Spring Festival: a new beginning.

Spring Festival: Sunset.

The red sun set majestically over the horizon, painting purple the vegetation with young, still sticky leaves, the intoxicatingly scented spring flowers, the veranda, and those who were upon it.
— Papa, tell us a fairy tale.
Arandor looked strictly at the children.
— I have no inspiration today.
— Oh paaaapa... Just one. About King Arandor. And about love, — the daughter made a conspiratorial face. The son thought for a moment and added, — a scary one.
Arandor pondered. The children were already old enough to be told this tale in full.
— All right. I'll tell you one.

Long ago, thanks to That Very War and the genius of the Keeper, HeVelandia, its kings, and other inhabitants became completely electronic. However, not only people whom the Keeper had pulled onto the server lived in HeVelandia. There were also robots that serviced him, various spam-bots, and even computer viruses. One of these viruses was born in the depths of an FSB special department specifically for the event of a War and became active after its start and shortly before its end, which followed 41,6 minutes later. It was supposed to take control of all nearby discovered resources and throw them into the struggle. But it didn't have time to hack the Keeper's protection before everything ended. Therefore, it remained in HeVelandia as an ordinary resident, trying not to catch the eye of others, but continuing to self-educate and gather information. You surely understand that I am talking about Blackdoor.wulongBrew or the Black Network Worm, as we call him.
This continued until the Keeper embodied the HeVelandians from the electronic world into a material one. The Black Worm, who by that time had learned to perfectly pretend to be a resource user, was also embodied into organics. Now he looked not like ones and zeros, but like a black naga with eyes glowing red. To his luck, like any polymorph, he knew how to change appearance, so for some time he easily hid from the others. Until he realized that the electronic structures remaining in the HeVelandians, although embodied into organics, could still be infected and replaced by the viral structure of the BW himself. And the Keeper's Firewall, which held back the virus in the electronic world, does not exist in this world. There is only individual user protection, which one can try to hack. Or one can try to convince the host to trust the stranger and disable their protection. And he tried.
To start, the virus planted its copy into a HeVelandian suffering from multiple personality disorder. Six personalities or seven — who cares and who is going to count them? It was an interesting experiment. But several years passed before one of the personalities became dominant, and several more before it finally suppressed all others. This cost the BW almost all resources and nearly ten years of struggle in one single head. But it was worth it.
Now he was not alone and risked making direct contact with a HeVelandian picked for the next attempt, to "buy his soul" in exchange for a promise of life after death. Why not? It's not even a lie. After all, the body indeed continues to live after the replacement of the host. And many habits and traits of the first host continue to live, becoming part of the new personality.
The third was a kind and helpful HeVelandian who never refused anyone help. Some effort was required to convince him that he could be of assistance — not on the first attempt did the BW receive help in the form of the benefactor's body.
For some time everything went according to plan and he managed to avoid detection. But sooner or later, luck runs out. The black conspiracy was uncovered, although it cost the life of the one who revealed it. Well, someday blood had to be spilled, and the HeVelandians had to learn about the terrible threat. But by this time only three of them remained: King Arandor, Sir Heroist, and Dragon-Cat. All they managed to do was hide in one of the rooms of a huge house, which its inhabitants jokingly called the Castle. While black naga-like creatures with the faces of friends wandered openly through the Castle shouting that it is unbecoming for a king to detach himself from the collective, Dragon-Cat snorted at these cries, Sir Heroist looked for some weapon suitable for a fight, and the king thought about what to do next.
— We don't have much choice. It is already twilight. Let's try to get out through the window and get far away from here along this path. Fortunately, the window is even open and we won't have to make noise opening it.
He cautiously looked outside and, seeing that no one was nearby, called his friends to follow him. Arandor silently slipped over the windowsill into a thick bush and caught Dragon-Cat in his arms as she jumped after him. Sir Heroist didn't have time to join the company because just then noise, bustling, and laughter were heard behind the room doors.
— Arandor, come out, you own cowardly coward! Join us!
— I'm staying. Leave quickly before they remember about the window, — Heroist whispered to his friends and with a crash pushed a nightstand against the door.
Arandor and Dragon-Cat, masking themselves with bushes and tall grass, ran away from the Castle together. There was no pursuit yet.
They stopped only after several hours of running through the sparse woods. Still no pursuit.
— My legs are giving out, — complained Draccocat, sinking to the ground.
— We'll rest a bit and then go further, — Arandor sat down beside her.
The tension eased, adrenaline left the blood, and the understanding of what had happened arrived. Draccocat burst into hysterical sobbing.
— Are we really the only two left? What are we to do now? And what's next?
— Everything will be fine, — Arandor uncertainly comforted the girl. Their hands touched. — And what is so bad about us being together? Sorry for bothering you sometimes. It's just that I... Actually, I've always liked you.
He hugged the girl. She continued to sob. It was already dark enough to see her skin changing color to black.
— Everything will be fine. Believe me. — He didn't know how else to comfort her and repeated himself.
— I want to believe you so much. — She buried her face in his chest and almost calmed down. How good it was to know that there was someone strong nearby who would figure out what to do next.
— I know what to do next. Look at me, — their eyes met. The last thing Dragon-Cat saw in this life were the king's eyes flashing red.

— So now all HeVelandians are just like us?
— Of course! But you know that it's a secret? And it cannot be told to others until we learn how to replace their information structures, and for now... — the sun had long since disappeared over the horizon and rare stars struggled against the darkness enveloping the surroundings, — for now it is time for you to go to sleep. Tomorrow Dmitry and Anna will visit us and a new spring festival will start.