Artyom Dereschuk - Hate the Sin

The only thing that, he later realized, he would be wise to consider, was the direction of where he was running.

As the sounds of the battlefield and screams of soldiers became more distant, the boy finally stopped running and turned around. He could still see the flickering yellow light of the lamps in the distance, but from his perspective it was no bigger than a firefly. It didn’t seem like he had been followed, as he didn’t hear any footsteps or the snarling of a hungry maw. The only sounds that surrounded him were the bizarre cackling sounds of local small fauna which he, while still wary of it, had grown to find mostly harmless.

Tsetse’s suggestion turned out to be a sound one. While he was still in the very heart of darkness, at least he was away from the immediate harm. He was far away from the General.

The question, however, remained. Where was he?

After some consideration, the boy headed in the direction from which they seemed to have come from. It was better than standing still, doing nothing.

As he walked, carefully trying to find his way in the glowing darkness of the Underworld, he heard bursts of grenades and the roaring of the machine gun in the distance. The boy knew those sounds too well to mistake them for anything else, and he knew what they meant. He could not help but wonder how the others were faring. Had they heeded the captain’s warning and run away? Or had they already succumbed to their foe?

He hoped that it wasn’t the case. With all of his heart, he hoped that he would meet them very soon, and that all of them would decide not to stay around. That all of them would come to a decision that he himself was too scared to make—to run away.

Solitude wasn’t his forte. He was too used to working in group, and if he was honest with himself he’d admit that throughout his life he had never made a decision of his own.

And as he headed in the direction where he thought the exit was, just as the captain had told him, he started to get more and more anxious. The lack of human voices was a sharp contrast to his usual environment, and the alien noises of the Keep were emphasizing that message further.

He was doing his best to remain calm, but he never had much practice or success with that. So, in the extreme place he had found himself in, it was as good as impossible. His heartbeat was getting faster, and the thought that it would give him away only increased its pace. The boy’s mind painted a picture of local predators, each as big as a house, which relied on their hearing to find their prey in the everlasting night of the Underworld. At that very moment, they probably already had their hearing honed in on him—so precise that they could hear his desperate, aimless thoughts, buzzing in his head like wasps in their nest.

He picked up the pace, but immediately slowed down when he realized that it would only make him easier to find. Unbeknownst to him, he was facing the same dilemma Desecrator had been faced with a few days ago—what would be the best? To hide, take it slow, or to run for the exit—even though he wasn’t entirely sure where it was?

What if, the boy thought desperately, I run in the wrong direction? What if I spend my life roaming these sunless plains without ever finding that damn mine?

A sudden incoming noise stopped his train of thought. Something was running in his direction.

The boy froze; he was too gutless to make a run for it. His habits had made a decision for him. Falling to the ground, the boy hoped that the unseen attacker wouldn’t notice him and charge past him.

His prayers had been heard; the creature stopped not too far away from him. Listening to its raspy breathing, the boy suddenly realized that it was human.

Another man! In the same situation as him! Puppy Slayer almost audibly sighed in relief, but stopped just in time when he realized that it could give away his position.

After all, what if it was one of the soldiers? He tried to hone in on the panting sounds that the unknown newcomer was making; they didn’t seem to be too high off the ground, so there was a very high chance that it wasn’t a soldier but one of the boys.

He decided that it was worth giving it a try.

“Tsetse? Is that you?” -the boy whispered, desperately hoping for that to be the case.

No reaction. For a moment the boy was flooded to the brim with dread that it wasn’t a human after all, but then he decided that he just had to try to be a bit louder.

“Tsetse?” he asked the darkness.

The panting instantly stopped. For a moment, Puppy Slayer was paralyzed with fear; until that moment he hadn’t considered the possibility that it could be the enemy.

He heard the steps approach and, in the faint glow of the mist and the lights above, the boy managed to make out a silhouette. It was one of the child soldiers, he was sure of that now, and relief flooded him.

But then he realized that Tsetse was taller.

“Hello, Puppy,” Desecrator purred, stepping close enough for the boy to see his face. “I’m very glad to meet you here.”

The boy didn’t reply. He wasn’t sure how to react. On the one hand, he wasn’t alone anymore. On the other hand, it was the one person whom he trusted the least among the boys.

“Don’t worry, I won’t bite,” Desecrator said, taking a step closer.

“I’m not scared,” the boy lied on autopilot.

“Good, good,” Desecrator told him. “We’re comrades, right? Comrades shouldn’t be scared of one another.”

Puppy Slayer didn’t know what to say, so Desecrator continued: “What are you doing here? Did you run away?”

“I ran away… Tsetse told me to.” The boy felt how weak his excuse was, but he just didn’t know what else to say. Hiding behind the captain’s authority seemed like a good idea.

“Tsetse, huh?” Puppy slayer heard Desecrator chuckle. “I wonder how the general would feel about that. A captain shouldn’t urge his soldiers to run away! Right?”

Puppy Slayer didn’t reply, so a few seconds later he was hit with a second question, a more aggressive one: “Right?!”

“Right,” he hastily agreed. He decided that asking Desecrator what was he doing there was asking for trouble, so instead he decided to change the conversation: “What happened there?”

“Wouldn’t you want to know?” he heard a teasing answer. After a few seconds, Desecrator kept talking: “The General had some big guns on him this whole time. I was cut off from him, so he told me to retreat and meet him at the surface.”

“You think he’ll survive?” -The words came out before the boy could even think them over.

There was a noticeable pause before Desecrator replied: “Of course! Who do you think he is?”

“I see.” Puppy Slayer felt his heart sink. He had a small hope at the back of his mind—so small that he didn’t even know it was there before it died—that the General would perish in the Underworld together with his goons.

“Hey, do you have your gun on you?” he heard Desecrator ask him.

“Yeah, why?” Puppy Slayer wondered.

“I just had an idea. You said you ran away when the fight had started, so you should have a full clip on you, right? Nod if you do. Why don’t you give me your ammunition? I’m a far better shot than you are.”

Puppy Slayer hesitated; even though he didn’t ever intend to kill anyone, this situation was different than their everyday fighting. After all, he would be shooting demons and not humans.

Sensing his hesitation, Desecrator urged him: “Come on! I’ll be right by your side. It’s for your own good. What are you waiting for?”

“I… all right,” the boy reluctantly agreed, caving in to the pressure. Pulling out his clip he passed it to the older boy.