Keinan's voice wavered as he recounted the events of that fateful day. "It happened maybe two or four months after the apocalypse... I don't remember exactly," he began, his words tinged with uncertainty. "We were in survival mode, Mom and I, trying to make our way to our house."
He paused, the memories flooding back with painful clarity. "That's when a car rammed into us," he continued, his voice tightening with emotion. "A man with his family pointed a gun at me, ordering me to get out and leave the car..."
My response was chillingly detached. "They stole the car and left you and Mom in the middle of the zombie party?" i interjected, my tone devoid of any sympathy.
Keinan nodded grimly. "Yeah, but I knew I had to get out of there," he pressed on, the urgency evident in his voice. "That's when we reached a big warehouse. We went in there, since a couple of survivors were already there. At first, everyone coexisted, but more people kept coming, you know? And supplies didn't exactly fall from the sky, so people's survival instincts started to kick in."
The tension in the room was palpable as Keinan's words hung in the air, each syllable laden with the weight of their shared history.
Keinan's voice trembled with anger and frustration as he continued his tale. "It went south fast," he recounted bitterly. "A hierarchy formed, and a fucking trash of a human became the leader. His real name is Magnus, but everyone calls him Mordekai now."
He paused; his jaw clenched in fury. "He played us all," Keinan continued, his voice thick with resentment. "Played both sides. But we didn't care at first, you know? As long as we were safe. But then the supplies ran out fast, with so many people gathered. They stopped taking in more survivors, and the strong men were sent out to gather supplies... I did too, to feed Mom, you know?"
He shook his head, the memories of those dark days haunting him. "As more people went on supply runs, Mordekai was picking the strongest to help him become a dictator," Keinan explained, his tone filled with disgust. "His scheme ran deep. They started handing out food only to themselves, making women and other wives sleep with them for food and water. And later on, they made the weak and old shovel shit and do shit jobs."
The air in the room grew heavy with the weight of Keinan's words, the horrors of his past laid bare for all to hear.
Keinan's voice grew hoarse as he recounted the worsening situation. "The status gap became larger," he explained, his words tinged with bitterness. "They started recruiting more strong survivors, mostly men and beautiful girls. They promised the guys they could have fun with any women they wanted."
He paused, a look of disgust crossing his face. "They became cocky," Keinan continued, his voice low with disdain. "Thought things were going smooth. But without a strategic plan, they used up all the supplies in the area. So, people started traveling farther out."
His expression darkened. "It worked at first," he admitted grimly. "But every day we survived, the more undead were out on the streets. More people failed and joined the flesh-eating ranks."
Keinan's voice wavered as he recounted the events. "It was fine, you know," he said, his tone tinged with sorrow. "Mom and I kept a low profile, and I made sure she was never starving."
He glanced at Ace, but his brother remained silent, his expression unreadable.
"Anyway," Keinan continued, his voice steadying, "one night, we heard a lot of zombies outside. We climbed up to the second floor to check it out, and that's when we saw an alarming big horde in front of the warehouse. People panicked, and Mordekai had an escape planned."
His voice dropped to a whisper. "He used the sick as bait, sacrificed them so the rest of us could safely escape."
Keinan's eyes hardened as he recalled the memory. "And then, at last, we found a kind of salvation. We stumbled upon a food facility with a group of survivors. But they were kind of strange. They asked everyone if they had diseases and stuff."
He paused, a troubled look crossing his face. "The strangest part was that we almost never went on supply runs," he continued. "But for months, they served meat every day. And the kitchen was super off-limits.
They said only a few could go in there, didn't want people to steal. It made sense, but then people, at least the ones deemed useless, started to disappear."
Keinan's voice cracked with anguish as he recounted the horrifying discovery. "One day, I was gone on a supply run. I was gone for four days only, and when I returned, Mom was gone. I promise, Ace, I tried to find her everywhere I looked every crook and cranny, not a fucking thing, no stone unturned''
''Until it daunted on me there were one place i hadn't checked yet that came to mind—the kitchen."
He paused, his breaths coming in ragged gasps as he relived the moment. "So, I snuck out that night and picked the lock. At first, it was just cooking utensils and stuff. But my instinct told me to keep looking."
Tears welled up in Keinan's eyes. "Curiosity got the better of me. I went to the butcher area, and there, I saw it, Ace... Mom. They cut her up like a pig. Her head, her arms, her legs, like a fucking animal!"
Keinan's cry echoed through the room, filled with pain and rage.
"Where the fuck were you, man? Fucking useless of big brother!" he shouted, his voice raw with emotion.
"She always waited for you. Every day, she would smile reassuringly at me and tell me that you would be here soon, any day now.
So, we should make sure to stay alive until then. And now you're here but fucking too late!"
The atmosphere in the room was thick with sorrow, a palpable heaviness that seemed to weigh down every corner.
As tears streamed down my face, my voice cracked with emotion as I whispered, "Mom..." my words hung in the air, a heartbreaking lament that echoed off the walls.
With each whimper, the room seemed to constrict around them, squeezing their hearts with the weight of their grief. The dim light cast long shadows, adding to the somber ambiance as I sank to my knees, my body trembling with devastation.
Keinan joined him, his own tears mingling with mine as we cried for our mother. Our sobs filled the room, a chorus of anguish that reverberated off the walls, a testament to the depth of our loss.
In that moment, we were no longer warriors fighting for survival in a brutal world. We were simply two brothers, broken by grief, mourning the woman who had given them everything.
The room fell into a heavy silence as Keinan's words hung in the air, the weight of his confession pressing down on them both. My eyes, once filled with the glimmer of humanity, now seemed empty, devoid of any trace of emotion as he stared at Keinan with a chilling intensity.
"Did you slaughter all of them?" My voice was barely above a whisper, laced with a dangerous edge.
Keinan met his gaze with a solemn nod, his own voice low and filled with remorse as he recounted the events that had transpired. "When I saw Mom's face and imagined her pain, I went into a frenzy," he admitted. "I killed two of them, but their screams alerted the others."
The room seemed to darken as Keinan's words sank in, the gravity of his actions hanging heavily between them. But then he continued, his voice tinged with bitterness and despair. "The most fucked up part is that when they caught me, everyone from the warehouse was there. I told them everything, expecting shock or outrage, but they didn't flinch. They didn't care."
A sense of horror washed over me as i listened to Keinan's tale, the depths of human depravity laid bare before me. And amidst it all, Mordekai emerged, his mocking laughter ringing in their ears as he callously dismissed their mother's life as worthless.
Keinan's voice trembled with emotion as he recounted how Deborah and her people had rescued him, giving him a chance to escape the horrors of Mordekai's group. "She fed me, taught me to fight," he explained. "And here I am."
My jaw clenched with anger, my fists tightening at my sides as I processed the magnitude of Keinan's words. Mordekai's group had not only survived but had grown bolder. Keinan concluded, his voice heavy with resignation as he continues, " since they survived, they had become much grew bolder, and now they had become something worse than the zombies. Hence the name 'Mordekai.'"
In that moment, the weight of our shared past pressed down on us like a suffocating blanket, the memory of our mother's pain etched into our minds forever. And as we sat in silence, the darkness of our reality seemed to stretch out before us, an endless abyss of suffering and despair etched onto us showing this new world true colors.
Locking eyes with Keinan, I felt a surge of fiery rage coursing through me, enveloping the room in an aura of murderous rage. Though my fury wasn't aimed at Keinan, he couldn't help but shrink under the weight of the intense emotion emanating from me. It was like staring into an abyss of unyielding hatred, a force of evil that will be gulfing everything in its path.
In a voice devoid of warmth, tinged with blazing fury, I demanded, "Where is their location?" My words hung in the air, sharp as ice shards, sending shivers down Keinan's spine.
Panic flashed across Keinan's face as he struggled to find his voice. "Please, bro," he pleaded, his tone trembling with worry. "I know exactly how you feel, but waltzing in there is suicide. They're at least 7,000 strong, with enough supplies to start a war."
My gaze remained unyielding as I spoke again, my voice a frigid whisper of impending doom.
"Keinan, if you want to witness the true embodiment of karma, of vengeance, and watch their faces contort in fear, you will do as I say," I commanded, the icy chill of my aura washing over him, filling him with a cold dread unlike anything he had ever experienced before.
Keinan's voice wavered as he spoke, the tension in the room thickening with each word. "I truly don't know their exact location anymore, but Deborah she knows and she will help us, Ace.
We've sent out spies. If you wait and play your cards right, we'll get our revenge."
"Play my cards right, you say?"
Keinan: " Yeah! We can't do this alone. If we work with Deborah and help her rebuild this place, maybe in a couple of months, we can attack Morderkai's people.
My expression remained stoic, but a flicker of something darker danced in my eyes. "Tell Deborah to come here right now," i commanded, my voice low and dangerous. "If not, I'll kill this whole town."
Keinan's breath caught in his throat, a sense of dread creeping over him. He never seen Ace this mad enough to understand the seriousness of his threat.
Panic surged within him as he scrambled to find the right words to defuse the situation.
Keinan: "Ace, please," Keinan pleaded, his voice trembling with uncertainty. "Let's think this through."
But my response was chilling by now my eyes was turning pitch black, his tone now almost unrecognizable dark kin of demonic, dripping with menace.
"NOWWWWW!!!" he bellowed, the sound reverberating through the room like a thunderclap, sending shivers down Keinan's spine.
Keinan's instincts prickled with unease as he sensed the sudden shift in Ace's demeanor.
Keinan: "Fine. But she won't like it though," his tone cautiously, his voice strained with apprehension.
Keinan: "I'll go talk to her now.
Also deliver this message— Karma will engulf westside and it would be my pleasure. She'll understand."
As Keinan stepped out of the room and closed the door behind him, a torrent of conflicting emotions surged through his mind.
Confusion and fear intertwined, knotting his stomach as his thoughts raced uncontrollably. "Is that my brother?" he muttered under his breath, his voice trembling with uncertainty.
The encounter with Ace had left him shaken to the core.
"He's completely nuts and scary," Keinan thought to himself, his mind reeling from the intensity of Ace's outburst.
He had always known his brother to be strong-willed, but this was something else entirely.
With a shiver running down his spine, Keinan couldn't shake the feeling of unease that lingered in the air.
"And I thought Deborah was a nutcase," he mused, his thoughts drifting back to the enigmatic leader of their community.
"Ace is on another level," Keinan concluded, his mind still echoing with the memory of Ace's unrecognizable, demonic voice. "What was that voice?" he wondered, his heart pounding with trepidation as he grappled with the unsettling revelation of his brother's newfound darkness.
Balance Update: In the last chapter, Ace's balance of good and bad karma points shifted slightly:
Good Karma Points: 2+5-1=6M
Bad Karma Points: 20+5 = 25M In this chapter, Ace bad karma points balance remained the same.
Minions serving Ace:
Ibliss: Guarding Kingdom gate, can't be summoned.
Cronus: Guarding Kingdom gate, can't be summoned.
Reaper: Can be summoned.
Dawn Jester: Can be summoned.
Undead Soldier: Can be summoned, 1000 Strong fast, but dumb can't do task other than killing and guarding.