Titan: The Dark Path

Sacrifice

He could only see the knife in his hand. It was a simple kitchen knife with a black handle like the kind one would use to cut a steak. The sounds around him were muddled and poor or maybe his hearing was. People were screaming or crying or yelling. He couldn't tell. He wondered how he got here. He knew the events that brought him to this moment, but that wasn't what he wondered. It was more a philosophical question he wished he had the time to consider.

There was an orange haze and shifting darkness in the fringes of his vision, but his gaze was fixed on the knife. A voice spoke from the depths of hell. He cringed. Still, he stared at the knife.

The voice again. This time, it cut through the dull noise and repeated. It seemed to echo inside of his head. "Kill him."

The vacuum around his senses released and he could see and hear again. The crying sharpened. The crackle of flames devouring the materials in the pyre was sharp.

No, not materials.

Bodies.

Henry's hand trembled as he looked at the back of his dad's head. Walt was kneeling in front of him. Beyond Walt's head, Henry could see a burning hand sticking out from the flames in the middle of the street. Walt favored his right knee and lifted his chin. He wouldn't cry or beg. He was terrified, but he wouldn't die afraid. What would be the point?

He angled his head at Henry without taking his eye off the man in charge. "Do what you have to do, Son. I love you," Walt said. His wife sobbed nearby, but she didn't dare try to intervene.

Several shadow men stood over Walt's wife inasmuch as they did stand. Their skin was impervious to the light of the flames, still black and implacable. Several others loomed over the neighbors on either side of her. Many of the neighbors were hurt, broken, or bleeding. Most were all three. Their loved ones had been executed and thrown on the fire like planks of wood...

...and they did it to them.

The man in the pajama pants and the hoodie made them. He stood in the bed of Doc Wolfe's truck and watched while the shadows dragged people out of their homes. The people resisted and cried for help that didn't come. The figure said nothing and watched from under his hood. His face was cloaked in shadow. When he finally spoke, his voice reverberated between their ears in a low, spine-chilling rasp.

"Lydia, kill Enid."

Lydia clutched her hands over her ears and sobbed. The voice repeated. Everyone's ears stung. They looked at Lydia. She didn't move.

Shadows lifted her onto her feet. They shoved her into Enid Lozzo and they both collapsed together. Lydia rolled off of Enid and pleaded, "Please! Please, no, I can't, please, I can't!"

"Kill her," the figure repeated.

"I won't do it!" Lydia screamed.

The shadow men seized both Lydia and Enid and threw them into the fire. They screamed horrific sounds. A few brave souls jumped to their feet to help, but the shadows formed a wall and prevented them from reaching either of them. The shadows then dealt brutality on those men who tried to intervene. The women's screaming blessedly didn't last long, but it was long enough.

The man in the hood gestured to the creatures and they picked a man from the prostrate crowd. His name was Rick and his daughter was Sally. His wife, Maggie, erupted with sobs. "Please don't! He's got a daughter! Please! Take me instead! You can't!"

The Dark Men kicked her down in the street. No one else dared move or speak; they simply trembled as their eyes welled up with tears. The living shadows dragged Rick in front of the truck and the figure knelt down, his face still impenetrable in the night's dark shadow. He leaned close and whispered, but his voice still reverberated inside everyone's head. He said, "She makes a good point. You get to choose. Your wife or your daughter. If you don't choose, I'll have the blood no matter what."