Prologue

Sophia woke up sitting on the base of a tree, everything from her body hurt and she cursed when her face exploded in a flash of pain that left spots in her sight.

The aerodrome that was once the home of many survivors, and every friend she had, was now a smoldering ruin of broken, blackened stone and charred bodies of the undead. Some here and there still tried to move even without any discernible face or barely a body left, like used matchsticks.

It was sometime early in the morning and Sophia laid there sobbing as quietly as she could, scared because she did not believe that she could move if walkers came. She cried for her dear friend Ana and the warm but reserved camaraderie Sophia had with Don.

She cried for Jerome and his sister Terri who had been manipulated by her old master to do things she dared not think about, and how she was too scared to reveal those fears to her brother, Jerome, the hate towards her that she could see in his eyes had been paralyzing. She cried for Dana and Sam and every other survivor from the Brook bridge community that died a few hours ago. Creating those wards had been an achievement for her that also meant that she could do good for people and be of worth to them. But in the end, the wards had betrayed them, because of her.

Because of her weakness and inability to defend herself, because she had gone back to the protection of someone else stronger than her and in doing so she had gone back to the life that her mother had so bravely left behind. Showing her that she was willing to stand for herself even if she needed the help of others still. She had been given this gift of magic and she had been too cowardly to realize that she had fallen into the same trap that her old life was. With her father.

After she cried herself to the point of not being able to shed more tears, she entered into an exhausted lull that tempted her to remain there for the rest of the day but was finally broken free from it by the strongest hunger she had ever felt. It tugged at her guts with a hollow rumble and suddenly getting up was not something that impossible. Slowly and with the help of the tree and the sword she still had on hand, Sophia managed to get up, pushing through all the pain in her body.

First, she headed up to her master's tower again, she wanted to find Ana and do something about her remains, but all she found in the forest near the tower was the burned-up body of Andre and the rifle he used to shoot the old wizard whose body was there still, along with his special gun and knife. In her memories, everything from last night before waking up at the Aerodrome was a dark nightmare smeared in blood and silver. All she remembered of Ana was her form on the floor, white as paper and dead, while Don held her in tears. The young couple brought to ruin because of her weakness.

But in the sober light of day, Sophia had trouble seeing the results of what she had done to the old man that had once saved her life. She couldn't help feeling that new lump on her throat, thinking about what she had done. The way every bone-breaking reverberated through her arm and the wet sound with each time she bashed with her metallic fist, the memory of herself painted an image of a savage animal, everything tinted in red hues.

Gods! Stop. she chastised herself.

Sophia walked slowly up the path and into the tower, everything felt wrong there, the air was heavy and made her skin tingle and heat like a mild allergic reaction. Trying to ignore the uncomfortable feeling, she pressed on and took a second to appreciate the distance she had been flung through the window after the explosion. Coming into the kitchen she didn't know what to do for a second but was quickly reminded by her face burns that she was in bad shape and in need of some healing. So Sophia climbed up to the top of the tower again, where she remembered leaving her bag with supplies and hopefully some potions and potions ingredients could be salvaged from the exploded room.

There was a smoking hole in the wall of the attic and most on that side of the room, including the small greenhouse, was black and dead. The explosion had shattered most glass utensils, and the outer shelves of the stock they kept in the closet but she was able to salvage some ingredients among other useful potions that she set aside on the table, where she had stood last night before everything had gone to hell.

She took a good look at her face on a small mirror they kept there and it made her feel sick at the sight. On her right side, that had been closest to the explosion, there were horrible streaks of burned flesh that ran from her eye to the back of her head. Her ear was a ruined swollen lump, blackened and just looking at it was like making the pain real and it was suddenly overwhelming. The whole wound was dirty, reddened and swollen, with blood and puss seeping from everywhere. It made her skin crawl awfully. Sophia's breath began to falter, she couldn't possibly take care of it properly! She didn't know what to do! She thought as she began to panic.

Breathe, breathe, breathe. She repeated to herself trying to calm down.

She ran to the library hoping to find a book about healing that could help her, she knew she had read some first aid stuff, and then ran back up cursing. Of course, she had a first aid book on her bag from the beginning. She got to her bag and took out the book from inside, there had to be something about cleaning wounds. She knew dittany could heal it, but she needed it to clean it first.

She fumbled with a few ideas and possibilities, and what she decided to do was a terrifying prospect, but she was desperate. Frantically, she started mixing some of the ingredients she read in the book, some of them had been shattered by the explosion and she had to salvage from the floor. Somehow she managed to mix a salve of sorts that smelled sweet, but prickled even her fingers at the touch. She was not looking forward to what came next.

Spreading the salve over her wound with her hand willingly gave her a sense of twisted deja-vu, like when she had asked to be taken to the dentist over a very bad toothache even though she always hated going to the dentist.

It takes a weird kind of desperation to knowingly do painful things out of fear for the prospect of worse pain . She thought. So she slowly and carefully started spreading the creamy mix with her fingers, but at every touch, her face seemed to explode in blinding pain and pulse as if it was alive. It took a minute for the pain to start, but she knew it was coming. The paste would slowly eat the infected tissue and leave the wound cleaned. The rest she thought could be healed with the dittany.

It was then that she noticed that her skin was getting hotter and red blotches were spreading all over her body. She didn't know how but it somehow had to do with the weird feeling that she felt since she came to the tower and she wasn't going to stay and check. So stuffing her back with as many potions supplies and she could find, including the rest of the paste she had made, she began to get ready to leave the place. A small personal cauldron, a set of knives for brewing, scales, stirrers, some vials she could salvage and she was done with the cellar, not ever wanting to go back there again.

It was around the time when she had been messing with the door to her old master's room that the paste started to work on her burns and wounds. It was torture and she wanted to take it away so much, but she had to make sure the dead tissue was gone, so she braved it and continued. There was nothing inside that room that she wanted she decided, so Sophia headed to the library and took as many books as her expanded backpack allowed, which was a lot. Books on every subject she had been studying before and books that were more advanced and she planned to get to in the future, she took them all, including the small books for household everyday spells that she had to learn to take care of the tower before.

Then before leaving the library, she headed straight to the wooden box where she remembered her master kept his collection of wands, which she took entirely to herself. There was a wand there that she knew for sure worked on her once, and also the first wand that she had even picked up after her master had revealed to her the magic within her blood. A beautiful white wand that nevertheless never even produced a spark for her.

The reaction that she was getting on her body was getting slowly worse, so leaving a great number of books behind she headed to the kitchen and stored in her bag the majority of the food supplies they had. There was a lot more that she wanted to do, but her instincts were telling her that she shouldn't stay for long there, the magic of the place was hostile to her. It made the hairs on her left arm raise and get goosebumps.

There was the basement where her old master used to spend so much time in the latter days of her stay, there was surely a lot of value there but at least she had been able to pack safely the stash of wands that her old master had, she believed there had to be a sheath for the sword she was carrying now but she had never seen it before. She knew there was so much more that she could take from the tower, but every inch of her body was telling her to get out of there as soon as she could.

She exited the tower and immediately the horrible feeling on her skin receded a little, and she remembered something she had forgotten.

"Accio black hat!" She intoned loudly, although her voice was actually completely broken and what came out was a pitiful raspy sound, that all the same worked and summoned the hat she knew was laying on her bed at the tower. It came flying to her through the hole in the cellar, carrying smoke with it as it moved through it. It was an old pointy black hat whose tip was actually slumped to the side as if tired with the years, and it certainly showed signs of more years of age than she was alive.

An hour later Sophia found herself in front of the ruined Brook bridge walled-in community, she had levitated the remains of her friend Andre and was now staring at the mound of dirt that was his grave. It was placed to the side of the walls near the trees and she had carved a few words on the tree directly behind it.

Here lies Andre, last name unknown. Leader of the Brook bridge Aerodrome community.

He tried his best to make it work. Died standing up for the weak.

Sophia tried to say a few words for the man but the sheer feeling of guilt made her feel that any words would not suffice.

What am I supposed to say? She asked herself.

She decided to just convey her feelings for the man, and after some time deep in thought, she concluded.

I guess Andre was the closest thing I ever had to an older brother. And in the end, I failed him, he died because of it. He did only what a big brother would do, stand up for me. She concluded in her mind, trying to focus on the feeling.

The sun was over her head and strong. She didn't have any idea of what to do or where to go, so Sophia just began to move her legs, as she held her side which had a deep cut that she had yet to heal. They took her past the walls and along the aerodrome airstrip where the herd had come from last night. There was not much undead in the area now, but still, some still remain and Sophia tried to take them out with magic and sword alike. Walking the huge airstrip she gained a sense of just how alone she was, there was nothing but dead and undead remains, the clouds, the sun, the stench of the dead that clung to everything. She felt that she could barely make some distance with her tiny steps, but eventually got to the other side and found that she recognized the area. It was near there that the farm where her mother and the others had stayed before was. She had briefly seen a similar scenery in her old master's magical mirror the day that he had staged her death. It was hard to grasp the fact that she was believed dead to her mother.

Mom, wherever you are I will find you. She promised to herself.

She found what was left of the farm a while later, everything quiet and abandoned, the barn was burned down long ago.

I remember seeing the light at night. She had seen and wondered what was going down.

There was a big old house that was run down. The windows were broken and the doors left open. She wondered if her mother had survived. Sophia decided to stay there for a while so she could tend to her wounds.

She cleaned and dressed the wound on her side, she didn't want to heal it entirely until it closed by itself first. There was so much fear and doubt about having a sword go through her that she just tried to let it heal by itself and see if she felt something wrong inside. The whole thing was terrifying and most of the time she couldn't help but think of how it felt to have the thing pushed through her and how it felt when she moved, the vision of the hilt sticking out of her side. The worse was her face, the pain had subsided just a bit ago. When she cleaned the paste covering it she could see that it had effectively eaten most of the bad tissue, but the paste had healed most of it already, leaving angry red scars on her face.

She had fucked it up, she thought that she could use the dittany to heal the wounds once the bad tissue was removed, but the paste had done most of the job already, and a shitty job at that!. The essence of dittany would have left much lesser marks on her face, but the paste had just sped up the recovery and now half of her face was covered in horrible burn scars and ripped flesh. Her eyelid was tight and barely functional, tugging at her skin every time she blinked, the rest was streaked in rough lacerations that ran from her cheekbone and right eye all the way past the ear, her ear, gods. What was left of her ear was a small pointy thing and a hole.

She wanted to cry, scream. Sophia wanted to rage against everything but herself most of it. She looked like a monster, even the hair on that side was ruined, where no hair was growing in small patches of scarred skin. She did rage, Sophia kicked anything she could and broke any glass that was left and when she tired herself out her paranoia made her go extra quiet and listen for anything odd or stare outside looking for hidden movement. She saw nothing or heard nothing but her empty stomach.

She ate outside on the porch looking at the rare walker crossing the fields and thought of how everything felt like a dream because of how devoid of human sound everything was. Once she would have been scared and lost in a situation like this, but now everyone was lost and there was so much more to be scared than being lost. In fact, Sophia thought that she had been lost all along, a thought that threatened her composure with hot tears gathering in her eyes.

When the light began to change tone Sophia decided to stay at the house for the night and decide in the morning where to go. She bunked upstairs on the large double bed after cleaning the room as much as she could with her wand. Just beginning to relax after making sure to block the stairs and seal the door as safe as she could.

She laid there for some time in the dark trying to sleep but suddenly the quiet of the day was not so apparent now. The house-made its own sounds and every now and then she could hear the moans of walkers roaming around, following some unseen prey for a long time. She managed to close her eyes for a short while but her slumber was suddenly interrupted by her mark, it was beginning to burn and pulse again. Suddenly Sophia was on the verge of Hyperventilating. What now? She thought to herself.

She tried any spell or charm she thought on her mark to make it stop, but when the burning got to its fullest she heard it. It was the same kind of bone-chilling howl that had preceded the carnage the night before, Sophia got to her feet and got ready. Wand and sword in each hand she waited for a second until she heard it. It was the sound of running feet and the snarling of a crazed up zombie and as soon as she heard it, the undead crashed against the house and barreled to the stairs.

She thanked the gods that she had blocked it, but it wouldn't last if a lot of them got to it and indeed they were coming.

Cursing under her breath, Sophia took her bag and checked the window. There was a low roof under it where she could step on her way down if she had too, but she could also climb to the roof and get a better position. She did not feel comfortable inside a room with more undead coming. And more were coming as she could see through the window, they came sprinting at neck break speed through the big fields that surrounded the farms, the terrain, and some fences only providing the shortest of protection.

After listening closely, she opened the door to the hall and levitated a couple of nightstands to the blockade on the stairs and sealed the door of the rest of the rooms as best as she could with a locking spell. Then Sophia climbed through the window and onto the roof, where she found a small leveled section surrounded by the two higher sections of the inclined roof. She figured she could make her stand there, and in case she had to dash she could just jump to the lower roof and then to the ground. Sophia waited on the roof for a few minutes while the undead was thrashing madly inside, it would be a matter of time until they began climbing the roof. And what was worse was that she could see more coming from the distance, called by the screams of the ones here and surely their screams in turn calling others.

The night sky was clear with no clouds in sight and the cold settled in a chill that cut to the bone, Sophia was not dressed for such weather but there was little she could do for now. The first ones to get to her were the ones coming from the distance, who just jumped or climbed onto the roof at once and shot straight at her. She kept pushing them as far as she could with banishing charms but since they kept getting back up, she had to start slashing with her sword. The swing of the sword was not yet comfortable for her, the wide and clumsy movements slow and each one leaving her at an awkward stance for the next. But Sophia kept fighting without stopping, trying to remember to use her magic if they came in numbers and was too much for her sword.

The night air made her face feel like cold marble and her short breath blew in clouds of condensed water. Sophia kept moving, fighting. All there was in the night was the howl of the undead, their crazed movements and the sound of her sword splitting them this way and that. She took any short break they gave her, but her accursed mark showed no signs of stopping and it was already getting late in the night. She feared it would go until morning again.

Eventually, a big group came in sight from the trees near the road and Sophia, in a flash of panic, threw a couple of exploding charms on them only managing to slow down a few. They would still continue the charge even if their insides were outside and their arms all but gone. She didn't know what to do, should I run? She thought to herself. But she knew nothing of the terrain so who knows, she might have to run for miles if there was no shelter.

They did not give her much more time to think as the faster ones from the group got to her, she tried to deal with them but as soon as she did the next one or even two were on her, with even more already climbing, their sounds becoming deafening. The weight of them making the low roof crack and whine. They were going to overwhelm her, she thought and releasing a wide banishing charm that pushed every undead on the roof back to the ground, she shouldered her backpack and dashed to the opposite side of the roof where she jumped straight to the floor without a second thought. It wasn't the side of the roof that was closest to the ground, still, the fall made her feet tingle for a second by the impact but she ignored them the best she could and sprinted straight out of there as fast as she could, sword in hand and sending wild spells over her back, setting stuff on fire where she could in the hopes that they would be distracted.

Her backpack was getting heavy now and the way it hung loosely from her shoulders was holding her back, but Sophia kept putting one foot after the other and kept running. It was a nightmare where the undead was on her back and more came from every other direction, all the while mad howls were sounded all around her, and she could hardly see with the light of the moon. She ran past trees and houses, through roads and past small lakes, eventually crossing into a forest where it was all trees and no visible way out. Nothing was visible at all actually, save for the old and rugged trunks of trees growing tall from the ground and into the dark. Holding her wand up, she cast a bright white light and everything beyond the reach of her light charm became solid dark, only being able to see the closest trees. She looked back and it was the same, she couldn't even get out if she wanted to so Sophia kept running and dodging trees as best as she could.

It all was a bad joke, her being lost in a forest while being chased by undead again. Was this the beginning of another chapter in her life like it was the tower? She thought, trying not to think of the snarling undead on her back. Sophia whipped her wand up high trying to make the light reach as much as she could but it made little difference, all around her tall trees and bushes were illuminated with no discernible change in distribution, everything beyond the light surrounded by blackest night.

She was getting really tired from running now, the seemingly ever going forest seeping fear in every step she took. Eventually, the fear and the forest won and she tripped, falling hard on her stomach and scratching her tender scarred face. Taking the air from her lungs with an undignified wheeze sound. The undead gave her no time to recover as immediately the first one came into the light of her wand not stopping for a second and throwing itself at her, she struggled and wrestled with the undead managing to finally bash his head with the hilt of her sword and scrambled to her feet. Then they gave her a few seconds where she stood there regaining her breath and trying with all her concentration to listen and see where they would be coming from, her original direction long lost since she tripped and fell. Her whole world encompassing the area illuminated by her wand and surrounded by trees that made terrifying shadows all around from where undead would inevitably come.

She wanted to close her eyes and cry and scream to let her be but there was no time for childish fits now. First, one by one and then in more numbers the undead began to jump at her from the dark, screaming and slashing with their broken bone fingers and bloody rotting flesh, their jaws snapping and their eyes a milky madness. Among the fear and the tiredness, Sophia felt herself settling into a focused state of mind that allowed her to take a deep breath and reminded her to keep her mind calm and in the present. Sophia spent what felt like hours in the dark, surrounded by trees and undead, her wand illuminating the area and her sword hand moving from undead to the next. It came to her that night that she could translate to her wrist a lot of the movement that she previously did with her arm, in doing so making her swings faster and more interconnected.

It all became an exhausting dance between her and the undead, she used the trees for cover and moved around them at ease, dodging the undead and making them smash into the trees by themselves. Her sword finally moved in more stylized swings, making circular figures that kept feeding into the next. This is how it's meant to be used. She thought with a weird exhilaration. But the undead kept coming and every time in more numbers until it was clear to her that she had to run before being overwhelmed by their numbers, beginning again a new marathon in the dark.

Eventually, the night sky began to lighten up as the sun commenced its earliest rise on the unseen horizon and Sophia, in a mad state of exhaustion, managed to lose the undead as their eerie howls went quiet and her damned mark went cold.

She came into a small creek and threw herself at the ground gasping for air and feeling her feet and legs about to explode. She didn't know where she was nor she cared about it. Sophia was beginning to understand her situation now, how stupid she had been. This was all about her old master, she killed him and now his mark was trying to kill her too. She should have known that she could not get away with it.

Is it not enough that you killed every innocent survivor at the aerodrome?. She thought, but was she asking that to her old master or to herself? Sophia stared at the mark of her master on the left arm. The inked drawing of a scale balancing a skull and some coins, held by a sword and embraced by a menacing snake. Now inert but still a slight movement to it as if it were alive.

She knew now that this is how it would go from now on, every night she had to expect it to happen. How was she supposed to deal with this? The idea that every night in her future was going to be like this was maddening.

Gods! She thought, she was doomed to this and there was no one she could turn to. If even the walls and the wards of the Aerodrome could not hold? Wherever she could find refuge? Even if she ever found her mother, how could she go back to her knowing that every night would be like this and people would die because of her? How many Walls could she stand to bring down?. What kind of life was she supposed to lead now? Even now she was pressed on time, for when the sun went down it would be a fight to the death again. What would she do? Where should she go? Tonight she would be hunted again by who knows how many rabid undead and she had no clue how to stop it. Even stopping to try to read about curses seemed like a waste of time.

She was lost in some kind of wilderness with no idea where to head to find refuge and no clue as to what to do to help her herself survive the coming night. She was exhausted and had not slept for more than an hour. Her body was screaming for rest but she knew she had little time. Sophia stayed there on the ground wrestling with sleep for a short time until the sun was on her face, and the sudden panic of someone who had failed to wake up in time for an exam hit her. She got up with a short-lived burst of energy and began fumbling around with her backpack, taking some food and conjuring some water to drink and hydrate. She sat there eating while she cleaned herself, fixed her ragged clothes and tightened the straps on her bag.

If you keep thinking about everything at once you will go insane, so just focus on each step at a time. She said to herself as she prepared to head over to somewhere safer to deal with the night.