It’s taken me days to put this together.


    Not just random bits of trivia or desperate arguments—no, this is airtight. Bulletproof. If Vaurun walks away from this still thinking humans deserve to be wiped out, then maybe we really are doomed.


    I take a breath, steady myself. The orphanage is quiet, lights out. It has been just me and my View, hours spent discussing, debating, refining this explanation with its Ai. Every angle covered, every flaw smoothed over.


    And now, Vaurun sits before me, impossibly still, his dark, armored form looming in the dim light. He wears my spare view, waiting for me to begin.


    “Alright,” I say, pulling up the first projection. A blue-and-green sphere appears in the air between us, rotating slowly.


    “This was Earth. The birthplace of humanity.”


    Vaurun doesn’t react. He will soon.


    I zoom in, the continents becoming clearer, cloud formations drifting across the surface.


    “We weren’t made. We weren’t engineered. We evolved—through pain, struggle, and survival, like any other creature. Our roots are deep, tangled with every species that ever walked or swam or flew. And for a time, we thrived.”


    I swipe. The image shifts. Earth’s colors dull. The blue fades. The land cracks. A new picture: an Earth covered in choking smog, oceans dark with rot, storms raging across continents.


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    “But then we destroyed our own home. Overpopulation, war, greed—we killed our cradle before we even left it. When the planet finally began to fail, we ran.”


    Another swipe. A cascade of images: spaceships breaking through the atmosphere, colonies forming on alien worlds, humans spreading like wildfire across the stars.


    “We adapted. We learned to live in places we were never meant to. Our bodies changed—some genetically, some through cybernetics. We mixed with new environments, new challenges. And yeah, we fought. We conquered. But we also built, created, explored.”


    I pause, meeting his gaze. He hasn’t looked away once.


    A good sign.


    I continue, shifting the projection to something else. Human anatomy. The biological quirks that make us different.


    “Our bones are built for endurance, not brute strength. Our muscles may be weak compared to yours, but they last—we can outrun almost anything over time. Our brains? Pattern-seeking, problem-solving. We don’t just survive. We adapt.”


    I tap the next slide. “And emotions? We aren’t just instinct. We feel. We love. We create music, art, stories. We—”


    A sound.


    A groggy mumble.


    I freeze.


    Footsteps shuffle just outside my door. Then—


    Zett stands in the doorway, covered in mud, hair tangled, blinking sluggishly like he just woke up from a coma.


    My breath catches. Three days. Three days he’s been missing.


    "Zett—?"


    He scratches his head, yawning. "Hungry."


    I almost pop my vein. "You—where the hell have you been?"


    He blinks at me. Then his gaze shifts past me.


    To Vaurun.


    I see it happen—the moment his sleep-addled brain registers the seven-foot warlord sitting in my bedroom.


    His whole body locks up. Eyes wide.


    I don’t breathe.


    And then—


    Zett takes a slow, careful step back.


    My stomach drops.


    Vaurun turns his head toward Zett, slow, horrifying.


    Silence...


    I have about three seconds before everything spirals out of control.