Chapter 80 – The Mob's Fire
The beating went on and on.
It felt endless—like time itself had broken.
Fists cracked against flesh. Boots drove into ribs. Wooden sticks snapped against bone. Every impact sent ripples through the night air.
Albert's body, once tall and commanding, was reduced to a pitiful heap. His face swollen beyond recognition, his clothes clung dark and wet with blood. His breath rattled shallowly, each one weaker than the last.
And still, the mob did not stop. Their grief had boiled into rage, and rage into a frenzy.
It wasn't just one man's fists landing—it was the town itself, the pain of every parent who had buried a child, pouring itself into each blow.
---
And then—something changed.
From the sea of furious faces, one man broke. His eyes were red, wild, the eyes of a father whose child had been stolen and buried in the earth like an animal. His grief twisted into madness.
"Enough of this!" he snarled, his voice shaking. His hands seized a bottle of kerosene from another villager. The crowd startled, unsure, but no one moved to stop him.
With trembling hands, he yanked the cork out. The sharp chemical stench of fuel spread instantly, burning the nose, cutting through the smell of sweat and blood.
Albert lay groaning, barely conscious, as the liquid drenched him—soaking his shirt, his hair, the ground beneath him. He coughed weakly, too broken to fight.
"Stop—don't—" a woman whispered, horror creeping into her voice.
But the father was blind to reason. He struck a match. His fingers trembled. The flame wavered in the night breeze for only a heartbeat—before he threw it down.
FWOOOSH.
Fire roared to life, swallowing Albert whole. It climbed his arms, his chest, his face, with terrifying hunger.
"NO!" someone gasped, too late.
The mob stumbled back in horror, their fury collapsing into shock. Some screamed, dropping their torches and scattering from the sudden blast of heat. Shadows danced wildly across the walls, grotesque and twitching.
The night became hell.
---
Albert, who had lain limp and unconscious, snapped awake. The flames brought him back to life in the cruelest way imaginable.
His eyes bulged, his mouth twisted in agony, a scream clawing its way up his throat.
"Don't kill me!" he wailed, voice cracked and raw. "I'm not a murderer! I'm not—"
The words dissolved into shrieks. High-pitched, ragged, inhuman. His arms flailed, his body writhed, but the fire clung to him, devouring without mercy.
The smell—oh, God, the smell—thick, choking, unmistakable. Burning flesh. Hair sizzling. The air itself tasted like ash and horror.
Some in the crowd turned away, gagging. Others stood rooted, paralyzed by the sight of a man turning into something less than human before their eyes.
In the doorway, Lily stood frozen.
Her throat was parched, dry as sand. Her lungs refused to draw air. Her nails dug into her palms until they bled, but she felt nothing.
She wanted to scream. To cry. To shout that this wasn't justice, that this wasn't human. But no sound left her lips.
She could only watch. Silent. Helpless.
And in her silence, Albert burned.
By morning, nothing remained.
The fire had eaten him down to ash and brittle bones. His body was unrecognizable, his existence reduced to blackened remains scattered in the dirt.
There was no cremation. No prayer. No dignity.
The mob had not only killed Albert. They had erased him.
As if he had never lived.
Days later, the officials came. The police dug carefully, their shovels turning up small, pale bones from the backyard.
The sight silenced even the most hardened men. Tiny ribcages. Fragile skulls.
The bones of children.
The report was short, merciless, absolute:
"These are the remains of human children."
The town's last thread of doubt snapped.
Albert had been the monster.
But Ryu understood something the others did not.
He understood the people. He understood fear. He understood how quickly hatred shifted its aim.
If the mob had turned on Albert once, what was stopping them from turning on Lily next?
So he stepped forward, his voice calm, commanding, woven with truth and lie alike.
"It was Lily," he declared to the town square. "It was my sister who first came to me. She was the one who revealed Albert's crimes. She chose truth over her husband's life. She risked everything to protect your children."
Murmurs spread. Heads turned.
And slowly, the tide shifted.
Where once there might have been suspicion, there was now pity. Where there might have been cruelty, there was sympathy.
The people nodded. They believed him. They wanted to believe him.
And so Lily, the wife of a murderer, became instead the woman who had brought him down.
She said nothing.
She stood in silence, her baby in her arms, her face blank.
The mob thought it was courage. They thought it was grief.
But only she knew the truth.
Her silence was not strength.
It was survival.
Five Years Later
Time dulled the chaos.
The town that had once been suffocated by fear of dead infants had found relief. Albert's execution by fire, though brutal, had seemed to cleanse the air.
Jeff [Lily's son ] grew into a healthy, playful child. His laughter carried through the yard, echoing like a promise of normal life. He ran barefoot through the grass, his small legs strong, his eyes bright like sunlight breaking through years of storm.
The mothers of the town often paused just to watch him run. For them, he was proof that the curse had lifted. Their own children no longer died mysteriously in their cribs. The funerals had stopped. Candles lit in mourning had been replaced with lullabies and laughter.
For five years, the people breathed easier. They believed the nightmare was over.
But evil never leaves quietly. It only changes its mask.
It began small. A single man did not return home one night. His wife thought perhaps he had gone drinking. But the next day passed, and the bed remained empty.
Then another disappeared.
Then another.
And another.
Within a month, fifteen people—men, women, even a teenage boy—had vanished. The town buzzed with panic. Whispers slithered through narrow alleys and behind closed doors.
"They're being taken…"
"But by who?"
"What kind of monster lurks this time?"
The searches were frantic. The entire Police force carried lanterns into the forest, shouting names into the night.
And then—the answer came.
Bones.
They found them beyond the pond, in the shadows of the forest where the soil smelled of rot and the trees leaned like crooked sentinels.
Piled bones. Human bones.
Not gnawed by wolves. Not shattered by beasts.
Each skeleton bore the same sign: strangulation.
Fingers had crushed the life out of them. One by one.
This was no curse. This was murder.
The town's fragile peace collapsed.
Doors slammed shut before dusk. Windows were nailed with planks. Families no longer traveled alone. The once lively marketplace turned hollow, filled only with the nervous glance of people who wondered if they would be next.
And with fear came suspicion.
It spread slowly, like mold on bread, at first whispered in corners:
"Maybe it's her…"
"Lily."
"She's cursed. She brought this evil with her."
After all, hadn't her husband been exposed as a monster? Hadn't their backyard coughed up the bones of children? Who was to say the wife was not the same? Perhaps she was the true devil, hiding behind her fragile face and her innocent child.
Whispers turned to mutters. Mutters grew into voices.
Until one evening, voices turned into fists.
It was a quiet night in Lily's home.
Jeff sat at the wooden table, small hands wrapped around a bowl, eating stew while humming softly to himself. The boy was six now, taller than most his age, but his eyes still glowed with childish innocence.
In the kitchen, Lily washed the dishes. The sound of water against clay bowls was the only rhythm in the room. For a brief moment, life felt almost normal.
Then—
BANG!
The front gate shuddered violently. Wood cracked. Voices roared outside like a thunderstorm breaking loose.
"THERE SHE IS! THE CURSED WITCH!"
Lily froze, her hands dripping with water, a bowl slipping and shattering against the floor.
She turned slowly, her heart hammering. Dozens of figures stood outside, torches in hand, faces twisted with fury and fear. The same faces that had once pitied her. Now their eyes burned with hatred.
Her blood ran cold.
"Jeff," she whispered, her voice trembling. "Come here. Now."
The boy obeyed instantly, running to her side. He was old enough to sense danger.
Another crash—the gate splintered into pieces. The mob stormed through, their footsteps pounding the earth like war drums.
"She's running away! That proves it!" someone bellowed.
Lily didn't wait to see what they would do. She knew too well what a mob meant. She had seen Albert's body swallowed by fire. She knew exactly what awaited her if they laid hands on her.
She clutched Jeff against her chest and ran.
The world blurred around her. Her bare feet slapped against the ground, carrying her faster than she had ever thought possible. Jeff's arms clung to her neck, his cries muffled against her shoulder.
Behind her, the mob thundered like a pack of wolves. Their shouts chased her through the night. Torches lit the air in savage orange, casting shadows that leapt and writhed across walls and trees.
"She's the killer!"
"Don't let her escape!"
Every breath burned. Every step felt like knives driving into her legs. But Lily did not stop. She couldn't stop.
The railway station appeared ahead, faint and distant, like salvation wrapped in wood and iron. She sprinted for it, lungs heaving, tears streaming down her cheeks.
The station master's office loomed, its lamp glowing faintly through the window. She staggered to the door, pounding with desperate fists.
"Help! PLEASE! They'll kill me!" Her fists struck so hard that her knuckles split and bled. "Open the door! I beg you!"
She peered through the glass.
Empty.
The room was deserted.
"No…" Her voice cracked, hollow with despair. "No, no, no!"
Behind her, the mob's voices grew louder. Closer.
Panic clawed her throat. With a sob, she turned away and fled again, this time toward the dark line of trees waiting at the forest's edge.
Branches clawed at her face. Roots reached like hands to trip her. Jeff grew heavier with each step, his body trembling in terror.
At last, exhaustion overwhelmed him. His small voice whimpered once, then silence. He had fainted in her arms.
"Just a little more," Lily gasped, staggering forward. "Just… a little more, my love."
Up ahead, she spotted a massive tree. Its roots twisted into the earth like the limbs of some ancient beast. Between them yawned a hollow dark space.
A hiding place.
She slid into it, clutching Jeff close, her trembling hand covering his mouth though he was unconscious.
The mob stormed past, torches flaring in the distance.
"Search everywhere! She's here somewhere!"
Their voices echoed through the trees. Shadows flickered. Footsteps pounded.
Lily pressed her back against the damp wood of the tree, her body shaking, her heart hammering so loudly she feared it would give her away.
Minutes stretched into eternity.
Finally, after what felt like an hour, the forest fell silent again. The mob had dispersed.
She didn't move. Couldn't move. Only when her muscles ached and her breath grew ragged did she dare to crawl out.
Jeff was still alive. Still breathing. That was all that mattered.
"We'll leave this place," she whispered, her voice raw. "We'll never come back. We'll take the first train. Anywhere but here. We'll survive."
Hope flickered inside her chest. Fragile, trembling—but alive.
She staggered forward, heading back toward the faint light of the station.
And then—
A hand clamped down on her shoulder.
Cold. Heavy. Unyielding.
Lily froze, her breath dying in her throat. Every nerve screamed.
Slowly, trembling, she turned—her makeshift weapon, a sharpened stick, thrust forward in blind defense.
Her eyes widened.
Someone stood in the shadows behind her.
Not from the mob.
but someone she recognized.
And as the moonlight spilled across their face, Lily realized—
To be continued…