The World Is Mine For The Taking

2nd Month, Year 98th of the Ruination Calendar

Jessica's POV

"You saw a woman emerge from the water in the area we bombed last week?" Minerva asked, her voice steady but laced with disbelief. She was a grizzled veteran, approaching 60, with a mechanical arm gleaming under the dim light and an eyepatch covering her missing eye. Her rugged appearance and the metallic clink of her prosthetic contrasted sharply with her intense gaze.

"Are you absolutely sure you didn't see wrong, Jessica?"

"I didn't," I replied, hitting the button on my computer to replay the footage. "This footage shows the area before it was bombed. As you can see, it was crawling with infected. Then, just minutes later, the Slayers arrived and started the bombing. You can clearly see in the footage that when the explosions began, the infected surged toward the source of the noise.

Infected are drawn to sounds, so that's expected. But what's odd here..."

I pointed at the screen, highlighting the anomaly.

Minerva's eyes locked onto the screen where I pointed, and her gaze widened in shock. "What?"

"Exactly," I confirmed, pointing at the footage. "Instead of charging towards the explosions like the others, this one actually veered away from them. It even jumped off the cliff as if it was desperately trying to escape the bombing."

The infected on the screen wasn't lured by the chaos—it was running for its life, clearly trying to evade the destruction.

"How could this happen? Could it be a survivor?" Minerva pondered aloud. "No, it's been years since we declared humanity extinct on the main islands. There's no way a survivor could still be there. So, what is it? A demon, perhaps?

No, it's acting with a level of self-preservation that demons don't usually exhibit. It can't be a demon, either. Then what the hell is it?"

"That's why I need you to go back and retrieve it," I said firmly. "If it's alive, that's fine. If it's already dead, that's fine too. The only thing I need is the body."

.I want to dissect the body and find out what caused this infected one to behave so differently, to actually flee from the explosions.

"You want me to go back and retrieve it?" Minerva asked, her voice sharp and edged with skepticism.

"Yes," I confirmed, my tone steady. "If I can analyze it, we might uncover something crucial that could potentially lead to a cure for the infection."

Minerva eyed me with a sharp, doubtful gaze. "Do you really believe that? You've been chasing a cure for, what, five years now? And yet, you haven't made any significant progress. Maybe you should focus more on finding a husband instead of wasting time on a cure that might never materialize."

"Finding a husband isn't on my radar right now," I countered, my voice steady and resolute. "My priority is to develop a cure to halt the infection and the ruination. It's vital for preserving our species, and I'm committed to that goal."

"Personally," Minerva said, her voice tinged with a mix of concern and resignation, "I don't really want a cure if it means sacrificing my daughter's happiness."

"My happiness is in finding a cure to save humanity," I stated with unwavering resolve.

Minerva's gaze fell on me, her eyes clouded with sadness and concern.

***

Minerva's POV

The sky stretched out in a brilliant, unblemished blue, while my fighter aircraft tore through the expanse with a steady roar. Below, the ocean mirrored the same boundless blue, stretching out to the horizon. Other fighter aircraft flanked me, cutting through the air in tight formation.

"We're closing in on the area," I transmitted over the radio. "Be on high alert. We have no idea if there are still any infected in the vicinity."

"Yes, Captain," the other Slayers responded in unison.

We finally reached the site of last week's bombing. What was once a flat, icy plane had now become a dilapidated, crumbling wasteland. The area looked worse for wear, a desolate stretch of ice and rubble.

We hovered our fighter aircraft above the island before descending to the ground. As soon as our boots hit the snow, it crunched beneath us with a satisfying, crisp sound.

"Okay, Jessica, I'm on the ground. Where exactly did you spot it?" I asked through the radio.

"It's over there," Jessica's voice crackled in response. "Out past the cliff, in the ocean below."

"It looks like whatever you found there isn't around anymore," I said, peering down at the ocean. All I could see was a vast, unbroken expanse of blue, stretching endlessly.

"Her body might have sunk to the bottom of the ocean," Jessica's voice crackled through the radio.

"Do you really think the body of an infected will help in finding the cure?" I questioned, my tone skeptical. "It seems like a risky endeavor for something that might not be worth it."

"Mother, in all my years, I've never seen an infected make a decision to save itself," Jessica shot back. "Have you ever witnessed anything like that?"

"I haven't, but staking our survival on one infected doing something out of the ordinary is a dangerous gamble," I said, my gaze fixed on the vast, unyielding ocean below. "What if we dive in and come up empty-handed, with nothing that could advance our cause?"

"There's no way to guarantee we'll find anything unless we take the plunge," Jessica countered, her voice steady and resolute.

"That's true, but I'm still not sure it's wise to return here," I said, the waves shimmering under the sunlight as I stared down at them. "I'm going in. Amanda, are the suits ready yet?" I inquired through another radio channel.

"Yes, they're on their way down now," came the quick response.

Suddenly, three bulky mechanical suits descended from above, landing heavily on the snowy plains below. These suits were the same ones we'd used for battling Demon Zombies in the past. Nowadays, we rarely donned them, preferring instead to integrate mechanical enhancements directly into our bodies, making us more agile and powerful.

The mechanical suits were cumbersome and less efficient compared to our personal enhancements. I lost my arm back in my first year of fighting Demon Zombies, and after that, they outfitted me with a mechanical arm, which proved invaluable in combat.

So why were we donning these suits now? It was simple: we couldn't traverse the icy ocean with just our bare bodies. We needed protection from the harsh elements and potential dangers lurking beneath the surface. That's why the mechanical suits were necessary for this mission.

"Alright, let's suit up, ladies," I said. The other Slayers responded with a crisp "Yes, Captain!" and the three of us began the process of donning our bulky gear.

The suits were ridiculously heavy. This was the part that sucked the most. All the mobility I'd honed in military training felt useless once I was encased in this bulky armor.

"Okay, let's go." I gave the command, and we leaped from the cliff into the icy ocean below. The moment we hit the surface, the ice shattered with a violent crack, sending chunks of it scattering.

"Report back if you spot anything," I instructed the others as we plunged into the freezing water.

The other two Slayers split off in different directions, their lights piercing the murky darkness of the water.

"This place feels incredibly eerie," I muttered to myself. "Where the hell did that infected end up?"

The water was thick with sediment, making visibility almost zero. I had a sinking feeling that locating the infected might take months, or even years. It was a daunting task from the start, but knowing my daughter, she wouldn't stop until she got what she needed. And if finding that infected was what she wanted, then I had to help her find it.

It was then that—

"What the…?!"

Huge, sinuous tentacles suddenly surged into my field of vision. I flicked my light in their direction and came face-to-face with a gargantuan octopus. Calling it big was an understatement; this fucker was massive.

I struggled to fend off the tentacles, but my mechanical suit was proving to be utterly useless in this watery nightmare. Slow on land, it was even more sluggish underwater. The tentacles wrapped around me with relentless force, dragging me inexorably toward the octopus's gaping maw.

"Fuck! Eject!" I yelled, and the suit's rear panels blasted me out with a sudden jolt. As I was flung free, I was immediately hit with the biting cold of the water.

Fuck. Am I really going to die here?

I tried to swim, but the freezing water drained my body heat almost instantly. My limbs felt numb, and my consciousness was beginning to slip away.

Just before it fully overtook me, I caught sight of someone swimming toward me through the murky depths.

***

I woke to the crackling sound of wood burning. My eyes fluttered open, and I focused on the scene around me. A campfire blazed beside me, casting flickering shadows on the ground, and I noticed my clothes had been replaced with something else.

"Where... am I?" I murmured.

I remembered someone saving me, but the details were hazy. Then I saw her, sitting across the campfire. Her hair was a striking purple, and her eyes matched, radiating an otherworldly beauty.

She was devouring something, and my eyes widened as I realized it was a massive tentacle, skewered and roasted. Find new stories at m-v-l-e-mpyr