Prologue

The scientists saw it coming with their mighty telescopes. A meteor shower, not shed from our sun or anything in our solar system. They claimed this one came from beyond the edges of our known galaxy.

No big deal. They'd seen plenty of them before. What they didn't realize was the sheer scope of it. So many hunks of rock, some of them quite sizeable, on par with cars and even backyard pools, and yet it was the dust carried along with the debris that proved the deadliest. Humanity didn't discover that little tidbit until it was too late.

The military spokespeople - wearing their uniforms with their meaningless insignia, bags under their eyes, their expressions bleak - bluffed and told the population to not worry.

People worried anyway, even as they avidly watched the media footage played on every channel - and used by the fear-mongers on social media to hype. Everyone watched with bated breath as the governments sent space drones to try and divert the stream of incoming rocks.

It failed.

As the storm grew inevitably nearer, those same governments resorted to firing missiles, doing their best to disperse the destructive maelstrom before it could hit. It only created more toxic dust.

The world went a little crazy. Fearing the end of times, humanity sank to its lowest point.

Mass suicides took place around the world. The methods varied, many choosing to leave in a group. Not everyone could handle the fact they faced an extinction level event.

Those with a strong instinct for survival looted and stockpiled the things they believed they'd need, rice, water, ammo, fuel, and booze.

Murder became commonplace with no one to investigate. Law and order ceased to exist. Everyone simply armed themself.

As society degraded, the remaining media channel kept playing the damning footage of the coming disaster. Countries, once held back by verbal agreements and financial pressure, launched their nukes. A few rivalries were laid to rest as entire cities were wiped out. But the aftershocks spread far and wide as the winds caught the radioactive residue and spread it around the world in time for the meteor storm.

As the galactic debris showered the planet, blasting it with rocks, Earth's radiation released via the bombs ended up binding with an alien version in the dust. Or so scientists discerned, those that remained safe in their protected underground bunkers.

The surface of the world became poisonous. To add insult to their problems, the Earth's axis moved, shifted. Something happened that changed the orbit and the climate, flipping it upside down.

The Earth wept at the damage done to it. Massive storms swept the surface, reshaping the continents. Changing everything that was ever known. Wiping out cities and roads and progress.

Despite billions already dying, billions more perished in the years afterwards. But humans were resilient creatures. Some survived the toxic storms, forever changed, but. . .that was the nature of evolution.

Others - those in high enough positions before the calamity - watched from the safety of underground installations. Every government had some kind of hidden bunker for its people, as did those rich enough to plan ahead. More surprising than their foresight was the fact that not just the rich and government officials made it to safety. Lucky people were chosen via lottery for their skills or their good genetics.

With careful governing, these hidden groups survived. They were the ones who rebuilt first, once it was deemed safe enough.

To their surprise, they weren't the only ones who'd made it past the first decade when the world was essentially a wasteland of dead waters, blowing sand, and hot spots that could melt the flesh off bone.

Before the meteor ever hit, there existed people who'd been preaching the end of the world for years. They were possibly the only ones who rejoiced that all their prepping would pay off. The doomsday preppers hid in their homemade bunkers. Others, supplies in hand, burrowed themselves underground. Humanity ever did know how to survive.

Some actually remained human. Those that didn't, adapted.

Decades passed, and the Earth finally finished changing.

New Earth emerged with shifted landmasses. New oceans formed. The things once known as the North and South Poles disappeared. New species emerged. Plant and animal, nothing remained the same, and the more influence they had from the dust, the more pronounced the change.

Realizing the potential for tainting, the humans in their bunkers with their filtered air did their best to prevent exposure, contriving elaborate decontamination systems, even full-masked suits for when they had to go outside.

And still, despite all their precautions, a few Deviants managed to pop up, which started the screening of blood.

When the worst of the storms settled, the underground cities expanded. Slowly at first, given the tight controls they'd placed on population. It was said the very first dome on the surface could handle only a hundred citizens of the Enclave.

It began with one dome. It spread. Humans took eagerly to the process of rebuilding. A new civilization arose, with laws that changed depending on the leaders and necessity.

But not everyone chose to live in a bubble.

A few, a very few, humans managed to survive in what became known simply as the Wastelands, the spaces in between the domes that housed what remained of humanity. They created their own society. Learned to coexist with the land, or at least defend themselves against it. New Earth wasn't a gentle place anymore. Those who lived outside the domes had no choice but to be strong.

Wily.

Cruel.

"Because to live requires death. And death should only ever happen to others."

A quote left behind, blasted into the metal of a derelict ship too big to have surely ever floated. A warning to the dome dwellers that, outside their precious walls, the Wasteland belonged to those they called Deviants.

Enter at your own risk.

Now on to the story. . .

"The Creche is life. Life is good. Serving the Creche makes a good life better."

The dull morning prayer echoed throughout the large cafeteria. Voices young and old alike partook.

Having said it so many times already, Laura could recite the prayer without even thinking about it. She'd long ago stopped doing it fervently or with any conviction. She'd had years to cultivate her disillusionment. Like many around her, the words emerged only by rote.

"The Creche is all knowing. The Merr is its conduit. The Merr is the Creche."

The phrase was one that had bothered her for a while. Especially once she deciphered the true meaning. The Creche knew all because those living within the dome walls were always watched. Privacy didn't exist for Laura and the others who served. Their every move, their every uttered sentence, was observed and reported - whether by tattletales or hidden cameras - to Merr, the one who ran things. At her whim, punishment could be meted. Their current Merr, only recently put in place, had a tendency of withholding meals if everyone didn't recite along with the morning prayer. Not just the person who abstained, but everyone present lost the right to eat. It had only happened once, three days of no food - and the beatings in the dormitory that night - for even the most reluctant to learn their lesson.

Laura's lips moved into the next stanza.

"Listen to the tawnts. The tawnts teach the rules of the Creche. Rules are good."

But did there have to be so many? No wandering around after lights out. No socializing. No sneaking food. No touching.

Don't do anything but wake when told, eat when ordered, work all day, and then go to bed.

Laura barely recalled life before her transfer to the Creche. She'd started at the Academy, where children were crammed together in classes and in dormitories, their beds stacked six high all around the room. There were rules there as well, but they weren't enforced as strongly. They were told their performance and behavior while at school would determine where they went next. The Academy's way of weeding out the unworthy.

A position with the Creche was supposed to be a blessing, or so they'd been taught. Easy work. Clean accommodations.

They forgot to mention all the praying. Overnight, she was expected to learn religion. Those that balked suffered, their cries strident as they learned to believe at the tip of a lashing whip.

The burning pain made it easier to pretend afterwards that she believed. Laura never stopped pretending, because non-believers in the way of the Creche and the rules of the Enclave had a tendency of disappearing.

It wasn't a bad life if you simply obeyed. Laura woke every day at the same time, eyes bolting open when the bells pealed from the highest tower in the Creche, which happened to be not far overhead. As a sawr, the lowest rank inside the dome, she and the others didn't get the best accommodations. But at least she had a bed with clean sheets under a roof and meals. Those unlucky enough to be sent to the factories and mines apparently never got those kinds of amenities. It also beat trying to eke out an existence in the Wastelands, where everything could kill you.

As the bell stopped tolling, all the sawrs on this level rose from their beds. They pulled their blankets taut over the mattress. The dormitory hummed with activity. One by one, bed by bed, they took turns using the privy chamber. The large room could handle only three at a time.

When it came to Laura's turn, she enclosed herself in the stall and used the privy then washed her face and brushed her teeth. Laura had bathed the night before, as it was her turn on the schedule. She wouldn't get another for at least two more days. The conservation of water was drilled into them almost as much as obedience. She changed her night shift to the one-piece suit with its zipper up the front. The legs were loose, as was the upper body. The canvas thick and hardy. The shoes she slipped on her more sock than anything of substance.

When the bell went off again, they marched from the dormitory down the stairs to the cafeteria. Then spent way too long reciting the morning prayer. Long enough the steam on the bowl of mush in front of her disappeared.

Just once, she'd like to eat it hot. Doubtful it would be more palatable, but it would beat cold and tasteless.

"I will serve the Creche. I will obey the Creche. I give my all to the Creche."

Bowing her head, Laura uttered the final line and waited for permission from her table's ptmerr to eat the porridge in front of her. Lumpy and thick, probably barely salted she'd wager. They'd run low, and the sawrs meals didn't merit it. It had been a long while since they'd had any kind of fruit or even raisins to sweeten it.

It was said the Wasteland marauders kept stealing the shipments. It made her wonder who these raiders were, given the Academy, and even the Creche, taught that no one could survive outside the protected domes. The air was poison. The water unclean. The land incapable of sustaining human life.

So how did these supposed thieves do it?

"Eat." The command was barked, and Laura didn't waste time.

Ptmerr Harmony, the one in charge of her floor, had a tendency to cut their meals short. She sat gazing sternly upon them, her hair shorn to the scalp like many of those sitting around the table. When it reached a certain length, the shears came out.

Laura shoveled the porridge into her mouth, and her nose wrinkled at the pasty flavor of it. She tried to be thankful. She recalled her history lessons and the teaching that only those who served the domes were fed. Everyone else starved. She was lucky to have a place in the Creche. The very thought brought a grimace.

Once breakfast was done, more ptmerrs, in their tunics and more fitted slacks of the palest blue, arrived to lead them to their next assignment - assisting in caring for the children in the nurseries. There were ten nurseries in all, square buildings, each identical, with exactly four floors. The rigid buildings marched in a straight line from the sawrs' dormitory with green space for exercise in between. They were circled by a wall, with only one large gate to allow entrance. Outside that gate, more buildings - a hospital, supply lockers, more lavish dormitories for the ptmerrs and the tawnts. Then there was the truly grandest building of all, the palace for Merr.

It should be noted Laura wasn't very familiar with much outside the nursery walls. A sawr had no business leaving to go snoop elsewhere. Those that were caught served as a vocal lesson to others. It took a long time to stop hearing the screams and the whistle of the whip as it sliced through the air to strike skin. She sometimes still woke with a gasp, her back spasming in phantom remembrance.

The ptmerrs split off into their assigned nurseries with their charges following quickly after. An even dozen per nursery. It was a sawr's duty to keep the rooms clean and assist with the children.

Harmony handed out the assignments. The babies got the most helpers, with six of their group sent off to deal with them. Four for the one-year-olds, who were still messy and in need of constant supervision. Laura got the unenviable task of working with the two-year-olds.

Again.

It only served to reinforce her conviction that Ptmerr Harmony had it out for her. For a month straight now, she'd placed Laura with the hellions. She'd been subject to more meltdowns than seemed normal. Were all children this combative, or had she encountered a special bunch?

Her own Creche years before the Academy was only a vague blur. Monotonous years of serving the Creche had pretty much wiped the memories of her previous life. "Life" being debatable. Every day was the same. Get up. Work. Sleep. Repeat. Nothing ever changed except the children. New babies arrived once a month, sent over from the Incubaii Dome once they reached optimal growth. They spent their early years in the Creche then, when they turned four, departed to start their Academy years.

The only thing she'd never reconciled was how the Academy could have much larger groups of children than the Creche turned out. They were taught there was only one Creche. One Academy. One Emerald City. One of everything, as a matter of fact, in the whole wide world.

The numbers didn't add up. But to question invited lashing, and she really didn't care about the answer. Just like she had no idea what happened to the male children that passed through the Creche. They cared for an almost equal amount of boy and girl children, yet the Academy she attended had only females. After the age of four, the sexes were separated, with the males, as far as she knew, chosen for different tasks and to be avoided at all cost or there would be punishment.

It proved easy in the Creche since only women worked inside it. Although she did hear rumors that some sawrs met in secret with the soldiers that guarded the gates to the nursery and protected the dome. With their massive concealing body armor who knew who hid inside. Men? Women? Or something else?

She didn't care. She had no interest in breaking the rules. Especially not to associate with a man. Or a woman, for that matter. Fornication was a sin, something animals did. Not the more evolved. Even friendships were frowned upon, and while that didn't stop all the sawrs, Laura had seen too many of them disappear to risk it. Laura kept to herself, but some days she had to hold in a scream as the heaviness of her unhappiness pressed in too tight.

Trudging to the third floor, she heard the yells of hellions unleashed. They woke with the bells when the sawrs did.

She sighed. Was this to be her entire life? Years and years of screaming children and rebellious thoughts that never turned into action?

"Laura, thank the Merr you're here. I have to leave." Ptmerr Karla, who minded the children on this floor at night, sat in a chair, her features pale while children ran wild in the room.

"Leave?" Laura frowned. "You can't leave until your replacement arrives. Speaking of which, why are you alone?" The ptmerrs always worked with a sawr.

"Ptmerr Lenore never showed up and sawr Julie got sick last night. I think she was contagious." Karla stood and put a hand to her belly, swaying. "You need to mind the children until another ptmerr comes. I don't feel so good."

Since mopping vomit was a task she'd prefer to avoid, Laura shooed Karla. "Go. I can handle them for a few minutes."

Except a few minutes turned into an hour. Then two. The rules stated the children could never be left unattended, meaning she couldn't leave to find out what had happened. Abandoning her post would result in a punishment for sure.

So she dealt with the six toddlers assigned to her. Despite their running wild upon her arrival, they'd settled down once she dug out activities for them to do. They all bent their heads to the task except for one.

The little boy with a dark cap of hair stared intently at her.

She frowned. "Staring is impolite, Horatio."

Despite the different cognitive levels of the children, it was drilled into the sawrs that they were to speak to them as if they understood. Obviously, a rule designed by someone who never worked with barely verbal tiny beings.

Horatio continued to watch her.

"Is something wrong? Does your stomach hurt?" Perhaps he'd also caught the illness afflicting the others. Rare, but not unheard of. The children in the Creche tended to be remarkably healthy. And strange at times.

Like now.

Rather than reply, the little boy's lower lip trembled, and his eyes moistened with tears. He reached for her, both arms open, asking for her to pick him up. But Laura knew better than to draw him near for a hug. The Creche didn't offer affection.

At her refusal, Horatio's brow crinkled, and his lips turned outward in a sulky pout.

For a second remorse filled her, which was odd. She'd never gotten a hug in her life. Never wanted one and yet couldn't help but stare the few times she spied people sharing them. How would it feel to have someone that close? In her space? Why do it at all?

When the pouting didn't work, Horatio flipped into a sly smile. The kind that brought a malicious gleam to his eyes. Ridiculous of course. A small child like this? He had no intent other than the emotion driving him at the time.

She knew this, and yet, that smile sent a chill through her.

"Shall we find you an activity?" There were many kinds of puzzles to help the developing cognition of the children.

The boy shook his head, still grinning.

Still making her uneasy.

"Perhaps you need some time to yourself." She cast a quick glance at the seclusion room, which proved to be as awful as the name. A veritable upright coffin with no windows or light, just a stool. And quiet.

Only once had she dared close herself in that room to see how it felt. The horrific feeling clung long after. How could she threaten a child with it? Never mind she would never actually do it.

Horatio didn't seem bothered by the thought. He turned away from Laura, sporting that odd grin, and focused his attention on a little girl.

Blonde hair kept short because it was easier to manage at this age, Ariana tended to be a quiet child. Very delicate in her mannerisms. Well behaved, too. Yet when Horatio stared, she began to scream. Shrieked as if being flayed alive - which tended to be a sound that stuck with a person.

Laura could see no reason for such agonized cries, nothing visible. Why then could she feel something shimmering around them?

The very air throbbed with a nebulous presence. A low, chilling moan vibrated the space. More children screamed, and Laura was close to joining them as something took shape in the space above their heads. Swirls of dark and light, a ghostly beast appeared with shadow claws and glowing eyes.

A ferocious monster had obviously slipped in from outside the dome. From the Wasteland.

It reached for Ariana, who could only scream and cry. She was but a child. A small, defenseless child in Laura's charge. Despite this beast making it past their guards, she would be blamed if something happened. She had to act, not just to save herself but because it was also the right thing to do.

Before she'd even formed a plan, Laura lunged. Hesitation wouldn't save the girl. She thrust out her arms to shove the shadow beast far from the child. Her hands, her arms, indeed her whole body, went right through the monster. She staggered before recovering from her surprise. The thing had no substance.

The screams of the children turned to sobs, and Laura turned to see the monster hovering right above Horatio, who wore a pleased smirk - and no fear at all. As if he controlled the beast.

"How are you doing that?" she asked. "Actually, I don't care. Stop what you're doing." A shake of her finger was to show firmness, even though she quaked inside. Afraid of a small child. How ridiculous. He barely reached her knees.

Horatio clapped his hands and bounced with glee as he exclaimed, "Scary!"

The creature grew bigger, more menacing and prowled forward with a shadowy step. It showed Laura its glowing eyes and jagged teeth.

"You're making that monster," she breathed, not understanding how it was possible. "Cease whatever you're doing at once." Despite the rules forbidding it, she reached for the boy and grabbed hold of his arms firmly.

Small fragile sticks in her hand, she squeezed, yet Horatio continued to smirk. The screaming of the children started anew.

"I said enough!" She couldn't help but give him a little shake, hard enough he let out a sharp cry.

The shadow monster disappeared but found a new home in Horatio's eyes. Storm clouds brewed in his dark pupils as he perused her. "No," he said in a childish voice.

There was nothing childish or weak about the wave that hit her. Slammed her into a wall hard enough she gasped. How was it he had magical powers? Magic was a thing of stories. It didn't exist, yet tell that to the invisible force pinning her to the wall, feet dangling.

Horatio skipped up to her, which somehow made it worse. He pointed at her. "Look inside."

She felt something scrabbling at the edges of her mind. Little tiny claws. Trying to get into her head. Her eyes widened, and she whispered, "No. Get out of my head." How was this possible? How did this child have a power over her thoughts?

He giggled, an earworm that tunneled, and she cried out, able to move her hands finally to clasp her head. The pulsing pain brought anguished moans and tears. She hit the floor and huddled in a heap.

"It hurts." The pitiful plaint repeated in her as she rocked on the floor. Her pain multiplied by the voices screaming with her.

And he giggled.

He. Giggled.

It proved to be the sound she needed to move past pity to anger.

How dare he hurt me.

She gritted her teeth and pushed back against it.

But the thing fought fiercely, digging in claws that tore. Invisible claws because there was nothing there. Nothing actually touched her. It all happened in her head.

My head. This thing with the mocking smile dared invade her mind.

If only she had a wall, something to block him. A great big tall one like around the nursery. As if thinking it summoned it, there appeared a wall inside her mind, a weak one that the thing with claws ripped through. She concentrated on it. Made it of metal. Which buckled. So she added stone in front of it and built it around her thoughts, and the stronger it got, the more the thing retreated until her mind was her own again and her eyes shot open to meet Horatio's.

He pouted. The claws scratched the surface of her mind.

"I said, enough." She felt herself brimming, with anger, fear, and something indefinable. She reached for him, and despite there being a few paces between them, he flew.

Thrust backwards in the air, he hit the floor and slid on his bottom. The horrible scrabbling sensation stopped, but she kept her mental wall.

Horatio gaped at her. His lower lip wobbled. His eyes filled with tears. Then the boy began to cry, big gusty wails, which was, of course, when the door opened. The woman who walked in was not just a replacement for Karla but a tawnt, recognizable in her uniform of dark blue. She took in the room of crying children and immediately fixated on her.

"What's going on here?"