The gray smog of the heavens above was scorched by divine light. The thrusters of the gargantuan ship overhead turned the sky into a brilliant display of plasma and flame and light and beauty. She averted her eyes, yet an afterimage played across her sight, painting it into her memory. The time had come, it was the end of the line. She was committed to survival, but somewhere in the back of her mind she knew that her chances were slim.

Even if only ten percent of the propaganda they had been fed was true, they were still up against a merciless, advanced foe. Were she spiritual, she would have been muttering Ave Maria's since yesterday, instead she had merely meditated. Sadly, faced with the overwhelming force in front of her, she felt her mind was anything but clear. She could hear Captain's voice echo from down the hall, frenzied yells about finding cover and readying their improvised weapons.

Captain was nice. He was a decent partner to sit around a burn barrel and discuss the end of the world with. That didn't mean that Captain didn't have delusions. For all his time spent preparing and organizing their rag-tag band of survivors together, he never stopped to consider if it would matter in the first place. She was under no such delusions, she knew it was over from the first moment that the Affini laid eyes upon their group.

She risked another glance out of the dirty window pane. The ship had landed since she had looked away, the sheer weight of the craft shaking the foundations of the buildings around the clearing in which it landed. She could barely glimpse the silhouette of figures exiting the ship before she turned away again, willing her heart to still.

The gentle darkness returned, the ships thrusters having dimmed to an idle state. She heard a distant crash, screaming, and then silence. A single tear fell from her eye, running down her cheek before it was wiped away by a frustrated hand. She didn't allow herself to cry, not when she needed to be fully composed. She huddled further into herself, into her corner of relative safety. At least she would be able to see them coming from this position.

More crashes, more screams -- some of terror, some war cries, some undiscernible -- and more silences followed. The floor of the apartment was once again terribly silent. She could feel the tension in the air, she could feel the desperation -- thick and heavy. It was as though the building itself held its breath as the seconds ticked away. She couldn't say how long they were in that building like that, sat waiting for the terrors to come, but every moment frayed their nerves, set their minds alight with all new terrible nightmares for what was to come.

The distinct crunch of metal being forced open resonated from below them. A sob burst out from the room adjacent to hers followed by a cacophony of desperate voices urging them to be quiet. It was too late; the mania had started. Soon, dozens of sobs, voices arguing. A stomping from below them only heightened the tension. Captain's steel voice of command tried to force them to calm, but there was no stopping it now. By the time that the door to their floor was forced open, there were haphazard, staccato shots, a scattered couple of war cries as poor souls charged their way to death, and sobs that were silenced almost as quickly as they had started; it was nothing like the poor Captain had imagined, no organized resistance, just the death rattle of a failing civilization.

There was a melodic, sing-song sound from the rooms beyond whose words were incomprehensible, if there even were words, that she only assumed came from the Affini. She looked to Jameson, whose slack-jawed expression and eyes of pure disbelief perfectly encapsulated, she felt, the feelings of the Accord as a whole. She leaned her head back against the corner behind her, returning her gaze to the door that she knew would open any second now. "No one thinks they're going to die, Jameson," she said, her voice still scratchy and rough and resigned, "especially not Gods."

The door burst open, revealing a large mass of vines and wood that quickly conformed itself to a more humanoid shape. She kept herself huddled even as another came in behind the first, both seemingly communicating in that sing-song language. Eventually, one of them spoke, "Hello cuties! We've come to liberate you from want and need if you would only follow us back to our ship." The Affini gestured vaguely toward the door that would lead them out of the apartment complex. Neither she nor Jameson moved. The silence stretched for multiple moments as the first looked back to the second, seemingly unsure. The feminine Affini's smile faltered as her gleeful proclamation was not met with jubilant agreement.

Finally, the second chimed in with a deeper voice, yet still calm and caring, "If you do not come with us willingly, I'm afraid that we will have to liberate you by force." His expression took on a facsimile of sympathy, as if he'd just implied he was doing them a service and not threatening to kidnap them. Still, she said nothing. There was no use in armed resistance against the Affini, they would simply kill her. No, she would simply have to go along and peacefully resist as much as possible.

Jameson, for his part, seemed to be in a state of shock. His stark-white face and expression of disbelief hadn't changed at all since they had initially entered the building, as though the entire scene was hallucinatory. They weren't. These weren't hallucinations; they were very much real, not to mention terrifying. When his startled eyes finally settled on her, she noticed a shift, subtle yet understandable to someone who had spent their life learning the emotional signals of others. A flip switched inside him, now dedication filled him. Her heart lurched as she realized his intentions.

She could do naught but watch as the Affini with a deeper voice approached Jameson with vines outstretched to carry him off. Jameson lie very still, too still. As the Affini was just about to grab him, Jameson pushed off against the wall with all of his might and grabbed an object from his pocket. The glint of a blade arced toward the Affini as Jameson screamed, "You took our divinity!" at the top of his lungs. The blade stopped just inches from the Affini's cluster of vines where a human heart would lie, if the Affini were human. The vine that caught his arm moved faster that she thought possible. Jameson was desperate, she surmised, desperate and extremely unintelligent.

Without skipping a beat, the Affini jabbed him in the neck with a vine tipped with some sort of needle. She looked away from the scene, silently wishing Jameson rest in peace. The feminine Affini knelt in front of her. She refused to meet the gaze of the Affini, aware that even if the propaganda about them stealing the soul through the eyes was incorrect, it may be based on some truth. "Hi there cutie, are you going to come with me willingly? You wouldn't stab me, would you?"

Her voice was smooth honey, soft and sultry and sweet. Even if she had a knife, it would be hard to use it against the Affini in front of her. Luckily for both of them, she possessed no weapon nor any want to stab anyone. She shook her head at the Affini, but didn't answer otherwise. "Hm, was that a no to the first question or the second?" Another shake of the head. "Both?" A nod. The Affini frowned at her, the expression that she caught out of the corner of her eye making her feel slightly bad for not going along with them.

"Well, let's start with this: does the lovely human in front of me have a name?" The girl hesitated before nodding in answer. She reasoned that even if the eyes were dangerous, surely a name couldn't be. They weren't magic, just advanced and dangerous. "Lily," she said simply. The Affini in front of her nodded before continuing, "Last name?" Lily shook her head again. "Well Lily Head-Shaker, my name is Zena Endolen, Fourth Bloom, and I'm extremely pleased to meet you!" Zena extended her hand, but Lily stayed in her huddled position, her hooded eyes examining every part of the Affini without looking at the eyes.

Strangely enough, she felt herself calming down since Zena got closer. It was like her body no longer felt she was in danger, which was counterintuitively quite alarming to Lily. Seeing the panicked expression on Lily's face, Zena tried to reach out a vine to caress her cheek, which Lily instinctually shied away from. Zena frowned again, a look of sadness flowing over her features. "Lily, I'm going to have to take you to our ship now, do you understand?"

Lily furrowed her brow, "I do not wish to go to your ship. I would quite like to stay here." She knew it was fruitless, she would be enslaved anyway. It was what conquering armies did, it was what governments did, it was what those with power did. Still, Zena had shown an ability to feel hurt by the pain of others, perhaps she could at least make it psychologically difficult for her.

"Stay here? Why, little human? The air is naught but smog, and the ground is covered in dust from the crumbling structures. You will likely die if you stay here; I simply cannot allow that." Zena reached out her vines again, and Lily huddled even closer against herself, trying to protect herself from the oncoming attack.

The vines wrapped around her, pulling her close to the Affini. "Shush now, little human, I know that you don't want to go, but it's your time." Entirely instinctually, Lily fought back against her captor. She tried to push against the Affini's chest, struggle out of her bonds, cause enough of a struggle that Zena would put her down, but Zena simply continued to carry her away. The vines strengthened their grip on her the more she fought until they felt like living iron forcing her to be still. As they left the complex, something approximating a hand started to slowly pet her head, "It'll all be okay, little flower. It'll all be over soon." Lily fought even harder. Zena didn't relent.