Game (2)

The streets were filled with disgusting monstrosities. They howled and coughed up blood as they hunted for victims to feast on. Anders stood on a roof as he watched the animalistic behaviors of these once human people.

He had been searching the city but so far had found no survivors. Anders scanned the darkened city. Not a soul stirred in the decaying alleys. No lights flickered in the windows.

Only deathly silence other than the sudden moans of the mutated hordes echoed hauntingly through the empty city.

The stench of rotting flesh and coagulated blood clung to the humid air. In the distance, the guttural moans of the mutated beasts echoed through the empty streets,

'If I can't go to them, I should make them come to me'

With this line of thought, Anders pulled out his estoc and jumped down into the streets below him. The noise from him hitting the ground triggered the monsters around him to notice his presence. With what he knew now, these monsters were just mutated animals with only instincts driving them, they weren't intelligent.

A guzzling mess of flesh and blood neared him as it made a low growl. Ander's sword moved in an instant, piercing its flesh from one side and exiting out the other. Even so, when he pulled out his sword the wound began to regrow and heal.

'This is going to be a hassle'

Sparks ignited around him and his blade and he instead horizontally cut. With the sheer force of his strength, the estoc managed to split the monster in two. Its flesh tore as it's upper and lower half separated in a fountain of blood.

He quickly moved and backed away as the other monsters were now close to him as well. To his surprise, they immediately went after the damaged creature and tore its flesh apart as they ate it.

The mutant screamed and wailed as its flesh was consumed by the others. The air was choked with the iron tang of blood and the cloying stench of ruptured innards.

Once they were done, a long frog-like tongue came out from their mouths to lick up the blood splattered on their faces. Anders was bewildered by their actions but they could be used to his advantage.

One by one, he used his strength to split the creatures as he watched the others pounce on them and finish them off. It was going well in the beginning but as there were fewer and fewer the less it worked.

By now he had killed at least 17 and there were around 5 left. The problem was that the less there were meant that he would be left with one he couldn't kill. It also seemed that the monsters got stronger the more they ate one another, it was taking multiple swings to split the mutants in half as their regeneration increased.

Anders looked around to see if there was a survivor watching but no one was in the vicinity. He sighed and climbed back up top to the roofs before continuing his search. He headed for the markets, a large area in Salazar where many stores were as well as back alleys to hide in.

Looking around, no one seemed to be there either but from the corner of his eye he saw someone inside one of the shops. He directed his vision and saw a young man picking up items from shelves looking for something.

Ecstatic at this find, he made his way into the building. Anders opened the door as the bells rang and he called out.

"Hello, is anyone here, I'm from the Federation to find out what happened here"

A man looked up from behind a counter and stared at Anders for a while. He then hopped up on the counter and pointed a dagger at him.

"How do I know you aren't with those people?"

"Those people? Do you mean the Church? Well I am stuck in this monster-infested city the same as you and I have my badge signaling my station in the Federation"

Dropping down, the man walked up to Anders and grabbed the badge he had shown. He looked at it for a moment before his face crept up in astonishment.

"You're Anders! You have to come with me immediately!"

"You know who I am?"

"Just follow me!"

Anders followed the stranger out of the shop. The broken pavement crunched under their feet as they slipped into a narrow alley. Dark windows loomed overhead, and rancid odors caught in the hot, stale air.

They made some twists and turns as brittle shards of glass cracked under their feet as they crept through the darkened alleyways. Finally the man stopped in front of an old building. The windows were blocked and it looked run down.

"Inside, inside quickly!"

The man pulled Anders into the building where he saw a completely new scene. Before him were hundreds of people illuminated by candlelight, the building was well-lit as people entered from all sorts of entrances leading to who knows where.

Anders was dragged to the second floor and into a room with multiple people standing around a map of the city.

What surprised him, even more, was that the person at the center of this group was Fiona, the emperor's daughter.

"Anders?" Fiona was stunned by his intrusion.

"Fiona?"

The man who pulled him here immediately explained "I found the guy you talked about Princess! It's Anders, he says he's from the Federation sent to help!"

Whispers from the other leaders began as Fiona spoke out. Her eyes flashed with anger, but beneath he could see the hurt of his abandonment.

"Look who came crawling back to Salazar City. What happened to abandoning your post right before my father was murdered? He trusted you! Augustus trusted you!" She spat the words like venom.

Awkwardly frowning, Anders explained "I left because of Augustus's death, I realized that we need unity to be able to kill Cain. Without all of us fighting him he will only take advantage of division and put us against one another. His Church is behind all of this"

"That doesn't fix what you did! You abandoned the people who trusted you! All of your men are dead! They died protecting me from those monsters!"

"Fiona, I know you may never forgive me for leaving, but you have to understand why I did it. I saw the Church's reach growing. I thought I could stop them by bringing an organization like the Federation into the fight instead of fruitlessly defending a city"

A was a slender man with a long scar across his cheek. He spoke up as he glared at Anders. "The priest said we must 'win his game' to be let free, but what sinister purpose drives his challenges?"

The man eyed Anders warily. "I suppose you're his desired prize."

"Even so he doesn't plan to let us go. It's just a sick game he's playing, the mission he was given was probably to turn this city into a breeding ground for monstrosities like this and he's using the failures to fuel this game he made us play"

Anders's words caused a flare of arguments to form in the room.

A heavier, bearded man slammed his fist on the table. "Still, we can't leave our home!"

"What home! It's filled with monsters now!"

A heavy-set woman with wispy grey hair clinging to a wooden cane stepped forward. "We can rebuild elsewhere!"

"Where? With the Federation? We should die trying to gain back our city instead of running away!"

The arguments sent the room into a typhoon of yelling. Fiona let it go on for a while before yelling and silencing them all.

"All of you shut it! Salazar is lost, not only has my family been reduced to a few people but our power is gone and the Church has won. If we want to survive we have to leave. I believe what the priest said was all lies, our only hope is leaving"

Anders interjected "The priest said the walls were guarded by elite troops created by Cain's pupil. We have no chance of escaping with such a large and weak group."

"Anders I understand your reasoning but we must do this, But we must leave, even if sacrifices have to be made."

As they argued, the room's doors suddenly slammed open. All eyes turned to see a bloodied soldier stumble through, uniform torn to shreds. "The mutants" he rasped. "They're coming."

Fiona looked to Anders seemingly wanting to hear his opinion.

"Only more monsters will be unleashed, we must leave now!"