IN;T_RU.S

"Make ready!" A commanding bellow signaled the Stravia festival's commencement, echoes surging through the night sky for the year's only celebration of survival instinct. A row of kempt warriors, dressed for battle with light armor and clothing, were armed to the brim with an arsenal of blades, explosives, and survival gear. They firmly stood their ground, facing the citizens of Stravia, seated neatly in rows and columns. Everyone from the village had come to watch as yearly routine, as tradition blessed them with faith instead of fear, hoping that the infectious torment in SIGMA would not punish them for their loss of hope.

"Blades!" The commanding soldier bellowed once more, thrusting his sword into the air to signal a rally. The row of warriors followed soon after, positioned on top of a stage with a crimson curtain shrouding the mysteries behind. A massive towering building, set behind the stage, was primarily used for the yearly festival for storage and practice.

Children swiftly scurried to their parents, while several delinquents chose to watch from the trees above. Servants and volunteers passed out the traditional meal to all those who paid in Quin, their monetary currency. It was a rice bowl filled to the brim with prime steak and shredded lettuce, and it was considered a delicacy among all.

"Begin!" The soldier cried, and the row of soldiers shouted in victory in unison. The crowd's energy arose with their eyes and fists invigorated, hoping to witness their yearly tradition in action after the chaos intertwined in their lives.

The soldiers dispersed, cut in between as the curtains unfolded. The master of ceremonies, a formally dressed man with slicked back black hair and blue eyes, entered the stage with a bright and natural grin adorned on his face. "Come one, come all!" His gallant voice began the sung praise. "Stravia! Stravia! We honor you, our Gloria!"

The crowd sang along with the master, placing their palms together in respect and honor. As they continued, Cethe snuck into the back row of the seated citizens, scooting with Damian hoping that there would be an alternative plan to rally the people to trust in Elaina. She sighed, believing that their efforts would be for naught, and the yearly tradition would commence the same way as it always had.

"For each and every one-" The master continued.

"We shall never shun-" The crowd sang soon after to finish his sentence.

Cethe remained silent as Damian sang along, hand held tightly with his sister. Alfaic was nowhere to be seen, she noticed, but disregarded it, as if a flying sentient sword would show itself in public for instant attention.

"Gloria! Gloria! Glory to Stravia!" The master finished, and bombastic streams of light and confetti exploded, vibrantly decorating the festival grounds with an exciting bang. The master chuckled as he placed his left hand on his chest. "Hahaha! People of Stravia, what an excellent sight it is to behold! The glory of tradition with what little hope we have left always brings a smile to my face. What it is a sight to behold, humanity clinging onto what we hold dear. And as you all know, our yearly tradition is for us to celebrate life instead of becoming victims in death."

Murmurs around Cethe began to attract her attention away from the master on stage. She could not quite make out what they were saying with the rise of attention in the front of the stage, but the positive tone of their voices indicated that something about master of ceremonies enthralled them with excitement. Cethe took a swift look, and realized that the one on the stage was not the same master who had always took part in hosting the festival; it was a completely different person.

"As always, we begin our festival with the honoring of our noble warriors," The master continued. "The barracks of Stravia are lined up with our finest men and women, and they are all ready for battle against the infected creatures that roam our lands. This is where I must depart, but my departure signals the rise of tradition holding us ever-so slightly tighter in its stead. Please welcome, our noble warriors, led by our commander, Lord Belum!"

The crowd cheered in unison as the curtains unfolded. The master of ceremonies smugly smiled as he vanished within the curtains, and the Stravian warriors lined up in orderly fashion before moving out to face the stage. The warriors, armed with spears and shields like a royal phalanx, saluted their Lord Belum... whom never arrived.

Silence and confusion stirred and riled the festival. Murmurs and laughter soon erupted after, leaving the soldiers embarrassed without their leader to lead their routine. Cethe, who was not one of these individuals who laughed at their failure, came to notice the crowd's peculiar behavior. She looked at Damian, who had also been laughing in unison with the crowd at the warriors.

"These people are never like this..." Cethe whispered, uncomfortable from the crowd's behavior. She took a quick peek around her surroundings to search for her family. She bent down to face Damian. "I'm going to find Mother and Father. Damian. Damian!" She shook him and forcefully turned her younger brother to face him.

"Huh?" Damian muttered.

"Would you please listen? I don't see Mother or Father. I think they're buying food right now, but I don't know yet. They're supposed to be here. I'll go find them, so please just stay here and behave, okay?"

Damian nodded and faced the stage again.

Cethe slipped past the back row and rushed back to home to find her family. Her spirits were lifted as she found the lights from inside turned on, believing that they were getting ready to leave. Opening the door, a peculiar waft of scented roses entered her nostrils, curling her eyebrows in confusion. After taking a single step forward, her brown shoes had been encased in a viscous silver dew, alerting her to the breaking point.

"Mother?! Father!? Are you in here!?" Cethe called, stepping through the swampy terrain in her house. She made way for the only room lit, which was the kitchen. With each subsequent movement of her foot, a searing pain encompassed her lower body. Fiery pain struck her feet, forcing her to leap through it all. She took a quick glance at her feet and her shins, discovering that her skin was melting off from the silver dew little by little.

Cethe screamed in agonizing pain as she nearly collapsed on top of a puddle, but she pushed herself through the pain of it all to enter the kitchen. She caught her mother faced the opposite way chopping vegetables with her knife, but a menacing presence was all that Cethe could sense in her wake. It was an invisible aura, a scent, a taste, a pain that she had never sensed before, and it led to her believing that cruelty struck tradition tonight.

"Mother?! Are you okay!?" Cethe gasped for air as she could not stand the burning sensation any longer. She moved closer to her mother, and with a closer examination of her surroundings, she knew what was wrong. Cethe was unable to see her mother's face, but the source of the brimming viscous silver liquid dripped from where her mother's mouth would be. The lack of pain from her mother standing within the liquid indicated something terrifyingly was about to happen.

"Cethe, darling?" Her mother called. "The festival is starting in a few minutes! We need your help in catching your brother, your father went off to find him on his own!"

"What?" Cethe voiced out. She had found her brother earlier. "What are you talking about? Mother, what's going on? My feet are burning, and-"

"Cethe, darling?" Her mother repeated again as she cut the vegetables. "The festival is starting in a few minutes! We need your help in catching your brother, your father went off to find him on his own!"

"You already said that..." Cethe voiced out amidst all the pain. She moved closer and placed her palm on her mother's shoulder, pulling her toward her to save her from the burning dew. But Cethe yelped in utter terror at the monstrosity that possessed her once lively mother, collapsing on top of the searing dew with her arms enveloped within.

"Cethe... daRLInG..." Her mother's broken voice box churned with blood, bubbling within her throat. Her mother's robotic movement was the first indication that she was no longer human. Yet her recognizable human facial and bodily features had been dramatically shifted to resemble a mimic pretending to be her. Flesh and bone revealed itself as her mother's face tore itself open. A bloody tentacle pierced through her mother's mouth as her skin melted, revealing a rotten and pungent scent from within. Monstrous squealing and screeching soon followed as she approached Cethe, hoping to devour her successfully.

Cethe held in her bitter tears as she sprinted as fast as she could to the door, despite the burning dew slowing her down. The tentacle from her mother's mouth managed to lash out and strike Cethe's shoulder, penetrating through with unbelievable force. Cethe ignored it as the pain from the other parts of her body were much greater, but realized blood was leaking out of her body.

Before she knew it, Cethe was unable to open the door with her dysfunctional hand. The tentacle severed all nerves in her arm and paralyzed it entirely. She turned around and begged with her cries. "A dream! This is all a dream! Mother! This is all just a dream!" She hoped to convince herself.

But no shred of humanity remained in the empty husk of her mother. The rotten and infected beast yearned for nothing but an appetite.

In her panicked and pained state, as she bled out, she hallucinated a towering figure hidden in the shadows behind her mother, grinning at her with malicious intent. The figure resembled the master of ceremonies, using the same smug expression as he did on stage. A single blink of her eye made the master vanish, and her mother drawing closer and closer.

As her mother's tentacle lashed out, a swift slice from nowhere decapitated the monstrous creature, leaving her head to dissolve in the acid-like dew. Her mother's neck spewed fountain-like blood all over Cethe's face, leaving her to close her eyes as the door unlocked itself after pressing her back against it. Cethe cried in desperation and pure anxiety, as watching her mother perish into a corpse was too much for her to handle.

Cethe rolled around the pavement outside her house, collapsing in terror and agony. Lyn, who had been the one to deliver the killing blow to the rotten monstrosity that was Cethe's mother, approached her with Alfaic wielded in her right hand. She grabbed Cethe's arm and pulled her close, examining her weakened state.

"I..." Cethe cried. "I really did open Pandora's Box..."

Lyn released Cethe with a blank and emotionless stare. She turned to face the crowd, now being attacked by the rotten infected creatures she encountered at the fire station. Perilous screams followed by the distinct shrill cries of the villagers being devoured soon followed. The Stravian warriors tried their absolute hardest to fend off the incoming onslaught, but none of them were powerful enough to save the townspeople, let alone themselves.

As Lyn slowly approached the festival crowd, the combination of the slaughterhouse of civilians and Cethe's injuries were enough to stir her automaton-like heart into unbridled rage. Alfaic witnessed Lyn's irises dilating and scowling at the rotten creatures. She shot her left hand out toward Cethe's house as she moved and the shimmering golden blade of Relámpago launched out of the house and into her grasp. Dual-wielding both blades, Lyn stepped in closer to annihilate the entire infectious swarm before more damage was caused.

"I knew... it..." Cethe whispered before she collapsed from exhaustion and her loss of blood.

As the infectious creatures finished devouring two of the village's warriors, their eyes were set entirely on Lyn's menacing approach. Their jaws snapped wide open, revealing their acidic worm-like parasite ready to snatch for her at any time. As the swarm began to gather around Lyn, she gripped Alfaic and Relámpago tightly by the handle and unleashed a flurry of rapid slices through the ambush.

Acidic blood and guts splattered around the once peaceful village and onto Lyn's futuristic armor. There was no pain. No remorse. After slicing through the infectious creatures, Lyn bolted forward in a speedy flash of blazing lightning, utilizing the legendary Relámpago's lightning enchanted edge to punish the infectious creatures with a single wide slash.

Multiple flashes commenced with Lyn defying speed, decapitating multiple infected while the remaining villagers attempted to flee. As another singular creature chased the crowd, Lyn dashed forward at lightning speed once more, piercing the creature from the back and carrying it through the village's houses. She slammed through, house by house, until she completely decimated the corpse to pieces.

Lyn backtracked once more to the stage, catching the infected creatures midway as they attempted to devour the crowd. Lyn elegantly spun around in a spiral as Alfaic and Relámpago rotated around her like the orbit of a sacred planet, slicing through the creatures. A final spin from Lyn resulted in her snatching one of the monsters, slamming it down to the ground before delivering a powerful stomp to its head. Brain and parasitic matter splattered all over her shins and onto her face.

The building nestled behind the stage suddenly imploded in a gust of flame. Cinders and ash spewed out from the windows as villagers shrieked from being burned alive. One of the villagers sprawled in front of the stage, only to be cut in half by a gigantic iron sword rusted with the infectious blood of the creatures.

Cethe's father, whose entire head had been split apart, somehow had the mindset of a barbaric warrior seeking to destroy all life. The parasite from within generated a giant oblique eyeball. Damian, Cethe's younger brother, had completely assimilated with his father's body like an infectious bleeding tumor bulging out of his chest. His eyeballs were gouged out and replaced with crimson-colored dew sprouting into green ivy.

Lyn remained silent as she charged toward the infected father. They clashed blades with one another, but not before Lyn's unbridled rage shattered the sword in half. She pierced through the giant eyeball with Alfaic and kicked down her father to the ground. Lyn pulled Alfaic and Relámpago to the side, and signaled her hands to stab both of them into the torso of the monster. She then motioned her hands wide, using both blades to slice Damian from the main body.

Although Damian was free, he had already been long gone. Weakened whimpers were all that he could utter despite the ivy piercing his internal organs and eyes. "C-Ce-Cethe... hehehe..." Damian's soft cries soon transformed into pure silence, followed by the laughter of an insane laboratory experiment.

"We should end his suffering," Alfaic suggested. "The poor boy doesn't deserve this."

Lyn summoned Alfaic to her hands and pierced the edge through Damian's forehead, instantly killing him without another word. Blood spurted onto Lyn's face and chest until she was showered with the rivers of agony enveloping her tinged soul. She kneeled down and held Damian's head toward hers, remembering the ecstasy of the tentacle creature at the fire station, along with Elaina's loss.

The simple image, the idea, the infallible future of never being able to return home to a live worth living, one of eternal care, underneath the roots of a fallen tree, were enough to drive even a machine maddened by the torture of loss. Lyn opened her mouth and revealed her clenched teeth. She gazed up into the starry sky with blood dripping down her eyes. A single exhale came from her chest as she heard the final whimpers of the only survivor that meant something to her.

"Damian... Damian...!" Cethe's weakened voice blurted from beside Lyn as she scrambled to comfort her deceased brother. Lyn turned her head to face her. Part of her face had already been transformed into one of the infectious creatures, and it was a matter of time before she would assimilate into them permanently. Rotten flesh and green ivy grew over her left eye socket and the hole where her mother penetrated.

She held Damian's head close and sobbed bloody tears over her younger brother's cheeks. Blood spurted out of Cethe's mouth and onto her lap. Her skin shriveled up into white pale flesh as chunks of her began collapsing and melting onto her knees. Despite the agonizing dismemberment of her humanity, she continued to hold onto the human part of what remained, embracing Damian with what she had left.

Lyn observed carefully. "Your body is decomposing. You will die. Shall I give you a quick execution?"

"Lyn!" Alfaic shouted, absurdly disgusted by her devaluation of human life and suffering.

"Let me... hold onto him... a little longer..." Cethe's raspy voice could barely be made out.

Lyn pointed Relámpago until the tip of her blade nearly met with Cethe's forehead. It was something she could not understand, yet frustrated her as much as the sight of watching Stravia fall. "What is the purpose of this?" She asked as blood dripped from her face down onto the golden sword, tarnishing its purity. "He is dead, and you will too."

"My baby... brother..." Cethe delicately stroked Damian's cheek as she smiled with the remaining strength she had. Her soft and angelic voice combined with her cradling movement emitted a final lullaby to send her brother off into true deserved peace.

Lyn kneeled down until her face met with Cethe's as the flames on the stage continued to engulf the village.

"Over the coast, you shall fly..."

"Fly as high as the birds in the sky..."

"The monsters will not chase you there..."

"For your big sister will give them a scare..."