In my time on this Earth, I've come to learn the difference between the silence that follows the Feeders and the silence before their arrival. Beyond the measure of a mass grave against a held breath. The former is a familiar sight, especially in the first days, when the living still outnumbered the dead.

Now, those who remain don't bother with any sort of graves for the fallen. The bodies are left where they drop, to be reclaimed by the Earth. Because when the Feeders blaze through, there is no one left to bury the dead. No one left to remember the graves. Not even the carrion eaters remain.

Before, the Feeders, even death created noise. The low droning buzz of flies, the clicking of feeding beetles, the call and caw of vultures and crows, each sound a building crescendo— the song of death as a continuation of the cycle. Not this time. The Feeders are a disruption of the natural, a brutal and final note to bring the curtain down.

And I can tell by the absolute silence, they've been through this town.

There are fewer bodies than I expected. Or perhaps, humanity is finally running out of pockets to hide, these backwater towns the final frontier of a once sprawling race. The first one I find lays in the middle of the street. A young woman, her clouded eyes wide open and jaw slack after the tension of rigor mortis. There is nothing left of her past her navel. Once, the sight of naked bone and viscera would cause my gorge to rise, but I've grown numb to such gore.

My joints creak as I kneel beside her, smoothing the pad of my thumb over the waxen flesh of her forehead. She is long past the point of my aid, her vessel emptied by the Feeders, but her memories remain. Their ghosts still linger in the gray matter of her skull, her death still fresh enough to cling to those final remnants.

The contact is cold and unpleasant yet the grisly sight of her body fades into a mass of blurred shapes. A rush of sharp focus and I see her in living colors, clear blue eyes and brilliant smile. Her smile is for the man holding her in his arms, rocking them slowly to a quiet melody. There is love and devotion on his face for her. The scene shifts, the world filled with splashes of crimson red, the song discordant with screams. The man is in her arms, lying on the ground, blank eyes staring up at her face. A loss that mutes her world into tones of gray. I expect anger, rage against the dying of her light, but there is a calm, cold acceptance on her face when she kisses his forehead. The remainder of her memories are flashes of violence, fleeing the Feeders, bearing witness to the fall of humanity, and watching humans tear into one another in their desperation to survive. The young woman is no exception.

Blood stains her hands, smeared on her face, where she slit a man's throat for the cans of food in his pack. For the dozen people she left locked in a church cellar with the first Feeder who found them. The sins of her survival sank into her soul, bloated and swollen with the putrid stench of it, until the Feeders finally tracked her here.

She didn't run when she saw them coming this time, caught in the memory of a near forgotten smile and a soft song. The acceptance of her death didn't make it gentle. The Feeders do not know mercy. Removing my hand from her forehead, I shake my head, the movement making my feathers ruffle. I wonder if her world remained one of devoted looks and dancing, would she have fallen to violence. A question I have asked myself far too often the longer my task drags on.

"Return to the Earth, Jennifer Hoffman," I whisper in the old language. Her body remains. I haven't saved her, but I will carry her memories even if I cannot take her sins.

Standing is a monumental effort. I regret kneeling, the drag on my shoulders is immense, akin to iron chains tugging beneath the skin, grating against bone. Gritting my teeth, I stumble, fighting through the weight and the pain, to gain my feet beneath me. My breath is strained when I finally rise, lifting my face to the open sky. Longing swells in my chest until I squelch it in a mental fist. There is no point wishing for something now far beyond my reach.

Half a dozen other remains litter the street, demanding my attention. What is the point? I can do nothing for their bodies. Why should I perform the same service, witnessing their violent endings, when their souls are lost? I have failed them, like I failed the young woman at my feet.

"Why didn't one of the others come for them?" I pose the question to the open sky, but like the empty dead at my feet, it remains silent. That overbearing silence swallows my voice. The only constant companion I have these days. Silence and death. The knowledge doubles the weight I carry, throbbing through the creaking useless muscles along my spine.

But like longing, there is no point to doubts, no point in dwelling on this knowledge. There is only forward until I find someone I can save. Shuffling forward, I pause at the next body.

They are beyond my help. Witnessing their memory is a useless gesture. I still bend down to touch the man's hand. I touch them all, every single one, to watch the sad final play of their lives.

I wish I knew why I had to.

The sky is darkening by the coming night when I finally tear myself free of that silent place, reaching the invisible barrier where the influence of the Feeders fades into the quiet remainders of the natural world. The first hint of night birds and insects eases some of the unbearable weight, soothing the sense of hopelessness as they carry on the natural cycle. The scents of pine and damp bracken replace the stale rot that permeates those fallen pockets of the human world.

Relief is worth the scrape and pinch of bark where the trees are too dense to pass through easily and the sharp snags where that dragging weight catches and tangles on fallen branches and gnarled roots. Each faltering step is a small delay, but the Feeders are well ahead of me now. No matter how fast or slow I drag myself forward, I doubt I'll be able to do more than witness the memories of their leavings.

A chord rings through my mind, a string of wounded notes that draws my gaze through the trees. The Feeders didn't catch all the humans hiding out here.

This song is a lonely one, echoing in my mind. A keen siren's song that lures me forward, increasing my pace where I thought nothing could do so. The first spark of hope in weeks that my mission remains. Hope so pure the muscles of my shoulders creak, trying in vain to lift.

Following the notes, I emerge from the trees at the base of a waterfall, the scent crisp and clean. The gentle roar of the falling water distracts me, a wonderous sight, before I realize I am not alone. There is a creature crouched on the shore, calmly lapping up the water in flashes of pink tongue. It ignores my presence completely, but there is something about it that snags my attention.

Glossy golden fur on a thick body, well fed, well groomed, and completely out of place in the wilderness. The dog stops drinking, soulful brown eyes lifting to look at me at last, releasing a hopeful whine. I've seen dogs before, in the memories of the dead. The Feeders do not spare them any more than the spare humans and in these desperate days, I've never seen one alive.

The dog takes a tentative step toward me, the protruding length of its spin moving back and forth. Dumbfounded, I stand there until the dog's cold nose touches my hand. The contact jolts me. I cannot read animals like humans, but I sense the purity of their emotions. My fingers curl unbidden, stroking that soft muzzle.

An ugly jangle crackles through my awareness, accompanied by the cold metal clack of a bullet being chambered. The dog turns with a snarl, pressing against my side, its warmth a strange comfort in the moment as my gaze finds the man whose song lured me here.

This man is not well fed or well groomed, his incredulous stare flitting between me and the dog. There is a hungry gleam at the sight of the animal, the gun in his hand flinching towards it until I shift myself in front of it. The barrel snaps back to me, dark eyes wide where they register the differences between us. Their gaze lingers on the disfigured limbs trailing on the ground, disgust and fear warring for dominance until I take a step forward. Fear takes over. The gun explodes, a horrendous crack that tears into the quiet night. The bullet bites into my shoulder, a vicious fiery pain that quickly dulls to a searing throb. The dog yips and flees into the woods. A brief gush of blood slows to a trickle in seconds, but the wound will not heal completely until I pause to dig the foreign object out.

An annoyance compounded by the righteous anger in the man's eyes. Belief that he is right to try and strike me down. The sight of my rapidly closing wound causes the gun to slip from his fingers, his anger slipping once again into sour fear as I surge forward, wrapping my hands around his bristled face. He freezes in my grip, the bitter stink of fresh urine mingling with old sweat and the pungent rot of his sins. Old blood, iron, and rust, his sins immediately rise at my touch, streaming into me.

Teeth tearing into flesh, animal, human, whatever sustenance he could find. Blood drips through his fingers, a fountain from the dozens he's killed since the fall, for food, for clothes, for the thrill of taking a life. The blood soaked memories peel away until his life from before begins to flash through me, of the bruises he left on women and the sneering righteous anger he carried every day of his life, fueling the misshapen worm of his soul.

How the Feeders haven't found him is a mystery, a delicacy hiding in the wilderness. Sad, that I couldn't save a woman like Jennifer Hoffman from the sins of her desperation to survive, but I will save this worthless creature.

"What—what are you?" He stutters, his stale, rank breath washing over me, sensing the unwinding of his memories as I view them.

"I am here to save your soul, Ethan Warner," I tell him, the spoken English making him flinch. "To absolve you of your Earthly sins, I drink." The final words are spoken in the old language, an invocation that tightens in my gut.

Ethan spasms, choking. His throat bulges, a trickle of dark fluid spilling from his lips. I open my mouth, lowering myself until I'm hovering an inch from his face when he gags. The manifestation of his sin hits my tongue, foul as the man himself, the taste of old blood, iron, and rust coating the inside of my mouth. I close my eyes against the awful sensation while his sins pour down my throat. This is my mission. This is my purpose.

Hot agony sinks between my ribs. I gasp, Ethan's sins roiling in my stomach while the hilt of his knife protrudes from my side. This final sin slips from his lips, dark ink staining the ground, his gaze filled with pain and regret.

"I'm sorry," he sobs, "I didn't know." A final plea, his soul light and clean while his body crumbles to dust, slipping through my increasingly numb fingers.

The weight of his sins is a stone inside me, my final absolution if the chilling numbness radiating from the knife wound is any indication. I need to get it out. Get it out and heal. My mission isn't finished. There are others to save.

My fingers slip on the blood slicked hilt, unable to gain purchase. Ethan's sins drag me to the ground, my life's blood pooling beneath me, until I collapse onto my side. My fading gaze turns to the open sky, the cold distant stars witness my final moments.

"What was the point?" The question slips free, but the stars keep their silence. I closed my eyes, sinking towards the empty. A strange sound strains through my fading senses, a cold nose pressed to my neck.

"Caesar? What did you find?"

I strain towards the voice, but the empty grips me tight until I sense nothing at all.