Suddenly, the desert grew dark.

The sky black, the sun overrun, turned grey with seething cloud. Jane glanced around her, suddenly lost, suddenly afraid, the sunburnt land flattened to pale and barren wasteland, spreading out into eternity. This… this wasn’t right, it was a trick, it… the Black Death, she had to… Jane spun around wildly, the colours drained from her clothes and cape, unable to see him, unable to see… anyone, she was alone, everyone had vanished, she had to…

Fight it! This isn’t real!

Jane tried to focus, tried to think, but there was this pit, this great billowing pit of emptiness opening inside her, and her heart was racing and she was shaking, shaking though she wanted to… she had to... she had to save the world… but this place… there was no world left to save. Everything was already dead.

Keep him out, keep him out of your head!

Remember, remember, remember – she closed her eyes, trying to hold onto her thoughts, she had to… she had to think, all those lessons, an eternity ago, far away from this place drained of all life and colour, and where the very air cloyed with dust and death…

Focus! Don’t-

Weakling

She tried to breathe, but all that came out were petty, sickly shudders. Remember who you are, Wally had said – remember who you are. Who was she? She- she was Jane Walker. Jane… Jane Walker and she lived… her home, where was her home, she… it was… and she did... she was a fighter and, and a… a…

Failure

No. No, no, no, no, no. Jane held out her hands, trying to fly, but to her horror nothing came – she was powerless, she was worthless, somehow she’d lost it, everything, their only hope, the power of Dawn… She turned, bare feet racing across the empty landscape, breathing so fast it hurt, hands clutching at her chest, running somewhere, anywhere, nowhere, just away, away from the memories, the voices, the-

Coward

‘No’, she whimpered, ‘No, please, no.’ She stepped forward and there was a crack, a soft, pale crunch. ‘No,’ she pleaded, begging not to see but unable not to look, unable to stop herself from staring down, trembling, at the bone white dust, at the fragments of tiny skull she’d crushed underfoot as they scattered, blown away, whispering in the wind…

‘You failed us.’ The tiny, fragile voice of a child. ‘Failed everyone.’

‘No,’ pleaded Jane, grey dust in her eyes, on her hands, breath coming in wrenching sobs. But as she said it, she looked around and finally saw the wasteland’s truth, the endless fields not of grey, but of cold, dead white – of ashen bones.

‘No, no, no…’

‘Look what you did,’ came a voice from behind her. Jane spun around and suddenly she was standing in the crater of a house, the blackened shell of someone’s home, broken posts and husks of wood, the roof gone, the clouds swirling with ash. Only one charred wall of splintered wood remained half-standing behind her – and against it leant a figure, a withered corpse. Unmoving, undying, trapped in soft agony as it spoke.

‘You said you were worthy,’ it stated plainly, full of neither sorrow nor rage but only tired, empty deep, ‘You told us you could be more than we thought you were.’

‘No, please.’ Jane fell to her knees. But she knew there was nothing she could do. The world was dead, scorched and grey. Only ruins, only bones, only voices left. She was alone.

‘You were wrong,’ the dead man murmured, ‘All you’re good for is hurting people and you couldn’t even do that right. You’re worthless.’

‘No,’ whispered Jane, ‘I tried, I-’

‘Stood back and watched us die? I’d expect nothing less. Parasite.’ Suddenly, the voice coming from the corpse was James Conrad’s, his shrunken face hanging loosely from its weathered head like a mask. ‘It should have been you,’ he whispered, ‘Not me. I was a leader, I was part of something, but you…?’ He laughed. ‘The world loses nothing if you die.’

‘Even if you won,’ murmured the body and suddenly it was Giselle, her face twisted and burned, head lolling to the side, eye sockets empty, ‘It wouldn’t have mattered. We hated you. Everyone hated you.’

‘Always, hated you,’ another ghost whispered in her ear.

‘And why not? Who wouldn’t hate such a worthless, pathetic creature? How could it ever delude itself into thinking it could be loved? It just can’t accept the truth, that there’s a reason it’s alone, now and always.’

Jane dropped to her knees, sobbing, squeezing her hands over her ears. She shrunk, curled up tiny and alone on the cold ashen floor, all light, all colour, all warmth within her flickering and dying as she listened – as she finally heard the truth.

‘Animal, monster, parasite. Your mother left you, your father hates you, people flee from your very sight – and it’ll never change, it will never, ever change, no matter what you say or try or do. Because you’re broken. An abomination.’

‘You’re not supposed to be a part of this world,’ Giselle said softly, ‘No one will ever want you, no one will ever love you. Pathetic, worthless child.’

And she was. She was a child, a little girl, whimpering in the dark, clutching at her chest – defenceless and alone, as the shadows swirled around her, towering over her, taking form. They twisted, rising up into a hulking being of pure thought, jet-black knotted glass, with eyes the colour of burning blood and teeth of glinting knives. It stood over Jane as she lay in darkness, a broken, weeping child, staring down with black satisfaction – and between its hands it thought a crimson, darkened blade.

‘Goodbye Jane,’ it whispered. And it raised the sword, the point hanging over the broken babe.

IAMHUMANIAMHUMANIAMHUMANIAMHUMANIAMHUMANIAM-

From the ether of Jane’s mind came an avalanche of force, and before the Black Death could strike it slammed into him, pummelling his thoughts, a tidal wave of will that rammed and roared and hammered into Heydrich’s mind, a giant of green and white that locked its arms around the being of black and drove it back, driving it into the ground, pushing it away.

“ARRRRRGGGHHHH!”

In the real world, the Black Death’s eyes bulged, his body frozen, fingers locked to his forehead – unable to let go, unable to break free, his eyes swung around, disbelieving, terrified-

To see Matt Callaghan.

Broken. Bleeding. Powerless, laying in the dirt.

But alive. Holding himself up. And staring at the Black Death with unyielding, burning eyes.

As between his fingers, next to this temple, shone a small grey disk.

“AAARRGHHH!”

The Black Death screamed as he struggled, as roared, as he pushed with all his might against the titan, the hurricane of howling consciousness driving him away from Jane, blasting into him with a single, unstoppable thought-

I AM HUMAN

Years of secrecy. Years of lies. Years of pent-up truth and frustration, of deception and denial, finally unleashed in a tidal wave of fury, of certainty, of unrelenting, perfect identity and acceptance of a single ringing fact-

I AM HUMAN

This was not a belief. This was not a story. This was him, the whole of him, his truth, his very core. It was undeniable, indestructible, and it slammed into Klaus Heydrich without fear, without mercy, pushing back against the darkness, pushing back against death, because his name was Matt Callaghan and-

I AM HUMAN

He drove, green sinews of thought locked against Heydrich, shoving him back, holding him at bay, slamming a mental fist into the creature’s twisted consciousness, hammering him again and again, tearing through the grey dust and darkness as he swung, as he focused, as he roared-

I AM HUMAN

-as he put everything he had into a crushing blast, a staggering torrent of thought-

-IAMHUMANIAMHUMANIAMHUMANIAM-