In the Milky Way galaxy, Sector Orion was under siege. The dreaded Pox Legions of the demon lord Pestis swept across the void like a plague, leaving only diseased, death-ridden husks of worlds in their wake. No one knew their true origins, only that each conquest turned thriving planets into festering graves, their populations twisted into mindless, rotting horrors.
Now, as the Empire of Man gathered its mighty battle fleets to counter this festering threat, the agricultural world of Achios found itself in the path of the disease-ridden horror.
However for the four-year-old Lili, a fair-skinned girl with light blonde hair and deep blue eyes, none of this though seemed to matter. Her little girlish world was confined to the beautiful white fields of flowers that surrounded the city of Mikri Poli. The city, built like a gleaming sphere with a massive central park, was her home—a place of peace where smaller parks along the edges were her favourite places in the world. There on the many playgrounds she liked to play each and everyday with her friends and her parents as well.
Even now she sat on a bench, swinging her little legs as she smelled the white flowers in her hands, her parents murmuring something to one another softly beside her. The sun shone warmly overhead, though the looming glass and the white metal skyscrapers blocked some of its light. The nearly silent electric hum of passing cars and the chatter of city folk disrupted the serenity, but she paid it no mind. As a little city girl she was so used to it all.
But then, everything changed.
A sharp ping rang from every mobile device in the city. A hush fell over the streets as people froze, glancing at their screens. Cars also halted in the middle of the road. And soon confusion began to turn into fear as people read the warning messages on their devices. Even Lili's mother seemed to be full of fear and uncertainty as she turned to father and asked in worry.
"What's going on?"
Father didn't answer. His face had gone pale.
Then Lili noticed the sky begining to darken, and as she looked up she saw there a vast, unnatural green cloud spreading from high above from the outer atmosphere, seemingly swallowing the sun's golden light.
Then came a deep tremor that rumbled through the ground, loud air raid alarms sounded and suddenly, the earth around the city of Mikri Poli split open. From the depths rose great white walls of metal, forming a double-layered defense around the city. The outer walls, slightly shorter than the inner, bristled with anti-air batteries and heavy guns, that were waiting to be manned by Imperial planetary guard soldiers who began swarming from hidden bunkers like disciplined insects.
They were faceless figures in green. Their flak armor covered most of their torsos, metallic greaves protected their legs, and featureless gas masks with tinted visors obscured their humanity. Their hands, gloved in reinforced metal, gripped lasrifles with unwavering discipline. To Lili, they looked like giant, green-clad dolls—silent, ominous, emotionless.
Then, the skyscrapers transformed. Their glass exteriors sealed shut with heavy plates of metal, and from their rooftops emerged massive gun emplacements that immediately opened fire into the sky. The city trembled as the deafening thunder of the large guns echoed through the streets.
Her father grabbed her into his embrace as he began hurriedly carrying her toward the spaceport on the far side of the city. Mother was not far behind, her face so full of fear that it began effecting Lili as well. Lili didn't know what was going on, but she knew that it wasn't good and she didn't like that.
Soon her eyes turned tiery as she looked at the roads that were becoming a stampede of bodies, a writhing mass of terrified civilians all scrambling toward salvation. Her father hoisted her onto his shoulders, her small hands gripping his hair as he pushed through the crowd.
Through teary eyes, Lili gazed upward at the seeming source of everyone's fear. Her small body trembled as she tried to understand the sheer scale of what was happening above her world. The sky was alight with violent brilliance, flickering like a nightmare of distant storms. Tiny, dazzling bursts of gold and crimson erupted against the blackness, each one marking a desperate struggle, a life lost, a ship consumed in the void.
High above the towering spires of the city, Achios' planetary defense fleet fought against the monstrous tide of invaders. The Imperial ships, proud and rigid in their mighty formations, moved with precise, disciplined grace. Their armored hulls, marked with the proud sigils of the Imperium, shimmered under the bombardment of enemy fire. They were outnumbered—badly. Yet they did not waver.
And then there were them—the ships of Lord Pestis. Sickly green and pulsating like living things, they lurked in the heavens, defying all reason, all sanity. These were not crafted vessels of steel and rivets, but abominable creations of bone, sinew, and necrotic flesh. Their surfaces were riddled with festering sores that oozed vile fluids into the void, congealing into veils of drifting sickness. They were not merely ships; they were horrors, and they advanced with an unholy hunger.
Lili watched as the Imperial fleet fired first, long lances of searing energy cutting through the cold darkness. Bright streams of macro-cannon rounds and torpedo barrages soared into the black, each impact illuminating the diseased ships like twisted lanterns. Explosions tore through the corrupted hulls, sending showers of pus-like ichor and shattered bone drifting into the void. But the enemy did not falter. No matter how much damage they sustained, the plague-ships pressed on, their wounds closing, their grotesque forms regenerating with unholy resilience.
With eerie, unnatural grace, the largest of Lord Pestis' ships surged forward, its prow a gaping maw of jagged bone. It rammed into an Imperial cruiser, tearing through its armor plating as though it were paper. Tendrils, thick and pulsing with corrupt vitality, lashed out, coiling around the stricken vessel. The proud ship of the Imperium convulsed as the tendrils burrowed into its structure, splitting apart metal bulkheads and flooding its decks with writhing parasites.
Lili's breath hitched as she saw tiny bursts of light within the wounded cruiser—people trying to fight back. Flashes of emergency gunfire, small detonations, and then... darkness. A new light flared from within, not of battle, but of death. The ship's core erupted in a desperate, final explosion, a last defiant act to deny the enemy its prize. It broke apart in a cascade of golden embers, fragments scattering into the abyss.
Still the massive monstrous ship was not gone, from it merely more of the foul tendrils lashed out, reaching for other ships. A formation of Imperial frigates darted between the massive plague-beasts, strafing their flanks with precise lance fire. Their shots carved deep wounds, exposing the twisted inner workings of the abominations. Yet still, the corrupted ships advanced.
More ramming attacks followed. One of the largest plague-ships slammed into an Imperial battleship, driving its bony prow through the ship's armored midsection. The impact alone sent waves of debris scattering through the fleet, but what came next was worse. The vile ship bled into the Imperial vessel. Putrid liquids, thick with writhing larvae, poured from ruptured cysts, seeping into the battleship's corridors. The infection was inside now. Lili saw flashes of internal explosions as the ship's crew tried to contain the horror within.
And then she saw something even worse.
Bodies. Dozens. Hundreds. Some drifting weightlessly in the void, clad in Imperial uniforms and voidsuits torn asunder. Others were not corpses, not entirely. They moved. Even in the cold vacuum, even without pressure or air, they twitched, their faces locked in those terrible, wide grins. Their eyes screamed, but their mouths only laughed.
Lili clamped her hands over her eyes, trying to block out the scenes of death, and what she knew to be scenes of what were silent bouts of laughter and wails within the void.
And still, the battle raged on, and through her slightly parted fingers Lilis keen eyes kept watching.
The fleet fought bravely, defiantly. She could see Imperial battleships lining up for a final stand, their weapons still firing, still punishing the horrors that sought to consume them. One by one, they fell, but they did not die quietly. Even as their ships broke apart, even as the green plague spread through the void, they fought.
But not all hope was lost, as from the surface of Achios, another sudden, thunderous roar came, as the planetary defense guns opened fire. The massive cannons, embedded in reinforced bastions across the world, angled skyward and unleashed blinding streams of destruction into the heavens. The ground beneath Lili trembled as the immense weapons discharged, sending volleys of superheated plasma and explosive shells into the swarm of plague-ridden ships.
From the highest towers, from the fortified districts, from the sprawling defense networks that ringed the great cities of Achios, the guns fired in unison. Their barrages lanced through the sky, each volley taking a long moment till they struck against the vile ships above, detonating with colossal bursts that momentarily burned away the sickly green glow of the invaders. Some of the foul vessels reeled from the impacts, their diseased hulls splitting open, spilling black, writhing things into the void. Others withstood the bombardment, pushing ever downward, their tendrils reaching hungrily for the world below.
But Achios was not yet broken. The strength of an imperial worlds outer defenses could not be defeated so easily.
From the city's great spaceport, and from a dozen others across the planet, the metallic hawks of the Imperium took flight. Squadrons of sleek Imperial fighters, their wings gleaming in the fiery glow of battle, launched into the sky in tight formations. Their engines screamed as they cut through the thick atmosphere, climbing toward the doomed battle above with unwavering resolve.
Lili watched, her breath caught in her throat, as they ascended like a flock of silver birds into the storm of war. There were so many of them—rows upon rows of fighters, bombers, and interceptors, all streaking upward with deadly purpose. Some bore the proud sigils of Achios' noble air wings, their hulls painted in the colors of their great houses. Others were fresh from the manufactorums, unpainted and raw, their steel bodies marked only with the Imperium's sacred aquila.
Higher and higher they went, their thrusters burning bright, leaving long trails of white vapor against the darkening sky. They knew what awaited them. They knew they flew into death. Yet still, they went bravely onwards which was not lost on Lilis young still developing mind.
The first squadrons reached the fray, and the sky erupted anew. The nimble fighters weaved between the colossal warships, dodging writhing tendrils and walls of putrid spores. They strafed the plague-beasts with searing las-fire and unleashed volleys of torpedoes into the bloated flesh of the enemy vessels. Some strikes found their mark, bursting the swollen cysts of the plague-ships, sending fountains of decay spilling into the void and down towards the planet's surface. Others struck too shallow, their weapons sinking into diseased flesh only to be absorbed, swallowed whole by the regenerating corruption.
For every fighter that struck true, another was lost.
Lili flinched as she saw bright streaks of green light cut through the sky, vaporizing whole squadrons in an instant. She saw tendrils lash out and seize Imperial craft mid-flight, crushing them like insects. She saw pilots eject from their burning ships, only to be caught in the vile grasp of the enemy, their bodies convulsing as the plague took them, twisting them into things that should not be.
Seeing it all as horrible as it was, Lili still clenched her little fists in defiance and whispered out.
"For the Imperium," Her voice was soft and but a whisper, her body shaking, but her bravery was not lost on her father who patted her head lovingly as he continued to run with her in his strong arms.
But then Lilis eyes looked to the ever growing grotesque green cloud that was slowly falling upon the world. With her keen eyes she could see that it wasn't merely gas or water like normal clouds. No, it was alive. It descended in an unnatural, creeping wave, engulfing everything below. As pieces of shattered warships rained down in fiery trails, the first flakes of the sickly green mist began to fall like snow.
Lili reached out, letting a few of the strange flakes land on her tiny palm. Instantly they melted, and then like some sickness began burrowing into her skin. A feverish warmth spread through her, followed by an unbearable itch. She squirmed, rubbing at her hand—then, just as suddenly, the discomfort vanished.
A soft pulse came from within her chest. Unseen but deeply felt, a gentle light spread through her veins, washing away the corruption before it could take hold. She did not understand it, nor had she ever spoken of it to her parents. To her, it was natural—a second heart, not of flesh, but of warmth and light.
The sickness recoiled from her, the green flakes burning away as if repelled by an unseen force. But around her, others were not so lucky.
Already as Father turned a corner and the spaceport came into view Lili could sense that not all was well there. The air within and outside the massive spaceport was thick with tension, an unseen weight was pressing down on the tens of thousands of civilians that were shuffling forward in slow, desperate waves up the ramp of the spaceport.
The towering skyscrapers around the street before the spaceport were normally a symbol of Imperial might, but now they felt more like the edges of a cage. Lili could see that the only way out of this cage was up the massive metallic ramp leading up into the spaceport, that was still so far away. To the side of the spaceport people were also shuffling up to the surface from the Metro, making the already crowded streets even more packed. Now only the buildings at the side, and the large food market within one of the bigger buildings to her right seemed like places of safety away from the already agitated crowds.
Still Lili only clung ever tighter to her father's shoulders, her little hands gripping the fabric of his coat as if she were grasping desperately at a sense of safety. The crowd was packed so tightly together that movement had become a struggle. People jostled against one another, voices rising in irritation. The slow shuffle of feet, the murmur of thousands, the distant thunder of planetary defense guns—it all blended into a heavy, oppressive noise.
Then, something changed as more and more of the strange green snowfall descended from the sky. It was like tiny specks of pale, sickly light drifting lazily down like pollen. And at first, people barely noticed. But then, Lili saw it forming on the back of her father's neck, something was growing there.
The skin had darkened, turning blotchy and inflamed. Then, as if it had been there all along, a pustule appeared—a swollen, green lump of fluid stretching the skin. It pulsed slightly, as though something inside was alive.
Father reached up absentmindedly and scratched at it. His nails dug deep, and with a loud pop, the pustule burst. A wet splatter of vile green ichor sprayed outward, some of it landing on Lili's arm, her dress, her cheek.
"Iikh, no, Father! Stop it!"
But he didn't stop.
And then—Lili heard it.
All around her, in the packed sea of bodies, came the unmistakable, grotesque sound of popping. Soft at first, then louder, a sickening symphony of rupturing pustules.
People groaned, scratching furiously at their arms, their necks, their faces. Some clawed so hard that their skin tore, their nails coming away bloody and slick. The infection spread in seconds—where one pustule burst, more grew.
A woman gasped beside Lili, her hands flying to her throat as pustules swelled along her jawline, her cheeks, her eyelids. Her eyes rolled back in pain, fingers digging in, and then—pop, pop, pop. The ichor sprayed onto those closest to her, and they too began scratching.
The air was filled with the sound of wet, tearing flesh and feverish mumbling. And yet the only thing people seemed to be concerned about was the scratching and the moving up the metallic ramp, it was as if everyone was within a trance. Even father's eyes seemed as if though he wasn't there, and mother merely followed silently behind father.
Then Lili noticed something changing again, as suddenly confusion set into people.
All around voices rose up in a panic, but their words no longer made sense.
"Where—where am I?" a man stammered.
"What was I doing again?" whispered another.
"Who… who are you?" Lili's mother asked, looking up at Father strong figure that towered above mother. It was strange, it was as if mother didn't know who father was anymore.
Father's eyes widened fast, as he turned Lili in hand to look at mother, his breath coming fast as he said. "I… I don't know? Who am I?"
Hearing their confusion Lili felt scared, it was as if the infection was stealing them from her, from themselves. Now her parents just stood there looking at one another in an absolute state of loss.
Then Lili noticed a nobleman, dressed in fine silks and gold embroidery, pushing through the disoriented crowd. He was clearly trying to cut ahead, heading straight for the line of gas-masked soldiers guarding the ramp. His face was drenched in sweat, his lips trembling as he raised a shaking hand.
"You there, soldier! I demand priority passage! Do you know who I am? I am… I am…"
His voice faltered.
The soldier before him stood firm, Lasrifle raised, but he did not shoot. He merely watched, his mask reflecting the noble's growing horror.
"I am…" the nobleman whispered again. His eyes darted back and forth, his lips twitching. "I am. Wait, who am I soldier? Who are you?"
It was strange, it was as if the nobleman's name, his title—his entire identity—was slipping away like sand through fingers. His mouth moved soundlessly, his hands clawing at the air.
And then, like a felled tree, he collapsed.
Not just him.
All at once, people, civilians, all except the soldiers began to fall like dominoes.
The entire crowd—tens of thousands of people—dropped as though their strings had been cut. A great, terrible silence washed over the spaceport and streets before it, broken only by the distant echo of planetary defense guns still firing into the upper atmosphere.
Lili then also fell and hit the ground, as she fell from her falling father's hands. She landed hard against the chest of an elderly woman, her small hands pressing into fabric now damp with sweat and green ichor.
She wanted to apologize—wanted to move—but she froze.
The woman's eyes had rolled back, her lips trembling.
Foam bubbled from the corners of her mouth, and not just the old woman, but everyone.
Wherever Lili looked she could see the same thing happening to everyone. A sea of bodies, motionless but not still was around her. She could see their fingers twitching. Their chests spasming. And then a low, guttural groan rippled through the mass of fallen humanity.
And then, the real horror began.
Father's skin darkened to an even deeper shade of sickly green. His veins bulged like black vines, crawling up his arms, his throat, his face. His head… it was swelling, the bones beneath shifting, stretching, cracking.
Lili watched in silent terror as spikes—his own bones—began pushing through his skin. His fingers lengthened, the flesh stripping away until only jagged, claw-like talons remained.
Mother was changing too.
The skin of her fingers had melted together, fusing into a single, spear-like appendage. Her lips—her soft, warm lips—were gone, leaving her teeth exposed in a permanent, mad skinless grin.
Everywhere Lili looked, the bodies were shifting, cracking, warping. People—friends, strangers, families—twisted into something no longer human. Their backs arched unnaturally. Their bones tore through their flesh like jagged weapons. Their mouths… always seemingly holding that same mad smile.
The soldiers stood frozen at the edges of the chaos. Their gas masks had saved them, but now their hands gripped their weapons with white-knuckled horror.
Then—click.
A rifle safety was switched off.
The soldiers raised their weapons.
Lili saw one of them hesitate, his rifle trained on the writhing bodies. His hands shook. His voice, muffled by the mask, was barely a whisper.
"Sir what do we do? Do we shoot?"
His commander, a tall man with a peaked cap, hesitated for only a second.
Then: "Yes."
Lasrifle fire ripped through the silence.
The first shot struck a transformed man in the chest, blowing a burned hole through the shifting flesh. The thing barely reacted.
Then, as if responding to some unseen signal, the infected moved.
They did not run. They lurched. Their limbs jerked with unnatural speed, their bodies spasming forward in chaotic, unpredictable movements. Their eyes—still alive beneath the rot—glistened with a strange, tormented awareness.
And they laughed.
Shrieking, howling, laughing.
Lili had never heard anything so wrong.
The soldiers fired. One after another, rounds tore through the creatures, but they just kept coming. Their broken bodies twisted unnaturally, reforming even as limbs were blown away.
A soldier screamed as a clawed hand tore through his visor, dragging him into the mass. His rifle vanished in the swarm.
Lili ran.
She did not think. She did not hesitate. Some primal, ancient instinct had seized her—one that whispered only a single, absolute truth.
Survive.
She ran, her small legs carrying her over the spasming bodies, past the soldiers, past the tall towering buildings.
Away.
Away from her ever changing parents.
Away from the grinning, laughing horror.
Away from the madness that had seemingly consumed the world. This city was no longer the safe place that she had once thought of it as being.
So Lili ran and ran away.
Her tiny feet barely touched the ground as she sprinted, dodging between spasming, writhing bodies that lay scattered across the streets. Their limbs twitched, their muscles convulsed as the infection took hold, reshaping them into something wrong.
She didn't dare stop. Not even to scream.
Behind her, the world was falling apart.
Gunfire cracked through the air, loud and panicked. Soldiers shouted over the chaos, trying to hold the lines, their gas-masked faces unreadable as they pushed back the infected. The sound of their bolters filled the city, each shot echoing off the towering white spires.
And yet—it didn't matter.
Because the people were still changing.
A woman, once dressed in elegant silks, clawed at her own face, her fingers digging into the flesh as her body convulsed. Green pustules burst open across her arms, her sickly skin peeling away in layers of infection. She turned her eyes toward Lili—still human eyes—wide, desperate, pleading.
But then—her lips curled into a smile.
That same horrific smile.
And she laughed.
Lili bolted past her, past the street filled with others just like her, past the nobleman who had tried to plead his name to the soldiers only to forget it in the haze of infection.
Past the people who clawed at their own faces, who sobbed with unseeing eyes, who grinned even as tears ran down their cheeks.
She ran past them all, pushing forward with all the strength her small legs could muster.
The great glass doors of the food market loomed ahead—a massive structure, more like a shopping mall than a simple store. Its towering windows reflected the nightmarish scene outside, its neon signs flickering as power fluctuated across the city.
Lili didn't think. She just threw herself inside.
Her little fingers fumbled over the manual locks, trembling as she shoved the doors shut with all her little four year old might. The heavy glass panels groaned lightly against the frame—but to her relief they held.
Panting, she turned back—
—and nearly screamed.
Through the glass, she saw them.
Rising.
The infected stood, their bodies cracking as they moved. Their spines twisted unnaturally, their arms hanging limp before snapping back into place. Their heads lolled for a moment—before jerking up, grinning, grinning, grinning.
And their eyes—
Their eyes were full of tiers, they were crying so pitifully. And looking at them Lili swore that she could see them in there, somewhere, just begging for deliverance, begging for an end.
The infecteds own minds were now trapped within their own bodies of deformed flesh.
Tears were ever increasingly rolling down their disfigured faces, their chests heaving in silent sobs—yet their mouths betrayed them, curling into those wide, nightmarish grins. Their rotting lungs forced out laughter, hacking and wheezing and choking, even as their bodies swayed like puppets on invisible strings.
The woman in silk turned her gaze toward Lili.
She pressed her trembling, clawed hand against the glass.
The fingers scraped.
The sound was soft. Almost gentle.
Like a whisper.
And then—
She laughed.
The others followed, their voices rising in a sickening chorus, their rotting faces twitching as they howled at the sky.
Lili's breath hitched. Her body froze.
Then—
RUN.
The thought screamed through her mind, shattering the terror that had locked her in place.
She turned and ran, bolting deeper into the vast, empty food market.
Rows of shelves stretched endlessly before her, aisles upon aisles of products stacked high, the ceiling looming above like the ribs of a great beast. The overhead lights flickered, casting long, jagged shadows across the polished floors.
She didn't stop.
Didn't look back.
She darted into the green section, her tiny body slipping between the towering displays of fruits and vegetables. The scent of fresh produce filled the air—a sharp, almost mocking contrast to the decay outside.
She dove into a pile of strawberries, their cool, soft texture pressing against her skin as she buried herself beneath them.
And then—she waited.
Her breath came in shallow gasps.
Her small hands clutched the white flowers she had carried all this way, their delicate petals trembling in her grasp.
Outside, beyond the aisles, beyond the glass—
The infected laughed and sounded like they were about to sing, until explosions and Lasrifle fire ripled through the air as the soldiers outside finally unleashed their full might upon the infected.
Lili tried her best to lay buried beneath the pile of strawberries, her tiny body trembling against the cool fruit. She curled into herself, making herself small, pressing her hands against her ears—but it wasn't enough.
The war outside still reached her.
The boom of heavy guns cracked through the city, shaking the very foundation of the food market. The sharp tat-tat-tat of rapid-fire weapons followed, their relentless barrage trying—failing—to hold back the tide.
The soldiers were fighting.
Fighting so hard.
From her hidden nest, Lili could hear them shouting—orders barked, desperate calls for reinforcements, the muffled, panicked voices crackling through their comms. She heard the dull, rhythmic thuds of bodies hitting the ground.
And beneath it all—
The laughing.
The horrible laughing.
It rose through the chaos, drowning out even the screams. The infected sang their sickening lullaby, their broken voices rasping through bloodied throats.
"Join our song, sing along. Celebrate our sickness…"
Their voices warped as they swarmed. Some were shrill, some low and guttural—others came in wet, choking gasps as fluids bubbled up their rotting throats.
"Through our bile, we will smile. One and all bear witness—"
Then—
BOOM.
A shockwave blasted through the streets, rattling the glass of the market. Lili flinched, burying her face deeper into the strawberries as the walls trembled around her.
Something big was moving outside.
The deep, mechanical roar of an engine rumbled through the streets, followed by the slow, thunderous clank of metal treads grinding over pavement. The sound grew louder—closer—until she could hear the awful crunching.
It wasn't just rolling over the streets.
It was rolling over them.
The screams of the infected turned to wet, pulpy squelches. Bones snapped like dry twigs beneath its weight, flesh burst apart like overripe fruit. Yet even as they were crushed, the laughing never stopped.
They howled in joy.
They wanted this.
"More, more!" one of them shrieked.
"Yes! Break us! Crush us! We'll smile for you—"
BOOM.
Another explosion rocked the ground. Shattered glass rained down from the market's broken skylights, the cold wind of the outside world rushing in. The distant whoosh of an evacuation ship taking off barely reached her ears through the storm of battle.
The spaceport was still full of fighting.
The soldiers still held the line.
But for how long?
Lili bit down on her trembling lip. Her little hands clenched around the white flowers, holding them tight against her chest as she tried to drown it all out.
The gunfire.
The laughing.
The crushing, tearing, burning sounds of battle.
It was all too much.
And then—
The tank outside fired its powerful cannon, shaking the entire building. Glass shattered, and a moment later, the front of the food market exploded inward as the massive war machine barreled through. The infected swarmed over it, their claws peeling back the metal like it was dry wood. Lili squeezed her eyes shut as she heard the screams of the men inside, their cries cut short by sickening wet sounds.
And then in their final moments Lili could hear the tanks crew pulling the pins of there grenades, as an massive explosion consumed them. The tanks ammunition stores erupted into powerful flames and then a huge shockwave rattled the entire store sending shelves toppling, glass windows shattering, and alarms blaring in a discordant wail. Then, silence.
But only for a moment.
Then came the footsteps. Slow, deliberate, inhumanly synchronized. The infected were inside now.
Lili's breath hitched as she tried to make herself smaller, burying her face into the soft, crushed fruit around her. The smell of strawberries mixed with the distant scent of rot and infection. And then song started again.
"Join our song, sing along. Celebrate our sickness. Through our bile, we will smile. One and all bear witness, to our unifying sickness."
The words slithered into her ears, wrapping around her thoughts like creeping vines. It was soothing, like a lullaby, like something her mother might hum when she stroked Lili's hair at night. But this wasn't her mother. This wasn't safe.
Something deep inside her flickered, resisting the pull of the melody. It was like a flame within her, a small but stubborn light that fought against the darkness closing in. But the song... the song wanted her. It whispered in her mind, coaxing her, calling her.
She didn't even realize her lips had begun to part, the first note of the cursed song nearly slipping from her tongue.
No! She clenched the white flowers tighter, her small hands crushing their delicate petals. She would not sing. She would not join them.
The footsteps came closer. A rasping chuckle broke through the harmony of the song, followed by a wheezing cough. Then another chuckle, another step. Closer. Closer.
Lili squeezed her eyes shut. Any second now, those deformed hands would reach into the strawberries, pull her out, and she would become just like them.
But then suddenly a deafening explosion tore through the store, followed by a chorus of shouts and the harsh crackle of gunfire.
"For the Imperium, die mutant scum!" The voice echoed from the center of the store, and in an instant, the air was filled with the roar of flamethrowers, the hiss of lasguns, and the desperate shrieks of the infected.
Lili flinched as bursts of fire lit the space, the flashes of light stark against the encroaching darkness. Soldiers from the metro entrance surged forward, their movements swift and purposeful, their faces hidden behind gas masks. They were unrecognizable—just figures of resolve, moving to cleanse the store.
"Purge them! Hold the line!" barked one of the soldiers, his voice distorted by the mask, sending a chill down Lili's spine.
The infected screamed in fury, their song interrupted as they tore through the aisles, their madness growing. The battle was savage—gunshots, flames, and desperate cries filled the store as the infected pressed on.
Lili stayed absolutely still, barely breathing. The firepower raged on above her, shreds of meat and bone falling in bursts of flame. Every now and then, a stray shot whizzed dangerously close, but she stayed hidden, buried deep within the strawberry mound. Her heart pounded in her throat as she listened to the carnage unfolding above her.
The infected kept coming, wave after wave, drawn to the sounds of battle like moths to a flame. Despite the soldiers' efforts, the monsters kept flooding in—some burned, some broken, but still they came. And when the soldiers' weapons began to overheat, Lili could hear the infected closing in. Their screams, their laughter, the sounds of their decaying bodies moving closer and closer.
Then came the final scream, the last desperate roar of a soldier. The sound of explosions, the cracking of stone and metal as the men made their final stand. The store shook as grenades exploded, sending more infected to the ground, but for every infected that fell, another one appeared. The soldiers were dying, falling back toward the metro entrance, leaving only the sound of their weapons firing in retreat.
The footsteps of the infected grew louder as they pursued the remaining soldiers, but eventually, the sounds of battle grew quieter, more distant.
Lili stayed frozen, her face buried in the strawberries, choking down her tears. There was nothing she could do. She wanted to help, but she felt so small, so utterly powerless. She could do nothing but listen to the sickening aftermath, the muffled sounds of desperate survival that echoed further and further away.
Eventually, the chaos outside died down, leaving behind an eerie silence. The distant thunder of planetary guns echoed faintly through the thick walls of the store, but the infected seemed to have lost interest in the immediate area. Their singing—oh, that maddening lullaby—drifted away as they were drawn somewhere else, far from Lili's hiding place.
Time passed, though Lili couldn't say how much. The quiet grew heavy, until finally, as the day bled into night, Lili slowly lifted her head from the strawberries. Her body was stiff, every muscle aching from lying so still for so long. She blinked against the dark, her eyes straining to adjust. The store was bathed in shadows, with only a few emergency lights flickering weakly above. The sickly green glow of the fog outside seeped through the windows, casting a sickly pallor across the aisles.
She rubbed her face, smearing the dried tears, and squinted into the gloom. Slowly, her vision began to sharpen. It was strange, but it was as though the light inside her had finally answered her plea, giving her the ability to see in the dark. Not perfectly—everything was still shadowed, obscured—but at least she could make out the faint outlines of the shelves and aisles around her.
Steeling herself, Lili began to climb out from the pile of strawberries, her tiny hands shaking slightly. She paused when she noticed the absence of the store's owner. The store was deserted. The shelves were scattered, the chaos of the fight having thrown them into disarray. Carefully, she picked up a few things—some berries, a handful of greens—and stuffed them into her pockets. They weren't much, but she couldn't risk taking anything too valuable. Her mother after all had always told her to be a good girl, and she would try to be one, even in the midst of all this horror.
Her steps were quiet, tentative as she wandered through the store, her eyes scanning the wreckage. The main aisle leading to the metro entrance was littered with the bodies of the infected, their faces frozen in grotesque, unblinking smiles. Even those who were torn apart, their heads blasted open or bodies shredded, still wore those mad smiles.
Lili turned away, her heart lurching, unwilling to look any longer. Instead her eyes moved quickly to the metro entrance, hoping for some sign of safety.
At the foot of the stairs, she found the remains of a soldier—blood spattered, the walls splattered with dark crimson. The soldier had been caught in a grenade blast, his body mangled and barely recognizable.
But it wasn't just the soldiers who had fallen here. Lili's young eyes widened in disbelief as she saw the remains of other infected scattered about, their bodies twisted and destroyed by the same blast. She couldn't comprehend the violence of it, the horror of what had transpired here. The once-safe metro station was now a nightmare—a place of death and decay.
Lili hesitated for a moment, then began to descend the long escalator leading down into the Metro. There, in the dark, she found more soldiers—three of them, huddled together in their final moments. They had tried to collapse the tunnel, perhaps in a desperate bid to prevent the infected from getting into the Metro tunnels. But they hadn't made it in time. Their bodies lay twisted, mangled by the same blast they'd hoped would save them.
The tunnels themselves were a mess—collapsed sections, debris everywhere. The walls were streaked with blood, and the scent of death hung thick in the air.
Lili felt it all—the weight of the darkness around her, the sense of utter hopelessness. She wanted to cry, wanted to scream for her parents, for anyone to come and take her away from all this. But she couldn't. It felt as though the darkness was swallowing her whole, suffocating her.
Yet, in that moment, she found something deep within herself—a spark, a light that refused to let her give in. Her father's words echoed in her mind, and she clenched her fists. She would be strong. She had to be strong. She had promised her mother she would be a good girl, and her father had always told her that to help others, she needed to be strong herself. She would survive. She had to.
Her small hands dug into the dirt, clutching at the stones beneath her. Her fingers brushed one that seemed to pulse with light. Confused, she held it tightly, watching as the stone began to shift. Slowly, it turned from a dull gray to a radiant white, glowing faintly in her hand.
A crystal of pure light. She marveled at its warmth, the comforting glow it gave off. It was fragile, yet it felt strong—like a small beacon in the dark. The stone lit her path as she began to move forward, her heart swelling with determination.
Her steps quickened as the tunnels opened up before her, a faint light ahead catching her eye. She could hear the quiet whispers of distant voices, the flicker of other lights. Could it be? Had she found people?
Her breath caught in her throat as she moved forward, the faintest hope stirring within her chest.