Amalia came to an iron door at the bottom of the steps, light bled through the holes at the top. She grabbed the handled and pushed. The door slowly creaked open, on the walls were people of various genders hung on a cross with their abdomens surgically cut open and pinned to the sides. Their still beating organ confirmed them clinging to life. One of them turned to the little girls that entered the room.

“Kill me.” they mouthed. Their body was so mutilated they could barely even be considered a person anymore. It was obvious their vocal cords were removed else they would have been screaming. Amalia had felt for the first time in her life pure terror, this wasn't something a child of her age should have been seeing. The visions began to fade, but the equipment stayed everything felt much different the second time around, this time she was desensitized to the death. In fact, she’s probably lost count on how many times she’s seen the insides of people.

Now that she’s gotten a better look around, the room’s roof was much lower, it was much longer than it was wide. Six ‘x’ crosses all an even length away laid dyed in dry blood. It must have been quite a while since they had someone on those. On the far side of the room was another iron door she walked to it. Behind it, she could hear voices.

~^~

Rinae crawled onto the catwalks after the men ran through the doorway. She rectified her positioning. Even if she was skilled at it her preference was flying, it was more graceful and gave her the feeling as if she was commanding even the wind to lift her. Inside the doorway were the two men standing in front of a group of children.

“Just like we practiced in an ord-” The ‘armored’ knight forgot to put on a helmet and suffered an injury to his head, specifically his skull, even more so, he was missing the top half. The second one didn’t even get the chance to react to the killing of his partner as there was already five clawed fingers in his jaw.

Rinae let the two bodies fall to the floor. They weren't going anywhere but she smelled a good smell, it seemed the children were gifted with an abundance of magic, probably each hand-picked to become a knight in the future., unfortunately for them, they were gifted with an abundance of magic. She could see the terror in their faces. She closed the door behind her, shame the muffled screams of children could not be heard past the thick door.

~^~

Braun raced his fingers through his sweat soaked hair. The amount of stress he accumulated was high and increased for every bang they heard on the front door. The other elf began collecting the sheets from the room. Braun was slow to realize what he was doing but began doing the same. Since they were on the second floor, it wouldn’t take very many blankets. Once they finished they realized one problem.

“One of us is going to have to stay here to let the other down.”

“Hell no. I’m not leaving you behind.” He looked around frantically for something, anything that could be used to tie the rope down, that's when he realized the solution was in his hands, he tied the blanket rope to his gun and wedged it in between the floor and window making it stuck.

The two looked at each other and nodded, it was a silent agreement but Braun was going first, he lifted himself over the window and grabbed the rope, he gave one last nod and repelled down.

The other elf began going out the window when he suddenly screamed and let go of the rope. His arms flailed as he fell, Braun clasped his hands together. His magic had no color as it was attributed to wind, he created a weak pressure of air underneath the falling elf slowing the descent.

The elf was breathing hard by the time he reached the ground. “They broke through” he started to laugh hysterically at the idea of sudden death.

“C’mon. We gotta get help.” Braun held out his hand for the other elf to take. The other elf took his hand raising himself to his feet.

However, the moment they left the back of the house was where the real nightmare began. Hundreds of creatures ran through the surrounding buildings, grabbing men, women children. Indiscriminately slaughtering any that they saw was unfit for their cause.

Braun dropped to his knees. Gunshots could be heard in the distance only to be replaced by screams less than a minute later. Braun looked up to the other elf only to notice he was impaled through the stomach with a black chitinous tail. Blood and black goo endlessly flowed from the elf as his life escaped. Braun looked Scarpha in the eyes.

She threw the body forward into the dirt. She crawled next to the defeated elf, the several zombies she had created surrounded them.

“Just kill me already. I have nothing anymore.”

She stared at him for a moment before saying something. Something she found out was that one in every ten elves were suitable to host a plethora of young. Their bodies were fragile and would break after repeated birthings.

She stood back up and allowed her zombies to carry him back to the hive. He’ll be one of the first to give birth to the next generation.