The role of a nurse had always been worse than that of a soldier… especially on the front lines. A soldier simply killed the enemy. All they had to do was dehumanize. But when she had failed to save someone, it was like killing one of her own. And who received all the glory, either? Who became known for their service? Whom did the enemy fire upon first?
They had never recognized her for her marksmanship, no matter how much she practiced, so she had familiarized herself with many herbs of the sort. Dirtied her hands with the root balls of life blooms. Scarred over her body in the Dark Sea gathering the most absurd flora one could imagine. That place was like hell. She had always thanked the Great Protector that they had never sailed further inwards to the Bronze Sea, every time that one had nearly ended her.
Every time a man would awaken, seizing up, their eyes wide open, their hand twitching for their sword, would they smile at her, or scream in confusion and demand to leave at once? She had been promoted and moved into Rubica from her home town of Monoah Village… this was perhaps the happiest time of her life.
The Ravenna Realm was successful and glorious, as her father, a centurion, had always said, even if he never believed that she would have what it took to follow in her parents’ footsteps. Their amazing leader, King Calvus, had always made sure that the exports and imports of food and coal had never missed a due from the mainland. And once she moved there, she was fed well in all means, and had made some friends for the first time in her life.
She had to cut a few ties, as well… One of them, Justin, one day went berserk, saying that the Bronze Legion had captured- and executed- their mother. Of course, he must have gone utterly mad. Nothing of that sort had ever occurred in the walls of the Castello, nor would it ever. She wondered who was spreading the rumors of the sort, but whoever it was must have gotten what they deserved by now.
Of course, once the monsters had touched down in the shabby town of Tiberia, all of that had changed. In Monoah Village at the time, she was immediately deployed, and held her breath, watching Brigs full of these… disgusting creatures. The wood was rotted, the sails tattered. A familiar sight, but she had never yet seen such a sailing aptitude among the monsters.
They were the same beasts that she had seen beyond the boundaries of safety. How had they gotten here? What was happening? Several of their tattered vessels made their way towards her hometown… but her father would be able to defend himself, no? He always had been a figure of strength. She had no idea that she would never be able to see a smile on his face. Of course, she was compliant all this time… she would help the cause at the mainland, no matter what it took. If she got any recognition, really, at all, she would be happy. She would do anything. Anything!
After a rendezvous from Fort Talos, they were deployed at once in the middle of the Shining Plains, where a small camp had been set up. The sun blazed brightly above the faces of the “infected”, as they were called… Since when had the monsters been able to propagate their abominable nature? She had been bitten many times by their sort, particularly painful under the lightly acidic rain of the Dark Sea, yet nothing of this sort had happened to her. Why, now, had this ability developed?
It didn’t matter, though. No matter what she did, trying any sort of concoction in her position or with the materials provided to her, nothing would work against the victims. She stood with scattered remnants of families as they were killed. She scoured the island, making sure nothing followed her back, listening to screams; nothing was found, still, that could heal them.
One such endeavor, however, just as fruitless, had left her nowhere to return to, asides from a horde of slimy monstrosities and the flaming ruins of the campsite. Beyond the thought of resuscitation, a littering of blackened, melted bodies, and splotches of crimson grass. There was nothing to do here, and nobody to save. She couldn’t stop, though. Couldn’t give up. Screams echoing miles from Rubica provided her with a new objective.
She met a man struggling along a ridge of Mount Caesar. His thankfulness at her help had arisen her spirits, albeit temporarily. Said both that he hailed from Rasna and that she was familiar. Neither of them mattered to her at the moment, but were a topic of conversation nonetheless. He had short, amber hair and a stubble, with a few fingers missing. Said he was into dangerous work; the 5 pistols on his side, he said, were collected from his brothers. They both shared grim looks and were unified by exasperation.
Eventually, he revealed a bite mark. He had asked if he could be healed, but something on her face must have turned the question to a rhetorical sense. They both acknowledged that they were scared, but she wasn’t, not really. But for him, yes, she was terrified, and for the people that could die if he was left here. He was desperate, but she told him there was nothing she could do. Nothing that would heal him. He was screaming, and she had to prove it.
Ultimately, it was the first time she had ended a life with her own hands, but it had to be done. What else was left for him? But the prospect shocked her as she sprinted to the epicenter of the infection, Rubica… Though, it was interesting to think she would not be arriving here to sleep in her own home. Through most of her career, she had been sent here to heal but once or twice. There were usually locals on hand, instead.
She was plunged into chaos the moment she arrived. Elemental attacks and bullets alike whizzed through the air haphazardly, and she found it difficult even to bring a few people to their feet, where they usually met an end moments later. There were some others who were infected, but she refused to do the same thing again. She simply wouldn’t be able to stomach it. In a smoldering alleyway, she bore witness to an unusually large beast, with pitch black scales.
The scale of the mutation of this writhing, slithering thing had reached an extent she had never seen in the Dark Sea, regardless how far back she recalled… at a point, remembering stories, rumors, and studies alike of the workings of Atlantean mutation, but she had believed for most of her time there that they were not derived for humans, but born as their own species. She had been dead wrong.
Before she could scamper off to another shriek, it demonstrated to her, cruelly, the answer to the lack of bodies to match the pools of blood on the cold stone tile. She was rather great at pistols, and picked off a few of the monstrosities by herself, but this never provided her with any pride, for, in her mind, her aim, which had worn with time, was not worthy to match the time she could be spending supporting her comrades, more of whom fell to the enemy at each passing moment.
They were scaling the walls of the Castello, and her world was falling apart. Each breath was more of a struggle to draw than the last, especially for the men whom above she stood moments later. Their armor had been dented and cracked, their swords chipped. A great portion of them were not even recognizeable, and had to be left as tides shifted; the battlefield was dynamic.
Over the next week, she had lost her left arm, the lives of her patients, and any remaining dignity or hope that remained. She had given everything she had. Darkly, she had begun to wonder, as attacks grew more sparse, if there was a country she had served. She refused to watch the directions of the soldiers she had freed and healed; why did she need evidence to know that they proceeded to slay monsters and achieve great victories? Certainly, the battle was being won. Their thanksgivings, rare and weary, were the only fuel she had left, which much of, now, was spent allaying the festering of her wounds. She knew that the victims’ screams, blaming, rage, and hatred rooted not from her waning competence, but were born of circumstance, and arrived hand in hand with their near-death experiences…
She and about 4 other refugees had locked themselves in a cavern mouth, and a thin man had fired a blast of energy that had sealed the exit with a loud rumbling. He formed a meager flame, which let the damp and sultry walls. Cracks in the boulder cover passed oxygen, as well as wails and groans. They permeated her eardrums and drowned out the irregular pounding of her pulse.
One woman had wandered deeper into the cave and had not come back. Any echoes had grown too silent to hear, and only the Great Protector knew of her fate. The other had gone utterly mad, clawing at the walls until the stubs of their fingers rotted out the rest of them from infection, which she had ran out of medicines potent enough to heal.
The last man blamed her at first, which stung deeply in her state of stupor. The shadows repeated his words, whispering it into her ears maddeningly. However, he apologized soon, as his desperation grew with his hunger. Yet, despite her mixed feelings, constricted with primordial fear and insanity, there was not a brew that could treat starvations, and no rations left to sustain him.
She had eaten the least out of anyone, and, after days, the darkness’ toll had reached new heights. It took whatever was left of her conscience and humanity in order to resist feeding upon the slowly deteriorating corpse of the third man.
The other, famished, and desperate, did not have such temptations; based on the appearances of them that she had seen, they might have been related. There was no way either of them could escape from the cave if they wanted to; she was immobile, and he nearly was, naught magic energy remaining to produce a single ray of light, nor did it seep through the rock wall anymore.
Muffled, inhuman grumbling and growling was audible. Exactly what was happening outside? Surely, they had… no. She wasn’t sure anymore. Frankly, she didn’t want to live in a world without her country, and her family. How was the royal family doing? Had King Calvus moved his citizens elsewhere?
More important than this, though, is that there was no hope for her, even if, frankly, she wished to see it out that the Ravenna Realm would survive this spontaneous onslaught. If this man received food, he would have a chance to escape this place. And, isn’t that what she was good at? This man was once good natured. Would he realize what she was doing, it would bring a disastrous and embarrassing end to her plan in which neither of them would live.
Here, she would become what she had felt like over her whole life; both a sacrifice, and a tool, and, as always, she would condone it. Anything for Ravenna. Anything for this man. Anything. She would find glory, perhaps, if this man told her story after her death. If her father was still alive, which, of course he was, then he would finally respect her, even if she couldn’t be there for it. Perhaps even King Calvus himself would hear of her. It would be a fitting end for her.
But she put aside these selfish thoughts for the sake of the now-sleeping man, his breathing uneasy and ragged in a few lucid moments of silence. Then, at the last firing of her pistols, she located a sharp gemstone in the flash of light, stumbling painfully across the jagged floor for hours. Everything was clear. Brilliantly so. And from herself came the rations that would save this noble soldier of the Bronze Legion.
The pain was red-hot, but throbbing energy crawled through her body, allowing her continue. After a time that she couldn’t comprehend, she told him that the woman had returned with food, and fed him immediately. He asked ho questions, chewed methodically, and sank back to deep sleep promptly. He arose hours later, while she was left numb but satisfied. Her head spun and convulsed; thought was impossible, but she didn’t need it for the days that followed.
Eventually, he had come to be, stumbling upwards slowly, his metal boots and leggings sliding and grinding against the slate. His name was Cameron Bronze; he had lived in Rasna for his entire life, and was rather happy in his time there. Along with his family, he had escaped into a nearby cavern while visiting a business sponsor in Rubica; they sold fruits and sailed frequently to the wilderness islands of Limestone Key and an abandoned arena, which had other frequent visitors.
He was grateful, and the meat that his mother had brought back tasted like nothing he had ever had before. He had been completely starving and desperate, in what must have been the lowest point of his life. He was so happy, both that his mother hadn’t lost her way in those caverns like he had thought, and that his cowardice not to follow them hadn’t resulted in her death. It had taken a great load off of him.
According to the nurse that had followed them into the cave, who helped feed him, her mother had gone spelunking again to find more. He learned that her name was Lukas during a quick chat; her voice sounded strained and wretched, though, in the dark, Cameron must supposed the conditions had gotten to her as they had him. Lukas must have followed his mother into the tunnel, thankfully, as he could sense neither of their energies.
It left him with a few tasks; finding a way to escape, and then notifying them… his strength had grown significantly thanks to the sustenance he had received, and he was determined to get off the island, with what remained of his family, to safety.
His father had died, which terrified him silently; he had asked Lukas for a reunion, and she had shakily directed him to his body… he groped in the darkness to hold his cold hand. A hand which had once picked peaches and pears alongside him, and one that had made cider on particularly sweltering mornings.
Cameron was in too much shock to notice, at the time, whatever had killed him, though he suspected starvation, an end that he himself had brushed against and narrowly been reeled back from. He had blamed Lukas at first, but he felt badly of it now… he clearly was not in his right of mind, and he had never been so aggressive in his life. And, in truth, he was ashamed that he could not afford to care more of these matters for now: Preserving what was left was of utmost importance, and there was a chance that they could yet be vindicated from this unfathomable, horrific mess.
His recovery had been a miracle; it was amazing that his mother was able to find the food that she did, and on such a consistent basis. His mother had always said that miracles, in question, came from smarts and hard work, not from divine intervention. Cameron himself had never believed in the Gods, either… Now, more than ever, he believed, that if they existed, this would all be over by now. That, or he might wake up at any moment, but the latter seemed ridiculous at this point.
He wasn’t sure when he would take down this wall, using the power that he had reclaimed; his fire magic wasn’t particularly destructive against stone, but it could still create bursts of force that he, physically, could not achieve; they would not budge when he tried pushing. But, relative to before these… events, he was pathetically weak. He would need to save his power, and locate any sort of weak spot in the wall.
However, those beasts might still be outside, and he had heard their terrifying noises on occasion. They had not worried him much in starvation, with so much fog in his head and with other issues at fore, but the prospect of escape made them a returning issue. Even so, there was nothing saying he shouldn’t scout now, and be productive before his mother and the strange nurse returned from deeper in the cavern.
Right now, there was no being too careful. He would need a light source, of course; at some point, light had ceased in seeping through the cracks in the rubble. He guessed it was smoke, as there had been much burning due to sporadic incendiary attack from both sides. So, he lit a small flame, projecting speckles of warm light, which danced across the cave walls.
The moment he looked down, he fainted at once.