The elevator's droning buzz was the only sound that passed between the three individuals confined to its tiny, whitewashed chamber.

He scratched behind his ear awkwardly. He was done with jests. Wit wasn't going to serve him here. Today, silence would be his companion – that killjoy that follows the bland—the sheep.

He risked a look up at the scarred one. He knew he'd been staring down at him like he always did. He met that gaze, and neither of them broke their composure. There was nothing but hate there, the kind of emotional resonance strong enough to bleed into reality. The other soldier in the lift coughed involuntarily.

Jespar's ears popped as the lift thundered up further than he'd ever been allowed access. And he felt something close to excitement – here he was, hurtling through the throat of the world, rising from the bowels he'd been confined to since he was old enough to remember. His haunches rose as the distance increased. This height was disorienting. And, coupled with the scarred one standing right behind him, he felt a sense of nausea in his gullet.

This all came to a thundering climax when the metal box suddenly shuddered to a grinding halt, and its gates flew open to show him the world above ground.

He couldn't keep his eyes open as the above light streamed through the doors, slowly revealing a desolate, barren land of dust. It was like a curtain of radiance was instantly pulled from his eyes and the beauty and hope he'd had for this world that Nicole had told him once harbored so much promise and potential instantly vanished. It was as dead as the eyes of the soldiers that traversed its dunes. He heaved a heavy sigh and strode into the world beyond the bunker.

The only light that truly shone out here was standing in front of the metal monstrosity on the helipad, shooting him a cheerful but weary smile.

"Get the girl ready," the scarred one said behind him to the man at his right. "Strap her in tight. You should be good at that."

Jespar sensed the smile between the two men, and his lips peeled back to reveal his fangs out of pure instinct.

He felt the hand of the scarred one on the back of his head. He kept him still while the other man restrained Nicole, handcuffing her left hand to the rails of the chopper's inner chamber. His eyes lingered on her too much after the fact, fingering a strand of her blonde curls.

Jespar tried to still the rage burning in him.

"Sit tight, boy," the scarred one whispered, gripping his back tightly. "She'll be fine as long as you cooperate."

He looked up at him now, letting his rage pour from his eyes. He saw little to no reaction from the man towering above him, his bald head blocking the surface world's dying sun. As far as he could tell, this man enjoyed seeing his hatred. He'd always enjoyed seeing it.

"You'll be a good boy today, won't you?" he said, bending down to meet him face to face. "You know what happens if you sniff in the wrong direction. You're a worthless creature. You were put on this earth for what we're about to do, nothing more."

He leaned in close, eye to eye.

He could reach out and trace the scar on that face, like tears of crimson raking across a slab of uncaring stone.

"Don't fuck with me, Jespar," he said. "Because I'll waste her before you."

He slapped him once, hard, across his face. Jespar whimpered but said nothing. Now his eyes told a different story.

He'd remember that moment long after as his weakest. He could have resisted then, maybe ended it all quickly. Maybe gouge out an eye while he was at it. Anything would've been better than what was to come.

He walked with the scarred one towards the chopper, and he heard the other soldiers assembled chatting while they issued absent-minded salutes to their superior.

"How was she?" one said.

The man who had bound her to the chopper sniggered.

"Not bad for a brainiac," he replied. "Guess she wanted a taste of honey last night before the big day."

Jespar bore it all. Their laughter, their mockery, and their looks of scorn. Some of them spat at his face as he was paraded through their ranks toward the chopper. This place had turned against him completely in the last week. They'd heard how he'd consigned their brothers in arms to death, hoping they wouldn't return from their foray into The Harvester.

How could he tell them? He thought about it again, as he had done during his sleepless nights away from Nicole. Confinement had not been his friend. He'd learned it was the greatest enemy to his very nature.

How could he tell them he'd only done as he was told? He could only do what he was told...what she told him.

That was the sick twist that came with being born from the dream of another: a blessing, and a curse.

He hopped in the helicopter and threw himself at her in a barrage of kisses. Despite himself, despite everything, he was still glad to see her.

"Did they – did they hurt you?" he asked as the scarred one boarded and spoke to the pilot.

"Jespar," she said, lips full and still smiling. "My Jespar, nothing they can do can ever hurt us again."

He looked at her in confusion and in the next moment, was tossed into the chair beside her, strapped in and bound just as she was.

"You said you wouldn't hurt him," she growled. There was more fury in those words than he'd ever heard issue from her, and he looked from her to the scarred one and back.

The scarred one said nothing but flashed her a vestigial smile, drawing his finger across her chin.

"Piece of shit," he spat, wriggling away from him.

"He's been well trained," he said, nodding towards Jespar. "Don't make me train you, too."

That was all he had to say because after that, she sat back in silence, and he turned from them both to wave goodbye to his soldiers below, who cheered him like some conqueror departing for his greatest battle.

"Today's the day, boys!" he shouted out to them as the chopper started to rise. "Ready for the good life?"

Their uproar and cries of joy pierced through even the searing siren of the machine's rotors. They threw their fists into the air, pouring all their anger, misery, and fleeting hopes for the future into the sky as though it would somehow propel the chopper further on its way to Callisto – the pillar that burned in the center of their dreams.

As they rose, Jespar turned to Nicole and saw she wouldn't even look at them. His eyes bore into her, trying to find that little girl that had wished him into existence. But he could see nothing. She wasn't there. Maybe she hadn't been for years.

"It's all gonna be over today, baby," he said, stretching his unbound paw to touch her pallid arm.

She looked back at him, and the smile plastered on her face faded.

"It will, Jespar," she said. "But not in the way they expect."

His confusion struck her as comical, and she let out a muffled laugh as the chopper tore away from the rotted hole in the ground that was their home.

...

The soldier who had spoken of Nicole earlier watched the girl leave with, he admitted, a sense of longing. He'd been lucky the boss had set him to guard the girl. She had needs, just like any girl her age. But still, he hadn't expected her to come on to him.

It had been a good night. His first time since the world went to shit. She'd let him do everything he wanted, even the rough stuff locked away under the platinum covers of stress and anxiety. She did what he wanted, obedient like her little fucking puppy. He'd remember that night for a long time to come.

Back in his room, he lay down with these thoughts still spinning in his head. Maybe when the boss brought back Callisto, he'd save a piece for some of his boys. Perhaps he could dream up a cute little honey to play with. Now he'd had a slice of that particular cake he wasn't gonna go hungry.

He opened his bedside drawer and checked absent-mindedly for his pistol. He'd often fiddle with it when he needed to waste time, loading and reloading the poor-quality bullets, spinning it around his index finger. There was just something about holding the power to kill in your hand. It didn't matter what anyone in the Old World used to say – now he was –

It wasn't there.

He sat up and double-checked, throwing out socks, dingy underwear, and crumpled girlie mags.

The gun was gone.

He sat on the bed, half naked, for a moment. And by the time his mind finally caught up to the gravity of the situation, it was already too late.

...

Below them stretched the sands that had always existed just above his head.

He couldn't quite place the emotions that must have been swirling in Nicole's mind – seeing the destruction that had been visited on her world that she'd only heard through stories – but this was something completely unreal for him. His earliest memories were of small four corners, sun streaming through his little mistress" windows before he was whisked off in her arms, feeling her tears splash onto his face, towards the bunker where he thought they'd live the remainder of their lives.

They passed over rotted vegetation, rolling dunes, and the ruins of various farmsteads that had once peppered this zone – their crop fields long since dried up and dead. At times, he noted small figures that pointed at them with long sticks or clubs, ducking beyond any little pieces of cover they could find. They were terrified by them – or, more accurately, by the heavy metal monster that sailed through their skies.

"Must think we're some kinda dragon or something, hehe," Jespar chuckled.

He was met with the same sad smile she'd flashed him before.

"There'd be some wonder in that, don't you think? Tribals believe the things they see are put on this Earth by spirits angered with the hubris of the Old Ones – that's me."

"Stories for children," Jespar scoffed.

"Like all children's stories, there's truth at their core, Jespar. Don't mock people till you've looked at their world through their eyes."

"Sorry, honey, but that's kinda my whole schtick."

She laughed morosely.

"You never did change, even when you grew up."

"Neither did you."

"Oh, yeah," she said as they blew through a dark cloud. "I did."

Something in her voice alarmed him suddenly. But he gulped his trepidation away like he always did.

"Not in any way that mattered."

"So cruel," she chuckled back.

"No, no – I mean," he turned, struggling to find the right words. "No matter what, you always cared more about others than you did yourself. I always had to look out for you, even in your rebellious teenage phase. I needed you, gal. I'm nothing if I'm not beside you, even if you don't need me," he added, chuckling as he stuck his head out the window. "No one ever needed me."

She turned to him suddenly, like she was about to make some serious comment on the nature of mankind, but all she said was: "Remember prom night?"

"Don't remind me," he sighed. "I almost puked just at hearing what that thing was. Buncha human kids bumpin' uglies in a dark room, playing their shitty music."

"You never did "get" the idea, did you?" she laughed, goading him on, shooting him that mischievous, toothy smile that never failed to break him. "In fact, when I showed you my mum's old videos, you sat through them holding your stomach."

"Did I?" he asked, genuinely surprised.

"You did. You're a bad liar, you know."

The scarred one barked some order to the pilot over the din of the furious rotors, and the chopper veered to the left. Below them now stretched a huge canyon – caked in dust and tracks from creatures that must've been huge and numerous.

"But still," Nicole continued, as if the world around her didn't matter. "Still, you helped me get my dress ready, helping me sow it out of old lab coats. We shared the cake Dad made, and then – you remember, don't you? Who was it that asked me to dance to all that shitty pop music you hate so much?"

"An idiot," he grinned.

"Correct," she smiled. "And I hoisted this little furry idiot up by his hind legs, and he placed the little pads of his feet on my shoes, and I took his cosey paws in my hands. And we danced the night away to crappy prom music. Me – a sixteen-year-old girl with braces and a patchwork dress – and her dog."

"Her talking and incredibly handsome dog," Jespar added.

"And at the end of the night, you crowned me the prom queen on the lab-table stage with a stethoscope tiara," she went on, sniffing. Must have been the dust in the air.

"But at the end of the night, I was throwing a pity party. I threw off the dress and screamed my lungs out. Because I was trapped. We were trapped. And this crappy prom was just a way to cope. A stupid girl's escape."

Now she looked at him again with that sad smile that terrified him.

"You remember what you told me?"

He shot her smile back at her.

"Tell me," he said.

"You said: "I betcha no other girl in the world right now is having a prom night. That makes you the only Prom Queen in the world."

She gripped his paw with her thumb and forefinger and stroked it gently.

"It was a beautiful thought," she said. "Not the kind of thing a brainiac like me would ever even think of. When you put your mind to it, you're not so bad when it comes to saying the right thing. You could bring me out of my dumb little depressions with only a few words."

She squeezed his paw harder.

"So don't ever say I never needed you, Jespar. I needed you more than anyone in the world."

Behind her, he could see the silver towers of the Dead City shimmering like candles under the full sun. They were beautiful, sure, just like he'd seen them in his dreams. But he wasn't really looking at them.

"Why'd you say 'needed"'?" he asked suddenly.

The scarred one barked another command, and the chopper twisted in the air again, bound towards their final destination.

He could feel her hand shaking. Lips quivering.

"Jespar," she whispered. "I'm sorry."

His eyes flew open as he saw her reach into her pocket, produce the small Glock, and quietly thumb the safety off.

She looked towards the cockpit. The Pilot's head was right there, swaying with every swing of the chopper. The scarred one sat beside him, blocked by the cockpit's metal wall. Before leaving the bunker guard's room, she'd made sure that she'd loaded up enough bullets to kill them both five times over.

Right now, her mind was racing. She'd planned for everything up to this moment. Just to have this chance. It was enough.

Jespar could only stare blindly at her, and once again, she plastered that sad smile across her face.

"You didn't think I'd let them have it, did you?" she asked him. She followed his eyes, darting from the gun to the cockpit, to her lily-pad irises.

"They can't get it, Jespar," she said. "You understand? I told you – it's the reason for everything we've been through. You're the only good thing that came out of that horrid little tool."

The chopper lurched again, flying lower now. Something was barked about bad winds whipping up. They were going to stop and wait out the storm.

"So, I'm sorry, Jespar," she choked through tears. "I'm sorry it has to be like this, but there's something I need you to do."

She looked at the rapidly approaching ground beneath them. She ran the calculation through her mind – factoring in their traveling velocity and height, a small creature his size could survive the fall. Factoring in the fact that this was Jespar we were talking about, the odds became almost certain.

"Find Callisto," she said, and her voice was near breaking as her arm withdrew from his grasp. "And destroy it. Drop it from its tower, set it on fire, tear through it with those damn teeth. It doesn't matter how. No one will use it ever again. And maybe that's enough. Maybe then we'll finally learn our lesson."

He could only shake his head in disbelief. His mind was only now running through everything she'd told him before, trying to work out where he'd gone wrong.

She took a final look outside at the rolling dunes and ruined houses – signs of a civilization that glittered like fading stars in her memory. They were so many little silver shells down there in that ocean of sand and dust. And in the city that shone in the distance, so much potential that in its prime had been at once terrifying and daring.

"You know, when you look at it from up here, it really was a beautiful world that we killed."

"Nicole," was all he said. "Please...don't."

She smiled what he knew was a real smile for the first time since they'd been up in the air. A real, pure smile that shone brighter than the blazing sun above. That was the smile of the little girl he'd protected his whole life.

"Us Old Ones don't deserve this world, Jespar," she cried. "You do!"

The first shot hit the pilot in the back of his neck. It ripped through the conus at the tip of his spine and was followed by another two rapid shots that sliced through the back of his skull. When he fell forwards, the chopper fell with him, and a bellow of rage was heard that tore through the air two more bullets traveled through – both breaking through the glass of the cockpit instead of the scarred soldier who attempted to return fire from his hip. For Jespar, the next few moments were like snapshots lined on a torturer's wall: Nicole shot through his restraints and kicked him out the side door as the scarred one surged forward. He saw the muzzle of his gun flash red and raging, and a spurt of crimson leaped from Nicole's neck to decorate the grey, soulless walls of the falling chopper. The next moment he felt himself flying through the dry air of the Deadlands, watching the chopper wail as it plummeted towards the rocky sand dune below. Just before he hit the ground, he saw the explosion tear a plume of flame across the morning sky, and then he tumbled into darkness.