From the corner, I watched them without blinking.

  “This is how you eat this sweet, children. First, lick it. It melts in your mouth and releases that caramel flavor that everyone loves. Don’t bite it. You might break your teeth.”

  “You have to savor it slowly… very slowly… until you feel that your body no longer belongs to you.”

  It was a pack. She, the alpha wolf, feeding her pups with meat that was still throbbing.

  Everyone began to lick what she called “strawberry candies.”

  My stomach betrayed me for a second: I wanted one. I wanted to taste, for the first time, a flavor that only people with money could enjoy. But my brain knew the truth. I stayed pinned to the ground, the hairs on my arm bristling like barbed wire. My swollen eye throbbed as if it had a life of its own. Tap. Tap. Tap.

  They were enjoying it.

  Enjoying it?

  The shock pierced through me like a red-hot iron.

  Their eyes turned the same viscous red as the candies. Crimson threads crawled through their pupils like living maggots devouring the retina. At the same time, they stopped licking.

  They froze.

  The boy who tasted it first fell to his knees. His head bounced against an irregular stone. CRACK! The skull split open like the shell of a boiled crustacean, letting the heat from inside escape. Blood and brain matter splashed the moldy earth in a hot arc. A shard of white bone peeked through the mess. He convulsed three times—back arched, fingers spasming like claws, tongue out—and then, he went still. A red pool grew beneath his head, soaking into the dirt like a hungry sponge.

  Dead.

  What the hell are you doing, Ela?

  Tsk. Help me, bastard. We can’t let the others fall like this.

  The voice that for months had called us “cute,” that had told us it was okay to dream, that we could laugh… it was a mask. Everything was a mask.

  My fist clenched until my nails dug into my palm and blood welled up. The hate burned hotter than my wounded eye.

  You’re a liar, you bitch.

  It wasn’t just a word. It was everything I had believed for months. Every puppet show had been my only refuge: sitting in the shadows, forgetting the smell of blood on my hands, forgetting I was an orphan. Forgetting that the world hated me. And she… she had made me believe that at least there, in that moldy corner, I could be a child for a little while longer.

  And now it was all a lie.

  I believed you. I let you in. And you used me.

  My chest rose and fell with short breaths, as if the air itself were burning me. The hate was no longer just rage. It was betrayal. The kind of betrayal that leaves a hole that never heals. The kind that makes you want to rip out your own heart just to stop feeling it.

  “The sedative lasts for two days. Perfect for them to wake up once they reach Iron Solstice.”

  The other guy, the one in charge of moving the puppets, had come out. Together with the girl, they began to lift the limp bodies, careful not to let them hit the ground.

  “Tark, what do we do with the one who fell?”

  Ela knelt beside the corpse. She turned him over. The wound was a crater: exposed bone, grayish brain matter peeking through clots. She pressed her forehead against his, staining her face with his death.

  “Hurry up, Ela. I’m sorry about the dead kid. But it was something we didn’t foresee. Those bastards at the fortress increased the sedative’s potency. The weak don’t last at all. Better he died today and not in battle.”

  “I know… but still… we spent two whole months coming here, giving them shows… I know their names, their tastes, even their dreams…”

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Her hand slid slowly through the blood-stained hair of the lifeless boy.

  “I’m sorry, Ciro.”

  “Don’t regret it now,” Tark said. “We spent months indoctrinating them for war. This isn’t your fault. It’s ours. And I’m fine with having killed a child. I hope you are too.”

  She lowered her eyes as if feeling shame.

  “I know.”

  “Get up. I’ve already loaded most of them into the wagon. We have to leave now. If they find us…”

  What? What? What?

  My head was a whirlwind. From my corner, I could only see them, not hear them clearly, but her expression… that bitch’s expression was one of true sorrow, of deep unhappiness.

  My eyes jumped from the woman to the man loading each child into the horse-drawn wagon.

  What do I do? What do I do?

  My mind was racing at a thousand miles an hour. I brought my finger to my mouth, biting my nail hard. A habit I had when I had to think deeply.

  What is happening? They’ve taken them all. But… why? They were always kind. But today was different. Did something happen? Their scene was strange too. Very similar to what the mayor said when he arrived.

  Crick. Crick. Crick.

  I was breaking my nail from biting it so hard.

  A show encouraging revolt. Sleeping children. A face of pity. War?

  My mind reached an answer. But I had no way to confirm it. It was only a guess. If I was wrong…

  "Boy. You are not a savior. Much less someone who should concern himself with morality."

  The words of the High Executioner returned like an echo.

  Yes... why should I help them? In that group are the ones who hurt me. If I help them, nothing will change. We are humans, and as such... hahaha. Yes. Revenge is a pleasure, and a favor is a chain.

  I tried to close my eyes. But one wouldn’t respond.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  Why should I help them? They hurt me. It’s better if they die. I wonder how their corpses will look… NO. My creed, my creed is only to enjoy it when they are bad people. They aren’t bad, I answered myself.

  I…

  Yes. I looked down.

  They are bad.

  I stayed still. This time tucking my entire body into the corner where I was. It’s better if they die.

  Looking at my feet, I saw that the light on the ground—previously dark with red tints—was turning into pure blood. A deep, thick red that seemed to bleed from the sky itself. My body began to tremble uncontrollably, tears welling in the corners of my eyes as if they wanted to escape before I did.

  NOooo.

  My thoughts clouded. They dissolved into a single desire that burned like acid: to kill. To maim. To destroy everything and everyone. There was no guilt. There was no creed. Only hunger. A hunger that made me salivate blood.

  The Great Moon in the sky emanated an intense, blinding light. The world was dyed a single color. The color of blood. Everything was red. The ground, the trees, the corpses, my trembling hands. Even my tears were red.

  It’s not possible. Today wasn’t the day. The priests swore there was a month left. A whole month!

  “Tark…”

  Ela, get in the wagon now! Clear your mind! Breathe! DON’T LET IT CONTROL YOU!

  “Tark…”

  Ela!

  She was still holding the dead boy in her arms, as if he were a broken doll. The open skull still dripped gray brains and yellowish clots that stained her dress. Her face was serene. Too serene.

  “I killed him. I KILLED THIS CHILD. AHAHAHA.”

  Her laughter came out broken, like crushed glass. Her hand moved toward the lifeless boy’s hand. She laced her fingers through his with a sickly tenderness. Then she grabbed one… and CRACK.

  She bent it slowly backward. The bone dislocated with a wet snap, like green wood splitting. The skin stretched, tore, revealing the white tendon before snapping. Blood welled up in a thin thread that ran down her wrist.

  “I KILLED HIM, TARK. I KILLED HIM! I KILLED HIM!”

  CRACK. CRACK. CRACK-CRACK-CRACK.

  Ela broke every single one of the boy’s fingers. One after another. Without mercy. The knuckles split open like rotten flowers, exposing splintered bone and torn cartilage. Each snap was louder than the last. Ela’s laughter grew with every broken bone, a sound that wasn’t human. It was something that had shattered inside her and was now coming out free.

  Shit. She’s lost.

  Tark tried to run toward the wagon, but something stopped him. Ela’s hand was already on his shoulder. A hand dripping with child blood and brains.

  Crimson smoke formed around her like a thin layer of living mana. The air became heavy, hot, smelling of burnt iron and scorched flesh.

  “Ela…” Tark’s eyes opened with pure terror. He was just the assistant. A warrior without mana. But she… she was a Hero.

  Ela’s eyes were no longer green. They were completely red—no pupil, no iris. Two pits of boiling blood that absorbed the light.

  “Tark… you killed them.”

  She gripped his shoulder with bestial strength. And ripped.

  Tark’s right arm came clean off in a spray of arterial blood that painted the air and splashed the ground like red rain. Pink muscle filaments and tendons hung like broken, wet strings. The shoulder bone snapped in two, splintering with a dry crunch that echoed like a thunderclap. The flesh tore in jagged shreds, revealing the interior of the torso: ribs exposed, shining white amidst the blood, lungs throbbing in visible panic, each breath puffing out red bubbles through the stump. Hot blood splashed onto Ela’s face, mixing with the dead boy’s in thick rivulets that ran down her chin.

  Tark screamed. A broken, guttural scream that cut off into a gurgle as the blood loss hit him. He staggered, the stump bubbling like a broken fountain, intermittent jets soaking his shirt and the earth. He fell to his knees, wheezing, his left hand clutching the mangled shoulder as if he could stop the bleeding. His eyes, wide open, looked at Ela with pure terror and betrayal.

  He wasn’t dead. Not yet.

  But he was no longer the same Tark. He was broken meat, a man who had just lost his arm and his hope in seconds.

  Dong-dong. Dong-dong.

  The bells of the Holy Church of Wester began to ring with urgency. It wasn’t the call to prayer. It was the alarm.

  Marking the start of the Great Massacre.

  And I, from the corner, trembling under the red light, felt something inside me break forever.

  Author’s Note: