It's a monster," the young man said, his voice low and wavering. "A demon, a god of death." An old woman scoffed, squatting on a stool. Her frail-looking hands were working a grenade, twisting the seal at the bottom like the lid of a mason jar; it is as if she were preparing preserves and not artillery ammunition. "A god of death," she began, talking as if to herself. "I've seen death all my life. So has anyone my age. Would you like to know what death looks like, boy? What it smells like?" She placed the finished artillery shell in a neat row by her side and began working the next one, her eyes never leaving her tireless hands. The girl wondered how she could ever have thought them frail. "Death smells of piss and shit and it looks like people crying. It's like a new-born babe, filled with nature and life as it used to be. Before cities. Before civilization." She leaned down to add yet another finished grenade to the row before getting to work on the next. The girl felt a sudden craving for blackberry jam. "The Overseer isn't like that. It's not old, like death. It's new. It's man-made. It stinks of ozone." She paused, her gaze drifting onto the floor beyond her half-finished grenade as if lost in thought. "It's not a god of death," she finally uttered, barely above a whisper. The girl noticed a distinctly metallic taste in her mouth, like that of burning wire.
"It's a god of extinction."

- Philip H.F