I stared down at the mongrel who had dared to touch me.
Brave? Sure.
But bravery in these waters didn't earn you a medal.
Not a handshake. Not respect.
It didn't make you a man. It made you a target.
Because here, bravery without strength was suicide with flair.
And he had none of the strength.
Only the delusion.
Only enough nerve to throw one punch and think it meant something. That it changed something.
He didn't know that hope birthed from weakness only made the slaughter more personal.
He wasn't a martyr.
He was a message.
And what good was bravery to a message?
What good was it when your purpose was to be broken—publicly, permanently, so that no one else mistook a twitch of resistance for a chance at salvation?
I threw the sword aside.
Tossed it a few feet away—enough to be out of reach, enough to show I didn't need it. Not for him.
His eyes lit up.
I saw it—the glimmer of delusion.
He thought I was giving him a chance. That I was underestimating him. That maybe, just maybe, he had earned some twisted form of respect.
His shoulders rose.
His fists clenched.
His chest heaved, rising with the breath of a man about to fight for his life.
I didn't let him get the first move.
My fist smashed straight into his nose.
I felt cartilage give way.
I felt bone crack.
I felt the warm spray of blood against my knuckles.
His head snapped back, and I hit him again.
And again.
And again.
There was no rhythm. No mercy. Just purpose.
He staggered, tried to raise his hands—clumsy, desperate swings that barely made it to my face.
One grazed my jaw, weak and unfocused.
The other pressed against my cheek, not as a punch, but a push. As if he could shove me off with sheer will.
I caught his wrists and pinned them together in one hand.
Like a parent restraining a tantrum child.
And with the other, I kept punching.
Each blow was slower now.
Heavier.
More deliberate.
I wanted him to feel it.
Every hit.
Every crack.
Every second of this unraveling.
His blood coated my fingers, sticky and hot. His breath came in ragged gasps, sharp and uneven, bubbling through his broken nose and split lips.
His eyes were rolling now, half-lidded.
His legs barely held him upright.
He was losing consciousness.
I saw it—felt it—in the way his resistance melted into shudders.
The way his body leaned toward collapse, toward surrender.
The fight in him—what little there was—had been snuffed out.
That one punch? That flicker of defiance?
Gone.
What stared back at me now wasn't bravery.
It was disbelief.
Regret.
Pain.
And beneath it all, the slow, creeping realization—
That hope was a mistake.
That resistance was a curse.
That this was what happened when you reached for victory in a world that didn't deal in mercy.
He wasn't a man anymore.
He was a message.
And I wasn't done.
I couldn't let him pass out.
That would be too easy.
Too kind.
Too merciful.
He wouldn't feel the pain if he slipped into the dark. Wouldn't understand what was being done to him. Wouldn't remember it.
And I needed him and all to remember.
So I stopped punching. Let him linger right on that edge—conscious, but barely.
His eyelids fluttered. His breath hitched. His mind drifted, trying to float away from the pain.
Not yet.
I grabbed his face, steadying it in my hand, and pried one eye open.
His pupil danced—unfocused, glazed, slipping toward unconsciousness.
"Hah…" I whispered, more to myself than to him. "Like I'll let you go that easy."
And then I pressed my fingers in.
Bare. No blade. No tool. Just bone and skin and my rage.
I pushed my fingers deep into his eye socket, slow and steady. Felt the wet tissue give.
Felt the heat.
Felt the resistance.
He woke up quick.
Screams tore from his throat, sharp and high like a wounded animal.
His arms shot up, clawing at mine, trying to pry me off.
But it was too late.
Too late for mercy.
Too late for escape.
I kept pushing until I felt the back of the eye.
Soft. Slimy.
Like a wet pearl trapped in flesh.
It resisted me for just a moment—just long enough for his screams to peak.
Then I pulled.
The eyeball slipped free with a wet pop, trailing strands of nerve and veins behind it like stringy roots torn from the ground.
Fluid ran down my wrist, hot and thick.
The sound—that sound—was small, barely audible over his wails, but I heard it.
I felt it.
The moment something sacred was taken.
His hands had stopped fighting. Whether from shock, blood loss, or the sheer horror of what had been done—I didn't care.
He wasn't resisting anymore.
He was broken.
But not enough.
Not yet.
I stared at the eye in my fingers—pulsing, twitching, still connected by its nerves.
And slowly, deliberately, I lowered it into his open mouth.
He tried to cry out again, but it caught in his throat.
"Chew." I said, quiet but cold.
And when he didn't move, I helped.
I placed my hands on either side of his jaw and began to work it—up and down, up and down—forcing him to grind his own eye between his teeth.
Soft pops. Wet squelches. A snap of vein or sinew here and there.
His teeth cut through it, shaking all the while.
The other eye stared up at me—wide, unblinking, full of a terror no man should know.
He was alive.
He was aware.
And that's exactly how it needed to be.
This wasn't just punishment.
This was clarity.
I wanted him to see—right until the very end—what it meant to play a hand in the death of innocents.
What it meant to mock their suffering.
What it meant to carry hope where there should only be silence.
And now?
Now he would be remembered.
Not as brave.
Not as defiant.
But as the message I promised he'd be.