Zemeria: The Final Sanctuary

Prologue

Lily still tried to stop her many times, warning her of the horrible dangerous creatures that were said to roam the Outside, but Lilac would still dismiss it saying, "Everyone knows they are just a myth to keep us from leaving Zemeria, don't be a coward!" And when it was obvious that there was no convincing her, Lily decided to go with her to prevent her from doing anything too stupid or reckless.

After a while of staring at the nonexistent barrier, Lilac shook her head and smiled enthusiastically. "Alright then, let's go!"

"Wait!" Lily grabbed her hand quickly.

"What is it?"

"Look." Lily pointed her finger at the far horizon where a cloud of dust seemed to be moving their way.

"What's that?"

"I don't know," she answered slowly, dread seeping into her voice. She had an ominous feeling about it. "Umm, I think maybe it's better if we don't leave Zemeria today." She turned to Lilac with a bit of panic on her face.

"OR we could go investigate!" Lilac said enthusiastically, a gleam of curiosity in her eyes.

"Wait, no!"

But she could not grab her this time, and she flew full-speed towards the dust.

Lily cautiously approached the cloud of dust, trying her best to stay hidden between the tree branches, but the closer she got the more her wariness grew. Then as soon as she saw Lilac dive into it, the cloud came to a halt. She froze in dread.

Lilac!

She quickly picked up her speed towards the cloud of dust through the trees, still making sure to stay out of sight.

And then she saw it, amidst the cloud of dust, were hundreds of thousands of iron-cladded creatures. She looked closer and her heart dropped.

In the hands of one of them was Lilac, struggling to break free, but that was not the worst of it. The creature removed its iron helmet to take a closer look at her, and the color completely drained from Lily's face. No! she thought in horror, it can't be... I- I thought they were only a legend! But there they were right in front of her eyes, the corruption, the monsters, everyone feared.

"Well, well," said the creature eyeing a struggling Lilac. "Seems like we really didn't come all this way for nothing after all. Who would've thought?" It grinned wickedly.

Lilac was trembling. Lily wanted to help her, but before she could move, before she could think, in the flash of an eye, the creature, the monster, crushed Lilac in its hand without a moment of hesitation. It casually waved its hand, scattering the blood, and then shouted, "Onwards!" The army started moving again as though nothing had happened.

Lily fell onto her knees on the tree branch. She kept staring at the pond of blood that used to be her sister a few seconds ago. Her brain could not comprehend what just happening.

"Li-lilac," she finally managed to mutter, her voice trembling. A name so familiar yet suddenly feeling so so distant. "Wha.... How... how did this happen?". Tears started falling like a waterfall. They were just talking this morning. She was just there smiling a minute ago. How-

Then her eyes slide towards the army. They- they are heading towards Zemeria. Then the sudden realization woke her from her trance. They are going to attack Zemeria! I-I have to warn them!

"I-" She tried standing up, but her legs were trembling so much she fell again. She looked at the pool of blood with pained eyes, tears still falling with no sign of stopping. She did not want to move, she wanted to scream, she wanted to cry and never move again, but if she did not move then it would not just be Lilac but everyone in Zemeria too.

She took in a shaky breath and tightly closed her eyes, forcing herself to calm down I'm sorry Lilac, if I don't warn them, everyone else will also- Lily tried her best to push her sister's death to the back of her mind for now, her heart ached, her chest felt incredibly heavy, but she had to go.

"If I don't warn them now, then we're all dead," she muttered aloud to herself, her voice ragged. A justification for leaving her sister behind. A pool of blood- She shook her head. I'm sorry.

She wiped away her tears and started flying faster than ever before in her life.

The creatures in Zemeria were starting to feel the vibration in the ground, and some of them came out to the border to check, but none of them dared to go out to investigate.

Then they saw Lily coming towards them with the speed of light. "Humans!" she shouted, "The Humans are coming! You have to run!" They all stared up at her, paralyzed in shock and terror. She looked back and saw the cloud of dust marching towards them faster than before then she panickily turned towards them, and she screamed again in as loud a voice as her squeaky high pitch could manage, "Just run! Run or they'll kill you!"

Then she quickly moved on flying deeper in as fast as before to try and warn as much of Zemeria as possible, shouting all the way "Humans! Run!"

She finally reached the mages' village and quickly went to the eldest witch's cottage to have her help warn and evacuate the creatures. There was a little witch and kitsune playing there, but she paid them no attention. She immediately went to the eldest witch and said between gasping breaths "Humans! There's- there's an army of Humans at the border!"

Then everything went in a blur.

The little witch dropped her toy, stormed out of the cottage, and ran.

Ran towards the border.

A single gut-wrenching cry sounded above everything. The world stilled, just for a moment, and then darkness exploded.