Theo and Ceres walked across the flower-filled field planted by Cora.
The contrast between natural beauty and the horror of death triumphed; in the distance, the tower rose, imposing, and up there Mother Ceres smiled blood.
Theo carried the weight of that tower in his mind — and the blasphemy he had dared to confess, that perhaps escape was possible — seemed forgiven now.
In a way, it was as if he carried Ceres in his arms, but she was the one clinging to him, laughing like an innocent child.
She repeated between her teeth, like someone praying:
“Mother Ceres loves you. I love Mother Ceres. And I love you, Theo.”
Blinded by doctrine, like a well-implanted virus.
As if there were a cure for this… but in a dead body, in a damaged mind, the cure no longer works.
Zombies do not heal.
And yet, Ceres seemed to fit entirely in Theo’s arms — as if he were the universe, and she, a child who had just received the toy of her dreams.
Theo answered automatically, repeating the old mantra:
“Mother Ceres, who educates us, feeds us, and devours us.”
At that moment, the doubt inside Theo — hibernating for so long, like a seed without water — began to awaken.
Ceres, beside him, sweet and close, her blue eyes like skies invading his hell, spread that insidious anesthesia that only she knew how to provoke.
His body ached inside, marked by the blood of his opponents, but Ceres acted like an analgesic — the body wounded, but the brain prevented from perceiving it.
That was how Mother Ceres molded them: with lead where feelings should have been.
And when the side effects appeared, all he had to do was look at her — at Ceres — and the pain disappeared again.
“Mother Ceres, who educates us, feeds us, and devours us.” — Ceres repeated, the incarnation of the Mother in flesh, her prayer, her drug.
(And inside Theo’s mind — for the reader — like a whisper, a host standing at the edge of the stage, a man seeing himself and feeling for the first time:)
“How long will I still believe this? How long will I still call this wound love? How long will I carry this tower, and call my abyss home?”
Blood Merit – Theo’s Daydreams
I am lost. Ceres, and the others… even more lost. Damaged. The only solution is… to kill us. Or sacrifice us. Mother Ceres’s poison worked — and she smiles.
Theo’s dreams reach another level as he walks across the flower-filled field. He repeats to himself, as if pain were a mantra:
Lost. But Ceres… is beside me, with the tenderness of the innocent. As if she sees nothing. As if that scene of horror — concrete, blood, bones, flesh — were nothing but a garden. And she smiled. The most beautiful smile I have ever seen. With dimples, and a way of smiling with her eyes that kills me more than the bullets I have ever taken.
Along the way, Theo feels the weight of his own hands.
The first man he killed. He sees his face again, motionless.
They pass through the courtyard: the soldier with his skull split open is still there, lying on his back, a piece of a photograph almost slipping from his bloodied hand.
The wind blows, the photograph slides across the ground, stained with red drops.
In that photograph… a boy.
A son.
A son he left behind because of me.
My entire world collapses.
And Theo thinks of Tomas.
His brother, so far away, in the sky, in some rocket, having never known his son… never knowing the color of his own child’s eyes.
And I — I ended someone’s father.
I did that.
Me.
Mother Ceres… why are you cruel to me? Why did you give me arms to kill and eyes to cry? Why did you make me believe flowers bloom where I planted only corpses? Why do you smile blood while devouring my soul?
Now Theo and Ceres are supported by the soldiers who appear, hurrying to help them.
The teachers watch the scene with cold, clinical pride — as if contemplating the work of art they helped shape.
One of them approaches, places a hand on Theo’s shoulder, and says with a hint of admiration, almost like a father praising a prodigious son:
— Ten men, Theo. You killed ten men by yourself.
And in that instant, Theo is still embracing Ceres, who breathes slowly, but smiles — blinded, intoxicated by doctrine.
In the corner of his vision, Theo sees the Red Prince.
A version of himself.
In a suit, eyes of embers, teeth like knives.
All red.
Red like the blood on the ground.
He laughs.
A sweet and sadistic laugh at the same time, a laugh that is pleasure and regret in a single distorted grimace.
And Theo feels — feels pleasure crawling through his veins.
Feels regret burning him like acid.
And then, amid the horror and the screams of soldiers and children, amid the metallic sound of magazines and boots dirty with mud and entrails, Theo hears only his own voice.
In silence.
To himself:
— In my dreams now… the entire universe fits.
But the people I love do not fit.
And the Red Prince simply laughs.
Theo walked among the wreckage, with Ceres still nestled against his chest, quietly repeating the mantras like someone rocking a child or a corpse to sleep.
Cora’s flower-filled field no longer had any fragrance; only the sweet, sickening smell of blood rising from the earth.
The bodies scattered around, the exposed bones, the family photographs stained red — everything was merely the backdrop for that smile painted on the tower in the distance, Mother Ceres’s mouth open, hungry.
Theo stopped, feeling the soldiers salute him with looks of fear and respect, proud that he, so young, had killed ten men by himself.
But inside him there was only emptiness.
Emptiness and that red smile.
The Red Prince — himself — looked at him from the reflection in the pools of blood, eyes burning like embers, teeth stained, laughing.
And Theo finally understood.
Looking at the gray skies, he let out one last whisper, almost a prayer:
— In my dreams now… the entire universe fits.
But the people I love no longer fit.
The tower smiled back.
And Mother Ceres, satisfied, won.
One of the soldiers, clipboard in hand and a cold look in his eyes, began counting the losses, as if making an inventory of merchandise burned in some random warehouse.
Fifteen children dead. Fifteen.
Their voices silenced, their eyes still open toward nothing, limbs twisted like flowers trampled in Cora’s garden.
Ceres, on the other side, sitting on a stretcher, was being treated by hurried nurses.
She was still smiling, with that childish and horrifying smile, quietly repeating to herself:
“I was tested by Mother Ceres… She approved of me… She loves me…”
As if that were a medal.
As if that were love.
And me?
I stayed there, standing still, without the strength to cry.
Without the strength to scream.
Without the strength to feel anything — only that taste of iron in my mouth and gunpowder on my hands.
Weak. I failed. Fifteen of mine… of ours… went down.
Schoolchildren. Children.
And I couldn’t save them.
But I had the strength to pull the trigger.
I had the strength to kill men.
Was that what Mother Ceres wanted from me?
Looking at my bloodstained hands, I thought: perhaps it was.
And, in the distance, the tower smiled.
And Mother Ceres… won.
In the makeshift courtyard of the bunker, where the smell of gunpowder and burned iron still hung in the air, the soldiers began talking among themselves, in low but excited voices.
Each one recited his death count like an invisible trophy.
— I killed five. — one said, with a crooked smile and bloodstained teeth.
— Seven. — another replied, puffing out his chest.
— The new kid? Ten! — someone pointed at me, and they all laughed like drunken hyenas.
I didn’t laugh.
I didn’t answer.
I only looked at my hands.
Ten deaths. Fifteen children dead too.
A tally that no one there seemed to count in full.
Then someone commented:
— And the strange girl? That… Ceres? — one of them laughed mockingly.
— She killed three, man. — another added, shaking his head.
— Tore one of their arms off before the reinforcements finished him.
There was laughter, whistles, and someone commented that she was more “savage” than she appeared.
But I only looked at her, sitting on the stretcher, still smiling at nothing, her hands dirty and her eyes shining like an innocent child who has just received a new toy.
And inside me, a voice repeated, cold:
Mother Ceres smiles… because we are all already dead inside.
Mathematics does not lie.
The numbers always add up: fifteen dead on their side, ten on ours, three “expendable,” seven critically wounded.
Each name was a number, each number fit into a spreadsheet someone had already printed back at headquarters, satisfied.
But Ceres lies.
She says she is a mother. That she loves her children. That she watches over them. That nothing is personal, that everything is necessary, that pain shapes, that trauma educates.
Ceres lies.
Except, in the end…
In numbers, Ceres does not lie either.
The numbers add up.
They always add up.
Every body has a weight.
Every wound has a balance.
Every damaged child eventually becomes another perfect soldier for the machine.
Theo did not cry.
There were no tears left in him to spend.
He could only look at his own fingers and wonder: how many men had he really killed? Ten? Twelve?
And how many of his own had died? Fifteen children. Fifteen pairs of eyes that would never see anything again.
And he could not even manage a sob… but he still had the strength to pull the trigger.
Meanwhile, Ceres — the girl — was still smiling, even bandaged and stained with blood, repeating:
— I love you, Theo. I love Mother Ceres. And I love you, Theo.
It was as if she were hypnotized, anesthetized, with that tenderness of the innocent.
He wanted to shake her, wanted to scream at her: “Wake up! All of this is a lie!”
But… mathematics did not lie.
And neither did Ceres, not when it came to the numbers.
After everything, they were taken to the infirmaries.
Sterile corridors. White beds. Oxygen masks and the smell of antiseptic mixed with dried blood.
The psychologists were already waiting for them, seated, clipboards in hand, with those sweet fascist voices, repeating rehearsed phrases to keep them “functional.”
And this time, there was no cold glass separating the children from the adults.
This time, they were real faces, men and women in uniform wearing the insignias of the City-State.
Real faces.
Smiling.
Proud of them.
Fascists. But proud.
And that, Theo felt, hurt more than any bullet.
Lying on the stretcher, with the smell of antiseptic and the proud smiles hanging over him, Theo finally understood Dark.
He felt jealous of him.
Because Dark had already accepted Mother Ceres.
He had already learned to breathe chaos as if it were air.
And, for the first time, Theo felt a strange comfort in that bloody disorder, as if terror were the home he had always been looking for.
Mother Ceres had won.