A Dance of Two Worlds

Innocents' Curse

Chapter Seventeen

Innocents' Curse

A world is doomed when all its people bury their consciences

Aden.

The Fifth Loop, Year 381, 7th January (5L/381/1/7)

"Keep your soldiers on high alert," Olivier shouted on reaching the grass banks. "Shoot at anyone who emerges in the river. We may have been followed into this world."

Commander Desmond, head of the troops stationed at Aden's entry point to welcome back the delegation, sprung into action and deployed all of his two hundred men around the river. A few soldiers spotted two bodies floating in the river.

"Bring them ashore," Olivier ordered. Six soldiers jumped into the river and fetched the bodies.

Everyone instantly recognized the dead. William and Andrews were heroes of Aden, legends in their respective fields. Desmond wanted to ask the HighMinister what happened to them, but Olivier was on edge. Every few seconds he looked at the river as if he expected a monster to jump out of it. Olivier had an imposing personality and Desmond decided it was best to leave him alone at the moment.

Olivier paced back and forth on the riverbanks. He refused to go in the tent and rest, instead, he lay down under a tree. Any small disturbance startled him and passing every minute felt like an excruciating torture. A day passed since his arrival and yet nothing happened.

Olivier again and again went over the events in Elisium in his mind. He had done everything to enrage the people of Elisium. He had killed their two most influential men, insulted them, threatened them, and called them worms and insects. While fleeing, he ensured that his every warning shot hit a guard—the more dead bodies he left behind in his wake, the better for his cause.

However, he was afraid that even after causing such mayhem, the morals and values of Elisium might just thwart his plans. He couldn't afford the three other ministers present in the meeting with the Council making it alive to Aden. That would prove to be a huge problem.

***

Elisium.

The Fifth Loop, Year 381, 9th January (5L/381/1/9)

Thousands of Elisians had assembled in the clearing outside the ruins of the Royal Mound for the public gathering called by the Council. Twenty-one coffins were laid out in front of them. Coffins of Orlando, Richard, and nineteen other guards killed in the shootout by Infernal demons. Seventeen prisoners, who were stuck in this world after their master had escaped, stood behind the dead bodies, bound in heavy chains.

Nicholas, Orlando's son who had taken his father's place as the acting head of the Council, addressed the people. "Just like the beginning of this Loop, we are once again under attack by the monsters of Inferna. They came here pretending to be our friends but then murdered twenty-one people. This attack is an attack on our freedom. You have heard the testimonies of survivors from the Council. Their leader, the demon Olivier, called us insects and worms. He threatened to bring his armies and trample us under their feet. We cannot let them intimidate us. We must give them a fitting reply."

Nicholas paused a little and then pointed to the prisoners. "We must chop off these monsters' heads and throw them into the Abyss—this is what Richard had suggested before the demon blew his head off. This will surely send a message to the demons of hell that they are not welcome in our world. People of Elisium, the Council seeks your approval to carry out this sentence. Give us a nod and we will show our enemies that no one can mess with us."

"We don't kill criminals." Someone shouted from the crowd.

"We don't treat murder with murder and many of these prisoners are not even murderers," yelled another.

"Some of them may not have killed but they intended to do so. All of them were carrying weapons and came here intending to destroy our world. We don't give death penalties, but a person is allowed to kill in self-defense—we are doing this to defend our world. This is not revenge but it is to ensure that no other Catastrophe turns our cities into Ruins. This is no time to bury our necks under our damned consciences but rather do what is required."

There was a loud murmur in the crowd. No one had ever been executed in Elisium after Thomas's tyrannical reign—many even believed that Thomas's brutality had brought the Catastrophe upon them—and now it was a question of killing seventeen men together.

"Kill them," Kane, Richard's son was the first to respond.

"No monster should enter Elisium," cried another person from the crowd. "Kill them."

"Our children can't afford another Catastrophe," a woman shouted. "Kill them."

"Show them our power," a young boy screamed. "We don't want demons entering our world. Kill them."

That had a rippling effect. Soon chants of "kill them, kill them" echoed around the town square.

The fear of the unknown blurred the line between right and wrong. The basic human instinct of survival overwhelmed the lofty principles of righteousness and justice.

There were no executioners in Elisium. Someone had to get the blood on his hands. Nicholas took a sword and swung at a prisoner's head. The guards who had lost their friends executed the remaining demons from hell.

The skies wept. Heavy rains lashed out at the Ruins as the beheaded bodies were trampled by an angry mob and the severed heads were mounted on spears.

A world is doomed when all its people bury their consciences to partner in a crime. Elisium suffered the consequences of the curse of these innocents—never before had a world spiraled down as Elisium did in the next century.

***

"Sir, we have got something in the river," one of Desmond's men shouted. All the soldiers readied their guns to shoot. Desmond and Olivier strained their eyes and saw two big sacks floating. A few soldiers jumped into the river to retrieve the sacks.

The sacks were covered in blood, everyone knew that there was something ominous inside them. Desmond, with his heart racing, gathered the courage to open one of the sacks and recoiled in horror. He felt like throwing up. Sacks were filled with severed heads—that was all that came back of the seventeen delegates left behind in Tenebra.

Olivier closed his eyes and let out a cry. For the men around him, it was a cry of anguish and despair but in reality, it was a yell of relief and delight. His plan had succeeded. Hatred had triumphed over justice. Anger had overruled the consciences. Elisians had damned themselves.