MATURE: - Complete A Nameless World [WARNINGS: Implicit Sexual Contents, Gore]

[Xel Yel]

Hello there, my fellow readers and writers of this forum! I'm completely new here, so what better way to get you to know me than by posting a nice, healthy, bloody, psychological fan fiction for you all to read? The story is already up to Chapter XII on FanFiction.net, but I'll slowly post it here as well.

( Oh, don't be too scared by the Warnings. They are just a very small part of the story, I swear. )

Well, let me know what you think of it!

Summary:
After years of slavery, abuses, of a bloody war fought not for themselves, but for their greedy masters, these creatures - no, these monsters - rebelled. It took one month for humanity to be overturned: now the world, once a flourishing place for all species alike, is falling apart. It is in those conditions that a boy ventures forth, running away from home. What for, though?

Follow the story of a young man who undertakes a perilous journey to discover himself and the world all around him. Will he succeed in his Quest, will he be able to give a name to this Nameless World? Or will he fall at the claws of some monsters, or humans? Truly, the first challenge he has to pass is Himself.

A story rich of Adventure, Romance and Self-Introspection. Enjoy!

Table of Contents:

• Introduction
• Chapter I
• Chapter II
• Chapter III
• Chapter IV
• Chapter V
• Chapter VI
• Chapter VII
• Chapter VIII
  
• Chapter IX
• Chapter X
• Chapter XI - Coming soon...
  
• Chapter XII
• Chapter XIII
• Chapter XIV - Work in Progress...

 

[Xel Yel]

INTRODUCTION​

[To] ID#5103213 (You)

[From] Fed_Education_at_gfphr_local

[Subject] Your Document Request

[Date] 22/09/2105

[Email Content]

The Global Federation of the Pure Human Race salutes you, comrade!​

Our servers have verified that your query has been issued from an authorized account, thus it has been accepted: the document you have asked for, recognized as novel, is displayed below.

Please take note that, in conformity to the InfoPact (ratified as of 10/02/2092), any type of digitalized, written, printed, composed, recorded, formulated, painted, chiselled, or scribbled piece of information has been rightfully censored, and may also be subject to limitations of visibility according to the account's rank used for the request. Keep in mind that THIS IS CLASSIFIED MILITARY INFORMATION, and as such YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO DISTRIBUTE IT, IN ANY SHAPE OR FORM, NEITHER PARTIALLY NOR IN ITS ENTIRETY.

May the blessing of our Heavenly Saviour enlighten you,

The mind is weak, but the flesh is strong:
Work, Wage War, Win!​

[End of Content]

[Attached files] Text Document: Document720355/A

/​

[DOCUMENT 720355/A]​

An Introduction for the reader

- From the Victorious Scriptures, Genesis I

"(1) In the beginning there was only Chaos. During those nights of terror people were lost, pitted against a dark world of tremendously powerful, heartless creatures which would listen to no prayers of mercy; people were left alone, their twisted bodies crying, hiding and fleeing, trying to outrun their fate. (2) In vain, as Humanity was the weakest prey of those monsters, not a race of its own right, but an object, a gift from their Evil God which they thoroughly enjoyed. The whole world was grieving at the sight.

(3) Those wicked fiends attacked, slashed, slayed without effort the heroic men who were protecting their defenseless village and their helpless families. (4) But then, one day, came forth humanity's Heavenly Savior! With his powerful roars of blinding explosions the whole ground trembled, as He annihilated the savage enemy cowardly running away. (5) The shining tanks and rifles put order to Chaos, which was no more.

(6) People were humbly thankful. But He told them there was no need to be, for He gently took the hand of a small child and proclaimed: "(7) Fear not anymore, people of humanity! God sent a testament for you all, so Pray, and have Faith in Me! God said We will be the soldiers of the Human Race, He said We will forge a whole new world! [...] (18) This is our life, this is our mission, for the future of our children we will Work, Wage War, and Win those creations of Evil!"

(19) The voice of God had spoken. People had recognized the divine nature of their Savior and prayed to him, for they were not to fear anymore. No beast would dare to approach His blazing weapons and His majestic forces; (20) the villages would shine in the light of His words forever, and its people would rejoice for eternity."

Everyone has heard thousands of times the official slogan of the GFPHR (Global Federation of the Pure Human Race, or Federation for short) "Work, Wage War, Win!". For those who may come from a future era, if any there will be, know that we are living in grim times: truly, the Victorious Scriptures speak of a future which has never seemed so far from days like this one, 19th of June 2102.

Strange creatures, with even stranger abilities we must fight, day after day, fearing for our personal lives and safety, and ultimately the demise of us all. They can effortlessly recreate any kind of both natural and super-natural phenomena, ones humankind had to study for centuries to grasp - from the simplest of combustion to the complete manipulation of the four Aristotelian elements, even going as far as the distortion of space and time themselves, studied by Einstein's relativity no sooner than 1905. Their fighting capabilities are far beyond humans: they can rip one's body in a single Slash, control one's mind with Hypnosis or directly Bash their Skull, send someone Sky Drop from kilometers in air, Incinerate them, freeze them in a raging Blizzard, inject a deadly Toxin in their body in a matter of milliseconds, produce Earthquakes, Eruptions, and all kinds of disasters and generally slay, wipe out, annihilate everyone and everything in the most diverse and gruesome manners. The destructive power they possess is truly unfathomable.

As such, what is left of the human species, of the glorious empires and the civilized nations? People confined in small strongholds and villages throughout the world, all conquered and then governed under strict dictatorships of the Federation. Or left in the deadliest of anarchies, under God knows what abysmal conditions.

Every city – it is quite a stretch to call them as such - is ruled a bit differently, which is a must, given that there is no way for different places to send information to one another if not by paper, through a small platoon of loyal soldiers risking their lives to carry the message. Yet, the belief of all the confederates, the thing that binds all of them together, is always the same. Because of this belief, their days are always the same mixture of work, war, and little else: most follow obediently any order, even to engage in battle other people with thin foil armor and perpetually jammed weapons. I believe and I hope it is the anarchists the Federation commands we clash against in these instances, unfortunately there are no means to search into the matter and find out the righteousness of what they command us to do: even if it comes to killing possible allies or friends, we can never think think for ourselves, because the Federation says that were we to, we would become traitors and do no good, and like that humanity would never reach happiness.

What is this belief, you ask? The Federation tells us that in a not-so far away past everything was different, that there was a time in which those creatures were the ones obeying humans: we told them orders, and they complied. We have always been a weak and pathetic specie in comparison, but they would answer our needs and ease our lives, and they would always protect us against the dangers of the outside world. This is referenced later in the Victorious Scriptures, in the last book of the Revolution which refers to this golden era, this Pure Age of the Human Race which has been lost nowadays, but which will be brought back by humanity's valiant efforts, someday, as the last age of the entire human history. Then those creatures will not be monsters but tamed, forces we can use to our advantage and bring with us: pocket-monster, or poké-mon. That is indeed the true and only belief of all the confederates, rather the hope of everyone, as well as the certainty, the influence and the power the Federation applies to crush the rebel and to bend the compliant, finally the reason for which I will follow the GFPHR to the ends of this godforsaken planet, as much as I've always shrugged off the religious speeches and the ridiculous propaganda of theirs.

Truly, what we see as of today are feline blood-lovers and flesh-eaters with a desire of unconditional carnage, thus they must be stopped and enslaved, one way or another. One would suspect that it couldn't be all there is to these creatures, but the Federation does affirm so, and as such it stands an undeniable truth. As to why they were listening to our commands in the past, no one knows, while the higher ranks preach that this is all God's mysterious doing.

What we do know for certain is that a tremendous War between two super-states began several decades ago, and that in this instance we forced those monsters to fight one another; the Federation believes they must have loved doing so, giving their inclination to kill and the feral enjoyment they usually sip from the act. Yet one day, those creatures fought back. Angrily. "They wanted more," that's what the Federation replies to any suspect of abuse or mistreatment committed by men, replying that these creatures simply wanted more than the flesh and the blood of each other soaking their furry, thorny or slimy bodies when they formed another faction, far more powerful than the two human forces, and began killing people in tens and hundreds, and that certainly none of that rebellion's fault was caused by our misbehavior.

Regardless of the cause, those enraged, overpowered battle beasts made humanity regress whole centuries in little more than one month, even if they acted chaotically and wildly and not as an organized force. That's when the Federation came, from a small right-wing military party of rich people, inside the tiniest of districts of an insignificant city. They had always refused anything to do with those monsters, and they were hiding firepower. A lot of it. First they stayed out of the War, the second after they were in control of everything. To save everybody as they proclaim, equivalently to rule them all.

It should now appear clear enough to the reader that the slogan of the Federation is quite the fitting reminder of what we are today. As a fact:

To Work is a necessity. Often in the middle of the night at freezing temperatures, as to avoid the monsters that lurk around during the day, or at least most of them; always wary to pickaxe this or that rock, or to pick those fruits or those other berries, as any or all of them might hide a wild creature, just as every step one makes can wake up one or a dozen of them. People with a sufficient rank in the Army, such as myself, work instead inside the organizations of the single federated cities in which they live, as they patrol around and order both troops and citizens during war and peace in the same brash manner, because that is how the Federation wants us to behave.

To Wage War is necessary idiocy, as humanity can't seem to be able to cooperate with itself, nor to act as a single organism. As if those creatures weren't enough, we are also killing each other, we are killing others just because they don't belong to our Federation. We don't even know who they are, or what are their habits: if they really live in anarchies, if they slay one another for fun and eat each other's flesh when they are starving, if they swear against our Heavenly Saviour, if they truly are "pokè-lovers". But what am I saying, of course it must be true, if the Federation says so.

To Win, now I fear that is mere propaganda, porcelain cutlery which looks exquisite, but is of no practical usefulness. But then again, the Victorious Scriptures do affirm we will win, there is no point in denying that.

My dear reader, make no mistake: there is no point in debating any of these things further, there really isn't. The Heavenly Saviour comes from God Himself and, as such, it stands that the entire Federation is always right. Ultimately, what I am going to tell you will be no history of our times; rather, it will be a story, the kind of lighthearted tale you could read in your spare time while enjoying the ever-blaring trumpets of passing platoons outside your ratty house, one devoid of any moral or practical usefulness, one which - why not? - will even heavily feature that mixture of romantic love and action youngsters always like so much. You shouldn't think much of it: after all, it is proudly stamped in front of every school and military academy of the Federation that

Thought is not a requirement.​

 

[Xel Yel]

CHAPTER I​

"I can't… I-I can't," stuttered the young man, his blood cold at the sight in front of him. The tears in his eyes were shatters of ice, slicing - not sliding - through his cheeks, but he couldn't stop crying: what he was witnessing was a scene far more brutal than he could have ever imagined.

In the meantime, the crowd had exploded: shrieks, tears, cheers. More cheers. Anarchy was reigning inside the square, a messy mass of messy men squeezed within a place too small for all of them, their jostles and screams booming noises. The boy was engulfed within the crowd, pushed and tossed around so hard he felt he was crashing full speed, barely keeping grip on his consciousness.

"What the hell are we doing? While enemies should always be treated as worthy opponents, they should also be respected in their defeat!" he screamed, desperate to find someone, anyone who would stop that.

Yet the crowd kept acclaiming the violent show, deaf to reason. They were not going to stop the show.

The soldiers who were controlling the area stood silent, grimacing as they watched the crowd go insane. Their role was not to reassure their citizens, but to force every single individual not to divert their sight from the scene in front of them. Neither they were going to stop what was happening.

"Why is nobody doing something? Have we lost our humanity? This! This is just savage! It's just a sadistic play on death!" he kept screaming, and screaming.

Yet the crowd cheered on, and on.

His words had been completely meaningless. He couldn't endure any more of the violence, the crowd, the voices, the chaos, and so he did the only thing he could to protect his sanity: he desperately tried to withdraw into himself, seeking air he could breathe against that drowning feeling of despair. Soon his consciousness began to drift away, as the outside world blurred its edges and its colors into darkness...

/​

The icy feeling of a cold breeze, then images of the roads and the people of the city. The boy saw himself walking, granting a bored look to the sluggish scenery around him. Monochrome were the buildings, so similar to one another they could not prevent getting you lost, were you to wander around, although the inhabited area was anything but large; monochrome were the streets, nostalgic of a forgotten time in which they were being used and well-kept. Even the pale light that shone upon the city was gray, that cloudy day of November; you could say the same for everything else, from the scarce vegetation to the much more frequent images of propaganda, loosely attached to walls as old as the World itself.

"GLORY TO OUR HEAVENLY SAVIOR!" was written in black, bold letters in one of the posters, the one which pictured a row of tanks in front of a man standing above all of them as if he was taller than a mountain. His face was so bright it was impossible to identify him, and it was so radiating the Sun itself was put to shame. His right arm was stretched out of the small piece of paper he was barely contained within, commanding his numerous troops to march forward.

"BEWARE OF TRAITORS!" said another one. It was vertically divided into two parts, each containing a face close up: on the left a person with an angered expression of his darkened eyes and his emphasized worry lines and cheek borders, with nose piercing, and tattoos painted on every open inch of his skin - without a shred of doubt any physiognomist would have gladly indulged in that abundance of negative, evil connotations of his -; the right part showed instead the face of a bulky, ferocious monster, with a large mouth and rough skin of an unnatural blueberry color and tips and spikes pointing in every direction. It was clear the two were intentionally given the same look and facial expression.

It couldn't be said that these posters were fascinating, yet even those were eye-catching compared to everything else: at least between the usual dark gray, clay, and black of the city, the boy could also find hints of red and crimson, vivid and bright colors, for sure, but weirdly entrancing.

Eventually, a bunch of teenagers running through the road bumped into the boy, interrupting abruptly whatever journey of his mind he was lost within at that time.

"Over there!" "Come on, hurry up!" "Move it, guys, we really need to see this!"

They had been laughing as they had darted through the road. A strong rush of nausea hit the boy at the thought: it was disgusting to see how kids could be so playful and cynical about death. Even then he could still hear their wicked grins and chuckles as if echoing through the entire square...

They turned left at a crossing a few meters away. It was only a secondary road, yet several people seemed to be headed in that general direction; others were looking at each other, some confused, some troubled, mumbling or checking the time, only to start moving in that same manner.

It was time. On a Sunday morning, the sheep would gather together to partake in the holy function, the church's bells merrily clanging to convince everybody to enter the parish. Similarly, the loud, crackling speakers on top of poles all around the city were sinisterly announcing that it was time, and that indeed citizens were required to be bestowed a bloody blessing that day.

The boy hadn't noticed it was time until that exact moment, after he had heard from the speakers the resounding reminder of the martial law condition, the trumpets march and the drum skin being violently hit. Why was he always paying so little care to everything, how could it be he was always so unaware of himself...?

Just like everyone else, he began walking.

After all, even if he had always despised the practice - of course he had! - he knew well he would have never dared to defy the duty imposed on him. He was a coward, and he knew that whenever he was criticizing others – how foolish it was to believe that "The Federation imposes on us, but it's a necessity," that "They rule us to protect us," that "The world is full of enemies, so violence is our ally," that "The military are our heroes," that "We can sleep in our beds without worry thanks to them." - he wasn't acting differently than anyone else, which meant he was being a hypocrite on top of it.

Soon enough the narrow road was replaced by a very crowded square. In the center a wide wooden altar was set, on top of which a black metal frame, its angled sharp blade anxiously waiting to fall. It was much wider and taller than what would be used for the size of a human body, which made it all the more unsettling.

People everywhere were moving and talking: a single convicted. A big one. A drake, even. Five meters high. No, eight. Ten, maybe. Can't be more. No, definitely not human-like – this brought a general sigh of relief, several expressions reassured, yet a few disappointed, or even upset ones.

The boy felt comforted: at the very least it was going to be easier than usual, that time.

Or so he had thought. And how much he was wrong...

A dozen soldiers lined up in the middle of the wooden platform, immediately after they had raised their weapons, and stood still. A lump of medals of honor shaped in form of a man marched up there, at which they saluted. Stocky, short, but with a well-defined muscular tone, Commander Clutcher was more sparkling gold from medals than military green from his uniform, and less of visible skin than that. He would have almost been a comical figure, if only he wasn't greeted with such a disarming silence by the audience. Behind him, a gigantic metal box, as tall as the frame, was being dragged by a few soldiers to the altar, barely wide enough for it. Growls could be heard from inside it, but no one paid enough care to it, mesmerized by the voice of the commander.

"People of humanity, I do know we have to face a perilous life, day after day." he began shouting, completely ignoring the microphone next to him.

"But fear not! We are the superior species of the entire universe, and so We Shall Not Fall!" For each of those last words he pounded his chest.

"We shall reclaim what belongs to us: this planet is ours to use, and so are its pitiful creatures! A lush world awaits its conquerors, and we will make slave every single one of its beings!" He stretched his arms wide and looked at the crowd left to right.

Then he toned down his voice, following the customary of rhetoric talk. "God will avenge our children, and our men's deaths."

And then up again, like a roller coaster. "They say God betrayed us, but I tell you He did not! Such a statement is heresy! God's doing is right, and we are on His side! Pray! And have Faith: God will give us everything we want, if we are obedient." Emphasis on the "if".

"But, we also need to do our work: God does not punish the puny filth of this world by himself. Instead God sends us, the Army, to execute His word of Justice. Now, we will see His Justice!" "Justice" was more spit out than spoke.

The boy knew any sane priest would have declared that little speech of that little man pure blasphemy; the peculiarity of that occasion, is that no one did.

The soldiers put their weapons back with a swift two-steps movement and tapped their feet, perfectly synchronized. One after another, starting from the furthest from the commander, they walked down the altar and reached the box while readying their stun guns.

Finally, the container was opened. What a magnificent creature it contained!

It was crimson, with spots of orange on its ends and a lighter tone for its belly. It was as high as a house and as large as a ship, the shape of a fierce drake who could stand on its two beefy legs. Its shiny long claws compensated the short length of its arms, while the horn in its head could easily drill one's body; so could its pronounced jaws, which seemed made of steel. Its tail was literally burning, and so did its mouth as its roar made the ground tremble. It would fiercely gaze upon you with those dark blue eyes, bigger than one's hand! And far from being a show of raw force, its wingspan easily covered half of the entire square, and would definitely allow it to fly high and fast. What a fearsome creature...!

… Electrocuted by the soldiers, a single thunderous zap, and brought head down to the ground. The chains on its legs, arms and wings weren't allowing it any form of rebellion, and it looked severely exhausted already: scars and cuts were easily seen everywhere on its body, and its eyes seemed unable to focus - who knows what they had done to it beforehand...

A pained growl was all it could muster as they chained its neck and dragged it to the frame. Its gigantic body moved slowly and mechanically, almost thoughtlessly.

The boy knew something had been off; something in its lost eyes of a lost dog, or maybe in its shaky movements, anomalous of such a majestic body. Maybe something of its heavy breathing, something about its beaten stance or its lowered head... Truly, without the force to resist, the powerful being had been no more than a scared, lonely puppy.

It was eventually put under the shining blade, held by a single rope, and a single, fatal knot.

The crowd was silent more than ever.

Commander Clutcher gave one final look at the scene, before nodding at himself in self-contempt. As he raised his hand the bond was loosened by one of the soldiers...

… And the blade fell.

/​

The images came back full force at the boy, to his terrified little eyes and his young, immature mind. A soldier had noticed he had fainted during the execution, and he was violently slapping him to wake him up. He didn't want to, but he was going back at the scene of the execution, he couldn't stop his mind from awakening, he was seeing the blade falling, falling, falling falling falling hundreds of times, gaining more and more momentum, rushing as it dove the dragon's neck with tremendous force...

…yet, unfortunately, the hit did not kill the beast, as the blade went only halfway through.

"GYAAAAAARGHH!" it screamed in a deafening roar, its mouth wide open. The creature's nerves and vessels were gushing out along with a stream of blood and the pieces of the tongue it had itself bit. Everything was pouring out everywhere, a flood of liquid down on the crowd - the blessing had been given - and that mess of flesh, it could have been the work of the most brutal and insane butcher. The beast was bawling and bellowing, insane.

The chaos, the horror, the shrieks, the cheers, everything was back! The boy turned around to search for a focal point, something, someone who would act and stop that mess!

But once again, no one did. They left the fierce beast like that, even those few troubled by regret.

Thus the show went on. But, slowly, less and less. Panting, wheezing. Breathing, barely. Noiselessly, and finally soulless.

A dragon closed its eyes that day; it was the end of its misery.

May it rest in peace.​

 

[Xel Yel]

CHAPTER II​

"I want to leave."

"What?"

"I want to go outside."

"Why would you do that? It's-"

"I want to see what's beyond this poor joke of a town."

"Are you serious? Monsters live in tall grass!" replied the man, genuinely concerned.

The boy was losing his patience: he was both horrified and disgusted by what had happened, and the fact that such an execution was shown to all citizens methodically, each month a few of the monsters caught in the battlefield being sent to the guillotine and killed in the same manner, didn't help his turmoil. Nor did his lack of friends - not because he didn't want some, rather because he was not allowed to. After all, no right of association was granted, and everyone had to keep everyone else a stranger, family aside. That was, if you still had a family: months of massive deportations and years of deaths caused by war, poverty and abuse decimated the once global metropolis to a few labored strongholds. Furthermore, life was always overseen: every single step of every single person was known, and even if it had not, a very strict schedule had to be followed every day without fault.

He was sick of it, all of it. He didn't want to live like that anymore.

"So what?" he spit those words, each one forcing his repressed anger up his throat more and more. "I go to military school every day; I can defend myself."

"You wouldn't survive a day, you idiot!" said the man, raising into a raspier voice. "You are not a soldier, none of what you learn there means anything!"

Then he slowly exhaled from his lungs, clearly tired from the strain. "Listen, I know life is hard here, but-"

"Don't "but" me!" barked the boy.

"-my son, you can't be seriously thinking about leaving this city!" was the man's feeble reply.

"I can't live here anymore, that's what I'm thinking!" finally screamed the boy, releasing all his pent up frustration. He continued, on the verge of tears, "And... and you as well, look at how miserable we are... Even if we work all day and always do what they tell us... And... and today, did you see what happened today... Really, do you think it's okay to let this be... This is fine for you, this... you think this is fine?!"

The man was taken aback by his words. He knew well what his son was enduring: after all, he felt the same way. But he was also old, and it didn't matter to him how he was going to live the rest of his days. His boy instead, he deserved better! Yet he didn't want to lose his beloved, the only memory of his wife. And there was nothing that poor man that he was could do for him anyway, could he?

But could he have really kept ignoring that reality, that sooner or later his boy would have left him forever? He would shudder at the thought of hearing the unavoidable death that would have followed – no one could survive for long in the outside world! -, and all the gory details about his body, and the pain in his face of his last breath, and... No, that couldn't happen! He had to stop it, he had to find a way to convince his son that...!

And then, it struck him. It struck him that he was being just an old man fooling himself, one who wasn't acknowledging it was not the first time such a discussion had taken place, one who wasn't acknowledging that his son was getting more and more belligerent each time, and that one day he would have really left him forever, whether he liked the idea or not. In the end, there was no solution to the dilemma, and he could but repeat the only kind of words he'd always heard: orders.

"That's enough! I'm tired of this, and of your foolish dreams!" shouted the man, fisting the kitchen's table. "Stop crying, you're not a kid anymore! Now you listen to me, boy, you will stay in this city today, tomorrow, and every single day after that! No discussions!"

The boy stood silent.

"Have I made myself clear?"

"..."

"..."

"...You know what?" A pause. "...Go fuck yourself!" was his all but gentle reply.

"Hey! Don't you dare talk to me like...!" A door slam. "God, what am I doing..."

Quivering words, barely breathed, hints of affliction and regret. They travelled inside the room, slowly, dimly lit from a bulb on a plastic tube, his light shield lost years before. The room was mostly comprised of its cooking area: a small rectangle with very few utensils, and no more than four or five plates, all of which messily shoved inside the sink, and none of which were clean. The fridge was busted, and no electrical appliance was filling the hole above the wooden shelf the television used to sit on. Small patches of moss were growing in the walls here and there, although they were hidden well enough not to be noticeable by the commoner visitor, not much differently than an infectious illness which has spread to a few thousands in a population of millions. Not that visitors were a common thing, anyway. The ceiling was pouring droplets of water in the left corner, and the cracked floor had seen better times. Only two chairs went around the table, one of which was empty.

The man's clothes were ragged and filthy, with several cuts and a giant patch of a clashing color on the left side of his sweater. But before that, he wore a melancholy look and a frown on his mouth, enhanced by the creases all over his face. All in all, the man was complementing the room's atmosphere quite well, his big rough hands of an underpaid worker, and the odor of sweat being so often his as to become the scent a dog would recognize him for.

With a sigh, he raised the small glass full of liquor and proceeded to drink it in a single shot.

/​

Sunday was non-working day for the boy, and as such he strolled around the cold road, idly. By contrast, he was reliving the beheading, again and again, shuddering at the thought; the shrieks, the flesh, the chaos, fearing as if the following execution was going to happen in a matter of seconds. Too often, far too often they were happening - once in a million years would have been "too often" for him. Still, they were common enough that the square was intrinsically imbibed with the stale smell of death, its air made of nitrogen and oxygen as you would expect, but also of a conspicuous amount of iron. For that reason the houses facing the square were abandoned by those unfortunate enough to reside in them, even though they knew it meant being homeless. The Federation had tried to sell them back, going as far as proposing laughable prices, still to no avail: no one wanted to live in a place so in communion with Death. Thus these buildings were left to deteriorate, giving an even more sinister look to the place as a whole.

After a passing rush of wind, the boy entered into the square itself: there it was, a once flourishing center of human activity ruined to decay. The boy glanced around, but quickly walked back into the street he came from. Others would have found some comfort in the only pleasure a man of those times could indulge into - the brothel located at the end of the road, opposite to the boy's side of the square - but he was not in the mood for it, for its single thought was nauseating of perfume in excessive doses – as it was certainly no J'adore, no Tabu, no Flower – and sticky, the same kind of sweaty and tiring feeling on your skin of a hot, damp summer afternoon.

Truly, the boy had been walking for minutes without any goal in mind. He was not restful as he tried to find an answer for that carnage, which was a question he knew no better than the answer itself.

No oblivious passerby would have noticed that, of course: for someone who had survived long enough to see the Earth revolve nineteen times around the Sun, his overall appearance was quite average, after all. His dark hair created a peculiar but likeable contrast with his pale skin, this one a common trait among the living population of the time, while his decently visible muscles showed a clue of a balanced workout, if of little practical usefulness. It could be said he was good looking, if a bit slim, but it could be also observed that he had to be quite the naive subject, truly a vessel of fragile earthenware, obliged to journey in company with many vessels of iron, to quote a famous writer of an ancient era. As such, he appeared to be a peaceful, loyal subject of the regime. Instead, buried deep inside his eyes was an unclear, unfocused, minuscule sparkle, a bud of something fearsome and violent, testament of how the distorted world he was living within could influence even the purest of souls.

Under no circumstance the city was going to give an answer to his questions that day, dull as it has always been and would have always stayed, seemingly until the very end of times: very few people were outside their homes, and certainly not for fun. At times it would seem more of a ghost city, as if everyone suddenly had left without leaving a single trace. Wouldn't that be great, after all? No noise, no rules, nothing at all…

Suddenly, a shrill tune broke the monotony, soon followed by a camouflaged-colored jeep which dashed through the road. It was playing through its loud speakers the same military cacophony of loud trumpets you would hear every other hour, an absolute reminder of the martial law condition. The few citizens around stirred up their bodies at the passage, as if someone poured a bucket of cold water on them, defenceless pins ready to be taken down by the striking bowling ball. Four soldiers were on the back of the vehicle, enjoying the pedestrians' faces with a menacing look in their eyes, and an even more menacing set of weapons on them: an M9 pistol and a Colt sub-machine gun, with several magazines at their disposal. A knife in a pouch, and one or two grenades on their military uniforms. Was that a bazooka in the back of the vehicle?

Wasn't that a bit excessive? Did they really need to scare their citizens that much? Or to constrain them in all these ways, for that matter? For a brief second, a sense of rebellion sparked through the boy's nerves: he really was sick of it, all of it. He was starving for freedom: freedom to go wherever he liked, whenever he wanted, without that stupid curfew. Free to speak aloud, without censorship, and free from that loud military school. And above all, he wanted to be free enough to tell all these people to fuck off, and never come back to his city and his life. How come hadn't anyone tried anything against them yet? If only the Federation wasn't that strong... Oh, such rage, such force he could feel inside him!

Frozen. His burning flame was dead at the gaze of one of the soldiers; a face fractured by its wrinkles, so deep they seemed mountains on a flat surface, and their shadows fissures caused by an earthquake. And its eyes, even light itself was scared to look into them. It was far beyond a human, far beyond a fighter, far beyond a monster. We humans are indeed marvelous creatures: only we can be pushed beyond our natural limits, even if it means to completely abandon the same definition of "human". What could that soldier have ever experienced in his life, to be turned into that?

The contact lasted only a split second, but it felt like an eternity to the boy.

The vehicle had already shown its back to him, and it soon turned away. He could still hear the dreadful tune, which was slowly fading into a dense silence. Such had to be the destiny of your thoughts as well: they had to disappear just as they had originated, put in the innermost corner of your mind, never to be drawn back to the surface.

And so the boy continued to walk, as if nothing had happened.

After a few more minutes, he came to a halt. He was getting close to the old, abandoned outskirts of the city, downhill. Only troops stayed there, using buildings as barracks and patrolling around. A big black wall was built to divide the habitable zone from that, on top of which barbed wire and machine guns were put. It was easy enough to exit, but no one could enter: months had passed since a person last came from outside pleading to let him in, and the poor guy was shot in the head without second thoughts.

The coat of night was beginning to fall down. The clock was counting its last minute to six in the afternoon, at which something snapped in the boy's mind: he furtively climbed up the wall to look at the horizon.

There it was: a lonely flag in the distance, outside the city, barely visible with the last bit of light that came as the Sun waved goodbye to Earth. It was swaying at the soft breeze of the wind, cradling into itself and then blossoming back open. Every day, at that time, the flag would appear for a few seconds, even if, then...

"BAM!" A shot from behind. Then another, and another one. The flag was now holed in multiple spots. It eventually fell. But that didn't matter to the boy: he knew the next day it would appear once more, and that certainty alone was comforting.

Although, who was putting it? What did it mean? Was it someone asking for help, or the symbol of a powerful enemy watching over them? Truthfully, it seemed more like the little game of a child who enjoyed mocking a full-fledged army by showing up there, every day, without any reason or explanation. Indeed the nerve of such a silly act would be considered amazing, had it been done just for fun. The boy felt there was something more to it, though, for it was a strangely reassuring sight: like a friend who would knock every day and then leave before you could open the door, letting you know he will always be there for you, even if he is too shy to show his face. Realistically that was of course no more than a mere childish fantasy, yet picturing this playful friend's cackling face as he put the thing in place made him forget what had happened that day, if just for a moment.

He remembered the one time he was sent along with an entire squad to camp the site in which the flag was always appearing. They had to stay there all day, waiting for the careless being that was "fucking with us", as commander Clutcher stated, ready to end his or her existence. Yet at six o'clock, when everyone got ready for action, the flag simply popped into existence, solidly fit between two rocks a bit uphill, out of absolute and empty nothingness. No person had come, no sound had been heard, no radar had blipped, but it was there, shining in its mighty blankness – it was the whitest of flags, without any image or symbol on it – over and above a crowd of very pale and dismayed people. The commander almost got a heart attack out of the whole experience, as he started breathing heavily and sweating with the wide eyes of a madman, squeezing his breast with his hands as he looked at the victorious enemy, "A stupid pole with a fucking rag on it, of all things!"

That might have been one of the few truly amusing moments of his life. And that was enough for him to have faith in whoever was behind that recurring joke, someone stronger than an entire army and yet good-willed, and to believe there had to be something to the world other than the misery he was enduring. He felt that as long as the flag would appear before his eyes, he could endure the sadness of his society. After all,... -

-... Static buzzed the boy's ears, as the speakers gave announcement.

"Curfew begins in one hour. I repeat, curfew begins in one hour. It is now compulsory for everyone to head back home."

 

[Beth Pavell]

Ok. So a review of the Introduction and Chapter One

Technical Accuracy/Style
Nothing to complain about as far as the technical aspects are concerned. Style is generally consistent, given what I think you're trying to achieve, though at times I think you trip yourself up some odd word choices. Let's see, example ... well, there's this:

and generally slay, wipe out, annihilate everyone and everything in the most diverse and gruesome manners.

Right there, the language becomes oddly colloquial, more like you're summarising it in chat.

Setting/Plot
I've made myself be patient with this one in regards to the setting and how the plot unfolds. It would be altogether too easy to relentlessly pick away on the basis that this is a dystopian setting, but really, it's fair to wait and see where it goes. And then, you've used the old Warhammer 40K trick of Everything You Have Been Told Is A Lie right off the bat, so it's not like I can really offer much sensible setting commentary one way or the other.

So what can I say? Well, I can't say I'm too bothered about the pokémon right now. Whichever way you slice it I can't blame humanity for refusing to sit around and be cannon fodder. I'm not really sold on the tone of the whole thing, and I think the reason is, well, less is more. You've turned the savagery knob right up, along with most of the evil creed tropes - it's a bit like, to come back to that setting again, the Imperium of Man from Warhammer 40K without the accompanying silliness.

Characters
Another one I can't really say much one way or the other on ... at first I was sceptical of the whole "only sane man" vibe that seemed to come through Chapter One. But then, it is one chapter from one point of view so it's not like you've denied the idea that there could be many other people like him out there, essentially knuckling under

 

[Xel Yel]

Ok. So a review of the Introduction and Chapter One
[...] essentially knuckling under

First of all, thank you so much for your review. I am aware of the sudden changes of the language registry sometimes, it comes from the fact I'm not a native English speaker, but I am working on fixing it through writing a lot.

Regarding the Plot and the Characters, I know there's not too much to talk about as of now. If you're not sold on the idea of the bad, ugly humans, well... I can't blame you for that. Unfortunately, though, that's going to be the point of view the story will keep for quite a few chapters, not because it's a trope of the story, rather because it's a trope of the main character. As you said, it's the boy's point of view that he is the only sane man in the world (while he's not, indeed). Now, when you meet such an arrogant brat you are very tempted to slap him in the face, so the story is definitely going to do that. Still, I would understand if this turned you off. The focus of this story is less on the regime per se, more on the characters, so a slow start and some clichés are necessary. And while I can kind of agree that "less is more" regarding the setting in this case, the boy needed the scene of the execution to fuel his rage and get things going.

Hopefully the next chapters will twist things around.
-XelYel

 

[Xel Yel]

CHAPTER III​

It rained outside. Such a shame.

Still, he wouldn't want to stay home on his special day. No, there was no way such a silly reason would stop him: he would finally fulfill his dream of becoming a Master, a Pokémon Master. After all, he would always daydream of their beauty, of their power, of how he could make them do everything he wanted; because he was always thinking about them, he believed he deserved them. He wanted one, he wanted an army of them, because he loved' em all. He would treat them very good, and make sure to pleasure them. A lot. Every day, he would be ready for them.

The monitor of the guy's desktop computer was burning a beam of light in contrast to his dim bedroom. A small logo of colors dark blue and butter was slowly appearing from the center of the gray screen as a happy jingle welcomed. Butter, butter... While he left his electronic friend to wake up, the guy sluggishly walked out to the kitchen, only to come back with a bucket full of the yellow dairy product, slurping and chewing on it with an enormous spoon, his mouth open like that of a hippopotamus. His chin got dirtied with the mixture he was gnawing of saliva and milky substance foam, gelatinous more than dense.

Meanwhile, the computer seemed to be stuck on some sort of update - he thought that was really silly. Soon enough his spoon made a *tuc* sound: he had hit the bottom of the can. He began to ponder about going to pick another one, whether it was worth the effort to get up from the chair and walk all the way to the kitchen again; thankfully the operative system showed up in time to release him from such intense thinking. The monitor unwillingly showed a desktop with the picture of a naked drawn girl, with extremely round breasts as big as her face, and stripped down to a minuscule underwear provocatively tensed between the legs which covered the "precious spot" thanks to the weird from-under perspective, all while looking so red on her cheeks, with her tongue out and enough saliva in her mouth to fill a glass, she seemed more in pain than enjoying herself.

His stomach was suddenly no more an issue, something moved a bit down instead.

Squinting his eyes he looked at a tiny icon on the desktop, a folder with the original name of "New folder". He quickly tapped the mouse twice, and a window popped up. Inside were several pictures of woods with specific details encircled in red, precisely where you could see a glimpse of a shadow, and several documents filled with information of the places depicted. He really was obsessed a bit too much with pokèmon, and he felt that was a bit silly for such a respectable young man. He deleted all those ".png" files: they were not needed anymore. After all, he had finally caught that one.

Yes, finally. Sure, maybe it was a bit excessive to have it shot it in its leg... ups, sorry, her leg, rather. Still, he firmly believed all he had done, and all he was going to do, was necessary to capture them. With force, because they would resist him. That was absolutely shameful, but he would excuse them for such behavior: after all, they couldn't possibly know beforehand how much of a wonderful person he was, could they? Of course he would then teach them to stop being so silly, because he cared for them. With force, if necessary.

He was hyper that day, he couldn't deny it, bopping up and down his chair. He couldn't wait anymore: after toying a bit with his computer, opening and closing folders and programs, he left everything and sprinted off, down the winding staircase. As he made his way down, he could already hear the muffled whimpering of a soft voice.

"Nobody will hear you!" he shouted to her. "Don't worry, my dear. After all, I love you, don't I? I know you also love me. You are just too shy to admit it, aren't you?"

Then he turned the knob and opened the door to the room the creature was in. "Why are you looking at me that way? Come on, don't be silly..."

/​

The boy was walking steadily, stepping on the wet cement and over several puddles of water; they would soundly spill out as his foot sank into them, but then shape back as more drops gathered. Rain was hitting harder and harder, forcefully smashing against the ground, the strong wind waging war, howling and throwing everything in its direction. He thought it really was a fitting day for what he had been through.

The young man was reaching the south inner gate, which seemed to be defended by just two soldiers. Coming up with an excuse to pass through was not hard, and he knew the person on the right, who had been his instructor in the past, and the other he'd seen him at least a few times. He could just say something meaningless like "They had ordered me to patrol with the regular troops today." or "I have an important message for the general." and they would have let him pass, most likely. Yet he was nervous, as if an ambush was being set up for him. Did they knew he was trying to run away? Maybe they did. Actually, he was certain they did; they always knew everything. He began thinking it was a bad idea to confront them: maybe he had to go back. But then again, he couldn't simply forget the only hope he had lived with. So he wou-

"Yes?" inquired the man on the right, as if he was trying to bite.

The boy did not reply, disoriented by the blunt question.

"Hey! Don't make me waste time!" shouted the man.

The boy blinked. "Oh, s-sorry, sir. I was in a daze." He then quickly gave a glance around and stiffened, chest out and arms along the torso, before answering with a more masculine voice. "Sir, they asked me to replace private Ryan who is ill today." he said, accompanied by a quick bow of the head.

"Where's the general's permission?" Suddenly requested a nasal, high-pitched voice. It was coming from the other soldier, a tall and skinny individual who could be defined as cockiness made person.

What do I do now? Shit. Fuck that guy, thought the boy while keeping his cool outwardly. But he couldn't finish the thought process, as the major sergeant shouted back at the other man.

"Did I give you the right to speak?" blurted out the sergeant.

"Sir, I…, " stuttered the other man.

"Did I give you the fucking right to speak? Do I have to remind you how you fucking screwed up this morning, you fucking imbecile piece of crap!?" barked the instructor. He screamed louder and louder, his face redder and redder as his rage made his face tremble. "You deserved the death penalty for all that shit you put me up with, you slimy little communist shit twinkle-toed cock-sucker fairyfuckingodmother!"

He then concluded the flawless, impeccable, balanced to a british-degree reasoning: "I decide if I want to see the stupid shit signature or not! Is it fucking clear?"

"Yes, sir!" feebly replied the other man, pale as a ghost. The boy couldn't help smirking a bit.

The sergeant then took a big breath, and "You, go," he grunted back at the boy.

The boy quickly thanked the instructor, and went on his way.

Well, that was lucky, he thought. Indeed it had been.

/​

The road began its descent and so did the whole old suburban zone, which made it easy for the falling drops of water to travel further, a slippery torrent down a mountain of cement. The place was filled with buildings whose height was a bit more than the ones the boy was used to: they were great for sniping and for setting camps, if they were stable enough; on the top of a few of them it was possible to dominate even a few kilometers in length, reaching the end of the entire area. As much as everything was deteriorating and leaving space for a wilder green, it was much unlike a doomsday movie in which you would find cars, poles and other things all scattered and wrecked throughout the place: everything was actually rather clean, even if completely deserted.

The boy covered at least a pair of kilometers before straying from the main street, waiting for none of the passing soldiers to be in sight. By that time it became dark, which made it easier to sneak through the city without being spotted. That was a relief, because getting further and further he had to be more and more careful as well: fewer and fewer excuses would have saved him were someone to find him. He tried to stay close to any kind of wall as much as he could, making sure to be ready to hide whenever a flare was lit in the sky. He knew he'd passed at least a few machine guns and several sniper rifles, luckily unnoticed.

After an hour or so of careful progress, Mother Nature softly closed her eyes, leaving the boy to finally ease himself in the soothing silence of a rain-less night. He had reached the outer gate, and could catch a breath or two and sit for a moment, as he heard the few parting taps of water down the ground. He was sure no one ever patrolled that far - it was both dangerous and useless. The only time footsteps would resonate in the area would be if someone were to pass to either go working in the mines for excavations or in the outer fields to gather resources, which wouldn't have happened before two or three hours.

He made one last step, passing under the glorious arch which allowed the passage to the outside world, majestic if only for its raw dimensions; it had once overseen friends and foes, merchants and thieves, nobles and beggars, prosperity and hardship and, ultimately, decadence. A once fervent society, filled with the best technology and hope for a better life for all humankind, destroyed by greed, by power, by the Banality of Evil.

The arch had overseen him as well many times in the past, whenever he would visit his grandmother, the images of a little house and its cozy hearth between two delightful hills. But then the lovely old woman had died, and nothing but memories of her were left. The boy felt no sadness at the flashback, though: very well he remembered her simple, understanding smile, and that was all he needed to gather his strength back.

He had made up his mind, a definitive decision being taken. He turned around, "One last time." as he told himself, to see the light-less city in the distance.

Up the hill, there it was; dark, almost engulfed by the cloudy heavens, yet peacefully quiescent, frozen in its own little world, only to be awoken by the scathing, sudden flash of the sporadic spotlights used by the army. They would then tell the drowsy kid that it was all right, that nothing had happened, that he could go back to sleep without worry. The soldiers did care about their citizens, all things considered, didn't they?

Even so, he felt no remorse. He wanted more from his life, whatever the risk or the toll. Raising his legs, one at a time, he began to venture forward, waving goodbye to that precious child which he as well loved. He gave one last glance to his name, barely visible on the arch:

Welcome to the City of Stadkerk​

/​

Sleeping can be off-putting when you are used to the comfortable bed of your home and instead, you find yourself looking at the sky, but it is certain such a sensation can be easily replaced by a shining, bright sun welcoming yet another day. The boy didn't want to give food to this relaxing feeling, though: he had an important objective in his mind, and because of that he woke early, resting only the necessary to stay sharp. He didn't want to waste time, knowing it would take him the entire day just to reach the location the flag was usually spotted at while traveling alone, far from any form of civilization. He drank a bit of water from his pouch, promptly executed a few warm-up exercises, and finally packed up his things from the small spot in which he had set camp the night before; in just a quarter he was ready to tackle the creatures of the forest which laid ahead of him.

The lush scenery was not completely new to his eyes, but would quickly make him replace his wariness and rational thinking for pure amazement. Every inch of the greenwoods ahead of him was bursting with life: worms eating from the maple trees, the red ones with those little yellow horns, the green ones which used leaves as cover for their bodies, the violet ones and the ones with a needle on their head – you had to be careful around those last two, as they were poisonous; a few grey, tiny butterflies with markings of the three primary colors, playing around, so beautiful at the sight, and those other ones with their red compound eyes, maybe not very safe to be around - their white wings could release a powerful toxin; birds cheerfully singing, those with a white belly and a blue swallowtail, or those other aggressive ones, always with a grumpy face on their brownish skin, and the fastest of them, those grey ones with a flame-shaped belly; the occasional careful, hidden fox, the rarest ones of which had six curled tails, creature of myths and legends. Plants were as alive as the fauna, the patches of grass waving (and sometimes... taking out their little legs for a stroll?), the sunflowers happily bobbing their heads; and the white birch, the high cypress, the chestnut tree squirrels were so thrilled about, the beech, all of them filtering the sun rays to protect the other life forms in a leafy, motherly embrace. Colors were brilliant and joyful.

The boy could be content by just walking and observing the scenery, a fresh breath of newness from his usual routine. The muddy path was steep, but clear, which made it impossible to lose the right way. Since a long time, he was happy.

After a few good hours of hiking the boy stationed by a small brook. He was now focused once more on what he had witnessed – or, rather, not witnessed - the day before, and was trying to reason around what to do. He couldn't come up with a strong resolve, as he had no idea what had happened in the first place, but his apprehensive nature wouldn't let go of the question.

"Ok, let's review what I know, once more." he said, and closed his eyes for a moment to empty his brain. He slowly inhaled, and th-

... His heart skipped a beat. He had heard something: a low, buzzing hum in the distance. He had immediately recognized it.

He had to get away from there, fast. He started running diagonally from the direction he had first perceived the danger from, hoping to avoid the confrontation, but quickly realized the storm of gigantic bees was already surrounding the entire area in a wide circle around him, as their noise was coming from every direction.

Formidable foes they were: one was enough to kill a man, thanks to the poisonous stingers which grew in place of their - sort of - hands. Truthfully, they were more like drills, which they violently used to charge and pierce repeatedly their enemies in Fury, over and over and over and over and over. If that was not enough, they always had a spine on their tail, with a slower but deadlier poison to finish weakened opponents. They would move incredibly fast, at an almost imperceptible rate for the human eye, and move in a flock whenever angered, as they were the most territorial creatures of all.

The boy quickly backed where he came from, sprinting full speed through the woods. He strayed from the track, hoping to let the enemies lose some mobility, and sneaked in the densest part of the forest, where he could see only a dozen meters ahead of him. The buzz was now clearly audible, the sound of a chainsaw getting closer and closer. Running, running as fast as he could he tried to find a spot in which to safely hide, knowing how little good trying to truly escape would do for him. Any refuge, – inside a tree, under a rock, between two stumps - seemed useless. As the noise started to physically hurt his ears he began to panic, realizing there was not much he could do. He took out his pistol, sat in the least worthless place he could find and prayed to get a quick, painless ending.

"Bzzzzzt!"

As much as he was a soldier, he really was not ready. He didn't notice anything until the last moment, and even then he couldn't find a way to escape. Why were the bees taking so much? Did they enjoy to make him suffer in desperation? Every second did feel like an eternity.

"Bzzzzzzzzzt!"

Am I going to die? Am I going to die?!

He was a kid, after all. Just a nineteen years old boy. His heart was bursting out, his head was spinning. He could vomit any moment.

"BZZZZZZZT!"

He was no super hero, and no grown man. Please, please! He should have listened to his father. He was trembling, clinging to every instant, praying for the next one not to be the last, then praying for it to be over quickly, then wishing for the following one not to be The One, and so on.

Finally, It came. It was towering over him with its bright yellow body and cutting the air around with its wings; it was looking at the young man with those insensitive eyes of an insect, shaking left and right in impatience and rage. It was angry, the boy could feel it.

The boy immediately fired a shot, which hit the creature's stomach. Immediately, a loud shrieking, high-pitched chaos.

An instant later, the boy felt numb, and the need to regurgitate something.

The young man was pouring out his own blood, something else along with it. The bee had its stingers piercing his inner, twisting and ripping his guts. He vomited red again as the creature finished him off by pulling away its arms.

It was quickly over. The last thing the boy saw was a world filled with those black striped beasts, all with the same angrily dull look in their eyes.

Then white.

It's a sad thing that your adventures have ended here.​

 

[Xel Yel]

CHAPTER IV​

Chapter IV

Falling, falling… Was he underwater? His sight was too blurry to tell. Noises were opaque and distant, his body wavering in a swallowing air. He tried to move his left hand, then his legs, his head, his eyes. He couldn't.

Shortly enough he gave up; after all, he was so tired...

Falling, falling…

… At the bottom depths of a dark jail, whose metal bars were trunks of trees. The entire ground quivered at the high-intensity noise, as if the place was surrounded by speakers playing at the peak of their capacity. Out of nowhere, as the boy was covering his aching ears, the buzzing, trembling, vibrating blade of the creature sliced through the boy's body once again. His rib cage cracked like an egg, slowly pouring out the warmth of his dense fluids as he looked in anguish the red eyes of his killer. Every ounce of his skin was crying, his brain exploding, his heart bursting. He strived to get free, he tried to look for someone to help, he forced himself to scream. But, no freedom, no help, and no voice.

No sound, no stinger, nothing was stuck inside him; it had never been in the first place. None at all, never had. No blood, not a body, the one which had just been so painfully his. The vision had stopped into complete emptiness and silence, and he was left…

Falling, falling…

… Inside a candle-coloured room, void in all directions and infinitely. Empty, but restful to the eye and calming to the body; not bright, nor too crushing. A flooring with the texture of a cloud, and a ceiling made of snow; a light air with the slightest flavor of incense, of that small dose which is genuinely pleasant. The only sound a soothingly deep voice, what remains of a single, delicate note of piano after playing it. Such a peaceful place, the mind of a pure being only could make. The boy could stay in contemplation there forever: any worry, any problem, any apocalypse were far, far away, as distant as the stars in the sky – no, not even – as distant as a world of happiness would be from Earth.

Out of curiosity, the young man bashfully leaped a step. The scenery dimmed to waver in shades of cerulean, dark, and midnight blue. The room became much smaller as the several slow, paler shapes moved around the spherical ceiling, crossing over one another, drawing arches and waves on the sky. It was as if someone was casting them there for the sole purpose of entertainment. It resembled the bottom of an ocean, if a lonely one: a profound, submerged reality, hidden to everyone else.

It was such a marvelous place. Was that what heaven looked like?

Then, he noticed. A feminine figure was knees down on the ground, looking at the distant nothingness. She was giving her back to the boy, hidden by a soft garment too big for her slender body. The curves of her body were still clearly visible, though; rather, she seemed to be the only focus the boy could manage after spotting her. He was left thoughtless at the sight and, even without seeing her face, he was sure she was most graceful and beautiful. There was no doubt about it: he knew that and, with the same confidence, he felt he was familiar with her, he felt he knew what her exact thoughts, even. So close he was to that ethereal soul of another dimension, he thought for a moment his eyes had to have been playing tricks on him – she was so far, and yet he could feel her soft, thin breath, as if he was centimeters away from her. Was she aware she was sharing that existence with someone else?

The boy awkwardly stepped back for a moment, not willing to disrupt the harmony of such a mysterious and angelic presence. As soon as he did, she moved. But she did not turn to him: rather, she slowly raised her gentle hand from the ground, moving along her upper body in a single, sinuous movement, upwards. She slightly tapped, with just the end of her index finger, an invisible flat surface, which bent to her like a mirror of water and resonated across the entire room, a wave of crisp air, a new, lighter note of the piano. The entirety of the place gently wobbled all over.

An immense joy rushed through the young man. But, it was becoming harder for him to keep looking at that enchanting world. His sight was more muffled, the colors more confused. He rubbed his eyes more than once: he wanted the incredible vision not to be over, but even his own touch was getting numb. That siren was going to play another note soon, he was sure! Not soon enough, though. He fainted; just a bit sooner than that, he thought of how disrespectful it was for him to make so much noise by falling to the ground, a heavy thump disrupting such peace...

/​

A clock was ticking regularly. One, two, three seconds passed. It still didn't transform into a monster, or an angel inside the dreams of a young boy, which made it safe to assume it would then proceed to remain the most regular and boring of clocks for the rest of his lifetime. At any rate, it was marking the correct time on the left side of his quadrant – minute less, minute more: seven hours and thirteen-eight.

"How can you be you worried about the time after sleeping for so long, my friend?"

The voice took the boy by surprise. It was fresh but collected, if a bit low-key. Whose was it? The boy turned his head to the side of the bed - only at that point did he realize he was laying on a bed - to see a man, around his forties, standing at his side. His expression seemed cordial enough and he did look genuinely worried about his condition, so the boy let himself relieve his tension. He then tried to gulp down a bit of saliva, quickly realizing of thirsty he was.

"Here. Drink a bit," said the man as he offered a glass of water.

The boy didn't need to be told twice. He gulped its content, then sighed in relief.

"So, how are you feeling, young champ?" asked the man.

Was he joking? His head was spinning, his eyes were hurting whenever he closed them, and he felt his throat was so much on fire he thought he could start spitting fire like a dragon (which he promptly tried to do by breathing forcefully with his jaw open because, you never know, right?) Every other part of his body was numb: his arms, his belly, his legs, even that other, precious part down there. That, in particular, scared him for a moment.

"Like shit," he replied, quite straining himself to emit those few syllables.

"Good! That's the best answer I've heard since I became a surgeon five years ago! It has sur gone well for you! Oh oh! Oh oh oh oh oh!"

Is this person for real? commented the boy in his mind, and then tried to roll his eyes; unfortunately, even that hurt, making him bite his lips.

"Seriously though, if it wasn't for me you'd be pretty much dead. I mean, you were quite lucky I had heard the swarm" - the man started to count with his left hand. -, "had the balls to rescue you, found you barely alive, all of that while being a surgeon with a team ready to work, and enough... replacement organs."

"Wait, what?" The boy instinctively jumped out of the blanket, laying back immediately thereafter with a grunt of ache.

"Hey, now, do not strain yourself! Listen, you were in critical conditions and we had to do a bit of transplant."

The boy looked like a lost puppy at the news.

"Nothing extraordinary, I assure you." - his voice deepened. - "It needed to be done, there was no other solution."

The boy nodded. He knew well transplants were hardly without complications, but at least he was alive.

"Thank you, doctor," he sincerely said. A second afterwards, something seemed to trouble him.

"Do I-"

"-It's my job, kiddo. You don't have to repay me or anything like that," the surgeon interrupted.

The boy nodded once more. He spoke another feeble "Thank you." before sighing and closing his eyes for a moment. He was quickly realizing the truth in the man's word: he never moved from the bed, yet the little gestures he had done up to that point had exhausted him already.

"Just try to rest as much as possible. We spent a lot of effort to heal you, you know? Don't let it go to waste, not after everything I did to your... Err, give your body time to rest, okay?"

The boy was sure he had glared at the man with the most intimidating and wary expression a half-dead person such as him could manage in the situation. In response, the man kept staring back with the simplest, good-natured of fake smiles and intermittent cackles of "eh eh eh"s, while scratching his short hair.

I don't know if I can trust this guy, thought the boy between himself.

"Take it easy. You'll be fine if you just follow my indications: they are really incisive! Oh oh! Oh oh oh oh oh!" teased the surgeon as he started to spin around while laughing uncontrollably.

Oh, absolutely I can't!

/​

One month of fevers, nauseating medicines and sleep were needed for a substantial improvement in the boy's health. The clock was his only real company during that time, as the surgeon was working for the largest part of the day. Being without a registry office certificate of the city he was brought to, the boy's presence had been hidden to everyone during that time by the crafty middle-aged friend: he stayed in the small, simple room he had first awoken in for the whole month. There wasn't much to look at: a bed, an empty wardrobe, a window on the opposite side, always a split open and halted by some red curtains with wavy motifs at their bottom; a few shelves with some boring books, mainly about organs and compounds of carbon with their chemical reactions, not certainly the kind of exciting novel the boy would have appreciated a bit more in the circumstance.

During the small periods he was not asleep the young man was left to either worry about what he would do if his conditions were to suddenly drop – how could that man be so sure he was already safely out of danger that an intravenous feeding and a portable… pissoir was all he needed, without anyone to look after him in case of an emergency? - or think back about what had happened to him. His memory was fuzzy in that regard; he remembered very well those vermilion eyes of his assailant, and he could also recall shooting at it, yet he would shudder at the blank his mind was creating every time he would try to bring back what followed. He also knew he had run away from home and that he had left his father for it, but weirdly enough he could not recollect what he ran away for. He shrugged the question, soon enough, as that was the least of his worries, and he had decided to stay in the city he had been brought to for the time being. Thirdly, he would simply pass some days fighting to bear the pains of his physique and the compelling urge to vomit he always had to contain.

As time passed, he slowly became able to walk again, albeit with a bit of help and only for short distances. Even months afterwards, an achy mind or stomach would happen to him every so often, along with an unvaried feeling of tiredness and lack of energy. When he finally managed to snuck into the outside world, if just from the window of his room, it was quite a let down to see not much but bare white buildings all around; the surgeon promptly explained he lived in a residential area specially built for research, near the City's Cathedral; that desolated scenery he had just viewed was all he was going to enjoy for quite a while.

Then the boy became talkative and got to know better the man that saved his life. He wasn't the best physically, and he confessed his underworked body was an issue related to his laziness only. He seemed a nice person, light-hearted and gritty; he was to be dedicated to his work, which the absence of a wife or any other family helped. Was having a family prohibited by the army for a surgeon like him, so that he could not reveal secrets or similar things? What kind of things, then? Was the fact alone something worthy prying about? The boy never had the guts to ask – it seemed inappropriate, and ended never knowing much else about that, or him in general, as the man always kept quite reserved with personal information. Still, he would spend a little bit of time with the boy every evening, asking how he felt and checking for problems. It did seem suspicious at first that he would keep him so hidden – was it that hard to get a permit to stay in the city until he was cured? - but as he depicted the very gray dictatorship outside, the same the boy was so used to, it made all these precautions easily understandable. That might have also meant the surgeon was risking his career for him, maybe his own life! It could not be but deeply respected.

"...And then the guy who went through brain surgery said: No, I changed my mind. Oh oh! Oh oh oh oh oh oh!"

If only his sense of humor was a bit better…

/​

"Yes, the army has been here since a year ago or so," commented the surgeon. The two of them were sitting in a biblioth-esque room, around a small wooden table – rather, the boy was laying as much as possible on his chair, the stuffed one, far more comfortable than the one the man was using – and they would ask forth and answer back about any kind of topic. Eventually, the tone shifted to a serious mood, as the boy got interested in listening to what had been the surgeon City's state of being, after telling about his own.

"We knew they were going to come months before they actually did, but there was not much to do in the meantime, other than waiting for them to arrive and take over the place. Some of the people actually tried to convince us to fight: they called themselves the "Free Gazelles". Stupid bunch of hyped kids who believed resistance would bring us any good. As if! I wasn't one of them and I'm not ashamed to say I promptly bowed down to the Federation as soon as I could; after all, none of those rebels are alive as of today. All useless anyway, not without any serious firepower. In the end they only brought three or four days of wasteful skirmish, a hell that destroyed half of the city and that we citizens had never experienced in our lives – God those two poor women that got their stomachs holed by a shotgun, what a mess they became. They were so beautiful..." he murmured, emptily looking at the air for a few seconds. The boy was touched.

"I think it's foolish to try to make this world 'better'. What does that even mean? I want to live my days, not die because of some stupid ideals." At the remark, the boy tried to hide his face was sneering.

That terribly hidden reaction troubled the man, who looked at the boy with concern and, soon enough, spoke again to make him reason. "I see that sparkle in your eyes, boy. It's the same I had once. It is..." - he paused for a second. - "Listen, kid: do not try to be a hero. Never."

He spoke again after another pause. "I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but you have already proven yourself too weak for this world. I'm sure you got that part right, you are not an idiot. Still, you won't give up on your pretty ideals, won't you? Because if you don't, it means you haven't learned how to live properly, trust me."

The boy looked at that surgeon around his forties in a new way for the first time: there was some lingering hostility in the air between the two of them. The young man immediately regained his composure, realizing how petty it was to argue, and how it was just proving his points more.

"Kiddo, it's nothing personal," concluded the surgeon. "I'm only saying this for your own well-being."

 

[Xel Yel]

[!!WARNING!!]
CHAPTER V​

Again. Again and again. The swine was at it again.

Didn't he come before? Was he still not satisfied for the day? Maybe it was another day – did that mean she was losing the track of time, that she was losing her consciousness? If she had stayed awake she would have definitely noticed the change of date, after all. So, it was likely; that would have explained why her head was spinning like crazy. Well, it wasn't like it mattered anyway.

How much longer? She just wanted him to go away. That day he was smelling even worse than his usual piss-stained shirt rubbed of soggy butter. It was disgusting. As he was moving her insides, she shivered at the cold, icky layer of his sweater more than anything else.

It was the worst. She had already learned not to care about the crawling feeling in her violated body, she could just close her eyes and forget it; it helped he was never facing her. (at least he could had the decency to do that, to look into her eyes.) But that feeling, she could not-

Suddenly he grabbed her and began moving with more force. – … that revolting smell, she was not able to endure. She thought it would start to infect her: she would start to smell like him, she would emanate that same sweaty illness through gross, bubonic skin that would cover her wholly. She would rather kill herself than live with that.

Every time he came downstairs he was more and more nauseating. If she could at least puke... but her stomach was nothing more than dried bread and water. Actually, she did think she was-

He began moving faster. It hurt, a lot. But it was a good thing, it meant he was almost done, so she clung her hands to the chains she was locked with, and endured. - … she was going to puke, she was sure of it. She tried to gulp to help a bit; her eyes answered by dropping a tear or two. Then she waited.

Nothing, she was not throwing up. Goddamn her weak, pathetic body. At least seeing her digesting acids on the gray, dirty wall in front of her would have been something new. It was not ticking a second, that recurring hell she was living. Her owner was not going to clean it, she was sure of that: at least she could have kept her nose close to it and sniff her stench to hide his much worse smell.

As those were her thoughts, the man kept shouting monosyllables, without restraint, for the good time he was having. He just pushed and pushed, without even caring when he was going to finish, for the simple reason he could do it again whenever he wished. Before ending he would moan louder, from the cry of a seal to that of a whale; she still didn't care, as she was desperately closing to herself, deaf to any noise.

Finally, he was done. For the moment, he was done. Even waiting for him to zip his pants as he looked at her - such a silly creature she was! - and leave seemed to take an eternity. Every time it was hard, every time it was becoming harder to endure the process: her body was fever-ly shaking, her head terribly sweating, her heart pumping violently. She damned her feminine, fragile body.

Chained, beaten up, physically and psychologically destroyed, the creature was still not admitting defeat. In fact, she still wanted to preserve something: her pair of red, vivid, most beautiful eyes were still shining in all that darkness, ones which no sorts of genetics or magic tricks could hope to achieve, for the disappointment of all the rich, female human that asked for those.

They were jewels, carefully nestled inside their white turf, hidden treasures of Gaia Mother. No pupil, but a kaleidoscope of shapes and forms like crystals bound together was inside those smooth spheres of her, rapidly spinning at any solicitation, like a ballerina, widening to the smallest of beats, brightening or darkening as a reaction to the outside world or her body in anger, in happiness, in joy, in depression, in fear, in passion. All of these, scattered in leaves through the universe, were bound up together with love in her two volumes only. They were skies of infinitely blended colors, oceans of rushing waters in crimson reds, calmer or blazing, edges of a cherry above a floor of ruby; they had magenta and violet touches here and there, perfect impurities of a painter's proud work, which seemed to move like a constellation of stars, and likewise light they would not reflect, but emanate: a pale, sweet, purple light.

Those eyes were gentle, those eyes were soothing, those eyes were a mixture of purity and depth, those eyes would cradle you and make you forget completely yourself, forever. Those eyes could be alluring as well, with their long eyelashes. She would keep her face slightly tilted, her mouth barely open as if to kiss you, leaning closer; she would faintly breathe in and out, and you would find yourself already lost, by just looking at those eyes.

She was protecting them from him, she would never show them to him, she would hide them and show him fake, soulless, emotionless eyes. He was not even trying to see them, nevertheless; that was despicable, that was ugly, that was unforgivable, that he would abuse her body, but not her beauty.

Those beautiful eyes, which were her whole world and her whole being, in that particular instance were crying.

/​

Glorious Odysseus, I'd rather serve as another man's laborer, as a poor peasant without land, and be alive on Earth, than be lord of all the lifeless dead.

"It's from the Odyssey, eleventh book. Odysseus travels to the Underworld and makes a sacrifice to the souls of the dead in order to know his future fate. Among those shadows is Swift-footed Achilles, the Greek demigod who had irately fought in the war of Troy."

The boy was pondering, looking at the passage written in the book he was holding. A few months had passed since he was first rescued, and his health issues had finally started to worn out. He was fit again, ready to start anew, even if it would still take him a while to get fully back in shape; he tried to reduce such time by doing physical activity twice his norm whenever his body allowed for it. That also meant coming to a decision about his future: that was the far harder toll on his shoulder, compared to the literal weights he was using for those series of push-ups he would do.

"He is the main character of the Iliad, and also makes a small appearance in this book. Here he states that looking back, he would have rather chosen to live a long life, devoid of glory, than the short one he had opted for."

Once again, he was talking with the surgeon about the proposal of leaving the City he had lived his last few months in, an idea which came into shape more and more as the boy's conditions improved. The young man knew what being in a regime meant, and he definitely didn't want to be stuck once more in that same situation – a worse one, even, because he was without the care and company of his father, which he had given up to attempt freedom. Though the thought of re-encountering such a scarring, life threatening experience and of living by himself, fearing everyone and everything, scared him to death. The surgeon would always wisely try to discourage him from the insane idea, and would always leverage such points to his favor.

"That is, the goddess Thetis, his mother, had told him those were the two ways he could have met his end."

The boy then would reply that he didn't really know if that was the kind of life he wanted; he didn't want to be isolated from society, he just wanted... a 'better' society? To change what was unfair, to stop the ridiculous War that was waging even though no one even knew who to fight against anymore. Someone had to do it, he would exclaim, and there was no way he could have accomplished anything from the inside. He had to leave, he had to search an answer outside, he would argue.

"His response was: 'I shall not return alive but my name will live forever', and then followed through that decision to his last breath, sacrificing himself for a greater good that never actually came," finished lecturing the surgeon.

"And you imply that on top of that, he regretted his choice," commented the boy.

"Undoubtedly he did."

The boy stood silent for a while. He mentally replied it was only a myth, yet he could not but acknowledge that some truth was in those words: after all, if even an all-powerful hero, a killer of thousands, a demigod of war was struggling with the matter, an insignificant little boy like him definitely had no say in it. The boy really wished for a different world, but who didn't of his era? And if he had no means of reaching such a high objective, he was no different than anyone else. What would his dead corpse be good for?

"What am I supposed to do then? Should I just... give up on everything?" he reluctantly asked.

"Oh now, don't be tragic," said the surgeon. "You sound like it's either all or nothing! You know, I'd tell you a chemistry joke to cheer you up, but I know I wouldn't get a reaction! Oh oh! Oh oh oh!"

"Please..."

"Okay, okay, sorry about that."

The man turned around at his desk, still chuckling for his "brilliant" joke and trying at the same time to hide his laughs like a kid who can't contain his emotions. He browsed through a few sheets and papers, then picked up something.

"Here, take a look at this."

He handed a blue folder. It contained several sheets, all of them having some or some other data about the boy, especially about where he was found, how he had recovered, what he looked like. There also were a few photos of his face and body both before and after the surgical operation he had done.

He stared at these latter ones in shock, eyes wide open: he really had been a mess. A pile of meat and twisted entrails gushing out in dark fluids was in place of his torso, to the point the holes the buzzing monster had created were not even visible. One rib was out in the open, clearly out of place. He imagined the whole thing trying to live and breathe, its intestines out in the air pulsating up and down, as the liver followed. The boy instinctively glanced down, then back at the photos. He touched his torso and slowly dragged his hand to examine every organ and every bone, compulsively checking that everything was in its place.

Indeed it was. Yet the sight reeked of decomposition, and death. How in the world did that team of surgeons "magically" fix him? That could be called anything but a "routine operation". And though just living through that would be unthinkable, recovering in just four months was way off any reasonable argument. What was the surgeon hiding from him?

After a few seconds, the boy couldn't stand the sight anymore. He violently closed the dossier, before dumping it on the ground.

"Did you just show me those just to scare me, and make me change my mind?!" spit the boy, in pent up anger and restraint.

"No, I did not!" shouted the surgeon with a clear, controlled voice. "Look at the rest of the documentation, will you?"

The boy wore an expression of clear warning: if he was to pull another sickening trick like that he would have not hesitated to jump on him.

Then he slowly picked up the dossier. More documents: a few of them were half-empty or completely blank; the last one in particular, though, had to be filled with basic information such as name, age, date of birth, signature.

"The Federation welcomes you aboard" was written in bold characters at the top of the paper.

"I talked with a 'friend' of mine. He got me a permit for you to live in this city so that you can settle down. You are going to work as a soldier, which is a privilege, far better than anything else as of these times," proposed the surgeon.

Yet the boy didn't seem enthusiastic at the idea.

"It's been four months since I have found you; everything considered, I'd say you are fit to strain your body once again. And you do need to have a job: I'm not going to feed you for the rest of your days, even if I could. I'm not your father," concluded the man.

The boy gave no reply at first, lost and conflicted in thought. In the end, as he was presented with the reality of things, "All right," grumbled the boy, and he gave up.

/​

A few cars were dashing through the streets, motors rumbling as the boy had never heard so often in his life. The city was noisy of people walking through the sidewalks, chatting and laughing while enjoying an appetizer at a cafè, or dining in some of the frequently placed restaurants and pizzerias. Fountains and aisles decorated the main roads, and the garden of the city sat ample, and felt truly open; elderlies were resting by the benches, kids were darting to catch the football they were cheerfully playing with. He would later discover the city had a university, a library, a gym, a swimming pool, a theater, and quite the selection of bars to enjoy during Saturday nights, which were brimming of blues, yellows, violets of neon tubes and lights of high buildings and entrance signs of pubs. Dresses were no less flashy, either: young gentlemen in black or white nightshirts, unbuttoned not just once, but fully open, and red or dark gowns for the share of women who weren't simplifying and going out with just golden brassierès and undergarments.

His hometown was nothing more than stone age prehistory compared to the bliss of the City. All that fervent human activity was truly mesmerizing for a village boy like him, if a bit intimidating at first. He felt small and excited, a new kind of life waiting for him. He ended up wasting his first night of free roaming feeling embarrassed and going in circles around a few streets for a good two hours and even then, he managed to get lost.

Grass was painted a pale green by the warm sun that rose the following day. Its patches were perfectly tidied, almost too perfectly: in truth, there were no worms, no bees, no birds anywhere to be seen, but the boy didn't really pay worry to it. More than anything, he was paying full attention to the road as he didn't want to be late for his first day of military training.

Twenty minutes later he was facing the barracks, and ten more he was presenting himself to the-)£T34S=A)£RH24"£)%R

**ERROR: /ACCESS NOT GRANTED TO PARAGRAPHS 5/34, 5/35, 5/36, 5/37. /

"Yeah, maybe this life is not going to be so bad as I thought," he admitted that same evening to the surgeon. The man promptly answered with one of his jokes which, for the sake of the reader's sanity, I do not present here.

 

[Xel Yel]

CHAPTER VI​

Chapter VI

… And he threw up, too nauseated to care that his jacket would have stained by the greenish regurgitation of his stomach. He tried to prop himself to the glossy black wall behind him, only to slide to the ground.

The boy stood like so for a few minutes. He looked at the pyramidal ceiling of the discotheque, with its hundreds of triangle-shaped glasses opening like a telescope to the starry night, and he was bewitched by the stroboscopic show of lights: purple crazing to the electronic claps and percussions, vibrating low blue for the thumping bass, flickering green after a snare, flashing red and yellow to the beats, and intersecting left and right to create an even wider variety of bright colors. Lasers would go round in flowers and form roads at the melody, rave at the increase of the volume, higher and louder; waiting a single second of darkness, and finally exploding at the drop, a tornado of lights whose center was the Dee Jay.

Yelling, cheering, jumping, people were moving as grass dancing in whirlwinds, as water in a crashing mass, as playful fire burning from the tip, not the bottom, releasing their whole selves to the upbeat music of speakers bouncing at full power. That irresistible night the moon was high, drinks were higher, and the young were flying.

~ ...Out there!... ~ were singing the lyrics.

The young man tried to get back up once more – beer still in hand – but miserably failed. One more effort was needed as he mustered all his might to finally succeed and, after wobbling like a pudding, plunging himself amidst the crowd once again. He would ask himself where his friends were, but it was too hard to tell in the confusion. It was not like it mattered: nothing did. He was carefree and happy, and that was all he needed. Truly, that was everything he had ever wished for: drinks, music, occasional friends, fulfilling experiences to enjoy, day after day.

~ ...Yourself out there!... ~

It was still hard for him to process that such a reality was possible for him, or for anyone else: it was as if no problems existed there, as if it was allowed for him to wastefully live every moment of his life without the smallest hint of pain or trouble. He was lost at first, sure, but he quickly realized how the City could satisfy all his innate, secret, genuine desires, even those that were hidden under the false presumption of pessimism, the excuse of redemption, the justification of searching for a better world. And from that point onwards he let it go: he stopped caring about how bad the repression of the regime was, and he would have so long he was allowed to live like that.

The lyrics kept singing: ~ ...Try not to lose yourself Out There... ~

She h-"!£=SDHSAJK-

**WARNING: OVERWRITTEN DATA.

And so our young adventurer continued to live peacefully under the regime. He would eventually marry and have two beautiful children, leaving them at the age of thirteen-six after an unfortunate accident in the battlefield.

That shall be the ending of our little story.

Fin.

**ERROR: /PARAGRAPHS NOT FOUND: INVALID CHECKSUM. ONLY GARBAGE DATA AFTER PARAGRAPH 6/5./

[END OF DOCUMENT 7203/A]​

/​

"Yeah, sure, just like you say."

A few hits on a keyboard, the darkness of a small room. In the middle of the monitor, the loading screen of a decryption program.

Please select decryption method.

"Cut the crap, will you? I can bear it if you guys want to cut a few parts here and there, but you can't delete the whole story!" A tap of the Enter key.

Applying two-layers decryption...

Waiting. Then, a popup on the screen.

Decryption complete of Chapters 6 onward! (Warning: some parts may still be unreadable.)

"Okay, there we go. Much better!"

Now opening Document 7203/A (Copy)...

"Where were we? Oh, right, around here..."

/​

[DOCUMENT 7203/A (Copy)]​

She had to try again, as painful as it was: it was her only viable option for escape. After all, she had already managed to enter the boy's mind, even if it had happened only once. Maybe she could do it again, just for enough time to tell his subconscious who put her in a cage, and where to find her; she needed no more than one minute in total to do that. But, she had been trying every single day to her point of exhaustion, and she hadn't made much progress. The only time she had succeeded was getting further and further months away, when he had disastrous health conditions, and was on the verge of death. His stability had improved drastically since, far more than she had expected: she was losing him, as his mind was becoming as impenetrable for the weak crumbs of psychic abilities she had left, as any other.

The human who imprisoned her, he was not stupid just as much as he was revolting: no doubt he had planned when and how to catch her beforehand, and procured himself what he needed to capture her. He had surely taken several notes, maybe even photos about the woods around the City. Still, she thought it was strange a commoner like him could have obtained such a rare item: she thought only the top brass of the Army had those white and red devices with which a monster's energy could be suppressed.

Over thinking it would have served no purpose, regardless. She closed her eyes instead, and focused, breathing in and out as fully as she was able to.

The practice of entering one's consciousness is, in some ways, similar to that of pushing a barrier, a sphere which is constantly closing around you from all directions as the target's mind opposes your invasion inside his subconscious. If you put enough pressure with your mind, the walls will expand and reveal a world inside which you can build or destroy what you wish in order to influence your target's impulsive decisions. But whenever your strength does not suffice anymore, the walls will encircle you back, and you would feel as if you were being relentlessly crushed by an immense force and simultaneously drowned, which is both mentally painful and physically dangerous for the user.

She began casting.

At first void, black; not much else. She pushed more.

Still dark. Her head was slightly hurting, already. More, she needed to put more force.

Nothing yet. She was starting to gasp for air, but she didn't want to give up yet.

Empty, empty. She began shivering.

Come on, please? she begged.

Still nothing. His subconscious was putting up a resistance bigger than her: her whole body was wildly shaking, and she was having trouble keeping her eyes focused.

A mass of water up her throat: she was drowning. She knew she was going to pass out in seconds: it was no use, she was not winning.

More water, more weight, less air. heavier, thinner; more, less; more, and...

...Wait!

A realization. Indeed, something was different that time: that water felt wet, it felt like real water she could drink with the simple stretch of her mouth, like she was inside a real sea and she was feeling not rushes of nausea, but concrete waves hitting her. It was not just her, it was a dream, it was the boy's dream!

She was inside it, she had made it! Truly, that night the boy must have been as drunk as a thousand skunks put together!

She quickly mustered all of her renewed strength, resoluted to leave some mark on the boy's mind, but soon realized the gate was already closing: she had no time for any of her previous plans - as she had done last time, candles and clouds and soft lights and all that other stuff - she had to say something, and fast! She tried to think of something essential, something the boy might recall some time, something he would remember...!

She whispered a single, short, minuscule word. Thereafter the soaring waves rained down, rushing and crashing at her fragile being. Like that, she passed out.

/​

"Man, yesterday was awesome!" said the guy.

"Oh my God, yes! You remember that blonde chick we met?" replied the boy.

Two young people were walking along the main road of the City, enjoying a quiet and fresh afternoon. The boy's friend was not one you'd call 'handsome': he was chubby, and certainly not light on the weight - 'Genetics,' he had said; he also reeked, quite - "Delicate colon" had been the reason for that one. When they had first talked to each other the boy had wondered if and what excuse he would have come up with for his messily choice of clothes, which to define 'wrong' was a compliment. And surely enough, he had replied: "You won't believe me, but I'm secretly wearing a world famous stylist's new entries: no one else knows about it!", after which point he had begun to rant about a series of other petty observation about his persona (which were not uncommon in the least), bringing to the surface all his previously harbored bitterness towards others opinions.

All of his statements, if it was not already clear to the reader, would be formulated without fault in the most convoluted and unbelievable ways: "A secret plan of the government I'm only aware of" or "Researches on alien technology" were big cards he always had in his hands. The boy began asking himself if he was aware of his own self-mockery. Maybe he was doing it on purpose? Maybe he wanted to convey what was an obvious lie as an undeniably clear, limpid, crystalline, blatant fabrication no one would hesitate to call as such? Maybe he just didn't like people, and did everything to scare them away from him.

But even as the spoiled liar as he was, factor which sometimes would add to be dumb, other times somewhat enjoyable, the boy thought he was a rather nice guy, overall. They had known each other since the first day the boy had come to the military academy, and quickly became friends.

"Ahaha! She was so drunk she tore off that other girl's high-heels and slapped her just because she wanted to put them on!"

"Ahahahah! But you were also pretty drunk by the end of the night, right?"

"Sure, but I didn't start dancing around and moving my hips so much I fell to the ground! The wrong side, of all the ones, ahaha!"

"Right, right, she tumbled down what were, like, two hundred-fucking stairs or something, pfhahahah!"

Remember kids, alcohol and stairs are not a good mix.

"Oh God, she started crying like a baby."

The boy paused for a second. His grin gently faded into a smile, as if he was cultivating a somewhat nicer thought. "She was cute like that, you know?"

"Heh, I don't know. I have seen better."

"Who?"

The guy looked downwards, slightly.

"Hey, is it someone you haven't presented to me? You want her just for yourself? Not fair man, come on!" curiously asked the boy.

"No, it's... just... it's a bit of a thing, a..." A pause. "... silly… kind of thing of mine. Nothing of relevance, really," replied the guy.

A chill freezed the boy's spinal column; adrenaline rushed through immediately after, burning his muscles with excessive heat - was it the environment? Maybe it was just a cold breeze –. It had been very brief and had already disappeared by the time he thought about it, but he couldn't wrap his head around it: nothing had happened around him. His friend didn't sense his mood change, and went on talking.

"It's a bit of a personal secret, you know? I might tell you, one day," concluded the boy's friend.

That 'bit of a personal secret' was not at all like the other lies, the boy was sure of it, and since his very talkative friend didn't want to talk about it, it was all the more questionable and shady. He felt an irresistible urge to know – why, though? Knowing the subject at hand, it was likely something minor or just downright idiotic; yet, he still did! – and without even questioning further why he had to know, he began devising ways to meddle into the matter.

"So, anyway, why don't we go to your home? It's getting kind of chilly out here," said the boy.

"Well...uhh..." The guy hesitated for a moment.

The boy smirked: So, my hunch is correct, huh? You secret is in your home! thought the boy.

"...I-I mean, it's a bit messy inside. It's not my fault, it's the… the housemaid, you know? Yes, the housemaid. She resigned last week, and... haha... hahahah!" Indeed, the guy was the kind of character that would nervously laugh in a tense situation.

Still, this is his most believable lie up to this point: props to him, conceded the boy.

"...A-anyway, why don't we go in a cafe or something i-instead?" said the guy.

"Oh, but we just came out of one, didn't we? Don't worry, I'm not so picky I'm going to judge you if your place is dirty or stuff like that. Hey, tell you what: If it's such a problem for you, you make a coffee for two and then I'll help you clean up!" said the boy as he returned a warm, understanding, tender smile. The fakest he could manage.

"Uhh... it's... okay, I suppose..." finally replied the guy, still looking somewhat troubled.

It had worked! Deep inside, the boy merrily enjoyed the victory and the distress of his victim, just like a little kid does when winning an innocent game against his pal.

"Great! After you!"

/​

A squared living room, a minimal restroom, a bedroom whose only luxury was a very expensive desktop computer, a kitchen full of ready-made products and a weirdly big supply of butter, finally a stretched corridor conjoining all of these were the full extent of the apartment. Plus a locked door, the purpose of which was to 'act as an attic without the roof', as his friend put it.

That was certainly suspicious: the boy would have tried to get the key and see what was behind it.

The two of them were sitting and chatting by a small table of plastic, *REMOVED* one of those very cheap ones you could buy at IKE... *REMOVED*

"So, do you live here all by yourself?" asked the boy.

"Yeah," was the short reply.

"What about your parents? Do they come to visit every once in a while?"

"No, they really don't. I've never known my mother before she died, and my father sends allowance once a month, thinking he has properly taken care of his son that way, then he goes to do whatever is his business. Other relatives, he has never told me of."

"Oh man, that's a bit sad. I'm sorry."

"Nah, it's water under the bridge. The only important thing is that he's rich, so I can get some extra stuff for myself every once in a while. Even with the paycheck I get from the Army it's costly to have fun out here, you know?"

"My wallet is emptier than yours, I assure you."

"Heh, pretty much like everyone around here. To think some people believe I'm well-heeled for real: they envy me, can you imagine that?"

"Well, you don't look like one of those know-it-all braggers," replied the boy, as he thought: Actually, you do.

"Sometimes I wish I were. Those guys ruin the fun for everyone else, you know what I mean? All the best clothes, the best cars; they get all the most gorgeous women and all. The bunch of assholes, I would like to teach them a lesson!" Fire of Justice was burning in the friend's eyes as if it was a matter of top priority for the entire humanity.

"Oh God, I got worked up. Sorry," said back the friend.

"No, it's fine, I mean, I kind of feel you," said the boy. Oh sure, I am certainly feeling for the guy who is in a better economic position than everyone else and who is probably spending his free time eating butter, but can't afford all of the bitches of this world because he doesn't care to put some effort into anything. Poor guy.

"Do you?"

"Yeah, really. Don't let it get to you: you're better than that."

"Thanks, it really means to me." A pause. "You know, you are a nice person," complimented the friend.

The boy smiled back, for more than his appreciative answer: eight, nine, ten emptied beers were on the table at that point, none of which the boy had touched. His friend was starting to lag behind the conversation, which meant it was about time for him to act.

"Well, let's get started, shall we? This place won't clean up by itself," he bluntly said out of nowhere.

"Hey man, don't worry. It's fine, really, I'll hire someone to do clean soon enough anyway. We don't have to. We... don't... have to." answered the friend, more because if the boy wasn't still there he would have instantly fallen asleep on the sofa, rather than because he was actually going to hire someone.

"No problem, no problem, I told you! At the very least your bedroom should be tidy, right? I'll go pick up the things we need, you stay here." The boy stood up and got the pair of keys hanging on the entrance's door.

"It's this room, right?" asked the boy, pointing at the locked door.

"Oh, yeah, yeah..." the guy absent-mindedly replied.

But immediately afterwards, the friend gasped: "No wait, it's not-!"

The guy's voice choked as he heard the door unlock. He rushed up and through the narrow corridor in panic, but his friend was already descending the spiral staircase leading to the second, and last door that was protecting his secret. The boy was laughing with a playful heart, certain to tease his pal by spoiling his little secret: he would have cracked up seeing his fellow's rattled expression, and would have finally satisfied the childish curiosity he had been harboring for the previous hours. Indeed, he did not notice the tone of alarm and horror in his friend's yelling, who was praying him to stop before it was too late, before everything was ruined as he was hearing the dreadful, haunting kling-kling of the keys the boy was bringing with him.

The boy did not listen. As he found the other locked door at the bottom, he began to try to open the keyhole, one key after another.

" ~ This one wrong, this one is also wrong… ~ " He was loudly chanting, changing the tone of his voice at every 'wrong' to sadistically taunt his friend.

" ~ Wrong, wrong… ~ " Bewildered loud footsteps were raining down, the alloy staircase shaking as if an earthquake was striking.

" ~ Wrong, still wrong… ~ " The guy was almost there, he had almost caught the boy.

But alas, a click! The door opened with a creaking sound…

"NO!" screamed the guy.

… And the boy saw.

That delicate mirror which reflected a castle of illusions, once a magnificent vision for the boy's future, cracked and shattered as its image crumbled to dust. The fantasy of a quiet existence was twisted, not unlike a piece of delicate garment which had been brutally ripped. The battlefield came back full force, cannons firing and shots whistling in his ears: War Was Waging back in his mind, and this time it would be for ever, before the creature's shimmering, pleading red eyes.

 

[Xel Yel]

CHAPTER VII​

"...What..."

Metal scraps, cracked pipes leaking water on the damp floor, crates messily stacked upon one another and overflowing with wires and broken electronic devices; there laid a humanoid creature, in the penumbra of the basement.

"...What the hell..."

The minimal difference of temperature and brightness that the newly opened door was allowing to flow made the animal tremble, the chain she was tied with rattling along with her body. Her sinuous figure was cut off by that constriction as a segment does after a curve, whilst her long, thin, silvery dress was no more the perfect highlight of her body, but a wrinkled blanket that could not even suffice for heat conservation. She was cradling into herself, covering her torso with both her flimsy arms and slender legs, as if to diminish her presence.

"...So, I know this is not totally legal, but..." The guy awkwardly began.

"..."

The boy was cold sweating at the unreal sight, his washed-out face staring into complete void, stuck trying to spill a phrase, a word, or just a syllable that could express the horror he was witnessing; he was chocking empty air, oblivious to the excuses of his "friend".

"...I mean, I'm not doing anything wrong, right?..."

Arceus knew how long he had kept her there: her messy hair, her fatigued stance, her unwillingness to fight back were all consequences of surviving without a bed, without any commodities, unable to even walk or enjoy the sunlight, maybe with no food at all.

"...It's not like she's h-human or something..."

Not only, not enough. There were clear signs of abuse: on her left hand, on her shoulder, on her leg shot by a bullet – sleep-inducing, maybe? - on her bloodied chin. Physical violence, for sure. Sexual as well, most likely, from the curled-up stance she was taking.

"...I-if you are worried we are in trouble, d-don't! The law doesn't say anything about mistreating a pokémon! Eheh, eheh..."

He couldn't believe how anyone could be so nonchalantly cruel about making such a mess out of a poor pure creature as that damsel; he couldn't stand the nauseating sight anymore. What was he to do, then? Leave her be? No, he could never. Contact the Army? No, that would have even been worse...

"...I-it's only illegal to detain them. But y-you won't say to the Army that I am anyway, as..."

Her twinkly eyes were filled up with water, as if she was going to break any moment: Those, oh God, those two little hearts, they were looking so intensely, so passionately, so deeply at him! She looked so lost, so lonely, so fragile...

A scalding tepid tear of pity slid down the boy's cheek.

...Free her?

It was a ridiculous, insane thought. She might have been dangerous, she might have broke out like a wild beast and killed both of them. But-

Abruptly, as soon as his abuser had turned his head to her, she broke contact and hid her face behind her body.

"The fuck you are looking at? This is all your fucking fault, you slut!" He screamed with the insane rage of a bear, followed by the spit of his moist, sticky, thick saliva at her.

She was not just searching for freedom, the shaky creature. She was furtively trying to look at the boy once more, asking with her sweet cherry eyes for his help, and his help only: she was hoping, she was depending on him. Because he might have seen her as a treat, but she had never caused any suffering to anyone. Because she was an enemy, but she was being mistreated far beyond any justification. Because as she was seeing that pandemonium of his morality, she knew she could trust him, a human, to do the right thing; and with that, she would restore her faith in all mankind.

"...Because we're f-friends, right? Hehe, he..."

His "pal" instead, he had been insane since a long time ago; the boy felt the guilt of realizing it only when confronted with the hideous face he was truly possessing, behind the mask of "good guy", and rejected the positive traits of his - if any. He had to make up for it, for the fact that he had been a fool to believe that such a monstrous society could give him happiness, to forsake his ideals for spare delights, to act as an hypocrite, first and foremost to himself.

"...Y-you aren't giving a shit about her, are you...?"

There was still time: with that simple gesture, he could free her, he could shoulder on himself the sins of his friend, of that city, of the whole world! It could have been it, a new mutual comprehension, a friendship he would finally forge back, between two worlds separated for too long.

"...H-hey, you know...! you can also have her!" The guy brightened, not similarly to a light bulb, rather precisely as the light bulb he was, convinced of having the geniusest of ideas in his mind.

"Yeah, that's right! Friends are to share, no? So, just, go ahead and do whatever you wish to her!..."

The feminine creature glanced for a brief instant to the boy's right, making sure to have his sight follow an almost imperceptible movement - no one but him could have noticed that, as it was her sign to him, to him only: they had become accomplices already, there was something between them already - pointing at the spherical device sticking out from the guy's backpack. He saw it, and immediately knew what she was requiring him to do.

"...J-just don't go around telling anyone, yeah! It'll be our secret! What do you say, eh?"

Who was the true monster, after all? Her? On which basis? Just because she was "one of them"? What else, what other reason? What did she do, what did she do to deserve all of that!?

No, it was someone else, the true Evil. It didn't need any more reasoning, the decision to take was clear in the boy's mind.

"Nick, I'm sorry about this."

He took out his only weapon at disposal, his knife. He threw it at the other person before he could react in the slightest, aiming for the bag and successfully hitting what he'd later call a "Pokéball". It cracked on hit with an electric fuse, and broke altogether, turning off for ever.

He had done it! He had freed the enslaved creature...!

...Yet...

...As Nick realized what the boy had done he looked at him with a bleached, deathlike frown, as if white paint had been poured on him; of hollowed eyes, of true terror, of a ghost penetrating his soul.

"...What have you done?..." He expired.

Infernally buried in his soul for the rest of his existence, it was the last image the boy would glimpse of his friend before being impaled by several crystals of an ablaze lambency, piking through his abdomen, his legs, his neck, his shoulder his eyes his breast, everywhere! Staked as a beaten up voodoo doll, his brain, pierced by the biggest of those, was slowly gushing out from the orifice that it had created. The deadly image took a moment to be executed, a single one, but it condensed an immense hatred, and a will to create as much agony in the victim as possible.

The room became cold, much colder. The boy was trembling uncontrollably as he slowly turned to see the monster he had so naively freed. His heart was pumping faster, a metallic taste in his mouth. He was scared, truly so.

It was standing up, floating a few centimeters from the ground, bursting with an aura of fearsome power, motionless. It was not looking at the boy: it didn't need him, not anymore. All a deception, all a mask, the insensitive psychic-type creature knew very well how to toy with emotions, how to convey empathy with her body, with her angelic looks: undoubtedly an angel, an angel of death which, at that moment, was just looking to kill.

What had the boy done indeed.

She lifted a heavy metal bar with her powers and sent it flying with a snap of her hands. An enormous force smashed the boy's stomach before he could even see it coming, and he quickly lost consciousness.

/​

The sound of dripping water from the ceiling was muffled, but soon became sharper as the boy regained his senses. What time was it? Where?

It didn't take long for him to recognize he was still in the basement of his friend's house, where a locked monster had been freed by his credulous determination. He was laying supine on the ground, and as he tried to move he felt an aching strain on his lower torso. He had got hit hard; he wasn't dead, though, and as much as it was painful to breathe in and out his body was fully intact. It took him a good five minutes to get standing, his legs shakily carrying him.

The hit would have probably ended his life, was it not for the previous experience of having his innards twisted, which instinctively made his body stiffen and cover around that area, instead of trying to protect his head. Had the beast attacked there, the most logical choice, he would have had no way of surviving the impact. Why did it choose that spot, then? Was the creature that cunning it expected the boy to react by lowering himself, making him get his skull cracked anyway?

But why? Wasn't it easier to tear him apart, just like it did with his... He shuddered at the thought, and forced himself not to look at his right, where laid his comrade's holed corpse.

The answer was, truthfully, simple: the creature was obviously exhausted already, and it consequently planned to kill both people as quickly as possible with its feeble remaining powers before passing out - first its rapist, then the other human. But it was left almost dry after the first move: it must have panicked, and resorted to an indirect attack to finish the boy - which didn't work, unfortunately for it - before fainting.

Indeed, there it was, flat on the ground, the chain on its neck forcefully open.

That was it, that explained everything. There was nothing more to say or to add, a justification, an excuse, an apology, a regret, a "thank you". It tricked him for its survival and no other reason, it was as evident as evidence can be. And from that point onwards it was as if they had never met each other: It would have killed him, if it could, and he had to consider it an enemy.

If that was it, it also meant he needed to murder it as soon as possible – that moment was an otherwise impossible chance to do so.

The boy slowly dragged himself to Nick's remains. The sight was hard to bear, a carcass butchered like Swiss cheese deflating his bodily juices out, reeking of death already.

He slumped to it and cried harsh blood. It was his fault, of course; he was the one who sentenced him to his fate. He didn't even listen to what he had to say in his defence, he didn't try to: so stubborn he was in his little idyllic, ignorant view of things that he forgo everything for his ego. He was a mess, he was screwing up every time, and for what? Because of some stupid bullshit about living together with these horrors of Nature.

The knife was still stuck in the friend's bag. He snatched it. Then, he laboriously heaved himself up, sweat spilling from his body, and began slowly walking towards the defenceless beast, wheezing and panting in fever and anger.

After all, it was the hypocrite. After all, it was the one who killed his buddy. After all, it was the one who laughed at his worthy ideals. And after all it was it, the demon who shattered his dreams of a blissfully life, forgetful of the blood, the war, the chaos it had brought back once and for ever into the world!

He was approaching the quiescent creature, knife in hand.

Wasn't it for that animal, he would have lived a happy, content life, without any trouble, without any regret. Instead he was doomed already, instead the Army would have probably found him and executed him for what he had done.

He was blindly looking in rage at its silhouette. Breathing hurt, enraging him even more.

At least he would bring it down with him. He could have... he could have faked the scene, and told everyone how he heroically managed to injure it, avenging his comrade who sacrificed his life to shield him, after... after the monster had broken free by itself! Yes, he could have said that, no doubt he could.

He arrived very close to its body. He could feel her soft breath, which fabricated its innocence. She was without a doubt gracious, and remembering those eyes of hers... Those eyes, they were so unbelievably beautiful, so ethereal they could never... no, it was a trap, it was all a fake!

Still, he wouldn't... kill it. He would maim it to... submission, after which he would call the Army. Yes, that was a great idea! They would execute it, for sure! He would have... he would have enjoyed that one, he would have enjoyed every... every other time the guillotine was going to... to chop another one of those fuckers...

He lifted the weapon, ready to strike, trembling.

Even... even that drake. Yes, even that... was-

A shock. Images, as he relived the fear, the anguish, the dread of the demented deranged crowd screaming and howling and laughing in Hell, tormented souls spiraling in a tornado of hot wild flames - it terrorized him. He didn't want to become that: It was devilish, it was Evil. What was he doing?! He was losing control of himself, he was being possessed by some seductive force!

He gulped. A different kind of sweat was starting to run down his temples.

E...ev-even... th-that dra-drake...

/​

A metallic sound ran through the room. The dagger was dropped off the ground, as the boy started crying uncontrollably, not in compassion, not in fury, but in the purest of childish closure. He couldn't do it, he just couldn't. He just wanted that nightmare to be over, because he hated it, because he couldn't stand it anymore and he didn't want it anymore. He wanted to be kind-hearted, and he was brought to madness instead. He felt scared, he felt lonely, because he was a kid in a world of adults, of things bigger than him.

He could not kill her, he couldn't even do that. He couldn't do it, he just couldn't.

 

[Xel Yel]

CHAPTER VIII​

The city was drunk of music and neon lights, that Saturday, an heaven of elusive joy and momentary thrill pumping its techno beats to its avenues and roads as a heart does through its veins. It was surging electric life to its citizens and their glittering clothes, to the brightly illuminated dance floors and ceilings, to the expensive plays of fountains and fireworks, to the giant digital screens which were changing their colors to the rhythm, and to the discotheques' shimmering beacons, their reach extended far beyond the skies and the horizon. As seen from the outside and on the whole, the city was like a burning Sun, shining of its own light; and just like the brightest stars in the universe, it seemed destined to burn out of fuel and die, sooner or later.

Among the others, the city was casting its golden glow onto its polar opposite: not too far off north stood a building surrounded by darkness, as high as a mountain, and as terrible as the deepest of chasms. Only a tiny amount of all those flashy lights seemed able to reach its location, leaving the towering structure in an engulfing penumbra that would scare the fearful viewer, and leave him wondering about the size of its shape for its actual look was more alike the shadow that creates a monster out of an innocuous object or creature, than the object or creature itself. Which is a peculiar statement to be said about any cathedral, but an especially ill-fated omen were it to be said, as it was the case, about none others than the Cathedral of the Federation, the largest and highest between all the churches ever conceived by man, main headquarters of the Federation and home to the Truly, the One, the Only Heavenly Savior Himself.

Any attempt at counting, describing, or otherwise depicting the colossal structure with its Gothic pinnacles, its arches spanning dozens of meters in length, its enormous facade made of the most refined white marble and filled to the brim with golden statues attired with rubies, sapphires, emeralds, amethysts, topazes and all other kinds of precious gems, its complex geometrical plays and wavy decorations of ivory and delicate glass, and its ample spherical domes, all of them stacked on top of each other again and again and again spiraling to the top to create miracles of Architecture and a wizardry of Physics laws, would seem at the same time redundant for the reader and lacking for anyone who had seen the actual thing. And even if some super-human attempt could manage to fill in all the details of such a superb edifice, we would be still missing all the weaponry that made it the impenetrable fortress it was.

Several layers of defense would protect the place, disfiguring the innate beauty of the Cathedral. From the dozens upon dozens of kilometers around the building filled with mines in the most unexpected patches of grass and under the sight of snipers and automatic turrets all over the edges of the spiraling structure, to the barracks of elite soldiers patrolling both inside and outside, to the lake of sulfuric acid surrounding the base, to the electrified rooms, the burning ones, the flooding ones, the ones void of air and so on, all activated by cameras and sensors that would sense and identify whoever was, wherever he was. And all while for a human, the simple thought of sneaking inside would take an hours of stairs, stairs, and stairs, enough which could drive anyone insane.

And on its highest zenith, far away from earthly looks, taking form of a spear piercing the skies and encircled by a-air turrets and helicopters guarding the place at every time of every day, without stairs or any other passageways to ascend there, it is said the Heavenly Savior Himself resided, giving all of the orders to its generals and all the speeches to its people, for no reason or occasion ever leaving that summit.

But despite all said to this point, if one could barely manage, be it for a single instant, to get a glimpse of the inside of that pinnacle, on that night he would have seen a big, wide grin, the only one that might have ever come out of His face since His birth.

It was perfect. That was His only thought at that moment - such a triumph of His mind was the plan He had just devised for the future of His Federation! From such a negligible event as the death of a person, He could have gained so much power. It was the perfect chance he had been waiting for so long, it was a lifetime chance.

They had reported His son had been found dead the previous hour, his brain holed by a much stronger force than bullets: no doubt the work of a pokémon. There were also fingerprints of another person, though, and among all the people they could have belonged to it was the one boy rescued from the outside world, the one nobody knew anything about and about whom several voices and rumors of his origin were already spreading: some said he was a poor boy who had escaped from the rebels, but most talked about a spy conspiring against the Federation, and a few dared to say he might have been someone mind-controlled by a pokémon to execute its orders - it was a neat idea, that one, but a risky one as it could have easily been used as a defense for his actions.

No, it had to be the boy's fault and his fault only for the death of an innocent person to the hands of those wicked, evil fiends. In reality, He had no idea if that boy was implied whatsoever with the incident, but that didn't really matter to Him: he'd just be a goat for the cause, His superior cause, against which a small sacrifice as that boy's reputation was less worthy than a few bread crumbs on the table of a starving family.

At the end of that night, it would have been Sunday, sermon day; it really was so perfect. He just had to write the adequate speech, which was already happening by itself as words were pouring out in His mind: hard-hitting, pompous, and powerful for the masses. He had just begun scribbling a draft, and He was liking it already.

The grief and the anger of a father losing his son, one or two tears shed. (A low tone of voice as of a funeral…) As a shock, the horrifying sight for the crowd of my son's body to underline how cruel and savage pokémon really are… The shock and the dismay of people, at which point a small praise of all of them for their hard work, reassuring them for the horrible sight, making myself look humble in their eyes, and underlining that I care about them…

"…the only reason I'm not giving up after this loss is thanks to all of your renewed efforts…!"

Reaffirming that pokémon are Evil (this time with a more violent emphasis), and to top it off demonstrate that they are cowards, as they killed an innocent to attack Me, to attack God himself…! (Here I must raise my voice as I go along…) Stress how there can't be dialogue with them, no matter what… Then, add the element of surprise: there was also a rebel, an enemy who sided with those fiends…!

"His betrayal of humanity killed My son, and those traitors will sooner or later d all that's left of the Human race…!"

Then inject fear into the masses by going back to the "horrible" event:

"…even if he fought courageously, My son was killed without effort by those brutal beasts…!"

Claim that these creatures want us to fear them, that they want humanity to believe it's weak and vulnerable! Then, back to the boy, and all of a sudden I shall point at him among the soldiers with a fell swoop of my hand (at this point I need be shouting in anger...) , revealing that the traitor I had been talking about all this time has lived between our ranks, for the shock of the crowd to instill a climate of terror, and for the public humiliation of the boy himself; Death Sentence for him and all his allies…! And then, the main point: a condemn and a Declaration of War against all outsiders, all rebels, without exceptions! It must be particularly clear, that I intend They must all die!

"They all side with Evil, all of them! They are as good as the pokémon they side up with, who are their masters and controllers! Don't let their human appearances deceive you, they are as monstrous, and as Evil…! "

Finally, the wake-up call, the mobilization of the masses...

"…Because hope is not lost, because we can still fight, and so we must fight, right here and right now we must slay all pokémon, and all rebel with them! We've had enough patience, we've been kind enough to them, but it's clear they've lost their humanity, they've lost their God…!"

…and The Grand Finale of the Total and Absolute War and Dominion of the Entire World!

"…for our future, for our children, the Total and Absolute War and Dominion of the Entire World!"

Afterwards, the soldiers lining up their weapons, the audience cheering loudly, the biggest of festivities as the community is once more reunited and preparing for War, the Army growing and growing and growing, stronger the ground will tremble at their march…

Yes, that would have been such a mesmerizing speech; just repeating it in His mind almost convinced Himself of the truth falsely contained behind those words. It was time to begin a War for real, and all that was not the Federation – be them pokémon, humans, or any other living thing – would have finally been under His complete control, or slaughtered without mercy.

The next day would have been the beginning of His absolute reign, once and forever. Satisfied of his work, He looked once again at the photos of His dead son, and a big, wide grin formed on His face.

/​

What the boy was going to do next, he had no idea. He was terribly beaten, both physically and mentally, but he tried to push away with all his might the deep angst and the void growing inside his stomach, keeping only the simple logical reasoning around what was his situation, and what he could do next to save himself (such are the strong defensive mechanism which our human nature is capable of).

The boy was somewhat confident he had managed to carry the unconscious creature to the surgeon's home without anyone noticing: even if the city was bursting with life that night, finding unlit alleyways to sneak by was not that hard. He knew the owner of his temporary accommodation was out there having fun as well, and the boy hoped the surgeon could really, really have a great time that night, enough that he wouldn't have come back any time soon. About his fingerprints all over his friend's house, he didn't care as long as they were not found on any suspicious objects such as his friend's clothes or pokéball – which he cared to clean as well as his trembling hands could - because their friendship was known to some extent and finding an alibi as to why he had been there a few hours before the incident was not an impossible task. After all, it was clear a pokémon caused his friend's death while he himself had no clear part in it, and should fear no repercussions as a consequence – so he thought, at least.

Although, what about the pokémon herself? The boy had very clashing feelings about her: while he believed she did deserve freedom, he could not forgive her for her actions, even if they had been in self-defense. The boy had to admit, she was such a fascinating creature, and that thought opened his imagination to an even wider and wilder world of mysterious forces and wonders, as dangerous as it was inspiring: the creature was without a doubt deadly, but her feminine pose as she slept betrayed a veiled softness of hers. There were both grace and blood thirst in her, but as much as that was beautiful, it was also fearsome.

In the end the boy couldn't reconcile his morals with his attraction and would waver between the two; even so, some hidden, unknown part of himself was slowly budding inside his brain, a part of him that wished powers like hers, that enjoyed the thought of that superhuman strength and wanted it as his own, a part that was enticed by her mixture of darkness and light, that liked her as a whole.

It took a second for the boy to reject the idea afterwards, he convinced himself it was another trick of that witch he had protected only to get injured because of her soulless nature, he damned his weak mind and his weak morals, and he strengthened this thought as he had goosebumps and he felt nausea hitting his stomach – even his body was rejecting that idea, after all. Besides, He was still too worried about what was to come: what if the Army found her? And at his home, of all places?

He was scared to pick her up again and bring her out of Federation territory into the forest – what if she woke up? - and it was impossible, regardless, for someone as weakened as his; his spinning headache quickly bothered him to stop from catching his breath to moving to the kitchen to find some food, some water, and a painkiller or two. His body was still shivering as he took a glass of the liquid and began to sip on it, and he felt corrosive acid was burning down his throat, rather than common water. He wouldn't even dare to try anything more solid that that, but he did bring an apple and a bunch of grapes back to his bedroom – maybe if he gave them to her she wouldn't have killed him off immediately – and, just as he closed the door, a stronger wave of pain struck his head from exhaustion, and he blacked out flat on the floor.

The following morning, the creature was already gone. The boy searched all home for her, but couldn't find any trace left of her presence. He then noticed the food had also disappeared, and while his clouded memory of the previous night forgot several details about the unfolding of the events, he was quite sure he had never eaten it.

Regardless, the search was cut short by the church bells from the cathedral as they began to ring, slowly and loudly: it was Sunday morning, and as the Sun was raising high to shine on the Cathedral it was time for the Heavenly Savior's sermon.

 

[Xel Yel]

CHAPTER IX​

Suddenly, He struck His lightning of Truth down the spiraling Cathedral! His index finger, seen by the audience through the tall screen which was casting the Heavenly Savior's figure itself, was more massive than a giant's, and it was crushing downwards and pointing at, of all the soldiers and the commoners who were lined up in hundreds of tidy columns to hear the Heavenly Savior Sunday's Speech, a lone boy: the one who was before hidden within the masses and was part of them, got separated, isolated.

The crowd was shocked and terrified at the news, the soldiers were enraged for a traitor had sneaked among their ranks! A well-looking, civilized, young man he seemed: how could it be? It was unbelievable, it was unthinkable that such an innocent looking boy could commit such a monstrous act!

But alas, he was not well bred, He reassured the population. The boy was an outsider to the City, rescued only for kindness - it was such an honorable quality of its industrious citizens, that one, but one which had brought only suffering to them. The boy had been found on the verge of Death, which made his Sin even more Evil in His eyes, for he had betrayed not the City only, but himself and the whole Humanity with him!

They knew it! The masses knew it couldn't have been any different, as their mind and their voices screamed at the Revelation that was brought upon them that day! Only an outsider, only he would do such a thing, those sickening bastards, those perverted who sided with those monsters! There was no excuse, there would have been no forgiveness that time! And as the boy ached in fear and trembled for his fate, a motto slowly grew more and more above the chaos of yells at the top of their lungs and reddened, inflamed faces who had lost any control over their stretched, beastly expressions:

Work! Wage War! Win! Work! Wage War! Win! Work! Wage War! Win!​

The Heavenly Savior stood there, silent, for there was clearly no need to say more.

/​

What was left to do for the boy? He was shaking wildly as only hatred, hatred and more hatred were surrounding him: the already vast square became immeasurable as hundreds, thousands, millions, all the people of the world were looking down at his small figure. In a matter of seconds, from the nobody he was he became the object of all the pent up anger of the human race, and his whole life had made a complete U-turn.

Everyone is so angry, everyone is so loud...!

Tears were moving down his cheeks along with so much sweat only the full amount of adrenaline in his body could produce, released all at once, rushing through his nerves. His eyes couldn't look away from the crowd or the finger of the giant pointing at him, they were magnetized by the terrible but massive event that was brought upon them, and they wouldn't even attempt to move. His heart was hurting like a hammer against his rib cage, his throat was sore like a desert and, most of all, his stomach was burning from his self-made acids, twisting in the most nauseating manners, eating him alive from the inside.

It hurts so much... Please...

Alone, he was completely alone. He couldn't hear his own voice through the screaming, through the anger of the people. No one would listen to his plea, not a single human on Earth would defend his cause, not even try to! Indeed, it was useless to search for help. And the more people were screaming at him, the more the boy was convincing himself they were, in fact, right. It was clear then, he realized they were absolutely correct: he was a murderer, he was an enemy of humanity, he had betrayed the Heavenly Savior Himself! And for that, he was going to be sentenced to the stocks and executed, as he deserved. After all, everyone was saying so.

Just like that dragon... Am I going to...?

Still, he didn't want to die. He was sorry, he was so sorry for what he had done. He thought it was the right thing to do, he thought he could really change things for a better future, he didn't think he would have caused the death of his friend, he didn't want it to go like this, he...

...he was just making excuses, wasn't he? Yes, again, he was justifying himself, even when the whole world knew of his crimes. His cowardice sparked an intense resentment of himself, a moody ego talking to his stupid, depraved self through the voice of an hard, unforgivable judge.

...Yes, I deserve to die!

He deserved to go to the guillotine, without a second thought. Just like the dragon, and just like she deserved that other creature who mercilessly murdered his friend. Why didn't he kill her in the first place? Why did he let her live, what got in his foolish head that stopped him from putting a remedy to his wrongdoings? How could he get mesmerized by her pretty looks and by her cherry eyes and let her go after he had witnessed her merciless brutality slay a human before his own eyes? A savage harpy, a bloody siren she was, nothing else! And because he didn't kill her back then he wasn't even worthy of breathing air anymore, to waste such a precious resource that others could have used to better purposes. Actually, he didn't even deserve to die, he deserved to suffer for years, every single day of his life, for eternity, like the abominable sinner he was! Of course no one would defend him, because it would be a crime to do so, and he wasn't certainly worth the effort! After all, he was just an idiot who knew nothing of the world, nothing of those creatures, nothing about anything at all! And he had made a mess of everything that could be messed up, ever!

With that last statement, he had said everything there had to be said. He could have ended his trail of shame there, and keep silent and thoughtless for what was left of his short life.

Still...

But he couldn't help but add another word, then another one, another one and so on and soon enough, pity and fear overcame the anger within his chaotic being. Why did he get so furious and hateful of himself in the first place? He became terrified not only of people, but of his own morality, of that same internal judge he was fueling just seconds before. He was giving up on himself, he was leaving himself no way out of that situation, and no good would have come out of that, would it? On the contrary there was a voice inside of him that told him to run away, to escape his "rightful" punishment. It was yelling "it can't end here!", and it was bringing back the sadness the boy was feeling as he remembered that poor soul chained and brutally violated for days, weeks, months maybe, and about that drake, suffering the same fate as his own with his big, deep eyes of a lost puppy, and the scars all along his wings: a free creature chained by society, which no one would have ever seen soar through the blue skies again. But, it had been for a just cause, hadn't it?

Why does it still feel wrong, then...?

Was he being a coward, was it just the fact that he didn't want to die, his animal instincts telling him to survive against a just morality which was condemning his actions without appeal? Was he just picking the most comfortable side, was his mind trying to find good qualities in these creatures only because his own nature was just as bad as theirs?

I hate it...

He hated it, he hated that his weak will was trying to protect his sanity by playing the victim card: he didn't deserve it. He had to suffer, he had to suffer for his sins!

...Or not...?

But that wasn't it. It wasn't just that, he wanted to escape not only because he was scared, but because he couldn't remain silent at the sad existence everyone had been forced to live: of rules and divisions, of power and control, of daily slavery and terror of the population, of a world in which to survive, and not to truly live.

...Just like always.

In the end, always in the middle, never making a proper decision. Not even in those final moments he could manage a Yes or a No, a Guilty or Not-Guilty verdict of his own mind. And even if he did take one side, he knew he wouldn't have followed it to its end and instead clumsily fall at the smallest of obstacles, as always.

That's why he just gave up trying to make reason of that whole mess. He tried to forget everything, leaving deaf eyes and blind ears to the scene around him: his body became dull and unresponsive, while his mind began to wander off, far from that place and that reality.

/​

Mom...?

A cozy home, nothing more than a small apartment at the fifth floor of one of the dozens of buildings in the residential area of Stadkerk, a small but fervent city of a few thousands. In a tidy kitchen of relaxing pastel colors, a young woman was busily moving around stoves and plates for lunch, giving her back to her son. The oven had a digital clock on its side which could also function as an alarm: it would keep blinking at a constant pace between the proper time of the day and the time left before lunch was ready, something the boy would always look forward to: when the five minute mark was approaching, he would carry out the little daily ritual of sitting on the kitchen table and waiting for the alarm to go off, staring at it for the whole duration, after which her mother would finally turn around and give back a big, warm smile, hug his son and whisper him with her soothing voice that the meal was finally ready. The pot was steaming out a pleasant smell of cooked meat and vegetables, that day, and soon a juicy lunch would have been served for two. But it was such an hard wait, every time, the boy could barely contain himself, and the clock always seemed to be ticking slower than the day before. He didn't want to wait for so long, he was giggling impatiently on his chair, he was going to burst out in laughter, so soon...!

It broke his heart to remember quiet, happy moments like those. They seemed so far away, so lost under the gloom that his life had become after the beginning of the War. And now, after the first one had destroyed the joy of living and wasn't over yet, humans wanted to start another one, a bloodier one to destroy any trace left of themselves. What foolish creatures, what beasts were they, hiding behind fake promises of peace and prosperity which they firmly believed should be achieved by hate and destruction. And meanwhile hiding behind their lust of alcohol, of drugs, of sex and other momentary pleasures, to try and fill the void inside themselves when all they'd need were some less arbitrary rules and rulers, and more effort put into building something better. It was all wrong, it was all so wrong.

But ultimately, there was nothing a small little boy could have done to change anything: he was weak, he was tired, and at that point he just wanted the pain to be over.

The daydreaming didn't last for long, anyway: all his thought processes happened in the few moments of disbelief from the shocking news, after which one of the soldiers – a general, from the tall stature and the several medals he was displaying on his chest – tossed the boy to the ground with much unnecessary force. Without a proper ceremony, he briefly asked his comrades to form a line and ready their weapons to carry the execution. The boy snapped back to reality from the hit, but didn't oppose any resistance: for the third time he was on the verge of death, but for the first time he wasn't going to oppose it. He had accepted his fate, he was finally ready to die, to leave that mess of a society so he could reunite with his loved mother and get back, with his hand into her, into their small apartment on the outskirts of a quiet town.

The soldiers loaded their rifles, ready to shoot. He didn't care, he didn't care about anything anymore because he had finally surrendered all of his faith, without exception, to the hopeless darkness of the world around him, letting himself be engulfed in it totally. The Heavenly Savior Himself was going to give the signal through the giant screen of the square, in a matter of moments.

Then, she came.

 

[Xel Yel]

CHAPTER X​

The creature materialized mid-air from nothing but a faint glow. The boy thought she really did look like an angel, with her arms wide open, her thin white dress folding to the wind and a relaxed, confident expression which was pointing slightly upwards as she descended slowly, gravity not fully applying to her slender body. Or, rather, it was Time itself which seemed to slow down to allow her theatrical entrance into the scene, not allowing the other characters of the play as little as a simple movement or thought that differed from pure amazement. And just like that, all the noise and the screams and the voices were gone in an instant. The boy could hear once again: the leaves of the city rustling through the wind, a few birds chirping lazily, her breath and his own, his heartbeats regularly coming one after another.

"Get her!" the Heavenly Savior commanded through the tall screen, at which the closest soldiers began taking action.

Only the boy stood in awe as the creature opened her flaming, bright red eyes and began one beautiful, deadly play in front of the biggest audience of the time: opening with a devastating blast of psychic power, she instantly melted the brains of several soldiers who were close to the boy. When the remaining soldiers began attacking her, she would circle around and stab them from behind with a hop and a skip; with twirls and pirouettes she would dodge their bullets and deflect them back to their owners, and with an arabesque she would chop one's neck and send its head flying high. By the time the terrified soldiers could finally process her movements, she would have already disappeared from sight and reappeared elsewhere on the stage to take another's life, and when they'd almost manage to catch her, she'd levitate one of the dead bodies to shield herself or the boy, then flash away once more. All of it performed with the elegance and pose of a girl gently picking flowers from a lush field.

All throughout the screams of pain, the blood falling on the stage like thin rain, the swears and the shivers of the soldiers, she would reveal the simplest and earnest of smiles, because no one could escape her enchanting gaze and no witness would ever forget her performance for the rest of their lives. She truly, wholeheartedly enjoyed that feeling: Control, Possession, up to a level which only her powers could allow, along with the amount of Revenge she thought was deserved for getting violated and hurt by such pathetic beings. Yes, pathetic; humans truly were so. Creatures who'd rather blame others for their own faults and shortcomings, who'd gang up on anyone different than them, who'd always pretend to be in the right, and on top of that be arrogant about it. They were so weak and so powerless, she would have thought they would have to be the most humble creatures in the universe! But for how haughty they were and how highly they would think of themselves, not solely for their innate weakness, they were trash and they deserved no pity.

For how much she would have liked to kill all of the presents, she knew the success of her actions had come from the surprise factor, which wouldn't have lasted for much longer: as the curtains were about to close she made one last carnage, then she slid down in a final split with her head tilting backwards, and in that pose she grabbed the boy's hand and made the two of them disappear into thin air, just like the way she had come.

/​

In the midst of things, the boy didn't have the time to realize just how scared he was, but after he had been brought to safety he looked at his sweaty body and his irregular breathing – or rather, his loud panting -, and saw that his legs were shaking so much that he could only keep himself standing by leaning onto a support; luckily for him, logs are always plentiful in a wood, the kind of place he was brought to by the creature. And he was sure those signs of fatigue were not side effects from being teleported because he was also feeling a distinct nausea, but which was quickly fading away.

Safe, was he really so? A moment of panic overturned his reason as he wildly looked around to spot any danger. But there was only a wood; a quiet, simple, peaceful wood, with the amount of trees, grass and foliage one would expect from any of its kind. There were no people, not a single soul in sight, and the leaves were filtering the barren sun of the midday: that frightful, revealing light in which the boy had been put to shame, and which he was very grateful he was being hidden from by the grace of nature.

"Saved?" she said.

Her sudden appearance made the boy stumble and eventually fall on the ground.

There she was: the same delicate, composed creature he had saved and been saved by, with her emerald hair in a bob cut and a single lock trailing down her face, and with a white dress too big for her slim body. A daltonic individual would find nothing strange about her except for a red, pointy horn that came out of her head.

"You look paler than me; that is certainly something," she continued, referring to her own white skin. Yet the boy felt no empathy in her words: her clear, breathed voice maintained a perfect monotony, distant from any human-like emotion.

"And so, you thought you were safe moments ago, before I spoke up? Or you still believe so?"

The boy was terribly confused by the statement, and not only for the fluidity with which she was speaking his language. There seemed to be a morbid curiosity of hers, of the predator about the prey in its claws. Or was there? She stood as immobile as a ghost, making any attempt at deciphering her intentions fruitless. More than that, her gaze was fixated on him: those judging, killer red eyes. Her eyelids never seemed to close, not for an instant.

Was she hostile? Or was it just alienating for him the fact that her body signs – those least gestures and facial movements, betrayers of emotions and feelings innate of the human nature, which we always perceive when talking to another – were next to none?

At the very least, it seemed she was trying to talk with him. And so the obvious question raised in his mouth:

"Why? W-why did you save me?" he stuttered. His body was betraying his every attempt to keep calm, regardless of how hard as he was trying."Saved?" There was a slight inflection of her voice within that word, a feigned reaction of surprise. "You have a rather... curious definition of 'saved' over there."

A part of him was beginning to fear the worst. Was she just toying with him?

She spoke again. "I didn't save you, as gratitude for your actions is not something I would consider. I tried to kill you previously, have you already forgotten?"

She was right, she did try to kill him. Then, why...?

"...Why, you may ask? Simply put, for personal curiosity. 'How does someone live when the whole world hates him?', that's the question I want to answer."

What did that even mean? The boy felt farther and farther away from her, as if she was talking from another dimension. Then, as she explained to him, it struck him:

"For you see, soon enough the news of your escape will be known in every city of the Federation. Soon enough, there will be posters everywhere with your face and 'Wanted' written on its end. Soon enough, every single human being on this planet will know you for the traitor you are, and everyone will hate you."

Indeed, they will. That simple truth had never occurred to him before she had told it: he had already accepted Death as his fate, and as a consequence he hadn't thought about a "What after?".

What after, then? What was he going to do from that moment onward? He couldn't get back into a city, and the Federation would have certainly searched for him far and wide. He could never come in contact with a fellow human anymore; it was too much of a risk. But, what about...?

As if she could hear his thoughts, she abruptly continued with her explanation. "It would be naive to think our kind would put aside its secular hatred for humans just for you, wouldn't it? You freed me, but that does not mean the monsters of this world will be friendlier to you. I won't be friendlier to you."

Her voice, fresh as the breeze spiraling through the birches and the walnuts, was sentencing a destiny as dry as the most lifeless of deserts. And as she spoke so, the wind suddenly blew out, the birds flew far away and their chirps inaudible, the trees grew higher and higher, looming unreachable heights for the human hand.

"Humans. Pokémon. Everyone hates you, and now you are left alone. It would have been better for you to die. Indeed, I didn't save you; I just worsened your sufferings."

With that final sentence her voice stopped as well, and the woods became silent and immobile.

-RBAawC)afaSA-$**WARNING: OVERWRITTEN DATA.

And so it was tragically over. The creature disappeared in thin air, and the boy was left alone. Soon, he would have been caught and sentenced to death. But not all his efforts were in vain, for the War that sprung from his sacrifice was Glorious and Victorious against the dark creatures of Evil, and the humanoid monster would be made prisoner and justly treated for her sins. A new era of prosperity and happiness opened for Humankind, the monsters no more beasts but docile servants.

That shall be the ending of our little story.

Fin.

**ERROR: /PARAGRAPHS NOT FOUND: INVALID CHECKSUM. ONLY GARBAGE DATA AFTER PARAGRAPH 10/23./

[END OF DOCUMENT 7203/A (Copy)]​

/​

"Please, not on the most impactful moments..."

You groan, a bit upset. It's become quite late in the night: it's been a few hours since you began reading, and the monitor of your computer screen is the only source of light in the room. You realize that this time a simple decryption program won't do the job for you, and that you'll need to do work on your own.

Still, you have energies to go forward: a few hours (and quite a lot of failed attempts) are all you need to get the job done, and you smile as the following message appears on screen:

Decryption complete of Chapters 11 onward! (Warning: some parts may still be unreadable.)

Now opening Document 7203/A (Copy) (2)...

/​

[DOCUMENT 7203/A (Copy) (2)]​

"You're done for. Now you are all alone."

Indeed.

"No one wants to be with a traitor and murderer. And I won't help you, either."

Although...

"Because bluntly speaking, I don't care about you any more than I have for any other human I've met in my life."

...Why was she still talking? She should have just gone away already.

"After all, all you did was what I had forced you to do."

A weird thought started to bounce around the boy's head: what if she herself didn't want to end the conversation?

"And even if you acted on your own, I don't really care."

Was there a hint of guilt from her? Was that why she took him away from his executioners, and the reason she was talking to him? He wasn't sure, he couldn't be sure, with her magnetic gaze and her ghostly stance. But he wanted to know, he had to know for once what she was thinking in her head: he had to stop guessing over and over, and he had to muster his courage and speak, before she would leave him forever. What did he have to lose anyway? A life that was likely already over?

"So, human, you..."

"What about you? Do you hate me?" he spat out of nowhere, trembling like a leaf.

It was a stupid question. It made no sense to ask it, and she had already told him in every way imaginable that there was no gratitude nor sympathy for him, and that the only reason she had looked at him with teary eyes during their first encounter was to use him as an escape tool, like a key or a rope. Regardless, something compelled the boy to ask that obvious question directly, because he wanted a direct, unmistakable answer from her: maybe he was just desperate, maybe he was tired of the duplicity of people and their two-faced society.

The creature looked surprised, this time of an honest reaction. As she stopped for a moment to process the unexpected phrase, the boy felt strangely accomplished: what should have had the most obvious answer seemed instead something she hadn't thought of, and which he had pierced right through. More than that, he had rediscovered and seen a tiny bit of her hidden side, one that was not the perfect and unfathomable monster but a creature, a creature with doubts just like him. In his head, that slight pause of hers meant much more than the nothing it might have very well been, and he thought she looked at him with different eyes for those few moments. His mind didn't need any effort to quickly unearth memories of hers, caged and violated: he couldn't dismiss her behavior back then as a complete lie, and he couldn't believe she could fake her emotions to such a degree, as much as reason told him it was possible. She was capable of human-like feelings, wasn't she?

/​

Had something really changed in the way she was looking at him, if just for a moment? It most likely didn't, but to a desperate, death-threatened lone boy, her meaningless, temporary change of attitude may have the only hope left for him in the world.

Her silence lasted a few endless moments.

"As I said..." she began to answer.

"I know, but I don't believe that's the real answer," he interrupted.

"Why?" Her eyes were focused on him more than ever. She looked somewhat upset, if only for being talked over.

"Because..." he swallowed, "...because if you really didn't care for what I had done for you, you wouldn't have endangered your life just to rescue me."

Bingo. She knew he was right the moment he heard him. She couldn't understand it herself why she acted in such an odd manner, and the thought was tormenting her. She couldn't understand a part of herself, and the excuses she was making for her reasonings weren't convincing. He was right; she did it because she was sorry for him, after all he'd done for her. Why did she do that? For a human, of all things? She was honorable, sure, she had always been, but humans never counted!

Time, it was always Time's fault when things got messy. She had to be collected, she had to be in Control of things, always, and she needed time to think things through to do that. When she had saved him, she had acted on instincts, she had acted on the fly without looking at the pros and the cons, at the whys and the hows. But she didn’t have time to understand what she was doing, otherwise the boy would have died and it wouldn’t have mattered! All because there was that part of her, that damn part of hers that was feeling sorry for the boy! She was pissed at herself: she had been played by her own stupid sense of duty, but what good did it bring? A whiny human that should have treated her like a goddess for helping him out who was instead arguing against her? How did he dare? She should have...!

...No, that wasn't like her. She didn't like to act all mighty and superior, not in that way. He wasn't being disrespectful after all; he was just scared because she had exaggerated her hatred. There wasn't good blood between her and humans, true, but there was no need to vent it all on a harmless boy. She had paid her debt: her conscience would have let go of the boy, and everything would have been back in her control, if she would just keep calm.

The boy was an open book for her, both because her horn was a third eye which allowed her to sip through the emotions of others, and because he was simply too innocent and scared to hide anything from anyone. On the other hand, he could perceive very, very little of all her trail of thoughts.

Nevertheless, they were both cut short in the midst of their introspection by the cracking of a shrub: someone or something was approaching them, and their minds became as silent as the forest all around them.