My shoulders slump as everything speeds up.
The Blue Tongue hurls Ren to the ground.
He slams him against the bars, pressing his flesh to the metal. A sizzling sound fills the dungeon.
The others in Ren's cell either gag from the stench or from the sight.
Ren groans, his small fists battering the Blue Tongue's thick arm like a helpless insect.
He looks so weak.
My little brother.
I remember when he feared the dark, how I would always check under the bed with him for monsters.
And now the monster is here.
And I can do nothing.
Ren's hair shakes over his forehead. His feet kick at the Blue Tongue's knee.
The Blue Tongue stumbles slightly—Ren strikes upward, his fist hammering the forearm vertically while his other hand twists it sideways.
A sickening crack echoes through the dungeon.
The Blue Tongue screams, his bloated beer gut collapsing under its own weight as he crumples.
His knife slips from his grasp.
"Jud, let us have some fun too!" a voice shouts from above deck. It rings out like the majestic voice of an angel descending with the light, but it is likely just another Blue.
"S-stop!" Jud yells as Ren rushes toward him, eyes flicking to the knife in his hand. He strikes first at the throat, then the chest, then the stomach. Three stabs. Then five. The Blue collapses to the ground. Silence falls. The only sound that remains is Ren's ragged breathing as he looks at me—smiling. He looks so innocent when he kills.
My world is still shimmering, blurred by tears.
"Elliot." My little brother rises from the thick-bodied Blue, Jud, and takes a step toward me. "Survive." His voice is calm, as if these were his final words to me. My lips quiver, torn between a smile and a sob.
"Jud?" The same majestic voice calls out again, but when he sees the lifeless body on the ground, his tone shifts into a desperate cry. Thick, blue blood seeps across the wooden planks, pooling into the darkness. Ren stands there, bathed in the dim light, his face cast in eerie blue shadows.
His eyes narrow as he looks up. Another Blue stands there—a dark one. He stares down in horror at his fallen comrade before turning to call the others. "Jud is dead!"
More Blues gather, their presence suffocating. My gaze returns to Ren. He stands firm, a knife still gripped in his right hand. He is so small, yet he looks so brave.
The Blue with the angelic voice steps forward first, singing a hymn in a language unknown to me. He cuts his palm, letting azure blood drip onto the deck. Ren sinks to his knees, waiting. But the Blue with his proud, upturned nose and golden curls stops just before the last step, looking down at my brother as if he were an insect.
Ren is gasping for air now, his shoulders burning, his back aching. He is drenched in both red and blue blood. My heart stops. My vision wavers.
The hymn ceases. Ren's long knife has vanished. A longer blade now pierces through his thigh.
Ren kneels, his entire body trembling like mine. No sound. No breath. I break inside.
The curly-haired Blue rips the knife free, dragging it through the muscle. And for the first time, I hear Ren scream. A scream of agony. A scream of grief. A scream of terror.
My eyes land on his back, covered in deep, charred welts. It looks as if his skin has been peeled away. I want to look away, but I cannot. My little brother.
He gasps. The fight leaves his body. His shoulder, like mine, slumps forward. He is going to die.
I try to scream, but no sound escapes. Only a wire around my throat, tightening, suffocating me. I am the elder. He is the younger. Yet I watch as he is taken above, when it should have been me.
I look up, catching a final glimpse of his heels, his body encased in light—
—and then nothing.
Eternal emptiness.
A void that wraps around my heart like a noose, squeezing until I cannot breathe. I want to go back. Back to how it used to be.
I lower my gaze, staring at my trembling hands, filthy with my own filth. My hair hangs over my tear-streaked face. My breath is thick and heavy in my lungs.
It is over.
My brother will be dead.
And without him… what reason do I have to be here?
I want to slam my fists against the bars. I do not. Instead, I bite down on my inner cheeks so hard that I taste blood. I bite harder. Until I shear off the tip of my own tongue.
"You bastard!" I try to scream, but only hot air escapes my lips. My brows knot so tightly that my vision darkens.
My eyes land on the old man.
I lunge.
My right arm tenses. My fist collides with his jaw. Weak, yet it breaks him.
My left follows, slamming into his eye, then his temple. Everyone around me recoils. For the first time, I have a single step of space in every direction. And the old man lies beneath me, his wrinkled face crushed under my bloodied fists.
He groans, pleads for mercy.
I keep hitting him.
Once is not enough. Twice does not satisfy. My rage is a bottomless abyss.
I strike again. And again. First his eye and cheek turn blue, then red. Within a handful of heartbeats, his face swells beyond recognition. Within thirty seconds, he is motionless.
Like a beast, I lift my head, scanning the room. My eyes drag behind, delayed in their movement. They all back away from me. They flinch. The one who had sneered at me earlier cowers behind a frail woman.
I look down. Pitiful.
The old man beneath me—his face is nothing but a ruined mass of flesh.
He is as old as my father would be now.
A fleeting sorrow passes through me. Then I spit on his face. My split chin deflects most of it, sending it dribbling down my throat. I do not care.
I breathe heavily. They all watch me in silence.
Tears spill from my eyes, and I roll off the corpse, curling in on myself, my heart shattered beyond repair.