The Alkitori Torment

Prologue: The dark

The withers were everywhere. Coming from every side. She fell into the wall of the dimly lit cave as one lunged for her. A knife flew from her hand and embedded it's self into the creature's flesh, it tripped and toppled over backwards. She glanced at the body before it was sucked the wave of monsters stumbling towards her.

She always felt horrible after a kill, she knew that withers were already dead but they looked like people, apart from their completely black eyes. In many ways, they were just like her, they'd just been changed. She knew it was selfish to feel pity for the withers - they wee nothing but the remnants of a human, warped and mangled by the disease. They were killers, but so was she.

They were surrounding her now and she knew it was over, there were too many. The crowd continued to surge forward, a wave of bodies. Each time she killed one, its body would be sucked under the rolling mob and they would keep coming.

One jumped forwards and she swung her sword. They kept coming, she sank to her knees as they swarmed over her. Maybe it will be quick she thought. She curled up into a ball on the floor, the flood of withers above her like they were a blanket laying her to eternal rest. She saw the faces of her family flash behind her eyes. This is it.

But nothing came. 

Seconds felt like hours as she build up the courage to open her eyes. Maybe they'd left? No, she could hear the gargling and screeching of the zombie-like monsters.

Then, a long black tongue licked her cheek. She screamed in agony. They weren't killing her they were changing her. She knew that in a few moments she would lose her soul, she would live forever as a ruthless, blood-thirsty monster. Anyone in their right mind would kill themselves now; what was waiting for her next was a lot worse than death. But she wasn't in her right mind, she was twisted by fear and pain. In her last few moments of sanity she breathed one word which came out as a pained yelp. "Carter!"

Her coal-black eyes flickered open.

She was one of them now.