"I normally don't do this to other people..."
Huxley lifted his fingers.
"...but for you... I'll do anything. It's the least I can do after what this world has done to you."
He snapped his fingers, and suddenly, we were back on the streets in Lucella. However, things weren't exactly the same as they were on the other side of the portal. Back where Georgie and the others were. Things were... different. One of the most obvious things was the fact that instead of the full moon, an Insolence eye was in the sky, spreading its light throughout the foggy, black streets. When I glanced behind me, I noticed the portal was still there.
"What was her name again... Catherine, right?" Huxley asked, grabbing my attention once more. "Doesn't she seem rather... old? frail? She's the one who's been watching you through your own eyes, yes?" My heart stopped in my chest at his words. He knew. How did he know? I could've sworn he had his back turned! My breathing grew slightly heavier as my nails began to dig crescent moons into my palms. "If he knows about that..." I thought to myself. "...then, what else does he know?"
My behavior caused Huxley to laugh. It took everything I had in me not to pull out my gun and shoot him right then and there. I knew that it wouldn't do anything to harm him, but at least it would shut him up for a few seconds. He wiped a fake tear from one of his black and orange eyes. "Look at you, darling. Lucinda Grace Emerson, the one who everyone is counting on, shivering in fear," He mocked. "Oh, how I wish my father could see us now. Then he would understand just how powerful I am." He sighed happily.
"Don't worry, Lucinda. I don't mind your friends watching. They deserve to witness you crumble and fall."
A confused expression formed on my face, but it was quickly ignored when Huxley clapped his hands together. "Now, where was I... oh, yes! That cheetah!" He seemed to realize before chuckling and shaking his head. "I certainly owe her one. If not for her and what she did, I would've never been able to convince Michael and Sophia to join me." My... my parents? What was he talking about? I knew that Catherine always acted cold to me before, but I figured it was just because of her nature. Was there... really another reason?
"Roselia was definitely the most persistent one out of your family. I had to force her under my control, and even then, she still went against me occasionally," Huxley explained once he sensed my confusion, shaking his head in annoyance. "You Emersons are just as irritating as ever. But that's not the point right now." I held back a gasp as Huxley began to approach me, keeping his hands behind his back. "Don't let your guard down, Cindy," I reminded myself.
"As I was saying earlier, while Roselia chose to remain stubborn, your parents were quick to come to my side, and your cheetah friend had something to do with that," Huxley continued as he got closer and closer to me. "And I bet you had no idea that your owl and lion friends also knew what she did, but they chose to keep it from you." Huxley was a lot closer now, but instead of stopping in front of me, he stopped at my side, resting a hand on my shoulder. I was about to lift my own hand to brush it off, but Huxley squeezed my shoulder tightly, sending a wave of pain throughout my body.
Given all the other wounds I've endured up to this point, it took a lot of effort to hold back the wince that threatened to escape me.
"You of all people should've been the first to know what she did, and yet everyone who you decided to help kept the truth from you," Huxley "sympathized" as he trailed his hand from my shoulder to my back. I could assume he was walking to stand behind me now. His hand remained on my back, but the sounds of some... weird substance squelching filled my ears. Then, instead of human skin, I felt a gloved hand against me. It didn't take me long to realize what had happened.
A shadow of a familiar figure loomed over me, and his voice solidified his identity.
"That is part of why I'm here."
TIO.
My shoulders raised slightly as Huxley, now as TIO, took his hand off my back. For some reason that I didn't understand, I still found myself unable to move. I didn't know whether it was because of my injuries, or my own hidden fear of what was yet to come. All I could do was stand in place and listen. "You have a good heart, Lucinda, and your intentions are as pure as you once were," TIO said as I felt him playing with the short locks of my hair. "But the people you are giving them to, your friends, those animals... they do not deserve it. They do not deserve you."
My breaths became shaky as a pair of gloved hands hovered over my eyes, obscuring the vision of the only good one I had.
"Allow me to show you why."
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
I was starting to get used to all of these sudden transitions between reality and whatever hallucination TIO wanted me to see.
However, in this case, it was something different. At least, something about it felt different. I was back in a forest, but time, it was dark. My mind went back to the day that I lost Doggy. The day that Pony infected the two of us, which reminded me that I was probably the only person in the world that was still infected. Then I remembered that Pony kept the fact from me for nearly year. He was able to tell Zizzy about it, maybe even Mimi and Giraffy, but I was kept in the dark about it the whole time.
Soldiers snapped me out of my trance. They were running past me, and the uniforms they were wearing seemed similar to the ones the infected soldiers back in Doveport wore. I almost forgot that this was a vision, something that already happened in the past. There was no reason for me to be surprised. Curiosity got the better of me, and I found myself following the soldiers. They were armed with guns, and they were yelling orders at each other.
I followed them until they approached a small, seemingly abandoned shack. The soldiers surrounded the perimeter and made their way to the wooden door. I couldn't tell if they were humans or animals given they all had gloves and helmets. However, some of them did have tails. Two of the soldiers stood by the door for a few seconds, and one of them held their hand up. I assumed that they were the commander, like Liam, or a higher-up of some sort.
The higher-up brought down his hand, and the other soldier kicked the broken door down.
As soon as the soldier entered, gunshots began to ring out from inside the house, and they only grew louder as more soldiers entered. My first thought was that they found out about some hideout that had drugs or money or something, but those thoughts were quickly pushed out when I heard something else. That something else caused my eyes to widen and my lip to quiver. All I could do was stand still in my own shock as I heard the sound.
The sound of two... three... no, four children screaming.
As soon as it started. It was over. Both the screaming and the gunshots.
I slowly approached the scene, getting behind a tree so that I wouldn't be seen. I didn't know why I did that. I guess hearing the massacre in front of me caused my survival instincts to kick in. A few minutes went by, and more men entered the shack. Other soldiers stood guard around the area of the shack, staring out into the woods, waiting for a threat to make an appearance so they can take it down. Eventually, after what felt like an eternity, the soldiers came out. Nine of them, to be specific.
And what they were carrying made my heart stop.
The soldiers... were carrying bodies.
Human bodies.
And I recognized who they were.
Nine bodies were carried out of the shack, four adults, three teenagers, and two children. The children appeared to be twins, and one of the teenagers seemed older than the other two. I assumed that she must've been around sixteen to eighteen years old, the same age Rose was when she died. The soldiers seemed to be more careful with them, as they were either asleep or unconscious. Given the way they were screaming earlier, they were most likely unconscious.
The bodies of the four adults were covered in blood, and were being handled with much less care. If anything, they were being dragged across the grass as if they were helpless corpses. I shook my head at that thought. "What are you thinking, Lucinda?" I berated in my head. "Those are helpless corpses... those soldiers obviously killed them... but why?" I took the time to gaze at each corpse carefully before realizing who exactly they were.
Marilyn and James Thompson. Following them were soldiers carrying the corpses of Grace and Ivan Emerson.
My grandparents.
"They... they killed them."
"Indeed. They did."
I whipped my head to the right, and I saw that TIO was standing beside me, that dumb stitched smirk on his face and his hands behind his back. "After the animals were victorious in the first war, the only human families that remained were those of the Thompsons and the Emersons, your mother and father's families respectively," TIO explained. "They went into hiding for generations, until only recently, in fact, when that old lady caught wind of their existence."
As he spoke, my eyes then turned to the unconscious bodies of the two children. They were twins, a boy and a girl. Both of them looked no older than around nine or ten years old. At first, I didn't know who exactly they were, but then. It hit me. I remember something my mom told me a long time ago. Way before her death. Way before the infection. Way before Mrs. P even fell ill. That very thing popped up in my head as I stared at the two children in nothing but shock.
"I had little siblings."
Shock... and horror.
"I don't know their names... or anything about them, all I know is how differently I was treated compared to them."
"Honestly, when I first found out about Sophia, I felt bad for her. She was being put in a similar situation to my own," TIO practically rambled. I turned around and gave him a weird look. "So... you're reading my mind now? Is that what's happening?" I asked, annoyed by TIO's invasion of my privacy. His smirk only grew bigger, and for a moment I thought the stitches on his mouth were going to rip off. "Have you forgotten? You're a part of The Insolence now, Lucinda dear. An important asset of it. I know everything about you. Even things you don't know about yourself," he explained.
"Okay... that's not weird at all, nope," I muttered sarcastically under my breath. Then, curiosity got the better of me yet again. "Since you know everything about me... do you know what happened to my mom back then?" I asked. TIO only closed his eyes and chuckled darkly at my question. "Oh, Lucinda, Lucinda, Lucinda..." he mocked, and I was starting to regret asking my question. "Of course I know what happened to poor Sophia back when she was your age, and I don't mind telling you. However, I must warn you..."
He turned to me with a dark smile.
"...you aren't going to like what you're about to hear."
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
Hiii! It's me again!
Again, I'm very sorry this chapter came out so late. 😭 Life has been crazy lately, and my motivation to write just came back.
Also, I've been in the process of planning fanfictions for other franchises, too!
Some of them may include:
• Undertale
• Detroit: Become Human
• Five Nights at Freddy's
• Transformers
Finishing this half of the story is my main priority right now, but once it's done, I may take a break from it to write other things! I hope you guys will enjoy them!
Until the next chapter! <3