"We are hungry!"
The scream pierced everyone's ears like a projectile, louder than the noise of machines and clashing metal. It was a woman from the crowd, her face covered in black ash, her eyes telling stories of years of silent deprivation. She screamed it as she took a brutal blow from a brass wrench to her shoulder, making her stagger and fall to her knees, but she didn't stop screaming.
But her words, capable of moving mountains in another world, had no effect on the workers' hearts here. They didn't look at her as a human asking for the right to live, but as a threat to be removed. The workers continued to brutalize the homeless with unyielding ferocity, like guards of a mythical fortress resisting a mob of vengeful rebels, striking mercilessly to protect their small world behind the walls.
The scene was surreal and terrifying; the workers' ivory-white uniforms began to stain with the homeless's black blood from the fog and ash, making them look like butchers in a mechanical slaughterhouse who had lost their humanity with every blow.
"Back off!" one worker shouted, pushing a hydraulic lever to release a jet of hot steam directly at the crowd in the front. Screams of pain rose, but hunger was stronger than the fear of burns. The homeless in the back were pushing those in front with suicidal desperation. There was no room to retreat; behind them was death by cold in the fog, and in front of them was death by beating under the workers' feet. And between them, the open gate looked like the mouth of a beast swallowing both sides.
And in the moment the hot steam jet had scattered the ranks of the homeless, Kim, who was leading them, stood up. His face was disfigured by ash, sweat, and shock, but he didn't retreat. He raised his hands high, desperately trying to stop this madness.
"We just want help! We don't want to fight!" Kim shouted in a hoarse voice, trying to overcome the noise of machines and human screams. His eyes darted between the cruel faces of the workers behind their masks that revealed nothing, searching for a glimmer of humanity, for hope to see that they were not just blind ghosts executing orders.
But his words were lost in the storm of anger and fear. The workers didn't look at him as a "human asking for help," but as a "leader of intruders" who must be stopped at any cost. One continued pumping steam, while the others advanced with wrenches and clubs, ready to push him and those with him away from the threshold of their "fortress."
"Break the damn door and close the gate in their faces!" the voice of a worker at the gate boomed. The orders came out as hysterical screams, but executing them amidst this utter chaos was impossible. Although some were directing their blows at the armored door of the control room, unaware that who lay behind it was not one of them, but something more dangerous.
Inside the control room, silence enveloped Poggles. He had locked the door tight, turning the room into an optional cell. Poggles hung from one of the copper pipes extending under the room's ceiling, his small body dangling with a lightness humans didn't possess. Through a narrow gap in the ceiling, he watched the conflict unfolding below. His glowing blue eyes reflected the movement of the crowds like a mirror, waiting for the right moment to exit and turn the tables.
//
In the dark corridor, away from the noise of the gate.
"Jerrick..." Jackson whispered to himself, the name echoing in his memory like a spell of strength.
Elyra rushed like a thunderbolt, her blade cutting the air with a sharp ring aiming to end the pirate's life with one decisive blow. But Jackson, in the moment he thought his end had come, let out a savage scream that shook the corners of the corridor, a scream in which he gathered every atom of strength and malice remaining in his exhausted body.
CLANG!
Miraculously, he managed to block her strike. The blades bounced off each other with orange sparks illuminating their faces for a moment. And from that moment, Jackson turned into a hurricane of madness. He began fighting fiercely; his movements were no longer elegant or calculated as they were in the ocean, but became heavy, brute, and impulsive blows. He swung his sword in every direction, indifferent to the wounds opening in his body with every movement. He rushed toward Elyra with an open chest, ready to take a stab in the heart in exchange for burying his blade in her shoulder. He wasn't fighting to win; he was fighting not to die alone.
Elyra stepped back a step, then a second, trying to comprehend this sudden shift. His random attack made it difficult to predict his next move; a rooster bleeding to death possesses a suicidal strength a sane fighter does not.
"Die! Just die!" Jackson growled incomprehensible words, saliva mixing with blood on his chin, while he continued to deliver a torrent of blows that were smashing everything around them, copper pipes and wooden boxes.
The corridor turned into a bloody dance floor. Jackson rushed with random and brute movements, his sword cutting the air with a terrifying swish. Elyra, for her part, retreated into a purely defensive stance; she contented herself with blocking blows that almost shattered her arm bones with every clash.
'How?' Elyra wondered inwardly as she watched his broken body. 'How can this human wreck, who was on the brink of death, gather all this pressure?' It wasn't just physical strength; it was as if the spirit of "Jerrick" he summoned had breathed temporary life into his rusty soul.
Suddenly, Jackson's blade pierced her defense in a moment of inattention, leaving a wound in her shoulder. Drops of her blood scattered on the floor, and she felt the heat of pain running through her veins. Jackson continued his rush, his eyes bulging like someone seeing his end and wanting to embrace it. But, instead of retreating or panicking, something strange happened... Elyra smiled.
It was a cold, eager smile, resembling the smile of a hunter who finally found prey worth the trouble. She looked as if she had just woken up, as if this wound was the key that released her inner monster.
"Why didn't you fight like this from the beginning?" Elyra said in a voice dripping with quiet sarcasm as she brushed a lock of hair from her blood-stained face. "Or is this just the final rampage of your soul about to expire?"
In that moment, the balance of power changed completely. Elyra regained control with amazing skill; she no longer blocked, but began to "penetrate." She moved with lightning speed, anticipating Jackson's heavy movements by steps, delivering swift and debilitating blows to his body's joints. Jackson finally fell, his body hitting the ground hard, and his sword lost its luster as it slid away from him.
Jackson closed his eyes, surrendering to fate. He didn't utter a word, he was completely calm, submitting to death peacefully as if he had finally found the harbor he was looking for.
Elyra approached him with steady steps, features of enjoyment terrifyingly evident on her face. She didn't look like someone who had just fought a deadly fight; she looked as if she was born for this atmosphere, or that she no longer feared death because she had become part of it. She raised her sword high, and with one deep, sudden movement, brought the blade down.
CRUNCH!
She didn't aim for his neck, but plunged her blade with savage force into his thigh. Blood exploded profusely to stain the ground a dark crimson, and Jackson screamed a resounding scream that shook the factory walls; a scream of pain he hadn't expected, for he was waiting for salvation, not torture.
Elyra stood watching the blood fly, and she herself didn't know why she did that. Was it an old memory? Or an instinct moved within her to keep him alive in torment? Something drove her to that specific blow, as if the whole fight was just a prelude to this moment... the moment of seeing Jackson's thigh explode with blood before her cold eyes.