Hopeless Love

18-Death of a Mother

The day after the Shift, as I came to call it, we were attacked. A group of zombies had wandered out way, drawn by the smell of untainted flesh. The poor creatures were completely out of their minds like all zombies. The fungus controlled them entirely, and they were in their beastias because the fungus wouldn't survive otherwise. And that made them so hard to destroy.

I was the one to learn about the attack first. I woke up and started wandering, unconsciously seeking out the origin of the Shift. And I heard the most peculiar noise. Snorting and pawing and bellows that sounded like cries of rage and agony.

My humanaria eyes were sharp, but not so much as my beastia eyes. So I shifted and climbed a nearby willow, training my eyes on the horizon. And I saw it; a horde bigger than the camp. It was shambling towards the camp, slow but getting faster. I launched myself out of the tree and tore blades of grass from the ground as I sped back towards camp.

A horde! A horde is coming! Why don't mermaids have conventional weapons to stab things with, I yelled through the pack connection. I was too shocked and scared to shift back. The entire camp came alive at my words. To my surprise, they grabbed their harps and lutes. I looked around in confusion as I was lifted from the ground.

"Hey, you need to shift back. You can not fight zombies in your beastia. That's how most people end up being a zombie," the culprit of my lifting told me. It was Sebastian, as usual. I nodded and shifted after he set me down.

I ran to my tent and grabbed my knife. I looked at the rings on my fingers. They would make my punches a bit harder. I slipped the necklace over my head. It wouldn't help with the fighting; well unless it was enchanted and I just didn't know that. I put my hair into a braid, but a strand of hair kept falling down. I used Sebastian's hairpin to keep it in place.

I walked out of my tent, armed for battle. Lucitania followed me, now wearing a suit of armor and carrying a sword, both made of some glittering material I had never seen before.

"Lucitania, what are your armor and sword made of," I asked.

"The sword is made of your tears and the armor is made of Sebastian's tears. Your tears fall for the one you love. They carry your intent to destroy everything that would harm him, so they make a great weapon. His tears fall for the one he would protect with his life, so they make a great set of armor," she answered. I looked at her in shock. She had never spoken out loud before. And the fact that her battle gear was made of tears.

I just nodded and rushed to find Sebastian. He was at the edge of the camp, one of the few to have a weapon like a sword or bow. He had his dagger in his left hand. The horde came into view and the mermaids started playing music. It was a battle song, invigorating we fighters and making us faster and stronger. I heard some strains in it that would make the enemy weaker and slower. I rushed forward with the mermaids and the rest was a blur.

I became a whirlwind of black and glinting metal. I slit zombie throats and shattered their skulls with my ringed fingers. I became drenched with blood as it spattered over myself and others near me as a result of injuries caused by and to the zombies.

I don't know when I realized something was wrong. Maybe it was the wail of grief that rang over the field behind me. Or maybe it was that all motion had stopped. I turned, dread filling my mind and my heart. As I turned I saw that I was farthest from the camp and that every zombie was dead. I saw a young man hunched over something. He had dark black hair that was streaked with blood. I could barely see the pattern that shimmered off his hair in the sun, but I would recognize what little I could see anywhere. And I started running.

I don't know how I didn't trip over any of the numerous bodies that clogged the path to him worse than a child's dam in a river. Tears fell from my eyes as he wailed again. The sound was full of agony and it hurt my heart to hear it. I ran faster, and suddenly I was there. I stumbled as I saw the blonde hair on the body in his lap and slowed to a stop. My knees trembled and I dropped to the ground. My hand clenched around the dagger as I stared at Moriah, a deep crimson stain spreading through the white fabric of her sundress. The skirt of it was shredded from feline claws and bovine horns. One of her sandals was gone and the gold rimmed glasses she always wore were cracked and mangled. Her eyes were glassy, the life gone from them. A small smile was on her lips, making me think she was still alive when Sebastian found her; she would have been happy to see her only son once more before her death.

Tears fell from my eyes and Lucitania started collecting them, putting some enchantment into place to stream them into some vial for later use. She stroked my hair with her tiny hands. I didn't know what to do. I looked at my hands in my lap, one tightly wrapped around the blade of my dagger and the other clenched around the handle. I didn't feel the pain. I saw that I was covered in blood. A streak of fear ran through me as I realized I may have accidentally inhaled the spores of the fungus; or possibly absorbed it through the blood on my skin. It would take seven days for me to be affected by the spores. That was when they would mature and wait, dormant, for me to shift into my beastia before taking over my body.

I shifted, warily padding over to Sebastian. I rubbed my head on his arm and he snapped his head towards me, surprise and fear in his eyes. His gaze softened and he burst into tears anew when he saw me. He gently set his mother on the ground. Other mermaids came forward and took her body away. I noticed the song had ended and was replaced by sobbing as Sebastian picked me up and crushed me to his chest. I felt the sobs that rattled though his chest. I was shocked as I felt tracks of new wetness trace through the blood in my fur as tears fell from my eyes. I hadn't know that would happen as I had never cried in my beastia before today.

The sun was down by the time we finally moved. His arms loosened and his sobbing slowed and stopped. He sighed and I opened my eyes. He was staring down at me and I stared back. He had blood streaked down his face, although I was sure he had originally had as much blood on his face as I had before he started crying so many hours ago. His arms were black with dried blood and his shirt was almost darker than his hair. I saw three long gashes on his arm. A sphinx had clawed him.

He set me on the grass in front of me and I shifted back, crossing my legs. My hair was hard with the dried blood. Almost every inch of exposed skin was covered with dried blood. My rings and necklace no longer shined in the sun because they were spattered with layer upon layer of the stuff. I was sure my hairpin was that way as well. I grabbed my dagger from the ground and slid it into the sheath.

I guess he noticed the deep cut in my right hand from earlier, because he grabbed my hand and looked at the wound with a concerned expression.

"It doesn't hurt," I whispered. My voice sounded a bit raw from crying. Sebastian probably wouldn't be able to talk very much if he even could at all. He had cried for a long time.

"That's not a good thing," he choked out. His voice sounded like he had eaten sand. Tears welled up in my eyes when I heard his voice. I shook my hand free from his grasp and I grabbed his face in my hands. I pulled it forward and put his forehead to mine.

"Don't talk. Please. Just...just sit here with me. I know a terrible thing happened today...something I wish would never have happened. I just want to sit here, with you, and try to forget what happened," I said. He nodded and put his hands around the back of my neck. We fell asleep like that.