a pheasant. Do you know what that is?” June made no move to respond, simply closing his eyes as he leaned against his knees. 

“I see. Well, either way, I’ll tell it to you. You’ll come to enjoy these tellings, I believe.”

“I don’t want to hear it.” 

Asthë seemed surprised at that, but had no muscle to show it. Instead, he reached in the cage and took the shirt from his captive’s lip. “Very rude. Humans tell fables to survive, I only wanted to give that to you. But, by all means, I have never had a pet before, so I am a very.. Inexperienced owner.”

At June’s scowling and pouting, he presented a single blackberry. “I pray that you won’t make that face. You’re a natural beauty, by human words, and a rarity in how raw your power will be. You need more muscle, but before that, a brain. I will not lie to you, so I want to teach you.”

“I don’t want you. Just kill me,” he growled, pushing the blackberry aside. “Poisonous bitch.”

Asthë laughed at this, picking up the blackberry and forcing it into his palm once more. “You don’t want to die, no human does, those who perform it were under high delusions. The pheasant in my tale, you would have seen… It was to be a nice story.” June just stared at him, and Asthë stared back. “Is it my face?”

“You’re… like a mummy.”

Asthë growls a laugh, finally snapping up. “Mummies, I can work with that. When in your human education does one learn what a mummy is? Perhaps you study them in a school at around eight or nine years. So you are at least educated to that point, lest you have been more ancient than I believed?”

But June shut down, looking at the berry in his hands. “Berries… don’t grow.”

“I can grow as I please here, I took the soil from the high land and planted it underground. Seeds of all kinds were stored in a giant storage place, rotated and kept safe and dry. I took them, stored them better.” He opened the cage and drug his pet out, helping him stand tall. “There is a human fable of another kind, one where a man hoarded all of the earth, two of a kind, saving the world against its own pride. I think I can relate this to you, and you will understand.”

“‘S That got to do with me?”

“I want… only one of humanity. These eyes, I could see them through windows at a time. They reflected my own. Humans, who I never had the chance to wake for in the past, are so interesting in this post-human world.” He grabbed his jaw again, forcing open one of June’s eyes. “I wish you no harm, much less than that. Much more, in truth.”

“Noah…” June said after a while. He crossed his arms and moved away, going to sit on a crate in the corner. “Adam and Eve.”

“Noah, Adam and Eve? I recall it not.”

“The god created the Garden, and he filled it with life. One man, Adam. Adam grew lonely, so he created Eve… woman and man.”

June gasped slightly as he looked up, as Asthë sat at his feet then. The rotten man gave him pause, but he was growing used to the hideous appearance. “You may tell me, I would not hurt you.”

“No. That’s.. That’s enough. Man and woman. And Noah had his Ark.”

“I recall another story, but I want the ones you have. Where are these from, pray tell?”

June shook his head, gearing up to say something rude. But, at Asthë’s hand on his crate, he sighed. “It’s… biblical. I’m not religious, not even that smart...”

“I do not ask intelligence of you, I want you to be… not brutish. I adore stories with my whole heart, and humanity, in the era I peeked through, at least, would pass tales through the entire society. Word of mouth, oral tradition, one of the two terms I had read. Everything comes back to tales unending. I cannot fathom how much you, alone know.”

“When…” June interrupted, trying his hardest to think of anything that would save him. “When… Ah… once.. Once…”

“Once upon a time,” purred Asthë, standing again. “Fairytales.”

“No, I… if two people.. Like…”

“Please, calm yourself, you look as if you will burst into tears. You need not strain yourself, pet.” He watched as June shrank under his words, moving away.

“I… don’t want to talk to you,” June said at last, tilting his head. “But I want to… tell. You’re stalking me.”

“I… do not know what ‘stalking’ is. I have to assume it means to admire and to follow. If that is true, I peered at you in your base, like I said. Only because I, quite rightfully assumed, that you were the same manner of beast. You have these orange eyes of yours, eyes of mine, as well. But, so cruelly, you were a human beast, not a…” June tilted his head at the trailing sentence, but Asthë shook his head. “I know not what to call myself. Just know, we are far, unfathomably far in age. I do not belong to your generation of human, let alone humanity.”

“‘Ts why you keep pets?”

“No… I told you, do you not listen? You are my first pet, a thing I have seen all of humanity keep.”

“Humans do not keep humans… well, I mean–”

“I am well acquainted with slavery, if you are alluding. I was alive at the time, although I did not stay long. You are not a slave to me, for I believe you would know if you were.”

“When did you learn to speak like that? It’s old, but... Type of speech from books I read.”

“My voice comes naturally, universally, so it was also told to me. I cannot prove that is the case, but I know it is polite, standardized. I cannot change it.”
June frowned, hand coming to his sides as he looked away, his body slowly following. “Shut up. You’re… You made me talk too much.” 

“You were doing well, don’t shut down now. Pet, I–”

“Don’t call me pet!”