I walked toward the two skulls. The two pieces of my sickening ritual, I made even before I decided to do this ritual. Almost like someone was guiding me.
One was smaller—the one who shot me. The one I had sworn would kill first.
And yet, I hadn't truly killed him. The blood had. One more promise I had broken.
I knelt and cradled it in my palms. Carefully. Gently. As if the weight of justice could be delicate for once.
I placed it down at the feet of a girl—face turned to her, as if even in death he would be forced to witness the innocence he helped destroy.
Then came the other.
The fake tyrant's skull. Larger. Heavier. Still humming with that eerie vibration.
I could hear the heartbeat.
Feel the faint thrum of life, like his hatred hadn't yet realized it had died.
I placed him in front of the seventh girl—the one that had nothing to even be called a body.
She deserved more. So much more.
But all I had to give was this: a bigger offering. A louder symbol. A skull whose beat still echoed the sins of command. His cruelty would not fade quietly.
I stepped back.
The scene before me was nearly complete—seven girls, seven blood eagles, two skulls placed with reverence.
But it wasn't over.
Not yet.
I drew in a slow breath, and with it, a sigh. Not of relief. Not of peace.
Of weight. Of acceptance.
The kind of sigh that comes when a man knows what must come next.
I lifted my hand once more.
A single motion.
The scum flinched.
Even now, after all they had seen, that gesture still struck something deep.
Something older than memory.
Older than guilt.
I slowly unfolded my hand, spreading my fingers wide.
Five.
Five fingers raised.
Five more skulls left to collect.
Five more pieces of the ritual.
They saw it. They understood it. This wasn't just a gesture anymore. This was a tolling bell.
And they stepped back.
Not all at once—but enough. Enough for me to see it:
Fear. Yes. But something else too.
It wasn't hope.
Hope died long ago—strangled somewhere between the fifth scream and the sixth blood eagle.
This was desperation.
Wild. Cornered. Animal. The kind that doesn't plan. It just reacts.
Their eyes darted. Hands twitched toward weapons.
Some gripped hilts. Some checked powder flasks.
One muttered a prayer with lips that had long since forgotten how.
And I knew.
A fight was coming.
Not because they believed they could win.
But because they had no choice left.
Because survival was the last instinct even cowards obey.
They had seen what happens when I choose.
When I point.
When I walk.
Now they would try to choose instead.
To take back some control.
To rewrite a page in a book already set in blood.
They would charge.
They would scream.
They would bleed.
And I…
I would welcome it.
Because this wasn't just retribution anymore.
This was cleansing.
This was the storm washing the deck clean.
And the ritual still had room for more.
I walked toward one.
Just one.
He stood among a group, their weapons already drawn—blades and pistols, raised with trembling hands that betrayed the chaos in their minds. Their fear was loud, but their desperation… louder.
They didn't shoot.
Not yet.
They didn't swing.
They simply stood there—caught between two urges: to flee, or to fight something they knew they couldn't win against.
Their eyes flickered constantly to the ritual site.
To the blood eagles.
To the skulls.
To the girls who now watched in silence through the gaze of death itself.
They knew what was happening.
They knew what I was making.
And they didn't want to be part of it.
But I only needed one. One of them.
And this one—this one had something in his eyes. A broken fire. Fading, but present. The last embers of defiance crumbling under fear.
He raised his gun.
It shook in his hands like it was made of glass.
His fingers clenched the grip so tightly I thought it might fuse to his palm.
The barrel trembled like a leaf in a storm.
He didn't want this.
But he didn't want the blood eagle either.
He wanted release.
Mercy.
Escape.
Anything but the ritual.
I stepped closer.
No rush.
No threat.
Just inevitability.
He flinched.
The others beside him held their breath—waiting for the first shot. Waiting to see what would happen if one of them tried.
I gave him an answer.
I raised my hand, caught the barrel of his gun, and slowly, deliberately, pulled it toward my head.
I pressed it to my forehead.
Cold iron against warm skin.
"I'm here," I whispered. "Go on."
His eyes widened.
His mouth twitched like he wanted to speak—wanted to say no, or please, or don't.
But I closed my eyes.
And waited.
A moment passed.
Then—
Bang.
The sound cracked like thunder against a sky made of silence.
The bullet tore through flesh, shattered bone, and drove deep.
It should have ended me.
It would have ended anyone.
But it didn't.
It stopped—caught and smothered not by skull or will, but by blood.
My blood.
Alive. Aware. Writhing with the purpose of vengeance.
The impact made my head jerk slightly. That was all.
I didn't fall.
Didn't stagger.
Didn't flinch.
I opened my eyes.
Locked them with his.
And then, without a word, I reached up.
My fingers dug into the wound.
Skin peeled.
Flesh parted.
Blood ran—not from pain, but by choice.
And then I found it.
That little chunk of metal.
Still hot. Still nestled in cracked bone.
I pulled it out.
Slowly. So he could see.
The bullet emerged with a sickening squelch, painted in red and bits of marrow, glistening like it had just been born.
I held it up between us.
This was his rebellion.
This was all he had left.
And it had done nothing.
His body began to shake uncontrollably.
Then came the wet patch on his pants.
The smell of urine hit the air.
His legs gave out beneath him.
He dropped to his knees.
He had nothing left.
No bullets.
No courage.
No identity.
Just fear.
Just raw, unfiltered terror.
Coward.
I stepped forward and grabbed him by the hair, jerking his head up.
His mouth was open—trying to scream, trying to speak, trying to breathe.
I cut my hand.
Deep and wide.
The blood gushed, thick and fast, dripping down from my palm like oil.
And I let it fall into his mouth.
He tried to spit.
To turn his head.
But I held it in place.
The blood pooled on his tongue.
Ran down his throat.
Slick. Burning.
He choked on it.
Coughed.
Tried to crawl away.
But I made sure he drank.
Every drop.
I watched the fear in his eyes blur with something else now—something deeper. Not just dread of me.
But of what had just entered him.
Of what my blood would become inside his veins.
It would bloom there.
Grow like roots in rotting soil.
He didn't know it yet—but the ritual had already claimed him.
He wasn't mine.
He was of the girl and all I had to do was wait and find four more.
I raised four fingers in the air.