Chapter 32: The Betrayed Beginning
Zerelda and the rest of the zombie populace lead the curious banshee girl to the largest settlement in the society, approximately the size of a small catholic church but much less fancy.
Once she entered she saw 6 zombies wearing red hooded cloaks who looked spooky and serious at the same time.
The lead elder stood up, his face was opaque but he had a long white beard and his left hand was entirely bone.
"Who have you brought to us?" He asked in a deep yet elderly voice.
"Elder Zgfeidvyar This is Misery, an weary young traveller seeking a passage back to save one of our own." Zerelda spoke.
"She wishes to know how our dreadful war began." added another.
"Can she be trusted?" he asked, wary of the possibility of her being a mole.
"Yes, yes I've never even met any witches! I swear! I would never wish harm on any zombie" she said honestly, hoping they'd believe her.
"Very well..." Zgfeidvyar boomed.
"It may surprise you to know this, but as it turns out that we zombies were responsible for starting the war in the first place."
Misery gasped putting her hand over her mouth in shock and awe. "I don't believe it." she said as Zgfeidvyar continued on.
"In the beginning our species were a peaceful and prosperous race of zombies united with witches and all was well. We had a century's old peace treaty that stood strong and true. However, as it would seem, all good things must come to an end.
Several years ago, zombies held all kinds of fantasy creatures and kept them as livestock to gain nutrients from them. griffins, centaurs, hippogriffs, unicorns, manticores, and hippocampus to name a few.
For the longest time the races of each of those creatures were stagnent and were impossible to breed.
Among the zombie nation was a young zombie farm girl just about 14 named Zophiana.
The only race that was untouchable was the witches. But the zombies knew that the witches had kept the most beneficial creatures, chimeras. Since they were witches after all, rumours began to spread throughout the country that the meat of the chimera contained magical properties, most prominently, that the blood of a chimera withheld the secret of immortality.
The zombies were at an impasse, they had no idea how to gain the life sustaining properties of the mighty polycelphalic creature, though the two species were at peace with each other the dossier stated that zombies and witches would coexist separately, territorial if you will, and no one would cross in between.
But Zophiana chose to ignore those boundaries set by her forefathers by quickly becoming best friends with a witch farm girl named Wilhelmine. They were like sisters to tell the truth, stuck to each other like glue. They had known each other all their lives and never let anyone or anything come between them.
Until one fateful day, in which a stranger strolled into our society that would forever change our lives for the worst, he went by the name of...Count Lutisfír.
Lutisfír was the epitome of evil, a spellbinder of curses and began to spread agony throughout the town. He dressed in a upper class gentleman ensemble and one day he put his dastardly plan into place by ambushing Zophiana and taking her prisoner. Lutisfír then began to use an enchanted amulet, it glowed a brilliant bright magenta like a magnolia flower in bloom. It had the ability to place the victim in a nearly unbreakable trance and to covet the species of the holder to have immeasurable power and invulnerability.
After the deed was done Lutisfír strolled away and seemingly fell off the face of the earth never to be seen or heard from ever again.
All the while, the witch populace still had their homicidal instincts that would eventually take over their souls. But for decades they learned to control their feelings of bloodlust to become a peaceful race, but the homicidal instinct still layed dormant inside of their bodies like volcanoes.
Lutisfír had hypnotized Zophiana and left her under a trance with a simple goal "Do anything in your power to get a taste of their hands on witches power-rich chimera meat, a seed of bloodlust grew inside of them, like a virus.
That lust for the blood of the innocent grew like a storm, going as far as abducting ordinary families from their homes to execute them or even commit arson upon them by burning their dwellings to the ground with them trapped inside while barricading their doors ensuring they had no way to escape.
Under Zophiana's suggestion, the zombies started abducting witches, the witches realized that they had no alternative but to defend themselves and fight back. But that only lead to the witches awakening their inner murderous
instinct.
Wilhelmine could see that this wasn't who her friend was and begged her to stop, but by then the corruption had grown too deep, Zophiana had laid a trap for her former friend by having a group of zombies repeatedly stab her until she stopped breathing, Wilhelmine could only cry as her life was ended slowly and painfully as her stomach was carved out and was left a bloody mess of organs on the ground eaten by maggots, vultures and other scavenging creatures.
Wilhelmine's parents were horrified by their daughters demise and guided by rage and fury rallied their magic powers to kill Zophiana. They're plan worked as the young zombies head was soon skewered on a spear atop the witches fortress. Words turned to war as the peace treaty was now torn asunder forevermore asthe once peaceful land became a wartorn battlefield of chaos, bloodshed and abhorrence.
Even when the witches managed to keep the zombies away from their people, they couldn't stop killing and the ultimate enemy, the zombies believing that the world cannot truly be at peace until the undead were wiped out of existence. So after several decades, witches kept up with their genocide over the zombie race, even though the new generation of zombies that now includes your friend Zaí didn't want anything to do with killing innocent people or a war.
So now the zombie people only exist in hidden villages in very few numbers, while the witches continuously grow in numbers, and wont quit until the last of the zombies are wiped out." Zgfeidvyar said finishing his tale.
Misery was awestruck, she looked as though she had never heard a darker story in her life.
"That's awful." Were the only words that came to her in that moment.
"Poor decisions then, lead to our lives now." Zgfeidvyar admitted although Misery knew that swindler Lutisfír was the one at fault, but it's not like he was anywhere to be found.
"Well, thank you for trusting me with your societies secrets but now I have to go help my friends save Zaí, right now we're her only hope."
"You don't have to be." Zerelda spoke out.
"What do you mean?" the banshee girl asked the concerned mother.
"If you'll allow me, I'd like to come with you. I know the way out of our colony, and I can ensure that you get to the Lake of Zombies to save my daughter."
Misery was shocked by her announcement but asked Zerelda why.
"I sent Zaí away because I wanted to protect her, when you're a mother you'd do anything for your kids, I failed to protect my son or my eldest daughter, but if I lose Zaí too, I'll have nothing else, absolutely nothing. I beg of you please I won't slow you down, but I can't stay here if Zaí isn't safe." She said every word sincerely like she'd never be able to forgive herself if she didn't protect her only remaining child.
"Well, alright, but it's kind of an emergency so if you could pack your bags now." Misery said knowing time was against her in every way.
"I'll be quick." Zerelda said rushing to her house with Misery following close behind. It only took her 9 minutes to pack all the weapons and survival equipment she would need. After waving goodbye to the hidden zombie colony Zerelda and Misery set off into a dark tunnel leading out of city, and who knows where it would lead them.
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(Once again readers apologies for the really long update but it took a long long time for me to think up a backstory for the zombie/witch war, I had to scrap my first idea after it coughed, sputtered and died. Thanks to the help of the former author BarfireBanshee177 (whom you'll be glad to know we are now great friends) I was able to complete the chapter with her help. Hopefully I can get more motivated to work harder to get onto the next chapter. Stick around.)