He walked farther that day.
The sky bled a soft rain, not heavy but cold enough to burrow into his skin. Mud clung to his feet like rot. His steps dragged—meat forced forward by some unseen curse.
The road took him to ruins.
Walls, blackened, pocked with bullet holes. A fortress once. Or a school. Or a field hospital. Hard to tell—everything's rubble now.
But it wasn't the buildings that stopped him.
It was the sound. Metal scraping. Chains dragged across stone.
He pressed himself to a wall, peered through a hole.
In the dead courtyard, a man stood. Thin as famine, skin scorched by the sun. His head wrapped in cloth. In his left hand he held a long chain. At its end—
a corpse.
Half-decayed. Half-skull. The man dragged it slow, careful, like he might wake it if he wasn't gentle.
The boy held his breath.
The man stopped. Turned.
"Spying's polite, is it?"
His voice was low, rough. Like it came from underground.
The boy almost ran. But his legs froze. He stepped out from the wall, trembling.
"Hungry?" the man asked. His eyes were empty, but his words cut soft, like a knife wrapped in silk.
The boy nodded.
The man pointed toward the ruins of a kitchen. "Horse meat. What's left of it. If you can stomach it."
The boy followed the gesture. Found a blackened strip of flesh hanging like a grim offering. He ate in silence while the man sat on the ground, staring at the corpse he dragged.
"My son," the man said quietly. "He used to paint. Now… I don't know. But I won't leave him. Even if the meat rots… at least he's still with me."
The boy said nothing.
The man laughed. Lightly. As if telling a story about the first rain of spring.
"They came at night. Soldiers from the south. Took water, food, burned the house. Hanged my wife. My boy died three days later from the burns. They said it was all for peace."
He came closer, sat beside the boy.
"You know…" His voice cracked. "Sometimes I wonder who the monster really is. Them, or me—still alive."
His hands were raw, like he'd punched through fire.
"Every night I dream the war's over. Every morning, it's the same. Like hell forgot to burn out."
The boy wanted to speak. But whatever words he had would only crumble between two ruins.
The man rose. Pulled the chain again. "If you want to sleep, take that corner. Don't touch my boy. He's suffered enough."
That night the boy lay in a darkness with no shape. The air smelled of blood and spoiled flesh. In the distance, gunfire echoed—not as shock, but as rhythm. The symphony of death.
He stared up at the shattered ceiling, saw stars veiled behind clouds. He thought:
Maybe God left this world long ago.
Maybe He didn't even say goodbye.
Morning came. He opened his eyes.
The man was gone.
Only a snapped chain remained—
and the boy's head on the ground, smiling strange, as if it had once forgiven the world but changed its mind.
He vomited. Nothing came but water.
Then he walked on, aimless.
Carrying a new weight on his back: the guilt of still breathing when the others had chosen to stop.