The days had worn into weeks which had stretched and seethed into unending months. From the day the first Overlords had arrived, death reigned supreme on Othus Prime IX.

The Overlords brought with them their magic and their fury. Inhuman machines gifted human souls reaped their blood-soaked vengeance on a planet that had committed no sin against them.

Some would say it had been a long year, but Evelyn felt it the sludgy drag of multiple lifetimes. From her place in the bowels of the Pit, deep under the affluence of NeoTokyo, everything seemed mired in its own existence. Nothing and no one had a vision beyond themselves. Sitting on her chair, between shows, Evelyn wondered what she was doing there. She wondered what she had ever been doing there.

Taking a drag on a tobacco smoke, one of the most illegal substances in the sprawling metropolis, it all came crashing down on her. The voices and noise in the club receded as her mind rushed out of itself. She felt like reality was being sucked out of her through a vortex in the centre of her being. She almost dropped the expensive smoke she was enjoying up to that moment. Reaching out a long-fingered hand, she steadied herself on the bar.