Anne was born in a medium size town of roughly 100 thousand inhabitants called Largen. Despite having gone out of the city on multiple occasions she had never been further away than the nearest village, a few kilometers out. Born as the daughter of a small merchant family, she was able to live a carefree childhood until the day her father and mother ran away leaving her and her brother behind. It turned out that her parents were riddled with debt, causing them to make the tough decision of abandoning their own kids to escape. However, in a weird act of kindness they decided to leave their house behind for them instead of selling it. Ever since then Anne and her brother hd been under constant harassment from the debt collectors. Every week or so they would show up at their door and force them to pay a fee.
The thing was that the fee did not contribute towards the debt, it was an ‘extension fee’ delaying the time until which their belongings would be forcibly seized. The fee itself was exorbitant, despite Anne’s hard work she could barely manage to pay it every week. She had considered not paying it previously however the collector was always accompanied by a bodyguard and an arcanist. If she even dared resist, she would be instantly turned into ash. Running away with her brother was not an option either, he was far too young to travel, moreover the Wild continent was far too dangerous to risk leaving the city without a solid plan.
Therefore, she was left with no other option than give up all her hard-earned money each week. Being barely able to feed her brother and much less herself. Due to this she was slightly malnourished, despite this she was still rather charming. Her height was average, and she had rough long blond hair that complimented her deep blue eyes. Her face had rather gentle and refined features, creating a charming look. Despite the dirty clothes and the dusty face, an aura of happiness radiated from her with an always kind smile on her lips.
Even though she was heavily in debt because of her parents, she still tried her best to provide for her younger brother Thomas who had just reached the age of 14. She herself had also recently turned 18. Anne worked three different jobs leaving early in the morning and coming back late at night. Despite being extremely exhausted by this schedule she always maintained a smile on her face to avoid worrying her brother.
One day as she was returning home late at night from her waitress job at one of the local taverns, she saw the door to her house left open. She felt something was deeply wrong. One of the rules she had enforced with Thomas was to never leave the door unlocked, since many dangerous individuals lurk within Largen. Her pace quickened as she hurried towards her home.
“Thomas?!?” she shouted out “Are you here!?!”
No replies were heard, the house was silent. By this point Anne was extremely worried and imagined the worst, her brother could have been killed by robbers! She rushed into the house and searched every room frantically; Thomas was nowhere to be found. The house on the other hand had clearly been ransacked, broken furniture was everywhere, drawers were opened, their contented either stolen or thrown on the ground. Most valuable items in her possession were missing. However, one area had been left untouched, that was the dining table. On the table was a message that seemed to have been carved using a knife. The message read ‘If u kare for yur bros lif, com to the wel in the forest at midnite’.
She was furious. Somebody had broken into her house, stole her belongings and actually kidnaped her little brother! Although she did not have a watch as she was far too poor to own one. She could tell by looking at the moon that she did not have much time before the meeting.
Within seconds she was running as fast as she could, stumbling occasionally. She tripped and fell, some of the skin on her hands and knees had been ripped off, but despite the pain she stood up and kept running. She arrived at the city wall and headed for a bush then moved it aside. The bush revealed a crack in the wall that she had accidentally discovered while playing as a kid. Due to her slender physique, she easily shuffled within the crack and made her way through. The throbbing pain in her hands and knees did not make the task any easier.
After a few more minutes of frantic running, Anne finally arrived at the well. The well itself had been used extensively however it no longer retained the glory from its former days, it was broken and covered with moss giving it an eerie vibe.
Out of the shadows stepped out four figures. The one at the front was a short and chubby man with a bald head and an evil grin on his face. His clothes looked expensive and immaculate; it would probably have taken Anne a year of saving to be able to afford them. He was followed by two large evil looking individuals one of which seemed to be a low ranking arcanist. Arcanists were powerful beings that studied the science of magic, this led them to be widely respected and commonly employed by wealthy individuals. Even the lowest ranked arcanists were paid enough to only need to work once a year. The other man was holding a smaller figure that quickly revealed itself to be Thomas.
“Anne!!” Thomas exclaimed.
“Thomas! Are you okay?” She replied trying to sound confident despite the shake in her voice betraying her anger and fear.
“We meet again.” The chubby man spoke.
This was Todd, the debt collector in charge of making sure that Anne would pay her parent’s debts back. His underhanded methods to collect money had earned him an unpleasant reputation within Largen. However, due to his large wealth he was able to bribe the local authorities, allowing him to get away from most of his crimes with little to no repercussions.
“I dropped by your house earlier today to collect this week’s payment, however, I seemed to have missed you. Therefore, I took the liberty to take a little insurance with me.”
Anne was fuming, she had already paid for this week’s payment, but this obviously wasn’t enough for this greedy pig. She knew from the beginning that he was eyeing her, despite being malnourished, she was sure she would fetch a good price on the slave market. What would happen to her if this actually happened was a thing she would rather not think about. By pretending she missed payment Todd was able to ‘legally’ seize her belongings including herself. However, there was nothing she could do about it, in this world, those with power could do whatever they wanted.
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“What do you want?” Anne replied as if spewing venom.
“A fair trade. That’s all. Your life for his.” He said with a sly grin on his face while pointing at the boy.
Anne paled; this was the worst-case scenario she could have imagined. As she was a bout to take a step forward to proceed with the trade, a loud and unnatural roar originating from their left was heard.
“Zombies?!” The alarmed arcanist yelled.
“What the hell are zombies doing here? Shouldn’t have all zombies near Largen been exterminated a while ago?” The short chubby man asked as large beads of sweats started rolling down his bald head.
“Retreat immediately!” He yelled.
However, it was too late. By the time he had yelled out the zombies were already on top of them. Luckily there was only three of them, it was possible for huge hordes to appear sometimes with numbers in the upper hundreds of thousands. These zombies had chunks of flesh missing from their bodies and had a strong stench lingering around them. Their eyes expresses no emotions except a wild and uncontrolled desire for flesh to feast on.
Alongside humans, zombies were the other predominant race in the Arcane World. Zombies were arcane creature that been present for as long as anyone could remember. They spread predominantly by infecting humans and then letting the disease kill them following which they would revive as zombies. From what Anne knew about zombies they were split into different ‘strands’ each having their own characteristics. However, what really stood out about strands is that they were similar to a hive mind, within every strand of zombies was a core zombie that could control all others from its strand. The core zombie was the first individual the strand had infected, these individuals were commonly referred to as patient zeros. If the core zombie was killed, then that specific strand would die. As for how new strands were born, nobody really knew.
Two of the zombies had made their way towards Todd’s group. However, one was headed for Anne. Despite being dead, this zombie was surprisingly fast, having reached Anne in only a couple of seconds. Without warning it lunged at her, narrowly missing her. As Anne dodged the zombie she tripped on a branch and face planted headfirst. The zombie did not miss that opportunity, and in a fraction of a second it was on top of her trying to bite her neck. Anne narrowly managed to block the bite at the cost of her own left arm. She knew she was in deep trouble, unless an arcanist used a spell to heal the infection originating from a bite, it would always kill its host and then turn them into a zombie. In a last attempt for survival, she drew a knife from her waist that she carried in case of emergencies and repeatedly stabbed the zombie through the head.
The zombie slowly stopped moving, luckily zombie’s weak spots were their head. Rotting blood and chunks of flesh were dripping all over her face, however this was better than simply being killed.
She looked up and saw the men struggling with the zombies near the well. Todd was at the back with the boy while the other two men were dealing with the zombies. The arcanist seemed to be casting a spell with strange glowing runes forming a weird formation in mid-air while the other man was delaying the zombies. However, the man made a mistake and got bitten by one of the zombies, this caused him to fall on the ground where he was at their mercy. At this moment a bright red glow originating from the runes appeared followed by a shout from the arcanist.
“Lesser fireball!”
A fireball of roughly one meter in diameter shot out at high velocity from the runes towards the zombies that were still feasting on the man. In a bright explosion the zombies were instantly reduced to ash, including the unlucky fellow. The arcanist relaxed only to suddenly yell out in pain. Another zombie had actually sneaked around the clearing to attack him from behind, ripping a huge chunk of flesh from his neck with its teeth. The man fell while holding his wound with a shocked expression on his face.
However, seemingly having learnt from the others' mistakes the zombie did not proceed to feast on the corpse, and instead turned around to face Todd and Thomas. Todd took a step back, clearly frightened by the zombie. He took out a concealed gun from his clothes and aimed it at the zombie.
“S-stay away! Or I-I’ll shoot!” He yelled out frightened.
Suddenly a sly smile appeared on his face as he thought of a great idea. He suddenly and violently kicked Thomas towards the zombie to use him as bait.
“NOOOOOOO!!” yelled out Anne.
However, the fat man paid her no mind and watched as the zombie jumped at Thomas and instantly tore a huge chunk of flesh from his shoulder. Thomas’ screams of despair slowly got quieter as Anne was left sobbing on the ground since she did not even get a chance to save him.
As the zombie was about to get up and face Todd, a loud bang resounded within the clearing. A hole the size of a coin had appeared in the zombie’s head, the bullet seemed to have bulldozed right through the decaying flesh. The zombie’s corpse quietly slumped on the ground as the fat man reloaded his gun. He then aimed it at Thomas’ head and emptied the chamber. He slowly walked toward the arcanist and repeated the process, his actions carrying a cold and otherworldly vibe to them. As if these movement had been repeated countless times before.
Anne was still on the ground as her tears slowly turned into a raging fire within her soul. He brother’s murder had broken something within her. All these repressed emotions she had built up within her for all these years by pretending everything was fine had suddenly been let loose. Her hatred for her cowardly parents and for Todd exceeded anything she had ever experienced before. The pain in her wounds gradually disappeared as she stood up and charged at Todd. On the other hand, Todd had seen this coming, he had already reloaded his gun and aimed at her.
BANG!!
He had slightly missed and hit Anne’s right shoulder. Not feeling the pain Anne kept charging at him. A worried expression suddenly took over the chubby man’s face as he hurriedly reloaded his gun. However, it was too late, Anne had already reached him. A hand covered in rotten flesh carrying Anne’s vengeance and last effort swiftly made its way towards Todd’s throat. Narrowly missing him, or so he thought, she had in fact managed to scratch him. Anne’s legs gave up beneath her as the infection slowly burned her life force away. The chubby man was holding his throat in terror as he looked at Anne grinning at him. He was now infected. Without a second glance he shot her and made his way towards the city as fast as his unfit body could allow him since his only chance of survival lied with the arcanist there.
In his rush Todd made one fatal mistake, although he had killed Anne, he had shot her through the heart. As Anne’s life left her body, a new one took its place. However, it was different from that of normal zombie’s. This new life was forged within the raging inferno of her fury and carried her last dying will. Although it was yet unknown to all, this new life was going to bring huge changes to the Arcane world.