A new world

"...And the barriers crumbled," the elderly woman spoke softly but with great authority, "many died. But many more lived. And now there are those that were chosen by the Gods to keep us all safe and fight off the evils that the breaking of the dimensional barriers brought upon us." The woman took a deep breath. The children staring up at her were awed by her. She was the wrinkliest person they'd every seen...but she knew so many interesting things that they loved hearing her stories. They wriggled a bit in their seats, small heads upturned towards her, eyes wide, just waiting for her to continue.

"They fight to keep all of us safe. And when one dies, he or she is laid to rest with honor. These buildings," she gestured around her to the ravaged skyscrapers that they lived among, "are a memory of where we came from. Of what our society once achieved. Today we scavenge from them what useful things we can find, and when one falls, we go through the heaps of scraps to dig out the metals we cant scavenge until they fall," she pointed towards a fallen heap where men and women sorted through the rubble, "we find the metals and make the weapons. We find the wood and make the materials we now use for many other things. The cloth, if it's in good shape, becomes our clothing or our bedding. We survive, thrive, live and grow so that one day perhaps," she exhaled then inhaled, "we may become like our ancestors yet again. Though hopefully we will have learned from them as well. So we would not repeat their mistakes."