This is a work of fiction, and the views expressed herein are the sole responsibility of the author. Likewise, certain characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 by Charlie Reale
Cover design by Deranged Doctor Design
www.derangeddoctordesign.com
Editing by SilverJay Editing
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All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Thank you for supporting the author’s rights.
ISBN: 978-1-7329199-0-7 (eBook)
ISBN: 978-1-7329199-1-4 (paperback)
Created with Vellum
For my kids,
Who push me to work my hardest
to provide them the best life possible.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Epilogue
The Bear’s Rescue
The Chemist’s Robbery
About the Author
Books By Charlie Reale
1
What a wonderful kingdom.
Cristina strolled through the streets of Ostarin on a windy fall afternoon. Arching her neck, she glanced up at the two moons sitting in the sky, a bright blue and purple complementing the yellow sun. Despite the harsh wind blowing leaves around everywhere, she favored the autumn weather to the humid summers and bitter winters.
As much as Cristina hated running errands, she enjoyed walking through the kingdom. No matter how many times she had passed by the steel buildings throughout her thirty years on the planet of Sortious, she still marveled at the metal structures, some as tall as five hundred feet high. However, with the birthdays of her husband and daughter looming ahead, this day was anything but routine.
Cristina entered the bakery and waited in line, grateful she had arrived at a slow time as only two other people preceded her. The scent of baked pastries fresh out of the oven filled her nostrils, and she wondered if she could afford to pick up a few cream-filled talins to go along with the cake she had ordered.
“Hi, Nurse Rosecrest,” Timmy said from behind the counter. “That time of the year, I guess.”
Cristina chuckled. “I can’t believe a whole twelve months went by. Is it ready?”
“I think so, let me check.”
The bakery employee headed to the back room of the shop, off-limits to customers. Cristina’s gaze fixated on the talins inside the display case while she waited. The soft pastry filled with a cinnaberry spiced cream called out to Cristina. The croissants sat next to a variety of delicacies, but nothing beat her favorites.
Timmy placed the cake on the counter. “Do you want me to throw in some talins?”
“I don't think I have enough money to buy both. There's one more thing I need to pick up.”
Cristina glanced down at the vanilla frosted cake, layered with crispy phyllo and fluffy coneflower coffee cream. Not a flavor she would choose, but her husband loved the taste above everything else, so she had made an exception for the occasion.
Timmy handed her the dessert with a small wooden box on top. “Tell Karl I said happy birthday.”
Cristina peeked under the lid of the smaller container. Three talins rested with a dusting of blue sugar. She grinned at the young man. “You shouldn’t have. I’m not giving it back, but you shouldn’t have.”
After leaving with the pastries, she walked around the corner to the toy shop. Inside, a variety of toys filled the shelves, ranging from carved wooden dolls to costumes to board games.
Cristina browsed through the outfits, wondering if she could purchase something else in addition to the item she had ordered. A knight could work. She considered a faux chain-linked mail, decorated with the emblem of the kingdom—a red and blue three-legged basilisk.
The next costume also caught Cristina’s eye. A doctor suit, which entailed a long cobalt coat and white pants, hung on the wall. Lea does love spending time at the hospital while I’m working. Cristina reached into her pockets and pulled out the coins inside, twelve tin pennies along with six iron ones. After realizing she would not be able to afford both the custom-made item and a costume, she hung the doctor suit back on its hook, resigning to buy it next year.
“Hello, Nurse Rosecrest,” the shopkeeper said from behind her desk. “Are you here to pick up the carving?”
Cristina nodded. “I hope it wasn’t too difficult, Marie.”
“Well, it’s not every day someone wants a winged basilisk carving.”
“Lea is obsessed with dragons. She draws them, talks about them, dreams of these fantastical creatures. I don’t know why.”
The toy shop owner chuckled as she placed the figure on the counter. A foot tall, the statue depicted a dragon in flight with its four wings. Jagged gray scales decked its long and slender form, and a tail as long as its body curved with five spikes jutting from the tip.
As different as the body was compared to a typical basilisk, the head of the flying creature was out of this world. The dragon’s all-white eyes contained no pupils, and Lea had asked for them in the shape of triangles instead of ovals. No horns protruded from the head of the Ostarin lizard, but the dragon carving possessed three: one from the middle of its skull and one from each temple.
Marie chuckled. “Does your daughter know something we don’t? These so-called dragons do not exist, but you gave me such a detailed description of what to make.”
Cristina shrugged her shoulders. “The imagination of a ten-year-old is something we adults will never understand.” She ran a finger along the wing of the dragon. “This is beautiful Marie, thank you. Lea will love this.”
“I made sure there are no sharp edges on the statue, so she doesn’t cut herself while playing with it.”
“Thanks a lot, I appreciate—”
The door flew open and three people rushed inside. They slammed the door behind them and stared through the window up toward the sky. With their clothes drenched, the three gave off an odor comparable to rotten eggs.
“What’s going on?” Cristina asked.
No one responded. Instead, all three pointed up at the exact same time. The awful scent intensified as Cristina approached the front entrance, forcing her to pinch her nose. When she glanced out the window, she dropped her hands and jaw in shock.
A thick green cloud blanketed the skies outside, unlike the usual shades of white and gray. Even the mucus-like rain matched the color of the dense shadow above.
Cristina pointed outside. “What is that?”
One of the three coughed and wiped her forehead. “No idea. One second the sky was clear, the next this happened. The smell is awful, so we ran inside to shield ourselves from the weather.”
One of the others turned to the side and vomited something thick and green all over the floor. Either the sight of the action sickened the other two, or this storm was causing a disease of some kind. They threw up as well and clutched at their stomachs.
Marie rushed over from behind her desk, and her eyes widened at seeing the vomit. “Get out, get—” She stopped when she glanced out the window.
Outside, people all over the street hunched over and threw up. Everywhere. Their skin tone had dulled to an olive gray. Did they eat something poisonous, making them sick?
Crist
ina reached into her bag and took out a yellow herb. Needing something to process the corydalis, she snatched a wooden cup from the counter and a banging drumstick from a bright red drum set, using them to crush the leaf into a paste with a few drops of water from a canteen she carried.
“Eat this.” Cristina scooped up some of the mix and extended the medicine toward one of the sick people. “This will calm your stomach down.”
It got worse.
All three screamed a loud shrill before leaping. Cristina stepped back, unable to help as they pounded and clawed at each other as if to avenge someone killed, like a son or a daughter.
Cristina led Marie to the other side of a desk, and the two crouched down to keep away from the others. When the sound quieted, Cristina poked her head up from behind the counter.
The lone surviving infected leaped over the table and pounced on Cristina. Beady yellowed eyes stared down. She seized the attacker’s wrists, but he did not stop and slammed his head down.
Cristina’s nose cracked in a spray of blood.
Marie grabbed the delirious man and pulled him off Cristina while she pushed a rag against her nose to stop the bleeding. The light faded about halfway to darkness, and the room whirled, turning her into a helpless spectator. The sick man wrapped his arms around the shopkeeper and chomped down on her neck like a rabid dog.
Marie dropped to the floor.
The man spun to face Cristina, who had not recovered from the head-butt. Bracing for the impending attack, she lifted her forearms in front of her face, but the pounce never happened. Instead, he fell over with a knife in his back.
Marie, on her knees, clutched at the hole in her neck, unable to stem the flow of blood. Her eyes rolled back and she toppled over.
Cristina shook off her dizziness with force and crawled over to Marie. After pulling a rag out from her bag, Cristina pressed it against Marie’s critical wound. She held the compress firmly, but it was too late. Marie’s heart stopped beating. Life left her.
It was a sight Cristina knew all too well.
Cristina stood and surveyed the wreckage in the store. Four people dead, green bile mixed with blood splattered all over the floor.
What caused all this?
Outside, the view appeared worse compared to the inside, if that were at all possible. On top of the rotten egg odor and decay, people clawed and struck each other.
Was this the green rain’s doing?
Cristina took the chance and stepped outside.
If injured people remained and needed help, she could not ignore her devotion as a nurse. Those in need would receive assistance regardless of the danger.
Up ahead on the road, someone screamed. Cristina rushed over to a woman with a knife in her thigh. Her skin had not dulled with the olive tone like the ones inside the toy shop. In comparison with the others, her forehead did not appear drenched. The disease was not affecting this woman. At least not yet.
“What happened?” Cristina asked.
“I was trying to escape with my husband when he screamed this shrill, loud shriek and, and…”
“You don’t need to tell me.” Cristina reached into her pouch and pulled out a vial of red pilosella. “I’m going to pull the knife out and put this on the wound.” Cristina handed the woman the drumstick she had kept from the toy shop. “Bite on this. It will hurt. A lot.”
Without any hesitation and in one swift motion, Cristina yanked out the blade and poured a few drops of the pilosella on the cut. The woman wailed. The chemical bubbled, mixing with the blood and coagulating it, stopping its flow almost right away.
The woman screamed again, this time a much shriller screech than before.
Cristina jumped back. Green flushed the woman’s skin. Sweat dripped from her pores. The whites of her eyes turned a sickly yellow.
Despite lying with a knife in her thigh for who knows how long and Cristina cauterizing the wound in the quickest yet most painful way, the woman hopped up and leaped forward as if she had not experienced a shred of pain.
Cristina backpedaled but tripped over a rock, falling to the ground. Still moving, she scurried back enough to evade the leap from the diseased, but the woman jumped forward again.
Something rattled in Cristina’s hand: the knife she had pulled out from the other’s thigh. A quick thrust could save Cristina, but the jab would kill the attacker—sick, yet still human. How much life remained in these infected people?
Not wanting to take the chance, Cristina chucked the weapon away.
Right before the diseased landed, Cristina rolled to one side. The woman slammed into the ground, her nose cracking against the cobbled stone. Despite that, she continued to move with conviction, as if she felt no pain whatsoever.
Cristina attempted to stand but changed course when the infected woman leaped forward again. Priming herself for flesh, she bared her teeth. A second roll to the side delayed the crazed woman’s satisfaction.
The other woman crashed, and her wrist bent in the wrong direction, sounding like a cracker snapping in half. The diseased kept going as if nothing had happened. Cristina rolled once again to dodge the pounce, but something blocked her way.
A corpse.
Rolling away would not work. Cristina had one option: brace for impact. Her arms flew up to protect her face and neck, and she shut her eyes.
The diseased slammed into Cristina, knocking all the wind out of her body. With her body pinned down, she had lost any chance to escape. And yet there was no bite. In fact, the woman ceased moving despite having her victim locked in a vulnerable position.
When Cristina opened her eyes, the lifeless face of the woman hovered two inches above her.
Cristina screamed and pushed the body away. A drop of liquid fell on her, and she glanced over to see the knife, somehow pinned between the arm and torso of the corpse she had rolled into. Blood dripped from the iron blade.
Cristina jumped up and squealed again, thrashing at her body, wiping off any trace of the diseased woman. Seeing someone dead was not new to Cristina as she had dealt with death more times than she cared to admit. This felt different. Despite not wielding the weapon, Cristina had killed the woman, regardless of whether it needed to happen or not.
The sound of screeching drew Cristina’s attention. Dozens—or hundreds—of people bellowed the screams of the diseased. Had anyone else survived the plague? Was the whole kingdom doomed?
Cristina gasped. Karl and Lea!
If this disease spread through the entire city, then her husband’s and daughter’s lives were in danger. Could Cristina save them or would she be too late? Muttering a prayer to the gods, Cristina ran north toward her home.
2
Cristina charged through the plague-infested streets of Ostarin. No matter where she turned, people infected with this unknown disease punched, clawed, and bit each other for no reason at all. They all shared one common trait: a shrill shriek before the madness.
The dark cloud still hovered over the kingdom, and the green rain continued to fall. At first, Cristina wondered why it appeared she possessed an immunity to the effect of the storm, but like a puzzle piece clicking into place, she realized: the blood flowing in her veins protected her. Lineage did not matter at the moment, so she pushed the thought to the back of her mind, making one thing the focus: reaching Karl and Lea.
A sobbing teenage girl knelt over an older man lying face down in an alley Cristina turned into. The teenager appeared unaffected by the disease, as her skin showed no signs of dullness. When Cristina approached with care, she confirmed the man’s deceased status after seeing his lifeless yellow eyes.
Cristina placed her hand on the teenager’s shoulder. “Are you hurt?”
The girl screamed, different from the shrill shriek from the diseased, and turned to face Cristina with a knife in one hand. Cristina jumped back, ready to defend herself against another of the infected, but noted that her eyes had not yellowed, nor did her skin flush with green. The girl wailed again.<
br />
Cristina glanced down at the fresh blood covering the blade in the girl’s hand, and up at the tears filling her eyes. Cristina realized what had happened.
“It’s okay,” Cristina said. “I’m not one of them.”
“I killed him.” The girl stared at the bloody knife. “I killed my father, I killed him I killed him!”
The girl was experiencing a mental breakdown, Cristina thought. Killing someone close to you, regardless of its necessity, would break anyone. Cristina had treated people with that condition countless times in the hospital.
“I’m sorry you had to do that.” Cristina raised her hands to show she wielded no weapons. “Did he try to attack you?”
The girl nodded as tears flowed down her cheeks. “But I killed him. He wouldn’t have hurt me. I killed him. I wasn’t thinking, I just stabbed him.”
Cristina took a step forward. “You won’t believe me, but you did the right thing.” She gazed up at the green cloud. “Whatever that is, it’s affecting people, taking their sense of selves away. When your father attacked you, it wasn’t him anymore.”
“But I killed him!” The girl waved her knife in front of her. “Why? Why? Why?”
“Because you defended yourself.” Cristina stepped forward again, now within reach of the girl’s blade. “Deep down inside, you knew that wasn’t your father. You did the right thing.”
The girl screamed again and slashed her weapon, missing Cristina by a few inches. “You lie! That was my father, and I killed him.” She coughed. “I stabbed my father, and then I did it again, and again.”
“I know it’s hard for you.” Cristina held her ground. “Trust me, the people here went mad, probably because of this storm. You did nothing wrong. Your father was dead before you stabbed him.”
The Kingdom's Destruction Page 1