Lydia awoke with a slight groan. Her eyes immediately landed on the empty bed where Huey had once laid in only to find it empty. At first she was actually surprised.
'Did he wake up before me or_' the dreaded thought was interrupted when she heard a slight movement in the room. She immediately became alert as she scanned the room with her eyes.
It didn't take long for her to find 'Billy' lying on the floor with a piece of wood impaled on his neck. At first shock filled her delicate features before she saw a figure balled up in the corner. At this point sobs reached her ears.
Her mind worked fast so she was able to put two and two together.
The fact that 'Billy' was dead on the floor meant that he couldn't withstand the mana fluctuations and had directly turned into an unintelligent human called a Ravid.
Ravid's were technically humans who failed to adopt the mana that flowed into their bodies. As a result they become something peculiarly similar to zombies. They were unintelligent and only survived on instinct with only one goal in mind. Consume human flesh and retain their intelligence.
They actually had the advantage as they could subconsciously draw in mana unlike humans who actually had to will the mana into their bodies and temper it.
She could easily tell that Ravid Billy had tried to kill Huey and inorder to survive, Huey had no choice but to kill his friend. How could Lydia not understand the kind of emotional damage that would bring to a person let alone a fully grown adult what about a 14 year old boy!
Lydia looked at Huey. She was concerned for him.
"Huey…" she called out softly as she approached but the boy didn't seem to be listening to her. He only continued to cry quietly. "Huey"
The sobbing stopped Huey looked up at her with blood shot eyes and a teary face. His eyes held pain, sorrow, helplessness and guilt.
Lydia didn't know why but seeing Huey like this made her heart hurt. She didn't know why but she wanted to comfort him. Let him know that he wasn't alone. She knelt down in front of him and reached out with her hand. She grabbed Huey's head before leading it into her chest. Like a mother consoling her child.
Huey was taken by surprise for a moment before something in him broke and without even thinking about it, he wrapped his arms around her and buried his head deeper in to her chest.
Like a broken dam, tears streamed out of his eyes. His breathing was hoarse.
"It's okay…Just let it out" Lydia ignored the wetness on her chest as she continued to stroke his hair.
Huey's crying became audible wails now. Just like this half an hour flashed by. Lydia still comforting Huey
"How can I live with myself?" his voice was low and lacked energy. He seemed to have finished crying now. He seemed a lot calmer now.
"You don't have to blame yourself…you gave your friend eternal rest" Lydia spoke softly
"Eternal rest huh" Huey murmured as he pondered quietly for a moment. He remembered the way his friend had acted, crazed like a savage beast. Would Billy have wanted to live like that? Probably not.
But would killing ever give him a peace of mind?
Huey didn't want to think of that answer. Right now he needed to keep Billy alive in his memory. Steeling himself, Huey sat up and wiped away the tears from his face with the back of his arms. It was only at that point that he winced. The faint trace lines from 'Billy's' attack were still there.
Huey didn't know if he would have a scar on his face but he couldn't mind that at all, after all it would serve as a reminder of what he had done on this day.
Lydia was surprised, she could see the burning determination and conviction replace the helplessness that was there before in his eyes.
"Are you okay now?" she asked
"Yeah" Huey stood up and stripped the sheets from his bed. Before approaching Billy's body.
Huey's had carefully removed the piece of wood from his neck. His actions were slow, unhurried and gentle as if he were handling a very fragile object. Lydia watched his actions.
She could tell that this was bringing up his pains from earlier. Nobody really recovers from that kind of emotional trauma in a merely minutes. Huey wrapped up Billy's body in the sheets before picking him up carefully.
This action startled her. Weren't dead bodies really heavy?
Huey seemed oblivious to all this as he carefully placed Billy's wrapped body on the bed. He looked at the body for a moment.
"Rest well" he silently muttered. He looked up and his eyes landed on Lydia before his lips moved. "Do you know what a Ravid is?"
Lydia was taken back by the question. Her eyes widening into the size of golfballs.
'How does he know?' she thought but quickly shook her head
"Why do you ask me that?"
"Because of the way you reacted. If it was anyone else that…saw Billy's body and me. They would have assumed that I…did what I did irrationally" Huey explained. "But you didn't so I can only assumed that you knew about this beforehand"
Lydia was silent for a moment before she smiled lightly. "You really are smart you know that?"
Huey merely shrugged.
"Yes it is true that I was taught about this beforehand. There was a meeting about 12 years ago. Where the king and queen called for a meeting with the family heads of all the major families as well as those with high positons of power. There king Richard introduced everyone to a man he called the Duke. He was apparently the advisor for the royal family for about 3 decades who had a special gift."
As Lydia started to explain Huey was left wondering just how this was all connected to what was happening right now. But Huey never interrupted her.
"The Duke had the gift of foresight" Lydia stated. "He could get glimpses of the future and during that time he explained that a great calamity would befall humanity and that we should prepare. He talked about beings called Ravid roaming the Earth. Beasts of all different kinds rampaging. That was when the king declared that whether these events happened or not. They needed to stabilize Britain.
Make it stronger than it ever was before. And so the families did just that. They didn't unite 100% but they agreed to make sure that the kingdom would go through the disaster as smoothly as possible.
Those belonging to the family wrote study notes and strengthened their techniques before teaching them to their respective family members. Mana cultivation techniques were shared. But as you can imagine…where there is a disaster, there is also room for control"
"That's why a lot of use don't know anything about the current situation. They monopolized that knowledge to lead to their own prosperity.