Chapter 15 – The Beginning of the End
Ignes spoke again, his voice light and airy, as if he hadn't just described the sensation of his own heart being crushed.
"Anyway… when are the boys arriving? The sermon ended a lifetime ago. Why aren't they here yet?"
Alexander narrowed his eyes, his gaze heavy with unspoken questions.
"You changed the topic, Igna. We were speaking of your death."
Ignes blinked, his expression blank.
"…Did I?"
There was genuine, unfiltered confusion on his face. He wasn't trying to be evasive; he was simply moving at a different speed.
Frederick let out a long, weary sigh, recognizing the symptoms of a mind that operated on a different frequency.
"Igna… you need to slow down for us. You're thinking too fast again. It's only been five seconds since you stopped talking about the Zombie King."
(For Ignes, time was a fluid, subjective thing. His brain, honed by lifetimes of high-level research and the discipline of a world-class performer, processed information at a velocity a normal person could never hope to match. To him, five seconds of silence felt like an hour of wasted time.)
Ignes paused, his shoulders dropping slightly.
"…Sorry about that. I forget that the silence is shorter for you."
Alexander shook his head lightly, though the worry didn't leave his eyes.
"Alright. If you must move forward, then tell us—what is a 'Zombie King'? What exactly happened to turn a world of stars and science into a graveyard?"
Ignes leaned back, the shadows of the temple garden dancing across his pale features. He began to speak with the calm, clinical precision of a professor delivering a lecture on a distant history.
"As for when the gears of the world began to grind to a halt… it was January 14th, 2030. That was the day the apocalypse truly began."
He paused, the name of the nightmare tasting like ash on his tongue.
"The virus was classified as Z-17-D."
He continued, his voice dropping an octave, becoming a low vibration in the quiet room.
"But the rot didn't start suddenly. It didn't emerge from a lab or a jungle. On December 31st, 2029—just seconds before the New Year was born—a shooting star appeared in the sky."
"It streaked across the atmosphere at the exact moment the New Year bell rang."
"At first, it seemed like nothing more than a beautiful omen. I was standing on a stage, and I thought it was just a poetic coincidence."
"But then… the reports started coming in. The same phenomenon had happened in a country across the ocean. Again—at the exact moment their New Year bell rang."
"And then another country. And another."
"The entire world experienced it. A synchronized celestial event, timed perfectly to the local birth of a new decade. Every corner of the globe saw that light."
Ignes's eyes darkened, the pupils turning a deep, bloody red.
"Once or twice… one could call it a coincidence. A trick of the atmosphere. But when it happens everywhere, down to the millisecond of a human calendar? It is a signal."
"I knew then that the world was about to break. So, as a precaution, I began to store food. I moved my assets. I prepared for a siege."
He paused, the memory of the fourteen-day wait hanging in the air.
"Fourteen days later—the peace of the world ended."
"It didn't matter what they were doing. People who had just woken up for their morning coffee… people who were curled in their beds… people who were walking to work…"
"All of them—stopped."
"When the first ray of dawn touched the ground, as if the sun itself was the trigger… they collapsed."
"The world went silent in an instant. They fell asleep… right where they stood, as if their souls had been unceremoniously plucked from their bodies."
Ignes looked at Frederick, then at his father and the other Duke.
"And when they woke up… they weren't people anymore."