Vitae Furari.

Unearthly creatures that came beyond the skies.

They were not the divine beings that many would make beings from above to be. No, they were creatures that consumed light and terrorised the lands on which they travelled. The Vitae did not simply destroy; they had a hunger for one thing. Human life. Not just a human's body, their whole essence, the soul that tied the person to the earth's core. An essence must be consumed by the Furari to remain tethered to the core. Without a human soul, their bodily vessel will cease to exist and return to the stars.

For years they plagued the earth, wreaking havoc and encasing wherever they roamed in darkness.

Until,

blinding lights shot out from the very earth, a light that the even the Vitae Furari could not extinguish. From it, was born godlike figures.

No-one knows how they came to exist, only that an era of terror was soon to be over.

The guardians were believed to be sent from the skies, for the Gods had taken pity on their suffering. Others presumed it was the earths hope and desperation given form. The light deities came to restore peace to a world who thought it would never see the sun again. The Vitae crumbled and feared their power, fleeing whenever they saw a glint of their glow.

They were titled the Keepers of Light, Saviours against the creatures of darkness. The Keepers were worshipped and rid of any Vitae that dared to come upon soil.

A select few questioned whether their intentions were what they seemed. They began to question the purity of the Keepers.

The Keepers Do Not Keep Us Safe.

Ferry walked past the poster wheatpasted to the lamppost, its red text set bold against a stylized depiction of the Keeper's uniforms in black, blocking out the bright faces of the populace like Vitae Furari eating light, and laughed, shifting the bag on her back like a weight. She made a mental note to circle back on her way home from school and rip the thing down, or at least paint over it, or tell her brother. She checked her phone, five minutes out from where her class was waiting to pick her up for the field trip, the Light War History Museum. She had been thinking about it for years, ever since Thom had married Manon, a Keeper herself, a demi-god born from light itself, with falling waves of blonde hair and skin like lily-petals. She had let Ferry hold her gun once, a small handheld machine crafted from quartz and steel, shooting beams of light string enough to bleach the tarmac on which one stood. Ferry had spent an age admiring Manon's uniform, a structured jacket with pale green panels and ivory webbing, sleeves soft and floaty.

The bus was already idling by the school gates when Ferry arrived, its windows fogged with the breath of thirty over-excited fifteen-year-olds. Ms. Aldric stood at the door with a clipboard, ticking off names, her Keeper-issue lanyard catching the morning light. Every teacher wore one now, a small brass pin shaped like a sunburst, proof of loyalty.

"Cutting it fine, Ferry."

"Sorry, Miss." Ferry hopped up the steps, scanning for a seat. Priya waved her over, and she dropped into the space beside her, bag wedged between her knees.

The museum rose at the end of the boulevard, white stone veined faintly gold. Along its façade, seven statues stood in the alcoves: the First Keepers, each rendered in marble so pale it verged on translucent, hair carved into frozen ripples, robes falling in perfect, wind-struck folds. Inside, the Great Hall opened up into a vaulted ceiling painted with the Night of First Light, the Vitae rendered as formless smears of oil-black, crowding in from every corner of the mural toward a single point of white radiance at its center, where seven figures stood back to back, hands raised, faces serene even as the darkness reached for them. They moved in a loose clump behind Ms. Aldric through the Hall of the Reclamation. Display cases of scorched earth samples lined every wall, a Vitae's "husk," which was really just a preserved shadow pinned under glass like a moth, curling in on itself even in death. A placard beside it read: Recovered from the Ashford Cull, Year 3 of the Restoration. Note the residual darkness: even in destruction, the creature resists purification.

"Manon's division cleared six of these last spring," she told Priya. "She said some of them don't even fight back near the end."

Priya only looked at her feet. "Was it in the Hollow District?"

Ferry paused. "Yeah. Where else still has Vitae?"

"My brother was there," Priya explained as they rounded the corner into the final gallery, the Hollow District exhibit, a scale model of the district under a soft red observation lamp. The model showed narrow streets, low buildings, laundry lines strung between windows.

"Why's it red in here?" someone near the front asked.

Ms. Aldric's smile didn't move. "The Hollow District has historically shown higher instances of Vitae activity. The lighting helps visitors understand the district's unique challenges."

Priya pressed her hand to the glass, finger hovering over a narrow alleyway where miniature figures, rendered in the same brown skin as Priya's, stood outside a small café. "He worked there."

Ferry read the sign. Ashford Coffee, it read. She faintly remembered Manon returning last spring, holding a latte cup with the same logo.