A soft, hesitant voice, laced with a mixture of curiosity and deference, broke his concentration. "Great One? Are the markings on the page… amusing?"
Michael started, pulled from the grim narrative unfolding in the neat, cursive script. He turned to find Lynda and Faye standing behind his chair, their postures expectant, their eyes—one pair a sharp, lupine gold, the other a warm, vulpine amber—fixed not on him, but on the open journal in his hands. They had been reading over his shoulder, or at least, trying to. Their question, so simple and incongruous given the journal's despairing content, baffled him for a second. Was it funny? Had he laughed without realizing it? The account of a young man's brother being vaporized by a dwarf's blunderbuss was anything but.
Then, understanding dawned, cold and clear. He looked from their earnest faces to the page filled with the familiar, angular symbols of the Roman alphabet. "Wait," he said, his voice low with dawning realization. "You can't read this, can you? The words mean nothing to you."
Faye nodded, her expression one of practical acceptance. "In the wastes, we learn to speak by listening. The tongue of the old world, the 'Alliance Common,' most know a little. But the marks? The seeing-knowing? For that, you need a teacher. We had none." Her words painted a stark picture of a purely oral culture, where knowledge was ephemeral, passed from mouth to ear but never solidified on a page. The term 'Alliance Common' clicked into place in Michael's mind, another piece of evidence pointing to the invaders' linguistic legacy. Lynda and Faye's ancestors had conquered with sword and spell; his new subjects, the dog-hybrids and the others, were the descendants of those who had been here first, their history eroded into oral fragments.
"This isn't a funny story," Michael said, his voice gentler now. "It's… a history. A sad one. When I'm finished, I'll tell you what it says." He made the promise quietly, the weight of it settling on him. He would become their translator, not just of language, but of a lost world's final days.
He turned back to the journal, the cheap paper feeling suddenly like a sacred, terrible relic. The narrative, which had begun with the shock of invasion, was curdling into the slow, grinding agony of a world in its death throes.
April 1st, 24. Saturday. Drizzle.
The universe has a sick sense of humor. Happy April Fool's. I just got the call from Mom in Missouri. Bobby… my little brother, the one who joined the Cavalry to 'see the world and shoot big guns'… is dead. The official notification says he died heroically, taking out a Dwarven Fusilier with an RPG before he was… removed from the equation. The Army thanks him for his service. The 'remains' they're shipping home for burial consist of half of his right hand. I hope the bastard who wrote that chokes on his own patriotism. I checked the Pentagon's casualty list online. His name is there. So are a hundred thousand others, just in this update. This is not a joke.
When I went to Dr. Dima, begged for leave to go bury what's left of my brother, the old bastard gave me the real joke. 'Research priorities, Paul. You understand. My hands are tied.' No signature, no exit visa. I'm a prisoner in this fluorescent-lit hell, working on a project that is scientific insanity. The new directive from the Pentagon geniuses: develop reactive armor efficient against mana-based kinetic impacts—'combat aura,' they're calling it. They might as well have asked me to build a spaceship out of cheese. My brother dies to their stupidity, and I'm stuck trying to invent a shield against magic. I'm so sorry, Bobby.
The entries grew sparser, the dates leaping weeks, sometimes months. The handwriting, once precise, became a frantic scrawl, the ink blotted in places that might have been tears or spilled coffee. The optimistic young researcher was being worn away, replaced by a hollowed-out shell.
July 3rd, 25. Monday. Weather?
What does it matter? Three weeks straight in the lab. I've forgotten what the sun looks like. The city's fallen. The line's moved back again. Rations are tighter. Every bulletin is another catastrophe. The only vaguely good news today came through on my phone—my piece-of-crap, years-old iPhone. (So much for the new model this fall, Apple).
First, the Pentagon announced a new 'Steel Curtain' defensive line along the Canadian border. They said the same thing about the last two lines before they turned into sieves. I don't believe a word of it.
The second message… that one has a flicker of hope. The second wave of reinforcements from Asia is landing. A million troops. I don't put much stock in the contingent from the Indian Confederacy, but the Chinese… the Chinese held the line in Siberia. They stopped the tide with sheer grit and those new defensive drone swarms. Thank God. Thank every god that might be listening. Maybe they can turn this around.
I'd kill for some of Mom's Kung Pao chicken right now. Or orange beef. Or a goddamn dumpling. I just want a taste of something that doesn't come from a can labeled 'U.S. Government Surplus.'
The hope, that fleeting mention of Chinese reinforcements, was the last bright spot. The following entries were a descent into a particular, bureaucratic kind of hell.
November 9th, 27.
No day. No weather. Just… defeat.
The lab is a tomb. Even Martin, the chatty lab tech, hasn't spoken all day. We lost the Northern Line. Not through a frontal assault. They used a mass-teleportation spell. A gate. They opened a gate behindour most fortified positions. It was a slaughter. And today… today they gated forces into Australia. Australia! There is no rear echelon anymore. Nowhere is safe. We're rats in a sinking ship. We're going to die here, or end up as slaves to some pointy-eared overseer. God, if you're there, we need a miracle. A real one.
The final entry was written on a date that should have signified a new beginning. It signified an end.
January 1st, 29.
I think I'm dying. Not from a spell or a blade, but from exhaustion. Years of this. The food is keeping me alive, but just barely. I worry about Mom. I hope the care package I sent with the food vouchers got through.
We've performed miracles in this lab. Armor that can dissipate enchantments. Reactive plating that hardens against elemental attacks. The technological leaps in the last five years would have taken half a century in peacetime. And it doesn't matter. For every shield we invent, they find a sharper sword. They've almost taken Minnesota.
The engineers are digging now. Day and night. A vast underground cache right beneath us. They're going to seal away the best of us: supercomputers, machine tools, lithography systems, all the knowledge. A time capsule for whoever—or whatever—comes next. A seed for a new world, because this one is about to be burned to the ground.
The Russian Premier made the proposal official. A 'scorched earth' policy. If we can't have this planet, nobody can. A full-scale global nuclear exchange. Saturate every infected zone. The scientists say it might work, that it might overwhelm their magical defenses. A global referendum is scheduled.
I don't know about anyone else, but I'm voting yes.
The words stopped. Michael stared at the page, then frantically turned it. The next several pages were gone, roughly torn out. The remaining stubs were stained with brownish, unidentifiable smears. The story ended not with a period, but with a void. The final, terrible decision was left hanging, its execution unknown. The desperate, last-ditch gamble of a doomed civilization was recorded only as a vote, its catastrophic result lost to time, or perhaps, to the pragmatic, brutal needs of a scavenger in a world that had already ended.
He slowly closed the book. The musty air of the tavern felt thick, heavy with the ghosts of billions. Lynda and Faye were still watching him, their faces full of innocent questions. He had promised to tell them a story. How could he possibly explain the scale of the tragedy contained in these pages? How could he describe the fall of a galaxy to those who had only ever known a single, dusty star?
A cold resolve crystallized within him. The past was a horror he could not change. But the future of thisworld, this broken fragment, was still being written. And he, Harry Potter Michael, however improbably, was holding the pen.