Page 18 of Veil of Death and Shadow

Occasionally, we'd hear of someone who'd changed more noticeably—they’d turn into a wolf, grow an extra limb, or their hair would change color whenever they had an orgasm.

Those were the exceptions. Most people weren’t physically affected by the aftermath. Humans didn’t all just suddenly turn into superheroes or mythological monsters overnight.

Sora had a pretty developed theory that any humans who had obtained truly useful powers were scooped up by the various supernatural factions, religious cults, or else held under quarantine by the leftover fragments of human governments that still remained, hunkered down somewhere.

A much less exciting version of the hair thing had happened to me, though I had no control over it, and it never changed.

A few weeks after waking up in that bush, the tips of my hair started to turn to white, like the color and life had simply been . . . sapped. My roots were still their usual inky black,but it was like the universe wanted to give me another useless reminder of Death’s ever nearness. As if I didn’t have enough of those.

I’d tried dying it back a few times, even shaved my head once, hoping that would fix it. But it eventually always grew back the same anyway—like life bleeding into death.

We didn’t tell anyone.

While Sora’s theory was kind of out there, there were whispers of people afflicted by The Undoing getting taken or killed by various anti-supernatural coalitions. And since I lived with a hair colorist, it was easy enough to pass the odd shift off as trendy and intentional.

Trivial enough that we were able to skirt under the radar.

When it really came down to it, though, it wasn’t humans that seemed most altered by The Undoing.

It was the world itself.

Buildings often buzzed with strange energy, the static in the air occasionally thick with the taste of something no one could name, but everyone felt. Infrastructure was destroyed. Electricity and cars were less reliable, their reaction to magical energy unpredictable and inconsistent. Phones and the internet? Virtually useless.

Of course, when I was desperate, I still took my chances on the bus system—when they were up and running anyway, and occasionally even unmanned altogether.

The first few years were a whirlwind.

We watched governing bodies fracture and fall, and new ones rise in their places. There were wars—too many for me to keep track of, especially with unreliable news sources, and fights for power, literal and figurative, erupting all over the world.

The supernatural creatures—demons as they usually called themselves—mostly stuck together. They were powerful in ways that humans weren't.

And that, more than anything, terrified the humans who’d held all the power in The Before.

No one who had power was ever eager to relinquish it.

In the early days, The United States took to exploring the tears and pockets leading to the new realm. The leaders and ‘adventurers,’ as they often called themselves, swore the expeditions were for scientific purposes. Eventually, the series of failed missions and the commitment to funding more revealed the truth.

The US empire did what the US empire always did—excited by new lands and all that they promised, it attempted to colonize them. Greed for minerals and resources transformed into greed for magic—a power that humans and governments couldn’t understand, let alone grasp. But they wanted it anyway—more even, because of its refusal to be taken.

Most of the people who went on those early expeditions never returned. Those who did rarely had the capacity to speak about what they'd encountered there in the other realm.

After far too many sacrifices, the desire to survive outweighed the desire for power, and humans finally started to avoid the mysterious tears between worlds, keeping to their own instead.

The first year was terrifying, the second year less so. Strange became normal, and humans did what they did best—they adjusted, adapted, and found ways to keep going.

In a lot of ways, it wasn’t all bad.

In fact, some things were a lot better than before.

We focused on the hyper local, tying ourselves to our communities and carving livable paths forward.

Eventually, waking up to a new, infinitely transforming world was just like your average Monday—a bit of a drag, but survivable with strong coffee and the promise of Friday on the horizon.

A soft tappingabove my head ripped me from my journal. I set it down on my comforter and grinned at the beady eyes locked on mine.

"Morning, Menace."

I stood on my bed to unlock the hatch, then shoved the heavy window open a few inches so that he could fit through.

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