One:The Bretton Extract
The Bretton Extract is all that remains of a larger text of unknown provenance. It was found in a pile of rubble after the small hamlet of Bretton was destroyed by one of the many temporal anomalies of the Excession Era. The Bretton Extract, written by hand in a jagged script, seems to describe the last days of the village from the perspective of the author. More information is unknown, though the author makes some references to the then unstudied American Crow and the ancient city of Severance. The entire text of the Bretton Extract is as follows. [Ellipses denote damaged or indecipherable lettering]
“. . . take the hand of God and walk with him through . . . she doesn't answer me anymore. I strike my fist on the wall and it shatters, bone and skin like glass. Our bodies are turned brittle, we are afraid to touch for fear of losing more of our delicate selves. Corpses turn to dust and the black birds only laugh at us. When we try to hide from the bruising wind, they harass us, stabbing beaks . . . we should never have made the journey to Severance. We should never have brought it back home. . .”
