I watched them in silence, a faint smile tugging at my lips. The children, their clothes and faces spattered with blood, were frozen in a tense stillness. Their raspy, ragged breaths filled the room like a discordant chorus, shattered by exhaustion and fear.
— AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
My laughter echoed through the room, powerful and devastating, filling every corner of this space saturated with the smells of fear and death. It bounced off the bare walls, vibrating like an invisible wave, and the children flinched, their shoulders shaking with each burst.
But suddenly, my laughter faded.
Something was wrong. An absence.
I squinted, scanning the trembling figures before me. Then I noticed: one was missing.
My gaze swept around the room until it settled on her.
She stood there, in her original position, motionless as a forgotten statue. A little girl with matted black hair, dark locks cascading over her thin shoulders. In her arms, she clutched a worn-out doll, her tiny fingers digging into the toy's shabby fabric. The doll, once undoubtedly beloved, wore a macabre mask of red splatter on its face, a grotesque parody of innocence.
Her eyes, a dull brown, seemed empty. No fear, no anger, nothing. As if all emotion had been ripped from her.
She didn't move. Not a step, not a gesture.
I felt a flicker of curiosity stir within me, mixed with icy irritation.
"You, over there!" I snapped, breaking the frozen atmosphere. Why didn't you join them?
She slowly raised her head to me, her eyes locking with mine without trembling. Just an unsettling calm, a tranquility so strange that it was almost insolent.
Her voice, soft but calm, rose in the air, breaking the murmur of the surrounding fear.
"You said to follow you only if we feel fear."
A smile, thin and curious, stretched my lips.
"Interesting," I murmured, almost to myself.
I took a step toward her. Then another.
She, however, did not move.
I stopped in front of her, my silhouette dominating hers, casting a shadow that completely enveloped her. My gaze plunged into her empty eyes, searching for something, a flaw, an emotion, but I found nothing.
"So… you're not afraid?" I asked, my voice low and icy.
She blinked slowly, her arms tightening the doll slightly against her chest.
"No," she answered simply.
A shiver, imperceptible but real, ran down my spine. This girl was different. An anomaly in an already broken group, but she didn't carry the same fear, the same submission as the others.
I felt an incomparable excitement.
She was much more interesting than Mathieux.
A thought suddenly germinated in my mind, a thought so delicious that it brought a slow and cruel smile to my lips.
I positioned myself behind her, my movement fluid, almost predatory. My shadow enveloped her small form, but she didn't move, not even a shudder. My head slowly leaned down, my lips moving closer to her ear as my gaze, cold and sharp, moved towards the other children and the inert body on the ground.
"Very well," I murmured, my voice vibrating with morbid pleasure. "Let's test this."
A twisted smile distorted my features as I slowly raised my right hand, placing my fingers in front of my eyes and those of the little girl. Her breathing remained calm, regular, as if she were observing a scene that did not concern her.
Then, with a precise gesture charged with a devouring anticipation, I snapped my fingers.
The sharp sound of the snap echoed in the room, a seemingly insignificant noise, but which carried with it a dull tension, like a taut rope ready to break.
The children, still trembling and bloodstained, turned to me, their gazes full of incomprehension. I could see the confusion on their faces, expressions mixed with fatigue and fear. One of them, a boy with a face covered in dirt, frowned as if trying to understand the meaning of this seemingly innocuous gesture.
Then, suddenly, a scream tore through the air.
"Aaaaah!"
The shrill scream came from a little girl with tangled red hair. She clutched her arms around her stomach, her eyes wide with terror. A grotesque lump was forming under her skin, swelling rapidly like a trapped air bubble.
The other children froze, their gazes fixed on her, panic rising in waves in their eyes. But before they could react, more screams rang out.
"What the—?" one boy screamed, as his right arm began to swell grotesquely, the skin stretched as if it were about to burst.
"Help me!" another begged, her voice cracking with uncontrolled sobs as her leg buckled under the monstrous swelling.
Panic set in like an uncontrollable fire.
The children, seized by frenzy, began running in all directions, their screams blending into an unbearable cacophony. Their limbs, their torsos, their faces… every part of their bodies began to swell, their figures distorted by an invisible force.
Then
BOM. BOM. BOM. BOM. BOM. BOM. BOM. BOM.
The sound exploded through the room, a brutal, repeated roar, like a storm raging in an enclosed space. Each explosion was a violent detonation, followed by a sonic wave that vibrated through the walls, the floor, and up into my chest.
The children, a moment before frozen in tense stillness, were suddenly thrown into a macabre dance of destruction.
Their bodies burst, shredded in bloody chaos. Limbs, fragments of flesh, and shards of bone flew in all directions, describing grotesque arcs before falling to the ground with sickening, wet sounds.
Blood spurted out in violent geysers, painting the walls a deep red, crashing in thick droplets onto the already soiled floor. The air, heavy with metallic and acrid smells, seemed to take on an almost unbearable density, saturated with death and destruction.
Pieces of torn clothing floated in the air for a moment before falling limply, like dead leaves carried away by a gust of wind.
The doll in the girl's arms was splashed with new red stains, but she remained motionless, her face still frozen in that blank and impenetrable expression.
The noise slowly faded, giving way to an almost deafening silence, laden with the cracking of debris falling to the ground and the last drops of blood dripping from the walls.
I straightened slightly, my eyes scanning the remains of what, a few moments earlier, had been a group of trembling children. Now, only fragments remained, a grotesque mosaic of what they had been.
I let out a satisfied sigh, my smile still present.
I looked down at the little girl.
She wasn't shaking. She wasn't crying. She wasn't reacting.
Her fingers, still clenched around her doll, remained motionless. Her empty eyes stared unblinkingly at the carnage.
"Fascinating."
My light, almost amused tone contrasted with the absolute horror that surrounded me. The room, once silent, was now saturated with blood and human fragments, a grotesque tableau of unimaginable brutality. But she, the little girl, stood there, like an island in the middle of this red chaos.
I tilted my head, my icy eyes settling on her with an almost possessive curiosity.
"Look at me," I said, my voice soft but commanding. "What do I look like?"
She looked up at me slowly, her eyelids blinking once, as if she were waking from a distant dream. Then, calmly, she answered:
"You look like a human shadow," she said finally, her voice as flat as a still mirror of water. "The only thing I can see are your eyes."
She paused, then added, in a tone as detached as ever:
"A celestial blue, so clear that they seem made of living ice. But in the center… an animal pupil. A reptilian slit split your irises, black and deep."
I remained silent for a moment, savoring the almost clinical precision of her answer. Then a smile slowly stretched across my lips, revealing my white teeth in a carnivorous gleam.
"Good, good, good," I murmured, my amusement vibrating in the air like a taut rope. "She really has no fear… or maybe… she has conquered it."
I crouched down slightly, lowering my figure to get to her level. My gaze met hers, trying to penetrate the unfathomable mystery that surrounded her.
"What is your name?" I asked, my voice soft, almost caressing, but vibrating with an undeniable authority.
She tilted her head slightly, as if to assess my question, before answering flatly, "
"Selene."
I stood up, dominating the room again, and raised my arms, my smile widening into an expression that was both triumphant and terrifying.
"I, Adonis, Prince of Hell, son of Satan, the only Living God," I declared, my voice echoing through the space like thunder, each word vibrating with raw power.
The room itself seemed to shudder under the force of my words, the walls almost oozing with an invisible but oppressive energy.
I pointed a finger at her, my arm outstretched in judgment, while my eyes glowed with an icy light, a pale blue flame that seemed to dance in my reptilian pupils.
"I proclaim you as my servant!"
My voice echoed through the room, vibrating with power. The atmosphere, already heavy with blood and destruction, became stifling, saturated with an almost tangible energy, burning like the breath of a volcano.
She stood still for a moment, frozen like a statue. Then suddenly, she cried out.
A raw, piercing, wrenching scream, laden with pain no words could describe. Her small body tensed under the invisible impact of my words, her shoulders shaking as she abruptly let go of her doll. The toy fell to the floor with a thud, splattered with blood, as her hands clapped to her mouth in an instinctive gesture.
The smell arrived almost immediately.
A sharp, pungent scent, a combination of burnt flesh and sulfur, so intense that it invaded my nostrils and seemed to claw at my throat. The air itself seemed to twist, ripple with the dark energy.
She fell to her knees, her frail body shaking with spasms. Her trembling fingers slowly slid from her mouth, revealing her parted lips and ragged breathing. And then, she stuck out her tongue.
A hot breath, laden with that infernal odor, escaped from her mouth, an invisible but perceptible cloud, poisoning the air around her. On her tongue, the flesh reddened and marked, a symbol emerged, engraved as if with a hot iron.
It was a complex design, a perverse fusion between the mark of the beast and another pattern, even more disturbing: a pair of eyes.
Eyes of a bright celestial blue, but their iris was split by a reptilian pupil, black and deep. Each detail of the design seemed alive, pulsing weakly like a miniature heart engraved in her flesh.
She slowly closed her mouth, her breathing remaining hoarse, as if the effort to contain this pain was exhausting her.
I crouched down in front of her, my eyes never leaving her face. Her cheeks were red, burned by the invisible mark that had imprinted itself on her. But her eyes remained the same: empty, unfathomable, fixed on a distant point that I could not reach.
A smile stretched my lips.
"The seal is perfect," I murmured, my voice filled with an icy satisfaction.
I could feel the energy emanating from her, an almost imperceptible but present vibration, as if this mark had opened a door inside her, freeing something deeply buried.
With an almost ceremonial fluidity, I lifted her.
Her frail legs rested on my left arm, while my right arm supported her back. Her torn doll, stained with blood and dust, hung between her tiny fingers. I was careful not to let it fall. After all, a servant must be treated with care, even when he is still being shaped.
She did not flinch. Not a breath grew louder, not a strain in her muscles. She was there, in my arms, light as a feather, as if the weight of her existence had been sucked away by this infernal mark engraved in her.
I turned toward the exit, my footsteps echoing softly on the stone floor, crushing the shards of broken wood and bloody fragments scattered at my feet. The air inside was heavy, saturated with iron and sulfur, but as I approached the opening, it filled with a cold, dry wind, carrying a fine, acrid dust.
"I had a good game when I woke up in this world," I murmured, my voice carried on the dusty wind.
"It is time," I continued, my words tinged with voracious ambition, "to create my Paradise."