Bonus: Chapter 9

A god was sitting around a campfire. Alone. He didn't deserve any better than that. After all, he had failed. He was now allowed to sit in the ruins of what he had wanted to protect.

The crackling of the wood filled the silent and dark surroundings, the irregular flickering offered sparse light on the only partially preserved walls of the house in which he sat. A single Skargna flew over him from the fire up to the sky.

He heard footsteps, how strange to hear footsteps here in this environment. The few people left preferred to stay on the other side of the ocean.

It was a man and also one whom the god knew too well, unfortunately. It was also the one who was responsible for what had happened to the world. And it was his brother.

"Hello," the newcomer said simply as he made himself comfortable across from the god and pulled out a thermos bottle. The god had to pull himself together to resist the smell of coffee his counterpart was enjoying.

"What do you want from me?"

His brother regarded him silently for a long time.

"Why do we exist?" he finally asked the god.

"Why shouldn't we exist?"

The brother smiled. "That's the lazy answer. You can't tell me you've never dealt with the question before."

The god grumbled something unintelligible.

"I thought I could find the answer, hidden somewhere, in the vastness of the world. I thought if I just looked long enough, I'd find it."

The brother fell silent and sipped his thermos, lost in thought. A single tear ran from his skull-filled eye and dripped onto the floor.

"But instead of finding the answer I've been searching for for so long, I've found nothing but the end of the world."

He looked at the god as if expecting the god to say something. But the god remained silent, absorbed in his thoughts.

"Do you remember when we used to grow up together on a street, with the others? When we did everything we could just to survive but never lived? Those were the days!" He snorted, "Now look at them, what living has made of us."

The god looked at him wearily.

"Go. Please, leave me alone," he said to his brother.

For a while longer they sat still, silent, listening to the crackle of the ever-shrinking fire. Finally, the brother rose, smoothed his robe, nodded to the god one last time, and left.

He left his thermos bottle behind.