You're not a person, they say, circling. You're one of Them. From the other side.

A faint ringing of metal on metal, the tink! of a coin glancing against a stone wall, a pause before the soft, final landing, and the day's work begins anew. I briefly consider ignoring the summons, as I do every dank, dark morning, but the memory of my mother's words chide me from my nest of leaves and moss.

I push myself to my hands and knees and feel something squelch under my palm.

This is the sound of the end of the world: a billion voices raised in song, a harmony twisting and ululating around the colossal vibrating bass of the core immolators, twelve shining lances of light from the Yattari ships that pierce the now-dying planet of Korthia at equidistant points and pin it in space like a dissected animal on a metal tray.