Revolutions

142 - Haesan

My pulse stalls, and for a moment, I wonder if I'm even still alive. The look in his eyes—Achutli's eyes—is something twisted, something wrong. The pitch black shadows lash and coil around him like frenzied serpents, binding his arms and torso. An unnatural yellow-green glow spills across the decimated grounds, casting grotesque shapes on every surface the hideous light touches.

"What has he done?" I think I hear the question escape my lips.

His eyes are endless and hollow pits of darkness, yet filled with a warped clarity that chills me to my core. I search his face for some trace of humanity, of the father he could have been to me. But all I find is a stranger. A monster cloaked in shadows, wielding a power that I cannot begin to comprehend.

Behind him, his warriors hang back, unsure of what to do in the face of this overwhelming force. Even the ones who had been brutal in their own right—people like Anqatil—are keeping their distance. They know something's amiss, something even more dangerous than the battle raging around them.

And then, Achutli raises his bloodied hand, fingers slick with gore, and the air seems to ripple around him. The shadows at his feet surge upward, contorting into dark tendrils that snake through the air. They spread out, creeping toward the bodies strewn across the battlefield, latching onto the dead and dying like leeches. The unnatural light flickers and grows dimmer, as if what little life remains is being drained from everything it touches.

I stagger back, unable to tear my eyes away from the scene unfolding in front of me. My breath catches in my throat. A deep, primal fear claws its way up from the pit of my stomach.

The tendrils continue to writhe and pulse, wrapping themselves tighter around the fallen warriors. Slowly, agonizingly, they begin to drag the bodies toward Achutli. Some of them twitch, clinging to life, like their last moments of agony are being drawn out by the depraved force binding them.

Yachaman stands rigid, her hand clutching her blade tightly. "We can't let him do this," she breathes with a subtle tremor in her voice. "We have to stop him."

Of course, we do. But I can only watch as the shadows coil tighter, the lifeless eyes of the fallen warriors seeming to stare up at Achutli in silent horror.

His lips twist into a smile—small, almost imperceptible. He's enjoying this. Reveling in the power that's coursing through him. The darkness around him pulses, growing thicker and more suffocating. I feel it closing in on me, too, like a vice around my chest.

I can feel my hands trembling. My breath is shallow and ragged, but beneath the fear, something else stirs—something that's been buried for too long. Anger. Frustration. The sharp sting of betrayal that runs so deep, it cuts through this fog of terror.

I can't say where the courage comes from. Maybe it's rage, maybe it's desperation. But I find myself stepping forward. The battlefield blurs around me, fading into nothing more than a hum in the back of my skull. The only thing I can see, the only thing that matters, is him. Achutli. The man who is determined raze this world to nothing.

"Achutli!" The name rips from my throat before I can stop it. It's louder than I intended, carried by the fury burning in my chest.

He regards me with a hollow and twisted stare, and a cold smile tugs at the corner of his lips. There's a chilling calm he exudes that feels more dangerous than any anger. "Haesan," he says, his voice carrying across the battlefield like a taunt, smooth and mocking. "My darling daughter. So you finally step out of the shadows. I wondered how long you would stay in hiding."

He looks to size me up as if I'm a mere distraction—an insect buzzing in his ear. I tremble under his gaze, but I don't back down. I can't. Not when the world is crumbling around us, and every nightmare I've ever had about this moment is coming true.