The Empress of Mankind

In the Milkyway galaxy, Sector Orion is under siege by the Disease carrying Pox legions of the vile Demon Lord Pestis. Nobody knows where they originally came from, but with each and every planet they conquer only dead disease written worlds full of zombies and death are left behind.

And now as the Empire of man slowly gathers its massive battle fleets to face this threat, the agricultural world of Achios finds itself within the path of the demons vile disease carrying green fleets of horrors.

Though for a fair skin, 4 year old little girl named Lili, with light blonde hair, and big deep blue eyes, her sight was totally on the city of Mikri Poli's beautiful white fields of flowers that surrounded it. The city was built into a ball shape with a huge round park in the center, and many smaller parks where she liked to spend her time were at the edges of the city.

Though her enjoyment of the summer days sun was sadly slightly ruined by the large white buildings of glass and metal that towered over her, and the constant hustle and bustle of the people and the passing of cars on the road before her was a bother.

Still with her few white flowers in hand, and her parents sitting there on the bench next to her talking, she found herself being at ease. Her legs were happily swaying in the air as she smelled her flowers, until suddenly the pinging sounds came to everyone's mobile devices. In confusion the entire city seemed to stop, cars and all, as people looked at their devices and soon their faces turned to worry.

Mother looked to father and asked what was going on. Mother wondered if the alert on her phone was but a joke. But father didn't know what to say, he merely remained silent seemingly in total disbelief.

Then the sky began to darken as the sun was blocked out by some expanding green cloud that came from high above. Immediately after that Lili felt the earth begin trembling as the earth around the city opened up, from where great white walls of metal rose up high.

Two rows of walls in total came, the further one shorter than the back one, which both held many anti-air towers and guns that were quickly being manned by Imperial planetary guard soldiers. They came from the city's many underground tunnels that were hidden in the buildings like a swarm of green ants.

The soldiers all were dressed in all green, green standard issue flack armours on top covering most of their upper bodies, black boots, green metallic armour protected most of their legs, while green metal helmets and hard metal gas masks covered their faces. The men held side arms and Lasrifles which made them quite a scary sight to see, as there were no faces to be recognised. To Lili they merely looked like some robots, even their hands were covered with green metallic gloves.

Then Lili could see the city's tall white skyscrapers transforming into military towers. Their glass windows were all covered by metal and upon their tops emerged massive guns that soon began to fire up into the sky, causing the whole world to seemingly rumble and the sound of thunder come as they did so.

In a haste her parents then took her, and with the guidance of some soldiers they were directed towards the spaceport on the other side of the city. Instead of joining the massive traffic jams, her parents decided to run. Father took her and together they quickly joined the huge masses of people on their way to the spaceport.

The city was really noisy now, people were screaming, while some yelled in a panic to one another, some cried, while some old people seemed to be cursing the skies and whatever dangers were up there. Although most all sounds of the people were drowned out by the thundering sounds of the massive guns. Lili could barely even make out what it was that her parents were saying.

Still she didn't cover her ears, but simply held onto her father's head and her white flowers, as father carried her. Lili watched as the city's streets were now really starting to be packed up with people, while high above strange things started happening.

In the upper atmosphere Lili could see flashes of big explosions, and with her keen eyes she could just barely make out the shapes of the defence fleet that was seemingly firing back at green sickly looking ships.

The Green ships had long tentacles that wrapped around the defence fleets ships, as if they were forming bridges with them. And great horns were protruding out of them which they used to ram the defence fleet's armoured front sides that simply deflected such attempts. But more strange to her was the green cloud that seemed to be falling from the sickly green ships and little by little it seemed to be consuming the entire world.

Though as the green cloud fell downwards towards the earth, it's form was broken slightly as pieces of ships fell from space. Their coming broke the green cloud and created great rumbling booms as they turned into huge falling fireball's. To her it seemed like a truly beautiful sight.

Looking at this Lili then noticed the army's aircraft flying towards the battle in the skies. To her they seemed like beautiful metallic birds whose wings stood still and were powered by twin engines that sent them past the falling fireballs of metal and into the outer atmosphere within a few minutes.

For the four year old her all this seemed so beautiful, it was so exciting in a way and yet nobody else seemed excited which worried her. Other children were crying, and people were in a real panic now especially as the green snowflakes started coming down. Like snow in the winter they now blocked out the sun fully, it was dark and within the lights of the city a green haze began to form, a sickening glow of sorts.

On the palm of her hand Lili could see them seemingly melting and then digging within her skin. It made her feel warm like a fever was coming upon her, she also felt sweaty and a bit itchy, but luckily it soon faded away as her heart of light began to counter these bad things and she felt fine.

Unknown to her parents Lili had a strange ball of light within herself that she had not told her parents about, as she didn't feel any need to. To her it was but a natural thing, it was just one part of her that covered her heart, and like her heart it pulsated at regular intervals. But instead of sending out blood, the core sent out a warm light that took away any pain that she ever got. And like her heart of flesh, her veins were also covered within the light. So when one heart sent out blood throughout her body, the other sent out light.

Due to this she could feel the feeling of sickness being pushed away. With it her body began to feel warmer, more energised, and there was a feeling of ease within her. Now the green snow flakes instead of melting began to burn away in a white light that was hardly noticeable to an unknowing eye.

Then as they began approaching the star port and the large metallic ramp leading to it, the panicking crowd slowed down to an extremely slow walk. Everyone was packed together shoulder to shoulder unable to move fast, while some seemed to be having trouble even breathing.

People were pushing against one another, though luckily the soldiers standing guard at the sides managed to calm the crowds down a little. Still they too along with everyone else soon started looking up in wonder at the green snowflakes.

It seemed like nobody knew what it was, though symptoms of it soon began to be seen. Lili noticed disgusting looking green pustules begining to emerge on the back of her father's neck.

Like slowly inflating balloons they began to expand, until finally father seemingly noticed this and began crazily scratching the back of his neck. And as he did so the pustules burst in loud pops sending disgusting gue on Lilis while summer dress and pretty little face.

"Iikh, no father, stop it!"

Lili complained but father didn't listen and soon she began to hear more popping sounds around her. Their sounds were distinct, easily recognisable for her despite the thundering of the guns in the background.

And there on the faces, hands and whatever exposed skin Lili could see there were those pustules growing on people. And one by one they were popping and spreading onto the others who complained much like her. That was until they too began scratching at their own pustules crazily, even mother was scratching herself.

But instead of complaining about this or panicking, the people around her suddenly seemed to turn to confusion. The crowd stopped, and Lili heard her parents begin to ask, where were they, and what was it that they were doing again?

Seeing this the soldiers soon began yelling at the people to continue moving in an orderly fashion, but none listened. Only questions were being asked now. Lili could hear one wealthy looking man start demanding answers from a soldier, the wealthy man wanted to tell the soldier of his own noble status, but he had seemingly forgotten it. All around Lili could see people in a slight panicked confusion, father and mother were also looking around asking one another, who are you.

Seeing this a high ranking soldier with a hat instead of a helmet ordered the soldiers to quickly start handing out gas masks. Quickly soldiers brought out all sorts of gas masks and began tossing them to the crowd. Some took them, but most merely looked at them in confusion seemingly not understanding what they were.

One even flew straight into father's face, but he didn't say anything and just looked at it. Until suddenly father along with many others fell like rocks to the ground.

"Ahhhhhhh, no father!"

Lili screamed as she fell backwards off of her father's shoulders and hit the soft chest of some grandma who also fell. Like dominoes everyone was falling against one another, until everyone was just left laying there.

Lili wanted to apologize to the Grandma for falling against her, but she stopped. The Grandma's eyes were scarily rolled backwards and foam was coming out her mouth.

Seeing it Lili ghasped in horror only to then notice the same thing happening all around herself. Getting to her feet on the Grandma's belly Lili could see the same thing everywhere, even her parents looked really scary now, and only the soldiers remained standing.

Then she saw her father's skin start to turn into a sickly green as it seemed to harden into a solid form. Father's head also then began to bloat and expand. Then at the same time his bones sprouted out of his body with sickening cracks, in the forms of spikes and horns.

"Mom, Dad, what's going on?"

She called out to them, but quickly fell silent as she saw the same thing happening to the granny under her. In fact the same thing was happening everywhere on the ramp leading to the space port and on the long road full of people behind her. And soon everyone began to shake violently, none of them seemed human anymore, not even her parents were recognisable except for their eyes.

No more were her mother's hands slender and capable of doing complex tasks like before. Her slender fingers had become one, the skin had peeled off of them and only a sharp bony spear like point of bone remained there.

And little by little Lili began to see her mother's, and everyone else's lips beginning to melt away, as their mouths turned to a permanent creepy smile.

The soldiers were yelling in a panic at one another unsure of what to do. Lili could hear them contemplating if they should shoot, as they looked to their leader for answers.

There guns were pointed at the crowd now, and one was even pointing his gun at her. She had seen on TV what those things could do, how they could burn through flesh. Those were no toys, they were dangerous and she was in danger.

Lili wasn't sure what exactly came to her then, but it was like some primal instinct within her told her to survive, it told her to run and run for her dear life. And so she did, gone were her thoughts about her parents and only survival was on her mind now.

With her short little legs she ran over the spasming, ever grotesquely morphing crowd of people. Their bodies totally covered the street as far as she could see, making the streets before the tall white towers of the city a sea of spasming people.

Running into one of the tall buildings that was a food market, Lili quickly closed its glass doors and luckily found the place empty of those spasming people. Though as she turned back to look at the street, she could to her horror begin to see them rising up to their feet with those horrific smiles on their now ugly deformed green faces.

Still within those eyes of theirs Lili could swear that she could see them there somewhere. They looked so sad, tiers were in their eyes, and yet they smiled and through rotten lungs madly laughed to the sky like a mob of scary insane people.

Horrified by the seen Lilis legs shook and knees felt weak, but she still managed to move. Closing the glass doors of the market, she quickly then ran further within the building, when the shooting then started behind her.

Running through the store Lili quickly found herself within the green section. There she looked for her favourite things, strawberries and within their pile Lili climbed into and hid.

In fear her little body trembled and shook each time she heard the loud booms outside. Even the entire building seemed to shake from the hard impacts and explosions.

She could feel the ground beginning then to tremble heavily, and she could hear the loud roars of engines as the evacuation ships took off. An explosion then hit the building and glass shattered, through it Lili could now hear the sounds of battle even more clearly. It sounded like some armoured vehicle was driving through the street, crushing people under its heavy tracks, bones cracked, bodies made splat sounds, and yet the infected people laughed.

She could hear them hitting the hard metal of the vehicle, there claws slowly were peeling off its metal hatches, and then the vehicle smashed into the building hard. She could hear the glass doors breaking, followed by yells of men, and then loud booms that echoed throughout the big food market.

Then she heard the people's mad laughter come within the store. Their footsteps were getting closer, closer, and closer. She could hear their low raws of laughter, screams, coughs and wheezes, but worst of all was the singing.

Through what sounded like rotten vocal cords and pus-filled lungs the infected people sang their song, over, and over again.

"Join our song, sing along. Celebrate our sickness. Through our bile, we will smile. One and all bear witness, to our unifying sickness."

It sounded like a child's lullaby that her mother had sung for her just the previous night. It was so calming in a strange way, and yet the light within her warned her of it. She could feel the danger of those words. Like mean words said by bullies they tried to get to her, to make her cry, feel fear, and maybe join them in singing that song.

They were trying to converse her to join them. But no, she wouldn't be bullied into joining their song, no way.

Fighting back her tiers, Lili clenched her fists in defiance only to then happily realise that the white flowers were still within her hands bringing her a slight feeling of ease.

Still the infected were close now, she could hear their footsteps slowly traversing the aisles of the store. One was but a few meters from her, his low laughter carried so clearly into her ears now.

Others were also slowly flooding within the store, they were being drawn to one at the center of the store that kept on singing. Until suddenly a filtered yell was heard from the distance.

"For the Imperium, die mutants scum!"

And with that gunfire started that quickly drew all the infected people to it. While she could hear others who she guessed to be soldiers joining the one who had shouted first.

Soon explosions rocked the insides of the store as the men ran further in, as the infected gave chase.

Lili didn't know for how long it lasted, but soon she could hear deathly screams of pain, shooting, more explosions, until eventually it came to an end.

Tiers came to her eyes now, as she quietly sobbed, not daring to move or say anything. She would have wanted to help, or do something, but her mind could not come up with any ideas on what she could do.

So there within the pile of strawberries she lay, while partaking in a few of them in hopes of finding some comfort.

Outside it was getting quiet. The gun batteries were going silent as were the rumbling sounds of the explosions. Now only the sounds of the infected could be heard within the city, along with the occasional shooting of some remaining survivors.

Though with each burst of gun fire the infected seemed to be moving further away. The singing was drawing them to some other place. It truly seemed that they didn't know where she was, she was safe and alone here within the store it seemed.

So as darkness fell, Lili finally dared to stick her head out from the pile of strawberries, although extremely slowly.

Looking around she could hardly see anything, it was dark now within the store. Only a few emergency lights were on and from the outside the green sickening glow of the fog could be seen reflecting in through the still somewhat clean floors of the store.

Rubbing away her snot and tiers, she squinted her eyes and tried to have a better look. She wanted to see the dark surroundings around her clearly before she dared to move, and strangely enough she soon started to see them.

The light within her seemed to be answering her plea, as it sent light within her eyes that let her see better in the dark. It wasn't perfect, but she could at least see all the outlines of all the things within her viewing distance.

Climbing out to the aisle, Lili seeing as the store owner was not around decided to stuff some items into her pockets just in case.

Although she didn't take anything worth too many credits, just a few berries and other small green things that nobody would surely miss. After all her mother wanted her to be a good girl, and so she tried her best to be like so.

For a while she wandered throughout the store, taking in all the horrific sights there. All over the main aisle that led to the center where the entrance to the metro was, Lili could see smiling, deformed corpses of the infected.

Even as parts of their heads were torn off, jaws blown off, or entire bodies turned to little pieces, there still was always a smile on their faces. Even other children lay there motionless and dead, their heads too were damaged, or then just the necks, and still they smiled horrendously.

In horror Lili tried to look away from them as she tiptoed quietly to the metro. Down the stairs she went, there she could see a corpse of a soldier along with infected, all blown up by a grenade. Their blood covered the floors and walls of the once white and beautiful metro entrance. It was truly a gruesome sight that her young mind could barely comprehend.

Further down in the tunnel she could then see 3 other soldiers. They had jumped onto the tracks and tried to blow up the ceiling of the tunnel. They had seemingly tried to make it collapse and block the tunnel, but before they could they had been caught, and seemingly in their last acts they had all blown themselves up.

Now only small craters and mangled bodies lay around the metro station and it's tracks. Seeing it felt so unreal to her, usually the metro was such a clean, safe, and lovely place that she liked to use with her parents some times.

Thanks to the metro they could travel far and wide throughout the planet of Achios, even to it's capital city that was also it's namesake, similarly called Achios. But now it was all dark, scary, it smelled like death and the scenes within the metro were not nice to look at anymore.

Getting down onto the track's Lili tried to go there where the soldiers had tried to go, in hopes of finding something there, anything. But more than anything she really wanted her mother, and especially her father now. But they weren't here, it was only her dressed in her summer dress, walking alone on the tracks, within the pitch darkness that felt like it was slowly consuming her.

However it wasn't the dark that was consuming her, but her power that was slowly fading away. It was draining at her energy and she couldn't use it forever it seemed.

And so soon as she fell to her knees in exhaustion, the lights within her eyes faded and only darkness now remained.

It was silent here, so dark, it frightened her to her very core. One part of her wanted to just freeze in fear and give up, she wanted to hope that someone would come for her, to save her. After all maybe all this was but a bad nightmare, surely it had to be, right?

Oh how she wanted to cry, but no. Within her there was also something stronger, a great desire to keep on moving. She had sworn to her mother that she would be a good girl, and to her father she said that one day she too would become someone who saved lives and helped others. To this her father always said that in order to help others, you needed to be strong first yourself.

And she didn't need to just be strong physically or in some other physical way, but strong of mind. She just had to believe in herself and so it would come to be, right?

Grasping at the dirt and small stones under her dainty little hands Lili felt her power returning to her, not physically, but mentally. From deep within herself she found the last remnants of her strength and her will to keep on going.

Though as she tried to get up to her feet, something then happened that she didn't intend to happen.

One of the small stones that nicely fit into the palm of her right hand suddenly began to change. Without realising it she was pouring her light within it, and the light was slowly converting the gray stone into a white pure crystal of light.

With wide eyes Lili looked at the white light stone. It felt fragile to the touch, but within it there was a comforting warmth and it gave her a small light that slightly lit up her surroundings.

It was like she was holding a little candle light within the dark, and with it she started to then push onwards. And unlike her eyes the stone didn't fade, it kept on pulsating out a white light, like if it were a heart.

Walking around Lili could see many of the tunnels having been closed by rubble. The tunnels had collapsed partially, and she could only guess what sort of destruction must have been carried out on the surface for it to cause the tunnels to fall.

So for a time she wondered around, until suddenly she heard quiet whispers in the distance, and saw small lights there. Immediately her eyes lit up with joy, had she found people again?