"So?" I said, my voice soft but sharp, like the whisper of a blade brushing against skin.
I spread my arms slightly, an almost theatrical invitation.
"Go ahead. Show me what you've got."
The boy stood there for a moment, his fingers clenched around the broken staff. The flickering light in his eyes wavered between doubt and desperate determination. His hands were shaking, and I could almost hear the rough wood sliding beneath his sweaty palms.
Then, suddenly, he moved.
A scream burst from his throat, raw, primal, a sound that mixed uncontrollable fear and fierce rage. The scream, clumsy yet powerful, hit me full force.
He charged.
I could hear every detail of his movement. The rapid slap of his footsteps on the ground, the air vibrating around him as he raised the staff to strike. His short, ragged breaths grew louder in my mind, a drum beating the cadence of his desperate courage.
He leapt, using all his body weight to give momentum to his attack. The wood sliced through the air with a harsh hiss, a raw but determined trajectory, aimed straight at my face.
I waited.
I didn't move, letting the excitement build inside me, savoring this moment when everything came together. Everything about him converged on this moment: his fear, so palpable it made the air heavy; his will, fragile but unwavering, bright as fire; and his courage, that desperate spark that drove him to act.
And finally, he struck.
BOOM.
The stick crashed into my chest with brute force, the impact echoing through the air like a contained explosion. There was a loud crack, followed by a sharp crack, and pieces of wood flew into the air, describing disordered arcs before falling limply to the ground.
I didn't move.
The silence that followed was almost palpable, heavy, stifling, broken only by the sound of fragments of wood hitting stone. My gaze slowly went down to where it had struck. There, on my skin, a thin dark mark was visible, like a fleeting shadow on an immaculate wall. But no pain. No real damage.
I looked up.
The boy stared at me, his breath coming out in ragged gasps in the dense air. His fingers trembled slightly, still clenched around the handle of the stick. His eyes were wide, shining with a mixture of shock and terror. But he didn't flinch.
For a moment, he seemed to hesitate. His fingers slid over the already cracked wood, rough and jagged, as if weighing the futility of continuing. But that hesitation was swept away almost immediately by a fierce glint, a defiant glint in his eyes.
And he struck again.
CRACK.
The stick struck my skin again, breaking further under the force of his attack. Each impact echoed through the room, a brutal echo in the tension-filled space.
Then another blow, and another.
The boy repeated the gesture with an almost animal frenzy, the wood cracking under each impact. Shards flew with each blow, clawing the air before falling at his feet. The smell of broken wood mingled with the more persistent smell of blood and sweat emanating from his body.
I remained motionless, my gaze fixed, absorbing every detail. I felt the energy he was pouring out, his jerky breath becoming a hoarse rattle, his body trembling under the colossal effort he was deploying. His hands, although so small, were determined to hold the stick that had become almost shapeless.
The wood splintered once more, then finally gave way.
There was nothing left but fragments in his bloody hands. The splintered pieces of wood had torn his tender flesh, leaving thin but deep gashes, from which bright red blood trickled down slowly onto his fingers. His palms, raw and reddened by the exertion, now shook uncontrollably, unable to contain what remained of his shattered weapon.
In a slow, almost mechanical motion, he released the fragments. They fell to the ground with a hollow, muffled sound, like a mournful punctuation marking the end of his desperate attempt.
A heavy silence fell over the room.
The boy swayed on his legs, every muscle in his body seeming to betray his will to stand. His knees buckled slightly, and his feet slid imperceptibly on the soiled floor, as if he were seeking stability that would never come.
His breath, raspy and labored, filled the air with a guttural sound, a rattle punctuated by uncontrolled gasps. His shoulders, which had previously tensed in a defiant posture, slumped completely. They collapsed as if an invisible, insurmountable weight had fallen on him.
His arms hung limply at either side of his body, inert, abandoned. The fingers that had been clenched a moment earlier were now open, stiff, as if drained of all life.
But it was his face that bore the weight of his despair.
His features, already marked by fear and exhaustion, now seemed frozen in an expression that no longer had any strength or will. His cheeks, hollowed by the effort and streaked with traces of dirt and sweat, trembled slightly. His lips, chapped and pale, parted at times, but no sound came out, as if even words had given up their struggle.
And his eyes…
Redden by tears that he refused to let fall, they still stared at me, but without the flame that had burned there before. The fierce glow that had defied the inevitable was extinguished, replaced by a deep, unfathomable void. His eyes shone with a dull glow, a sadness so overwhelming that it seemed to ooze from him, filling the space around him.
Despair consumed him, palpable, almost tangible.
It was evident in every detail: in the way his body leaned forward slightly, as if he were ready to give in to gravity, to collapse; in his long, jerky sighs, as if each breath were a burden; in the stillness of his feet, planted in the ground, unable to flee, unable to move forward.
A sigh, light and almost imperceptible, escaped my lips. He would no longer be of any use to me. His struggle had been fascinating, almost moving, but it had faded. Now he was nothing but a useless weight, a vestige of a fight already forgotten.
I raised my arm.
The movement was fluid, precise, imbued with that calculated indifference that inhabited me. My fingers tightened slightly, ready to strike down the final sentence.
Then, a cry tore through the air.
"No! Don't kill him!"
The voice, high and trembling, cut through the silence like a blade. It was sharp, still marked by the innocence of childhood, but vibrating with an emotion so intense that it stopped me dead in my tracks.
I slowly turned my head.
It was a girl, one of the children in the group who had been watching me in silence until then. She was perhaps eight years old, at the most. Her hair, long and tangled, was a dull brown, stained with dust and dried blood. Her face, dirty and smudged, was illuminated by her eyes, large green eyes that shone like precious stones in the half-light.
She was shaking slightly, her small, frail body shaking with fear, but she remained standing. Her hands, tiny and damaged, were clutched against her chest as if to protect something invisible. Her lips, parted, still quivered with the effort it had taken to scream.
The air seemed heavier around her, charged with her raw emotion. I could feel the heat of her despair, a heat that contrasted with the icy cold of the room.
She took a step forward, hesitant but determined. Her bare feet slipped lightly on the rough floor, leaving small footprints in the dust and blood.
"You need servants…" she whispered, her voice broken, trembling, but oddly insistent.
Her words cut through the oppressive silence of the room. The echo of her sentence echoed faintly, mingling with the panting breaths of the boy still on his knees and the dull beat of my own growing interest.
"Servants?" I repeated, doubtful, my tone low and laden with a mixture of amusement and curiosity.
The word, so strangely out of place in the mouth of this child, made me frown.
"Yes, it's… it's the voices," she answered stammering, her head lowered for a moment before she raised her green eyes to me. "They led us to you. They say we must serve you."
At these words, another child, younger, stepped forward timidly. Her tangled blond hair fell in dirty strands around her face. Her dress, once white, was now stained with brownish and scarlet stains. She clutched a piece of cloth to her, like a protective talisman.
"Yes, that's true," she added, her voice soft but strangely assured. "They even brought back a sacrifice, thanks to the voices."
Her small head turned back briefly, her brown hair in tangled strands following her movement. Her green eyes pointed to a point in the shadows behind me.
My gaze instinctively followed hers.
There, stretched out on the ground, lay a motionless body. The old man.
His chest barely rose and fell, his breath weak but still present. Each breath seemed like a struggle, a monumental effort to push back the inevitable. His face, lined and marked by the years, was frozen in an expression of confusion and pain. His eyelids fluttered slightly, revealing at times a glassy sheen in his eyes, as if he were trying to understand where he was and why he was there.
They had managed to trick him. These children, so frail in appearance, had maneuvered this old man, drawing him here like a spider patiently weaving its web. Perhaps they had seduced him with promises of innocence, of need, or perhaps he had simply been trapped by his own naivety.
"Ahaha…"
The children flinched slightly at the sound, but none moved, their eyes fixed on me with an intensity that mixed fear and devotion.
"What an interesting group of children," I murmured, my voice barely rising above a breath, but enough to break the heavy silence.
"But… we didn't expect Mathieux to attack you!" exclaimed a third voice, brittle, like a complaint.
This time, it was a boy, barely older than the first. Her black hair fell in stiff locks over her forehead, and her face bore the marks of exhaustion and fear. Her lips trembled slightly, but her gaze was fixed on me with a strange glow of devotion mixed with fear.
"Forgive him!" they cried suddenly in unison, their youthful voices blending in a strange discordant harmony.
They knelt slowly, each placing a hand on the cold, soiled ground, their heads bowed in an almost solemn gesture of supplication. Even the little brown-haired girl, who had dared to come forward first, sank to her knees, her frail little body shaken by rapid, nervous breaths.
I let my eyes wander over them, lingering on every detail: their torn clothes, their damaged hands, their eyes shining with a strange adoration. The air seemed thicker around them, charged with a murky energy, a mixture of desperate hope and visceral fear.
"Voices, huh?" I said finally, a slow, cold smile stretching my lips.
They nodded in silence, trembling, their noisy breaths filling the space like a silent prayer.
"And this sacrifice?" I continued, my tone low and slippery like a blade. "Is it for me?"
A murmur of approval rose among them, fragile but united.
The boy named Mathieux, still on his knees, looked up at me with difficulty. His lips, dry and cracked, moved weakly:
"Sorry… I shouldn't have… hit you…"
His voice trembled, filled with shame and terror. Each word seemed to carve a painful groove into the heavy air of the room. I watched him in silence, my eyes catching every shudder of his fragile body, every gasp of breath he struggled to control.
A smile slowly stretched my lips, cold and indifferent.
"Okay," I said, my voice calm but vibrant with implacable authority.
The boy raised his head slightly, a fleeting flash of hope crossing his misty gaze.
"If you're afraid of me," I continued, "you're all going to pick up a piece of wood from the ground… and end this man's life."
A murmur of disbelief ran through the ranks of the children. Their eyes met furtively, an almost palpable tension spreading between them.
"When I'm done," I added, watching them closely, "I'll forgive you." And you will become my servants.
The silence fell again, more oppressive than ever.
Mathieux looked down again, his shoulders shaking with uncontrollable tremors. Around him, the other children remained frozen, as if petrified by the magnitude of what had just been demanded.
"Well?" I said, my tone light but sharp, breaking their hesitation. "You want to be forgiven, don't you?"
Slowly, very slowly, Mathieux reached out a trembling hand toward a piece of broken wood at his feet. His skin, reddened and cut from his previous efforts, brushed the rough surface. He grasped it awkwardly, his trembling fingers struggling to maintain their grip.
The sound of this gesture seemed to wake the others.
One of the girls, the one with tangled brown hair, swallowed loudly before crouching down to pick up another piece of wood. Her tiny hands, stained with dried blood, shook so violently that the fragment she held seemed ready to slip away from her.
One by one, the children followed.
Their little fingers, dirty and damaged, clutched at the shards of wood scattered around them. Each movement seemed heavy, each gesture imbued with a hesitation that made the scene almost unreal.
"Come closer," I ordered softly, my gaze fixed on them like a predator observing a pack of prey.
They advanced slowly, their shuffling footsteps echoing faintly on the hard ground. The tension in the air was almost suffocating, mixed with the acrid smell of blood and fear.
The man, still lying on the ground, was breathing shallowly. His chest barely rose and fell, each breath a painful effort that seemed about to stop at any moment. His face was a mask of confusion and silent terror, his half-closed eyes rolling feebly in their sockets.
The children stopped a few paces away from him, forming an imperfect circle around his body. Their pieces of wood, uneven and torn, seemed grotesque in their small hands, clumsy instruments of death in those that should never have held them.
"Now," I said, crossing my arms, my icy voice cutting through the silence like a blade. "Do it."
Their eyes met again, a mixture of horror, disbelief, and brutal fear. Mathieux, in the center of the circle, looked at his piece of wood as if it were burning in his hand.
"If you don't," I whispered, my voice low but vibrating with an implicit threat, "then maybe I should… deal with you, one by one."
The words fell into silence like a stone thrown into stagnant water. The atmosphere, already heavy and suffocating, seemed to tense further. I saw their frail bodies stiffen, their breathing quicken like that of trapped animals.
These children, already scarred by the horror of what they were experiencing, teetered on the edge of a decision that would forever shatter what remained of their innocence.
And then, Mathieux moved.
The boy slowly lifted his piece of wood. His fingers trembled violently, his knuckles white from the force with which he gripped this improvised weapon. His feet slid lightly on the soiled ground as he approached the old man's body.
His first blow was weak, hesitant.
The piece of wood struck the old man's shoulder with a dull, almost insignificant thud, a gesture so clumsy that it might have seemed pathetic in other circumstances. But here, in this room saturated with tension and fear, that single blow had monumental weight.
It was the first step.
Another trembling hand soon followed. Then another.
The children, one by one, raised their pieces of wood, their frail arms falling awkwardly on the man's already battered body.
Each impact resonated faintly, a hollow, irregular sound that mingled with the crack of their panting breaths.
The old man, barely conscious, let out a gasp. A weak, broken sound that was almost immediately lost in the muffled chaos of their collective attack. His chest, which was still rising with difficulty, soon stopped moving, but the blows continued.
The scene was slow, brutal, almost unreal.
The children struck without coordination, their movements disordered and hesitant betraying their reluctance. Some closed their eyes as they fell on him, as if to escape the reality of what they were doing. Others, teeth clenched, cried silently, their tears tracing shiny furrows on their cheeks stained with dirt and blood.
The blood…
It splashed everything.
Fine droplets spurted with each impact, staining their already soiled clothes, drawing scarlet stains on their pale faces. The hot and viscous liquid slid down their hands, sticking to their skin, insinuating itself between their fingers like a second sticky skin.
The metallic smell filled the room, heavy and invasive, mixing with that of fear and sweat.
Their breaths became quicker, more jerky, as if the effort of their act was consuming them from the inside. Some of the children staggered with fatigue, their small bodies too weak to sustain the horror they were performing. But none of them stopped.
Not until it was all over.
I watched them silently, standing with my arms crossed, my smile slowly stretching.
There was a strange beauty in this scene, a morbid fascination in watching them break through that fragile barrier between innocence and monstrosity. They were like butterflies emerging from their chrysalis, but their wings, instead of being bright and luminous, were tinged red, soaked with the blood that sealed their transformation.
When they were finished, they stood still, their arms hanging, the fragments of wood slowly slipping from their tired hands. The silence returned, thick, punctuated only by their panting breaths and the stifled sobs of some.
I watched them in silence, a slight smile stretching my lips.
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA