Husk

To every story there is a beginning, a middle, and an end. We make up the prologue to explain the mysteries around us, and we pretend the story isn't over with an epilogue of our choosing. People are funny like that. They never want to acknowledge when something is over.

It was like that in the days before the end. They wanted to write the epilogue so badly. They wanted to say they had won, that they were happy, that they would live forever through their children... But there were others. They wanted to write that they had won, that they would suffer no longer, that their children would forever be free. Both fought so hard for the epilogue they wanted that they broke the pen and spilled its ink over the world.

We are all that remain.

We found out, long ago, that there are no men, there are no women. We learned through suffering that there are no children. We learned to hide our faces, to bind our breasts, to pad our clothes, to shorten our hair. We learned from those that came before, their pain, their horror that there are only us and them.

We are the Drifters. The keepers of the past. The lone wanderers. We claim no home, nor pride, nor family. We know kindness and civility. We know love, and when to let it go for our safety. We are all companions and kin, though we rarely meet. We know the difference between us and them, and we hunt them to protect each other.

They are the Depraved. The superstitious. The cruel. They seek great houses, they flaunt their power, they take other's children. They know animosity and hate. They know lust, and they do not know when to stop. They war among themselves, though they hold the cities together. They too know the difference between us and them, and they hunt us for sport.

This is the epilogue of those that came before, and we are what remain.