1. Karvex

"My friends, we must sing the Song of Creation and forge a ship to take us into the stars."

I look around at the other Ishani surrounding me. We are fewer than two dozen now, many of us lost to the ravages of war. Bodies litter the banks nearby, and Kalchuk proposes the answer is to run away?

I can't tell if he's gone mad. Perhaps we all are at this rate. So, I look at everyone else's expressions, studying their sad golden faces. Some of them seem to perk up at the idea, while others look irritated or share my befuddlement.

"We're surrounded by death here," I mutter to Renari, my oldest and closest friend. "I don't think there's anything left to create."

He shakes his head, ruffling his wings reflexively behind him. "We can't give up while we still have the chance to rebuild. Even if we have to go somewhere else, we can start over. We can consider it a genesis of our own," he offers.

"Eventually, the Ataxians and the Alliance will run out of bodies for the war machine, and this will have to end."

I sigh, unconvinced. I think that we will meet our end first. They've already wiped out thousands of my people.

But what option do we have left? Perhaps Kalchuk is right. Our only chance at a future might lie among the stars. It certainly isn't here. Our home planet has been decimated by the war the outsiders have brought to it.

Kalchuk leads us in the Song of Creation. It doesn't sound the same as when it's performed by a full chorus of hundreds or thousands of Ishani. I realize with longing that I'll never hear it performed in such a way again.

But even though the sound has changed, this is not a song that is only heard. It is a song that is felt, that is breathed, that is absorbed. It is a song that reverberates through each and every one of us, connecting us all, even linking us to realms we can't normally be cognizant of.

While we sing, I can feel the invisible thread that links me to Renari holding me upright. It connects me to all nineteen Ishani present, but each link vibrates at a different frequency, with its own unique meaning and importance.

The one that guides me to Renari is an unbreakable chain, so thick I wonder how I never felt it before. That is the power of the Song. It makes known to the mind what was only sensed by the spirit before.

In one voice, we sing. Crystals that make up the essence of our planet are drawn together, quickly building upon each other, growing, and shaping into the form of a crystal starship.

It is all done within a matter of minutes. As the song trails off, we face the curved wings of our only hope. The ship gleams in a way that appears to be metallic, but on closer inspection, a steady eye can see that it is in fact fused from the very crystals we just pulled from the planet with our song.

"Hurry!" Kalchuk waves us forward as a gangplank extends silently from the ship. "Quickly, there isn't much time."

A shudder through the ground punctuates his words as if in agreement. It's another sign of how volatile our home planet has become, thanks to the radiation from the soldiers' weapons. The ground lurches once more, and I realize dully that we are not a moment too soon.

I don't know how much longer we would have had a planet to escape from.

Once all twenty of us have boarded the small ship, Kalchuk plops into the pilot's seat. We rise in the air, looking with horror at the destruction below.

Various wildfires spread across a significant chunk of the land, and smoke spews so freely that there is no clear air left. Large sections of the planet cannot even be seen from above, so smokey and black that it's as if they are blotted from existence entirely.

The most visible feature is the afterburners of the Ataxian and Alliance ships, kicking themselves into gear in a hurry to escape the impending disaster that they created.

The ship shakes as we lift for the sky, shockwaves rocking our transportation. A particularly catastrophic one signals our homeland's final surrender. We careen with the force of it into open space, fortunate that the dampeners on the ship absorbed as much as they did.

"We've lost thrusters on the starboard side," Renari mutters beside me. "You can feel it in the maneuvering."

"We seem to be doing okay, though," I reply, watching Kalchuk in the pilot's seat.

Then Rellik, his co-pilot, bends his head to whisper something in Kalchuk's ear. I see the way both their postures stiffen as they debate.

I know, without a doubt, we are not doing okay at all.

"Radiation is leaking into the ship," Kalchuk announces when he stands from the pilot's chair to face us. "But we are Ishani. We can face this together. This half, you'll sing the Song of Healing to give us time before the radiation poisons us all."

Then he gestures to the side where Renari and I sit. The look on Kalchuk's face makes me grab Renari's arm before I even realize it.

"This half will sing the Song of Transformation to make us immune to the radiation. If we do this together, we will survive."

Even as we begin to sing, I glance around, wondering if anyone believes this can work. I do not know if I do. But I sing anyway. What else can be done?

As we move into the chorus, I feel a burning in my body. The pain stabs through me. It is the worst pain I have ever felt.

The healing song keeps us alive, but that is all. It does not promise that life will be painless, and I very nearly scream at everyone to stop. To let us just die already because death cannot be worse than whatever this is.

Renari screams beside me, and at first, I think that he has the same thought. When I turn to face him, I realize it is much worse than that.

"It hurts," he cries, squeezing my shoulder. His face is webbed with inky black veins that splinter through his golden face. His expression shifts and changes into a grotesque and hideous black mask before my eyes, and I wonder if I am delusional from the pain.

Then I see that his wings have rotted away from his body, twitching on the floor as the tissue dies. Tumors pop out across my body, quickly turning to bone as the song of healing dictates them to change to healthy tissue.

The song begins to fade as those around me stop singing. I cannot tell if they are dead or asleep. Soon, the radiation alarm is louder than the voices that remain, and the song is abandoned.

My eyes drift shut. I cannot fight the pain any longer, and this is the only respite my body can find. I know that if I let myself sleep, I will die like the others.

But as my eyes flutter and close again, I decide I do not care.

When we awake a year later, we are no longer the Ishani. We are the monsters created by their war, with hideous black faces that can never let anyone who sees us forget the nightmare they have trapped us in.

We are the Reapers, and now we take what we want. They've taken enough from us.

"Renari,you take the others to the refrigeration center. Take whatever food you can carry and get it on the ship. The casino feeds thousands, so we can last for a long time on what's here. I'll meet up with you when I'm done at the vault."

Renari nods. He's an excellent second-in-command, I can't lie. I trust all my men, but none more than Renari.

"And remember, we're not here to make a scene," I say. "In and out. Keep it quick."

If we have to, we'll kill whoever gets in our way. But we didn't tunnel through the casino, plan our heist to the second, and lurk in the shadows all this way just to start a riot now. We're Reapers, not murderers. Sometimes, the line gets a bit muddled, but I'm not about to go out of my way to leave a bunch of bodies when we just came here for resources.

So far, no one even knows we're here. Ignorant alien races litter the casino floor, gambling and drinking as though it's business as usual. For them, it is.

Let them have their fun. We Reapers will be having the last laugh tonight.