Deception

I sat with my back against the cold wall, the can of tuna heavy in my hands, and watched Marcus gather his thoughts. The settlement had fallen into a tense silence, everyone waiting for him to speak. Even the children in the corner had stopped their quiet game, sensing the shift in atmosphere as all children did.

Marcus took a breath, his weathered face settling into hard lines. “Alright. As I’ve told you, the year is 1999.”

Six years. I’d suspected as much, given the changes to my body, but hearing it confirmed still felt like a physical blow. Six years lost to the void, gone in what had felt like both an eternity and an instant.

“And October 31st, 1993…” Marcus’s voice dropped, taking on that particular quality I’d heard too many times in the void— the tone of someone recounting trauma so vast it had fundamentally reshaped their existence. “That was the day the world ended.”

He paused, his eyes distant, seeing something I could not. Around the settlement, I saw others nodding slowly, their faces drawn with remembered horror. Whatever had happened that night, it had scarred every single person here.

“My family and I were out trick-or-treating.” Marcus continued, his voice steady but hollow. “It was tradition, you know? Every Halloween, we’d take the kids around the neighborhood. They’d dress up, we’d knock on doors, collect candy. Normal stuff. Happy stuff.”

He rubbed his beard with one hand, the gesture unconscious. “The evening was settling in. The sky was that nice orange color you get right at sunset. Beautiful, really. We were laughing, the kids were excited about their hauls, arguing about who got the best candy. And then…”

His hand stilled. “The earth shook.”

Around the room, several people shifted uncomfortably. A woman pulled her child closer.

“Not like an earthquake.” Marcus clarified, seeing my confused expression. “Or maybe it was, I don’t know. But it wasn’t normal. The ground just… trembled. Like the whole world had flinched. And the sky— ” He gestured upward, toward the broken ceiling and the wrong darkness beyond. “The sky turned black. Not gradually, not like night falling. One moment it was orange and peaceful, and the next it was black. Pitch black, darker than any night I’d ever seen.”

I felt my hands tighten on the can until my knuckles went white. This was it. This was the explanation I needed.

“Then came the lights.” Marcus said, and there was something almost reverent in his voice now, mixing with the horror. “Those purple auroras you see up there. They appeared out of nowhere, snaking through that blackness. We didn’t understand what we were seeing. Hell, we still don’t, not really. At first we thought maybe it was some kind of freak astronomical event. Solar flares, or… I don’t know. Something natural. Something that would pass.”

He let out a bitter laugh that held no humor. “We were so wrong.”

The settlement was absolutely silent now. Even the wind seemed to have stopped, leaving nothing but Marcus’ voice to fill the space.

“The monsters came maybe an hour later. We were still standing in the street, staring up at the sky like idiots, trying to figure out what was happening. Then Mrs. Patterson— she lived three doors down— she started screaming. We all turned, and there was this… thing in her front yard.”

Marcus’s jaw clenched. “I don’t even know what to call it. It looked like someone had taken a wolf and a lizard and mashed them together wrong. Too many teeth, eyes in the wrong places, skin that seemed to shift between scales and fur. It was eating her dog. Just… tearing into it while the poor animal was still alive, still screaming.”

Around the room, I saw people nodding again, their faces grim. They all had their own memories of that first encounter, their own first glimpses of the impossible made real.

“That was just the beginning.” Marcus continued. “More of them showed up. Different kinds, different shapes, but all of them looked so wrong. Things that shouldn’t exist. Things that…”

He trailed off, shaking his head. “Creatures that their people kept hidden from us. That they knew about but we didn’t.”

Their people. The words hung in the air like an accusation, even though his tone wasn’t particularly hostile. Just stating a fact.

I continued to listen.

“We ran.” Marcus said simply. “Grabbed the kids, started running back toward home. But the things were everywhere. In yards, in the streets, coming out of houses. We lost the Hendersons that night. Their youngest boy, Tommy— he was only eight. One of those wolf-lizard things dragged him into an alley, and by the time we…”

He stopped, his voice catching. “There wasn’t enough left to bury.”

Silence again. Heavy and suffocating.

“We made it home eventually.” Marcus continued after a moment. “Barricaded ourselves inside, tried to call for help. Police, emergency services, anyone. Lines were jammed. Everyone was calling, everyone was screaming for help. We turned on the TV, trying to find out what was happening, if this was just our town or…”

He laughed again, that same bitter sound. “That’s when we learned. This wasn’t just Warminster. It was everywhere. Every channel that was still broadcasting showed the same thing. Monsters attacking cities all over the world. London, Paris, New York, Tokyo— everywhere at once. Governments trying to evacuate people, militaries deploying, complete chaos.”

I felt something cold settle in my chest. Worldwide. The ritual at Stonehenge had broken something fundamental, something that affected the entire planet simultaneously. The scope of the catastrophe was almost too large to comprehend.

“For a while, we thought maybe the militaries would handle it.” Marcus said. “We saw helicopters, heard gunfire, explosions. There were tanks rolling through Warminster and many others within the first few days. Soldiers setting up perimeter lines, trying to establish safe zones. But then the technology started failing.”

“Failing?” I asked, unable to stay silent anymore. “What do you mean?”

Marcus looked at me, his expression grim. “I mean it just… stopped working. Not all of it, not all at once. Cars still ran— most of them, anyway. Radios kept functioning. Basic things like lightbulbs, simple electronics, those were fine. But anything complex? Televisions went dark. Computers crashed and wouldn’t restart. And the planes…”

He gestured vaguely upward. “Planes fell out of the sky. Commercial jets, military aircraft, everything. Just dropped like stones. You could see them sometimes, streaks of fire against that black sky as they came down. Every single one killed everyone on board, plus whoever they landed on. We found one in the field about two miles from here. A passenger plane. Three hundred people, all dead. And the crater it left when it hit…”

I felt dismayed.

How many planes had been in the air worldwide when the ritual broke? How many thousands of people had died in those first few minutes, not from monsters but from their own technology betraying them?

“The military fell apart after that.” Marcus continued. “Can’t wage war without working tech. Oh, they tried. We saw soldiers fighting with rifles and grenades for weeks. But rifles don’t do much against some of these things. And when your supply lines collapse because half your transport just stopped working, when you can’t communicate with command because the radios only work sometimes, when you’re fighting monsters that shouldn’t exist by any natural law…”

He shook his head slowly. “They pulled back and retreated to the big cities, trying to establish strongholds there. Warminster got abandoned within the first month. We were on our own.”

Around the room, I saw people nodding again. Some had tears in their eyes. Others just stared at nothing, lost in their own memories of those early days.

“We thought maybe it was just us.” A woman spoke up from near the cooking area. She was holding a baby that couldn’t have been more than a year old— born into this nightmare world, I realized with a chill. “Thought maybe the government would come back once they got organized. But then the magicians showed up.”

I turned my attention to her, and she met my eyes with a hard expression that wasn’t quite hostile but wasn’t friendly either.

“At first, we were relieved.” She continued. “We’d seen what these people could do— throwing fire, making things move without touching them, healing wounds that should have been fatal. We thought they were heroes. Thought they’d come to save us.”

“But they didn’t.” Marcus finished for her, his voice flat. “Some of them fought the monsters, sure. We saw battles between magicians and those creatures that defied belief. Magic against claws and teeth and worse. But they didn’t fight for us. They fought for themselves, to protect their own kind. And when we tried to approach them, we tried to ask for help or shelter or just information about what was happening…”

“They turned us away.” The woman said, her voice hard. “The nice ones just told us to leave. Said they couldn’t help us, that we needed to find our own way. The cruel ones…”

She looked down at her baby, her expression darkening. “The cruel ones did worse.”

“Wiping.” Jolene spoke up from where she sat near the door. Her voice was quiet but clear. “That’s what they call it. When they take your memories, leave you confused and helpless. We’ve had five people come through here who had it done to them. People who wake up with no idea who they are, where they came from, what happened. Just… blank.”

She looked at me, and I saw a flicker of sympathy in her eyes before it hardened again. “That’s probably what happened to you.”

I swallowed hard, the taste of tuna suddenly bitter in my mouth. They’d shown me kindness because they thought I was like them— a victim of magical cruelty.

“The magicians don’t care about us.” An older man said from the corner. He had grey hair and a scar running down his face that looked relatively fresh. “Best case, they ignore us. Worst case, they see us as obstacles or entertainment. We’re nothing to them.”

“They probably caused all this to begin with.” Someone else muttered. A younger man, maybe in his twenties, with hollow eyes that had seen too much. “Had to be them, right? This magic apocalypse? Who else could do something like this?”

They weren’t entirely wrong— the ritual had been performed by wizards. Grindelwald’s grand plan to tear open the Veil, to reshape the world according to his vision. But they didn’t understand the full picture. Didn’t know that wizards had also died fighting to stop it, that the magical world had probably been devastated just as much as theirs.

Not that it mattered. Their pain was real. Their losses were real. And the fact that most of the magical world had apparently abandoned them to their fate was… damning.

I opened my mouth, ready to protest, to say something about how this all seemed a bit far-fetched, to play into my role as the confused amnesia victim. But before I could, the sound of movement at the door drew everyone’s attention.

A small group was entering the settlement, their arms laden with supplies. Bags slung over shoulders, a few plastic containers, what looked like salvaged blankets. Four people total, all of them showing the same signs of exhaustion and malnourishment that everyone else here displayed.

Marcus stood up immediately. “Any trouble?”

“Nothing we couldn’t handle.” One of them replied— a man in his thirties with a makeshift spear strapped to his back. “Found a working pharmacy about three miles east. Already picked clean of most things, but we got some bandages, antiseptic, and a few other medical supplies.”

“Good work.” Marcus said, relief evident in his voice. “That’s good work.”

But I wasn’t paying attention to him anymore. My eyes had locked onto one of the other arrivals, and my breath caught in my throat.

Jenny.

She looked older than I remembered— more grey in her hair, lines around her eyes and mouth that hadn’t been there before. The last six years had been hard on her. But it was unmistakably her. The woman who’d worked at the orphanage, who’d made sure we got fed even when supplies were tight, who’d bandaged scraped knees and told us stories before bed.

She was setting down her bags when Marcus called out to her. “Jenny! Come here for a moment.”

She looked up, curious, and started walking over. Her eyes swept across the settlement, doing the kind of automatic headcount I’d seen her do a thousand times at the orphanage, making sure everyone was— 

Her gaze landed on me, and she stopped dead.

I saw recognition flash across her face. Saw her eyes widen, her mouth open slightly in shock. For a moment, she just stared, as if unable to believe what she was seeing.

Then she was moving, crossing the distance between us in a few quick strides, and before Marcus could say anything, before I could prepare myself, she had her arms around me in a fierce hug.

“Adam.” She breathed, her voice cracking. “Oh my God, Adam, you’re alive.”

I hugged her back, feeling something tight and painful loosen in my chest. However much I’d changed, however different I might look now, she’d recognized me immediately. After six years of whatever Hell this world had become, she’d recognized me.

“Hi, Miss Jenny.” I managed, my voice rougher than I’d intended.

She pulled back, her hands on my shoulders, looking me over with that same assessing gaze she’d used when checking the orphanage kids for injuries. “Where have you been? Did you come from London? Did your family make it? How is London, do you have news of the milit—”

“Jenny.” Marcus interrupted gently. “His memories were wiped. Before the world ended. He doesn’t remember any of it.”

I saw the moment the words registered. Saw the way her expression shifted from joy and relief to horror and grief in an instant. Her hands tightened on my shoulders.

“No.” She whispered. “No, not you too. Adam, I’m so sorry, I’m so— “

“It’s all right.” I said quickly, hating myself for the lie but unable to stop now. “Really, it’s okay. These things happen, right?”

The look she gave me suggested she very much did not think these things were okay, but she didn’t push. Instead, she pulled me into another hug, and I felt her trembling slightly.

When she finally released me, I took the opportunity to steer the conversation somewhere safer. “I do remember the year after I left the orphanage.” I said. “1992, most of it anyway. I was hoping… Could you tell me about the others? The kids who were still there? Where are they now?”

The question had been eating at me since I’d recognized the orphanage ruins. All those children I’d grown up with, spent years alongside. Where had they been when the world ended? Had they survived?

Jenny’s face fell, and I immediately regretted asking. She looked away, her jaw working as she struggled with whatever she wanted to say.

“I don’t know.” She said finally, her voice barely above a whisper. “After everything happened, after the monsters came, it was chaos. The orphanage was attacked— you must have seen what’s left of it. We tried to evacuate the children, get them somewhere safe, but…”

She trailed off, and I could fill in the rest. In the chaos of an apocalypse, with monsters roaming the streets and technology failing and the world falling apart, keeping track of dozens of children would have been nearly impossible.

“I hope they’re still alive.” Jenny continued, and I could hear the desperate need to believe in her voice. “I hope they found safe places, found people who could help them. But I…”

She didn’t finish. She didn’t need to. The unspoken conclusion hung between us like a specter: they were probably dead.

Most of them, at least. Maybe a few had gotten lucky, found shelter, and survived. But in a catastrophe like this, with no warning and no preparation, the survival rate for a building full of children would have been…

I pushed the thought away. There was nothing I could do about it now. Whatever had happened to them had happened six years ago, while I was trapped beyond the Veil, powerless to help or intervene.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there.” I said quietly, and meant it. If I hadn’t failed in stopping Grindelwald, maybe I could have protected them. Used my magic to evacuate them, to shield them, to do something.

Jenny shook her head firmly. “Don’t. Don’t you dare blame yourself for this, Adam Clarke. You were a victim too. Whatever happened to you, wherever you were, it wasn’t your fault.”

The kindness in her words made the guilt cut deeper. She thought I was blameless. Thought I’d been attacked by cruel wizards who’d stolen my memories and left me helpless. She had no idea I was one of the very people she and everyone else here had learned to fear and hate.

Over the next few days, I settled into something resembling a routine with the settlement. They were wary of me at first— a stranger was always a risk, another mouth to feed when resources were desperately scarce— but Jenny’s vouching for me helped, as did my “condition.” Being a victim of memory wiping apparently bought a certain amount of sympathy, even if that sympathy was tinged with pity.

I felt like a fraud every single moment.

They taught me the basics of survival in this new world, and I forced myself to pay attention despite already knowing most of what they showed me. How to collect rainwater using tarps and containers. How to purify it by boiling— they had a few working camping stoves, carefully rationed fuel, precious resources in a world where most technology had failed. How to identify which buildings were safe to enter and which were likely to collapse. Where to look for supplies, what was worth taking and what wasn’t.

Marcus showed me their system for scavenging, the careful routes they’d mapped through the ruins to avoid the most dangerous areas. “Stick to the open streets where possible.” He explained as we stood on what used to be the roof of a two-story building, surveying the devastated town. “Enclosed spaces are where the creatures like to nest. And never, never go into the sewers. I don’t care what you think you heard or saw down there— it’s not worth it.”

I nodded, filing the information away. In the void, I’d learned to navigate by instinct and necessity. Here, there were rules. Patterns. Things to avoid and things to exploit.

“We’ve got a few cars that still work.” A woman named Sarah told me another day. She was the one I’d seen with the baby, though her husband was watching the child now while she showed me their small motor pool— three vehicles in various states of disrepair, parked in what used to be a garage. “We use them for supply runs to areas too far to walk. And for hunting.”

“Hunting?” I asked.

She nodded. “The forests outside town. There’s still wildlife— deer, rabbits, birds. Normal animals, I mean, not the… other things. We try to go every few weeks, bringing back meat when we can. It’s dangerous, though. The forests have more frightening creatures in them. Things that hunt us.”

I looked at the cars, noting the reinforced windows, the metal plates welded to the sides. Makeshift armor. “How often do you lose people on these runs?”

Sarah’s expression darkened. “More often than we’d like. Last month, we lost one. Before that, two. We try to only go when we’re desperate, but…”

But they were always desperate. That was the reality of this world. Risk death by starvation or risk death by monster. Neither was a good option.

Jenny found me alone one evening, sitting on what used to be a bench outside the settlement building. The purple auroras overhead cast everything in their eerie, shifting light, and I was watching them move, trying to understand the patterns.

“Mind if I join you?” She asked.

I shifted over, making room. “Of course not.”

She sat down with a soft groan, rubbing her back.

“I’m getting a little too old for this.” She muttered. “Too old for sleeping on floors and running from monsters and living on rationed scraps.”

“You’re not that old.” I said automatically.

She laughed, a sound that held a hint of her old warmth. “Sweet of you to say, but we both know better. I was already middle-aged before the world ended. Now I’m just… worn down.”

We sat in silence for a moment, watching the sky.

“Do you remember anything?” Jenny asked finally. “About what happened to you? About who took your memories?”

I shook my head, keeping my expression carefully neutral. “Nothing concrete. Just… feelings sometimes. Like there’s something I should remember but can’t quite reach.”

It wasn’t entirely a lie. There were things from the void I couldn’t fully recall, moments that slipped away when I tried to focus on them. But that wasn’t what she was asking about.

“I’m sorry.” Jenny said softly. “That must be terrifying. Not knowing who you are, what you’ve lost.”

“I know who I am.” I said. “Adam Clarke. I grew up in the orphanage. You used to read us stories about knights and evil kings, remember?”

Her face lit up with a smile. “You remember that?”

“Some of it. You read us that one about the knight who had to rescue his kingdom from the evil prince. What was his name… Charles?”

“Charles Septimus the Third.”

We both smiled at the silly name. “Seven Three— yes, that was him. The knight succeeded, rescuing the prince’s sister and marrying her.”

“And the world was at peace forevermore.” Jenny completed, her smile fading into something sad. “I’m sorry, Adam. For that and for so much more.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I know. But that doesn’t make it easier.” She looked out at the ruins of Warminster, her expression distant. “I keep thinking about all the children we lost. Wondering if there was something I could have done differently. If I’d been faster, or smarter, or just… better.”

“You did everything you could.” I said firmly. “You kept them safe for as long as possible. No one could have predicted this.”

“Maybe.” She didn’t sound convinced. “Do you remember any of the other kids? Their names, their faces?”

I did, actually. Plenty of them. But I was supposed to have a shoddy memory because of the amnesia, so I carefully measured my response. “A few. There was a girl named Emma who used to hide frogs in her pockets. And Jacob— always getting into fights.”

Jenny’s expression brightened slightly. “Emma made it out. She’s in one of the settlements to the east, last I heard. And young Jacob…” She shook her head. “He didn’t make it. He tried to fight one of the creatures during the first week. He got it, but its friend got him. Brave, but foolish.”

Another name to add to the list of the dead. Another child I’d known, gone because I had failed in my one task.

The guilt settled heavier on my shoulders, and I had to remind myself that there was nothing I could have done. I’d been beyond the Veil, fighting my own battle for survival. I couldn’t have saved them even if I’d wanted to.

But that knowledge didn’t make it hurt less.

“I should get back inside.” Jenny said, standing up with another groan. “Early supply run tomorrow, and I need whatever sleep I can manage.”

“Be careful.” I told her.

She gave me a sad smile. “Careful is all we can be these days.”

I watched her go, then turned my gaze back to the sky. Those auroras continued their serpentine dance through the darkness, beautiful and wrong in equal measure.

What had we done? What had Grindelwald’s ritual actually accomplished when that creature forced its way through? The Veil had been meant to separate the living world from… what? Death? The afterlife? Some other plane of existence?

And now it was torn open, or damaged, or… something. The sky itself was broken, technology was failing, and monsters roamed freely through a world that had no defense against them.

I needed to fix this. Somehow, I needed to understand what had happened and find a way to repair it. But first, I needed information. I needed to know the full scope of the catastrophe, needed to find out if any of the magical world had survived, if there was any kind of organized response or resistance.

The conversation about London echoed in my mind. If anyone would have answers, it would be there. The capital city. Where the Ministry of Magic had been headquartered.

If the Ministry still exists.

My thoughts were interrupted by raised voices from inside the settlement. Not quite shouting, but urgent and frightened. I stood up quickly, my hand instinctively moving toward where my wand should have been before remembering it was long gone.

The voices grew louder, and then I heard it— a sound that made my blood run cold.

A scream. Young, terrified, cutting through the evening air like a knife.

Followed immediately by a roar that shook the ground beneath my feet.

I was moving before I’d consciously decided to, my feet carrying me around the side of the building toward the source of the sound. Others were emerging from the settlement too, weapons in hand, their faces pale in the purple light.

The scream came again, closer now, accompanied by the sound of running footsteps and panicked crying.

I rounded the corner onto the main street and saw him— a young man, maybe twenty, sprinting down the broken pavement with three small children clustered around him. He was trying to herd them, keep them moving, his face twisted in terror as he kept looking back over his shoulder.

At what was following them.

The cave troll was massive, easily twelve feet tall, with grey-green skin that looked like it had been carved from stone. Its arms were grotesquely long, knuckles dragging on the ground as it lumbered forward with deceptive speed. Small, piggy eyes glinted with dim malice above a mouth full of yellowed teeth, each one the size of my thumb.

I’d dealt with trolls before. Faced one in my first year at Hogwarts, in fact, though I’d barely survived it. They were less intelligent but more aggressive than mountain trolls, and their hide was thick enough to turn aside most spells.

This one had clearly decided the children looked like a good meal.

“Get back inside!” Marcus was shouting from behind me. “Everyone back! We can’t— “

The troll roared again, a sound like grinding stone, and swiped one massive hand at the young man. He threw himself to the side, barely avoiding the blow, but lost his grip on one of the children in the process. A little girl, no more than six, stumbled and fell.

The troll’s eyes fixed on her with predatory focus.

Around me, I could feel the settlement’s people frozen in fear. They had weapons— clubs, knives, even a gun or two— but they knew as well as I did that those wouldn’t be enough. The troll’s hide was too thick. You’d need to get incredibly lucky to hit somewhere vital, and even then, it would take multiple strikes to bring something that size down.

The girl on the ground was screaming, trying to scramble backward, her small hands slipping on the rubble-strewn street.

“We can’t fight that thing.” Someone behind me said, voice tight with terror. “Its skin— we can’t hurt it, we can’t— “

I stepped forward.

“Adam, no!” Jenny’s voice, sharp with fear. “You’ll die!”

Maybe. But that little girl would definitely die if I did nothing. And I hadn’t clawed my way out of the void, hadn’t survived years of torture and torment and endless grey nothing, just to stand by and watch a child get crushed by a troll.

I’d repaid these people’s kindness with lies and deception. The least I could do was save their children.

I reached inside myself, feeling for the magic that had carried me through the void. It responded immediately, eager and wild, coiling through my chest like a living thing. Different from how it used to feel— darker, sharper, hungry in a way that should have concerned me but didn’t. Not now.

The chains came to me like old friends.

I’d learned to summon them in the void, when everything else had been stripped away and all I’d had left was will and desperation. They weren’t quite real— not physical objects I could touch with normal senses. They were manifestations of intent, of power shaped by need into something useful.

They’d kept me alive when nothing else could.

Three chains erupted from the shadows around me, silvery-black and writhing like serpents. I’d gotten better at controlling them, learned to make them do exactly what I needed. They shot forward, moving faster than the eye could follow, and wrapped around the troll’s massive wrist just as it reached for the fallen girl.

The troll bellowed in surprise and fury, trying to pull its arm back. The chains held firm, and I pulled with them, using the leverage to yank the creature off balance.

“Run!” I shouted at the girl. “Get inside, now!”

She didn’t need to be told twice. She scrambled to her feet and ran, the young man scooping her up as he herded all three children back toward the settlement. I kept my focus on the troll, feeding more power into the chains to keep it distracted, to keep it focused on me instead of them.

The troll roared again and grabbed the chains with its other hand, its small brain apparently deciding that if it couldn’t pull free, it would pull me instead.

I let it.

As the troll yanked on the chains, I used the momentum to launch myself forward, running up the length of chain like it was solid ground. The void had taught me that physics was more like a suggestion when you had enough will behind you. Three running steps and I was airborne, sailing over the troll’s grasping hand.

Two more chains erupted from my sides, these ones tipped with wicked spear points. They lashed out, aiming for the troll’s eyes— one of the few vulnerable spots on these creatures.

The troll saw them coming and jerked its head aside. One chain missed entirely, the other scored a deep furrow across its cheek instead of finding the eye. Black blood welled up from the wound, and the troll’s roar shifted from anger to genuine pain.

Good. Pain meant it could be hurt. And if it could be hurt, it could be killed.

I landed badly, my healed wound screaming in protest as I hit the ground and rolled. The fragile skin threatened to tear, and I felt something wet and warm spreading across my side. Blood. Perfect.

The troll turned its full attention on me now, the children forgotten. It charged forward with surprising speed, one massive fist raised to pulverize me into the pavement.

I rolled to the side, calling up more chains. They wrapped around the troll’s legs as it passed, pulling tight. The creature’s own momentum worked against it— its legs tangled, unable to move independently, and it crashed to the ground with an impact that shook the street.

Now. While it was down, while it was vulnerable— this was my chance.

I pushed myself to my feet, ignoring the protests from my body, and summoned everything I had left. Two chains this time, tipped with wicked spear points.

The troll was trying to push itself up, its small eyes confused and angry as it struggled with the chains around its legs. It looked up just in time to see death coming for it.

The chains punched through its eyes simultaneously, driving deep into the skull and the soft brain matter beyond. With a look of concentration on my face, I twisted my hand, sending the spear tips spinning like drills, turning everything inside the troll’s skull into mush.

The creature convulsed once, a horrible shuddering spasm that ran through its entire massive body. Then it went still, collapsing fully onto the broken street with a final, rattling breath.

I held the chains in place for a few seconds longer, making absolutely certain it was dead. Trolls were resilient bastards, capable of surviving injuries that would kill most creatures. But even a troll couldn’t function without a brain.

When I was satisfied, I released the chains. They dissolved back into shadow and intent, leaving no trace they’d ever existed except for the spear wounds in the troll’s eyes and the lingering sense of wrongness they always left in the air.

I stood there for a moment, breathing hard, one hand pressed against my side where I could feel blood seeping through my shirt. The wound hadn’t torn completely, but it was close. I’d need to heal it again, though the thought of trying to force my depleted magic into another healing spell made me want to curl up and sleep for a week.

Later. I could deal with that later.

I turned back toward the settlement, expecting… I don’t know. Relief, maybe. Gratitude. The children were safe. The troll was dead. Surely that counted for something.

Instead, I saw two dozen faces staring at me with expressions of shock and horror.

And anger.

“Magic.” Someone whispered, the word carrying clearly in the sudden silence. “He used magic.”

I felt disappointment, but not surprise at what was about to come. These people hated and feared wizards. They’d welcomed me because they thought I was a victim, someone who’d had their memories wiped and been left helpless. They’d shown me kindness because they believed I was like them.

And I’d just shown them exactly what I really was.

The settlement’s people were starting to move forward now, their earlier fear of the troll replaced by a different kind of fear. And anger. Lots of anger. I could see it in their faces, in the way their hands tightened on their weapons, in the way they spread out to surround me.

“You lied to us.” Marcus said, his voice flat and cold. “You’re one of them.”

“I— ” I started, but what could I say? I had lied. I’d let them believe I was a victim when I was actually the very thing they’d learned to hate and fear. There was no defense for that, no explanation that would make it better.

“We trusted you.” Someone else said, voice thick with betrayal. “Took you in, shared our food, our water, our shelter. And you were lying the whole time.”

They kept advancing, weapons raised now, and I realized with a cold clarity that they were going to attack me. They were angry enough and frightened enough and felt betrayed enough that they were actually going to try to kill me.

I could stop them. The chains would make short work of their makeshift weapons, and they had no defense against magic. I could kill them all in seconds if I wanted to.

The thought made me sick.

These were good people. Frightened, desperate people who’d been abandoned by the magical world and left to fend for themselves in a nightmare. They had every right to hate wizards, and I’d just confirmed every terrible thing they believed about us by lying to their faces.

I wouldn’t hurt them. I couldn’t.

“Stop!”

Jenny’s voice cut through the growing tension like a whip crack. She pushed through the crowd, putting herself between me and the advancing settlement members.

“Just stop!” She said again, spreading her arms wide. “Think about what you’re doing! He just saved those children! Saved them from something we couldn’t fight!”

“He’s a wizard, Jenny.” Marcus said, though he’d stopped advancing. “He lied to us about what he is. We can’t trust— “

“He’s Adam Clarke.” Jenny interrupted fiercely. “He grew up in my orphanage. I watched him grow from a scared little boy into… into whatever he is now. And yes, he lied. Yes, he’s one of them. But he also just risked his life to save our children when he could have just as easily walked away.”

The crowd wavered, uncertainty replacing some of the anger. But not all of it. Not nearly enough.

“That doesn’t change what he is.” Someone muttered. “Doesn’t change that he’s been lying to us this whole time.”

I moved to step forward, to try to explain, to apologize, to do something. But the moment I moved, hands tightened on weapons again, and I froze.

Jenny was still talking, still trying to defend me, but I could see she was fighting a losing battle. Could see the way people were looking at me, the betrayal and fear and hatred mixing into something dangerous.

Then Jenny turned to look at me directly, and I saw tears streaming down her face.

“You have to go.” She said quietly.

The words hit me like a physical blow. “Jenny— “

“You have to go.” She repeated, louder this time. Her voice was thick with emotion, but her expression was hard. “You lied to us, Adam. You lied about what you were, and you made us believe you were safe. We can’t… we can’t trust you. Not anymore. So you have to leave.”

I stared at her, seeing the pain and betrayal written across her face, and felt something crack inside my chest. She was crying— actually crying— while telling me to leave. And the worst part was that I understood. I couldn’t even blame her.

“Jenny, I didn’t mean to— “

“I don’t care what you meant.” She said, her voice breaking. “Those children you just saved? Their parents are looking at you right now wondering if you’re going to hurt them next. Wondering if saving them was just some kind of trick, some game wizards play. And I can tell them you won’t, I can say you won’t, but they won’t believe me. Because you already lied once.”

Around her, I could see people nodding. Parents pulling their children closer, positioning themselves between me and their families. The young man who’d been herding the kids away from the troll was holding a metal pipe now, his knuckles white around it.

I’d saved those children. Killed the troll that would have torn them apart. And now their parents were looking at me like I was the real monster.

“Please.” Jenny said, and her voice dropped to barely above a whisper. “Please just go. Before someone does something stupid. Before this gets worse.”

I wanted to argue, to explain that I’d only lied because I knew something like this would happen, that I’d been trying to understand what happened to the world, that I’d never meant to hurt any of them. But what good would it do? The damage was done. Trust, once broken, wasn’t something you could fix with words.

I looked around at the faces surrounding me. People I’d spent days with, learning from them, eating with them, beginning to think of them as… not friends, maybe, but allies. People surviving in an impossible situation, doing the best they could.

And I’d betrayed them all.

“I’m sorry.” I said finally, and meant it. “I’m sorry for lying. I was just trying to—”

I stopped, shaking my head. “It doesn’t matter. You’re right. I should go.”

No one responded. They just watched in silence as I walked toward the edge of the street, putting distance between myself and the settlement. My side ached with every step, blood still seeping from my partially torn wound, but I ignored it. Physical pain was easy compared to the weight of two dozen pairs of eyes watching me leave.

I glanced back once when I reached the corner. Jenny was still standing there, arms wrapped around herself, tears still streaming down her face. She didn’t wave. Didn’t call out. Just watched me go with an expression that spoke of profound sadness and disappointment.

I turned away and kept walking.

The ruins of Warminster stretched out around me, dark and empty and somehow more desolate than they’d been before. The purple auroras overhead cast their eerie light across broken buildings and empty streets, and for the first time since escaping the void, I felt truly alone.

I walked without direction for a while, putting distance between myself and the settlement on autopilot. My mind was replaying the scene over and over. The way they’d looked at me. The betrayal in their eyes. Jenny’s tears.

I’d saved those children. Done the right thing, the heroic thing. And it had cost me everything.

Was this what the boggart had been warning me about? Not that I’d become a monster, but that everyone would see me as one regardless of what I did?

No. That wasn’t fair.

I had lied to them. I’d deceived them deliberately, knowing they hated and feared wizards, letting them believe I was something I wasn’t. The fact that I’d had reasons— good reasons, even— didn’t change the fundamental truth that I’d broken their trust.

In a world like this, trust was probably the most valuable thing left.

I’d walked maybe three miles, my thoughts spiraling darker with each step, when I heard footsteps behind me. Quick, light, trying to be quiet but not quite succeeding on the rubble-strewn streets.

I turned, one hand instinctively calling up a single chain before I recognized who it was.

Jolene.

The girl who’d held a gun to my head over a can of tuna stood there, maybe twenty feet away, breathing hard like she’d been running. She had a backpack slung over one shoulder and was holding something in her hands.

We stared at each other for a long moment. She looked wary but not hostile. Not pointing a gun at me, at least, which I took as a good sign.

“You followed me.” I said finally, letting the chain dissolve back into nothing.

“Yeah.” She shifted her weight, glancing back the way she’d come. “Had to wait until they all went back inside. They’re… pretty angry.”

“I noticed.”

Silence fell between us again, awkward and heavy. I didn’t know what she wanted, why she’d followed me out here. To tell me off? To threaten me? To— 

She thrust the backpack toward me suddenly. “Here. Take it.”

I blinked, caught off guard. “What?”

“Take it.” She repeated, shaking the bag impatiently. “It’s supplies. Water, some food, a blanket. Not much, but it’s what I could grab without anyone noticing.”

Slowly, still half-convinced this was some kind of trick, I reached out and took the backpack. It was heavier than I expected, and when I looked inside, I saw she wasn’t kidding. Two bottles of water, several cans of food, what looked like dried meat wrapped in cloth, and a thin but serviceable blanket rolled up at the bottom.

“Why?” I asked, looking up at her.

She crossed her arms defensively. “Because you saved those kids. John— the guy who was with them— that’s my brother. Those were his kids you pulled away from that troll. So… yeah. Consider it payment or whatever.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I know I don’t have to.” She interrupted sharply. “I’m doing it anyway. Just take the stuff and go, okay? Go far away and don’t come back. They’re talking about setting up watches now, making sure no wizards get close to the settlement again. If they see you around here…”

She didn’t finish, but she didn’t need to. The message was clear: I wasn’t welcome. If I came back, there would be violence.

“I understand.” I said quietly. “Thank you. For the supplies and for… for giving me a chance.”

She shook her head. “I didn’t give you a chance. You’re still leaving.”

“Fair point.”

I adjusted the backpack on my shoulders, wincing as the movement pulled at my wound. Jolene’s eyes narrowed, noticing the blood on my shirt.

“You’re hurt.”

“I’ll be fine. Just need to— “

“Fix it with magic, yeah, I get it.” She looked away, jaw tight. “Must be nice. Being able to just… magic away injuries while the rest of us have to hope they don’t get infected and kill us.”

The bitterness in her voice was palpable, and I couldn’t blame her for it. She was right. I could heal myself with magic— crude, painful magic that barely worked, but still infinitely better than nothing. And they couldn’t. They had to rely on salvaged medical supplies and hope, and hope was in short supply these days.

“I’m sorry.” I said, because I didn’t know what else to say. “For everything. For lying, for— “

“Stop apologizing.” Jolene cut me off. “You did what you did. We reacted how we reacted. That’s it. Just… just go somewhere else and bother someone else with your magic and your lies.”

She started to turn away, clearly done with this conversation, done with me. But something made me speak up again, desperation lending strength to my voice.

“Wait. Please, just— can you tell me one thing?”

She paused but didn’t turn back. “What?”

“I need information.” I said quickly, before she could leave. “About what happened. About what’s happening now. I know you don’t trust me, and I get why, but I’m trying to understand. The wizards who did this— who caused all of this— I need to find them. To stop them, or fix what they broke, or… something. Can you at least point me in a direction?”

Jolene was quiet for so long I thought she might just walk away without answering. Then, still not looking at me, she spoke.

“London.”

“What?”

“If you want information, go to London.” Now she did turn, fixing me with a hard stare. “That was the capital, right— where all the important government stuff happened? If anyone knows anything about what’s going on, if there’s any kind of organization or resistance or whatever, it’ll be there. Even if the city’s in ruins— and it probably is— that’s where people would gather. Where they’d try to rebuild.”

London. The seat of both muggle and magical government in Britain. Where the Ministry of Magic had been headquartered. If anywhere had answers, it would be there.

“How do I get there?” I asked. “The roads, the monsters— “

“Same way everyone else does.” Jolene said flatly. “You walk and you fight and you hope you don’t die. Head east, follow the main roads when you can. Avoid the forests— there are things in there that’ll kill you before you even know they’re hunting you. Stick to towns when possible, but be careful. Some of them have survivors who’ll trade or help. Others have people who’ll shoot you on sight for your supplies.”

She paused, considering. “Actually, given what you are, maybe the second kind won’t be a problem for you. You can just magic them away, right?”

The scorn in her voice stung, but I forced myself to ignore it. “What about the monsters? Are there patterns? Times when it’s safer to travel?”

“No patterns that anyone’s figured out.” Jolene said.

“The creatures show up when they feel like it. Sometimes during the day—” She gestured at the black sky overhead. “— or what passes for day now. Sometimes at night. Sometimes not at all for weeks, then three attacks in one day. Your guess is as good as mine.”

She shifted her weight, clearly uncomfortable with how long this conversation was going. “Look, London’s probably about a hundred and fifty kilometers from here, give or take. On foot, in good conditions, that’s maybe three or four days of walking. In this world? With everything that can go wrong? Could take you a week or two. Could never make it if you get eaten by something with too many teeth.”

“Any working vehicles?” I asked, remembering the cars at the settlement. “Anything that might still run?”

“Maybe. If you’re lucky. Many cars stopped working when the technology failed, but plenty still run. Simple engines, I guess. If you find one with fuel, you might be able to cut your travel time down.” She smirked without humor. “Of course, cars attract attention. Noise draws creatures. So pick your poison— faster travel or safer travel.”

I nodded slowly, processing all this information. A hundred miles through monster-infested ruins with failing technology and no guarantee I’d find anything useful at the end. But what choice did I have? I needed answers, needed to understand what had happened so I could figure out how to fix it.

“Thank you.” I said. “Really. For the supplies and the information. I know you didn’t have to— “

“I didn’t do it for you.” Jolene interrupted. “I did it because you saved my brother and his kids. That’s it. We’re even now. After this, you’re on your own.”

“I understand.”

She nodded once, then turned to leave for real this time. But she’d only taken a few steps when I found myself speaking again, the words coming out before I could stop them.

“We’ll meet again.”

Jolene froze mid-step. Slowly, she turned back to look at me, her expression wary. “What?”

“In the north.” I continued, and even as I said it, I felt that same sensation from before— something grasping me, pulling the words out, making them truth rather than speculation. “We’ll meet again in the north.”

The certainty of it settled over me like a weight. This wasn’t a guess or a hope. It was knowledge, absolute and unquestionable, given to me by something I didn’t understand and couldn’t control.

A prophecy.

Jolene stared at me for a long moment, her face cycling through confusion, suspicion, and something that might have been fear. “What the Hell are you talking about?”

“I don’t…” I shook my head, trying to clear it, but the certainty remained. “I don’t know. It just… I felt something. Like I was supposed to say that. Like it was true.”

“You’re trying to mess with me.” Jolene said, but her voice lacked conviction. “Being all mysterious and wizard-like, trying to scare me or—”

“I’m not.” I said firmly. “I swear, I’m not trying to scare you. I just… I felt it. We’re going to meet again. In the north. I don’t know when or why or how, but it’s going to happen.”

She backed away slowly, her hand moving toward the waistband of her pants where I assumed she’d stashed the gun. “Stay away from me. Stay away from the settlement. If I see you again, I’ll—”

“You’ll be in danger.” I said, the words still coming without my conscious control. “Something—”

“Stop it!” Jolene’s voice cracked. “Just stop talking! You’re crazy, you’re—”

She turned and ran, sprinting back toward the settlement without another word. I watched her go, that certainty still humming in my chest like a plucked string.

What the Hell had just happened?

I felt something grab hold of me when I’d spoken. Something vast and incomprehensible, using my voice to speak truths I shouldn’t have known. Was this related to my time in the void? Another change, another price paid for surviving that place?

Or was it something else? Some magic I didn’t understand, awakened by my experiences beyond the Veil?

I didn’t know. But the feeling lingered, that absolute certainty that what I’d said was true. I would see Jolene again. In the north. And she would be in danger.

I shook my head, trying to clear the strange feeling, and adjusted the backpack on my shoulders. Whatever that had been, I couldn’t worry about it now. I had more immediate concerns— like surviving the journey to London and finding answers about what had happened to the world.

I turned east, toward answers, and started walking.