Future Changes — Chapter 5 part 9 final

Theo lowered his head, hiding the anger in his eyes. Kat trembled at her desk, and Gene… Gene simply stared at the board, impassive.

Ceres closed her eyes, as if the room itself weighed upon her shoulders.

The teacher calmly adjusted his jacket, as if he had said nothing. He let his eyes wander across the room, finding lowered gazes, trembling fingers, held breaths. Then, he smiled. A pale smile, one with no warmth at all — only calculation and cruelty.

— Very well… — he said, in that syrupy tone that sounded more like poison — I will go from classroom to classroom today, carrying this message. Do not think this is only the reality of this class. It is the reality of everyone here.

He paused dramatically, watching the desks the way a jailer watches his cell. Then continued:

— And for those… who feel touched by the duty to protect our beloved Mother Ceres… — his voice descended into an ominous whisper, yet remained perfectly audible — …do not be afraid. Those who denounce… those who cooperate with us by handing over the culprit… will be remembered.

He straightened, opening his arms wide, like a priest before his altar.

— Yes, young ones. Turning traitors over to Mother Ceres… will be honored. Respected. And rewarded.

He clasped his fists behind his back, tilted his head upward, and completed it with an almost religious fervor:

— Because Mother Ceres… — his voice became deep, like a threatening chant — …feeds us… educates us… and… devours us.

For an instant, no one dared even breathe.

The teacher calmly gathered his notes, erased the blackboard with slow movements, and left the classroom without looking back, softly whistling a hymn that everyone knew well — the hymn of the Punishment Squares.

The sound of the chalk being put away echoed like an epitaph.

Inside the classroom, the tension was almost physical. Theo could not stop staring at the surface of his desk, anger pulsing through his fingers. Dru bit the tip of her nail, her gaze lost. Gene, impassive, toyed with his pen with a little smile no one dared interpret.

And somehow, each of them felt that, from that moment on, something in the school had changed forever.

The break rang out from the bell with a metallic, soulless echo.

Theo said nothing. He did not turn to anyone. He simply rose from his chair, feeling his joints crack with tension, and left the classroom like a specter.

He walked through the corridors without hearing the conversations around him, without seeing the curious and fearful looks that followed him. A knot tightened around his throat. In his mind, a single thought — dry, cruel, non-negotiable: kill Gene.

He had to.

Gene was a disease inside Ceres's body. A tumor threatening not only the city itself, but everything Theo was still trying to protect.

But as he walked, an image emerged in his consciousness — unexpected, disturbing.

Dru.

Dru, with her backpack full of silly trinkets, perfumes, forbidden tapes, her fragile stubbornness that everyone ignored.

Dru… who hurt no one… and yet…

And yet, she could fall with him.

Theo stopped in the middle of the corridor, leaning against the cold wall.

The entire world seemed to weigh upon his shoulders. The cold chains of the frozen hell of the traitors coiled around his chest, choking his breath. He could almost hear Mother Ceres's laughter echoing through the tiles, the metal pipes, the dirty windows:

"Give him to me. Give me the traitor from my womb… I will devour him, I will honor him, I will laugh with him in my entrails."

Theo squeezed his eyes shut, trying to erase the vision. But inside his mind, there was only Gene laughing and spraying graffiti… Tycho crying and humiliated… and Dru, innocent, dragged to D Square, tortured, confessing to crimes she had never committed.

The invisible hand of Mother Ceres tightened more and more around his throat.

He no longer felt only anger — but guilt, too. Fear.

He continued down the corridor, alone, his steps heavy as lead, as if dragging invisible chains, and for a moment, he felt as small as an alphanumeric number without a name, a traitor on the threshold of devouring.

And with every step, Mother Ceres's laughter sounded louder and louder.

Theo entered the coordination office as if chewing glass.

Every word that came out of his mouth cut his tongue, but he said them anyway:

— It was Gene. I saw him.

The silence that followed hurt more than the denunciation itself.

The weight crushing him from within finally came loose — but it did not dissipate. It merely changed form. Now it was a cold mustache of disgrace embedded in his tongue.

Mother Ceres smiled at him.

Implacable.

Mother Ceres always smiles when someone bleeds for Her.

Without wasting time, the coordination office called in the Silencers.

The men dressed in black exchanged no words. They simply marched through the corridors toward the boys' dormitory.

Theo, his hands still sweaty, followed behind.

When the bedroom door creaked open, they were already there.

Gene, sitting on his bed, merely raised his eyes.

On the clean bedspread lay a can of black paint from the carpentry workshop.

Under the pillow, scribbled notebooks — a diary of defiance, page after page laughing in Mother Ceres's face, exposing every blasphemy: eating her food, sleeping in her bed, taking her medicine, triumphing in her games, and still spitting in her face.

The Silencers did not need to say anything.

Every written page was a sentence.

Every line, a whip.

Every word, a crime.

Mother Ceres, behind her frozen walls, laughed.

Implacable.

Mother Ceres devours traitors with iron teeth.

Then came the news.

Kat had been captured as well.

The first to be taken to Pietà — the House of Mothers.

No one there needed examinations or proof to know the truth:

Kat carried Gene's child in her womb.

The bastard of a traitor.

A cancer germinating right in the bosom of the City.

Everyone knew.

Traitors did not merely deserve to be crushed.

They were the very disease Mother Ceres needed to excise.

And Theo… Theo watched in silence, feeling her eyes fixed upon the back of his neck, proud and cruel.

He had done what he had to do.

After all, in Ceres, there is nothing worse than betrayal.

Nothing.

The justice of Mother Ceres is implacable and cold.

Oh, Mother Ceres, who feeds us, educates us… and devours us!

Who enacts Her justice upon the one who dares profane Her sacred womb.

Between Her kidneys, Gene germinated like a cursed son — a worm fed by the milk of Her grace, yet ungrateful.

A son who, instead of bowing before Her womb, tore Her apart from within.

Who contaminated the city's blood with his poison.

Who went viral like a plague, spreading doubt and rot like a cancer.

May other gods — if they exist — have mercy.

For Mother Ceres does not.

She does not forgive.

She does not hesitate.

She does not forget.

In Her iron placenta there is no place for the impure.

At Her table there is no bread for those who deny Her breast.

In Her veins there is no medicine for the disease of ingratitude.

And so Gene will be crushed by Her cold hands,

devoured by Her iron teeth,

burned in the public square so that everyone may know:

in Ceres, the children who betray the Mother are returned to the earth as manure.

Oh, Mother Ceres, who feeds us, educates us, and devours us…

May their suffering serve as bread for Your flock.

May their ashes fertilize Your gardens.

May their pain satisfy Your hunger.

And may we, Your faithful, never forget:

there is nothing colder than Your love.

And nothing more certain than Your justice.

In the cafeteria, Gene still dared to smile.

Sitting at the table with an air of disdain, as if the entire world were nothing more than a badly told joke.

And then the Silencers came — three men in black, cold, silent, without haste or mercy.

They placed their hands on his shoulders, like men holding an animal condemned for slaughter.

And Gene did not resist. He merely raised his chin and held that insolent smile… to the very end.

Theo was there.

Sitting.

Still.

But on his face was the pure expression of hatred.

A hatred so sharp, so absolute, that it made the hands of his classmates tremble.

No one in that hall had ever seen eyes so deadly.

And everyone there understood: this was not the time for jokes, nor excuses, nor lamentations.

Daime, who had always possessed the sharpest tongue in the school, swallowed hard.

He remained silent.

Even he knew it was not the time to mock.

That morning, everyone fell into disgrace together.

The traitor had been before their eyes for so long…

asking questions no one wanted to answer,

weaving comments no one dared report,

laughing at the Mother's expense — and no one had the courage to do what needed to be done.

And now, watching Gene being taken away by the relentless hand of Justice,

each of them felt the weight of their own failure.

A knot in the throat.

A silent shame.

The feeling that they had failed the Mother.

That they had not been worthy of Her vigilance.

That they had allowed profanation to grow inside the House without anyone raising their voice.

Deep down, many wished they had been the ones to alert the Coordination Office.

They almost envied Theo for having done what everyone knew needed to be done.

But Mother Ceres, always merciful toward Her faithful children, did not reproach them for it.

She does not hate those who hesitate — She only devours those who betray.

And every heart there, silently, promised itself:

never again hesitate before the obvious.

Never again allow an enemy, a traitor, to grow among us.

Gene was taken away.

And everyone felt as though they had recovered the purity of their House.

The Mother was smiling at them again.

And they, at last, could breathe again.

Mother Ceres's School Courtyard

More than five thousand students stood in formation, all wearing their simple everyday uniforms — not the ceremonial ones — before the dark-gray flag with Ceres's crossed keys, raised high above the platform.

At the center, the same teacher who had gone from classroom to classroom announcing the hunt for the graffiti artists held between his cold fingers a gleaming medal: Medal of Honor for Fidelity and Loyalty to Mother Ceres.

He approached Theo, who stood motionless beneath everyone's gaze. Before speaking into the microphone, he leaned in and whispered into his ear with a dry smile:

— I can smell those who hide things from me…

Theo swallowed hard.

— I understand you, boy. I, too, had the happiness of having a brother study at this school.

— The only difference is that I was the one who handed him over to the flames…

The teacher lightly patted Theo on the shoulder, almost like a proud father.

— Do not be ashamed. You fought for Mother Ceres.

Who feeds us… who educates us… and who devours us.

Theo's spine went cold.

The weight of the medal seemed already to burn him before it had even been hung around his neck.

He had turned in his friend.

The teacher finally rose before the microphone, facing the silent mass of students.

His voice echoed clearly across the courtyard:

— Students of Mother Ceres's School… today, once again, Mother Ceres has won.

She has brought us a truce.

He slowly walked across the platform.

— Because peace… peace, my dear ones, is nothing more than an accident!

Silence fell.

— We are always vigilant against those who confuse freedom with chaos… who desire freedom simply for the sake of having it, without purpose, without function, without leadership.

The teacher spat to the side, almost theatrically:

— Just three kilometers from here lies the triple border between Ceres… Arcadia… — he spat again — and Silencium.

He turned his gaze toward Theo and raised the medal, gleaming beneath the pale sun:

— Here we have, before all of you, a son of Mother Ceres.

A son as loyal as Major Tomas!

A murmur of devotion passed through the ranks at the astronaut's name.

— By coincidence… this boy's brother.

The ranks trembled at the following words:

— This young man denounced the traitor… the so-called “liberator”… — dry laughter rose from the crowd — a puppet, a messiah of rot.

A starving man who dared feed upon dreams that did not belong to him.

The teacher solemnly raised his hand toward Theo:

— This son of Mother Ceres thought of you.

He saved you.

He saved your brothers.

There, among the crowd, Ceres — the girl — lowered her gaze, ashamed before the honor Theo had received.

She murmured to herself:

Mother Ceres, who feeds us, educates us, and devours us.

A dry, unanimous chorus rose immediately afterward.

Everyone: Daime, Ana, Dru, Cors, Vanks… even the most insensitive among them.

Only Dark remained indifferent.

The teacher then hung the medal around Theo's neck and lifted him by the arm, like a human trophy, so everyone could see.

— Let him serve as an example.

All the students, standing in formation, extended one arm sideways, higher than their heads, palms open and straight, fingers together — the solemn gesture of neutrality.

Then, in unison, the mantra echoed across the courtyard:

— Mother Ceres, who feeds us, educates us, and devours us.

A minute of silence followed.

A silence that was not empty, but filled with indifferent routine:

footsteps in the distance, the wind against the flags, a leaf dragged across the ground.

And on Theo's chest, the medal burned as though it were made of glass and guilt.

The minute of silence was broken by the dry sound of boots against concrete.

Two Silencers appeared from the side of the courtyard, their long overcoats and black helmets absorbing the light.

Between them, a third man: Gene.

His hands bound with fiber restraints, uniform disheveled, an open cut across his eyebrow.

And yet… he smiled.

A crooked smile dripping with poison.

The teacher returned to the microphone, with the solemnity of a priest:

— The traitor has been captured. He will be taken to Central Prison, where he will await trial and sentencing in two weeks.

Until then… he will face the weight of his own words against Mother Ceres.

His chains scraped against the silence.

Gene walked with his head held high, his eyes sweeping across his classmates, as if tattooing into his mind every face that had not dared defend him.

When he passed Theo, he stopped.

The smile grew, mocking, as if saying: “I know.”

Theo looked away toward the ground.

The medal of loyalty weighed upon his chest like an anchor.

The Silencers pushed him forward, toward the rear gate.

An armored vehicle waited there, its engine growling softly, its paint matte and without insignia.

The sound of the doors closing was dry, brutal — a crack of bones.

Kat was not there.

She had already been taken hours earlier, to Pietà — the sacred city of the Mothers, where pregnant women and adolescent girls were sent.

There, she would give birth and fulfill the destiny Mother Ceres demanded.

She did not even know yet that she carried Gene's child in her womb.

Now Gene was going to the cold of the prison.

Two worlds separated, two distinct sentences, for the same sin.

The teacher turned toward the crowd, his voice reverberating with the force of a decree:

— Students of Mother Ceres's School: be vigilant!

There will be no mercy for those who profane the womb of our Mother.

Nor for their accomplices.

Peace is an accident. Vigilance, a duty.

In the courtyard, no one dared breathe any deeper.

The teacher concluded:

— Return to your classrooms.

Remember: Mother Ceres feeds us, educates us… and devours us.

The students dispersed like a school of fish, each one drowning in their thoughts.

Theo's medal glimmered on his chest.

But inside, he felt the cold weight of what he had done.

And the sound of Gene's chains continued echoing in his head.