ACTs of Kindness (Susie x Reader)

Chapter 2: Friendship and Loneliness

Whereas monsters seem infinitely variable in form, descriptions of humans are incredibly consistent, suggesting relative uniformity. Ape-like bipeds, their average height was around 1.7 metres. Their skin ranged from pale pink to dark brown, their eyes could be shades of brown, blue, grey, or green, and their hair, limited mostly to the head, occurred in a variety of textures, lengths, and colours, sometimes altered artificially. They were highly sexually dimorphic compared to related species, with females usually smaller and less robust than males, and were noted to have extremely expressive faces and peerless manual dexterity, possessing four fingers and one opposable thumb on each hand. Their sensory abilities were overall average, their vision and hearing good but unremarkable, and their sense of smell poorly developed. As with non-sapient animals, their bodies were apparently composed of mundane matter, entirely non-magical. Despite this, a very small number are alleged to have been capable of using magic; what differentiated them is unknown, though as non-magical physiology would seemingly make this impossible, it may be evidence that hybridisation with monsters was possible. Humans were extremely social, living in large, complex communities of their own kind, but were generally reluctant to live in proximity to monsters and were prone to internal division. Despite this, their cultures tended to parallel those of monsters in the same region. They spoke many languages, but were limited to what their vocal mechanisms enabled them to pronounce. As with all vertebrates, humans contained a rigid endoskeleton; this bore an extreme resemblance to skeleton-type monsters; what connection may exist is unknown, compounded by the rarity of skeleton-type monsters making their origins difficult to study.

Though largely existing in separation, monster-human relations are believed to have been genuinely peaceful, and survivors of the Great Cataclysm remember fighting alongside them. The chaos of the event prevented any contemporary study of the situation or its immediate aftermath. It began with the appearance of "a golden bird with wings of fire" in the sky; some have interpreted this literally, understanding it as a colossal creature or monster such as a massive phoenix, while most speculate it to be a fanciful description of a large air or possibly even space vessel. Its appearance was followed shortly by worldwide attacks by an enemy described as living shadows, numbering possibly in the millions. These beings were said to be emotionless, merciless, silent, and invulnerable, inflicting mass casualties while themselves seeming impervious to harm. They were commonly clad in suits of armour beyond our level of technological sophistication; though the upper portion had the same proportions as most bipeds, they walked on four vaguely insectoid legs. Nothing else is known of them, as there was no means of subduing or peacefully interacting with them for purposes of study, and they disappeared just as completely as humans at the same time as them. Monsters and humans tried in futility to resist the enemy for almost exactly six full days and nights, until the Great Cataclysm ended suddenly. This event has been variously described as a pulse, a flash, a wave, or an echo, but the one consistent element of its description is that it was red. This was stated even by monsters who did not possess sight, and could not explain how they understood the concept of red. The "Red Flash," as it is popularly termed, dramatically and instantly changed the world, even apparently altering the past. Along with the shadowy enemy, all humans instantly vanished, along with their structures, writings, remains, contemporary depictions, and all other traces that they had existed, the sole exception being the memories monsters had of them. What did or did not disappear was oddly inconsistent; while anything directly attributable to human activity, referencing/depicting humans, or which could not occur without human involvement was erased, this is not the case for all events in which they were involved; for example, after the Red Flash, one monster was still wearing the hat a human had bought for them.

Occurring over a century ago, leaving no trace in its wake, and reshaping this world's past, present, and future, the events of the Great Cataclysm which wiped all of humanity from the planet's face is, and will undoubtedly remain, History's Greatest Mystery.