Skin of the Enemy

The world has already ended. After decades of fighting hordes of alien monsters, the world's last heroes finally destroyed the last of the portals connecting their worlds... and there is no one but them left. All that remains is a desolate world piled with corpses and rubble. Of the scant hundreds of humans surviving, half of them perish from their wounds before 24 hours go by after the battle. Another 70% of that die within the week. All conveniences of civilization were destroyed in the Final Battle, replaced by piles of rotting corpses both human and alien. The scent of their blood, viscera and rot fills the air.  

As the setting sun turns the sky a violent, deep red, a lone figure breaks off from a tiny camp. Waving off his companions' protests, he turns somberly towards the heart of where the Battle took place. 

Dokjin Han, the strongest remaining Hero, roams listlessly among the rubble here, consumed by regrets and loss. His feet linger with every step, as if reluctant to move forward. His hair still matted with remnants of crusted blood, armor-rumpled clothes torn and stained with sweat, skin grimy from the labors of battle, Dokjin wanders the ever-denser field of the dead until he reaches a clearing. 

There, human and alien bodies alike had been swept away mid-battle by the most ferocious boss Earth had ever seen: Ragnarok. Named for its colossal size and previously undefeatable nature, Ragnarok was something like a gargantuan cross between a crocodile, an ox and a bear. For years, humans had fled in terror, trying to escape its notice while the Heroes prepared to fight it. It wasn't until the Final Battle that it was finally slain. Now, its lifeless form lays there abandoned, the largest monster corpse around.

Dokjin approaches it, then clambers up, using scales and fur as handholds to climb the colossal remains. Upon reaching the top, he pauses and tilts his head back, closing his eyes. Shudders of barely suppressed sobs cause him to fall to a crouch and grip the corpse for balance, head now hanging low. Trickling down onto his hanging forehead, tears leave clean tracks on his dirty skin before falling unnoticed to the corpse's surface. A bitter laugh escapes his lips. 

Opening his eyes and fixing his gaze up at the reddened sky, Dokjin mutters to himself in a hoarse voice, "Victors? Preposterous. If we had truly won this war, there would be people left to celebrate it. Heroes? Nonsense. Heroes succeed in time for their victories to mean something. But we..." He collapses into a sitting position, right leg extended down the side of the corpse, his left leg bent at an angle, supporting his elbow so his forehead could drop into his left hand. That hand moves up his scalp to clutch his hair in a tight grip and his face contorts into a sorrowful grimace. 

Some time passes as he continues to shake silently. Then he speaks to himself again, his voice now choked with emotion. "What did we even accomplish? Why did we bother to fight, if we couldn't survive after winning? It didn't even take a week for the survivors to dwindle to barely a dozen." 

As he sits there sobbing as quietly as he can manage, memories fill his mind and weigh down his heart. He sees the familiar figures of dear companions, once brimming with life and vigor, torn asunder by the voracious claws of alien beasts. He sees again the shocked and horrified faces of bystanders when he had to kill humans who had been controlled by alien parasites. More painful still, the face of his brother haunts him, half mutated into the face of a beast, crying and complaining about not wanting to gather sticks for the fire as he died unaware upon Dokjin's own blade. He witnesses the shadows of long-dead innocents devoured in front of him, the accusatory faces of endless civilians he had been too late to help, remembers the names of too many people he had failed to protect. All of them, now dead.

"It's too much!" He roars suddenly into the unanswering sky. "No one could have saved us! Why did they have to die? How could you!" Voice trembling, tears welling up once again, he curses the gods that abandoned them in a whisper, "How could you? ... You gave us false hope. And we only died more slowly because of that."

The sun continues to set, sending waves of darkness across the land as if in answer to Dokjin's accusatory words. He glares off into the distance, at a random pile of rubble. Then he is startled by the sight of a blur in his peripheral vision. Before he could rise to his feet, a powerful force slammed directly into the center of his chest, knocking him off his balance and sending him tumbling backwards down the side of the oversized alien corpse. 

His first thought was to attempt to control his roll down the corpse. He meant to then snap his senses to full alertness, to reach for the concealed dagger that he kept on him out of habit, to search for his attacker and dispose of them. But he found himself unable to do any of those things. Instead, a dominating presence encroached upon his mind, enveloping it entirely, muting his connection to his senses, dulling his perception of his body and even of his own identity. He didn't notice when his body stopped rolling and sprawled upside-down next to the corpse. He couldn't tell that his leg had been torn open on a protruding bone or that he had been concussed from landing on his head. All he knew in that moment was the overpowering, dominating, commanding presence that somehow drew his full, even eager, attention. 

No words were exchanged. No communication of any discernible form took place. Yet somehow, Dokjin -- no, Ael -- knew his new identity and purpose. The thought of this excited him, a refreshing emotion he supposed he must have forgotten. A purpose! Oh how thrilling this would be!