Summary: World War III came and went, and with it, the discovery of magic was made. Discovered, dragged straining into the light, and accused of being the power of the devil himself.
Since, the world has become a dangerous place - fatally dangerous - for any with the spark of magic. Merlin has always known this. He's known it for as long as he could remember, since his father told him at a young age that he must keep his magic hidden. More than that, he knew from the memory of the past lives he'd lived, lives that only those imbued with magic could recall. Watching sorcerers captured, tortured in the streets, dragged off like rabid criminals by the authorities only confirmed what he already knew. Merlin has been exposed to this time and time again, with strangers, then with his father himself. The authorities, they have ways to subdue sorcerers with electricity and the bullets that are flooded with it. Merlin did his best to avoid them, until the time that he... couldn't.
When Arthur awoke it was into a world he didn't know. A broken, dark, horrifying world of confusion and hatred. With only his memories of a forgotten kingdom to hold on to, he claws after the only person he knew to still exist. If only the world weren't so huge it would be gar easier to find him.

Tags: Merlin/Arthur, reincarnation AU, futuristic dystopia, dark themes, torture, medical violence, brief NC-17, memory revival, war

Disclaimer: The characters, original story line and the foundations of this concept don't belong to me (though I wish they did). All thanks and credit go to the creators of Merlin - BBC and Shine, thank you so much.

Part 1 - Chapter 1: The Slums

Merlin was four years old when he first saw a man killed.

It was a matter of luck that he had managed to remain innocent of fatal sights until such a late age at all. Luck, and the fierce protectiveness of his father. For though most people saw deaths as commonplace, the murder of a fleeing victim as merely another tragedy that didn't concern them, Balinor always strove to protect Merlin.

It was that protection which had kept them on the outskirts of London for so long, rather than escaping into the less densely populated regions of far-flung micro-cities. London was the centre of the United Kingdoms and had become only more so over the past decades. As it expanded its cluttered borders, seeping like a mangled and ever-growing stain into its surrounds, it had spilled onto the very shores of the nation. The furthest reaches enveloped Brighton and stretched nearly as far north as Cambridge. Those smaller cities, from Oxfordton to Bristoll, Manchester and York Town, Glouchester and Cardrift, had shrunk only further. With that shrinking, they became only more dangerous for the habitation of a magic-user.

No, the city of London was not a safe place to reside. But it was safer than it would be without. For though their lesser populace meant fewer Hunters, fewer officials with a keen eye for criminal sorcerers, it also meant that more people noticed slight abnormalities. They noticed when something wasn't quite right, the key characteristics of a magic-user that suggested they weren't… normal.

It wasn't until Merlin was seven, however, that he truly began to grasp what the death of that first man had meant. When he slowly came to understand that the Third World War that had officially ended fifty years prior was in fact still waging. It was then that he began to fully realised that the simple possession of magic, the ability to wield it, immediately labelled one as 'outcast' and 'dangerous'. As a threat to not merely their fellows, not only their nation, but the world at large.

And that such a threat could not be ignored. That it needed to be contained. Eliminated.

Seven years old was when he finally began to understand that Elimination was what had happened to that first man. He'd seen countless deaths since, would see countless more. Each one only reaffirmed his understanding.

But it wasn't until he was eight that he realised, truly understood, that those men, those Hunters in their dark green suits and bug-like helmets hefting the electrically-charged weapons that inflicted such horrifying blows, considered his existence too. Considered, and would find him wanting, a tarnish upon the putrid, unpolished surface of London, of the United Kingdoms. Of the world. And that he too would be Eliminated should anyone guess that he possessed the same spark of magic that coursed through his father's veins.

At eight years old, barely a week after his birthday, Merlin was torn from the depths of his sleep by the intrusion of his father. Not that Balinor was loud by any stretch, but few people slept deeply in the slums of London. Not if they wished to maintain any of the material possessions closeted behind the inadequate barriers of thin doors, leaning walls and broken windows.

Balinor shook him into full wakefulness with a jostling touch to the shoulder. The hard mattress beneath him bounced slightly at the motion. "Merlin. Merlin, get up. Now. We need to go now."

Blinking into the dim light that pooled in Merlin's half of the bedroom – for the slums were always light to some degree, even in the darkest hours of night – he pushed himself up to sitting. "Wha… what is it?"

Balinor's shadowed figure didn't turn at his words. He wove through the haphazard mess of their bedroom, one of only two rooms in their ramshackle house, in something of a frenzy. Packing, Merlin realised, and felt the sour weight of dread settle in his gut. "We're leaving," his father said, a now redundant reply to the question Merlin had answered for himself.

Shaking his head, Merlin drew his knees to his chest and clutched his thin, worn blanket more tightly to his chin. "Pappy, I don't want to go." He just wanted to sleep, to stay in one place just a little bit longer. Why did they have to leave again? It had been barely a month this time. Merlin was so tired of moving.

Balinor paused in step. In the gloomy half-light Merlin couldn't quite make out his expression. Not that he had to; he could picture it perfectly without seeing it. Balinor would be blank-faced, his expression stiff and hard and devoid of emotion but for a hint of sadness that was almost resentment in his eyes. Maybe more than a hint, if the ferocity of his packing was anything to go by. Merlin swore he could feel that simmering heat through the darkness.

"We don't have a choice."

"But why? Why do we have to –?"

"Don't question me on this, Merlin." Balinor cut him off with a sharp snap of his tongue. Turning away once more, he resumed his packing with intensified haste. "We don't have the liberty to discuss this. We need to leave. Now."

Merlin didn't protest any further. He wanted to, certainly, but he didn't. It was Balinor's tone that forbade him from doing so. There was no room for argument in his words, and if not quite cruel and dismissive his voice did ring with command: they didn't have the time.

It was not the first time they'd been forced to flee. Merlin couldn't even count on all of his fingers and toes how many times they'd scrambled to up and leave. Sometimes suddenly – in once instance they'd been at their new house for less then a week before leaving in the middle of the night – and sometimes after weeks of careful consideration to reach a regretful and inevitable conclusion.

Merlin hated moving. He had never felt particularly attached to any one house, nothing holding all that much sentimental value to him, but he still hated it. That he lost any fragile friendships he'd made, that he would have to relearn the tangled rabbit warren of streets that would surround their new residence, identical to that in which they'd previous been embedded in all but layout.

And he hated the smell. There was something about moving into a new house, something other than the thin, stained walls, the windows more often than not punctured and cracked or absent entirely, the floors carpeted in a thick layer of dust and little else and most of the furniture too mildewed or broken to be of any use. He loathed the smells, and each house carried its own strain, tangy or musky, cold or sharp or so thick he could almost see it. Each different and as repulsive as its predecessor.

But he didn't have a choice. And when Balinor finally finished with his hasty, minimalistic packing, slinging the canvas rucksack onto his back and tossing a smaller yet otherwise identical one to Merlin, he accepted without complaint. Merlin knew from past experience what weighted down his rucksack; scraps of clothing, mostly, pay-tickets if he actually had any to spare, the bare necessities. And his knives. Because Balinor always packed his knives. They were the only thing he truly ensured they brought with them.

Merlin hated those knives almost as much as he loved them.

The creak of the front door was quiet when compared to the general noise that constantly rung along the street. Merlin followed his father from the house, muted. The slums were never quiet, even at witching hour, just as they were never completely dark. The narrow channel between their house and that opposite was a smudge of blacks, greys and browns, the houses on either side little more than a pile of disorderly bending walls and tin roofs, leaning overhangs with more holes than a crocheted blanket arching over each door. The largely identical 'houses', if they could even be called that, stretched into the distance in either direction, breaking only with the end of the block and a sharp turn before an identical building.

Merlin shrunk reflexively into the shadow of the overhang of their house – their now ex-house – as an overhead spotlight swept down the narrow street, shredding the darkness with its vibrant radiance. The Spotters of the officials maintained a consistently sporadic scan, like an accusing eye sweeping along the network of narrow streets searching for any hint of disruption. Too bright, it was. Far too bright for the darkness of night that was never completely dark anyway. But Merlin was used to it. The Spotters had been raking the streets of every city sector, peering into every crevice he'd lived in, for his entire life. He couldn't imagine a time when they didn't. What was night even like without those spotlights? Without the light pollution that bathed the city in a constant, visible glow?

Balinor waited for a trio of heartbeats after the Spotter passed before stepping out from the protective shelter of the house's overhang. His footsteps made sickening squelches in the mud with his passage as he fell onto the stretch that could barely be deemed a road running between the weary, derelict houses. It hadn't rained in days, but that made little difference; the wider roads were always muddy, more like drained riverbed than actually walkways. Merlin followed him without comment, barely noticing as his weary, sagging old boots immediately caved and allowed water to dampen his sockless feet after barely a handful of steps.

It was when he chanced a glance over his shoulder, however, and saw the pale face of the kindly old widow who'd lived across the road from him that he felt a twinge of sadness, an upwelling of regret ripple through him. He liked the widow. She'd been nice, kind enough to offer him a smile ever now and again rather than the blank, nonchalant expressions or, more often, a disgruntled scowl. Merlin couldn't help but speak up when he caught sight of her, moments before they disappeared around the nearest corner.

"Why did we have to leave? I liked it here."

Merlin immediately regretted his words as soon as he'd voiced them and not only because they weren't entirely true. He hadn't particularly liked their latest house, no more than he had any prior to it. It was the brief glance that Balinor cast him, touched with disapproval and just the barest spark of anger, that caused him to shrink.

Balinor waited until they'd long left the old house behind, until after they'd had to hide from a Spotter for a second time in the shadows of an overhang, before replying. "You know why we have to, Merlin. Don't ask stupid questions. We've been over this too many times and it's always for the same reason. You should understand by now." He paused in his grumbling spiel to skirt around a larger puddle in his path. "Word's circulating of sorcerers in the area. Some tattle-tale reported a sighting to the authorities. Those Hunters, they won't put up with you and they won't put up with me if they hear tell of us our whereabouts

Merlin peered up at his father as he trotted at his side. In the residual radiance of the Spotters, he could make out the tension tightening his father's face into hard planes. Balinor glanced down at him sidelong and there was sadness beneath the hardness of his expression. "And all of your little friends? How do you think they'd feel if they found out about your gift, hm?"

Merlin was silent. There wasn't truly accusation in his father's tone, even when accounting for the ring of anger, for regret drowned it out. That only made it worse, somehow, and Merlin dropped his chin to his chest, biting his lip and tightening his fingers where they clutched at the straps of his rucksack. It was made worse when Balinor continued some minutes later, speaking the words Merlin had known would arise but dreaded to hear in a nearly inaudible voice. "Next time you find yourself an injured bird or something, Merlin, don't touch it. Just bloody well let it die. Better it than us."

Merlin had never healed a broken creature with his magic again after that. He'd never been able to heal much of anything, really, not with his father's words hanging over his head.

It was at eleven years old that he truly understood how personal the Elimination of magic-users was. It wasn't until it was he being chased by the Hunters for the first time that he realised. Until his father was shot by an electrical bullet, Balinor collapsing into a writhing seizure as the green-clad pursuers closed ranks around them.

No, it wasn't until Merlin had been forced to use his magic to save them both that he understood in all certainty how dangerous it was to be a sorcerer, and that meant it was dangerous for him. It was a lesson long in coming but one he never forgot.

There wasn't all that much left of the lake. To say it had dried up would be an exaggeration, but not by much. It was a pond, really, a tranquil plane of undisturbed water that was forever shrouded in a wispy blanket of mist even on the brightest of days.

That night was the same as every night prior. The pond-like lake was illuminated by its wraith-like blanket of mist, still and silent yet with its simple presence flooding the air with heavy moisture. It defied the artificial glow of electrical light that beamed from the modest town hunkered upon its shores, radiating with its eternal reek of light pollution even at the darkest hour of night. Like a stoic and pervasive presence, the lake maintained its respectful distancing, its silent observation of the little town. Silent and, some would claim, disapprovingly judgmental of the contrast to its own natural splendour.

The old man had long since taken to staring out upon the lake's mists in the dark hours before he sought his bed. In the sparsely populated town of Glaston, the lake was something of a landmark. Lake Ave à Lone, it had been known as in the day, though time had long since abandoned both the history behind the name and the name itself. The old man remembered, but only because he'd been living on the lakeside for over ninety years, had learned of its history from his own father. It was his duty of sorts to remember such things, even if the growing resentment that many of his neighbours had acquired for the supposedly 'supernatural' lake would have deterred most.

Pottering around his small, brightly lit kitchen, the man set about straining his cup of tea in the old-fashioned way. The familiar motions were therapeutic in spite of the difficulty his gnarled, arthritic fingers fought through. And it was only a little disheartening to know that the tea he had been straining as such for over five decades was no longer the same as it had once been even a year before. The drought that had torn through Cymry had eradicated most of the crop of his favoured leaf; its cousin grown on the mainland just wasn't the same.

Not that the man could complain. He could hardly count, could hardly remember, some of the luxuries, some of the flavour and cuisines, the herbs and spices, that had long ago garnished his tables yet had gradually or rapidly disappeared with the war. It was a combination of reasons, he knew, from the droughts and the fires to the contrasting icy freezes and torrential monsoons that gripped the shores of the United Kingdoms. But the ultimate cause, the fundamental reason… no one could dispute that.

Magic. It always came down to the destructive force of magic. Really, was it any wonder that most residents of Glaston glared upon the Lake Ave à Lone with suspicion bordering on accusation?

Settling the teapot down with shaking hands, the old man slowly lifted his mug of thin, pungent tea and turned to shuffle towards his usual seat, the single dining chair already lined perfectly to peer through the fogged glass of the window onto the lake. He had just eased his tea down onto the waiting ceramic when it sounded.

A thumping.

No, a knocking. A knocking at his door. To his house.

People didn't knock at his door. People didn't knock at anyone's door – no one used their knuckles when electrical bells were present – but on his door less than most. No one came to visit him, the cranky old man who lived alone down by the lake in his small yet well-to-do little cottage. The only visitor who had dared to scramble down the uneven steps to his front door in the past year was the government official making her annual census rounds. The man considered it most likely she simply came to discern whether or not he still lived.

Grumbling to himself, he turned to shuffle through the homely furnishings of his home, skirting his table to the front door. Only to pause in step halfway through his living room before the warm glow of his gently blowing radiator to frown at the pause, the continued thumping, and the subsequent pause once more. For the intruder – as that was what they were – assaulted not his front but his back door.

It was… disconcerting. That not only would someone come to the old man's door but that they would come to his back door. From the direction of the lake. It was even more so because nothing out of the ordinary happened in Glaston. Nothing unexpected or even particularly interesting ever happened in Somersept these days. The county was sedate in the extreme. Almost too quiet, some would say, though those people would similarly complain at the slightest upheaval, the barest break in monotony, as though it were kingdom come.

Scowling, the old man readjusted his nightrobe more firmly about his shoulders. To the continued sound of thumping, he edged back towards his kitchen, towards the laundry and the back door beyond. Along his way he paused at the solar battery tap in his kitchen to untie a Prod. The metallic rod felt warm in his wrinkled fingers, the thrum of electrical vitality coursing through its length and causing the tip to glow a faint white-blue light.

It was technically illegal to own a Prod without government approval, but the old man would never give it up. Not for the world. Not when sorcerers ran rampart across the country and an electrical weapon was the only way to combat their satanic powers. They should all burn in hell, the old man had long concluded.

Hefting the two-foot-long Prod, he edged towards the door. Touching at the ID-pad that shined with a synthesised glow under his fingertips, the man drew up the camera image of his doorstep. Afforded a birds-eye view of the other side of the impregnable barrier of the door, he could make out a figure. A man, he considered, by his height and physique. A man, alone. At his door.

The old man should leave him. He knew he should leave the intruder to his solitude, offer him no solace or the respect of acknowledging his presence. The persistent thumping certainly suggested that the intruder felt no such respect for him. And yet it was those very thumps that kept his feet rooted to the floor. He raised the Prod higher.

"What do yeh want?" He growled at the door.

Abruptly, the knocking cut off. Mid thump, an eerily foreboding silence taking its place. A silence that stretched on for one minute. Two. Until, with a similar abruptness that caused the old man to flinch, the knocking restarted.

Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-

"Hey, yeh lil' shit, stop that racket!" Edging forwards a few more steps, the old man spun his Prod into reverse and smacked the blunt end into the door in a returning thump of disgruntlement. "If yeh want somethin', yeh be tellin' me. I ain't opening for nothin'. State yer name."

There was another pause in which the old man waited, barely breathing and glaring fiercely at the shadowy figure through the glass. He refused to allow the increased pounding in his chest, the clamminess of his hands, to dissuade him. He wasn't afraid. This was his house, and he had every right to deter any attempted intrusions, from friend or foe.

His words seemed to have an effect on the man on the other side of the door. After nearly a full minute of silence, he spoke back. In a deep voice, too; yes, definitely a man. "Oscail, a dhuine uasail maith. Ciallaíonn mé tú dochar anois. I iarraidh ach cabhair."

The words were unintelligible. To the old man, anyway. He wasn't fool enough to think that he blabbered in mere gibberish. Likely it was a language that the old man hadn't heard before. Strange, given that not a soul within three countries distance spoke in anything but the common tongue.

"What? Speak properly, yeh fool," the old man growled. "Where d'yeh think yeh are? This ain't no Espaniol or Roma."

Another unintelligible response, muffled by the door. The old man grumbled a curse to himself, shifting from foot to foot. His mind drifted idly, longingly, back to his tea. This was one of the main reasons he so liked living by himself, one of the few reasons he chose to live down by the lake. It meant he didn't get unruly and unreasonable visitors. Certainly not in the dead of night. Glaston wasn't subjected to a curfew as London Proper was but that didn't mean people tended to wander around after dark. It simply wasn't safe.

The words of the intruder on the other side of the door had stopped. Squinting, the old man turned to peer back at the ID-pad's view once more. Gone? Gone. The figure was disappeared as suddenly as he'd arrived. Blessedly, he'd taken his disruption with him.

Harrumphing in satisfaction, the old man took a step away from the door. Well. That was that. There was nothing else to it. He could go back to his tea.

But he hefted his Prod once more. There was no way he couldn't check. No foreigner would loiter around his door, even if he were a threatening sorcerer. The man had his Prod; he'd jab the offending figure faster than he could blink should he think to conjure up some threat in a magical blast. The old man had once been renowned for his speed of reflexes and some of that speed still lingered.

The door swung outward without a creak as his fingerprint urged it into motion, the chill of outside rushing forth. It battered at the suddenly too-thin fabric of the old man's nightrobe and bit at his bare ankle above thick slippers. And there was the man.

He hadn't disappeared. Instead, fallen to the ground like a puppet with his strings cut half a dozen feet from the doorstep and just outside of the camera's view. He peered up at the old man from his knees. "I implore, le do thoil iasacht dom chabhair," he said, and there was an almost pleading note in his voice. The expression on his face, in the hard, straight features and tightening of his pale eyes, illuminated by the thin light beaming from the old man's kitchen, was similarly faintly imploring.

The old man could only shake his head. Though he still held his Prod aloft, it was all but forgotten at the sight of his supposed intruder. For he was an unexpected sight to say the least. That unexpectedness drove even the old man's surly mood into consideration.

He was an impressive figure, of the build largely seen more in the upper class and the government officials and authorities that seemed naturally more capable of such growth with the added support of a greater surplus of rations. Broad across the shoulders, with sturdy muscles defined and noticeable even in the darkness, he appeared to be of middling height as far as the old man could tell from his kneeling state. Still, he suspected that had he been standing the intruder would have towered over him. Age had bent the old man short.

But it wasn't that which cause him to pause confusedly at the sight of the man. It wasn't the slightly demanding ring to his tone, nor the recurrence of those foreign words. Nor was it even the wetness that dripped like rain from the tufts of his dirty blonde fringe, that sagged at his clothes. No, it was more the clothes themselves that gave pause.

Wool. It looked like wool, from what the old man could make out, and he was one of only a few individuals in Glaston who would be able to identify it as such. Woollen clothing simply wasn't made anymore, not with the death of mass agriculture, and even the best of the synthetic mimics of the fabric weren't quite the same. Only the very wealthiest, the most expensive of individuals, wore the genuine product, and surely none so carelessly as the man kneeling on his doorstep. The simple long-sleeved shirt and trousers tucked into old sagging boots – was that leather?! Genuine leather boots? Surely not – looked to have been used more as casual wear, stained and worn, wrinkled as though slept in. Who in the United Kingdom could possibly have the liberty to afford to mistreat such clothing?

"What are yeh doin', boy?" The old man grumbled. The figure on his doorstep was hardly a boy, must have been at least in his late twenties, but it hardly mattered. Everyone seemed young to him these days. "What are yeh doing down here at this time of night?"

The boy only shook his head, frowning uncomprehendingly. A splatter of droplets flecked the doorstep, causing the old man to retreat slightly. "Yer drippin', yeh fool. Are yeh hoping to catch yer death?" At a similar response, he sighed. And finally, he lowered his Prod.

He was still wary. Still cautious and still suspicious of anyone who would happen upon his doorstep in the late hours of the night. But the boy was evidently in a fix and, though most of his Glaston neighbours would deem him an antisocial old man, he was not, in fact, cold-hearted. He wouldn't readily turn away someone in need unless he suspected them of being a sorcerer. Besides, he wasn't a fool himself; the boy was obviously of some wealth, of a higher class, and though it baffled the old man as to what he was doing in Glaston, alongside the suspiciously, almost-supernatural lake of Ave à Lone, it would be nothing short of pure foolishness not to take the boy in. He valued his head too dearly to risk putting it on the chopping block in the event that some upstanding, pompous moneyman spluttered over the neglect of his son.

Sighing, scratching the back of his head wearily, the old man wedged himself against the wall to the side of the door. Glaring at the boy peering with his own degree of wariness up at him, he held out his arm in an indicative gesture. "Come on, then. In yeh come. What yer doing out here of a night like this – after a swim as looks like, yeh barmy fool – is beyond me. But I'm not one to judge." He knew, even as he spoke, that the boy didn't understand him. The uncomprehending blankness of his expression was telling enough. But he continued anyway, with only another beckoning gesture of his arm. "Come on, then. In yeh come."

Slowly, with continued wariness, the boy rose to his feet. He was indeed taller than the old man, by over a head, and surely nearly twice as wide. It was a wonder the he even fit through the door.

He did, however, and managed it smoothly and passively enough that the old man was able to suppress his lingering desire jab him with his Prod. As he closed the door, however, sliding it shut with a click and locking out the chill, he maintained his grasp upon the steel rod. He wasn't a fool, even if he was kindly enough to allow wayward strangers into his home.

In a world where sorcerers drifted like a viral smog, one could never be too careful.

A/N: I hope you liked the first chapter! If you did, of if you've got anything you'd like to say - please :D - leave a review to let me know your thoughts.

For those interested, the translation of Arthur's Words to Irish (Gaelic) are as follows:
- "Open, good sir. I mean you no harm. I just want help"
- "I implore you, lend me your aid."