Note: Soooo this is a bit different than what I usually do. I'm going to try to write this fic from A new perspective. I really hope you enjoy! Rated M, but purely because of language, violence, and dark subject matter.

He agreed to make the world better with a hammer in his hand and concrete burns on his knees. Somebody had to help rebuild the ruins of this world, and it would be his honor to do so.

Then they'd shoved a gun in his hands as all hell broke loose around them, screams of all people of all ages deafening him, the flashes of explosions so blinding he was sure his sight would never return to normal after that, if even a future existed for him. They romanticised death so much in the media, back when the TV's and internet and all that shit still was a thing, like the death rattle of hundreds could be beautiful, like hearing the souls of your friends ascend would be a peaceful thing.

They're in a better place now, right?

They had to be.

This is what his gram had said all those years ago as they watched his poppy take his final few breaths, watched his eyes lose their light and his soul leave his tired body. She told him,

"Baby don't you worry, he's in a better place now. Someday, a long, long time from now, God willing, you'll be able to tell your grandad just how much you missed him. It'll hardly seem like minutes to him, but it'll feel like an eternity to you. He won't be lonely, so you shouldn't be either."

She made it sound so calm. So lovely.

The screeching around him is anything but. He hates that his gun is at the ready, that he's absolutely prepared to pull the trigger if the time comes, but survival instinct is a strange thing.

It's selfish.

But morals get a little blurry in times like these.

Who knew a few solar flares were EMP blasts so intense they would render all electronics useless? Planes falling out of the sky, cities going dark, internet useless, swiped clean. All the history, gone. All the technological developments, gone. Medical records and experimental data, gone. He's amazed at how the world works so hard to get to such an advanced place, but something always brings it to its knees. He chuckles to himself mirthlessly as he thinks of the fall of Rome. All good things must come to an end.

Some radical groups decided that everyone should start with a clean slate. No one can hold over your head that underaged DUI, no one can go on your facebook to dig up embarrassing or incriminating shit anymore. Everyone is equal now, and everyone's actions from this point on is what determines what kind of people they are. He likes the concept, but the means of creating a world like this…

He wanted to build, not destroy.

Some people thought they should just let things fizzle out; no education system, no agricultural system, no medical system. Everyone fends for themselves. Population control. The weak are weeded out, and the strong rebuild upon the memory of them, upon their ashes, upon their bones.

Sounds like someone read a fucked up book and took the concept a little too far, started preaching destruction like a sermon to the lost, frightened souls that made it past the first stages of the beginning of the end of the world as they once knew it. This was their salvation, following the lead of the strongest and trying to keep up. If their protectors told them to demolish schools being built, they would do it.

If their leaders said that educators must be stopped, they would put a stop to it.

Collateral damage means nothing in the scheme of things, right?

Ironic and strangely fitting, most of those rebels lost their lives demolishing the old world, and now all the bystanders were left behind to pick up the remnants of it. Fairness had died long ago though, and Kilik just can't find it within himself to be surprised by the outcome. Woeful resignation settled into his bones when he turned ten and his mama made him go to school on his birthday all the same.

This is just like that, except a million, trillion fucking times worse.

Not that it matters, not anymore, his opinion of this new world is irrelevant. The objective is to survive and create anew.

Creation for the sake of it.

Creation because it's his job.

Those who create should not be emotionally invested, the inevitable destruction of what you bring into this world is just a part of the job description.

Like they used to say in those old movies.

Nothin' personal kid. It's just business.

As he drowns in the wailing sorrow of those people he tried so hard to create for, he wishes with all he's got that it were an option to quit.

He's selfish.

He's just a kid.

He finds it funny in a morbid way, how so many are starving, sick, dying, and yet weapons are always plentiful amongst what few rebels are left it seems. Amazing how so few could consume so much, do such harm. The idea at the start of this had been something he might've fought for; a new beginning for all, a world where everyone had purpose.

He doesn't know why they're still called rebels. It is a dictatorship, few ruling over many, voices of the people torn from their throats if ever they dare to openly defy. Those so called rebels follow their queen like drones, hardly even human anymore.

He still retches every time he has to cut one down though. Their minds are twisted, but their blood is black, he knows these weren't decisions they made for themselves, and it seems like he can never quite scrub that from beneath his nails anymore. This wasn't exactly what he imagined being sixteen would be like back when he was in second grade. He imagined it with a lot more cute girls, maybe some video games and a car to drive, lame high school parties and drama and rumours.

Not trying to identify who's brain matter is who's so he can give people proper burials.

He's done things now that his younger self would have sent him to the Gallows for. He had been so sure of this place this time. It was a safe haven. He was helping rebuild the school and resupplying the medical center. There was plenty of canned food and rice stowed away, clean water to drink and cook with.

The children were healthy.

It almost seemed like they could really make a place for themselves away from all of the chaos and insanity.

They had made it almost four months in one place before a snake in the grass infiltrated their little city. She had seemed nice enough, if not a bit shy. Eruka even played with the kids at recess.

A Trojan horse.

She brought the venom and her affiliates followed, spread it in the form of blazing fires and kidnappings of the youngest.

Recruits.

Experimental subjects, ripe for the picking.

So many were taken in the ambush, and in the aftermath of it at the light of dawn, he was certain no children would be left. Maybe it would have been better that way. Less mouths to feed, no need for schools or emotional decency. They could all revert back to the animalistic atrocities they could be, back to survival mode without a care for anything else. It would be so much easier.

Then he had found them camouflaged in soot and fear, cowering in a corner of an abandoned storage unit.

Two children, twins, dark skin and light eyes, eyes filled with the echos of the horrors they'd witnessed, the deaths they watches, the abductions they could do nothing about.

And that sense of obligation hit him so hard in the chest that he couldn't breathe. He was positive from the looks on their faces, they had no one left. All other townspeople were deceased or had fled.

That left him.

Of course, in this world, it was always an option to leave them behind, go and find a new home and try to settle down, forget the atrocities he's committed and watched, forget just how fucked up the world is.

But they're just kids, hardly twelve at best, and it's unfortunate, but even through all this change, all this horror and deconstruction of the world, somehow his moral code has remained intact.

Unfortunately.

When he reached for them, they cringed away, and for some reason it hurt so deeply. Just knowing that even if he could take them away from here, they'll never trust again. He's a broken child trying to mend other broken children and there is no happy ending in this life.

But he knew this already.

He tries though, because it's all he can do.

"Are you alright?"

No answer.

"Your parents?"

They point to a pile of ash and bone across the street, their jaws clenched and eyes glassy.

Shit.

"Um.. I ah. Sorry. But we gotta get outta here."

They shake their heads in unison, and his patience grows thinner, more fragile. Surely they understand the danger, they watched the place burn to the ground.

"Listen, I wanna get the hell out of this wasteland as soon as possible but there's no way in hell I'm gonna leave you here. So either we all wait for those creeps to come back and finish us off, or we move. Now."

The boy sniffles haughtily, his sister gripping his arm so tightly her knuckles go pale, but he nods and pulls his sister upright, eyeing Kilik warily. Kilik rolls his eyes, but in reality, he truly understands. He can't be offended.

"What're your names?"

They shake their heads, and god it's irritating, but he just shrugs.

"Guess I'm just gonna call you thing one and thing two until you finally speak up then. C'mon kiddies, let's blow this popsicle stand."

He thanks the God he's unsure truly exists when they follow him as he leaves behind yet another shattered home.