Beyond The Veils, a Crimson Tranquility.

A man was walking the streets of a rather calm city, it was almost sunset and he was trying to enjoy to view, but was interrupted by some whimpering coming from a nearby alleyway. There he saw a boy roaming around the alley, ransacking. He looked at the man, a rather tall and medium bulky individual, he looked up to the man and saw his face, he tried to ask him something but he wasn't able to, he barely walked and made sounds, and say normal words, if he tried enough. The man took a better look at the boy, his eyes bulged a sore red, Tear marks down the boy's cheeks, the boy looked barely 4-5 years old . Other than this, the boy was just like any other kid his age, He lifted him up and took him out of the alley, Back to his residence. He helped the boy out of his ragged clothes, and washed him, he rummaged through his cabinet for quite a while and found some clothes which would fit the boy.

He fed him a bit of food and asked the boy his name, the boy who was silent through the whole ordeal, initially had a bit of problem understanding the man, but he eventually muttered something along the words "Tommy", and the man started to refer him that.

After putting tommy to sleep, he wondered what that poor child was doing back in the alley, deciding he would question the boy once he woke up, he goes to sleep.

The man woke up shouting and felt terrified to his bone, "it was just a nightmare?" he said to himself, "What was the dream anyway? A house...a woman and a child....beautiful scenery, a good house....happiness." he said to himself, tommy who had already woken up and was exploring the house was terrified when he had heard the horrifying howl the man had made when he woke up to the nightmare. After reassuring the boy everything was alright He fed the emaciated boy, and gave him general fever meds and antibiotics.

The man wondered why he cared so much for the boy he had found randomly so much, this care for the boy was innate to him, he didn't need to put much effort into taking care of tommy. While he was being administered his meds and his antibiotics, the boy looked up to the man, his face a bit relieved than the exhausted and feverish state he found him in yesterday, asked him his name "Gabriel ", he replied. Tommy nodded.

The man had taken tommy to a doctor to get him checked up, While driving there, the boy didn't say a thing to the man, only asking for water in between, very timidly. "Here you go, buddy" the man said, as he passed the bottle every time to the kid, with a warm smile on his face.

The doctor said there wasn't any problems with the boy, physically he just had a fever.

The man was told the boy suffered a shock, and he wasn't mature enough to comprehend it. But that, the man already knew.

For the next few days, Tommy spoke little to nothing , but just a few words.

But Gabriel always kept on speaking to him, in hopes of making the boy comfortable around him and improving his speaking skills too.

Whenever the man tried to enquire about his parents, guardians or anything about his relatives, the boy would just gaze off into the abyss and would remain silent, or be distressed, so, the man eventually stopped trying to find out about his past, all he knew was the boy was not "infected". A few more days fly by in similar fashion, but one day the man had received a rather disturbing call.

After he got off the phone, the man took Tommy and a bit of luggage and just left.

The call was from his superiors, the man was informed to report somewhere.

he reported back to a naval warship ready to undock and sail, it was rather calm there, not much rush as much as it would be expected of a safe haven departing. Gabriel met his superiors and tommy was left with someone else for taking care of him temporarily.

"The world was different than what it was ,it fell. Initially there was nothing but simple cases of a foreign virus in a remote village, The news started to cover the ground zero but nothing seemed very unusual about the virus, people who had been infected had at most a sore throat and a fever.

But that had changed one day. One of the original patients had....morphed. He became something...different than human, in many ways. He massacred everyone he saw. They had evolved so much, in a short period of time. And Humans out of desperation and neediness, turned on their kind.

It was called the "Doomsday", the fall of the world.

But i suppose something good,  in a way, came out of it too-" Gabriel was cut short from the sounds of snoring coming from tommy, who was narrating to him a story after he had reported to his higher-ups.

The man wanted to get the boy a bit of sleep, and he did, after the ship had undocked and left, and he did the same. Tommy woke up in the middle of the night to some rather loud conversations,

"YOU ARE IMPOSTERS,READY TO STRIKE US AND KILL US ONCE WE LET OUR GUARD DOWN!" a woman shouted, when little tommy tried to take a peek from the wall, he saw the back of a man and the face of the woman who was shouting, the man replied, "If 'we' wished to kill others ,we already could have, but we didn't because we are you." the woman replied "WHATEVER JUST GO TO HELL,YOU CREEPS!", Tommy had become a bit agitated when he heard all the shouting and let out a whimper, the man turned to see the eavesdropper, and smiled at the curious boy. "Who do we have here?" the person who tommy was eavesdropping on, asks him . "Tommy", the child mutters, "Go back to sleep, little man", the mysterious person says, as he leaves the room after escorting tommy to his bed.

After waking up from his sleep, Gabriel saw that tommy was still sleeping ,and was sort of happy since he doesn't sleep much, and wakes up early.

He meets the man of the incident from midnight, but he doesn't know what happened, obviously. Gabriel greeted him "John! ,how Are you?", "Ah, just the usual, a whole lot of lectures from C.O. Luca. But, how have u been, Amico, i saw that kid u brought in, Who is he?" the mysterious man, who's name is  Johnathan asked Gabriel. "I found him in a alleyway", he replied, "I don't know, I've grown quite fond of this kid for the few days he stayed with me, and I don't know why that is the case myself" Gabriel explained. While they were having this conversation, tommy woke up and walked in on them, they both greeted him and asked if he wanted breakfast, "Yeah, sure can i have some shakshuka?" he said, to which Jonathan agreed. Gabriel, watching this whole conversation, was just happy how tommy went from that feverish and timid child to a nice, healthy boy who could communicate well.

After finishing up his breakfast, tommy was told they were gonna dock at Puerto Rico for them to visit their current deployment place. Lieutenant Luca came to brief his soldiers and took some time to see the boy, Luca was a big and wide man, which made tommy naturally be afraid of him, his face too looked like he was a battle hardened soldier, he extended a hand towards the boy while he was standing and when tommy saw his scarred, calloused hands he had even more reasons to be afraid but when Luca bent down to the little boy's level and gave him one of the warmest smiles, he instinctively extended his hand towards him which even widened the smile on the Lieutenant's face.

Tommy had a bit of time before they docked so he roamed around the ship and since everyone knew who he was, he was greeted by every other person while walking around, he looked at some crew cabins and was offered some chocolates which he accepted with a huge smile on his face, which delighted everyone too. He stumbled across the most peculiar room with a tinted entrance, he pushed through the door and recognized it for some sort of laboratory.  But this exploration session, was soo cut short by CO Luca when he saw the kid get into the lab, Luca immediately rushed to the child and bluffed him to get him out of there. Because the child would be scarred for life seeing the things happening there. Biologists, Biochemists, Ballistic experts had woven together their knowledge to experiment on the infected and test their resilience and the composition of their skin cells which enables them to create additional appendages at will and display inhuman strength, they experimented of the infected and tested what substance hurt their skin the most and disable their nerves quickly and the most efficiently, or they could forcefully destroy their brain's functions and annihilate their limbs in a method of brute forcing their victory. The best method they could find was to use thick, high caliber bullets which could easily penetrate their skin and which had a bit of explosive power as well to destroy their organs to ensure victory or hindering their locomotion at best. He asked which country he came from and he replied "Italian", "so u serve the Italian military?" tommy asked enquiringly, "No, there aren't any partitions by countries anymore, child. The remaining semblance of the world's army joined their hands and become one giant force, fighting for the sake of humanity's well being."

After tommy, john, mike and A local officer who was from the country, with few others set out to survey an army base ,a bunker in Puerto Rico which could be of use to the coalition. Tommy came with them since he was quite uncomfortable with the other crew members and Luca was busy with something else. During their travel to the army base ,Gabriel took a good look at the team and realized the soldiers were just young lads who had just gotten administered into the army ,who looked a bit timid, and it was quite natural for them to be scared of the deployment. But the local man whose name was "Cassius", apparently, was strangely calm and emitted a bizarrely soothing aura as well, but it wasn't of much effect considering he was silent through the journey and nobody talked to him much. But Cassius was always watching over the boy and helping him not fall off during the off-roading to the bunker.

When they finally did reached the base after a long and arduous journey, they found the base in quite a normal condition exterior wise, but they were alert nonetheless. When they entered the bunker, they were absolutely horrified with what they say. Hallways of broken bodies and bloodied pathways filled the interior and they were fresh, meaning the "shadows of the past" were active, and their intelligence was increasing at an alarming rate as well.

But humanity has been preparing, they developed weapons to neutralize different sub species of the "Shadows". Humanity's only reason that they survived this long was their minds and they pushed it beyond and above to battle the shadows.

Jonathan saw his team and observed Gabriel's arms were shivering, "He still isn't able to move on. Can't really blame him, he is already handling himself pretty well", he thought to himself. Cassius took charge of the team and commanded them inside, in a dome sort of formation to protect tommy, since they didn't have any other option than to bring him inside with them.

The infected had slowly popped out from the hallways inside the base which seemed endless.

The team made quick work of the infected with their cutting edge technology and their collective years of fighting them, despite most of it coming only from 3 three people. they flowed in like they're endless and the squad made easy work of them flawlessly without much effort, while protecting tommy. But, then they encountered something which none of them wished to. A pair of people humming a song in sentient chorus, a familiar yet distant voice and faces. Something....human, yet even more monstrous then the infected. "Revenants", Gabriel cried out, in a shaky and horrified voice.

The pair slowly approached the squad from the corner of a wall, from where they've been watching their fight with the infected for quite a while. One of them applauded the squad and said "Congratulations on crushing those bugs, you've made impressive work of them, i must say.", he said, with a disturbing smirk on his face. While the other person stared deep into Luca's eyes with nothing but apathy.  "But i wonder how long u can hold yourself against us.", said the first person with that smirk being replaced by a deep sense of malevolence.

The person with the empty expression stayed still, while the other moved at blinding speeds and tore off an arm of a soldier who was in the team. Gabriel instantaneously covered tommy's eyes and ears while Jonathan tried to aim towards the man. Cassius was able to penetrate through the leg of the revenant when he was tearing off the arm of the soldier and Jonathan managed to hit him in the head because of his reduced speed, thanks to Cassius.

The second revenant was physically less bulky than the first one so Jonathan thought he wouldn't be much of a problem to deal with. But he was proven wrong when the second revenant moved at speeds reaching the half of speed of sound, then returned back to the place he was, like he was trying show off his speed.

Jonathan was scared to the bone, he couldn't almost see the revenant moving at those blinding speeds. Cassius stood his ground strong, without even flinching, Jonathan was even more scared because of the fact that Cassius did not even pay heed towards the crazy revenant, he wondered why just a normal human was this confident in such a dire situation. But Jonathan had no time to think though, the revenant was ready to come at them again, and this time his predicted trajectory directed towards the group, Jonathan threw away his weapon and got ready to fight him with his own hands.