Scarface was someone with a reputation built on destruction, merciless killings, and a sick need to always leave a witness behind to tell his stories. But there was something else that made him stand out — something sinister, something that people found strange, something that separated him from every other killing machine and raider that ever lived.
He could control these almost alien-like beings — these monsters.
While others saw the hygrons as uncontrollable horrors, driven only by madness and bloodlust, Scarface bent them to his will. They heeded his commands, obeying him as though they were extensions of his own body. He appeared to be the only one in his band capable of it.
With a single word or a snap of his fingers, the hygrons listened. They obeyed. None dared question how a man could control such monstrosities. Some said he had made a pact with something ancient — something that predated the gods themselves.
Others whispered that he was blessed — that he was chosen, chosen by the same power that must have created the hygrons.
And still others believed that Scarface had awakened something that had long lain dormant in this crumbling world.
But one thing was certain: wherever Scarface and his monsters went, chaos, death, and destruction followed.
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"Everyone — my friends, my family, my brothers and sisters in arms," Scarface roared, his voice echoing through the camp, "I congratulate all of us on a successful raid! It's TIME to celebrate the spoils of war!"
His tone carried a twisted kind of joy, a grin full of satisfaction stretching across his scarred face. He finally climbed down from his mount — a towering figure, standing an exact two meters tall. His mere presence could make hearts shrink, women drop to their knees, and men question their courage.
Swift appeared at his side, her armor still streaked with dirt and blood.
"The loot's been gathered, sir," she said, her voice steady but cold. "We got grains, tools, a few weapons… and, um, survivors."
Scarface's eyes narrowed. "Survivors?"
"Five kids and a woman," Swift replied almost immediately. She glanced toward a small wooden cage lashed together from the remains of carts. Inside, the captives huddled in silence — eyes wide, faces smeared with soot and tears, bodies drenched in their own fear.
Scarface let out a low hum, his tongue sliding over his cracked lips as though tasting victory itself. "Good," he said finally. "We'll make use of them. The world might be dying, but there's still profit in pain. You know what has to be done, Swift — make their deaths slow and gruesome. As much as I hate the sound, I want to see the faces they make when they're faced with death. I want them to scream at the top of their lungs."
He turned toward his men, raising one hand. The camp erupted in cheers — mugs lifted high, torches blazing brighter against the dying light. The hygrons stood beyond the firelight, watching — massive shapes that breathed smoke and twitched as though waiting for the command of their master.
And when Scarface smiled, they stilled. Completely.
The men and women laughed, drank, and sang their songs of slaughter. But the beasts stayed silent, their heads bowed slightly toward their master.
Scarface looked into the flames, the shadows crawling across his face like old memories. "I love what I do," he muttered.
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Tristan walked among the ashes.
The village was gone — devoured, hollow, smoky, silent. What little wind remained carried only the scent of burnt wood, burnt flesh, blood, and the faint sweetness of decay. The flames had already died out, leaving behind blackened timbers that reached for the sky like broken fingers.
He didn't cry. He didn't speak. He just walked — slowly, carefully — as if stepping through a memory he had already lived. Every face he passed was still, twisted in the same silent question: why?
The ground trembled beneath his feet. Not from thunder, not from the wind — but something deeper, the heartbeat. That same pulse he had felt all his life was stronger now, louder, angrier. It throbbed beneath the soil like the echo of war itself.
He followed it.
Through the broken fields, past the dying trees and the smell of smoke, he walked — guided by something unseen but familiar. The tremor grew heavier with each step, leading him toward a faint glow on the horizon.
When he reached the ridge, he saw it: firelight. Dozens of them.
The bandits' camp stretched across the plain like a scar on the world — tents made from torn hides, fires burning with stolen oil, men and women laughing like hyenas drunk on blood. And beyond the fires — the monstrosities, the hygrons.
They stood in the dark like living mountains, their eyes dim and waiting. Their bodies twitched with restrained violence, muscles rippling under skin that shone like polished stone. They weren't resting — they were listening. Waiting for one voice. One command.
Scarface.
He stood near the largest fire, towering above the rest, the scar across his face catching the light like a brand of ownership. His men laughed and drank around him, their songs carrying through the night — songs of war, of death, of victory and conquest.
But Tristan didn't hear their voices. He heard it again — the same rhythm that had followed him since childhood, now pulsing from beneath the camp. Each beat seemed to call his name, whispering through the soil, through the fire, through his very bones.
His breath caught. He too has awakened.
Scarface raised his hand, and the laughter died. Even the hygrons stilled, their breaths falling into silence as one. The air grew heavy, trembling with unseen power.
Tristan's heart skipped a beat. The pulse beneath him quickened, matching Scarface's movement — as if the ground itself obeyed him.
Scarface turned slowly, his pale eye catching the light. He stared into the dark beyond the fires, toward where Tristan hid among the rocks. For a heartbeat, their eyes met again — just as they had during the raid.
That same emptiness.That same calmness.
Scarface didn't move. He only smiled — a slow, knowing thing that curved across his scarred face like the drawing of a blade.
Then he spoke, voice low but carrying across the plain.
"You can watch, boy," he said. "The world needs eyes to remember what's coming."
For a moment, Tristan thought it was over. But then — as Scarface turned away — he felt something stir beneath the ground. A pulse that wasn't his own, wasn't the bandit's, but something shared between them. It rippled through the soil, deep and alive, like two heartbeats trying to match rhythm.
Scarface paused mid-step. He looked back toward the darkness — not in suspicion, but in recognition.
And for the first time, a flicker of something unfamiliar crossed his face. Not anger, Nor mockery, More like an understanding.
He whispered, almost to himself, "So… there's another."
Tristan froze. He didn't know why, but the pulse under his feet trembled in answer — like the world itself had heard.
Scarface smiled again, sharper this time, and began to walk toward him.
Each step made the earth quake — slow, heavy, certain. The closer Scarface came, the louder the rhythm grew, until Tristan could no longer tell whether it was the ground he was hearing… or his own heart.
The titan of a man stopped only a few feet away, towering over him in silence. The fire at camp painted half of his face red, the other half swallowed in shadow.
For a long, tense moment, neither spoke. The air felt still, thick — alive — trembling with something unseen.
Scarface's grin widened, slow and deliberate, the kind that almost guaranteed one's death. "You feel it too, don't you?" he said, his voice low, almost amused.
Tristan didn't answer. He couldn't. The pulse beneath his feet was pounding now, echoing in his chest, rising in rhythm with Scarface's every step.
Scarface tilted his head, studying him the way a predator studies something rare — something they haven't seen before. Not prey, but potential ."Good," he murmured, his grin sharpening. "Then it seems I'm not the only one after all."
He took another step closer. The ground cracked beneath his boots.
Tristan flinched, his breath catching — not from fear, but from the weight of something ancient pressing against his bones.
Scarface reached out a hand, fingers hovering just above Tristan's shoulder — not touching, but close enough that the air between them seemed to hum. His voice dropped to a whisper.
"Come closer, boy… I want to see what you really are. If we're really alike."
The world seemed to hold its breath. The heartbeat beneath the soil thundered once — twice — and then everything fell silent.
Scarface's shadow fell over him.