Ingrid’s Pov
Ingrid leaned heavily against the hood of a crumpled sedan, her chest heaving, blood dripping from her chin. "What..." She rasped, her voice thick with phlegm and blood.
"To be discarded," the creature continued, taking a slow, deliberate step forward. "To be thrown into the jaws of other creatures by the very blood you swore to protect. We watched from the above. Your male pushed you. Your offspring kicked your hands away. They traded your life for a few extra minutes of breathing room so he could run away with his younger mate. So tell me... how does it feel to realize you meant less than trash to them?"
She clenched her fists so hard her nails tore through her palms. Tears continued to drip from her eyes, but she spat a mouthful of dark blood onto the pavement between us, using the back of my hands to clean her mouth. Although Killian’s betrayal burned, she wasn’t concerned about that now.
CRACK.
Ingrid’s jaw bone expanded slightly, sending a shockwave of pain through her skull. She gritted her teeth against it.
"Why..." She panted, taking a step back, though her spine hit the side of the bus. "Why are you... gathering like this? If I’m dying... why aren’t they tearing me apart?"
The second Evolved One, a taller female creature with long, spiky bone extensions protruding from her elbows, let out a dry, clicking laugh.
"Because you are special," the female Evolved said, her voice sharp. "Humans think only we possess a Core. They think we are the only ones who can refine the energy of this dying world. They are blind. A few rare, stubborn parasites among you develop a Core before the shift takes hold. You have one glowing right inside your sternum."
The male Evolved nodded, stepping closer. "A human with a Core is a threat. Given time, you would have become strong enough to snap us in half just with your bare hands. But now? Your blood is polluted by our virus. You are weak. And if an Evolved consumes a raw, intact human Core before the host fully turns... our strength doubles."
A cold, mocking smile spread across the male creature’s pale face. "Your husband didn’t just save his own skin tonight. He delivered a feast straight to our doorstep. He threw you away, and in doing so, he made us stronger. But don’t worry, after this, I’ll get revenge on him for you."
Silence settled over the street, broken only by the crackle of distant fires and the click-click sound of the lower zombies’ jawbones.
Ingrid slowly let my hand drop to her waist. Her dark vein-covered fingers slipped beneath her torn, bloody jacket, wrapping around the cold, familiar rubber grip of her knife. It was a sturdy, six-inch steel blade her father had given her years before the world fell apart.
"So..." Ingrid whispered, her eyes narrowing as a cold, dangerous clarity replaced the panic in her mind. "You don’t care about me. You just want the Core."
The male Evolved raised an eyebrow, taking another step. "Precisely. It’s an honour for your core to be eaten by us, you can just..."
"What the hell are you doing?" The female Evolved suddenly barked, cutting off the male Evolved as her amber eyes snapped down to my hand.
Ingrid drew the blade, held it with both hands, the sharp tip pressed directly against the center of her chest, right between her ribs, directly over the warm, humming pressure she had felt building inside her chest for the past two weeks.
"A core huh?" Ingrid muttered under her breath, her hands trembling violently, "For the past two weeks, I’ve been trying to research on what this was. Imagine my shock when I found out that I had something growing inside me and I had some kind of strength that I never had before." She explained, twisting the knife deeper into her chest.
It was funny; she couldn’t really feel the pain despite her arms trembling. The second symptom that Ingrid was losing her humanity- the inability to feel pain.
"Since I was born, I’ve been used by others. My parents used me to get a business marriage, I thought at least my husband and I could live peacefully. I grew to love him, but it turns out he never had feelings for me, he was just leading me on. Even the son I loved never wanted me, I was just forcing things this whole time. And now, even in my death, you still want to use me? Why do you think I’ll let that happen?!" Ingrid drove the blade deeper into her chest, feeling it hit solid mass.
"No!" The female Evolved One screamed and lunged towards Ingrid, her hands outstretched. It was as if everything happened in slow motion.
The noise all around Ingrid stopped, it felt like it was being pulled into a circle by some kind of force, twisting and turning. Even the Zombies that lunged at her were frozen in mid air. Her heart thumped frantically, going faster and faster until she fell to the ground, her head spinning.
"Ugh!" Ingrid groaned in pain, the knife she was holding clattering to the ground. Both hands clutched her head and for one second, everything went silent again, the pain she felt disappeared into nothingness.
Then, everything rushed back in at once. A yellow stone burst out of her chest and shattered, sending shockwaves out to the zombies. Wherever the shockwave touched, it left nothing in its wake.
Zombies with flesh and skin as strong as stone tore, leaving nothing to even remember them by.
Ingrid felt her own blood boil, instantly vaporizing inside her veins as her core temperature spiked past thousands of degrees. Her body was disintegrating, skin turning to light, bones turning to ash. As the blinding light ripped through her ribcage, consuming the street, the bus, the monsters, and expanding rapidly outward toward the safe zone where her husband and son were fleeing, a feral, terrifying scream tore from what was left of her throat.
"Killian! Toby! I curse you both! You’ll never see the light of another day! You’ll die brutally!"
Ingrid heard her voice echo in the silent city as the last of her body disintegrated. It’s over. I died as a human. She thought, a sense of peace washing over her.
But suddenly, in the middle of the calm, a sharp, cold, electronic tone rang inside Ingrid’s mind.
{Core Destruction Protocol: Over-limit output detected.}
{Host Soul Integrity: 100% (Purified by Core Self-Detonation).}
{Condition met: Extreme Spite & Fatal Betrayal.}
{Initiating System Synchronization...}
{Rebinding Host Soul... Target Coordinates: Timeline Year 2044.}
{SSS Level Revenge System Initiated... Host awakening in 3... 2... 1...}