HA\\LF: Dead nor Alive

“Why does it feel like I’m having a deja vu here? Why every time we fight a parasite, there’s always no end to it?!” Vincent said as he stabbed a parasite in the chest and then cut off its head.

“Ever since we discover that in the middle of the jungle, everything seems to try to kill us and I’m so sick of this,” Resse said while shooting her rifle at the parasites’ heads.

The sun was setting and they fought the hordes of parasites for almost half a day. It wasn’t really a problem since Archie dealt with most of them on his own while the rest of them took care of the easier ones. The problem was that they didn’t know for how long they had to fight those parasites since they couldn’t keep fighting all day.

Ruby hadn’t said a single word and focused on killing the parasites no matter how many of them pounced at her, she killed them immediately. Vincent looked at Ruby that had been acting weirdly and the looked on her expression was a face of a person with fear, but it didn’t match with her action at all.

“We can’t handle all of them forever, we are going to die here if we don’t do something,” Prince said as he tried to catch his breath.

Archie stopped attacking and he somehow felt something that hadn’t felt before, the parasites started to ignore him and ran past him. He turned around and saw the parasites surroundings Ruby and the others, he then closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

All the parasites stopped attacking and slowly backed away which made them so confused. Archie noticed that he had become one with the hordes, and he could feel their emotions, every single one of them. He could feel their hunger, anger, thirst, fear, and pain, and the most important part was that he could feel his superiority over those parasites and he finally could control all of them.

“What’s happening? Why are the parasites just staring at us like this?” Tommy asked as he gulped and kept pointing his rifle at the parasites.

“Archie,” Ruby replied as she stared at Archie who stood still with his eyes closed.

They looked at Archie who seemed to be troubled in his head by the look on his expression. The parasites slowly walked back and turned around to run away from them then stood behind Archie.

Archie opened his eyes and everyone was watching him with disbelief. “You should have done it way sooner, Archie,” Resse said while she sheathed her sword.

Archie turned around and saw the parasites were just standing still behind him. He looked at each one of them, he touched one of the parasites in the head and it didn’t even bother by his touch. He felt like he was the leader of the pack of stray dogs, and it somehow felt good because he had never once in his lifetime been seen as a leader.

All the parasites ran back to the forest because Archie ordered them to. Knowing those parasites were the weakest compared to those parasites that lived underneath them, he decided to use them as a scout to keep an eye on if other parasites decided to come out from the hole.

“You don’t have to worry about them anymore, I have taken control of them all and now they’re going to be my eyes on the island,” Archie said as he walked past them and sheathed his swords.

“I have no complains,” Prince said as he followed Archie from behind, and then the others nodded in agreement.

“So, are we going to be safe from now on?” Daniel asked and stared at Archie.

“I’m not entirely sure but I can control those that you saw earlier, but if there’s a parasite that’s way stronger than them, I don’t think I can control it. Let’s just hope none of them appear,” Archie answered and looked at the night sky.

“If you could do something like that, why didn’t you do it earlier or even better when we were holding the port?” Resse asked.

“I can’t control them since they were controlled by the king himself, and I can’t control them fully back then and can only be used to a few of them. I think ever since I killed a king that you saw on the shore, I believe those parasites started to look at me as something that more superior to them,” Archie explained.

“What about that woman, Archie?” Vincent asked as he looked at him.

Prince and Resse looked at each other and then looked at Vincent with confusion. “What woman? Did something happen after we left?” Prince asked Vincent.

“Well, it’s a long story and we actually don’t know the beginning on how that woman suddenly appeared,” Vincent answered.

Prince and Resse listened to Vincent story and followed by Tommy and Daniel to fill the gap in the story. They couldn’t believe that a woman could knocked out a king and they couldn’t believe that she could kill a human without even had to touch them. No matter how much they tried to believe their stories, they couldn’t imagine it but knowing that Vincent was the one telling the story, they couldn’t help but to believe.

“So, this woman, who is she?” Resse asked as she walked next to Archie.

“Don’t,” Ruby suddenly said and stared at Resse that confused everyone. “It’s better for you to not know about it,” she warned as she looked at Resse dead in the eye.

“Bub?” Vincent looked at Ruby weirdly. “Is that why you have been so quietly lately and acting weird?” He asked, Tommy and Daniel looked at Ruby with curiosity.

“You can say whatever you want, Vince, but whatever that we saw or heard at the Landing Site, it can’t be compared to this. I’m warning you and I’m not going to take any responsibility if you decided to do something stupid after hearing the whole truth,” Ruby answered and kept her eyes to the front.

“Tell us,” Resse said without hesitation while the others were looking at her with surprised expressions.

All of them immediately went quiet after Archie told what he told to Ruby, they were staring blankly as they kept walking behind Archie.

“I warned you, didn’t I? Now you won’t be able to see things normally and this will haunt you forever,” Ruby said as she crossed her arms to comfort herself after hearing it twice.

“How could you be so calm when you heard that?” Prince asked Ruby.

“Calm? Sure if you’re looking at my body and my expression, but not inside my head. Everyday I had thoughts of killing myself over and over but I couldn’t do it. My fear of death is making me be able to get through this even though it only helped a little,” Ruby explained.

Three days had passed since that day, every single one of them had been so quiet and isolated themselves from other people. Every single day, they couldn’t do things properly and didn’t eat for the past few days, Ruby on the other hand changed drastically, she felt a bit better after knowing that she wasn’t the only one anymore.

The island felt so peaceful that everyone started to feel comfortable with their surroundings. Unfortunately, the peaceful and relaxing life had to come to an end because soon enough, they were going to continue their journey to the Northern Nation.

A week flew by and it was finally the time for them to leave the island after they completely repaired all the ships. Vincent and the others slowly acted like how they used to be, and Ruby had finally get a hold of herself.

“Is everyone ready? Anyone is still out there that we don’t know?” Marlon asked as he watched everyone busy cleaning and preparing all their belongings.

“Everyone is here, we are ready to leave, Marlon,” Fanheim said as he approached him.

“We are halfway through and we must make it to the other side. We need to be cautious and we will be using the same formation like last time since it was effective,” Marlon said and looked at the people that seemed to be anxious.

“We don’t know if there will be another king out there, but I hope that we don’t encounter one again because we might not make it this time,” Fanheim said as he looked at his watch.

“I hope so too, we came so far and sacrificed thousands of lives for this to happen. We must survive no matter what,” Marlon replied as he looked at Fanheim.

“Let’s pray to God and hope he heard our prayer because we have done what we can and now it’s all up to him,” Fanheim said.

“Since when you believe in God, Fanheim?” Marlon asked as he looked at Fanheim weirdly.

“Just recently,” Fanheim answered as he looked at Archie in the distance.