CHAPTER 4 - THE MACHINE KEEPS RUNNING
The whistle blew.
And the world started moving again.
The silence tore open like rotten fabric. The stadium inhaled in a single violent wave—screams, insults, laughter, the metallic pounding of drums and railings. The giant screens flickered, as if even they had to remind themselves this was a show, not a fracture in reality.
Double Zero took a second to react.
Maybe two.
Long enough for the game to leave him behind.
He was still standing with the ball at his feet, but control was gone. The play had moved on without him, as if his body had slipped into a crack in time while the rest of the world decided to continue anyway.
The referee pointed.
Play on.
With or without his trance.
The Erasers instinctively fell back toward their half. They reorganized as best they could, panic clinging to their shoulders. There were no clear voices—only gestures, looks, fingers pointing at positions that no longer meant anything. The empty space where the dead goalkeeper had been felt like a hole in reality: a place where the air turned colder, heavier, as if the goal itself remembered.
Then the ball ended up at the opposite end.
In the hands of the Butchers' goalkeeper.
A monster.
Not a metaphor. A human anomaly—too large for the logic of sport. Over eight feet tall, neck thick, torso like poured concrete. His arms hung like steel beams, and when he stretched one out, it seemed he could reach from the ground to the crossbar without jumping. The net behind him looked ridiculous, like a toy misplaced in the wrong room.
The crowd worshipped him.
They chanted his name the way one chants for a real executioner—with faith, hunger, gratitude.
The goalkeeper took two steps back.
Stood still for a moment, measuring the field like a hunting ground.
And kicked.
The impact was brutal.
It wasn't a clearance. It was artillery fire. The ball screamed as it cut through the air, spinning, slicing, traveling in a perfect high arc. The stadium followed its invisible line with hysterical anticipation, as if everyone knew something was about to break again.
—HERE IT COMES! —the commentator shouted—. HE SENDS IT ALMOST TO THE OTHER GOAL!
The ball dropped and bounced near the Erasers' penalty area.
And a Butcher was already waiting.
Number 9.
Perry.
The same one who celebrated death like a personal record. Tall, fast, with that dangerous smile that never faded—even when there was a body on the grass. He didn't try to control the ball. He didn't need to. He judged the distance, planted his foot, and launched himself at it like an animal smelling blood.
Double Zero saw the movement too late.
Everything reached him too late.
The Erasers' goalkeeper—their last one—stood inside the six-yard box. He wasn't normal either. Another giant in his own way: nearly eight feet tall, massive shoulders, a presence that filled the goal by sheer volume. He'd survived so far on height and instinct alone.
When he saw Perry, he reacted.
He rushed out.
Jumped.
Threw his arms wide in desperation, as if he could catch not just the ball, but fate itself.
But Perry had already struck.
A first-time kick.
The ball flew inches from the goalkeeper's face.
Too close.
Too fast.
The impact was dry.
Like a hammer shattering bone.
The ball smashed into his face with all the violence of the distance traveled, the monstrous goalkeeper's kick, Perry's leg, physics turned into a sentence. His nose exploded in a dark spray. His head snapped back. The enormous body flew backward as if his feet had been ripped from the ground.
He fell.
On his back.
His head hit first.
And his eyes turned white before he finished falling.
The ball rolled into the empty goal.
And crossed the line.
3–0.
The referee blew the whistle.
Third.
The stadium erupted.
Not in horror.
In ecstasy.
—GOOOOOAL! —the commentator screamed, nearly breathless—. GOAL FOR THE BUTCHERS! THREE–ZERO!
—AND ANOTHER CASUALTY! —the second voice answered—. A-NO-THER ONE! THIS IS WARFOOT! THIS IS WHAT YOU CAME TO SEE!
The giant screens replayed the scene.
Once.
Again.
And again.
The ball hitting the face. The body flying backward. Blood bursting from nose and mouth. The skull bouncing off the turf. The white eyes. The final twist of the neck—an angle the human body should never make.
The crowd screamed like it was witnessing a miracle.
—PERRY!
—PERRY!
—PERRY!
Number 9 jumped, flipped in the air, kissed the black crest on his jersey, and pointed both fingers to the sky, shouting wordlessly, throat torn open, as if the stadium were his temple.
The Butchers surrounded him. Hugged him. Slammed chests. Shoved each other like brothers in war. To them, the dead body meant nothing—just another stat, another number, another signature written in blood.
For the Erasers, it was the end.
Again, no goalkeeper.
Again, fewer pieces.
And now, truly—
No substitutions left.
Doctors rushed in. Stretchers. A medic in white gloves. They knelt beside the body, pressed fingers to the neck, examined the shattered face, the absent breath.
The doctor looked up.
Shook his head.
The referee raised his arm with absurd solemnity, like a priest announcing a ritual.
The stadium's metallic voice boomed through the speakers:
—The Erasers' goalkeeper… is dead.
There was a brief silence.
A blink.
Then applause.
Not from everyone.
But enough.
Erasers were down to nine.
Nine against eleven.
Nine against monsters.
Nine against a full stadium that paid to watch them disappear.
On the sideline, the Erasers' coach exploded.
—WAKE UP! —he screamed at Double Zero—. FALL BACK, DAMN IT! YOU'RE A DEFENDER! YOU'RE A DEFENDER!
Double Zero blinked.
As if being called back from somewhere far away.
He looked at the body on the ground.
At Perry celebrating.
At Krael, walking back to position with the calm of someone who had already understood the pattern.
And something broke inside him.
It wasn't just fear.
It was guilt.
Because in the twisted logic of this place, the coach was right: if he hadn't frozen, if he had been where he was supposed to be, maybe Perry wouldn't have had that space, maybe the goalkeeper wouldn't have rushed out, maybe—
Maybe.
But maybe didn't exist in WARFOOT.
Only what stayed on the ground.
—THIS IS YOUR FAULT! —the coach roared, red-faced, unhinged—. BECAUSE OF YOU THEY SCORED AGAIN! BECAUSE OF YOU ANOTHER ONE IS DEAD!
Double Zero tried to move.
One step.
Then another.
His legs shook—not from exhaustion, but from something deeper. His body refused to obey. It didn't want to be there. Didn't want to be seen. Didn't want to be the center of that cursed tradition.
Double Zero doesn't play.
Double Zero gets eliminated.
He heard it in his head as if the crowd had spoken, as if the system itself had whispered it, as if the number had carved it into his bones.
This wasn't what he'd played in prison.
In prison there were punches. Blood. Broken teeth. There were crude rules, animal rules: stop when the other stopped moving, back off when someone screamed long enough, freeze when a guard fired into the air.
This—
This never stopped.
This was an assembly line.
A machine that turned bodies into entertainment.
Double Zero swallowed, and for a brief moment felt something strange in his throat—not just terror, but an echo, a taste that didn't come from the stadium.
Concrete yard.
Bars.
A ball rolling against a wall.
A guard's voice shouting PLAY like a military command.
The image stabbed him and vanished in the same instant.
Like a memory that refused to fully open.
The referee placed the ball at the center.
The Butchers lined up as if nothing had happened. Perfect. Unhurried. Emotionless. Like training. Like inevitability.
The stadium roared again.
The whistle rose to the referee's lips.
Double Zero clenched his fists.
And the machine kept running.
Because WARFOOT didn't stop for anyone.