Chapter 11: Self Destruction (4)

1.

Huff

She hasn’t run like this in ages

Her robe is making her sweaty, breathing unsteady.

She used to run a lot when she was younger, but now age has got to her, her lavish lifestyle has made her incredibly unfit.

I ran on pure fear of what might’ve happened to my daughter.

Immy and Amelia arrived at the perimeter, it took some time.

What they both saw when they arrived at the perimeter was terrifying with or without context.

The whole forest park that leads to the town is being burnt down to the ground. The men are in full protective gear, something bad has definitely happened here.

They make their way through the perimeter but are stopped by a man in red knight's armour.

“Imogen Abel. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Fans, they are everywhere, she hates her fans.

Immy just walks by him, ignoring him.

Suddenly she can’t move a joint in her body.

“Where do you think you’re going? You can’t go inside of the exclusion zone, it’s dangerous for someone like you.”

The knight walks in front of her, since she can’t turn her neck to look at him.

“Is there anyone important within the perimeter we should know about?”

Immy doesn’t exactly know what is going on here, but answers truthfully, she has a hunch this had something to do with an unholy creature outbreak.

“My” huff “my daughter”

Immy’s exhaustion is catching up to her.

“Diana? The blessed disappointment? Oh sorry I didn’t mean to insult your child, that is just what she is known for. You understand.”

Immy didn't care for what labels Diana had, she just wanted Diana to have an easy life.

A time ago she used to force her to do things she didn’t like, like piano and reading.

But that always ended in someone dying, so she gave up trying to have Diana live a normal life.

He turns to the people who are burning the forest and the grass.

He shouts.

“The situation has changed. Go home.”

The men burning the trees swiftly make their exit.

He turns back to Immy.

“Your daughter is likely dead. I’ll let the higher ups know and we will try to keep her corpse intact when we kill the host she has become.”

He then walks away, probably to collect a team of talented blessed humans to take care of the situation quickly.

Immy is furious, not with him but with how bad this disaster was. She knows what monster they are dealing with now, she was the main researcher who studied these parasites.

Her mind is racing, trying to find blame and purpose.

How could I be so stupid? Letting my daughter go to a place like this? it’s because I trusted that monster to take care of her, if only he didn’t ask to do a fake rabbit hunt.

No, it’s not his fault… he was trying his best.

His body is probably a constant feeding source for these parasites now.

He is going to be a problem, the amount of sustenance from his body those worms will get from him will be a disaster within itself.

Not even considering that a blessed possibly became a host, my daughter…

Only twice before has a blessed person become a host to these parasites, both times it ended in tragedy.

But that was outside the cave, a disaster of this scale inside of the cave city has not yet been seen before.

There was nothing she could do but wonder what was happening in there.

She can move again, her joints hurts, what an interesting blessing. She hasn’t seen that one before, she was only interested in it for a second before snapping back to reality.

Amelia just stands near her uselessly and decides to ask.

“Are you okay?”

She is still here? Why did she even follow me? I forgot she was a good person, urgh annoying.

“I’m fine Amelia, go home. I’ll stay here.”

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“No I’ll stay with you, I know what its like to lose someone close to you.”

You DONT though, a brother is not at all similar to a daughter, and besides, your brother is basically alive.

“hahahaha”

Why am I laughing?

“Immy?”

Oh right, Amelia would hate me if she found out I was treating the corpse of her brother like a real person, which he basically is.

Just leave me alone. Leave me alone.

I’ll just tell her, I don’t care anymore.

“Your brother is in there.”

“Huh? My brother is dead Imogen, you know this.”

“He has your brother's memories. Remember when I asked you to recount that story?

The story about the day before the snow came, the person you captured recounted the exact same thing.

Whether you like it or not that is your brother.”

There, she probably hates me now and will leave me alone.

Amelia just stares into space, snapping out of it after 30 seconds.

“Fuck you.”

She runs the opposite direction.

Hah… peace and quiet. It’s not like anything matters anymore if my daughter is dead.

I wonder how Z is doing.

He is in agony right now probably.

Such a poor child. If he makes it out of here without my daughter though I’ll make him pay.

2.

The sounds of hosts tearing apart the building gets louder and louder.

They are just piling on top of each other, working as a unit to tear this place apart plank by plank.

The entire building is shaking, there’s not much time left.

“Do you think he is gonna fall Emily?”

My neck hurts from looking up at Z climbing the side of the cave. He looks so cool though, I wish I could do that, but I’d be too scared to go up that high.

He has shown me time and time again he is smart and reliable today, he might actually be able to teach me things.

I’ll have to reward him when he comes back.

I turn to see Emily, who seems to just be sitting on the only flat part of the roof, looking down.

Emily didn’t respond to my question

Why is she still sulking. It’s going to be a lot harder than I thought to make her forgive me, teach said if I just do nice things Emily will stop being so mean. I trust him.

“I unfire you Emily.”

I’m trying to coax any reaction out of her, I just want forgiveness, if I can get forgiveness I will stop feeling the pain in my heart.

“And... and I’ll revive your mom, I’ll figure out how to make her alive again!”

Emily continues to look down.

Is this offer not enough for you?

“If me and my mom work together, we can find a way to bring her back, she will be so much cooler than before, then it’ll all be okay?”

Diana begins to hear crying, why was she crying? I just promised to make her mom alive again, they must’ve been tears of joy, yes!

“After we get out of this Emily, I’ll work my hardest to bring her back, and… and I’ll take her piano lessons, and get really really good.”

I’m doing it! She will surely forgive me.

I walk up to Emily, and squat down next to her.

My hand reaches for her hair, I’m going to play with it like my mother does to me when I am sad.

A hand stops me though, hitting mine away.

Emily is looking at me with pure rage in her eyes.

“Get the fuck away from me.”

What?? She is mad? Why? Does she not want her mom back?

“Do you not want your mom back?”

Emily looks at me disgusted and confused.

“You can’t...”

A loud cracking noise interrupts her, the crystal above them sounds like it’s breaking from the inside.

I sit down next to her.

“Why are you mad? Genuinely tell me.”

“You… My mom is dead, stop bringing it up, you can’t revive dead people.”

Yes I knew that, obviously. I was hoping you would believe me though…

“What do you want me to do then Emily?”

Emily is still staring into her eyes.

“K..kil-“

She stops and takes a deep breath, it seems like she was going to say something really bad.

“Stop hurting people, stop killing everyone I meet.”

Why do you care? Why do you care about the people that don’t matter. I understand you not liking me for hurting your mom but the other people I hurt had it coming and they shouldn’t matter to you.

They should not matter to you Emily. Why don’t you see that?

Fine.

The sounds of cracking echo, the crystal is almost completely broken.

3.

Holly and Sophie are sitting on the top of an unburnt building, doing nothing.

“Oh! I see something!”

Sophie looks at Holly.

“What is it?”

Holly has great eyesight, like an eagle, so she can see exactly where and who everyone is.

It’s not even apart of her blessing she just naturally has great eyesight.

“I see… Diana, the maid and Z!!!”

She watches Z get thrown to the cave wall.

“Woahhh look how high up Z is going”

Sophie and Holly are watching the scene from a distance.

Sophie is shocked but manages to ask.

“So Diana’s alive right?”

“Yep! On the roof, safe and sound, for now.”

“Who is Z though?”

“My friend, he is Diana’s new tutor. He is climbing the edge of the cave wall. Hahaha he is bald, when did that happen?”

“Friend?”

Most people don’t like to be friends with holly because of her past, Holly for some reason is considered a demon by most people.

If Z is Holly’s friend, then I’m Z’s friend.

“Wait climbing the cave wall? What for?”

“No clue.”

Holly begins to hum a song, just saying Z over and over again.

Around 5 minutes pass with no updates from Holly, Sophie could barely see into the distance, the house is so tiny from where they were.

Then a cracking sound, it was loud, came from the crystal Z climbed onto.

Oh so that’s the plan.

Sophie figured it out

“Hey Holly? Do you think you could make a jump to the house from the bottom of the field?”

“Yeah, but what for? I could probably get up on that roof but there’s no way I can carry them back without landing into the group of hosts.”

“Well… I think that Z person is going to drop that huge crystal onto everyone.”

“Oh!! That’s so cool, alright yeah I’ll get up there, and… then what?”

“Considering Diana’s blessing. I’m guessing she can use it defensively, but I doubt she can jump that far out of the way of the impact.

You can jump far though.”

Holly’s eyes shine at the praise she was given.

“You’re so right sis. I CAN jump far, watch me”

“Wait I haven’t explai-“

She is gone, Holly made her way down to the field, all of the hosts are clumped close and tearing apart the baker's estate. So the rest of the field was empty.

4.

Holly is running through the field, the overgrown grass makes it difficult to spot the parasites and hosts, she wasn’t worried at all.

She is incredibly talented at dodging.

The entire colony seems to be breaking apart the Baker’s estate, luckily the building was built to last so even with thousands of bodies smashing into it was hard to make a dent.

Although the building did look like it was on its last legs.

She easily jumps over the colony of hosts without being spotted, landing right in front of Emily and Diana.

Diana is crying, and so is Emily.

She assumes they are crying due to the situation they are in, not because they had a fight.

“You two must be so scared, it’s okay now I’m here!”

She gains the attention of Diana.

“What are you doing here?”

Not a warm welcome.

Diana likes Holly the most, so this reaction was a bit weird, she would usually be excited to see her.

Holly did want to ask one thing to her though, about Z’s plan.

“I see Z is up there, breaking that crystal, I wonder how he will get down safely?”

“He won’t! He is falling with the crystal.”

“That’ll kill him though?”

She is surprised at Z’s bravery, and the fact that he was going to do a sacrifice made her heart flutter a bit. He is like a hero now in her eyes.

Holly loves to read books about hero’s saving the damsel in distress, Holly always wanted to be saved when she was younger, saved from her parents, maybe if Z didn’t die here he would sacrifice himself for her.

She accepted his wishes of dying for Emily and Diana, although she is sad about not getting to know him better.

Diana just blurts out

“He can’t die. So it’s okay.”

“What?”

The crystal fully breaks, a huge shard begins to fall.

Holly quickly moves into action; she grabs Diana and Emily in each arm and jumps.

“DIANA ACTIVATE YOUR HAIR THING”

Holly shouts.

The sounds of glass shattering is all they could hear as white strands cover them in a sphere.

It was loud. Incredibly loud.

Holly could feel her body being hit by a shockwave, hurting her back and shooting her further forward.

The sound of crashing makes her ears feel like they are about to rupture.

Rubble and shards fly into the hair but swiftly get cut, some make it through and stab Holly as she holds the two girls close with her body, becoming an extra shield.

They land, the ground doesn’t feel like grass anymore it feels like rock.

Its like they’re in the middle of a hurricane, she can barely stand on the ground.

She twists her body to plant itself in the rubble while also protecting the two girls from passing shrapnel that made it through the hair defence, crystals slice her legs and arms.

This is the first time Holly has gotten hurt, she will have scars after this, making her more of a freak in her mind.

5.

Falling, falling.

I had covered my hands in the glistening blue snow, it quickly super heated and melted my entire hand, but would also melt the crystal, it cracked ever so slightly each time.

I did this over and over again. And now.

I’m falling.

My body is being chucked around like a rag doll. I can’t see anything but dust and shrapnel.

I sometimes lost my entire head when a rock smashed into me, then it’d grow back again. The feeling of nothingness was bliss.

This was probably what hell felt like.

Eventually everything settled, dust still covering the air, nothing was visible except for my body.

The crystal should’ve destroyed half of the huge field.

The damage might’ve even reached the town, although the town was already basically in ruin already.

I finally landed, with a big crunch sound.

Ow.

The ground was rocky, and sharp, just walking on it cut my feet, but I needed to make my way out to see if Diana and Emily are okay.

Why don’t I ever think about myself? It’s fine don’t worry, it’s fine I’m fine now. The situation is over.

I feel like I’ve dissociated from this whole day now, I went through unbelievable pain just to get everyone out alive.

Walking again after being flung around was actually nice.

No clothes again, they were destroyed in the impact.

There was a lot of shattered crystal on the floor, making my feet bleed then heal then bleed then heal.

Eventually I got used to it, it just felt like I was being tickled, in comparison to what I’ve been through today. This was nothing.

Eventually I get out of the huge dust cloud, I can finally breath, I saw a person in front of me. Leading a group of people.

I shout out.

“HEY!”

Silence filled the air.

The man in front of me takes his red helmet off, which went well with his red knight's armour, it really sticks out.

He looked calm and collected, an unnerving emotion to feel in this sort of destruction.

End of chapter 11.