—
On Saturday, already near the end of the afternoon, Theo returned to the school. But not to train.
He walked alone to the edge of the vacant field — a piece of land no one ever dared to trespass, covered by a rippling carpet of blood-red flowers planted by Cora.
Cora, the strange girl who did not participate in the simulations, nor wield paint rifles.
She appeared only in the theoretical classes, always quiet, always alone — as if she were more devoted to Mother Ceres than all of them put together.
But she wasn't there today.
Only the field of flowers, swaying in the wind, perfuming the earth with a sweet, almost nauseating scent.
Theo stopped in the middle of the field, staring at the horizon ahead — the opaque line separating Ceres from Arcadia. Or Silencium. No one knew for certain.
They only knew that outside there were no rules, no orders, no Mother Ceres to devour her children one by one.
And, for the first time in a long time... he caught himself thinking:
What if I just went?
What if I left everything behind, ran away, left Ceres behind with all its suffocating slogans?
Mother was too heavy.
The weight was already beginning to bend his spine. To shrink his heart.
The beginning of indifference was taking shape like a slow poison.
It wasn't hatred. Nor pain.
It was simply... nothing.
And that nothing grew. Growing until it swallowed everything.
He stayed there for hours. Quiet. Watching the sun slowly set behind the border, staining the sky red and purple.
And behind him, silent and imposing, Mother Ceres' tower cast its shadow over the field of flowers — like a demon hunting souls, waiting for the right moment to devour another.
He shivered.
Then, perhaps on impulse, he slowly turned...
And there she was.
Ceres.
Standing firmly a few meters behind him, between the flowers and the tower, arms crossed, as if she were the very embodiment of Mother watching over her children.
The orange light of sunset outlined her from behind, but her face remained hard, expressionless — almost impassive.
And behind her, the tower. Always the tower.
As if one were the shadow of the other.
Theo said nothing. He simply stared at her for long seconds, a shiver running up his spine.
And then the thought came, as clear as dirty water:
No matter where I look... she will always be there. Her... and Mother.
And for the first time, he realized — perhaps running away wasn't as simple an option as he had imagined.
Theo held her gaze. But the answer didn't come.
Like an automaton, he said what he had rehearsed. Dry words. Programmed. Soulless:
— I... I just... I'm tired. It's not what you think. I just need... some time to...
Ceres did not move. She merely narrowed her eyes, as if she could already hear the truth even in the pauses.
When he finished stumbling over his own sentences, she tilted her head, merciless:
— You're stalling.
Theo swallowed hard. A knot in his throat.
— You don't know how to lie, Theo. You never have. — Her voice was hard, unbreakable. — My eyes have already torn truths from men much stronger than you. Do you really want me to keep looking inside you... until I see everything?
He took a deep breath, trying to keep his pride standing. But the pain spilled from his eyes, betraying every word.
Finally, he exploded — quietly, through clenched teeth:
— I want to run away, Ceres.
— ...
— The burden... the burden is too heavy. I can't carry this fucking...
Crack.
The slap did not hurt his face.
But it burned in his chest like liquid fire.
Theo stood stunned. His cheek burned not from the force — but from the shock. She... she?
Silence swallowed the field of flowers. Only the wind moving between the petals.
The shock was written across his face. His eyes fixed on hers. Incredulous.
And then he saw it.
Ceres was no longer just Ceres.
She was the demon itself incarnate.
Eyes of ice flashing with hatred. An inhuman fury vibrating through her fingers, as if they wanted to tear his eyes out, throw them to the ground, bury him alive right there — and salt the grave so that nothing would ever grow again.
Or worse:
Exile him from Ceres.
Out of the city.
Without a name. Without a history.
Excommunicated. Forgotten.
Like they did with Gene.
Gene.
No one dared repeat that name.
And for an instant, Theo understood: that was exactly what she wanted to do. Delete him.
Erase him from existence.
Because anyone who heard that from him and did not destroy him... was already an accomplice.
But it was Theo.
It was Theo.
To do that, Ceres would have to tear her own heart out with her own hands.
And that was what stopped her.
For an instant.
She remembered everything.
Everything they had gone through to get there.
Who he was.
And why hating him hurt as much as loving him.
Her eyes trembled. But she did not lower her hand.
And Theo still didn't know whether she was going to use it again.
Ceres kept her hand suspended. Her breathing heavy. Her gaze fixed on him.
And then, without warning, she began to speak.
Her voice was firm at first. Almost procedural. As if she had memorized every syllable to recite before a court of iron:
— Out there, Theo... — she said in a dry tone. — ...out there there is hunger. Misery. Plagues. People who kill children. People who eat people. People who corrupt everything they touch. Everything they dream of.
Pause.
— All of that — she pointed at him with an accusing finger, but her hand was trembling — is the desperation of those who wanted to be like us.
— Here... here Mother Ceres pours milk and honey.
Here the lands are perfect.
Here no one has difficulty being born, growing, eating, living.
And you... — her eyes filled with tears, but her voice rose in fury — ...you spit into the plate you eat from and into the face of Mother!
She came closer, now only inches away.
And every word cut like a knife, as if she herself were bleeding along with them.
— I would kill you right here, just to see which way your body would fall.
Because you're nothing more than a piece of flesh casting a shadow over Mother Ceres' lands.
You are an ingrate with every thought you have.
You are an incurable cancer... that needs to be eliminated.
Her face was already contorted with pain and rage.
Her voice faltered — but she continued anyway:
— And now you just stand there... looking at me with that expressionless face, without a single gesture... as if that's all there is to it.
May Mother Ceres have no mercy on your soul... because I have none.
A sob escaped her, but she did not wipe away the tears.
It was painful to say those things.
Far too heavy.
Because it was like speaking to a mirror.
It was like tearing him out of her own heart, just to save Ceres.
Then she lowered her hand, but her eyes shone with hatred and love at the same time.
And she said through clenched teeth, in an almost whispered voice — like someone driving in a knife and crying over her own blow:
— I'm going to turn you in, you bastard.
Filthy traitor.
She took a deep breath. A sob trembled in her chest.
And then her lips began to pronounce the mantra.
The same one as always.
But now, every word came soaked in tears, in pain... and in a love overflowing from her eyes — as if her soul, behind the mask, screamed that she loved him anyway.
She looked at him — and in that gaze, heaven and hell existed together.
And she said, in a trembling thread of voice, still heavy with meaning:
— Mother Ceres... — her chest heaved.
— ...who educates us... — her eyes fixed on him, already red.
— ...who feeds us... — a tear rolled down.
— ...and devours us.
In the end, the silence of the field enveloped them.
And Ceres' eyes said what her words dared not:
that no matter how much she hated him now... she still loved him.
And the weight of that was almost unbearable.
Ceres stepped back.
Her eyes still fixed on him, like two blades of ice melting in hell.
And then, without saying anything else, she turned on her heels.
She fled.
Fled like a demon from the light — as if his presence were too much fire to bear.
Her footsteps were quick, hard, tearing through Cora's vacant field of flowers, growing more distant with every moment.
Theo remained still.
He said nothing.
He did not extend his hand.
He did not run after her.
He stayed.
Like a condemned statue.
And only there, in the silence, did he understand that every word she had spoken, no matter how brutal, had an inverted echo.
Because beneath the fury, behind every cruel sentence... there was something else. Hidden.
A suffocated love.
A desperate cry for him not to leave.
"I would kill you right here, just to see which way your body would fall."
Deep down: "I love you so much that I couldn't bear to see you far from these lands."
"You're nothing more than a piece of flesh casting a shadow..."
Deep down: "I only wanted you to be the light you always were."
"You are an incurable cancer that must be eliminated..."
Deep down: "Don't abandon us. Don't let yourself be consumed by this emptiness."
"May Mother Ceres have no mercy on your soul... because I have none."
Deep down: "Mother Ceres loves you. As I love you. And that destroys me."
Theo understood all of this as he watched her disappear on the horizon.
But he did not move.
He accepted the condemnation.
Accepted her hatred.
Accepted his own guilt.
As if he deserved every word she had driven into him.
As if he had no right to say:
I love you too.
For a moment, he even thought about turning himself in.
Going to the tower, confessing, ending it all.
But something inside him made him wait.
Wait for the anger to pass.
Wait for the weight to settle in his chest.
Wait for night to fall over Cora's flowers and, perhaps — who knows — dawn a little less wounded.
He remained standing, feeling the fear grow.
The fear of Mother Ceres.
A fear greater than death.
Losing his name... even that did not frighten him as much as the thought of feeling Ceres' eyes upon him, pointing him out as a traitor.
And when he finally allowed himself to sit on the cold ground, alone, he murmured to himself, with no answer other than the wind in the fields:
— What did I... do... to think this way?
The horizon remained before him, like an impossible promise.
And behind him, Mother Ceres' tower still stood, relentless.
The sky was already darkening when Theo returned to the dormitories, a few minutes before curfew. The Flagball field, still damp with the night's mist, was empty except for him and his own ghosts.
He trained alone until his body failed — until his muscles gave out, his lungs burned, and his stomach rejected every last trace of pride. He vomited at the edge of the field, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and went back to running, falling, starting over.
He wanted to punish his body, suffocate his mind.
If Mother Ceres wasn't going to forgive him, then he wouldn't forgive himself either.
He only stopped when his legs no longer obeyed him and his heart pounded at an uneven rhythm.
He went to bed early that night, earlier than everyone else.
He didn't want to hear voices, nor feel eyes upon him.
He wanted the silence of sleep, or the silence of death — whichever came first.
He fell asleep before the lights went out in the dormitory, defeated by a deep, heavy, empty exhaustion.
On the other side of the complex, Ceres was also throwing herself into the cold water of the gymnasium pool. Every stroke was a blow against herself, every dive an drowning of her fury. She swam until her fingers wrinkled, until her body begged for air, until her mind pleaded for rest.
She knew she would not sleep that night.
When she came out of the water, dripping, her clothes clinging to her body, there was no one there to see her cry in silence, her eyes red and her breathing short.
She knew that anger was not only about him.
It was about herself too.
Later, when the corridors were already emptying and curfew was approaching, Daime wandered through the building as if he had neither hurry nor destination.
The muffled sound of sneakers echoed across the cold tiles as he nibbled on a piece of bread stolen from the cafeteria.
From a distance, he saw Ceres cross the gymnasium doors and disappear toward the pool, walking with hard, almost military steps. Damp steam escaped from the entrance, along with the distant tinkling of water being cut through.
— Crazy, that's all she can be... — he muttered, raising an eyebrow.
He continued on, peeking through one of the windows in the side corridor and, outside, on the Flagball field, almost blending into the mud and darkness, Theo ran alone — stumbling, getting back up, training to exhaustion, like a condemned man trying to escape himself.
Daime whistled softly, unheard.
— These two don't fuck, do they? — he said to himself, shaking his head. — Because they spend energy like they have the devil inside them.
He shrugged, took a bigger bite of the bread, and was already turning his back.
But he couldn't resist and grumbled, almost spitting the words:
— I'm exactly the same with Ana... — he huffed, throwing the rest of the bread into the trash. — Women!
He continued down the corridor, scratching the back of his neck and letting out a short, dry laugh, as if trying to convince himself that he was in control of something.
But deep down, he knew he wasn't.
The Red Dream
The dream came softly, in pastel tones. A welcoming, diffuse world, as if painted in watercolor. She was back at the school, but there was no harshness, no marches or orders — only a light-blue sky invading the corridors. The walls shimmered, as if made of frosted glass.
And in the center of the courtyard, sitting on a simple throne covered by a white veil, Mother Ceres called to her with a smile. She was dressed entirely in white, from head to toe, framed by floating crystals that glowed around her face like tiny stars. She had a majestic golden halo — and the eyes... the eyes were identical to Ceres'. Blue. So blue that they held not only the sky, but the entire universe.
Ceres approached shyly. Mother Ceres opened her arms, and she, without hesitation, sat on her lap like a beloved daughter. She felt gentle fingers caressing her hair, brushing it back in a maternal affection that almost made her cry with relief.
Then Mother Ceres' voice sounded warm and low in her ear:
— Theo... he is good for you, my daughter.
But in the next instant, the voice changed. Cold. Cruel. Crawling:
— Theo... he is a filthy traitor, my daughter. I want him.
Everything was stained red. Blood red. The sky brightened into a crimson hue. The walls cracked — and bled. Mother Ceres grew gigantic before the school, now reduced to red ruins. Her face bled. Her eyes became dark pools. Her teeth, sharp as knives. Long, thin arms stretched out, fingers like claws sweeping across the courtyard. A demon with Mother Ceres' face.
And she screamed, in a shrill, demonic voice, spitting blood that splashed across Ceres' face:
— I WANT HIM! I WANT HIM! GIVE HIM TO ME! HE IS MY PIECE OF MEAT!
— I WANT TO RIP HIS GUTS OUT! I WANT HIS SOUL! HE IS MY UNGRATEFUL SON!
— GIVE HIM TO ME, CERES, MY DAUGHTER! WHERE IS HE? GIVE HIM TO ME, CERES! I WILL TEAR OFF EVERY LIMB FROM HIM, CERES!
— YOU HAVE MY NAME, CERES, AND HE FUCKED YOU BECAUSE OF MY NAME!
— I WANT TO EAT HIM, CERES! EAT HIS GUTS LIKE SPAGHETTI, SUCK THE MARROW FROM HIS HEAD!
— CEREEEEEEES, YOU FILTHY BITCH!!! GIVE HIM TO ME!!! I CAN SMELL HIM!!!
She bent over Ceres, smelling her groin, sniffing loudly.
— "Mmmmmm..." — she groaned,
moving up her belly and to her chest before exclaiming,
— "Here! I found it! In your heart!"
The creature opened her mouth wide with teeth like thorns and screamed,
— "YOU ARE A TRAITOR, CERES! YOU HID HIM IN YOUR HEART! HOW FOOLISH! I WILL DEVOUR BOTH OF YOU! TOGETHER! YOU WRETCH! OH, CERES! I'LL EAT YOUR GUTS LIKE NOODLES, SUCK THE MARROW FROM HIS HEAD! CEREEEEEEES, YOU FILTHY BITCH! GIVE HIM TO ME!!! I CAN SMELL HIM!!!"
The final scream reverberated through the destroyed school. And Ceres felt the cold claw sink into her chest, ready to tear out her heart.
She woke with a start.
Her entire body trembling, sweaty.
And then she realized: the sheets were stained.
Her period had started in the middle of the night — as if her body were bleeding along with the nightmare.