Inside the town’s community center there was a reunion being held by the “Association of free women of Forest Grove”. They watched through the window as the police went around blocking off streets and telling people to go back home.


    “It must be serious; they blocked the entire street.” – One of them said. – “I don’t think we’ll be able to leave anytime soon.”


    “We’ll be safe as long as we stay here, ladies.” – Said the host of the gathering, a certain Ms. Clara Hannigan. – “Regardless, we should continue with our event and wait for the situation outside to blow over.”


    They all agreed and went back to their seats.


    “Moving on.” – Said Clara. – “I’d like to congratulate our sister, Ms. Jenny O’Hare, for supporting our cause for the sexual and social liberation of all women in the United States."


    Everyone in the crowd dedicated a round of applause to Jenny who was sitting at the front of the room, clearly flustered, but not because she was ashamed.


    “With her help, I’m fairly sure that we’ll have a lot of successes to report in the national gathering next year.” – Said Clara. – “We are one step closer to achieving our goals on the short term, and in the long term, we’ll get a foothold in the government!”


    The crowd applauded once more.


    “And I also wish to congratulate our newest member, Ms. Patricia Martinez, for expressing her sexual freedom in the most powerful way possible: last month, she managed to get a well-timed and opportune abortion, exempting her from the shackles of paternity!”


    They all applauded and congratulated Patricia for her bravery and determination, she stood up and bowed to them as a sign of humility, feeling appraised and respected by her sisters in this cause.


    “Having said that…I think we can introduce our sister, Patricia, to the rest of our group.” – Said Clara, Patricia was visibly confused. – “See Patricia, this group of ours is just the peak of the iceberg as some say, and we are actually a bigger, more reserved group, and we only allow entrance to those that really believe in what we fight for.”


    “And even this cause of ours is the just the beginning.” – Said Jenny. – “Our cause is way bigger than this.”


    “You took a step forward and reached your freedom, not many are as brave as you! And that’s why I think we sho-” – Before Clara could finish that sentence, she felt a strong cramp in her stomach and something piling up in her throat and making its way up her head. She held it in with her hand.


    “Clara? What’s wrong!?” – Said Jenny approaching her, they both looked at her palm in shock.


    Clara’s palm had been stained with her blood. Jenny then looked at her face and saw blood coming out of her nostrils and making its way down to her chin.


    “Oh crap, Clara! You are bleeding!”


    Clara wasn’t reacting, she kept looking at her palm, as if there was something else in the blood.


    All the other women in the room stood up from their seats and ran up to her to see what was going on, maybe they could help to hold her up and then call for help.


    Clara herself was confused. She didn’t have cancer, she had checked herself for it recently, she didn’t have any other illness either, she was as healthy as a late 20s woman can be.


    She kept looking at the blood in her palm while the blood on her face spilled down to her shoes. Then she heard a gasp and looked to her right, another one of the members, Miriam, she coughed up blood, then Jenny bled through her nose too, then Lisa, then Patricia as well.


    Clara felt as if she was forgetting something important. When she became a member of this society, someone approached her, she was sure he went by Baker, he told her a pretty unnerving story, just  a fantasy most likely, some story to scare children, but he assured her that some it carried a very powerful truth, and that she’d do well to remember it, otherwise she would find herself inside the very same situation that story told one of these days.


    The story mentioned something about her and her peers bleeding from their mouths and noses before something really bad happened. She thought hard about it in silence while the ones around her tried to get her attention and determine what they were going to do.


    Suddenly it came to her and she gasped.


    “We have to get out here!” – She said. – “Move! We gotta move!”


    “What!? What’s happening Clara!?” – Asked Patricia


    “We have to move! We are gonna die!” – She screamed hysterically, scaring all the women around her.


    Meanwhile, on the first floor, the receptionist was thinking that it wasn’t going to be long before she could finish her shift and go back home, the janitor would take care of closing the building afterwards.


    But then, someone walked into the building, her heavy boots echoing through the lobby.


    “Welcome, how can I…?” – It didn’t take her long before noticing everything that was wrong about the person that was approaching her.


    Those red glowing scars, those glowing red eyes surrounded by pitch black darkness, her jacket, shirt and pants stained with the blood of others. The bag she was carrying on her back and the shotgun she was holding in her hands.


    She had heard about it all on the radio, about a spree killer rampaging through the town. The receptionist wasn’t expecting this. She felt so overwhelmed tears fell down her face.


    But Butcher just walked past her, towards the stairs.


    “[You should hide.]” – She said. The lady listened to her advice and she curled into a ball under the table, sobbing silently while trembling.


    Alicia made her way up to the second floor; she heard a group of footsteps coming in her direction. A commanding voice was at the front telling the others what to do.


    “There’s no time to explain, if we don’t leave now, we are gonna…!” – The women stumbled upon Butcher just as she made her way to the top of the staircase.


    Six women in the group, including Jenny and Patricia, collapsed on the ground, wailing and screaming, holding onto their stomachs feeling a massive surge of pain. The others turned around and intended to run in the opposite direction, but it was already too late.


    Butcher’s shotgun was fully loaded. She raised it up and opened fire, blowing out the brains of two women, then destroying the torso of another next to them.


    She shot at the lower back of the one next to Clara, the pellets made their way through her spine and out through the stomach, then she took care of Clara by shooting somewhere around the hip, destroying her right hip and taking out a huge chunk of her quadriceps.


    Clara fell to the ground screaming with pain, she looked back briefly and discovered with horror that everyone that was right behind her were now dead, their brains and organs all splattered across the walls and corridor, in exception for the ones that were still screaming on the ground, completely paralyzed by a pain from inside.


    But even that wouldn’t last long, Butcher turned her attention towards them, splattering Patricia’s head with the shotgun at point blank, then she killed the others in a similar way, shooting at their chests or heads.


    Surprisingly, the last one to die would be Clara. She tried to drag herself away from her, even if there was no point. She was bleeding through every hole in her face and through that huge wound she had on her hip, yet she still believed she could save herself from such a gruesome fate.


    Butcher stared at her while she performed this insignificant effort and approached slowly, putting down the shotgun and bringing out a pistol.


    Everything was going just right for Alicia, she was well fed, almost full, she had thoroughly cleansed the town, she had even taken down one of the enemies after her, and on top of that, she was now on the track of a potentially bigger catch, a source of evil so big she’d have nourishment for months, maybe even an entire year.


    But even then, Alicia still gritted her teeth, pressing them against each other, she couldn’t even keep her hands still, wanting to close them into fists and reduce every single corpse around her to bloody masses.


    She had it everything, yet she still felt so incredibly angry.


    Suddenly, right before using her pistol to finish her off, Alicia felt the urge to say something, product of the frustration she felt. She wanted to be listened to, she wanted to speak her mind, no matter if who was listening to her was about to die.


    “[…Guns are incredible things, aren’t they?]” – She said. – “[They are the easiest way to kill a person, and if their wielder is skilled enough, the death can be as painful or as painless as they want.]”


    She stood right over Clara and pulled her up by the hair as she cried and begged for her life.


    “[I love guns…a gun set me free, a gun gave me my vengeance, and guns ensure my survival.]” – She placed the end of the gun on Clara’s head. – “[Everyone should have a gun, if only to make sure people like you cease to exist.]”


    “P-p-p-Please… I didn’t want to…”


    “[Guns can be so noble and such a blight at times…]” – She pulled the safe off. – “[…A blight because they are often in the hand of people like you, and so few in the hands of people willing to use them properly.]” – The headache returned and she squinted her eyes. – “[…Why are there so many of you? …When will I be done?]”


    She pulled the trigger and splattered Clara’s brains all over the floor.


    Being done with that, she searched through Clara’s pockets and found a membership card for some kind of group, its logo was the same goat head placed right in the middle of a pentagram.


    The card had an address written on it, and at the end there was a quote saying: “…To wash ourselves in the glory of the bright one.”


    She could only assume this would be useful for her. Just then, a SWAT team stormed into the building, Alicia was so focused she hadn’t heard the police sirens outside the building. She had allowed them to close in on her, bad sign.


    “ENGAGE THE SUSPECT!” – Said a man outside the building. That was to be expected, after dropping so many people it would be a surprise if they still expected to bring her in alive.


    The squad made their way up the stair while she rushed to the bottom of the hallway and into another room, she heard the bullets of their submachine guns whistle right behind her and hitting the wall, it seemed some of them weren''t interested in catching her alive.The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    She kept running forward and jumped, breaking through a window and landing right outside next to the building.


    “HE JUMPED OUT! DON’T LET HIM ESCAPE!” – They still didn’t know who they were dealing with exactly, that was good for her, but that would only last as long as she kept moving.


    She ran towards the alleyways, the lawmen followed close by, they couldn’t just shoot at her while they ran, they had to get a clear shot.


    While running through an alley the police took that chance to block the exits with their cars.


    “POLICE! DROP YOUR WEAPONS!” – Said an officer aiming at her with his service pistol, he got a clear look on her so it’d be a matter of time for everyone else to know what they were dealing with, it was their choice if they believed it or not.


    Regardless of that, being seen was no reason to stop.


    She still rushed forward, closing the distance between her and the cop, the cop opened fire and she zigzagged evading the bullets, once she was close enough, she jumped over the car and planted a powerful kick on the side of the cop’s head, knocking him out. Then she took that chance to take his dotation gun and continue running.


    “We have a man down!” – Said another officer coming out of the alleyway and checking on his partner. – “He’s been knocked unconscious; the suspect stole his gun!”


    The helicopter shed light on her position, they certainly knew where she was now and were surrounding her. They were determined, they were going all-out, they’d catch her or kill her no matter what.


    Her ears heard cars coming from the east and west, at the front there was a barricade, officers were following behind her on foot. They had pinned her down, closed the entire block.


    Something she thought completely impossible had happened, she was surrounded, she had no more options left, what could she do? What were her options? Did she have any options? Was there a way out of this?


    Everything was about to end in Filbert Street, what an unceremonious place to see it all end for her, but it was as good as any other location.


    Everything faded to black as she got closer to the barricade, her ears were deaf to the commands of the policemen aiming their pistols at her, not like they mattered anyway.


    Soon everything was darkness, but then it wasn’t.


    She woke up once again in a different location. Alicia found herself standing in the middle of an empty apartment, and judging by the lack of pain, she had managed to overcome the blockade without a single scratch.


    She could still hear sirens and helicopters flying at the distance, whatever she did back there had them searching around relentlessly, but she couldn’t remember for some reason. She could only assume this was the work of Crimson or Ten, or maybe both, given the fact that they all were one and the same at the moment.


    Looking behind her she saw the kitchen, and on the wall next to it a broken window, she had broken into the apartment through there. The more she thought about it the stranger it seemed, how did she come so far? How did she lose the cops? Was there any way to remember?


    Alicia kept pondering these questions, but then she remembered two important things: If she didn’t hurry up and finished her job she’d lose her mind, and that she hadn’t made it to the place she was looking for yet.


    She searched her pockets and pulled out the card she snatched from Clara''s corpse. Looking at the back she noticed there was a date. The date was that very same day, at 9 PM.


    Alicia scratched the back of her head, trying to think how long had it been since she started this murder spree, she was sure that only a couple of hours had passed, meaning she was still on time to make it there.


    Taking a deep breath, she stretched up, loosening up her muscles once again.


    The red cloth that guided her appeared once again, and there was nothing else to do but to follow it.


    Before long Alicia found herself standing in front of a building that resembled a church, far from the noise of the sirens and patrols roaming about, almost as if they didn’t want to approach that place, or weren’t allowed to. The people in the nearby buildings turned off the lights and closed the windows, listening to the warnings of the police. Alicia couldn’t smell anything coming from the apartments, so that was a good sign: the buffet was fully gathered in that church-like structure. She had eaten so much in the last couple of hours, yet for some reason she still felt far from satisfied.


    If they were separated, she’d take a moment to ask Crimson what its problem was and call it a fiend, but she recognized that without it she wouldn’t be doing as much damage as she was doing right there and then, despite the difficulties and drawbacks that came with it, the incessant hunger being one of them.


    Still, there was no time to complain.


    Alicia approached the front door, a very sturdy one made out of metal in case someone dared come and interrupt their activities, it wouldn’t stop her though.


    She was more than capable of bringing it down on her own, but it was best not to announce herself too early.


    After knocking on the door three times, someone spoke on the other side:


    “Why do we offer our souls…?” – Said the voice.


    “[…To wash ourselves in the glory of the bright one.]”


    “Come on in, initiate.”


    The door opened, and Alicia walked inside, meeting a man wearing red robes and sunglasses.


    “You must be new, did Cla-” – It took a moment but he finally noticed everything that was wrong about her, including the eyes and the guns. – “What the fuck!?”


    Alicia shoved the pistol into his mouth to shut him up, she was going to interrogate him, but then…


    “Brad, what’s going on? What happened?” – Someone asked from the other room.


    “[Tch…]” – Alicia punched Brad in the gut so hard he ended up on the ground puking his dinner. Right after, Alicia stood next to the door from where the voice came from, and waited.


    “Brad, you ok?” – The door opened, another robed man walked in. – “Oh shit! Brad, what’s wrong? Did you eat something bad?” – The man approached Brad while he tried to warn him about the monster behind him but there was no air in his lungs to be able to utter a single word. Alicia approached him and snapped his neck. His corpse plummeted right next to Brad, who had already accepted his fate.


    Alicia held him by collar and pointed the gun at him. – “What’s going on here?”


    Brad managed to regain his breath, even if it was just to speak.


    “Why…why are you doing this? haven’t we done enough? Haven’t we sacrificed enough for you and your master!?” – He asked, with tears in his eyes.


    “[What are you talking about?]”


    “You are one of them, aren’t you!? You come from hell; we called you here!” – He said.  –“We bathed our souls in darkness, we tarnished innocence, we sacrificed the blood of many innocents, only so we could meet you, only so we could meet your master!”


    Alicia didn’t know what to say, all she knew is that whoever they were, they couldn’t be any better than all the scum that she had been killing all night.


    The man before her smelled like an excellent appetizer.


    “[Where are the others?]” – She asked.


    “They are downstairs, they are preparing for tonight’s ritual. We thought…we thought you’d like it.”


    She looked at the space beyond the door, there was a staircase descending to a place abandoned by the hand of God.


    “[You thought I’d like it, huh?]”


    “Of course! but, then why did you kill one of my brothers?”


    “[My way of saying thank you.]”


    Alicia grabbed him by the throat and pulled him up as hard as she could, hearing a dozen things in his neck snapping and breaking at once. He turned his eyes backwards and died; this is what some people call an inner decapitation.


    Afterwards, Alicia descended through the stair case, walking into an ever-blacker darkness, but her red glow scared it away.


    Once at the bottom of the staircase she stood before another door. She reached for the knob, but she stopped. There was an energy coming from the other side, Alicia couldn’t quite describe it, this was something she had never felt before. By simply standing before this door, she felt a rush of dread and fear coursing through her spine and way up to her head. She could hear a thousand whispers spitting curses and blasphemies against all creation, against everything that was good in this world. Without even searching for it, Alicia had stumbled upon a den of primordial evil, a congregation of depravity and calamity that threatened to corrupt everything around them.


    Alicia took a deep breath, and then she understood everything. All fear that had invaded her disappeared right there and then, and instead she drooled and her stomach growled as if she hadn’t fed herself for five days.


    The scent located right behind that door was a gourmet meal, no, even better than that, it was a plate you wouldn’t find anywhere else in this world, the most fine and exquisite of meals ever prepared by a chef. So good it was, that no human hands could’ve prepared it.


    That scent, she had smelled it before. Alicia gasped, the people behind this door, they all smelled like him, like him and all the others that were there with him, supporting and working on his little project that brought about their ultimate end.


    Finally, after so many years, she had found it. She had found the feeling again! She knew that man wasn’t the only one that had it, there had to be more, and they were right there, ripe for the taking.


    Alicia couldn’t hold herself back anymore.


    She destroyed the door with a single kick, finding yet another dark corridor at the other side, it seemed like she was about to enter some sort of crypt. It was so dark, but now she could see clearly. She rushed through the corridor, her boots echoing throughout the space like a pair of anvils.


    Suddenly she saw a light at the end of the corridor, a cultist holding a flashlight to check on what the source of that noise was.


    “What the fuck is that!?” – Yelled the cultist, he tried to move away but it was already too late.


    Alicia dashed by him and twisted his neck, his head ended up looking in a way it shouldn’t and his body fell to the ground.


    She looked to the left and saw two cultists rushing at her screaming their lungs out and holding daggers. Alicia intercepted the first one and nailed a roundhouse kick on the side of his face, strong enough to splatter his head’s contents on the nearby wall.


    Then, she grabbed the arms of the second cultist and squeezed them, pulverizing the bones within. That poor cultist screamed in agony. She sent a kick up his chin, destroying his neck, an instant kill.


    The corridor still went deeper, but she took a moment to see what those three were doing there. In front of her lied some sort of altar, on top of it there was a figurine of a man with a goat’s head holding a candle in one hand and pointing up with the other. In front of it there was a piece of cloth and a mangled heart, and she was pretty sure it was from a human.


    It was the first time she had to deal with something like that, the only place where she had seen similar stuff was in a couple of movies she had seen back with the rangers, but regardless, she wasn’t surprised in the least, it’d take more than that to freak her out.


    She heard echoes coming from the corridor making her realize that there was still a lot to see down there.


    Alicia charged forward, holding the pistols in both hands, rushing through the darkness that faltered in her presence.


    Soon she stumbled upon a wall of cultists, they probably were running there to find out why their brothers were screaming. They occupied the entire corridor, there was no room for maneuver, but that was no problem for her.


    Alicia aimed forward and fired, bringing down the three leading the crowd, then she jumped and kicked the one right behind them, destroying his lungs and heart, and pushing the ones behind down to the ground. She bounced back on her feet and unloaded on the ones that had fallen, massacring them until the mags were empty, then she put the pistols back in their holsters. One of the survivors got up from the ground and his zealotry gave him courage, he charged forward holding daggers in both hands, hoping that he’d  be blessed by “the bright one” and allow him to stab her and kill her, becoming the hero of his people.


    But reality would provide a different result. Alicia kicked his leading leg, right on the shinbone, snapping his knee out of its place. Then she grabbed his head and smashed it into the wall, cracking the area around it and getting his face stuck in the concrete.


    Then came another wielding an axe, yelling while charging like some faux satanic viking.


    He swung it around with reckless abandon, and Alicia evaded its sharp edge by mere millimeters, she couldn’t move much because of the corpses at their feet, but she figured something out after evading four times.


    In the next swing, Alicia stood next to the wall, and since the enemy didn’t know what he was doing he swung once again, she evaded it and now the axe was stuck in the wall. He tried to pull it out but it was already too late.


    Alicia pulled out the shotgun and blasted his face with it, sending him away a meter and a half.


    With no more obstacles she charged forward reaching the end of the corridor.


    She entered a big dark room. The area was adorned with candles and torches on the walls, and the space was occupied by three rows of six stone tables with men and women shackled on top of them, they seemed to be drugged and had no idea what was happening. The dry blood they were lying on gave Alicia a fair idea of what was going to happen there.


    At the center of the room there was another table, this one smaller than the rest, made for the size of a newborn. There was blood on it too, but it wasn’t recent, tonight’s sacrifice hadn’t been performed yet it seemed. This gave Alicia some relief, but it wouldn’t do anything to appease the bloodthirst that was propelling her forward.


    Her muscles vibrated with the raw power she was gathering, feeding from the lives of the monsters that there gathered to please their god.


    She put the shotgun back in the bag and pulled out the M4, having the feeling that she was going to need it for this situation.


    Alicia walked through the room, intending to make it to the bottom, but then a voice reached to her from the dark.


    “Those eyes…that fire! Finally, I thought an agent of our lord would come to give us our eternal reward! But why…why are you killing your loyal servants!? Our time wasn’t supposed to come yet! Haven’t we sacrificed enough to make sure of it!?” – Said a voice somewhere in the room, right behind his troopers who probably thought that she couldn’t see them, but their presence was clear to her, she could smell them after all. – “…Wait, no! you can’t be one of his servants! You are something else! What are you!? What are you doing here!?”


    “[…A little girl pointed in this direction.]” – She said.


    “What!? What does that even mean!? No one knows about this place!” – The man groaned. –“…Well, no matter… all of this means is that we’ve gotten a new sacrifice, a sacrifice that’s worth more than every single other we have in this very room. We’ll show you the strength of our conviction…BROTHERS! SISTERS! CLEANSE THIS INFIDEL!”


    Some of the cultists in the room set themselves on fire and charged forward while their brothers, armed with knives and clubs followed suit.


    They charged with a war cry closing in on the intruder from all directions.


    Alicia experimented another change that pushed her closer to complete assimilation. Unexpectedly, Alicia experimented a high she had never felt before.


    Suddenly she shed tears of happiness.