Chapter 42: The battle of Invictus (6)
Iris stood atop a wall, one of the few spared by the explosion.
She held her faithful violin close, her lifelong companion.
As soon as the bow touched the strings, a first note echoed out. Then, with a rhythmical grace, she moved faster, and the distinct sounds merged into a frenzied melody, plunging every listener into a deep melancholy—a journey through distorted memories.
Seeing the expressions on the listeners’ faces, Carla, while amplifying the effect through her resonance, finally understood the words Iris had once whispered to her:
"You must plant seeds to reap the fruit later."
At that moment, she was the one best placed to understand what all those infected were going through. After all, she had been the third to experience the danger hidden within those beautiful eyes... and the first to endure long enough to grasp, even slightly, the mechanism behind them.
Reflecting on it, Carla drifted into her own memories. One in particular. A night she would never forget.
That night, after assisting Captain Grégoire with injecting the prototype into the body of a young woman named Iris, she had returned, as usual, to the orphanage set up inside Astoria’s town hall.
Since then, every night, she had made it her mission to tell stories to lull to sleep the children who had lost their parents during the Awakening, or whose families were still fighting death in hopes of waking up.
Her audience ranged from babies to nine-year-olds. Older children were rare, or too rebellious and broken to be soothed by children’s tales. Like Brad and Bell, they preferred to remain alone, sharpening their hatred for society in the darkness of their hearts.
Carla had made this routine her duty. That was why she was no longer surprised when the door opened behind her. She assumed at first it was a newly awakened parent coming to retrieve their child. But when she recognized the voice, she wondered whether the young woman had any siblings. After all, she had claimed to be alone, orphaned—her mother beaten to death, and that vile mayor, supposedly her father, stoned by the crowd.
"Forgive me for the intrusion. I didn’t expect you to be busy. If you don’t mind, I’d like to wait here... Perhaps the story will help me fall asleep."