Félix froze, unable to decide what to do amid those people.
The barn was a living organism of fear. The slaves were curled up, hands covering their ears, eyes wide, breathing like cornered animals. The smell of hay and manure mixed with the odor of old wood.
The animals, sensitive to the chaos, neighed and mooed in panic, hooves striking the ground, white eyes visible in the darkness.
There were, at minimum, twenty-three people sleeping alongside the animals in that barn. Twenty-three lives mixed with cows, rams and sheep, treated as less than that.
There was only one chance.
He looked at the slave to whom he had handed the weapon. She held the machine gun as if it were an alien object, something that could either free her or condemn her.
Then he looked at the gas pipes that snaked through the barn beams like exposed veins.
The decision was obvious. And monstrous.
He swallowed hard. His throat burned as if he were swallowing glass. Inside, he already felt like trash.
He could not even look at those people's faces.
— I am not a hero.
He repeated it to himself, a pathetic attempt to numb his own guilt. A cowardly mantra, a moral excuse to justify what he was about to do.
If the soldiers did not realize it was Félix who had killed that guard. He would already be far enough away.
And then the problem, at least for a few minutes, would fall on that armed slave.She would be the face of the revolt. The target. The scapegoat.
Félix looked at her again.
— Sorry...
The word came out weak, almost inaudible. It was not a request for forgiveness. It was a statement of defeat.
He pulled the trigger.
The shot echoed through the barn, tearing the silence like a divine sentence.The bullet hit the gas pipes.
Outside, screams began to rise. Voices in panic, orders shouted in Russian, heavy footsteps. The ground vibrated as if colossi were running toward him, military boots crushing snow and frozen earth.
Without time to lose, Félix ran. He slammed the main barn door shut with brutal force, then ran to the side and locked it as well. The hinges groaned under the violence of the impact.
His hands trembled.
His eyes fixed on the ground.
He knew that if he thought too much... If he looked at those people's faces... He would not have the strength to finish that act.
Simple eye contact could break him.
— I am a monster... A monster... That's all...
The phrase echoed inside him like an eternal judgment.
— Трус!!! (Coward!!!)
The word cut through the air.
A female voice shouted from the back of the barn. It was not a hysterical scream. It was a clear accusation, loaded with hatred and dignity.
Félix raised his eyes.
— Имей хоть каплю de порядочности посмотреть нам в лицо!!! (Have at least a drop of decency and look us in the face!!!)
Her golden hair swayed as her body moved in agitation. She stepped forward, without fear, ignoring the chaos, the gas, the animals and the approaching soldiers.
— Ты думаешь, мы крысы?! Что мы просто зараза, которой не повезло встать у тебя на пути!? (Do you think we are rats!? That we are just a pest that had the bad luck to cross your path!?)
She wore a thin brown coat, worn at the sleeves and torn at the seams. Gray pants covered her thin legs, dirty with straw.
Her small body trembled from the cold, but she kept an upright posture.Her eyes stared at Félix without hesitation.
And their color...
Magenta.
An impossible color, vibrant, far too alive for that dead world. In the middle of the gray, brown and filthy barn, those eyes were like two open wounds in the fabric of reality.
She kept an expression of pure anger on her face. Her fists were clenched, arms tense, pointed downward, as if holding her own hatred to keep it from exploding.
Félix did not understand a single word she said.
But her expression full of determination made it clear that his cowardice was being exposed once again.
Her posture exuded humanity, resistance and contempt.The guilt inside him grew like an infection.
Other slaves began to rise, murmuring, some crying, others cursing in languages he did not understand. Some advanced toward him, driven by fear, despair or rage.
Félix raised the weapon.
The simple gesture was enough.
Everyone stepped back.
Everyone... except her.
She did not blink. Did not step back. Did not beg.
The girl with magenta eyes kept staring at Félix, judging the inside of his soul.
BAK!!!
The sound echoed.
The soldiers were pounding on the barn door.
Félix's breathing became heavy, irregular, almost convulsive. His heart hammered in his chest like an engine about to explode.
It was all or nothing. One spark and that place would become a pile of ashes.
He bet everything on his own endurance.
His body had to endure.
And what about the others?
Better not think too much about them.
The door began to crack under the soldiers' blows. The old wood snapped like bones being broken. Cracks opened and the external light invaded the barn in pale blades.
Félix ran to the back, leaving the armed woman completely exposed in the center of the barn. She would be the focus.
But then something unexpected happened.
A man advanced and took the weapon from her, pushing her out of the soldiers' line of sight.
His gesture was firm, almost rough, but not hostile.
Félix pointed the weapon at him immediately.
The man did not react. He did not raise his hands, did not run, did not beg.
He only cast a cold glance and kept the weapon pointed downward.
— You are a man. — His voice came out in perfect German, without an accent. — You should protect women, not the other way around.
Félix was surprised. Confused. That sentence seemed absurd in that world.
That man was German, like him. But the woman he tried to protect was Russian. An enemy. In the past they would have killed each other without hesitation.
Now, they protected each other.
— Отойдите от газовых труб! (Get away from the gas pipes!)
The German shouted in Russian. The authority in his voice was unquestionable.
The slaves reacted instantly, as if that command were an anchor amid the chaos. They ran to the corners of the barn, mainly to the V-shaped areas where there were no pipes.It was a simple and logical order.
And Félix had not thought of it.
Everyone there, German or Russian, wherever they were from, everyone cooperated. When the cold swallowed the world, wars lost meaning. Only humans trying to survive remained.
Even Kholm had learned that by forming an alliance with the New Brigade.
The only one there who thought only of himself was Félix.
The only one who did not consider himself human.
CRACK!!!
The barn door gave way. Planks flew. The cold invaded the interior like an invisible blade. The silhouettes of the soldiers were projected in the smoke.
The man did not hesitate.
He fired, accepting his fate no matter how cruel it was.
BUM!!!
The shot generated the spark, the gas met the fire.
A curtain of flames spread through the barn like a living entity. In milliseconds, the fire swallowed the beams, the straw, the bodies. The pipes exploded in sequence, creating shockwaves that shook the entire farm.
A column of black smoke rose into the frozen skies.
Half of Félix's body was burned. His skin sizzled, the fabric of his clothes turned into incandescent ashes. The pain was so intense that his mind almost shut down.
He threw himself into the snow.
The flames went out with an aggressive hiss.
But looking at the slaves...
Screams.
People on fire, running, thrashing in the snow like insects in boiling oil.
The smell of burned flesh spread through the air, dense, nauseating, impossible to ignore.
Félix covered his ears.
He curled up, like a child trying to disappear inside himself.
The soldiers fired at the slaves who tried to flee. Machine gun bursts cut through the air, bodies fell, the snow was painted red in seconds.
Shame.
Revulsion.
Hatred of himself.
All because of an avoidable mistake. If he had kept calm. If he had thought. If he had simply left when he realized the plan was failing.
Now he was there, hearing the screams of those he condemned when they had committed no fault at all.
Guilt crawled up his back, wrapping his body like the serpent that seduced Eve to eat the apple. A constant whisper, cold, impossible to expel.
The force with which he pressed his ears was so great that his bones cracked. His skull seemed to split, the bones of his face creaked under the pressure. Tears ran from his eyes.
After so much time, he had to see that scene again, like a haunting coming from his nightmares.
At that moment, Félix was no different from a frightened child.
All of that seemed in vain. He did not want to flee. He did not want to advance. He did not want to continue existing like that.
Slowly, he removed his hands from his ears.
The presence of the soldiers was oppressive, crushing. Some passed by him without even noticing his existence.
Part of his uniform was burning, but it was still the Brigade's uniform.
To the soldiers, he was an ally.
His plan "worked", despite everything.
He stood up and ran.
He ran with all the speed his body allowed. The command center was his objective. The original plan was to destroy the barn and the plantation shed, create a massive distraction, disperse the guards.
Since it was a farm, the superiors would prioritize the animals and crops. Their source of survival.
But that was no longer possible.
It was already a miracle they had not detected his infiltration.
There would be no second chance.
Carl had to die there, even if Félix died in the process.
That would be... the punishment for all the sins he had committed, a payment for what he did to those people.
It was ironic, comical. It had been two years since he fled Kholm, and at no point did he feel remorse for the people he killed outside the laboratory. He felt no fear and always thought rationally during those two years.
One encounter with Kholm again and all his fantasy collapsed. The world reminded him in the worst possible way that he was still made of flesh, as if Kholm were, ironically, an anchor of his humanity.
While Félix ran into the command center, another figure stood out amid the chaos.
An anomalously calm man. His hair was blond and shaved on the sides, his musculature was well developed and stood out in the uniform. Blue eyes, but an extremely deep, abyssal blue, his face was as weathered as his hands. He wore polar military clothing, but held no large weapon, only a magnum was visible at his waist, and on his back there were two knives in their sheaths.
On his arm, the symbol of a skull biting a knife, below it the initials of the New Brigade.
— Who did this?
— It seems one of the slaves shot the gas pipes.
The man narrowed his eyes. — And how did he get a weapon?
— They are still investigating.
He ended up seeing a slave girl running toward the plantation sheds, without saying a word he followed her.
Meanwhile, inside the command center, Félix was stopped by Brigade soldiers."Number 23! Identify yourself!!!"
The soldier pointed the weapon at Félix, but with no hope of getting out alive, he reacted.
He quickly grabbed the barrel of the weapon and used the soldier as a meat shield, his allies did not care and opened friendly fire. Félix repeated the same against them.
The bullets went through the vest of the soldier used as a shield, but Félix also wore a ballistic vest, which greatly reduced the damage. However, the shrapnel tore his skin along the sides of the vest. The pain was great, but bearable.
The confusion inside the command center called even more soldiers, he hurried his steps to climb the stairs.
TRACK!!!
A burst was fired at him from the base of the stairway. Three fingers of his right hand were torn off, a hole opened on the right side of his abdomen as well as on his shoulder.
Félix stumbled on the stairs, his blood left a grotesque trail on the steps. He used the walls to support himself, leaving bloody handprints on them.
His life was hanging by a thin thread that could be cut at any moment. His body was giving in, it was hard to keep his eyes open, his speed was declining very quickly.
But finally... The entrance door to the command room was in front of his eyes...
— Куда прёшь!? (Where are you going!?)
As soon as he touched the door, a soldier grabbed him and pinned him to the ground. The door was opened with the soldier throwing him inside.
Everyone in the command center aimed their weapons at Félix, subdued on the floor.
One man in particular stared directly into his eyes. He had gray hair, a meticulously groomed beard as white as his hair. He did not wear military clothing, only warm and luxurious coats. Thick black boots, dark satin gloves.
His eyes were brown, his face wrinkled like that of an old man. His physical presence was striking, a man who was truly physically strong. And also, the only person not pointing a weapon.
His name was Carl Tolstoyevich.