Sevryn: "Kael… why are you here?" Sevryn's voice trembled in the shadowy forest. "Why aren't you with your mother?"
Kael's eyes twitched.
Sevryn: "You lied, didn't you?"
Kael: "What?"
Sevryn: "You said your mother discovered that being close to Infectents increases the chance of infection. But… that wasn't her, was it? It was you. You found that out. Because she… she became one of them."
Kael stayed silent.
"You're lying again, Kael. How long will you keep lying?!"
Kael's voice cracked. "Yes… you're right. But how did you—?"
Sevryn smirked faintly. "A guess. If you'd denied it again, I'd have believed I was wrong. But that means… you had uninfected food. Didn't you?"
Kael's eyes widened. "Yes… but not always. For the first 28 days after Dad turned, we only had infected food. On the 29th day, we found out the truth about the food. Then my mother observed that Infectents hesitate to eat infected food, so we started giving food to Father. If he hesitated, it was infected food, and if Dad tried to eat it, it was clean food. But eight days later… my mom… she..."
He paused, eyes distant.
"She turned. She had been weak—level 0. But on the third day after her transformation… she got hungry."
Sevryn: "You didn't feed her?"
"I—I was scared. I didn't want to waste clean food. So I just... pushed her away. I didn't tie her up. I locked her in the room with Dad. Then… one day I came back after collecting food from an FHC drop."
(FHC is a government organization which provides food and a little bit of security.)
When Kael reached home...
Thud… thud…
"There were noises from the experiment room. When I opened the door... Mom was eating Dad. So it means that she would level up. But at that time I was not aware of it. So she evolved to level 1."
"Infectents at level 1 are stronger than humans. Aggressive. Sensitive to sound. I ran. I told people. But… it was too late. She'd already evolved."
Kael's fists clenched.
"Five people came. All failed because she didn't have nails—she had sharp bones in place of nails. She ran toward us, hunting us with her claws, but for some reason, she ran away and submerged into the fog."
"The news channel says that these days, fog is increasing all over the world and has spread throughout the entire world."
"Five days later—she became level 2. Muscular, fast, and also clever. I tried to escape, but… I saw her. With blood in her mouth. And three other dead Infectents. That's when I realized—she'd eaten them. She was evolving again."
"At that time I was a little bit aware of evolving Infectents. FHC officers told us to be safe. So I silently avoided her and came back to the Colony and warned every person about it, with FHC."
---
||NEXT DAY||
"It was morning. Fog everywhere. Ten of us, barely armed—rocks, sticks, knives, and others. We were patrolling and also forced to be involved in patrolling. Suddenly, she attacked. And then… level 0 berserk Infectents also came out from the fog with her. There were nine Infectents—this might have been my infected mom's plan. It is only a guess. So, let's continue."
"My mother—level 2 at that time, but I don't know her current level. She must be more than level 2 now."
"There are two teams: Infectents, who don't feel pain or emotion and have adrenaline at their highest level (because they are berserk), and level 0 berserk Infectents are stronger than humans but have slightly lower defense than humans."
"And then there's us—humans who feel pain, fear, and are not that strong."
"Level 0s are faster than us, and we can only attack them while they are biting us—only then can we counterstrike or hit a strong critical hit. But my mom… wasn't like the others. She was way too strong. She tackled two people at once, bit deep, tore a chunk of flesh out. People screamed. The crowd that had gathered and those fighting—most of them ran, but some didn't. They kept themselves in the fight, maybe for revenge or something else."
"Like me. At that time, I thought she was my mother and not an Infectent, so I had to take care of it and make sure she didn't hurt anybody. What a dumb person I was. I even thought I was the main character. Now you can understand my dumbness. And I hadn't achieved a single kill of an Infectent."
"Let's continue—I don't know why I always get off track."
"So Mom is causing full chaos. Only 5 humans (including me) and 6 Infectents (including Mom) are left. Mom ran toward me. I was standing behind 2 people, so Mom first attacked them. When I saw her, all my ego disappeared and I ran backward where two people were lying on the ground—getting eaten by Mom."
Suddenly...
"The FHC truck arrived and crashed into Mom, also crushing the two people."
"I was in shock."
"FHC officers fired at the Infectents. Level 0 Infectents immediately got killed, but Mom didn't. She went berserk after getting hit by a bullet. She ran toward the truck, and now she was able to dodge the bullets. Her body started releasing fog. I was blaming myself, thinking I'm weak, that I did nothing during the fight. But now, I had to do something."
"I grabbed a rope and threw it toward Mom. Luckily, it wrapped around her leg, but even then, she didn't stop. She dragged me along as she dodged the FHC officers' bullets and charged toward the truck. Smashing through the front windshield—the windshield broke into several shards—she forced her way inside. One of the sharp shards cut deep into my hand, and several others pierced different parts of my body—the scars still remain on my left hand."
"But what happened to the officers was even worse. After crashing through the glass, Mom taught them a brutal lesson—the same way they were shooting bullets that pierced her skin, Mom started carving her claws into the officers. One officer threw his gun toward me. Instantly, I caught the gun and, without wasting time, fired a bullet. My aim was to shoot her in the head, but I missed—the bullet hit her neck instead. Even so, Mom felt a huge impact—her whole body shook. But she still smiled, threw the officers aside, and came in front of me. Within a millisecond, she landed a punch on my face—I was thrown several meters away, and she vanished into the fog."
"Before vanishing, she smiled again. And I saw a helicopter in the sky before I lost consciousness."
Sevryn: "What happened next?"
Kael: "When I woke up—"
Smash!
An infected deer attacked Sevryn. Sevryn flew several meters away and landed in front of a huge tree. The ground cracked like a mirror—and Sevryn fell into the crack. Instantly, the land returned to normal—like Sevryn never fell into it.
Into a crack…