Artyom Dereschuk - Hate the Sin

Tsetse heard the sound of sharpened steel being etched into bone, and one of the voices was forever silenced. Following that, a metal hit the stone—judging by the weight of the dropped object, it was a gun.

“Please, don’t!” the unfamiliar voice pleaded. “I was just following orders, same as you! Why are you like this?”

The pleas were silenced and the soldier started gasping for air. Taking a guess that it was safe to go, Tsetse started circling the platform to see what was going on.

Corpse Eater was strangling the last remaining soldier. Based on what he had seen, Tsetse was sure that the boy had enough strength to snap his neck with his thumbs alone, but Corpse Eater preferred to take his time disposing of the last of the General’s men. Reveling in his dark power. Only, when Tsetse came closer he saw that tears were running down the boy’s cheeks.

The General was nowhere to be seen, and Tsetse was sure: the man wouldn’t try to run away. Rising up the stairs would take a lot of time and leave him exposed. No, the man was somewhere nearby, and the fact that he hadn’t opened fire yet could mean a few things.

It could mean that he was out of the bullets, or that he was plotting something. Possibly both.

He glanced at the other two boys, but Billy the Man-Eater and Exterminator were just the observers at this point. Too many things—that they didn’t understand—had taken place for them to take an initiative and start making their own calls. For now, they were just looking.

The man had to be nearby. Somewhere around that platform. He was alone. There were two of them.

“Let’s go.” Tsetse shook Corpse Eater’s shoulder. “Finish him already.”

Corpse Eater didn’t react. He was entirely focused on the man’s life slipping out of him.

Tsetse felt annoyed but didn’t show that. “We have to find the General,” he pressed on. “If we don’t, then it’s all pointless.”

“Stand where you are!” The General’s voice was higher than usual. “Don’t you dare come closer!”

The voice was coming from the direction where the old man had been standing. During that short moment of distraction, when Tsetse was trying to bring Corpse Eater back to reality, the General must’ve made a dash behind Tsetse’s back. Now he held the old man hostage.

“Did you feel sorry for these people, kid?” General asked, holding a knife to the old man’s neck. The old man didn’t resist. The giants behind them hummed, as if reacting to the new, unpleasant sounds that were disturbing their sleep.

Corpse Eater slowly turned his head toward the General and, not looking away, crushed his victim’s throat. Twitching, the man fell to the ground, clawing at his neck as if hoping to repair it in the few seconds he had left. Barely able to lift his leg, Corpse Eater stepped over the man’s twitching body and started shuffling toward the armed man. His many wounds were getting to him, and it would take a lot of time to heal them. Time he didn’t have.

“I said stand back or he gets it!” the General screamed, pressing the blade further into his hostage’s wrinkly skin. The threat worked: Corpse Eater froze in place.

Tsetse knew what the other boy was contemplating: Was the old man’s life that important to save him? Sure, he was technically innocent. They had a long history of killing the innocent, though. The only difference was that they had been doing that under the man’s orders—the same man who at that very moment was holding the old man captive. The man whom they had the chance to punish—right there, right at that very moment.

What was the right decision? Killing them both and making sure that there would be no more orders to give, or sparing the old man—and risking the General escaping?

“That’s right,” the General said, seeing that Corpse Eater had stopped moving. He glanced at Tsetse and shifted behind the old man, trying to make sure that the boy couldn’t shoot him without hitting the old man as well. “Try anything funny and this old ruin is no more. Is this why you’re doing this? Compassion for the enemy?”

“We’re doing this because your regime has to end sometime,” Tsetse answered. He wasn’t sure what was driving Corpse Eater, but he could inquire about that later.

“So, it’s a revolution then.” Despite the severity of his situation, the General smirked. “I’ve taught you well, Tsetse. But don’t you think that my boots are too big for you to fill?”

“I’m not doing it to take your place,” Tsetse explained, trying to find a weakness in the man’s defense. So far, he had found none. Opening fire would only mean wasting the remaining bullets on the old man.

“Then what for?” the General wondered, his face becoming a grimace of surprise.

“Just for the sake of ending you,” Tsetse abruptly said. He didn’t feel like wasting his time, trying to explain to the General something that he wouldn’t understand anyway.

“This is all.” He suddenly heard Corpse Eater’s wheezing voice, twisted and filled with anger, coming out from both the boy’s mouth and the holes in his chest. It strangely reverberated as it passed through his half-collapsed lungs. “This is all for Homewrecker. For those who tried to oppose you. Who tried to live their own lives.”

“Who the hell is Homewrecker?” the General wondered, and Corpse Eater roared and took a quick step forward, as if trying to leap at him. To punish the fool for his ignorance.

His legs betrayed him as soon as he took a second step, but the momentum carried him forward, making the boy stumble. And the General didn’t miss the opportunity presented to him.

He pushed the old man toward the boy, and Corpse Eater slammed into him. Both of them grabbed onto each other, doing a weird dance as they tried to stay on their feet.

Tsetse quickly lined a shot, but the man quickly ducked out of his sight and jumped to the side, positioning himself behind Corpse Eater and the old man.

“Move!” Tsetse shouted, but a moment later he heard something clanking against the rock. Something small and round and metallic.

A grenade.

“Grenade!” Tsetse shouted a warning, hiding behind the platform. He didn’t see if Corpse Eater had a chance to react, but he knew the General well enough to be sure; he had thrown the grenade right under the boy’s feet. He wouldn’t miss the fact that Corpse Eater could barely move.

Tsetse closed his ears and opened his mouth. The best he could do at that moment was making sure he wouldn’t be dazed.

The explosion made his very bones shake. No matter what he did to prepare for it, the explosion was still mere meters away from him, and his ears were ringing so much it made his head hurt.

Yet even though he was practically deaf, he still heard the second burst. Another grenade blew up somewhere in the distance, followed by a loud humming of the giants—louder than any that had come before. The pulsating sound overcame even the ringing in the boy’s ears; it passed his ears to his brain’s hearing center, straight through the bone of his skull. It demanded all of his attention, with each pulse stealing all the focus from everything else.

Taking a few seconds to come to his senses, Tsetse carefully looked out from behind the platform. The General was nowhere to be seen—without a doubt, he had capitalized on the mayhem he had created and was probably rushing through the shadows somewhere.

Corpse Eater was lying on the ground a few meters away from the blast zone. It seemed that, at the very last moment, he had tried to escape the explosion. But he was not very successful, and his left arm was a scorched mess of exposed, torn muscles.

Miraculously, he was still moving. The Blood of the Giants was keeping him alive even after such severe abuse.