"Why is the world so cruel?"
Victoria thought bitterly as tears rolled down her already pale cheeks.
The cold fluorescent light above her buzzed faintly, echoing in the silence of the laboratory. She lay strapped to a gurney, her body frail, lips cracked, veins collapsed from too many needles which had pierced her skin. She was surrounded by machines which were beeping softly, measuring what little life she had left to give.
She was never allowed to see the outside world again the moment she was captured here. Instead she was confined in a particular room with white walls.
They told her she was saving humanity.
But no one had ever asked her if she wanted to be the world's savior.
Pain flared in her arm as another vial slowly filled with her blood....rare, precious, and the only known substance that cure the Eternal Sleep virus, a brutal pathogen that had already claimed millions of lives in the mere three days since its arrival.
Not even the richest could buy safety. Money had become meaningless. Desperation had become currency. The poor suffered most until the world found out about her.
They locked her up and drained her, carefully measuring every drop, ensuring she stayed alive long enough for them to take everything.
"You should be proud, darling," her stepmother's voice echoed in her memory, sugary sweet and cold as frost. "You're finally useful. You'll save not just your family, but millions of people. Your name will be written in history, and your family will live in wealth."
Victoria's heart clenched as the voice of one of her four stepbrothers followed....sharp, mocking, filled with contempt.
"You'll never be our sister. But hey, turns out you're useful after all."
They were the ones she once dared to love. The brothers she believed would protect her, comfort her, accept her.
Instead, they became her greatest betrayers.
Her stepsister, the perfect darling of the family was lavished with affection. While Victoria was forced into servitude. She wasn't a maid, but her existence in that house had been even worse than one.
"I hate them all," Victoria murmured aloud, her voice hoarse, barely audible. Each syllable felt like it cost her a piece of her soul. "I hate the world."
Her trembling fingers curled weakly around the silver locket pressed to her chest....the only thing she had left from her mother. Her most precious possession.
She had never opened it. Her mother's last wish was that she find her father first and open it together.
But the man who was supposed to love her, protect her....he had done worse than abandon her. He had stood by as she was sold, as she was mistreated, as her life was drained away.
Why had he even brought her to his mansion if all he intended was to deepen her suffering?
"You loved the wrong man, Mother," Victoria whispered through cracked lips, her fingers tracing the ornate edges of the locket.
She no longer had the strength to honor her mother's request. She would open it alone.
Her fingers found the hidden latch. With a soft click, the locket sprang open and a blinding blue light erupted from within, so intense it seared through her vision, making her recoil.
She squeezed her eyes shut, the brightness burning her retinas, and when she finally dared to open them again....
She could see a house which stood in the distance, quaint yet sturdy, nestled in the center of a lush green land surrounded by vibrant flora. A second structure nearby appeared to be a storage facility. Through its open doors she could glimpse crates of food, medicine, weapons, everything one would need to survive.
"What the heck…?" she breathed With panic in her heart.
Was she hallucinating? Was this some kind of afterlife? A dream? Or was this… real?
She blinked, again and again, trying to make sense of it.
What's going on?
Could the locket truly be… a treasure left behind by her mother? A key to survival?
Oh no! That's unbelievable!
All these years, she had carried it close, believing her mother's instructions were sacred.....believing she needed her father to open it.
But now she knew better.
"Only if I had opened it sooner…" she whispered, voice cracking with grief. "Maybe then… I wouldn't have suffered so much. I wouldn't have lived like that."
Tears slipped down her temples for the life she never got to live and for all the lost opportunities.
She was the kind of girl who believed in love, in home, in family. She clung to the fantasy that perhaps one day, someone would wrap her in warmth and tell her she belonged.
But reality had been far crueler. The family she'd imagined in her dreams never existed....not for her. Instead of open arms and comforting voices, she received indifference, betrayal, and abuse.
"I wish I could get a second chance though. A second chance to destroy those who ruined me, to stand on my own, without relying on people who only saw me as a tool.
A second chance to burn this cruel world to ashes."
Those were the thoughts that thundered through Victoria's mind as hot tears continued sliding down her cheeks, disappearing into the clinical white sheets beneath her. All the while, the machine beside her continued to drain her blood....her rare, miraculous blood drop by drop.
"I hate everyone," she murmured, each syllable trembling as if her soul itself was unraveling.
Her eyes then fluttered shut, lashes wet with despair. The heart monitor beside her suddenly began to beep erratically, its frantic tempo a scream of emergency. But there was no one in the lab...not at that hour. The scientists had left her alone again, confident in the automated systems. They only returned when it was time to harvest.
And so, in that sterile white tomb, Victoria closed her eyes for the last time.
She took her final breath with hatred in her heart.
***
The city pulsed with chaotic life as workers rushed up and down crowded streets, their umbrellas turning inside out against the fierce downpour. Rain lashed mercilessly at the pavement, turning the Monday morning into a tempest of noise, confusion, and cold.
Traffic was at a standstill. Horns blared, and tempers flared as water flooded the roads.
As if the day wasn't miserable enough, the latest outbreak had driven fear deeper into every heart.
Everyone wore masks.....standard issue, mandated by the government. A desperate measure to prevent the spread of the terrifying illness dubbed "The Eternal Sleep."
It had only been three days since the first case was reported, and already, the death toll was staggering. Some victims slipped into comas they would never wake from. Others died peacefully in their sleep while some began changing into monsters no one has a name for. Either way, the virus was an unstoppable nightmare. But then there are symptoms shown hence the reason why government could quickly work in capturing infected citizens before they're turned into monsters.
The government had divided the population....separating the infected from the uninfected. Whole zones had been locked down and converted into medical containment units. But despite their efforts, the virus kept spreading.
Beneath the city's massive overpass, a forgotten corner of society remained hidden from view.
And there, lying on the wet, cracked cement, was a young girl.
She looked no older than nineteen, with curly silver hair that clung to her skin. A damp, tattered face mask clung loosely to her face, though it had long since lost its protective value.
Suddenly, her eyes snapped open....startlingly bright, glowing a soft violet under the gray sky. She sat up slowly, dazed, confusion shadowing her gaze as she took in her surroundings.
"What... what's going on?" she breathed.
Victoria blinked, trying to make sense of the place she now found herself in. She recognized the overpass. It was the same one where she had lived, briefly, with a group of homeless children. Most of them had already been taken.....snatched away by hazmat-clad officials when they showed signs of infection.
Yet she remained untouched.
Even now, sitting out in the open, without a working mask or medicine, Victoria was... fine.
Completely fine.
"Did I not.. die?" she whispered, voice trembling as tears welled up in her eyes again.
Shakily, she rose to her feet, her soaked clothes clinging to her skin as the rain poured harder. She clutched at her chest, her fingers finding the locket that never left her neck....the only thing she had left of her mother.
With trembling hands, she clicked it open.
And there it was again.
The same image she had seen before her death....a hidden house in the middle of a vibrant green landscape. A garden bursting with food. A weapons storehouse. Stacks of medicine and supplies.
A secret survival haven.
Her breath caught. Her knees nearly gave out.
"Did I... go back in time?" she gasped, her voice rising in disbelief.
Her eyes darted toward the city's massive wall clock....a government installation that also displayed the date in bright red letters.
Her lips parted.
"No. No way..."
It was three days before her family will come to get her.