Maddox woke up on the warm sand he had been knocked out on for only God knows how long. Judging by the darkness of the sky, it was about midnight, though climate change and the Red Giant had kept Earth on her tiptoes in heat. Under the moonlight, though, walking in the sand was much more bearable than under the sun. Standing up slowly as to not fall down, Maddox brushed himself off and looked around himself for Cole.

The land that used to be so busy was now vacant without another living soul to be found. The streets and old crosswalks of Sedona were now mere rubble sitting atop finely-ground sand. Most of these streets and crosswalks had been too scorched to step on, while others were shattered by grenades. Every now and then, Maddox would step on a broken piece of concrete or glass, remnants of the shattered city beneath his feet.

Maddox, not eager to look for Cole, figured that he had probably run off. With the mentality that he had, Maddox decided not to go searching for someone he probably wouldn't find.

"Eh, I'd just met him anyways," Maddox groaned, still tired, but knowing he had to press on. It wasn't until he heard muffled cries in the distance that he picked up his pace. The cries sounded like that of a boy.

"Cole."

Maddox had never felt such a conflict of emotions. He didn't care too much about Cole, but he felt such an urge to help him that he broke into a sprint toward the cries in hopes that they may be coming from Cole. He didn't want the boy to be hurt, but at the same time, he had never wanted to protect someone else the way he wanted to protect Cole in that moment. This isn't me, Maddox thought. None of this started until that woman spoke to me...

Adrenaline rushed through his veins with every sprint he took. Though running fast, he felt slow and powerless, as if he couldn't get to the origin of the cries fast enough. The veins in his body began to glow golden, but he paid no attention to the matter, letting it go unnoticed.

What am I doing? That might not even be Cole.

What if it is?

Who cares? I just met him not long ago, he's not that important.

He heard a voice, the same one that had spoken to him while he was unconscious.

"The protector is coming out in you, Maddox. You have no choice but to accept it."

Through his conflicting thoughts, he couldn't bring himself to stop running toward the cries, though he was unable to see completely through the night sky. He could see about as far as his hands could reach out in front of him, but he couldn't stop moving.

As the cries grew louder, closer than before, Maddox saw someone in front of him holding their knees close to their chest as they looked down at their hands.

"Cole?" Maddox raised his voice only enough to be heard by the boy in front of him. As the boy turned, his green eyes and blond hair barely visible in the night, he wept. Cole sniffled, looking down at his hands and back to Maddox.

"Maddox? I-I... it hur-hurts!"

"What hurts?" Maddox had seemed to take on a brotherly instinct, ready to help Cole in any way possible. He knelt down beside of him, inching closer as to console Cole.

"My ha-hands. I don't know what happened, but-but there are blades in my hands."

"Okay, okay, calm down. Let me see."

Cole held out his hand shakily, whimpering and wincing with every movement he made. Maddox reached out and felt the sharpness of five knives jab his forearm as Cole moved. He tried grabbing one of the blades but only made Cole screech in agonizing pain. Maddox jerked his hands back as to not get stabbed by accident.

"What the-"

"I-I don't know! I was just... I was just walking and then I felt sharp pains coming from my hands and when I looked down there were blades and I'm scared and-"

"Chill out, Cole. You'll be fine," Maddox said, hardly believing his own statement. Cole simply nodded, tears pouring from his eyes and running down his cheeks, but he was unable to wipe them off. Maddox backed away from the boy, allowing him the space that he needed.

It was now morning, and Maddox hadn't slept since he had found Cole a few hours ago. Cole himself was able to fall asleep, propped up on what was left of a brick wall, finally out of pain for the moment. Rubbing his eyes and adjusting to the morning heat wave, Maddox looked over at Cole.

His eyes were puffy from crying, the stains of dry tears still on his cheeks. Looking closer at the boy, there were 10 blades protruding from his hands, one for each of his knuckles. Dried blood had stained Cole's hands and the blades, and Maddox was left dumbfounded for how that might have happened.

He remembered what Cole had said about a sharp pain coming with the blades, which would only make sense.

"Could he have put them there?" Maddox wondered, but diminished the thought as he looked closer at the blades, but still keeping his distance. "Not the way they're positioned, he couldn't have. That's impossible."

As he pondered on how the blades got where they were on Cole's hands, Maddox stretched, only to feel a sharp pain in his back.

"Ow!" Though Maddox winced in a low enough tone as to prevent Cole from waking, the boy's eyes fluttered open. Moving only slightly, Cole himself winced as Maddox had done, only his pain was surreal. Looking down at his hands, Cole was able to fully see the shiny silver blades that had grown into his hands. At closer inspection, it seemed as though the blades had been intertwined with the bones in his hands, only to cut through his hands between his knuckles.

The skin around the blades had started to grow around them as if the blades were a part of his body. To his surprise, they didn't hurt as much as they did last night when he fell asleep.

"How'd you sleep?" Cole looked up, his thought process interrupted by Maddox, who sat about six feet across from him.

"Just fine, I guess. I've slept better."

"Haven't we all?"

"I mean-"

"I didn't mean that as an actual question, Cole."

"Oh."

"AGHH!"

The two looked at one another in shock, as neither of them had screamed. It sounded like a girl, and she was closer than they thought. Standing up slowly and eerily, the two of them still looking at one another as if to communicate without actually speaking, "What do we do?"

The wail of agonizing pain sounded off again, and the two of them began running. Maddox ran toward the scream despite the aching pain in his back, remembering what he experienced while he was unconscious. Cole, in a fit of panic, did the opposite, running toward an abandoned shed in the distance that hadn't been obliterated by a grenade yet.

"Cole, what are you doing?" Panting through quick breaths, Maddox stammered to a stop as he watched Cole turn around quickly, nearly tripping over his own feet. "I've heard about those things, uh... women that scream around you. They're omens of death!"

Maddox couldn't help but chuckle as the screams continued getting louder. "Banshees? Those things don't exist!"

"With the world the way it is now, someone probably turned into one!" Cole held up his hands, waving Maddox off with his newly proclaimed blades. "You take your chances, I'm staying over here!"

With that, Cole began to run toward the shed once more, Maddox continuing toward the screams of pain. As he neared the noise, someone appeared in the near distance, curled up in a ball on the sandy ground on a bed of rocks. She had curly brown hair, matted in blood.

"It's her," Maddox stopped in his tracks. "The girl I have to protect."