Artyom Dereschuk - Hate the Sin

“No, but—”

“Shut the hell up!” Desecrator shouted at him before the boy could even explain himself. Puppy Slayer almost fell to his knees from how deafening that sound was. “Your job is not to think or yap your mouth! You lead the way and watch out for anything dangerous! You got that?”

“Don’t raise your voice, you’ll attract… something,” Puppy Slayer started to plead with him. The protective layer of silence that had been shielding them from unwanted attention was stretching at its seams, and the boy was desperately clawing at it, doing what he could to pull it back.

But the older boy—whether it was due to being dazed or simply because he was too angry—was not hearing it.

“You got that!?” Desecrator shouted at him even louder. He took a step closer and raised his fist.

“Yes, yes, just please… Don’t. Shout,” Puppy Slayer whispered, his every word getting quieter and quieter until he himself could barely hear the last one.

“Don’t you tell me what to do,” Desecrator growled at him, and Puppy Slayer noted that his voice was not as loud as before, and it carried hints of doubt.

But it was already too late. Far in the distance, something answered Desecrator’s call. The howl of something unlike they’d ever heard before rolled across the Keep, notifying the boys that their presence had been noted and acknowledged. The creature was far away, but the sound of it gave away the fact that it had big lungs, and strong legs to carry them. It commanded respect and inspired terror. It would not let others disrupt its rest.

The boys locked eyes—as much as it was possible in the faint light of the Underworld. Without any words, they came to an understanding. They abandoned their route and started running in the opposite direction of the howl.

The strange call followed them, and soon they started hearing it around them.

The howling was slowly surrounding them from all sides. Still distant, it was much closer than it had been a few minutes before. Their hunter was drawing closer, and its weird disorienting call was informing them that their time was drawing near.

“This is all because of you,” Puppy Slayer heard Desecrator spitefully whisper. “If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

Even though the situation didn’t call for it, the boy couldn’t stay silent and take the unjust accusation.

“How is this my fault?” Puppy Slayer angrily asked, trying to keep his voice low and not exceed that threshold beyond which the whispers ended. “You were the one who started shouting!”

“If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t be in this situation!” Desecrator repeated his earlier statement, only with more ire and contempt. “If you had kept your hands to yourself, if you didn’t try to eat that food, we wouldn’t be here!”

Puppy Slayer felt a sting of guilt; the other boy’s words hurt him with how much they echoed his own sentiments, but he didn’t show it. “Everyone ate that food! We were just hungry!”

“You were the one who started it,” Desecrator growled, stomping the ground. “If it weren’t for you, there would still be a brigade! We wouldn’t be homeless now! We wouldn’t be stuck in this hellhole!”

With each word, he was taking a step toward Puppy Slayer, and with each his step the younger boy involuntarily took a step back. He understood that at that moment the threat was coming not from some outside unseen forces, but from the within their small unit. That Desecrator could kill him just as easily as the monsters that hunted them at that very moment.

“No!” Puppy Slayer shouted back at him. He trembled at how his voice echoed from the ceiling, carrying his words away for everyone to hear, but at the time he felt a weird thrill go through him. He was finally standing up to his bully. “I wasn’t wrong for doing that! I was just hungry! What’s wrong with that?”

Desecrator picked up the pace and then lunged forward, trying to grab the boy by a collar. Puppy Slayer swiftly evaded him, ducking to the side, and the fingers missed him just by a hair’s length.

“Stop it,” he pleaded with the older boy, but Desecrator didn’t listen. It seemed that he was almost in a trance-like state, a shell of anger and bitterness that was impenetrable to reasoning, logic, and even immediate threats. He was focused solely on the boy in front of him—a sorry excuse of a soldier, weak and gutless enough to soak in anything—even the blame for their predicament.

He had been waiting for it for so long, and it seemed to him that Puppy Slayer had outlived his immediate usefulness.

He lunged at the boy again, and the kid evaded the leap once more, and then one more time. Always barely escaping the clutches of grasping fingers.

Snarling, Desecrator made a sharp turn to face the kid and Puppy Slayer saw the barrel of his AK-47 make an arc in the air as Desecrator swung it up, ready to fire.

Puppy Slayer rushed for the nearby bushes, without any consideration for what could be waiting for him there. His most immediate concern was getting out of Desecrator’s line of sight.

A volley of bullets whizzed past him, shredding hollow, bone-like branches of local flora. Each round burst loud like thunder—an unusual phenomenon for the Underworld. The bushes rustled as the boy tore through them, but he hoped that Desecrator, dazed and deafened by his shot, wouldn’t hear him, and that the darkness would cloak him, hiding from those bloodshot eyes.

His bet paid off; there wasn’t a second shot. Desecrator lost him. Falling to the ground, Puppy Slayer hoped that he would simply walk away. Leave him be. He would worry about getting out of this place after that.

“Where are you, Puppy?” he heard Desecrator call him in a teasing manner. “Here-here, boy!”

He heard branches breaking as the boy was moving through them, and realized that he was moving in his direction. Whether he knew that the boy was there, or simply took a guess was not clear, but Puppy Slayer hurried to move away from his spot, trying to make as little sound as possible.

“Come on, I was just joking! Haven’t you got used to our humor by now? Maybe I was a bit harsh, but I wouldn’t actually hurt you,” Desecrator spoke.

Puppy Slayer wanted to believe him. To see Desecrator come over to him, smiling, and teasingly punch him in the shoulder. But he knew that it was too good to be true. He knew that the boy he once knew was consumed by the madness of this place. That he would kill him even if it led to his own death.

“Quit wasting my time!” Desecrator shouted, tearing through the bushes and small trees. “Are you going to come out or not, you little shit? You’re like a small parasite! You haven’t done anything useful for the brigade, you just eat and shit, and that’s how you got us into this trouble in the first place!”

Puppy Slayer expected to lose his pursuer by now, but somehow he always managed to walk just in the right direction. He may have been deaf and blind, but that didn’t impede his tracking abilities one bit.

“I’m reaaaally close, Puppy,” Desecrator chuckled somewhere very close. Puppy Slayer didn’t like that newfound playfulness in his voice; it could only mean that he knew he was catching up. After all, he didn’t waste time and effort to move without a sound like his prey.

The howling continued in the distance, but the boy didn’t pay it any attention. “I’m warning you, when I get my hands on you, I’m gonna make you pay for making me crawl through all of this shit! So you better come out on your own while you still have a chance!”

For a moment Puppy Slayer considered that option, but then he almost slapped himself for being so naive. Desecrator wanted to kill him—period. He wanted to spend his last few minutes on earth doing what he loved the most, and getting the vengeance he believed he deserved so much.