“So, tell me about yourself,” Ren said after a few minutes of quiet. We had just started walking, headed off towards the place Ren had asked to visit one last time.

The first rays of the sun had just begun to poke over the horizon as we walked, casting a soft orange glow over the ruined city. The rivers of blood had dried and the fires burnt out, leaving behind only dark stains and the charred husks of houses and cars. It was a peaceful, if desolate, scene.

“Hmm?” I asked, so lost in thought that I had missed his question.

“I was just thinking that it's a shame we don’t really know much about each other, considering we’re probably gonna die soon. And who knows, maybe it’d do the both of us some good to talk about what we’ve been through. 'Cause if there’s one thing I’ve gathered about you, it's that you’ve had no easy childhood. I’ve heard telling someone about it is supposed to be healing. And the both of us could certainly do with some healing, I think. ”

I huffed a little, quiet laugh, looking down at the broken asphalt as we walked. “You know what? You’re right, maybe it will help. And I don’t want to die without ever telling anyone about Ocean.”

Ren looked curious at the name, but he didn't ask, giving me the space to speak when I was ready. I smiled at the gesture, before taking in a deep, steadying breath. Bracing myself for the memories.

“I was born into torture,” I stated bluntly, getting the hardest part out right away. “Or maybe I wasn’t; maybe I was sold into it, or something. I don’t know. But I do know that the first memory I have is pain. And chains.” I shuddered, a grim smile on my face. “That little clink of chains, to be specific. I still hate that sound.” I sighed, shaking my head to clear it. “But anyway, my oldest memory is from when I was five years old. I don’t know who my parents are, or anything about my biological family, really. But I wasn’t without a family, though, because I had Ocean.” I smiled as I said her name. A true, happy smile. “She was my older sister, and she was everything I had in this world. She taught me about the world, about life, about everything I knew. She taught me how to handle the pain. But most importantly, she taught me how to live free, even when we were bound in chains.” I sighed again, wistful this time. “And there was Daphine, too.”

I stopped suddenly as I said her name, as strange and blurry memories rose in my chest. And a peculiar sense of betrayal as well, though I hadn’t a clue why.

Shaking my head to clear it, I carried on. “Daphine was older, much older than us. She was middle-aged, in her forties, I think. She was so kind and caring, like a mother. Together, we made a kind of makeshift family. But Daphine was weird, disappearing a lot. And she never slept with us, in the barn where we slept. I was too young to really care or notice, other than being sad about not sleeping with her.”

My face morphed then, losing the glow of happiness that it had. “Then, when I was ten, everything changed.” I breathed out, unable to explain in detail. “Ocean made a plan to escape, and it worked. We made it out; we were free, but Ocean couldn’t handle it. Her body was too battered, too broken.” My voice shook as the darkest memories of my life resurfaced. “And it was so cold. Too cold. Her body couldn’t handle it.” I sucked in a deep breath again. “I buried her with my own hands. And then I walked and walked until I made it to this city. After that, nothing really special happened. I learned to fight, decided I would make a gang, and basically just scraped by for seven years.”

I stopped there, suddenly realizing that the atmosphere had gotten very dark. “Aaaand that’s my story,” I finished with a little half-hearted chuckle, attempting to lighten the mood a little.

It didn’t work.

Ren stayed utterly silent, so quiet I couldn’t hear anything from his side at all. No footsteps, no breathing. In fact, if I looked away, I wouldn’t even be able to tell if he was there or not. A humbling fact, considering I prided myself on my senses.

“Kind’ve a downer, huh?” I said with another laugh, copying his joke.

This time, Ren reacted. He shook his head, giving a small, sad huff of laughter. “I’m sorry, Ruby. Truly. To think I had you pegged as a naive girl who didn’t understand the cruelty of the world when we first met. But I guess not. I guess you’re just stronger than I am, to be able to be broken by the world and still live life so wholeheartedly.”

I gave a little laugh at his compliment. “Oh, it’s not strength. I guess you could say my naivete was so strong that even after everything I witnessed, I still believed in the goodness of people. Still stupidly trusted anything I was presented with.”

“To keep your faith in humanity after witnessing its worst? If that isn’t strength, I don’t know what is.”

I smiled at that, but had no answer for him.

“Anyway, I told you my story, now it’s your turn,” I said finally.

Ren chuckled. “Yeah, you’re right.” He let out a deep breath, looking up to the twilit heavens as we walked. “I wasn’t born or sold to torture, I chose it.” He chuckled, the sound grim and derisive. “When I was seven, I had been through…a lot, I guess. That’s the only way I can describe it. I had made a lot of mistakes, and eventually lost everyone and everything I cared about. And then one night, as I wandered through this very city in hollow despair, more zombie than human, basically just waiting to die, I was found by a man. He took me in and said that he would train me. Said that he saw in my eyes a hatred for this world that would make me the perfect weapon for his guild. And I guess he was right, because I exceeded every possible expectation he had for me. I moved up in the organization, eventually becoming a direct student of a man by the title of the Assassin King. He trained me personally, said that he was gonna make me into the greatest weapon humanity had ever seen. He pushed me to the brink of death more times than I could count, had me beaten within an inch of my life over and over for the sake of toughening up my body. Forced what little humanity remained within me to shrivel up and die. Taught me everything I needed to learn to become an assassin that would eventually surpass him. And then, when the time came for him to reap what he had sowed,” Ren laughed, a harsh and mocking laugh. “I just left. He sent me out on my first solo mission, and I just vanished. Used everything he taught me to hide from his guild's clutches. Eventually, I ended up back in Toronto, and that’s where I met you. And you know the rest.” Ren grinned at me. “So, yeah. That’s my story.”

I greeted his lively grin with a bewildered face, still taking in the information. A lot was obviously missing, and I was burning with curiosity. But I held off on asking, knowing that I had left out a lot in my own story, and that he had respected me by not asking for any more than I was willing to share. I owed it to him to allow him the same privilege.

“Wow,” I said when I finally found my voice. “I honestly don’t know what to say.”

Ren laughed, and I knew before he spoke exactly what he was going to say. “Kind’ve a downer, huh?”

Shaking my head, I finally matched his grin with my own. “We’ve got some seriously bad luck, huh?”

“Oh, the worst. It’s like we were cursed or something,” Ren agreed.

“And here I was, thinking that I had lived the hardest life in the world.”

“Funny, I thought the same thing about myself.”

A peaceful silence fell over us again, the both of us thinking and walking, before Ren finally spoke up again. “Does it change anything for you?” he asked.

“Does what?”

“That fact that I’ve killed people,” Ren answered bluntly, his light voice so at odds with his words.

I was silent for a moment. “In cold blood?” I asked finally.

“They posed absolutely no threat to me,” Ren answered.

“Were they innocent?”

“Probably not, but it didn’t matter to me. I’d have done the same regardless.”

"Did you have a choice?"

"I chose that life."

I was silent again. “Do you regret it?”

Ren finally paused for a second. The silence seemed to stretch on forever, the single moment lasting an infinite amount of time.

“No,” he breathed out at last, his voice complicated and overwhelmingly melancholic. “I endured the training because I felt I deserved the torture, a sort of penance for being the monster I was. But in the end, it was the training itself that truly made me into one. Into what I thought I already was. Funny, isn’t it?”

We were quiet again for a moment, letting the silence embrace us, surround us.

“No,” I said finally. “It doesn’t change anything for me. You’re still the Ren I met on that rooftop, the Ren I asked to be my first lieutenant. The things you may have done don’t change that. I’m sure you did the best you could with the cards that you’d been dealt.”

Ren scoffed. “I know that’s not true. I could’ve done so much better.”

I smiled at that. “I’ve come to realize that we usually judge ourselves far more harshly than we do others. And as an objective party, I say that you did your best. So your opinion on the matter is kind of irrelevant.”

Ren fixed me with a look, but I kept up my smile, unfazed by his obvious disagreement.

Eventually, he gave up and laughed, shaking his head. “Y’know what does change things, though?” he asked, smiling.

“Hmm?”

“That hair.”

I burst out laughing at that, caught off guard. “I was wondering when you’d bring that up.”

Ren laughed with me. “Honestly, I don’t know how I feel about it.”

“Is it bad?” My hair now fell just barely above my shoulders, probably giving me a very tomboyish look. Unfortunately, I hadn't had the time nor the opportunity to catch a reflection of myself anywhere.

“Mmm. It’s…interesting,” Ren said, measuring his words.

I laughed again. “So it’s that bad, huh?”

“I wouldn’t say it’s bad. Just different, is all. I’m sure I’ll get used to it.”

“If we stay alive long enough.”

“Such a downer, aren’t you?”

“Just being realistic.”

“That’s what every pessimist says.”

I chuckled, before going quiet again for a moment. “It’s symbolic,” I said, finally. “The hair. Or it's supposed to be, anyway. New hair, new me, y’know?”

Ren smiled. “You don’t seem like a new person.”

I snorted. “Yeah, you’re right. That’s why I said it’s supposed to be, there is no new me. I just can’t be a gloomy person, I guess. I just don’t have that in me. Even though all my friends just died and it was pretty much all my fault. I don’t even wanna think about what that says about me. But anyway,” I paused, taking in a deep breath. “I have changed, though. I understand now what I never could before, the thing that lies at the root of my mistakes. The reason they betrayed me, the real reason, wasn’t that Owen had more power, it was because I wasn’t committed enough to my goals. I was too much a dreamer, too impractical. All along, they must’ve seen me only as a naive little girl who didn’t understand the real world, who didn’t have the grit that it takes to really go anywhere. Someone who they could use as long as they benefitted, and then leave when they needed to actually do something dangerous.” I stopped my rant then, turning to look at Ren. “You thought that too, didn’t you? Right from the beginning, you knew that I didn’t have what it took to really go far in the world.”

Ren smiled sadly at me. “I knew you weren’t lying about being willing to die for your goal, so I knew you were committed. But yeah, you’re right. I could see right away that you were too good a person to make it in this cutthroat world.”

I scoffed. “So you can only be someone in this world if you’re evil, huh.”

“Not evil, necessarily,” Ren answered matter-of-factly. “Just ruthless. But yeah, if you want to go anywhere in the world, then there is no room for empathy and compassion. Those are just the rules of the game.”

I shook my head sadly. “A shame I learnt that too late, huh.”

Ren had no answer to that, staying silent as he walked beside me.

“So why did you join me, then?" I asked. "If you could tell that I wouldn’t even come close to reaching my goals.”

He smiled. “Well, it’s not like I joined you for the glory that you promised. I joined you exactly for the reason I said I joined you. Because you were interesting, something I had never encountered before, something to spend my time on because I was bored. And maybe,” he paused for a moment, “maybe because deep down, there was in me something that wanted to see how far you would go, that wanted to witness you change the rules of the game.”

I laughed harshly at that. “Well, the game won. Being good just gets you stabbed in the back and your friends killed."

Ren didn’t respond to that either, his head down as he silently studied the broken road we walked on.

A few moments later, he suddenly stopped, shifting his gaze to our left. “We’re here.”

I followed his gaze to find a destroyed building, so ravaged that it was hardly recognizable. The entire front entrance was gone, replaced by a crumbling hole. The face of the building was pockmarked with craters and scars, and no window was left unbroken.

“How do you know?” I asked incredulously. It looked no different than the dozens of other ruined buildings.

“I’d recognize Hillcrest anywhere, no matter what it looked like. I’ll never forget this place,” Ren answered cryptically. I couldn’t even be bothered to try and figure out what that meant.

“What did you want to do here?” I asked instead.

“Follow me,” Ren answered, before fearlessly marching into the gaping wound that was the entrance of the building.

“I get that it doesn’t really matter, considering the bugs are probably gonna kill us soon," I said as I followed him in, "but I really wasn’t planning on dying in a crumbling building, y’know? Especially after making it so far.”

“We’ll be fiiine,” Ren said, like I was the one being unreasonable, before quietly adding on, “Probably.”

Shaking my head, I quietly followed as Ren walked to the stairs and began to make his way up the floors. He walked briskly, with purpose – an unusual thing for him. He almost always walked like he had all the time in the world, his gait relaxed and unhurried.

The stairs were demolished in some places, blocked by rubble in others, but Ren was undeterred. Either through nimble maneuvering or brute force, he made his way through whatever obstacles lay in our path with single-minded determination, never once complaining or even making off-topic remarks.

We soon stepped into the ruined hallway of the top floor. Unfortunately, the ceiling had caved in halfway down the hallway, with the rubble blocking the way forward. By now I had figured that Ren was heading to the cleaning closet that had access to the roof, but the room lay on the other side of the blockade. Thankfully, the rubble also made a convenient ramp up to the roof as well, so that wasn’t a problem.

Ren, however, seemed to have other plans. I could feel the spike in anxiety as he saw the blocked hallway. He quickly made his way across the once-pristine carpet, eyes glued to the room numbers. Soon, he came to a stop at one door, visibly losing the tension in him as he read the number. I stayed where I was as he went in, feeling like he needed the space.

A few minutes of thudding and scraping later, Ren walked back out with a bright, sunny smile lighting up his face. In his hand, he held a small, black violin case. It was dusty and battered, but seemed otherwise fine.

Motioning for me to follow, he went up the makeshift staircase and onto the roof.

By the time I had come up, Ren was already perched perilously close to the edge of the building, violin and bow in hand. Understanding that this moment was important for Ren and not wanting to ruin it, I quietly made my way to a corner of the roof and sat down, making myself comfortable. I hadn’t had many chances to listen to Ren’s playing since we met, and I could certainly do with some of his heavenly music after the week I’d had.

For a while, Ren simply stared off into the distance, unmoving as a statue, surveying the ravaged city. The somber silence was broken eventually when Ren finally lifted his violin up, nestling it into the nook between his chin and shoulder. He breathed out, slow and measured.

And then all at once, he began. An explosion of sound rang out the moment his bow met the strings of the violin. The music was quick, with rapid highs and sweeping lows. His fingers danced a flurry on the fingerboard of the instrument, drawing out more than just a tune, but a story.

The fast pace of the music was exhilarating, awe-inspiring. It spun a tale of great heroes vanquishing beasts and foes; a tale of bravery and courage, of conquest and victory. The bow danced as the strings sang, their ethereal voices surrounding us, embracing us. Weaving together a symphony of beauty.

Then, slowly, the thrilling tune began to morph. It slowed, its lows longer, more drawn out. The peaks grew more distant, more rounded. A tinge of sorrow appeared, coloring the exciting tale. Tainting it with a heartrending sadness that grew more and more pronounced with every note. The searing tale of adventure began to lose its happiness, its child-like wonder.

And then it began to descend. Like a falling angel, it lost its ethereal quality, becoming almost muddied. More human, less perfect. The emotions within the tale became more raw, unfiltered. Complicated. No longer did it sing of simple heroes and villains, only humans. No longer did it paint perfect emotions of happiness and joy and love. That image had been corroded, rusted by guilt and sorrow and loss. Regret, pain, loneliness.

Hours passed in the minutes the two of us spent in the embrace of the music. Eventually, however, the tale came to a winding close, its sweeping notes quieting slowly until it dispersed into nothing. It felt surreal, for such beauty to dissipate into the air like morning mist – like watching a painting burn to ash.

The silence that followed was disorienting, unspeakably hollow. Ren put down his violin wordlessly and sat at the edge of the building, letting his feet dangle. I got up and joined him, needing no invitation this time.

We sat in the strange silence for some time, our feet dangling five stories in the air. The world was so different from the last time we had been here. There were no horns or beeps as cars passed, no mindless chatter as the people milled about the sun-bleached sidewalks. The only sound that filled the empty, broken world now was the soft breathing of Ren and me.

In a macabre way, the sight was still breathtakingly beautiful. The city was spread out before us, in all its ravaged glory. The soft glow of the rising sun lit up the scene, bathing the world in its orange-pink hue.

A strange peace descended upon us at that moment, at the end of the world, in a city massacred. Staring into the face of looming death. The moment held a stillness like no other, an infectious peace that soothed my disturbed heart.

The entirety of my life floated through my mind, and I observed every memory – every haunting, painful memory – with a fearlessness I had never before felt. And as I did, as I embraced the feelings that I had hidden from all my life, I found myself at peace. I embraced the blame I had placed on myself for the death of Ocean, for the death of all my friends. I did not forgive myself – I had no right to – but I embraced it. And through that, through accepting my guilt, I found myself able to move on. Able to learn, to commit myself to never making those same mistakes again. I accepted my own immense naivete, and how it had cost me my friends' lives. How it had cost me my dreams.

Ren’s words floated through my head then. Not evil, necessarily, he said. Just ruthless. Ruthless. So I could keep the side of me that was built on compassion, empathy. Protectiveness. But if I wanted to be something, not to be trampled over, then I had to balance that with an unwavering determination to my dreams, and my people. And I had to make it known that my kindness would not extend to those who did not return the favor. That was the key to success in this world.

Truly a shame I had learnt that too late.

As my rumination came to a depressing end, one last image came to my head, an image that did not float by like the rest, but stuck to me like chewed gum. An image of me. Five-year-old me, to be specific. She stared at me, with her wide, dark eyes full of wonder and hope. With her fantastical dreams and her unyielding belief in them. Her unyielding belief in the goodness of the world, in the goodness of people. I smiled as I remembered her, the best version of me. The best I had ever been. The only version of me that was truly innocent, pure. She was the one person whose expectations I lived by, the one person who dictated my goals and dreams. The one person I strived to impress.

And I knew, as I sat there with only one friend, only one person in the whole world who actually knew my name, that I was nowhere near what she had wanted me to be. That I was nothing like the person she had wanted me to be. I had disappointed her in almost every way, in almost every expectation she had ever held for me. But I felt, at that moment, that if she were here right now, she would understand. She would take my hand, place her peachy soft hands atop my callused ones, and she would understand. Understand that throughout my entire life, through every curveball that fate had thrown me, through every misfortune that had ever found me, I had never once wavered in my one promise to her. Through every strike of the whip on my back, or the fist on my jaw. Through the taste of gravel in my mouth, or the burning sting on my back. Through all the pain in my life, I had never once stopped trying my best, I had never once done any less than the most I could possibly have done. And so, even though I wasn’t where she wanted me to be, wasn’t who she wanted me to be, I could swear on my life that I had always done my best, in every single fight I had ever fought. And in the end, that was all she really wanted from me.

And then the sky exploded.

–

The sight was almost indescribable, and the feeling of the moment most certainly so. The massive rift in the sky shattered apart like a pane of glass hitting the floor. Translucent shards of the very sky spread across the horizon as a bright light shone through the hole that used to be the rift.

The entire scene was silent for the first few moments, before a sudden, powerful rush of wind hit the world, carrying with it a deafening boom. My hair fluttered wildly as the violent wind almost knocked me onto my back.

My eyes glued to the heavens, I watched in utter wonder as a gray nose of metal poked through the harsh white light in the sky. Slowly, the nose revealed itself to be the frontmost part of what I could only describe as a blimp from the old days, only fully made of metal. The thing was utterly massive, bigger than any other object in the sky, dwarfing the sun or the moon. And it seemed to only be getting bigger. Or closer.

Then, suddenly, two more explosions occurred in the sky, albeit a little smaller. They spewed the same shards of sky, with the same, bright white light poking through the holes. And as with the first, it took a few moments before both shockwaves hit us, simultaneously. The wind was twice as strong as last time, the sound twice as loud, but I remained rooted to my spot, staring in open-mouthed shock.

And then three more holes appeared. And then two more.

Within five minutes, exactly twelve ships had emerged from the very sky. To say the largest of them was the first was an understatement. The rest were dwarfed by its massive size. Judging by the fact that they all had almost exactly the same designs, it was obvious that they were together, but the rest of the twelve were clearly just supporting ships.

As the ships got closer, more details became visible. Red flashing lights lined its massive hull, but the rest of it was simple, plain gray metal. A line of glass panels ran around the top half, like a visor, but the shape of the ship was awfully simple for its massive size. Basically just an oblong, metal sphere, the thing had no distinctive signs or accessories. In fact, with no visible fins or boosters, I couldn’t even comprehend how the thing was flying.

The massive size of the thing only became more pronounced as it got closer, until it eventually filled up the entire horizon. The other ships were completely blocked from view by the time the thing came to a stop, its massive nose pointed almost directly at us. Although it probably felt that way for half the world.

“Greetings, denizens of Earth,” an old, majestic voice boomed, the very sound ruffling my clothes as it spread like a shockwave around the planet. The voice contained within it a power that rooted me to my spot, an overwhelming fear and helplessness rising in my gut. It took one sentence for me to know I was nothing before that voice, less than an ant. Entirely powerless before it, at the mercy of its whim.

“Rejoice, those of you who survived, for you are saved. We, the Grand Order of the Astros Theology, promise to explain everything to you, and deliver you to a new, safe home.”

The voice paused for a second, before continuing again with an angrier tone. One that caused every cell in my body to cower in fear.

“And as for you, Insect Monarch. Your century of hiding is over, and you have failed in your sacrificial ritual. Return to this ship with your Flux Core sealed, and I can promise you one billion years in the custody of the Celestial Palace. Reject this offer and I will be forced to come down and deal with you personally. The choice is yours.” After that, the voice went silent again.

By this point, any normal person would have been mute with shock, or have simply lost their minds. But after the week I’d had, this was, as Ren had put it, just another insane, bizarre thing that was happening.

So instead, I turned to him, fighting the smile tugging at the edges of my lips. And as he turned to face me, I knew instantly that he was thinking the same thing I was.

“GOAT,” he said, somehow managing to keep a straight face. “They're the GOAT.”