I ran.

  Branches tore at the skin on my cheeks and forearms—not scratches, but deep furrows. Blood ran down my neck, mixing with sweat, salty-metallic on my lips. Thorns sank into my palms, ripping out chunks of flesh. Every step sent pain shooting through my feet—bare soles already reduced to a pulp of mud, blood, and shredded skin.

  My lungs burned as if molten lead had been poured inside them. Each breath came in ragged, wheezing gasps. My heart pounded so violently it felt like one more beat and it would simply burst, spttering warm mush across my ribs.

  And behind me—footsteps.

  Heavy.

  Slow.

  Measured.

  The forest cracked under them like dry bones. Bushes snapped with wet crunching. He wasn’t running. He was walking. As though he already knew my time had run out long ago.

  I tripped over a root, fell to my knees, palms sinking into wet leaves and someone else’s old blood—sticky, cold. I pushed up. Ran on. The world swam—bck spots, red fshes.

  But worse than the pain was the silence in my head.

  A silence in which the st words echoed.

  “Stay… kind…”

  Mom’s hand—already cold—on my cheek.

  Father’s blood, frothy and bright, running down his chin.

  His body dropping to its knees, then face-first into the dirt.

  A sound tore from my throat—not a scream, but a raw, animal sob.

  Why am I running?

  They killed them.

  Burned everything.

  Tore my world apart and trampled it.

  Rage didn’t come as a wave—it came like poison, slow, searing, flooding every cell.

  I stopped.

  The forest around me was dead. Trees stood as bck silhouettes, branches woven into a ttice that let in neither moon nor stars. Only far behind pulsed a red glow—like an open wound in the sky.

  The footsteps drew closer.

  Calm.

  Certain.

  I looked around.

  Nearby y a broken thick branch—heavy, moss-covered, crusted with someone else’s dried blood. I seized it. Bark bit into my palms. Fingers went numb, but my grip turned to iron.

  Fear hadn’t gone anywhere.

  It simply stood beside the rage—two beasts in the same cage.

  I clenched my teeth until my gums bled.

  “I’ll kill them… every st one…”

  The voice that came out was hoarse, alien.

  And at that moment a goblin stepped out of the darkness.

  Short, hunched, draped in rags of rusty iron too rge for his scrawny frame. A crooked helmet sat askew on his head—matted, pus-soaked hair spilling from beneath it. In his hands—a short axe, bde crusted with old brown stains and fresh blood.

  He saw me.

  A grin stretched his thin lips, revealing yellow fangs and bck tooth stumps. His eyes—two glowing red embers—held no emotion. Only hunger. Only anticipation.

  He hissed something in his tongue—short, gloating, wet.

  And advanced.

  I charged him.

  A red veil covered my eyes.

  Pain, fear, hatred—all fused into one.

  I swung the branch.

  The goblin bared his teeth wider, raised the axe.

  The bde fshed.

  But in that instant his foot caught on a root.

  He staggered.

  A sharp whistle.

  A spear punched into his eye socket with the wet crunch of a ripe watermelon. The point burst out the back of his skull, dragging a clump of gray-pink brain matter and bone shards. Blood sprayed in a hot, thick fountain—spshing onto my lips.

  The goblin froze.

  Mouth open—soundless.

  Then his body colpsed like a sack of meat.

  The impact threw me backward.

  I fell face-first into the dirt.

  Something sharp drove deep into my cheek—down to the bone.

  I screamed.

  I felt for it—an broken branch protruding from my face like a thorn. I yanked it out. Blood gushed in a warm stream, flooding my eye, neck, chest.

  The pain was blinding.

  And then—it broke.

  Something inside me cracked completely.

  I looked at the dead goblin.

  His axe y beside him. The bde still gleamed with fresh blood.

  I grabbed it.

  Heavy. Cold. Sticky.

  Raised it.

  And struck.

  First blow—into the chest. The sternum cracked like dry wood.

  Second—into the neck. The head jerked, bck blood fountained.

  Third—into the face. Cheekbones shattered, the eye burst like a yolk.

  I struck.

  And struck.

  And struck.

  The bde sank into flesh with wet, sucking sounds. Meat flew in clumps. Blood sprayed across my hands, my face, into my mouth. I tasted it—salty, metallic, foreign.

  The goblin had long ceased to be a goblin.

  Only pulp remained—red, gray, pale.

  And still I struck.

  Before my eyes—Mom.

  Father.

  The arrow.

  The blood.

  “Stay kind…”

  Strike.

  Strike.

  Strike.

  My arms gave out.

  The axe slipped from my fingers, cnged against stone.

  I knelt in the middle of the bloody mess.

  Breathing ragged, dog-like.

  The red veil slowly faded.

  The forest grew quiet again.

  Too quiet.

  And then I heard the voice.

  Low.

  Calm.

  Alien.

  “Captain… there’s a child here.”

  I slowly raised my head.

  Figures stepped from the darkness.