"Kael… why are you here?" Sevryn's voice trembled in the shadowy forest. "Why aren't you with your mother?"
Kael's eyes twitched.
"You lied, didn't you?"
"What?"
"You said your mother discovered that being close to Infectents increases the chance of infection. But… that wasn't her, was it? It was you. You found that out. Because she… she became one of them."
Kael stayed silent.
"You're lying again, Kael. How long will you keep lying?!"
Kael's voice cracked. "Yes… you're right. But how did you—?"
Sevryn smirked faintly. "A guess. If you'd denied it again, I'd have believed I was wrong. But that means… you had uninfected food. Didn't you?"
Kael's eyes widened. "Yes… but not always. For the first 28 days after Dad turned, we only had infected food. On the 29th day, we found out the truth about the food. Eight days later… my mom… she..."
He paused, eyes distant.
"She turned. She had been weak—level 0. But on the third day after her transformation… she got hungry."
"You didn't feed her?"
"I—I was scared, Sevryn. I didn't want to waste clean food. So I just... pushed her away. I didn't tie her up. I locked her in the room with Dad. Then… one day I came back after collecting food from an FHC drop."
Thud… thud…
"There were noises from the experiment room. When I opened the door... she was eating Dad. She was… level 1."
"Infectents at level 1 are stronger than humans. Aggressive. Sensitive to sound. I ran. I told people. But… it was too late. She'd already evolved."
Kael's fists clenched.
"Five people came. All failed. Five days later—she became level 2. Muscular. Fast. I tried to escape, but… I saw her. With blood in her mouth. And three other dead Infectents. That's when I realized—she'd eaten them. She was evolving again."
---
Flashback – Colony Battle
"It was morning. Fog everywhere. Ten of us, barely armed—rocks, sticks. She attacked. And then… level 0 Infectents went berserk. Six of them. My mother—level 2."
Sevryn whispered, "But humans feel pain… fear. They don't."
Kael nodded. "Exactly. We had to wait until they attacked us—only then could we counterstrike. My mom… wasn't like the others. She was smart. She tackled two people at once, bit deep, tore a chunk of flesh out. People screamed. Two ran."
Then the FHC truck arrived.
"They fired at her, but she didn't stop. I threw a rope around her injured leg, trying to pull her back. But I wasn't enough."
"A man—his son had been killed by her—joined me. Together, we yanked her off balance. Bullets finally found her head. She fell. Then… that man..."
Crack. Crack. Crack.
"He beat her head with a sharp wood shard until she stopped moving."
Kael's voice was hollow.
"FHC told us: infectents evolve after eating three others. What happens after that? No one knows."
---
Sevryn stared. His chest ached.
"You went through more than me... and never told me."
"I didn't want to remember, Sevryn. I wasn't ready to share it. But… I told you. Because we're alike now. No home. No family. No future. Right?"
"…Right, brother."
THUD.
Both froze.
Sevryn whispered, "What was that?"
Kael pointed. "A deer… but wait—"
Sevryn's eyes widened. "That's no normal deer…"