My heart beats, exploding in my ears. My hands tremble, soaked by the red blood that glitters on the Iron. The metallic taste spreads through my mouth, the corpse becomes even paler than my skin. Motionless, stretched out, eyes torn from the light of the spirit. Screams echo, colleagues and commuters in the street despair at discovering the crime. Thousands and thousands of possibilities flood my mind, voices, and questions paralyze me.

  The first being I opened with scissors was not an animal, nor a man on an operating table. During the war, memories tortured my mind. I had already seen the consequence of what missing a vein could cause.

  But just like every surgery I performed, this time, I didn't make a mistake either.

  I wake up.

  The sun does not exist. Artificial light is warm and almost burns my cold skin. My chest weighs. I roll to the side on instinct, force myself up, and grit my teeth to endure the pain of the body. I hide behind a giant piece of candy and look for injuries, but I can't find anything serious.

  The floor smells like honey, and it's sticky like it; but it's not real. I'm sure there are hundreds of other agglutinated compounds in the giant stomach. Cotton clouds, biscuit mountains, bodies float above green acid. Bowels without barriers, without entrance or end, extending beyond the limit of the horizon. I'm in a prison.

  I ignore the desperate thoughts that blame me for my weakness. I don't need to state the obvious. Inhaling and taking care not to slide, I use the blue candy as protection and spy on the side I came from. Training never left my body. However, as the dangers become secondary, I am reminded of something else.

  “Nia!”

  I focus to detect the girl's aura and then set sail towards her. I ignore the manic and terrible constructs of fairy madness, I close my eyes to the brutal and childish violence that the beings of this world use against themselves.

  A giant clown walks by playing a drum. Dancing around him, a march made by soldiers-letter hums out of tune. Their songs inhibit the sound of predators, but do not prevent me from noticing them. I feel their auras, hiding behind crystal trees, sneaking their bodies like shadows so that I cannot perceive the weakness of their flesh.

  The night silence of those rotten forests; I remember so well the insects climbing up my clothes that I can still feel them. My hands tremble, a drop falls next to my face. I hate that. The war, the worry, the pain, the blood, the pulse, the exhaustion. Everything, everything, everything. It's not important. Nothing matters as long as I can save someone else from ultimate suffering—at least, that's what I use to keep myself going.

  She can't do the same. He never had the paranoid obsession with the red blood or how easily flesh sinks. Lying unconscious, Nia is buried and nearly petrified in a pile of sugar. I tear the girl out of there and step up, putting her on my shoulders. Despite being light, it is still a person, and this alone almost makes me sink into honey.

  It's alright. The backpacks that the official doctors made me carry were much heavier. I just need to get out of here, as far away as possible…

  Presences creep in.

  And as soon as possible.

  I advance. I intensify my body and maximize the emission. I feel my mana being drained, a tank that empties even faster than I run.

  Alright. I'm alright.

  I just need to find a place to hide. I pass my eyes over the open field. There are crystal trees, mounds of sugar, mountains of biscuit, piles of bodies and three cats using their own guts to make a tug of war. There are gastric acid swamps, from which crocodiles stare at me fixedly. The decision is obvious. If Nia has an injury, sugar is great for stabilizing her, and if our destiny is to die, let it be a sweet death.

  I jump into a tree and redirect myself to another place. I've always been bad with the elements, but I know enough to throw myself up into the air using wind.

  I intensify the speed of creation of the osteoblasts and carefully grow bones out of the body, then manipulate them and propel myself. The little trick works like a pseudo-flight—and not for long-but it helps me enough until I arrive at the edge of one of the sugar mounds.

  I land in a muffled bang and roll along the floor, let the bones break so that they do not hurt Nia, and stand up so as not to lose momentum. I check the surroundings until I find an entrance, then I run into a cave. My feet burn, my stomach rumbles.

  Hoffstein is coming, and so is Morgana. Sieghart is somewhere. Somewhere far, far away from here. Hiding mana is a great tactic, but if he is nearby, and I can't locate him, I'm lost; and if he is, it would be easy to notice the second sun on the horizon.

  Alright. I'm alright.

  I analyze Nia's injuries. The blood contrasts with the blue skin, easy to identify. A few lacerations and bruises—a little harder to see—but nothing serious. The honey that hurt her has also cushioned her fall, but she will still be unconscious for a while. Maybe that's a good thing. In this way, she rests and recovers her mana.

  Speaking of mana, I also need to focus to get mine back. I can turn the material compounds in the environment back into mana and absorb it, reversing the process to speed up recovery. Although we do this every day at a certain level, using this method here is difficult because of Hilda's interference. More important than that is the danger.

  I don't want to think about what might happen if the body of Sieghart or Cloud—an ordinary human—absorbs too much mana from this place. I let out a laugh, then clench my fists and punch the sugar wall in frustration. It's useless. One soldier's revolt never changed the nature of the world.

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  I breathe in. I need to find them. But also rest. And take care of Nia. And…

  And deal with whatever freak is watching me right now.

  They stretch over the ground, tall, giant. Two of them. Their skins are gray like mine, but darker and dirtier. They dress in the fur of the creatures they have hunted. One wore a bear's robe and Wolf pants. He carries a green turtle shell as a shield and part of a tree as a spear. The other, a large iron axe.

  They're not fairies or elves, then. What are they?

  Altered humans are my first alternative. Mutated by the influence of the Queen. To get to this level, you must not be more human. Perhaps they still carry the iron to sustain their identity. Still, they must be years in the making. Exceptionally strong, if that's the case.

  I swallow. Their bright eyes are the only thing that is not enveloped by the cloak of furs, their expression is unreadable. I get out of the cave so they don't corner me, putting me between them and Nia. They know she's here. But they're not here for her. This type of man has already lost the ability to care about something as mundane as self-pleasure. The primordial will that dwells in his heart is that of violence.

  Despite this, everything is fine. I can talk to them. We have a common enemy. We can ally. It's not hard to trick a fool.

  The first one approaches, and he will not stop.

  “Osteoflora.”I say.

  Bones seep into the ground and I make them grow like a thorny wall that separates us. Behind her, sharp bones like spears prevent them from stepping. If they jumped, I would start the battle, and they would lose pace. The dance of war is not lost on their minds, and so they hesitate for a moment.

  “Stop!”I enjoy it. “We can talk!”

  They stare at me.

  “We're stuck here, together! My friend is powerful and can get you out of here! We will fight Hilda and you can survive! It's your only chance of victory!”

  They look at each other for half a second, then the first drives the spear into the wall and cracks it. I accumulate mana for a large attack, since small ones will be ignored. I intensify the durability and regeneration of the bones so that they can withstand the pressure, but the attacks continue.

  “Stop!”

  Have you lost your sense of language? Can you understand me, or do you just not care?

  The barrier gives way. The first stares the sharp bones to the ground and prepares for an onslaught, ignoring future injuries. The mana I have accumulated overflows, and the monster invests.

  It happens in the blink of an eye. I maximize the emission and lift the bones from the ground, intensify their sharpness and speed, thorns become Spears and pierce the creature's body a dozen times. She runs up to me, then walks, then staggers. His fists reached up to my neck, but there was no longer enough blood to move them. After a path of broken bones, his movements stop.

  I take a deep breath and the taste of iron spreads through my mouth. Overcoming the emission causes your own body to be used as fuel.

  “SEE WHAT I DID?! I CAN DO IT AGAIN!” I say. “I WILL KILL HIM! IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?! PAIN?! WHY?! WHAT MAKES YOU PREFER SUFFERING TO LIFE?! HOW CAN YOU LIVE THAT WAY?!”

  He stares at me for a second. In the next, seeing the fragmented shards of bones on the ground, prepares for another onslaught.

  I let out a laugh. I was never good at it. That's why I couldn't stop Hilda's soldiers, or why I stuck scissors in another elf's stomach. The feeling of self-sabotage is easily conflicted with the feeling of not being important enough to do so.

  Memories come and go. Sleepless nights of which I try to justify to myself what happened. Suffering. Parents cry, siblings scream. Stupid arguments from irrelevant people surround me, even in a court that prides itself on being civilized.

  Some say, with embellished and veiled words, that I should have let the suffering afflict me. Others, that murder is not fair against a mere aggression, as if they knew how the situation would fit if I had not reacted. Funny. I don't remember them trying so hard to keep the peace when it was me in their shoes. Isn't it their fault it got to this point? Where were they?

  I was deemed not important enough. Or they care, but they can't meddle for one reason or another. It is common that they cannot, and yet the evil remains. Everything else is gone. I forgot his name, his voice, or his face, only the scar he left on all who saw, heard and existed by his side. How could a piece of shit have caused such a commotion? I do not understand. But he did.

  Suffering. Even the death of an unwanted one causes so much suffering. But if it wasn't for the suffering that was caused against him, maybe he wouldn't have tried to make me suffer. Or perhaps, more likely, he would do it anyway, and as the bearer of suffering, he must be prevented from doing so. So much so that his soul may not drown further in the river of death, as Mercy demands, but that he may be prevented and punished for it, as it is proper to justice. Some roots need to be cut, in fact.

  But if there were no suffering in the first place, they need not be, and more suffering—even if minimal—could be avoided. Suffering, suffering.

  Look at him. I can't see his face, and he can't recognize mine. A man turned animal. Killing is all that matters to someone who has stopped caring. But the fury of a soldier does not matter when his stomach is pierced by a stone, when an archer is blown up by magic hundreds of miles away.

  How?

  I lift the barriers again, the monster presses against them. With little mana, dialogue, or strategy, I can only slow him down. I'll tire him out. Make him hurt himself. Dance around the bones until your lacerated flesh gives way to the pressure. In the state I'm in, it would take hours. An endurance bet I can't make.

  Better, one I don't want to do.

  It's time for change. Screams in the wind and desperate are never heard before the cacophony of war. I am told that it is necessary to be stronger, a more disciplined soldier. Nonsense. The perfect soldier wouldn't save my father from getting sick, and being a better doctor wouldn't change Hilda's behavior.

  Hoffstein, the symbol of Justice, can do nothing to appease suffering but try to make it lessen. But it never ends. In the end, everything is useless, and the cycle continues. Suffering, suffering, suffering. I'm tired of suffering.

  The creature overcomes the barrier and invests;

  So, perhaps, it is the world that should change.

  “Rise.”

  But the attack never gets to me.

  Muscles twist. The first giant awakens, his eyes glow with sickly green. Lunging at his former companion, he grabs him and throws him to the ground. The undead snaps at the giant's face and reveals his deformed face. He beats him, and being taken by surprise by the brutal assault, the enemy is unable to react properly.

  His flesh still reacts to pain. Their screams still echo through the air. A perfect soldier, always willing to kill, forgotten like garbage in the stomach of a queen who never cared about his loyalty. Fighting for a flag that doesn't belong to him, for a royalty he never cared for, against an enemy he may never have really known. And now, he dies.

  The creature stands up, ignoring his injuries. A small smile opens on my face, but just like the undead's skin, it falls to the ground.

  I undo the spell, and the dying eyes look at me as if they were alive one last time. Something bothers me, but soon it no longer has the strength to do it. Fall, motionless.

  I take a deep breath. My eyes wander, trying to find an answer.

  It's alright. I just need to…

  By the light, what have I done?

  I breathe out, I breathe in. I breathe out, I breathe in. It's alright. It's alright. I just need to make sure Nia doesn't see it. She doesn't need to know.

  If you don't already know…!

  “All right. Everything is fine. It's—”

  “Wander?”

  I stare at the horizon. In front of him…

  Sieghart stares at me.