"Let me slay this Dain Fodder, Chief King!" Haveth, the largest among the bowing soldiers, rose from his prostration. He pointed at Akira—not with his cold hands, but with the bloodstained broadsword he had pulled from his back. Akira, the purple-haired fodder, gulped and stood still. He didn't fully know what a pointing sword meant, but he was very well versed in the Dain: the giant machine next to the prison that processed food for everyone, except for him and his mother, who only consumed harvested meat directly, despite it costing them ten times more.
"The Liege does not need your protection from a wimpy child. Put your swords away!" said Klein the Superior. He was one of Akira's favorite humans, the man said to be the right hand of Murad himself. They say when he was born, the Goddesses fashioned him with luxurious red hair and a body slimmer than most soldiers, yet packed with more power than all the Elites individually. He was someone Akira was taught not to hate.
Being in the middle of all this, Akira genuinely wished to apologize, but doing so would be a betrayal toward his mother. So, he awaited Murad Xie's reaction impatiently, panicking and trying to hold onto someone next to him, but they kept distancing themselves from him.
"By Decree of the Goddess of the Canals, Jenrya, I hereby pardon the arrogant child for his crimes against humanity... for not acknowledging the superiority of his lord," Murad Xie commanded. The silent declaration resonated with a loud clanging of armor and swords against the metallic floor as each of the soldiers began rising from prostration and stood.
Tears of fear fell from Akira's dry eyes, flowing stronger as a gush of wind flew past him—bringing warmth, not cold.
"Th-thanks," Akira murmured toward Klein, who happened to pass by after hearing Murad Xie's verdict. Not even a glance was returned. Akira could understand the love of his mother, but not the cruelty of humans until today.
"Deinne, I-I'm sorry," Akira turned toward his beloved friend, but Deinne happened to turn his head away as well. Was his mother the cause for all of this? A thought raised in his mind, waiting to blame it on another.
Hours went by. The children were taken to the nearby watchtowers to prepare them. They were given new long robes made from the skin of a Gritmaw, tightly sewed so no patches or mistakes were found. They received gloves, knee pads, and boots made of Mawtorus leather obtained from the last harvest, along with weapons made from scraps but polished into fine tools for killing: a tall spear, multiple knives, and a makeshift gun the watchtower guard was supposed to carry. Ever curious, none of the shiny metals caught Akira's eye. Instead, his hands reached for the gun, only to be immediately pushed away by Roste, the man on guard.
"Touch it once, and I'll slay you myself and blame it on a Gritmaw," he threatened, and Akira backed off with a smile.
"What does it do?" Akira asked curiously.
"It does absolutely nothing that you'd be interested in," replied Roste. He was confused as to why the boy smiled, and faced an even greater question: why was water coming from the boy's eyes? As far as Roste knew, there was never a person from his generation who could shed tears. Even when brothers died while harvesting, the men took their bodies and fed them to the Dain—a means of survival where even corpses were reused. Even then, no men cried, neither did their assigned wives. He had heard from Klein the Superior, who heard from Murad, that humans had lost the ability to cry after spending centuries inside the Sanctuary, having lost the things that made them weak.
"Don't be weak... the monsters beyond the gates spare no children," Roste mumbled as he spun the gun and slung it over his shoulder.
"Don't call me weak! That's rude! Agni!" Akira yelled with an unintentional flow of words. He had not developed enough to understand the difference between a child and a man holding a gun.
"Arrogant son of a bitch! Had I gotten your mother, I would've bred her till she died." Haveth had returned, overhearing Roste and Akira. Haveth was a huge man with greying, balding hair, and a stomach that nearly burst through the perfectly molded basket he wore as armor. Akira had only heard about Haveth twice: once in his shack of a school, and the other from his mother. "Never approach that man," she had told him.
"Don't make it anymore obscene, Haveth! The Lord will know about it!" Roste said as he stepped between Akira and Haveth.
"You hold no authority over me." Haveth shoved Roste aside as he walked away. "You aren't allowed to be alive." Haveth looked back one more time at the boy before he left.
Roste eventually followed, walking away. For Akira, this conflict was new, but it aligned with something his mother had taught him before: Men come in three types. Those who serve and protect, those who abuse and hurt, and finally the one both of them pledge their obedience to.
"T-thanks," Akira called out, his smile as wide as a bow, but Roste walked away without looking back.
The outskirts of the gate slowly filled with the scent of hard-horned male goats, shit-infested pigs, and the cud of cows. This was the sign that the Harvest was about to begin, and the ritual to recruit the children was due. It took time for the scent to reach Akira, but when it did, he immediately covered his face. He had never seen the monsters that came out of the gate, but he had heard about all of them before. He had learned about the Harvest in school, where Principal Koinke, one of the Lesser Men, had taught the history of how the Sanctuary came to be and why the Harvest was important. But the stories often told in school contradicted what his mother had taught him. Akira could count a few discrepancies as he watched the giant gates and smelled the scent of carcass and shit, but both stories had one thing in common:
The humans had lost the war! And the accepted fact was that the last of humanity had crawled underground, led by the Founder himself, Idris Xie Ryukzen, whose praises and statues were only rivaled by the three Goddesses of the Sanctuary.
His mother rejected this. She taught Akira every night before he slept, reading from a book that was older than the gates. "There are still humans above... waiting for Akira to find them and save them." She had no proof for her words, nor could she ever win the debates against the masses. All the men, women, breeders and mares, children and priests, tavernkeeps and Elite forces mocked her in the streets, yet she never backed down. "Crazy town wench, crazy lady, unbreedable whitehead, cumhair," they called her. Akira did not know half of what these insults meant, but he never brought them up to her. Rather, Akira trusted her. There was no way she could lie, for it was her bright green eyes that shared the exact same light as his own, Akira thought.
A freezing wind pressed against Akira's cheeks. As he turned toward it, the sound of a trumpet echoed all over the bridge. The chilliness vanished as the soldiers readied their fiery weapons, guns, and flaming arrows. Akira stared at an arriving light—a lantern carried by a boy of similar age, but muscular and much stronger in build. Akira knew who he was instantly. No shadows could ever mask his childhood friend and the familiar smell of his sweat.
"Deinne, sorry for back then!" Akira leaped toward him, smiling like a little girl.
"Don't get close... Dain Fodder! You embarrass us!" Deinne said, clutching his fists. He wiped the lantern before Akira could reach him. "The Liege has commanded us to be present. It's time for the ritual," he continued.
Akira had noticed the change in his behavior since they were six or seven years old. It hadn't been a long time since then, or perhaps Akira just hadn't been observant enough to notice the gradual shift.
"Deinne... Deinne! Why don't we harvest together? You and me, just like how we did before!" Akira's smile curved until his teeth showed wide open, his hands trembling with excitement. "Let's try getting into a car as well!"
"Stop!" Deinne shouted. Akira noticed Deinne's cold eyes—eyes that mirrored the adults—and the deep frown, as well as the veins popping up near his forehead. Akira was devastated. He couldn't predict this. This wasn't his friend anymore; this was a soldier, made to kill, harvest, and eat.
"Ever since our childhood, you were the only kid that never understood what strength meant! You always followed your mother even when she was wrong, and every time something happened, you'd always start to cry! There is no one like you left here, because all of them died a miserable death! It is the survival of the fittest! Being with you made me care about things I shouldn't. Stop being naive and show a bit of maturity!" Deinne shouted. He threw away the lantern and walked off.
Akira went quiet. He hadn't realized his foolishness until now. How did he ever think this place was meant for the happy ones? Being happy was something taught strictly by his mother. Now, Akira was jealous of him. "Late... late," Akira murmured unintentionally as he followed behind.
Everyone, including the children and Akira, had gathered near the gate, just in front of the small canal that flowed underneath the bridge. Before long, Murad Xie raised his right hand and commanded Klein to start the ritual. Akira overheard Murad Xie explaining it—at least parts of it—as his mind was too busy reminiscing about what Deinne had said earlier. The ritual required the children to hold their breath and submerge themselves under the water for a certain period of time allocated by Murad Xie. Then, a dirty, bloodstained knife passed down through generations would be used to scar the shoulders of each recruit. One by one, everyone started doing as told, and one by one, each emerged successfully, until the time came for Akira to submerge.
For Akira, submerging himself was not a difficult task. His mother had forced him to bathe in the canals every day, and he would often try to hold his breath underwater. The only difference here was the suffocating darkness of this specific canal. As Akira dipped in, he squeezed his eyes shut. Holding his body underwater, thoughts came crashing into his mind alongside strange voices. The first few voices belonged to Deinne, then to Murad Xie, and then came sounds that felt familiar, yet he had never heard them anywhere outside the water.
"Kyre, Late, Agni, Dice, Amen, Rich, Grim... Coin."
Stranger words or names echoed in his head, and slowly he could make out their faces forming as images behind his eyelids.
"Belial!"
A big air bubble left Akira's mouth as he could hardly control his breath anymore. The terrifying face of a one-eyed man filled the darkness behind his eyelids. Then, a sudden surge of light pierced the water as Akira turned his head upwards.
"Break it..." Akira opened his eyes to the voice of a man, knowing that the longer he kept them closed, the faster the panic would consume him.
He paddled as fast as he could. No one came to his rescue. With god's grace, Akira thrusted his legs against the canal bed and leaped instinctively toward the surface. He broke out of the water, gasping a deep breath. Crawling out of the canal onto the cold, metallic, rusted floor, he found that no one even cared to drop a towel for him to dry off. They were all focused entirely on themselves, exactly as Deinne had said. He had emerged a little earlier than recommended, but still passed the ritual.
This ritual marked the acceptance that the Goddesses of the Canals held their lives. Their kills would feed the men, women, and children, while their deaths would feed the Dain, allowing their souls to flow through the canals knowing they had fed the future. The priest explained even more about the importance of the ritual, but Akira refused to believe it. He didn't even listen; he had barely survived. His mother had taught him to resent these Goddesses. They were false idols created by men to cope, a faith engineered to hide a brutal past, she used to say.
Every kid was now marked with the bloodstained knife. But when it came to Akira, Klein asked the soldier to put his knife down.
"Why? Did I fail?" Akira asked out of curiosity and panic, ready to jump back into the water.
"Nay! Murad Xie has decreed that no bloodstained knife should dishonor you," Klein replied. It was Akira's first time hearing him speak directly. Klein's voice was as soft as his mother's, and Akira instantly decided he was a good man. Akira then glanced over at Murad, who stood far away, ready to open the gates. And so, the monsters would come.
Two soldiers walked toward the sides of the gate. Looking closer, Akira found that the gate was actually small compared to the overall structure. Most of the barrier was made with unmovable scrap metals, while the gate's bottom was mounted on a wheeled base and a track. He did not understand why, but he still thought it was cool. Akira also silently pointed out the difference between the gate and the surrounding walls; it looked as if both were made from completely different materials.
Klein, who had been overhearing Akira's muttering, smirked. "You are an observant one, aren't you?" A gentle smile followed, and Akira smiled back. "The walls' origin is unknown, but the gate was only built eleven years ago after we deemed the creatures outside were no longer safe. Those prey that fed us turned into monsters that hunted us," Klein explained.
Akira was confused—not by the story, but by the vocabulary. He did not know what a "prey" animal meant. Maybe it meant weaker. Did that mean Akira was prey, and Deinne was a monster? he wondered. Soon enough, the chattering in the crowd started to fall silent.
Growl. Mauuuu. Screwwq.
Sounds of monsters in massive numbers echoed through the cracks of the walls and gate.
"Open the Gates!!" screamed Murad Xie, his roar rivaling the monsters themselves. Two soldiers pulled massive chains from the other side, and slowly, the gate began to groan open.
Murad stood in the middle. He held a great claymore strapped behind his back; his right hand possessed the heavy metallic glove, and his left hand gripped the designed cane. How would someone fight with that? Akira wondered. He noticed the average swords at Murad's waist connected to thin black wires—a common feature among all the soldiers. Is this how they fight? ...How do they do it?
Akira readied himself, gulping. Today wasn't a bad day at all. Maybe he could prove that he was the savior promised by his mother—the one to save all the people in the Sanctuary. And maybe the powers his mother promised might unlock today...
"Spare no meat!" Murad Xie roared.
And the gates... were opened. There was no need for Akira to feel guilty anymore.