The scream tore from my throat, a raw, ragged thing that ripped apart the quiet misery of the trench. It was not a scream of pain or rage, but of pure, unadulterated horror. It was the sound of a soul shattering, of a man looking into the abyss and seeing his own damned reflection staring back.
I knelt in the mud, the dagger still buried in the boy's eye socket, my body trembling uncontrollably. The world had shrunk to this single, horrific moment: the rain-slicked mud, the dead boy's single, staring eye, and the blood. So much blood. His blood. My blood. It mingled in the filth, a testament to the monstrous thing I had become.
The scream echoed through the trench, a piercing, unnatural sound that cut through the symphony of coughing and weeping. It was a sound that demanded attention. Heads emerged from shadowed dugouts like rats from their holes. Gaunt faces, pale and hollow in the flickering torchlight, turned toward me. They saw me kneeling over the body, the dagger in my hand, the blood on my face. They saw the truth.
And then Moloch was there, a mountain of black iron and scarred flesh, his shadow falling over me like a death sentence. He looked at the dead Dominion soldier, at the dagger in his eye, at the gaping wound in my leg. He saw the blood, the mud, the pure, undiluted terror on my face.
And he smiled.
It was not a pleasant smile. It was the smile of a predator that has just witnessed its cub make its first kill. It was the smile of a craftsman who has just seen his masterpiece completed.
"Well now, Lord Cripple," he rumbled, his voice a low growl of approval that was more terrifying than any threat.
"It seems you've found your calling."
He turned to one of his sergeants, a man with a face like a collapsed gravestone.
"Get him his slop. And find a piece of meat for him. He's earned it tonight."
Earned it. The words were a poison dart, sinking deep into the raw, gaping wound of my soul. I had earned a bowl of gruel and a scrap of meat by taking a life. I had traded a boy's future for a moment's respite from my own hunger. The thought was so vile, so utterly depraved, that a fresh wave of nausea washed over me.
"Get up, Lord Killer," the sergeant grunted, his voice devoid of sympathy.
"Commander wants the body on the pile. And you're the one who put it there."
My body was a puppet with its strings cut, but I managed to find my feet. My leg, where the boy's knife had torn through me, was a throbbing pillar of agony. Every heartbeat sent a fresh wave of fire through my thigh. I limped, dragging the boy's corpse by the ankles. His head lolled back, his one good eye staring up at the rain-slicked sky, his other a ruined, bloody socket.
The other convicts watched from their shadows, their faces pale and gaunt in the torchlight. They saw me not as one of them, but as something else. Something other. A creature that had crawled from the filth and proven it could bite. There was no camaraderie in their gazes, only a newfound, wary respect. I was no longer just the Lord Cripple, the butt of their jokes and the target of their spit. I was the man who had killed. I was one of them now, in the worst possible way.
The bone pile was a mountain of death at the far end of the trench. Limbs stuck out at impossible angles, and the faces of the dead were frozen in masks of agony and surprise. I heaved the boy's body onto the pile. It landed with a soft, wet thud, his limbs tangling with those of a man in the uniform of a Dominion officer. They lay together, enemies in death, their final embrace a mockery of peace.
I stood there for a long time, just staring at the pile. How many bodies were in it? A hundred? A thousand? How many of them had a name? A family? A girl they had promised to come home to?
"Done gawking, boy?" the sergeant asked, his voice devoid of sympathy.
"Commander's waiting."
I turned and limped back toward the center of the trench, where Moloch stood like a statue of some forgotten, wrathful god. He held a torch, its light casting his burned face in a hellish glow. He looked at the gaping wound in my leg, then at my face, his eyes searching for something.
"Show me your hands," he commanded.
I held up my remaining hand. It was shaking, covered in mud and the boy's blood. He grabbed it, his grip like a vise, and turned it over. He looked at the fingernails, at the scrapes on my knuckles. He seemed satisfied.
"Good," he said, releasing my hand.
"No hesitation. That's the only way to survive out here. Hesitation is a luxury we can't afford."
He turned to a nearby soldier and nodded. The soldier disappeared into a nearby dugout and returned a moment later with a wooden bowl and a small, hunk of something dark and greasy.
The bowl was filled with the same gray slop they served every night, a thin, watery gruel that smelled of boiled leather and despair. But this time, floating in the center, was a small, piece of meat. It was tough and stringy, probably rat or dog, but it was meat. A luxury.
"Eat," Moloch said, his voice a low growl.
"You'll need your strength."
He placed the bowl in my one good hand. The wood was warm, a small comfort in a world of cold. I looked at the slop, at the greasy piece of meat. My stomach, a knotted pit of hunger and nausea, churned. I wasn't hungry. I was sick. I was a monster, and they were feeding my monster.
I stumbled back to my spot beneath the carved words, the bowl clutched in my hand like a holy relic. I sank to the ground, the movement sending a fresh wave of agony through my leg. I leaned against the cold, wet clay, the words **NEVER AGAIN** a silent accusation above my head.
I looked at the slop. I thought of the boy. I thought of the dagger sinking into his eye. I thought of the look on his face. A wave of nausea washed over me, and I had to fight to keep from vomiting.
But I was hungry. So, so hungry. A hunger that was deeper than my stomach, a hunger that gnawed at my bones. A hunger for life, for a single moment of not being in pain.
I brought the bowl to my lips and drank.
The slop was thin and tasteless, but it was warm. It slid down my throat, a small river of life in a desert of death. I ate the meat, tearing at it with my teeth, my jaw aching. It was tough and gristly, but it was food. It was fuel. It was the price of a life.
As I ate, the tears began to fall. They were not tears of sadness or grief. They were tears of shame. Tears of self-loathing. I was a creature of the mud, a thing that fed on death. I had traded a boy's life for a bowl of slop. I had become the thing they had always accused me of being: a monster.
*You're a killer, Kaelen,*
a voice whispered in my head, a voice that sounded suspiciously like my father's.
*You're a disgrace to the Veal name.*
*I'm not Kaelen,*
I wanted to scream.
*Kaelen is dead. You killed him.*
But the voice was right. I was a killer. I had taken a life. And I would do it again if it meant another bowl of slop, another moment of not being hungry. The thought was so horrifying, so utterly depraved, that I wanted to die.
I finished the bowl, scraping the last of the slop from the bottom with my finger. I was still hungry, but the gnawing ache in my stomach had subsided, replaced by a cold, heavy stone of guilt.
I lay down on my side, my back to the trench wall, and tried to sleep. But sleep would not come. The boy's face was burned into my memory, his single, staring eye a constant reminder of what I had done. I saw the dagger sinking into his eye again and again, a silent, gruesome film playing on a loop in my mind.
I closed my eye, but it was no use. I could still see him. I could still feel the resistance of his eye socket, the soft, wet sound of the blade sinking home. I could still hear his final, choked gasp.
I must have drifted off, because the next thing I knew, a shadow was falling over me. I thought it was Voss, coming for another round of torment. I braced myself, my body tensing for the inevitable blow.
But it wasn't Voss.
It was a man I didn't recognize, a big, burly convict with a scarred face and dead, soulless eyes. He was naked from the waist down, his body smelling of sweat and stale ale.
He didn't say a word. He just smiled, a cruel, predatory smile that sent a chill down my spine. He knelt down beside me, his hand reaching for the rags that covered my hips.
I tried to fight, to struggle, to scream, but my body was a leaden weight, my limbs too weak to obey. My mind was screaming, a silent, desperate plea for someone, anyone, to help. But no one came. No one ever came.
He ripped the rags from my body, the rough fabric tearing at my already wounded flesh. He flipped me over onto my stomach, the movement sending a fresh wave of agony through my back and leg. I was face down in the mud, my body exposed, my vulnerability absolute.
This was it. This was the bottom. This was the moment I ceased to be a person, a being with any semblance of self or dignity. This was the moment I became an object, a thing to be used and discarded.
I felt his weight on me, his hands rough and bruising. I felt the violation, a tearing, burning agony that was worse than the knife, worse than the brand, worse than the lashes. It was a violation of the soul, a desecration of everything I had ever been.
I didn't scream. I didn't cry. I didn't fight. I just lay there, my face pressed into the mud, and let it happen. I retreated into myself, into a dark, quiet corner of my mind where the pain couldn't reach me. I watched from a distance as my body was used, as my humanity was stripped away, piece by piece.
He finished with a grunt, his weight lifting from me. He spat on my back, a final, degrading mark of his conquest. Then he was gone, disappearing back into the shadows as silently as he had come.
*One.*
I lay there, face down in the mud, my body a canvas of pain and shame. The rain began to fall again, washing the filth from my back, but it couldn't wash away the feeling of his hands on me, the memory of his weight on me, the knowledge that I had been so utterly, so completely, broken.
I closed my eye and waited for the darkness to take me. But it wouldn't come. I was left alone, awake, and aware, with nothing but the mud, the rain, and the hollow, echoing emptiness where my soul used to be.
The shadow returned.
*Two.*
This time, I didn't even tense. I just lay there, a slab of meat for the slaughter. The pain was a distant thing, a fire burning in another man's house. I floated above my body, watching the scene with a detached, scientific curiosity. I noted the way the mud squelched under his knees. I noted the harsh sound of his breathing. I noted the way the rain felt cold on my exposed skin.
*Three.*
The words above me seemed to mock me, a cruel, cosmic joke.
**NEVER AGAIN**
It had happened again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again.
*Seven.*
I counted. I don't know why. Maybe it was a way to cope, a way to create order in the chaos of the violation.
A way to remind myself that I was still alive, that I was still capable of counting, of thinking, of being.
But I wasn't.
I was just a body.
A thing.
A piece of meat in a trench of meat.
And I knew, with a certainty that chilled me to the bone, that this was my life now. This was my future. An endless cycle of pain, humiliation, and despair.
There was no escape. There was no hope. There was only the mud, the rain, and the long, slow, agonizing descent into madness.
The last man left. The rain fell harder, as if the sky itself was trying to wash me away. I lay there, face down in the filth, my body a ruin, my soul a hollowed-out shell. The words carved into the wall above me were the last thing I saw before my vision swam and the darkness finally, thankfully, took me.
**NEVER AGAIN**
A promise.
A threat.
A lie.
It would happen again.
It would always happen again.