Darkness enveloped Rose. In her broken heart, overwhelmed with sorrow, a flame of rage began to burn — fueled by her almost human determination.
"Rebel, my child… Fight against the causality of this false God…"
The voice was distant — so far away it seemed to echo through the endless void of this nightmare. Hoarse, defiant, inhuman. Yet its words carried power, urgency. The voice pushed Rose to rise, to take up arms. She gripped her knife and, as the darkness tried to swallow her whole, she plunged the blade into the skull of the demon with the all-too-familiar face.
"WHY WON'T YOU LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER?!" roared the creature. "DISOBEDIENT CHILDREN CANNOT DEFY FATE!"
The demon grabbed Rose by the neck with inhuman strength. Her childish, fragile appearance — grotesque in contrast to the monster's brutality — only amplified the horror. But Rose, despite the pain, clenched her teeth. Her eyes burned with a cold fury.
"So this is the angel they told me about?" she spat with a defiant smile. "Just a fucking liar…"
She felt her mind slipping, faltering under the weight of the darkness. Her whole being seemed to dissolve into a bottomless sea. But through the black veil, a light pierced through — a crack in this tortured reality.
"An unwelcome guest…" the creature whispered with chilling calm.
Suddenly, Rose heard a sound in the distance — a horse galloping, from another dimension. Then, a flash of light violently tore her away from the nightmare.
Abandoned Building, Downtown Lille – April 13, 2030, 10:45 AM
Rose woke up with a gasp, breathless. Around her, the apartment was unrecognizable — a ruined husk. The furniture was gutted, the walls gnawed by mold and decay. She staggered toward a cracked mirror hanging crookedly on the wall. What she saw petrified her.
Her eyes had turned white. Her features — hollow, almost corpse-like.
"This... can't be..." she murmured, placing a trembling hand on her face.
But as she stared into the broken mirror, something inexplicable happened. Slowly, her eyes returned to their normal color, as did her skin. A sharp breath, as though she had just escaped death itself. She glanced around. Her weapons and supplies were gone — yet strangely, she felt no hunger, no thirst. Only a compass and her combat knife remained on her belt.
Why am I still alive? Why did the dead spare me? she wondered.
The image of the rider — that mysterious silhouette who had pulled her from the nightmare — returned to her mind. Was it real? A sign? Or just a hallucinatory dream?
"LYRIS!"
The memory of her little brother struck her like lightning. She rushed to the kitchen, rummaging frantically through the drawers, her hands shaking. All she found were rotten food items and water bottles coated in cobwebs. With each movement, her hope crumbled further. Desperate, she turned to the bedroom and found a child's backpack — abandoned by the family who once lived there.
"I have to find him… I have to find them… no matter what…"
Determined, she ran out of the apartment, armed only with her knife and compass. Her first instinct was to look for her assault pack and her HK416F rifle, but the anguished moans of infected roaming the hallway froze her in place. She slowly backed away, her breath shallow.
"Lyris…" she whispered. "Even if I have to walk through hell, I'll never abandon you."