About three kilometers ahead, toward Mãe’s watchtower, stood an old grain hangar.
It had been abandoned for years, overtaken by dust and empty silos.
That was where Dark had found his refuge — a piece of silence that belonged only to him, where no one followed him, no one bothered him, no one dared enter.
The train groaned along the tracks as it slowed to switch tracks.
Dark jumped off, feeling the hard impact in his ankles, and slowly walked along the dirt road.
The wind blew against him, carrying the sweet smell of wheat, the metallic scent of the train, and the cold freshness of the distant mountains.
He reached the hangar when the sky had already turned purple.
He pushed open the heavy door, which groaned as if awakening from a long sleep.
The space inside was immense and dark, lit only by the cracks in the corroded walls.
And it was his alone.
Dark dropped his backpack in a corner, climbed onto one of the wooden platforms, and sat with his legs dangling over the emptiness.
He took the flagball net from his backpack and ran his fingers over the torn fibers.
He remembered Theo’s expression when he got up after the collision and laughed again — a dry, quiet laugh, like someone laughing alone at a joke only he understood.
Then he closed his eyes and simply remained there.
Just listening to the distant sound of trains, the whisper of the wind coming through the cracks, the heavy silence of Mãe Ceres watching from afar.
He was a spectator.
That was all he wanted to be.
He whispered, almost soundlessly, only to himself:
— There’s still so much time before Mãe devours me. Better enjoy every bite before then.
He remained there, motionless, with a cold smile, feeling the world race beneath him like a timelapse that never stopped.
The hangar was not merely a refuge.
It was a horror.
Dark switched on a portable lamp hanging from the central pillar, and the yellowish light revealed the scene.
The metallic smell of blood permeated the cold air inside.
On the floor, among grain remnants and crushed rats, animal bodies were scattered.
Some had been opened from neck to tail, ribs spread wide like pages of a macabre book.
Others were impaled on makeshift stakes, their legs still twitching in a final reflex.
Blood trickled into the cracks of the floorboards.
Dark walked among them with the calm of a surgeon and the curiosity of a child.
He knelt before an impaled dog whose eyes still stared at him with instinctive terror.
He took a utility knife from his backpack and, with a delicate gesture, opened the animal’s abdomen again.
The sound was wet, warm, alive.
To Dark, there was no difference between opening a toy to see how it worked and opening a living thing to discover what was inside.
It was simply... mechanics.
A mechanism.
Gears of flesh.
And he wanted to understand how every one of them moved.
But the story did not begin here.
Not even inside him.
Seventeen years earlier, far from there, on the border with Arcadia, a young woman with an enormous belly and labored breathing tried to cross the fields at night.
She carried in her eyes the desperation of someone who had nothing — nothing except that belly carrying a future.
She told herself between sobs:
Ceres is the city everyone envies. Ceres never lets her children starve. Not dogs, not cats, not children... everyone eats, everyone sleeps, everyone survives. There is no freedom, but freedom doesn’t fill your belly. It doesn’t pay the bills. It doesn’t save anyone. Better to be the Mother’s slave than an Arcadian corpse.
She crawled through the barbed wire, tearing the flesh of her hands, staining the snow with blood.
But she did not stop.
Behind her, the red lights of Arcadia’s sentries still illuminated death and fear.
Ahead, beyond the fence, the pale lights of Ceres promised a cold and secure womb.
Dark never knew that woman — but he carried the weight of her decision every day.
She brought him into this world to be a citizen of Ceres.
Someone who ate, who slept, who worked for Mãe.
And who, one day, inevitably, would be devoured by her.
Dark ran the utility knife over the skin of the impaled animal, still warm and trembling, and smiled to himself.
He thought about how perfect Mãe Ceres was.
Ruthless.
Like a heartless predator that nevertheless fed its prey before killing it.
Nothing could be more logical.
It was a perfect system.
Ceres poured out honey, and Arcadia poured out blood.
The woman who had fled, whether she was his mother or not, understood that.
Dark understood it even more.
Because, to him, every life was merely a gear.
And every gear eventually stopped.
What mattered was seeing how it worked before the end.
In the silence of the hangar, he rose, wiped his hands on his stained uniform, and murmured into the shadows:
— Thank you, Mãe. For feeding me... for educating me... and, when the time comes, for devouring me.
And he returned to his work.
A cold, satisfied smile spread across his face as the blade tore into the next piece of his laboratory of horrors.
It was night on the border.
The snow was filthy with mud, the barbed wire greasy with old blood, the watchtowers sweeping spotlights across the darkness like tired eyes.
The woman advanced in silence, her breathing faltering in the cutting cold.
She carried in her womb a weight greater than life itself.
Every step was pain.
Every contraction came like a warning:
Run or die.
And she ran.
The lights of Arcadia fell behind.
The smell of gunpowder and fear fell behind.
And then she jumped.
The wire tore her skin, the snow burned her feet, but she fell on the other side — the side of Ceres.
The side where hunger did not exist.
The side where no one died for lack of bread.
The side envied by everyone, hated by many, and feared by all the gods already buried.
She fell to her knees.
A moment of relief.
A breath.
A sob.
She believed she would survive.
And then... the soldiers appeared.
Black as shadows, marching to the sound of the invisible machinery that governed the city.
They did not shout.
They did not speak.
They advanced.
The woman did not even have time to rise.
The first blow opened her leg, knocking the breath from her.
The second tore into her chest.
The others came in sequence — fast, calculated, precise.
Her body was torn apart.
Head.
Arms.
Legs.
With every beat of her heart, blood sprayed from the open flesh, staining the snow red.
She was merely another piece of meat that had dared challenge the rules of survival.
A useful body, but broken.
Useless to the machinery.
The soldiers took one step back, looking at what they had done.
No guilt.
No glory.
It was simply another day on the border.
Then...
Something moved.
In the middle of the warm mud.
A shape.
Small.
Alive.
The soldiers looked at one another.
They pointed their bayonets at the thing, expecting a rat, a dog, some parasite of the night.
But it wasn't.
It was a baby.
Bloodied, without crying, without fear.
His eyes were already open, fixed on the men standing before him.
Dark.
The soldiers approached slowly, silently.
One of them whispered, as though confessing a forbidden secret:
— Son of Mãe Ceres.
Because even in a regime that called itself horizontal, without religion, without saints or myths...
Even where Mãe Ceres had killed all the gods and buried them in metaphorical coffins to show the people that no messiah would save anyone, that no poet or divine puppet would end hunger...
Even then, they were afraid.
They feared that baby without tears, without lament, lying in the mud like a fetus made of iron.
They knew what Mãe would say:
“The world is constantly at war; peace is merely an accident. Survival stands above freedom.”
Mãe does not abandon her children.
Not even the defective ones.
Because all of them are her tools.
All of them are teeth in the machine.
And that baby was one more tooth.
Cold.
Silent.
Necessary.
Dark was lifted from the mud by the arms and wrapped in a military blanket.
He was another child to be fed, educated, and, when the time came, devoured by Mãe Ceres.
And the machinery continued to turn.
Dark entertained himself with his toys made of flesh and bone.
He laughed alone, spinning a blade between his fingers as he opened one of the bodies like someone dismantling a toy.
The innards spilled slowly, the paws still twitching — but to him, it was merely another pastime.
With every crack of cartilage, his eyes gleamed — as though the sound were music.
Until he stopped.
Something was wrong.
One of the carcasses in the corner of the hangar did not bear his mark.
It wasn't his.
Someone... or something... had torn that body apart before him.
Dark felt a faint shiver — almost pleasure.
He turned slowly.
And then he saw them.
Four red eyes glowing in the darkness of the warehouse.
Two enormous black dogs, each weighing nearly forty kilos of muscle and rage.
They had come from Arcadia, brought in on the last shipment to Ceres.
A foreign experiment, perhaps.
They were not normal.
They drooled, growled, advancing one step at a time, saliva foaming hotly at their mouths.
Their eyes fixed on him.
As though they knew he was... different.
Dark laughed.
Quietly.
A dry, cold laugh.
He picked up the old flagball net, folded in a corner — it had always been useful.
He spun the rope between his fingers.
The dogs leapt.
It was beautiful.
With movements learned through the military exercises at school, Dark caught the first in a quick loop and threw it against the wall.
The second tried to bite him in the flank — but it was already tangled in the net, howling, teeth snapping at empty air.
Dark did not look tired.
He wasn't even out of breath.
That was what Ceres taught its children: even after eighty years of peace, prepare them for the war that never came.
Children trained in boredom and hatred — feeding the regime like fuel.
Dark knelt beside one of the dogs, now immobilized, and smiled at it.
— Nothing personal — he murmured, running his hand over the animal’s bloodied head. — It’s just... fun.
And the red eyes went dark.
Dark looked at his new prey, tied up perfectly.
He studied the strange anatomy of the black dogs, examining every muscle, every bone moving beneath their taut skin.
He had never seen anything like it — and that amused him.
There was something beautiful about it:
The unexpected.
The defective.
The abnormal.
But it was already late.
Curfew would sound at ten, and Dark knew the schedules of the armored trains the way a person knows his own pulse.
He had to go back.
He cleaned his hands, slung the flagball net over his shoulders, and left the hangar with the same nostalgia that always took hold of him on that journey back — a cold road, full of wind, full of darkness...
A darkness that matched his name perfectly.
Tomorrow he would return to take care of his new toys.
With more time.
With more patience.
And perhaps, finally, open them as though they were gift boxes.
In the school cafeteria, the tables rumbled with muffled conversations and the clatter of trays.
Dark settled into his usual corner, leaning against the cold wall, his eyes fixed on the plate before him.
Cors looked straight at him and, without disguising his lip-reading:
— Go fuck yourself, asshole.
Dark smiled slightly inside.
He didn't even need an answer.
He looked to the side and saw Vanks scratching his forehead, middle finger raised in an automatic gesture, while Kan, the new flagball athlete, kept to himself, silent and focused.
Everything normal.
Tycho, on the other side, faced the daily dilemma before breakfast — a mixture of resignation and defiance.
Theo remained silent, as always.
Daime, the wheelchair user who didn't tolerate half-measures, broke the silence with his acidic tone:
— You're an asshole. Ceres, who has the same name as the city, is also an asshole. You two only ever do asshole things.
Theo gave him a bored look, as though he had heard it a thousand times.
Daime continued, pointing at Theo:
— I heard you ran into that idiot Dark. Tore the net and everything.
Theo merely confirmed it with a nod.
Daime laughed mischievously:
— Lucky for you he plays well. But not better than you. There's just one problem: the bastard is unhinged, but he's got fire!
Theo took a deep breath and answered calmly:
— I think so too. Dark only wants chaos. I admit sometimes that amuses me.
Daime looked at the two of them and concluded:
— You’re alike. You’re a polished political animal, and he’s another animal — just wild. I bet you do plenty of dirty things underneath that pose.
Theo remained silent, letting the comment hang in the air.
That was when a different scent cut through the room — few girls wore perfume there.
The delicate fragrance invaded the heavy air of the cafeteria.
Dru stormed in, sat beside Daime and Theo, her eyes full of questions and provocation:
— Tell that little bastard of a brother of yours to get out of my sales territory!
Theo raised an eyebrow:
— Tycho? What did he do?
Dru crossed her arms without lowering her voice:
— He’s fixing broken cassette players and taking all my customers.
Daime burst out laughing:
— You're getting your ass kicked by some snot-nosed brat? Tycho doesn't hurt anybody, that fat bastard — sorry, Theo — Dru, I expected more from you!
Dru, furious but firm, stared at Theo:
— Make him stop!
Theo smiled ironically:
— Hold on... You make your own brass coins, with “MÃE CERES” engraved on them, create robberies based on that little notebook of yours... Then my brother, whom I know you tricked with a can of powdered chocolate, goes around fixing things, using your trust currency — a system you invented yourself.
He paused, fixing his eyes on her:
— You should be proud of him. It proves your system works. And besides: the kind of capitalism behind your little operations, which we consider valid here at school, would be prohibited outside. Lucky for you Mãe Ceres doesn't see it as a problem, so everything's fine. Like they say in our economics classes: capitalism isn't wild. People are.
Dru was left speechless, biting her lip.
Daime took advantage of the silence:
— Cat got your tongue, huh? You're just thinking about how you're gonna return that one, right?
Dru stood up furiously and walked away with absolute conviction.
Theo and Daime remained at the table when Tycho arrived.
Daime greeted him, laughing:
— Don't leave me hanging, kid!
Tycho answered, somewhat confused.
Theo looked at him proudly:
— That's it.
Ceres watched from a distance, noticing the interaction.
A mixture of jealousy over Dru, relief that she had stormed off, but also a lingering suspicion.
After all, Theo was the leader of the boys at school, and everyone watched him cautiously ever since he received a medal for reporting his friend Gene, accused of blasphemy against Mãe Ceres.
The denunciation hung over him like a ghost.
A mixture of envy over the love he showed Mãe and fear of the secrets he carried — including hers.
Ceres was visibly frightened by what was taking shape.
She and Theo no longer understood each other, despite the kisses they had exchanged in the pool.
Theo seemed to be running on autopilot, carrying the echo of his betrayal of his friend Gene.
He loved Mãe, but he had turned in someone he had lived alongside for years.
Everyone watched him suspiciously, fearing him and questioning his leadership — trust was hanging by a thread.
Still at the table, waiting for the first Sociology class, Theo and Daime slowly chewed the remains of breakfast.
The cafeteria was beginning to empty, but the atmosphere still carried the remnants of the verbal clash with Dru.
Daime broke the silence with his acidic humor:
— You know something? — he said, staring at the ceiling as though developing a brilliant theory. — When you and Ceres finally start... fucking... two assholes doing asshole things...
Theo looked away, a restrained smile at the corner of his mouth.
Daime continued without even looking at Theo, as though it were the most natural thing in the world:
— When you have puppies... could you give me one?
Theo couldn't hold it in and let out a low laugh, almost choking on it.
Daime smiled, satisfied that he had managed to get that reaction.
The Sociology classroom was immersed in a dense silence.
Everyone sat upright, eyes fixed on the teacher at the front of the board.
He didn't need to raise his voice — his words did it for him.
— We live under Ceresianism. Our regime is simple: survival above freedom. There is no scarcity, and therefore we guarantee that everyone exists.
He walked slowly between the rows, hands behind his back.
— We don't care about anyone's sexuality. We care that each person reproduces, because the system requires children. The rest? Everyone can take care of their own ass.
Some students laughed quietly, nervously.
Theo remained expressionless.
Across the room, Ceres cast a cold look at him, but did not take her eyes off the teacher.
— Efficiency is everywhere. Our birth rate is 82%. Our maximum mortality age is 90. Young people abound in our social pyramid, and that... that is Mãe Ceres’ achievement. She feeds us. She educates us. And, in the end, she devours us.
Daime, beside Theo, whispered:
— Sounds like poetry... just rotten.
Theo kept his eyes forward, as though he hadn't heard.
— And don't fool yourselves — the teacher continued. — Dreaming is beautiful. Cute, even. But dreams don't fill bellies. Do you know why libertarians are skinny? Because freedom feeds on your dreams... and a body without food doesn't dream of anything.
Suppressed laughter moved through the classroom.
At the back, Dru chewed gum angrily and threw poisonous looks at Theo.
— In other countries, most successful people inherited fortunes, or stole, or cheated. A few succeed through talent and hard work. The rest? They sink into their own system... and still have the nerve to blame the system for it.
The teacher turned toward the board, drawing a straight horizontal line.
— Here... everyone starts from the same horizon. No one goes hungry. No one becomes sick without medicine. Everyone has quality of life and knowledge.
He paused and turned toward the class:
— For that, we sell to the outside world. For that, Mãe devours us: so that we may survive.
Then he wrote across the board in large letters:
THE WORLD IS CONSTANTLY AT WAR.
PEACE IS ONLY AN ACCIDENT.
SURVIVAL ABOVE FREEDOM!
The silence in the classroom was dense.
The projector hummed as it changed the images on the screen.
The teacher pointed with a metal ruler at a black-and-white photograph of men in suits.
— Here are the leaders of the right. In the photograph, they all look clean, virtuous... as though they were examples of some superior morality.
He walked between the rows, rhythmically tapping the ruler against his palm.
— The basic concept of the right is simple: “me first, everyone else can fend for themselves.”
He stopped beside a desk.
— They take loans from banks, build industries, businesses that only exist because of the State... and still believe everything is private property, that they owe nothing to anyone. They confuse what belongs to the State with what belongs to them.
He pointed at the photograph again.
— Look closely: fat. Well-fed. It's difficult to talk about the population's hunger with a full belly, isn't it?
Daime let out a dry laugh at the back of the classroom.
— They're pigs and hypocrites. They say workers don't like to work... when they themselves hate working. They organize cartels to crush wages, kill small businesses so they can grow. And they always worry more about the influence of the rich, while pointing fingers at the poor for accepting State assistance. It's a mixture of envy, jealousy... and love for their religions of appearances.
The image changed.
Young protesters.
Red flags.
Placards.
— And here... the left. The starving libertarians, the “leftards,” the “abortionists,” as they call them out there.
A murmur began, but stopped when the teacher raised his hand.
— They fight for the working class. They dream of freedom, gender equality, food, housing, culture, and leisure. That is worthy.
A pause.
He looked into every corner of the room, searching for the eyes of anyone who might look away.
— Mãe Ceres loves the last four: food, housing, culture, and leisure. They are the foundation of our law. Here, everyone has something to eat — six meals a day, hot showers, a roof, medicine, treatment. Of course... there is a price.
He returned to the front and struck the ruler hard against the desk:
— SURVIVAL ABOVE FREEDOM. FREEDOM DOESN'T FILL YOUR BELLY!
The classroom fell into tense silence.
— All those regimes out there failed at the obvious.
Mãe Ceres guarantees us what none of them managed to guarantee:
Survival.
He pointed to the final sentence written on the board:
Mãe Ceres: who feeds us, who educates us, who devours us.
He placed the ruler on the desk, leaned back in his chair, and concluded:
— That's why it works.
The ruler still echoed from the desk when it struck.
The silence lasted several seconds before being broken by brief, respectful applause, almost mechanical — a reflex conditioned by education in Ceres.
Theo rested his elbow on the desk, eyes half-closed, a faint smile at the corner of his mouth.
— It works... — he murmured, repeating the teacher's final words like a mantra.
Beside him, Daime crossed his arms, shaking his head as someone who had heard it so many times that he no longer saw any point in disagreeing.
— That's right... Mãe knows what she's doing — he added quietly, proud like a good student.
Ceres, in the neighboring row, bit the tip of her pen.
She felt that familiar mixture of fear and relief that always came when she heard about Mãe Ceres.
She looked at Theo for a moment and noticed how his eyes shone whenever the teacher spoke of “survival above freedom.”
A discomfort rose in her throat, but, without realizing it, she too nodded, silently repeating:
Mãe feeds us... educates us... devours us...
Dru, at the back, was still ruminating over her argument with Theo that morning.
Even so, she couldn't suppress the ironic smile.
She nodded slightly, whispering to herself:
— Freedom doesn't fill your belly... I've always said that.
And deep down, she consoled herself with the thought that Tycho wouldn't escape either:
In the end, everyone would be devoured by Mãe Ceres.
Even Tycho, shy as he was, sat up straighter, eyes fixed on the projection.
He repeated softly:
— It works... it works...
The teacher collected the ruler with a cold, satisfied smile, pleased to see the effect across the rows of young people.
As always, everyone reacted as expected:
No doubts.
No deviations.
Doctrinated.
Obedient.
On the wall, above the board, the motto engraved in bronze seemed to watch them with iron eyes:
THE WORLD IS CONSTANTLY AT WAR; PEACE IS ONLY AN ACCIDENT — SURVIVAL ABOVE FREEDOM.
And no one dared disagree.
Theo rested his chin on his hand while the teacher continued with statistics and age pyramids.
Outwardly, his expression was serene, almost bored — the disciplined leader, admired by some, feared by others.
But inside, another voice, his own, echoed:
It works... it works... but at what cost? How many more Genes will we have to hand over? How many more Drus will have to crawl for coins so they don't sink? And how many Cereses like her will keep smiling in fear, pretending they believe just so they don't disappear?
He raised his eyes toward the motto on the wall.
For a fraction of a second, he wanted to laugh.
A dry, bitter laugh.
But he held it back.
He took a deep breath.
Straightened in his chair.
A good soldier doesn't ask questions. He only survives.
And, like everyone else, he applauded at the end of class.