Chapter 42: 42. Flynn
Henry stood in the middle of the construction site, the wind tugging gently at his Vanguard cloak. Jeff leaned lazily against a stack of metal rods, chewing a matchstick, while Mary was flipping through a report tablet.
Dust blew softly across the cracked ground. The place was quiet—too quiet.
Suddenly, the still air split with a harsh cawing. Eight crows swooped down from the hazy sky like black blades, their wings slicing wind with eerie synchronicity. They circled once, twice—then dove.
One of them dropped something.
A single letter, folded into a perfect square, landed at Henry's feet.
Jeff stopped chewing.
"…You expecting bird mail, boss?"
Mary narrowed her eyes. "Eight crows. Not six. Not nine. That's a bad omen in crow counting."
Henry bent down cautiously and picked it up. The paper was aged, its edges frayed as if it had waited years just to reach him. It smelled faintly of smoke and cold metal.
He unfolded it.
Blank.
Not a single word.
No ink. No sigil. No sign of pressure or fading. Nothing.
"Empty?" Jeff asked, stepping closer.
Henry didn't answer immediately. His fingers felt a cold pulse through the parchment. It was blank, yes—but it wasn't normal. It hummed like a thought trying to form, or a whisper that had just ended.
He flipped it, held it to the light. Still nothing. Just… silence.
"Someone sent this," he finally murmured. "And they didn't need to write anything."
Mary's brows furrowed. "Could be encoded. Or cursed. Or worse—meant only for you."
Jeff frowned. "Maybe it's like those puzzles in the Library Quarter. Empty letters used to reveal their message with heat."
Henry shook his head. "No… this message wants to stay hidden. It's the silence that's talking."
The crows had vanished, as quickly as they came—no feathers, no tracks, no sky-ripples.
And Henry just stood there, holding an empty letter that whispered nothing… yet said too much.
The echo of the undead stretched across Prada's bones, distant but nearing. Pale fog crept over the shattered roads like regret. Henry, Jeff, and Mary moved through the outer complex of a ruined tenement, once housing merchants and clerks—now turned into a battered fortress for the frightened.
Inside the reinforced warehouse next door, dozens of civilians were being kept safe by other Vanguards. But there were whispers that some families had locked themselves in old rooms, too ashamed, too forgotten, or simply too hopeless to respond.
Henry scanned the hallway, his revolver drawn but low. "I'll check the east wing," he murmured. Mary and Jeff nodded, their eyes wary.
He reached a rust-stained door, tightly sealed. The knob didn't turn. A faint sound inside—a shuffling, a breath—told him this room wasn't abandoned.
He stepped back once, twice, and slammed his boot against the lock. Wood snapped. The door burst open. He rolled inside with practiced reflex—
And stopped.
There, in the dim light of a single flickering candle, was a family. A man, his wife, and their son, no older than seven, huddled in the corner of a cracked concrete room. Thin blankets wrapped around them like failing armor. The woman screamed, clutching the boy.
The man lunged forward with a broken table leg, eyes wide. "Get out! Get out of here!" he barked. "We've done nothing—don't drag us into this!"
Henry raised both hands and took a careful step back. "Damn. I thought this room was empty. I didn't come to harm you."
"You Vanguards… you only protect the ones with names. With shops. With coins to spare," the man spat. "We don't matter to you."
Henry's expression didn't change, but something tightened in his chest. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "You're right. We failed before. Maybe Oneday, I become like them too. But before I do, let me fulfil my duty as an angel before turning into devil. "
He knelt slowly and looked at the little boy, who peeked out from behind his mother's trembling hands. Henry smiled, and in one smooth motion, pulled something from his pocket.
A lollipop—bright orange, slightly dented, still wrapped.
He held it out. "Stole it from Jeff earlier. He was trying to take my coins again. I figured someone better deserved it."
The boy hesitated, then toddled forward and took it.
"There we go," Henry said, patting his head gently. "You've got more courage than half the city, lil brother."
The father lowered the makeshift weapon, confused but no longer hostile. The mother's shoulders loosened.
Henry stood, turned, and stepped into the hallway once more.
He paused. The broken door hung on splinters.
Without a word, he pulled his repair toolkit from his belt pouch and began working. Nail by nail, hinge by hinge, he reinforced the door again. When he finished, he glanced back—no longer through a threshold, but a sealed haven.
"Stay quiet. Keep the candle low. You'll be safe here. If not today, tomorrow will be better, have belief on me." he said over his shoulder and closed the door.
Then he vanished into the fog.
The groans of zombies grew distant, swallowed by wind.
Inside, the boy looked at the lollipop and whispered, "Was he… a hero?"
His father didn't answer. But the door didn't rattle anymore.
The wind curled through the cracked alleys of Prada, carrying with it the acrid scent of rot and the stifling hum of something… wrong. Henry crouched low beside a scorched wall, dust clinging to his coat, revolver ready but low. From a distance, amidst swirling ash and faint green mist, Roze appeared. She adjusted her feathered hat with one hand, her other clutching the hilt of her light-saber, its core pulsing with faint radiant energy.
Their eyes met.
A silent nod.
Mary and Jeff were securing civilians in the third-floor corridor of the crumbling structure behind them. Henry gestured for them to stay hidden, his hand motioning quiet.
That's when the ground trembled.
A wet, sloshing sound emerged from the end of the alley.
Something emerged—no, heaved into existence.
The creature stood twice the height of a man, its form bloated and quivering. Its limbs were as uneven as rotting tree stumps, and its skin looked like ruptured intestines wrapped in burnt wax. Veins glowed green under its surface. Slimy pustules pulsed and popped, oozing poison that sizzled into the stone below. Its ribcage was cracked open, yet something kept it moving, regenerating, reforming.
Henry's stomach turned.
Its head—or what should've been one—twitched violently, the jaw swinging from loose ligaments. One eye bulged in a disturbingly familiar way.
Henry narrowed his gaze.
Flynn?
No… impossible. Flynn had been with them. But that stare—that crooked mouth. It was like a twisted imprint of the man. Henry clenched his fist.
Roze had already leapt into battle.
She sprinted forward, twirling her saber, trails of light cutting through the air. She flung glowing sparks behind her—each of them igniting with small bursts on contact with the monster's limbs. The abomination flinched, staggered, vomited a jet of green ooze that burned through the cobbled street.
Roze leapt.
Her saber crashed down on its shoulder, cleaving deep. A blinding explosion followed.
Smoke filled the alley.
But when it cleared, the flesh had stitched itself again.
"Regenerative tissue?" Henry muttered, raising his revolver and firing at the creature's limbs to buy Roze time.
The bullets sizzled in the creature's poison—but staggered it slightly.
Roze backed off, sparks flying from her fingertips, forming a wide ring around the creature. She pressed her palm to the ground. Dozens of light threads erupted into the air and wove into a glowing net—Radiant Bind.
The net closed.
It trapped the monster's body for a heartbeat—just enough time for Roze to hurl her saber, spinning midair like a comet. It embedded deep into the beast's spine.
BOOM!
A contained blast. Chunks of flesh splattered.
Roze called her saber back into her hand with a flick.
The monster screeched. Its neck began reforming already.
Henry muttered, "It's not healing. It's looping—like time rewinding on its cells."
Roze was breathing heavily now, chest rising and falling. She held her side—some acid had caught her leg. The poison hissed against her boots.
"I need to burn the core!" she shouted toward Henry.
Henry scanned. Then he saw it—beneath the beast's cracked chest cavity, near the heart, something was glowing… a violet orb, pulsating like a rotten sun.
"Middle chest!" he shouted back.
Roze nodded. She launched a beam of piercing light to distract it.
The monster flailed, swinging a large, deformed arm like a wrecking ball. Henry barely ducked in time, rolling behind a debris pile.
Roze dashed between its legs, slid beneath its stomach, and struck upward with a precise saber thrust—
CLANG!
She hit something hard. The core was shielded.
The monster shrieked, its limbs erupting with green flames. It slammed its hands down, cracking the street open. Roze leapt away, but a wave of acid splashed her coat's back.
Smoke curled from her feathers. She screamed, biting her lip, not to show weakness.
Henry stood. He activated his Feather Trait. His body lightened. Wind caught him.
He sprinted—faster than a blink—and tossed a vial at Roze mid-run. She caught it, uncorked it with her teeth, and doused the acid.
"Again!" she roared.
This time, Henry leapt above the beast, floating briefly. He aimed a special round—Blessed Shell. Only two left.
BANG!
The bullet cracked the orb's outer layer. Roze followed with a horizontal slash.
Light burst like a second sun. Decreasing the mobster's healing power.
The stench of rot lingered like smoke in the windless alley.
Roze and Henry stood, breath shallow, facing the monstrosity that refused to die. Its limbs dangled grotesquely, green ooze dripping onto the broken stones below. Yet despite the explosions, the punctures, the divine burn across its chest—it still stood. Shivering… pulsing… alive.
Henry narrowed his eyes. "It's still regenerating."
Roze didn't answer immediately. Her boots shifted in the slime-slick street. She stepped forward slowly, steady—never blinking, never breaking her gaze.
Then, with perfect calm, she removed her feathered hat.
She tossed it straight into the air.
A cry echoed.
The eagle swooped down from the overcast skies and caught the hat in one swift motion, banking hard and circling above.
Neither Henry nor Roze moved now. They simply stood, eyes locked on the monster, their weapons lowered but ready. The monster's body trembled, slowly reforming.
A cold wind drifted through the cracked stonework and glassless windows of the surrounding ruins. The world paused—drawn tight like the string of a bow.
.....
The sky over Prada was heavy with grey—a quiet storm rumbling behind the clouds, unsure whether to break. Wind carried the sharp scent of old blood and distant fire.
At the main gate of the town—lined with iron bars and sandbag barricades—stood a squad of Vanguards, weapons steady, eyes sharper than ever. Behind them, the reinforced wooden palisade loomed tall, humming faintly with runic enchantments.
Andrew stood in front, arms crossed over his black cloak, the breeze tugging at his dark hair. His gloves were stained with dried green ichor. Two rifles hung loosely across the barricade, unmanned but loaded. The silence beyond the trees outside was deceptive.
"You think they'll come again?" one of the younger Vanguards asked nervously, shifting his grip on his weapon.
Andrew didn't look at him. His gaze was locked outward—through the misty treeline, past the stone path that twisted into the wilderness. "They always do," he said simply. "But not today."
Another Vanguard chuckled dryly. "I heard one of them last time melted through a shield wall."
"Then don't let it touch you," Andrew replied, voice flat as stone.
The group fell into a momentary silence. A crow cawed somewhere in the distance.
One Vanguard leaned toward Andrew. "Sir… are these just zombies, or something more? I mean… they don't feel natural."
Andrew's jaw tightened. He glanced at the faint purple shimmer running across the sigils lining the gate's arch.
"No disease evolves to glow and spit acid," he muttered. "Something's moving them. Guiding them."
He finally turned to the others. "This isn't just a break of undead. It's a message. And until we understand what language it's speaking, we'll hold this line like it's the last one."
The younger soldier straightened.
Another Vanguard, older, with a blade marked from countless fights, nodded. "Aye. If Prada falls, the other towns will follow. Might as well be the brick in the wall."
Andrew allowed a faint smirk. "Then stay sharp, brick."
And with that, they returned to silence—watchful, ready, waiting at the gates of a town that refused to break.
....
The house was quiet, cloaked in soft afternoon glow, but inside Henry's room, it shimmered like a divine temple hidden from the world's chaos. The walls were bathed in warm gold, a gentle radiance that pulsed not from any lamp—but from her.
Mimi.
She stood near the center of the room, her presence transcending everything earthly. Her once small feline form now a glorious angelic figure—neither fully human nor beast—wrapped in a soft gown woven of star-thread and moonlight. Her wings unfurled wide, immense and regal, every soft movement dropping delicate crystals from her feathers. As they touched the floor, they sang faintly, like wind-chimes in a dream, fading into glowing motes that drifted upward before disappearing.
She knelt slowly, gracefully, as if gravity itself bowed to her will. In her lap were Jeena and Marsh—the two little kittens, their fur ruffled from play, now curled up like children under their mother's lullaby. Mimi smiled, a warmth in her expression that words could never capture. Her slender fingers stroked their backs tenderly.
Jeena purred loud, pawing at the glittering chain of crystals flowing from Mimi's shoulder. Marsh, meanwhile, was too content to move, his little ear twitching in sleep. The room around them swirled with colors unseen in the waking world—soft lilac and sea-glass green, hues born from Mimi's quiet magic.
The air felt sacred. No sound came from the street, no whisper from wind or crow. Only the subtle hum of Mimi's grace, the quiet miracle of life lingering in a house that had seen too much pain.
She looked toward the door for a moment—as if sensing Henry beyond it, somewhere—then turned her gaze back down, the corners of her lips curling up gently.
In that moment, she was not just a pet, not a creature from another place. She was peace, watching over the innocent, radiant with light that refused to be touched by the world's ugliness. Her presence stitched serenity into the fabric of the home.
Outside, the world burned and shifted.
Inside, it bloomed.
....
Scene: "Where Old Names Stir"
—Cliffhanger for Next Chapter—
---
The sun stood high over Prada, yet the light above the Church of Hazaya felt strangely pale—muted, as though the sky itself sensed what was about to unfold.
Stone steps creaked under measured footsteps. Each one a heartbeat, steady and fated.
Martin Lawden, leather jacket dusted with road ash, green cape fluttering faintly behind him, climbed slowly. His boots tapped against stone with rhythm, not urgency. There was no need to rush.
He already knew who was waiting.
At the top, just past the wooden arch under the church's ancient tower, sat a plastic chair—cheap, unfitting for sacred grounds, yet perfectly familiar. There, legs crossed, a chipped blue cup of tea steaming gently in hand, sat the old priest. Calm. Composed. Watching.
The man who had no known surname. Until now.
Martin gave a half smile. "Still addicted to cheap tea and silence, huh?"
The priest took a sip without looking at him. "Still pretending you weren't raised by wolves."
Martin chuckled, his voice edged with venom and nostalgia. "Wolves don't betray."
A pause.
The priest's eyes finally lifted. Calm as a lake before lightning.
And then Martin said it. Quiet, like a spell.
"Vain Ford."
The cup trembled slightly in the Father's hand. Just slightly. Enough.
He stood.
The name hadn't been uttered in decades. Buried beneath oaths, erased from records, kept from even the Vanguards under his command. And yet here it was again—dragged into daylight by the only man reckless enough to speak it.
"So that tongue of yours still works," Vain said, brushing his robe back. "Shame your spine never caught up."
Martin's smile vanished. "You know why I'm here."
"I always did."
Their eyes locked.
"Give me the diary," Martin said.
"No."
A gust of wind passed, fluttering pages on an old prayer book left nearby, its ribbon bookmark lifting like a signal.
Vain took a single step forward. His shadow fell across the threshold of the church door. "This ground remembers our sins, Martin. You sure you want to add more?"
"I stopped caring about sins a long time ago."
"Then you've already lost."
Martin raised a hand. The veins on his arm flared with green sigils, necrotic glyphs crawling like vines beneath his skin.
Vain didn't flinch. With one breath, the air around him thickened—a holy pressure, almost invisible, older than either of them.
Just then—
BANG.
A tremor echoed through the city's north.
Birds scattered from rooftops. The bell inside Hazaya's tower chimed once on its own. Far in the distance, something roared—a sound not quite of beast, not quite of god.
Martin's eyes narrowed. "You're running out of time."
Vain's voice was still.
"So are you."
A silence fell between them like a drawn blade.
Then, they stepped forward—