The first light from the horizon hit the forest. The smell of burnt leaves flew across the morning air. Fresh grass mixed with the smell of ash. Trees were bent, broken, and shattered. The soil was mixed with black ash, and boulders were scattered around, with ice crystals at every edge. The rays from the sun bounced off every edge of the ice.
"Well…" Project Rebirth said right after he got up from the log. "I better go start this world peacekeeping thing."
He held his waist and bent backward, then forward, followed by the right and left. He stretched both arms before turning to X.
"I don't know how to start, but—"
He paused.
X stood up and turned toward his blind spot. The trees behind them seemed to have moved, but with such force that the ground trembled.
"Something or someone is here."
"We should leave."
"Yeah, we sho—"
"Leave?"
A voice, sounding like an old audio recording, came from behind the trees. His voice was carried by the wind.
Right after his word was picked up by the wind, everything froze in place.
Rebirth and X couldn't speak or move. Gravity seemed too kind to hold them in place.
The spark of immortality and the pride of the storm lightning took a slow heartbeat to spark.
Sweat from X's body felt like countless miniature balls of lightning.
"What… is… th… this… creature? I can't move," he said in a shaky tone.
Rebirth's eyes wouldn't close as the raging flames around him reduced to an ember.
"What is this I've been hearing? Beings like you trying to find balance and avoid chaos, making everything right, when you creators already attached it to your genetic makeup."
An old black man with beads around his neck and hands emerged from the darkest part of the forest.
Behind him, the corpses of animals lay scattered, while birds fell from the sky.
"But that won't work. Not for me."
A calm smile spread across his face. His eyes were still closed.
Right after the bottom of his staff hit the ground, all the trees around them dried up. The animal corpses were sucked dry, leaving only their bones. All of it rose into the air and was drawn toward the small shell hanging at the edge of his staff.
"My name is Baba Ayodele—"
Right after his eyes opened, the world around him seemed to be swallowed by his gaze.
He collected the energy gathered at the edge of his staff…
He ate it.
"—and I'm here to collect."
The roaring of the car engine filled the morning air as it moved through the highway. Sunlight bounced off the top of the car. The air tasted like dust from the road the car had been kicking up.
Just up ahead, they all saw a mountain of corpses on both sides of the road.
The sign reading WELCOME TO ELMWOOD was bent.
Henry raised his hand to his nose.
"I can't believe I'm breathing in this air."
After a while with no reply, he turned back to the team.
Elena and Vickie's eyes were shut, their long eyelashes on display. Just like a curvy mountain, they rested their heads on Cryos's lap.
He turned to Daniel on the other side, close to him.
There he was, sleeping like he had just finished a hard labor.
"I wonder what he did that made him sleep like a king when he actually did nothing," Henry added before facing the road again.
The sounds of daggers being shoved in and out of their sheaths rang through the air inside the car.
"You know, sometimes you don't mind your business, right?"
Eva said, raising an eyebrow as she looked at him.
The sounds of the daggers had just stopped.
She was sitting at the back on the opposite side of Cryos, with Vickie in the middle.
"How? I'm only—"
"—pointing out the problem at hand."
"By the way, isn't this the root place where those zombie-looking creatures came from?"
"But how they were spread across the country is still a mystery."
They heard a groaning voice from someone who spoke like they had been forced to talk.
"Which is a bad idea. Coming here, I mean. Who knows if those things are just playing dead and planning to ambush us when we're in the middle of it?"
Daniel added.
Just then, the car wheels scratched against the ground, sending a crying noise into the air.
The air smelled like burning rubber for a while.
"Who is that?"
Henry's voice was shaking.
Eva, as always, was ready to fight, but this time, all her joints were frozen.
Daniel's eyes cleared like the bright sun. His eyeballs wouldn't take their usual break. It was all dread.
"I told you guys. We shouldn't have come here. It's like walking straight into a lion's den."
His voice was barely audible.
Just ahead of them, a few steps from the front of the car, stood a massive mountain of corpses.
Sitting on top was a black Nigerian woman.
She wore a long, richly patterned wrapper tied around her waist, with a matching blouse that covered her upper body. A dark headscarf wrapped around her hair, while layers of traditional beads rested around her neck and wrists. Her appearance carried the presence of someone who didn't need to raise her voice to command attention.
She bent her neck toward the car, holding a staff she had been talking to.
All the zombie-looking creatures had been wiped out in Elmwood.
That, at least, was obvious to their eyes.
"If Mama Ayodele is here, that means…"
Cryos's eyeballs moved back and forth.
"Everyone to me!"
He shouted as the sky tore open.
A massive beam of fire came down like a single waterfall.
"We are dead. We are dead. We are dead…"
Daniel kept murmuring to himself in a low tone as he covered his head inside the ice cage.
A small smile played on Cryos's face.
"The whole family is here, and they're going to level this entire city."
He turned to Eva.
"They call it divine punishment from their God, Ugon."
Henry was just like a frozen chicken in a cold room.
He couldn't move, talk, or even blink.
"Christopher Abubakar, hiding inside your snowball again."
Her voice carried through the air.
"Aaah… I smell my daughter-in-law's peasant—"
They couldn't hear her voice for a while.
"—but weak."
Right after they heard her last word, the ice ball broke.
She towered above them, grinning like her whole life depended on it.