The City of Ionia

Red eyes. That was the first thing Ruby noticed. Its flames shined brighter and more viciously than the sun.

From a distance, her eyes were noticeably red. Both of them. She charged through the crowd like a mythical monster.

She tore through everyone. Limbs flew around while bloody screams ignited uproar. One girl took on the most feared bandit group.

Creating this much damage alone in a compact area wasn’t possible. Humanly possible, at least. At that moment, Ruby couldn’t sense a single human element about the current massacre.

Red eyes.

That shook her the most. She swore Jill’s eyes were dark brown, never red. It was humanly impossible to have red eyes, so how could she obtain this?

Was she not human?

Don’t be ridiculous. It wasn’t like she was an alien. Ruby had known Jill for years but had never witnessed something like this before.

Red eyes.

Massacring an entire group single-handedly—the most feared group.

Screams and yells mixed with the sound of swords clattering echoed throughout. Ruby and Jeremy lay low close to Harley’s body.

Jeremy said something to Ruby, but she didn’t hear. She was so focused on the current event. Everything else was irrelevant.

Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Her lips became dryer than brown grass on a blazing summer day. Every scream tore a piece of her breath away. Not because she carried remorse for the bandit group. In truth, she couldn’t care less what happened to them.

What tore her into pieces was Jill.

When did she become like this? Since when was she a murdering weapon? Why were her eyes red? Where did this courage and strength come from?

Was she even human?

That question spun around Ruby’s mind. Being an extraterrestrial lifeform was beyond impossible. Jill was one hundred percent human, but why did it not feel that way?

What type of human could cause this much chaos?

So much blood.

Blood.

There was blood everywhere she looked. On the walls, rocks, people, ground. Everywhere. It was like some sort of explosion went off and ripped everyone into pieces.

Chopped fingers scattered around like flowers in a garden. They were everywhere. Eyes dangled from the sockets, the red muscle hanging towards the ground. Teeth dispersed throughout the area; some were cracked, and others were normal.

The pile of bodies lay on the swamp-like blood. Some bodies flipped over onto their stomachs, others laid on the back, the side, on top of another body. In short, they were everywhere.

The once rowdy crowd with their weapon in the air devolved into open flesh and gushing blood.

The once compact area was gone. No one from the bandit group was still standing. Everyone collapsed with their throats slit, or worse.

It was a scene from hell. No, hell, it couldn’t be this gruesome. This was something different. It wasn’t just hell; it was hell’s hell.

Hell’s hell ended rather quickly. The massacre stopped. There was no one else to kill. She single-handedly wiped out the most feared bandit group.

If the devil ran hell, then someone had to run hell’s hell.

And the person in charge of hell’s hell was right by the pole.

On her knees, she cradled the dead body of her silver-haired friend. Curled into a half ball, she strained the tears back. Bones on her neck visibly popped, her flesh drenched in red.

Jill pulled her deceased friend close. Her lifeless arm flopped low. Not a breath came from her. Ruby knew better than anyone else. After all, she was the reason why Harley wasn’t breathing.

But Jill didn’t know this. She rampaged on the entire bandit group, not knowing Ruby was responsible for Harley’s death.

Ruby wanted to speak, but her voice wouldn’t leave her mouth. She wanted to express her guilt and regret, but nothing could be done. Her vocals refused to work.

Jeremy squatted next to Ruby, who sat on her rear, leaving some distance between herself and Jill.

The innocent girl she took in. The girl who wandered from place to place without a home, alone. A girl with a dream brighter than the stars. She lit the faces of only a few, but those few were significantly impacted.

That same girl—no, it wasn’t the same girl from years ago. She shouldn’t be classified as a girl.

A demon.

That label ominously hovered over her head.

Demon.

Ruby didn’t want to label her something so vicious, but there was no other choice. No human could commit genocide like this.

No one.

Not a single soul.

Ruby forced herself up and crept towards the weeping Jill. She tried to hold back her tears, but even the most robust man-made dam can collapse.

Ruby squatted, meeting Jill head-to-head. She must’ve noticed Ruby since she slowly lifted her head.

Her eyes. They weren’t red, but instead her normal, dark brown. Her bloody, messy face didn’t seem like the type to cause the damage that occurred.

Besides her messy look, she was the same person from the first bonfire—that same conflicted, desperate look that screamed regret, grief, sorrow, and despair.

A look of a person who was just lost.

Ruby didn’t know what went on in Jill’s mind. Whatever it was, it ripped her to pieces. She suffered internally.

Whatever it was, it was Ruby’s duty to figure it out and fix it.

She couldn’t let anyone else slip away. She couldn’t lose anyone else.