Long live the glorious Crown, let it bask in the illusion of prosperity and bliss.
Long live the Usurped who filched it. Long live the Lapsed who succumbed to it. Long live the Blest who envied it. Long live the Tyrants who feared it. Long live the Almighty who shall destroy it.
"Hail Emperor."
. . .
(Start of Part 1 - Abolition.)
(1st year of the Sacrificial Era.)
(In the great city of Trila, located east in the Kingdom of Normalcy, Houtis. Year 2430.)
Maylor Precinct:
"The hospital is full, go home!"
Air hung heavy as thousands of civilians congested the twin glass doors of Trila Municipal Hospital.
It was a dry day that morning, the sun's luminous rays parching every last bit of Maylor Precinct, including its poor civilians.
"Have these people gone mad? Military order: Leave the vicinity, immediately!"
No one listened.
"Oh by the Totem, don't make me hurt you!" An officer pushed his sword outward, causing the first few civilians in front of him to stagger.
He bit down hard. "Leave now. Commander Saint ordered me and my colleagues to clear the entrance."
Unfortunately, the sheer quantity of the masses brought forth immense power, and officer Ansprand was quite easily pushed to the ground.
"Ngh–"
Trampled on and silenced. He beckoned for his comrades to join, but the other two officers stumbled and shyly looked the other way.
"Tch, useless!" Ansprand cursed his colleagues.
. . .
Amidst the chaos, a seemingly insignificant man by the name of Charles Vaughan squirmed through two burly men and ran inside the hospital.
He dressed in a plaid flannel, blue jeans, and had black sandals strapped to his feet. On his regularly shaped head, a pair of glasses sat out of place.
One lens covered his right eye and the other was diagonal, covering his eyebrow. Charles felt the irregularity with thin fingers and hurriedly adjusted it.
"Must have been the traffic…" he muttered.
He found a glass mirror.
The image reflected was of a thinly built forty-year-old man with red eyes and short brown hair combed to the side. His cheeks were hollowed and his temples receded.
Aging.
Charles grinned like a kid. 'Today is the day. I can't wait!'
Above the glass doors of the entrance, a red light flashed on and off.
Why did the people keep coming?
'Ever since Queen Bianca had died, life has been… oof.' Charles sucked his breath in.
Just a day after the Queen of Houtis, Bianca Selwyn, was brutally murdered, thousands of people dropped like flies.
They weren't just ordinary murders, though, more like brutal onslaughts. Victims missed limbs, organs, and sometimes even half their bodies.
Charles shook his head. "I can't worry now, Emory is born!"
He clenched his fists and headed to the receptionist's desk.
When he arrived, there were about thirty citizens in line. They gave off auras of anxiousness, annoyance, or a mix of both.
A woman at the front banged her hand on the desk. "Hey! I've been waiting for four hours!"
The receptionist in front of her, who sat at a large U-shaped table, glanced up, then down. She continued working without worry.
Infuriation spread across her face. Charles dubbed her as "Crazy Lady."
Crazy Lady forcefully reached into her red purse and pulled out a revolver. "I–I'm speaking!"
She aimed the revolver at the secretary, who didn't bother looking up again. Despite pointing the weapon at the woman, she had no desire to shoot.
Crazy Lady was beyond terrified.
'What an amusing facade,' thought one man a couple of meters back. He watched the sequence play out in anticipation. The queue dispersed instantly. No one wanted to deal with a deranged civilian.
Houtis was a country full of the crazed.
Charles jolted. 'A gun!'
He stumbled on his feet and itched to run the other way.
Just as he was about to leave, a gut-wrenching snap slithered between his ears. He heard the words, "I didn't mean to anger you!" and reluctantly decided to peek back.
Crazy Lady was on the floor. Her body spasmed, then went motionless. The man who had laughed in line walked up to the dead woman's body and knelt.
He met eyes with Charles, said, "Shushh," and placed his index finger over his pursed mouth. "Liege Maisedes has been angered, so I'm going to have to take her away."
He chuckled at Charles's disbelief. "Think of it as a punishment, you know. Since the times are changing. By the way, you're not going to remember any of this. Praise the Totem."
They both dispelled.
The eager father's red eyes swirled a faint color of blue.
. . .
Charles blinked a few times. He heaved a sigh of relief at the empty line of front of him.
"H–Hello!"
He waited for the lady at the desk to respond.
Her head was buried in a stack of paperwork, and it seemed as though she had not heard his previous call. "Hello?" Charles tried once more.
This time, he rapped his finger along the edge of the table.
The receptionist, an older woman with short black hair and deep wrinkles, gazed up. "Hm?" The glasses resting on the bridge of her nose drooped.
"I–I'm Charles Vaughan, here for the birth of my son." Charles introduced himself while putting a hand on his heart for some reason.
"Sorry that I wasn't here for his actual birth, work was surprisingly busy." He rubbed the back of his head apologetically.
The secretary coughed.
"Vaughan…" She scanned a document in hand. "There you are: Room 201." She paused. "You're fathering Emory Vaughan?"
Suspicion.
Charles, who was slightly taken aback, answered, "Yes, I'm his father. My wife is Isabelle Vaughan."
"Hm," she replied, zero inflection in her voice. "Alright, be safe on your way there. Oh, and congratulations."
Charles smiled and thought, 'She's nicer than she seems.'
He waved at the lady and left rather quickly.
The receptionist watched the enthusiastic Charles leave and coughed again. "Oh, Liege. Have I angered you? I didn't mean to, I swear. I believe in the Totem!"
"..."
Within a couple of seconds, her figure vanished.
The receptionist's desk was left empty, and the rolling chair she once sat on spun alone.
. . .
In the hallways, Charles darted his eyes left and right. '201… 201… 201…' He stopped.
"Found it!"
It was like every other door, pale oak with a brass doorknob. Dirty brown tile below.
The hallway itself was mundane, every room identical to the next. If someone wasn't careful, it was almost like going through an everlasting maze.
Charles knocked on the door once.
There wasn't an answer, so he tried again. "Should I go in?" he asked himself. It was his wife and his son, after all. "Yeah, I'll go in."
The door creaked open, and the smell of blood and chemicals stung his nose.
There was an eerie stillness to the hospital room. To the right lay a small vacated crib. Next to the far side of the wall, a black metal skeleton held up the mattress that someone lay on.
Charles felt his heart's rhythm steadily increase.
Thump!
He slowly approached the bed; each step felt like two stones shackled his feet.
"Charles?" a woman called.
"Isabelle!" Charles's worry dispersed. His wife was here, alive! He ran over to hug her.
Isabelle's expression warped. Her eyes were dark around the edges and her skin was pale. She roughly grabbed Charles's shoulders.
"You mustn't let him know!" she screamed.
Charles stagnated. "Let who know…? Let them know what? Isabelle, what's the matter?"
Isabelle's voice grew louder. "Please don't let him find out! Charles, please! If he figures out, Maisedes will come! He'll kill us all!"
Charles's heart rapidly beat. "Calm down! What is going on?!"
"Don't let Emory find out! Shield him! Go as far away as you can!"
She tried to get up but failed, her body much too weak. "Find someone with the last name Cordosia, they'll know what to do! They'll protect you! Charles, you can't let him find out! You can't!"
"Isabelle! Please, calm down!" Charles pleaded.
Her tone slowly died down to a decibel he could not hear. "Don't let him find out about Moribund…"
Little by little, all her luster and remaining emotion vanished. Her chest stopped moving up and down. Her stomach remained stationary.
Yes, Isabelle Vaughan just died.
Once again, Charles's eyes swirled a faint hue of blue.