Bound by blood and moonlight
The placard read: “Recovered from Human Settlement Ruins, 2231.”
Two hundred years ago, some child had loved this bear. Held it while they slept. Maybe even named it. And now it was a piece behind glass, a relic of a species that had been systematically erased.
We'd built cities that touched the sky. Created machines that could fly, think, heal. We'd reached for the stars.
And then the monsters came, and we became this: property. Trophies. Footnotes in someone else's history.
The sadness of it pressed down on my shoulders until I could barely breathe. How many humans had died in the Fall? How much knowledge was lost? How many stories would never be told?