Her eyes slowly opened.
She could see herself walking on the streets in Enzak. The rain fell soundlessly onto the pavement, but Libitina was not in a state to feel their touch. A more soul-consuming emotion was ravishing her.
Pain.
Abrupt images flashed through her mind.
There was a scalpel. And men with masks on their faces. Someone was screaming in the background.
Libitina held her head in pain before shaking it slightly. Ah, it subsided a little.
She continued trudging through the cold cobbled roads. Somehow, people were running past her. She was beginning to register that there was fear in their faces.
"Hi…hello, could you tell me what's happening?" she croaked, her voice dry.
Libitina tried to reach out to several people that she passed, but none of them reacted to her.
She could no longer differentiate if the screams came from her mind or from reality.
So she continued walking.
Where was she walking to? She did not know. When the flashes of pain entered her mind, her head would feel like it was burning, but still she kept walking on, dragging her heavy body forward.
There were monstrous plants flailing in the air. Libitina looked up blankly in the sky. A huge tubular vein had rose from the ground and dragged a house up into the air. A woman was hanging onto a pipe in the house.
"Julian, Julian! Help him, save him somebody!"
As if from the recesses of her mind, the hysteric cry travelled to her ears in weird echoes.
'Ah, I've got to help the boy.'
She stretched out her hands to catch the screaming boy, who had accidentally fallen out of his mother's arms.
But he fell through her arms, and splattered on the ground.
"Julian!!!"
The hysteric cry travelled to her ears again from a distance, and she shook her head to get rid of the irritation.
She saw the blood on the ground slowly flow towards her. Suddenly, an even greater magnitude of pain assaulted her mind. It was as if she was enduring thousands of burning knife cuts on her skin, and her throat gaped open in an imaginary scream as her nails tore at her arm.
Ah, pain, the pain!
The open wounds, the explosions of blood beyond the boundaries of the body…
Please, I'm begging you, please stop the pain. Please, someone save me!
…where…did she get these memories…
Help me, help me…
…where am I…
Is there…really no one there to save me?
…
Then kill me, kill me, please, someone…
…
If in this darkness, no one can help kill me…
…
Then, I'll return the favour…
…and kill!!
Libitina's eyes slowly turned into deep swirls of blue as a sneer of hatred rose onto her face.
The monstrous plants stretched their backs in response, as if cheering, and leered terrifyingly over the frightened people.
My dear cuties.
Shall we let the carnage begin?
…
When Marianne and her team finally reached Enzak in the evening, the smell of rotting bodies permeated through the air, even as they stood at a distance.
Marianne covered her mouth and collapsed on the ground as she started to retch.
"What the heck happened here in three days?!" Sylvester muttered in shock.