1 Prologue
x-X-x
Seventeen years ago, one negligent scientist accidentally invented a toxin that functions like a highly contagious virus when attempting to develop a weapon. Unfortunately, there are no symptoms. The victim only becomes aware when all the bones in the neck vehemently shatter. Then, the skin around it slowly seethes from the inside out, resulting in the head to plummet from the body, to collapse and crumble into ashes vanishing steadily in the non-existent wind. It has slaughtered over half the living population. So now all the civilized citizens live in small towns with many restrictions and laws to ensure no one gets infected or you are forced to scavenge and hunt for food on their own, this information would be recognized in history books as the time we met humankind's demise.
x-X-x
Alcmene Argent
I stride into the house, my older brother off with his toxic 'friends' which left me having to trudge the open desert alone. Mama insisted we never walk alone since "only heaven knows what's out there," but he always did and forced me to either hold my tongue or take the blame because we're twins and that apparently means that we're supposed to be super close.
Today however, as soon as I enter the front door something feels off.
"Mom! I'm home." I announce to the abnormally seemingly unoccupied house. I wait a few seconds for any sort of response or anything really.
It doesn't add up, mother's always home by the time I get back, she's extremely paranoid for our safety while understandable in a way it is also a bit annoying.
Either way the empty house is seriously freaking me out.
"Mama?" I call out again questioningly and concerned.
I creep through the house with a sense of unease steadily crawling up my spine before deciding to check the living room. Then something glistening catches my eye as I waltz in. I'd recognize that dark crimson color anywhere.
Blood.
It's blood. Splashes, and remaining droplets everywhere, all over the wooden floor, the couch, which was stained with the brownish ruby color, scattered contents of coffee table everywhere, all surrounding a large field knife still in the chest of an unidentifiable figure, blood trailing and oozing down the abdomen to the floor creating a puddle in the carpet, it would soon prove to be a hassle to get out.
It's a gory and frightening scene on its own but scanning up the pale body I notice my mother's shiny gold necklace hanging unharmed and untouched by the blood that seems to coat everything else in this room.
"Mom." I breath out in horror. I then inspect the body closer.
Knife wounds all over her body, her head leaning against the still drying couch, a disturbingly blank look on her beaten face. Her body was cold and slowly turning blue.
Entranced by the horror, I begin to examine every detail of my own mother's corpse at a cruelly slow pace. Eventually, I come across a 'W', 'C', 'I' carved into her waist, deep enough to see bone, above her right hip. Collapsing on the floor, I'm frozen with dread, and my vision is turning blurry, unable to even begin believing or processing the sight before me. I know I stood staring for a long time in composed terror.
Suddenly I remember my younger sibling and about how my younger siblings will return home from school any minute and wondering how to explain to them that their mother, the one who promised to always be there, to protect them, was gone.
Looking away from the scene and out the window to the moon somehow knowing the moons' approximate location despite it being the middle of the afternoon, I vow to it, to avenge her death for her, me, and my family, no matter what it takes, even my own life; a Morte e Ritorno- A family Italian meaning to death and back.
Then I look out the window towards the ground and catch sight of a pair of savage pure red eyes.
