colours of viridian | BOOK ONE | J a d e d ✔️

D i s f i g u r e d

W a r n i n g : Graphic, Gory Scenes
S o n g : K i l l e r - T h e H o o s i e r s

C h a p t e r LV
V i r i d i a n

The longer I walked through the red streets, the more I felt myself struggle to breathe from the stench of rot. Death rolled through the air, covering up Kenna's scent completely as I let my eyes wonder along the crumbling buildings; looking desperately for anything that might lead me back to Kenna's long lost trail.

The sky above was darkening, the grey clouds growing thicker and thicker as they successfully blocked the sunlight. It was as if the darkness had already won and was now in the middle of devouring the murdered planet. Dark unnatural fog was quickly covering my path, hiding anything that might tell me where Kenna had run off to. My fists clenched, feeling helpless and lost as I took in the state of what used to be Kenna's home.

It all lead back to me. No matter how many ways I looked at the situation, it was all my fault. None of this would have happened if I had just let her go.

Lightening struck the earth as the thunder rumbled alive, breaking me from thoughts of the useless truth. I just had to find Kenna. She was all that mattered right then --making sure she was safe was top priority.

My eyes immediately caught the flicker of movement in the distance, stopping me in my tracks as I held my breath in hope. And then I felt it --the ground shaking and groaning in protest as if something alive was moving within its core.

"Kenna, where are you?" I breathed out in worry while the shaking noise grew louder and the earth below me shuddered and broke apart just as I jumped up to a crumbling wall of one of the towns buildings --overlooking the horror that was rising to the surface.

As if appearing from graves of the undead, bodies began to emerge from the broken ground. Their shapes twisted and mangled as they jumped out of hiding places I hadn't given thought to. They invaded the ghost town. The number growing large and larger as they tried to avoid the crumbling earth underneath them.

My skin crawled as I took in their form and agility. They moved sharply all over the place, never staying in one place for more than a second. Their eyes were hungry and crazed, needing death and destruction to survive. But it was the black veins snaking up their skin that caught my alert attention.

Time seemed to come to a halt as my pounding brain tried to desperately wrap around the new information I was seeing first hand. But nothing was adding up. Mirella had locked the portal. No one but her or Cerulean could break it.

So how did the Virus manage to spread to Above?

My thoughts were cut short instantly; my body suddenly thrown violently off the wall as I was finally spotted. Before I could collide in the rubble of bricks, I spun myself around in mid-air with a forced backflip; my feet hitting the ground for only the quickest of moments before I leaped back with not a second to spare as the xV landed where I had just been.

As we followed the steps in more quickened leaps and sidesteps, my eyes roamed over her, taking in the horrific sight of what once was one of the creatures known to be the most beautiful of all beings. Her pasty body was overrun by black pulsating veins that no longer had anywhere to go --she was taken over entirely to the point where the blackness overflowed out of her in leaking inky streams as the moving small lines covered her pale face hauntingly. She stood with a slouched posture; her left shoulder drooping down as her arm fell limply at her side, black, rotting, and lifeless. She held the other working hand up in a striking position; her long claw like nails glistening with a blackened red as I finally felt the sting of pain on my shoulder blade. Eyes that were no longer of that of a vampire or any creature I had seen, sent a cold shiver down my spine: blackness clouded the blood-red ring around her black iris and a sinister aura of emptiness seeped out of them. It was as if I were looking at Death's eyeballs himself. There was nothing left but the sickness.

Before she could come at me again, I swiftly moved myself to the left. As she blindly followed me like Deaths puppet, I was already back in my original position behind her with one large bound that just missed her. She couldn't move quick enough as my hand entangled into her whitened dead hair, yanking her back into my chest as she shrieked. My arm encircled her arms and chest, enabling her from moving for only a moment until she caught her bearings.

"Be there another time and place to live once more a life of blood and passion. Be there a God of unholiness that spares the souls of the undead." I whispered the memorized final words into her ear hurriedly as she thrashed around in my arms; hissing and spitting like a caged wild animal before I brought her head to the side by her hair in a quick tug that sent a reverberating crack along her small deformed body.

Letting her limp body fall to its knees on the ground, my hands held the sides of her face. Without hesitation, I violently twisted and pulled her broken neck until, with a sickening sound, her body slumped to the ground as her now bleeding head stared lifelessly upside-down at me.

With an angry sneer, I tossed the decapitated head onto the body as it went up in black flames, and quickly moved away from the spot. More xV's were heading closer to inspect the thick smoke and I didn't have time for another dance like that. Spotting the sharp piece of a wooden fence sticking out from the ground, I armed myself and flashed away towards where the rumbling was coming from.

"Kenna! Where the f*ck are you?!" I growled in irritation as I stopped on the road leading to a large seemingly untouched church that made me narrow my eyes at its menacing image.

At once, the vibrating ground came to an instant stop while causing all noise to cease for an eerie silent moment. A movement in the corner of my eye caused my arm to whip out, sticking a sick vampire in the chest as he screamed in agony before falling to the ground at my feet. Before I had time to jump forward, a sound spun me around as I threw the stake to my other hand and impaled another monster before he could get me first. The xV's were slowly surrounding me as they all stalked towards me with hunger in their eyes and hisses slithering off of their tongues --each different looking but equally as disgusting and terrifying.

"Viridian."

The single sigh of my name coursed power through me as my eyes shifted into gold and my body trembled in rage. With a quick push off from the ground, I threw the stake into someones back and landed feet first onto a nearing vampires shoulders. My hands grabbed hold of his white hair and in less than a second I had launched the ripped of head towards the direction of the church through the xV's with a jump onto another's chest --crushing its skull and brain with the stomp of my boot as he tumbled to the ground. A row of vampires fell to the earth; a large gaping hole in their chests where their rotting hearts had been. Unable to admire my handiwork, I grabbed hold of my stake buried in one of the corpses and repeatedly thrusted the blackened spear into the attacking xV's; their claws slashing at my skin as I jumped closer and closer to the church in no longer than a few seconds. I couldn't stop to even care about whether or not I was infected from the contact with the virus. I just had to save Kenna.

"I'll kill you for this, you freak of nature!" A voice I knew all too well shrieked out just as I tore the arms off of two xV's ruthlessly as the situation dawned on me.

"No!" I busted through the doors enraged as I jumped over dead bodies slowly going up in flames and flashed over to the tiny girl in the middle of a small clearing from the torn up flooring. My arms scooped her trembling body up, holding her protectively to my chest as my eyes flickered around to all of the shockingly dead xV's before a familiar old man appeared with the obvious intent on killing Kenna. "You will fight me, not her, Miguel."

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Sorry for the long wait! I'm working on the second part of this chapter now so it should be up really soon!
Hope you enjoyed it despite my rustiness aha.