Chapter 3 - Extinction.

Twelve Years Ago

Humans.

Vile creatures.

It’s a pity, really.

Animals are always described as territorial — lions, wolves, even boars.

But humans?

Humans were the most extreme, world-conquering species to ever live.

They didn’t claim forests.

They didn’t claim valleys.

They didn’t claim mountains.

They claimed everything.

The entire planet.

Every horizon.

Every piece of land that wasn’t theirs… was simply something they hadn’t taken yet.

Twelve years ago, humans went extinct.

Fully eradicated for what they were —

creatures of pure selfishness and cruelty.

The beastmen lost countless lives to them.

Entire clans wiped out.

Dens burned.

Young stolen.

Even I carry the scars.

My ears were cut off when I was nine.

They held me hostage —

a child —

just to lure my people into a trap.

Twelve years have passed,

but time hasn’t softened a single memory.

Humans were evil.

Territorial.

Cruel.

Inhumane.

They scarred this world,

and even after their extinction,

left it permanently changed.

Yet without them…

the sky has become clearer.

Cleaner.

Brighter.

More beautiful than I ever remember.

The sky is…

magic.

Absolute perfection.

I’ll never forgive humans for what they did.

Not them.

Not anyone.

Present

A blonde girl hung upside down from a tree branch,

staring blankly at that same perfect sky.

Keir stopped walking.

“…Why are you upside down again?”

His eye twitched — the exhausted kind —

as if his soul were slowly leaking out of his body.

Sky blinked, completely unbothered, hair dangling like pale straw.

“The trees follow me when I blink,” she murmured softly.

“I believe… they are conspiring, Mister Keir.”

Silence.

A leaf drifted down and landed on her cheek.

Keir exhaled — long, tired, defeated.

“…You really are hopeless.”

He looked at her for a moment longer,

then at the sky she was staring so peacefully at.

Sky blinked again. Slowly. Blankly.

As if she genuinely did not understand

why gravity kept choosing her as its favourite victim.

Twelve years since humans vanished.

Yet somehow…

one was hanging upside down in front of him.

And she wasn’t a monster at all.

“…Hopeless,” he whispered again — softer this time.

Enjoying the chapter? Support my work on Ko-fi — it helps me keep writing daily:

https://ko-fi.com/elliensvorein