It should’ve been a night like any other for us. Working the boring night shift as usual, in a hidden research center surrounded by the dense wood. The cameras showed only the guards doing their repetitive patrol around the perimeter, and not a sign of a single animal even with infrared. I yawned as I clicked away at the live security feed: “Well, at least the pay’s good.”

And indeed, the pay was criminally good - four times as much as doing the same job anywhere else, and we weren’t even doing anything illegal. The researchers here were working on treatment for a currently incurable disease that had been plaguing our nation for decades, and progress was almost at completion. Last I heard, the testing stage was a success and they were planning to release the drug to the world - for free. 

But if our research was so beneficial and our motive so generous, why the secrecy? Well, apparently not everyone appreciates it when you are doing charity. In the past, we’d been attacked countless times by criminal organisations for unknown reasons, so much so that the government had to build this place for us to hide. Thankfully, it helped, and our researchers could continue their work in peace.

When I tiredly reached for the cup of coffee, I saw a flicker of light from one of the cameras. As I paid attention to the screen, it grew in size and brightness, eventually lighting up the entire area and also illuminated the figure underneath.

A girl about 12 - 14 years old was standing there, pale as a ghost from head to toe with white hair, wearing a hospital gown. Behind her was a series of…vines? that were tethered to the ball of light, like the antenna of an angler fish. Her expressionless eyes were looking listlessly at one of our buildings.

I blinked repeatedly. We were in the middle of the woods, so there was no way a kid could wander onto the premise of our base alone like that. Furthermore, she looked devoid of life, like an inanimate doll. On the thermal camera, her heat sign was so faint that for a moment I thought she was a corpse.

I immediately linked her appearance to a ghost. “Nonono you idiot. There’s no way ghosts exist. Sure, demons did, but they were already extinct ages ago. I’m pretty sure this kid’s just lost and cold. As for the strange light and the vines, well… I’ll let the guards figure those out.” Assuring myself, I turned on the floodlight and pointed it at her.

The moment I radioed the guard, the ball of light on top of the girl flew forward. I heard a deafening explosion followed by an earthquake, and my chair fell over at the same time as the power went out.

“Ow…” Once the emergency light switched on, I stood up rubbing the back of my head which hit the floor when I fell. I looked at the live feed. There was a perfectly round hole in the concrete fence, and the entire camera system of one of the buildings had failed. My face started to sweat as I witnessed the girl nonchalantly walk through the charred hole.

Guards rushed to the scene and surrounded her with guns. Behind them were mages that had just hurriedly put on their uniforms - those lazy bastards were sleeping on the job again.

“FREEZE!!!” I heard them shout over the open voice comms. The girl ignored them and walked forward. 

One of the guards ran up and pointed his rifle at her head. “I SAID FREEZE!!!” 

The girl stopped and looked up at him. *Splash* There was a sound of something being squished, and his head hit one of the cameras, leaving a red stain on its lense.

They open fired. Out of nowhere, countless thorned vines appeared in front of her, knitting themselves into a shield that bullets couldn’t pass through. 

The mages began to chant their spells. [Fireball], one of them shouted, and a ball of flame the size of a fridge was lobbed over the shield. But before it could reach the girl, she mumbled something inaudible - and the fireball instantly froze. One of the vines whipped it, and it shattered into tiny bits of ice.

The mage was suddenly impaled by vines that sprouted from underground. The other mages tried to run, but were soon met with the same fate. As the guards finally realized what was happening behind them, they showed a face of absolute terror.

The moment the firing stopped, the vine shield began to morph - flattening and stretching into a blade about 20 meters long. It swung side to side - swiftly without resistance, and about 30 people who stood in front of the girl were cut in half.

As the ground was dyed in blood, the few that survived from being far enough away hurriedly retreated. The girl didn’t give chase. Her vines began to spread out along the pool of blood and dig into the corpses like roots. Their bodies quickly shrivelled like dried fruits as colours were drained from their skin. She stood still, smiling in satisfaction.

There was utter chaos in voice comms. “CODE RED!!! SECURITY UNIT ELIMINATED!!! CALLING ALL FORCES, ASSEMBLE IMMEDIATELY!!!”  

Meanwhile, I leaned against the wall, horrified at the scene I saw. “What-What the hell is that?”

Seconds later, the girl was surrounded by lights. Soldiers, machine gun mounted SUVs and tanks were pointing their barrels at her. High rank mages stood behind, already preparing their spells. Two helicopters armed with machine guns were circling on top. 

“BANGGG!!!” One of the tanks fired the first shot, and the area around the girl was filled with dust. Then they unleashed everything they had at her. Machine guns. Grenades. RPGs. All of them. Then the mages, forming a line, pointed their canes to the sky. 

[[[Hail of Judgement!]]] A series of bright orange magic circles appeared high in the sky, one on top of another. On the one at the very top, multiple shards of amber began to form and fell down. As they passed through each magic circle, they greatly increased in velocity and size - like being shot through a railgun. The waves of shards then bombarded the girl, causing the earth to shake with each strike.

The merciless barrage continued for 5 minutes, before the commander gave them the signal to stop. Then, they waited for the dust to dissipate. Surely, no one can ever stand against that much of an onslaught, right?

But when the debris cleared, all they saw on the spot the girl stood was a crater created by their firepower, and a hole in the ground.

“AHHHH!!!” There was a scream. As they turned to its source, they saw one of the tanks covered in vines, its pilots impaled in their seats. The girl climbed out of the ground next to the vehicle, with even more vines tethered from her body to the concrete below. They saw her back beginning to glow, and the vines too turned bright red.

“F-FIRE!!!” one of them shouted. But before they could execute his order, he saw the tank flying at him. When it rolled past, what was left of him was a line of squished flesh and bones. 

The girl then dragged the tank with her vines and swung it back the other way. The soldiers screamed in horror as it slammed into the other vehicles, causing explosions after explosions and crushing them or blowing them away. Some of the vines then grabbed the crushed SUVs and threw them at the helicopters. Unable to avoid them in time, the helis turned into balls of flame as they crashed some distances away.

[L-LIGHTNING STRIKE!] One of the mages shouted. A bright yellow magic circle materialised on top of the girl, and sparks began to appear. But right before a ray of lightning struck down, the girl quickly stabbed some of the vines to the ground, which then grew right back out toward the arcane formation. The lightning was absorbed by the vines, and dissipated into the earth.

*CLANG!* The girl dropped the tank, which had been crushed into scrap metal after destroying most of the vehicles. Retreating her vines, she twisted them around her leg.

[Accelerate] She muttered, and then disappeared from the spot. The mage didn’t have time to blink as she reappeared before him, vines wrapping around her hand and poking out from the tips of her fingers into multiple short whips. She clawed at him, and his head turned into cut salad as his blood made claw marks on the wall behind him.

The other mages ran away. Seeing them, the girl muttered: [Volatile Ice Lances]. Above her head, spears of ices formed and flew at them.

“AHHH!!!” They screamed as they were impaled through their stomachs. Then the spears exploded, and their upper bodies - filled with splinters of ice, scattered into the sky like fireworks.

It was a scene from hell. The courtyard and walls were filled with blood, broken vehicles, and pieces of flesh. There was no one alive - everybody was already a part of the ground. The girl was the only one left, her clothes and skin half covered in blood, a steep contrast to her porcelain skin. She chose a still clean spot in the courtyard and sat down, while her vines crawled all over the place like a swarm of locusts, consuming everything in their wake.

×

“BLERGHHH!!!” I threw up everything inside my stomach on the floor, panting. I witnessed the whole thing from start to finish, and it had to be at least 10 times worse than any nightmare. Shaking, I pulled myself up and thought, “I gotta get away from here!”

But what I saw beyond the door made me halt, speechless. In front of me were researchers, scientists, staff members and security guards, all killed with either a bullet to their head or a slit in their throat.

I slumped to the floor. “Why…Why is this happening to us? We’re just innocent people who had done nothing wrong to our world…”

I felt the hot barrel of a gun pressing against my temple. “Well, giving the drug away for free doesn’t sound terribly profitable, does it? Anyways, night night.” 

*Bang!*