Toy Soldiers — Chapter 7 Part 7

Dark — Son of the Mud, Son of the Mother

While everyone was in the field simulator, firing blanks and repeating maneuvers for a war that never comes, Dark was in the sky.

A sky of rails, steel, and smoke.

The paradise of armored trains.

The blue afternoon sky, clean as a freshly sharpened scalpel, suited the prey he had left behind in the abandoned hangar.

The locomotive traveled three kilometers north.

From the carriage, the main tower of Ceres could be seen in the distance — motionless, rigid, laughing at him.

But no one knows what goes on inside Dark's head.

When he arrived, the silence was the same as always. But something was wrong.

One of the dogs — deformed creatures, red eyes, compulsive tremors — had gnawed through the rope and escaped.

Only one remained, tied up, thrashing with fury.

Dark sighed. Almost disappointed. But still... satisfied.

— You're still here. That's luck. Luck for me. Bad luck for you.

Carefully, he lifted the creature — claws, drool, and teeth — and placed it on the splintered wooden table, marked by old nails and dried blood.

— Shall we play?

The animal growled.

Dark smiled.

He cut through the first layer of flesh as though drawing a map.

The flesh sizzled.

Blood gushed.

Dark bit his lips, as if savoring a secret pleasure.

HAHA... HEEE... OOOOH...

A muffled, restrained howl.

An orgasm of steel.

He wanted to see how that animal bled.

Was it different?

The afternoon sky was clear, almost white-blue.

Dark watched it through the hatch of the armored train as it moved slowly along the rusted tracks toward the hangar.

Three kilometers of private paradise.

No one disturbed him.

No voice except his own.

And the dogs.

In the distance, the watchtower smiled at him with gray teeth.

Dark returned the smile.

An animal at play.

In Pietà, he smiled too — alone.

When another child screamed or thrashed, he smiled with genuine tenderness.

The mothers tried to understand.

Psychologists came.

Nurses wrote reports with trembling hands.

“Morbid humor,” they said.

“High intelligence,” they said.

“But lacking empathy.”

It was as if he had been made from different clay.

Colder clay.

When he reached the hangar, he stepped off the train, dragging his feet like someone in no hurry at all.

Inside, the metallic smell welcomed him like an old embrace.

But one of the dogs had escaped.

The gnawed rope.

Scratches on the wall.

Dark sighed, disappointed.

— Tsk... ungrateful.

One remained.

Tied.

Tense.

Vibrating with animal hatred.

He approached with the calm of a sculptor.

— Shall we play?

He pulled the dog onto the table, ignoring the entrails scattered from previous experiments.

A severed arm twitched — an electrical reflex — and he stepped on it without thinking, crushing what remained.

The blade gleamed.

Dark began the cut with an almost loving tenderness.

In Pietà, at nine years old, Dark dismantled toys just to see how they worked inside.

Later, he began doing the same with birds, cats, rats.

The beauty was not in the form — it was in the chaos hidden beneath the skin.

— HAHA... HEEE... OOOOH...

The dog bled slowly.

— Really... you bleed differently. As if your blood were ashamed to come out...

He plunged his hand inside, pulled out a cracked rib, and listened to the sound of the bone splintering.

— You never ate Mãe Ceres' food. Never did. Never felt it.

And then he whispered, so softly that only he and the dog could hear:

— Mãe Ceres feeds us, educates us... and devours us.

The crack of the breaking bone echoed through the hangar.

A thread of drool ran down Dark's chin.

Still in Pietà, there was a white room where they placed the “difficult cases.”

There, he heard screams every night.

But he was never shaken.

He learned to laugh inside.

To savor his own silence.

One day, they put a girl in the room with him.

She talked too much.

He silenced her.

With a bite to the shoulder.

She cried.

He did not.

And still... the mothers loved him.

Because Mãe Ceres loved him.

Dark was the son who never asked for forgiveness.

The dog shuddered one last time.

Its skin open, muscles exposed like maps drawn in living flesh.

Dark watched with reverent calm.

He placed his hand over the animal's still-warm chest.

— That was fun, wasn't it?

His head tilted, his eyes fixed, as if waiting for an answer.

But only silence answered him.

And he liked it that way.

In Pietà, when he turned ten, the other children stopped playing whenever he entered.

Some had nightmares.

Others felt nauseous just looking at him.

Once, a boy from the neighboring wing screamed in the middle of the night:

— He's in my room!

But he wasn't.

He was sleeping as always: eyes half-open, never taking a deep breath.

Doctors came.

They measured his heartbeat.

They ran tests.

— He's... cold.

— Literally. Cold.

But the mothers... the mothers said it was only a phase.

Mãe Ceres herself came down the hill once to see him.

Wrapped in translucent veils, her face hidden behind an opaque shield.

The other children cried with emotion.

Or fear.

Dark?

Dark touched the shield with his filthy little hands...

and smiled.

He smiled for the first time.

She embraced him.

Everyone saw.

The next morning, he was declared “The Promise of Pietà.”

— A son of lead — they said.

Back in the present, Dark cleaned the blade.

He walked back slowly, his fingers still stained with blood and his eyes as serene as a dead lake.

He reached the field just as practical class was ending.

The smell of blank gunpowder still hung in the air.

His classmates were exhausted, sweaty, scraped.

Theo, Ceres, Kan, Ana — all of them with hands marked from repeatedly disassembling and assembling weapons that would never fire to kill.

When Dark appeared on the horizon, the first to see him went pale.

He wasn't walking.

He was floating.

Not from lightness, but from weight.

Like a bad dream approaching with a smile.

— Look who finally showed up... — Cors muttered, quietly, as if he didn't want Dark to hear.

But he heard.

Since childhood, Dark had learned to smell fear like perfume.

He knew who trembled.

He knew who hated him.

He knew who wanted to see him dead.

But no one dared say it aloud.

Because everyone knew what Mãe Ceres had once said, during a secret ceremony:

— My children of flesh, I love you. But my children of lead... those I keep close to my heart.

Dark stopped beside Theo.

He looked at his wounded hands.

Tilted his head, as though examining a cracked piece.

— You're still bleeding... that's good.

Theo did not answer.

He only lowered his eyes.

Dark smiled.

But there was no humor in the smile.

No soul.

In Pietà, they said that Dark's heart beat like Mãe Ceres' war drum:

Rigid.

Constant.

Cruel.

Dark (thought):

I don't impale people because the Mother doesn't want me to.

But if she wants me to... I impale.

With pleasure.

With art.

Because that's what I am: a dog.

But not just any dog.

I am the Lead Dog.

I don't bite without orders.

I don't run without purpose.

I am the dog that waits, that listens, that learns.

A good dog.

They forged me in dried blood and warm mud.

They raised me in the silence of Pietà's nurseries.

I never cried. I never asked. I never disobeyed.

And the Mother loves me.

She picked me up and called me a miracle.

I touched her faceless face... and smiled.

The world wants free monsters.

The Mother creates loyal monsters.

They think I'm crazy...

But I am the only sane one.

I heard the call. I understood the mission.

The Mother doesn't need children who dream.

She needs children who obey.

She molded me with lead.

She fed me with silence.

She taught me that love has no face. Only command.

And if one day she wants me to impale every one of them...

I will impale them gently.

Because I am the perfect Lead Dog.

And dogs... do not ask.

They only obey.

Thursday dawned like any other day in Ceres.

The boys hated one another — some in silence, others shouting.

As always.

Dark ate slowly, as he had in Pietà, chewing with an inward smile, as though savoring an ancient secret.

Cors whispered to Kan, the new player replacing Gene.

— Whose side are you on? — he asked directly.

Kan answered without hurry, looking at his plate:

— By next Friday, you'll know.

Vank heard from a distance and shouted:

— Coward, asshole!

Kan didn't even blink.

He kept eating, as though the taste of the food were more interesting than any threat.

Daime watched Dark and commented to Theo:

— He's way too calm. He must've done something... that bastard scares me more when he's quiet.

Theo murmured without lifting his head:

— Leave Dark alone. If he isn't bothering anyone, let him be.

Daime shifted his gaze toward Ceres.

— Look at those huge blue eyes on Ceres... eyes so big they barely fit on her face. Beautiful as hell. You're lucky, man.

Theo and Ceres looked at each other.

She ignored him.

Daime persisted, teasing:

— Beautiful and hateful. You two should be licking each other by now.

Theo laughed.

— You talk too much shit.

— I'm telling you, I'm telling you... Theo, you bastard... it's so sexy watching Ceres eat!

Theo's laugh was loud this time.

Daime smiled, satisfied.

— That's the real Theo.

The look between Theo and Ceres lasted a long time.

Charged.

Silent.

Theo closed himself off again.

— I'm going. Mechanical engineering class. At least machines don't talk as much nonsense.

Daime called after him:

— Yeah, you idiot. Machines don't have feelings like yours, you piece of shit!

Theo shrugged and left.

Ceres went in another direction, silent, indifferent to everyone.

Dru arrived carrying packs of cigarettes — made by herself.

Daime's eyes widened:

— This early, Dru? Is it smoking time already?

Laughing, Daime tossed twenty brass coins onto the table.

— I hope it's not just shit inside!

Dru picked up the coins and gave him a crooked smile:

— Then that must be why you talk so much shit.

— Look how you treat your customers! — Daime shot back, lighting a cigarette. — I'm going to smoke my shit in peace over there.

— Go. No one's stopping you.

— I will. Bye, Dru!

Ceres sat alone, chewing slowly, indifferent to the noise around her.

The cafeteria vibrated with conversations, footsteps, arguments, but she was an island — cold, motionless — in the middle of everything.

Dru approached hesitantly.

— Ceres... — she murmured.

Ceres didn't even turn her head.

— Don't talk to me.

Dru froze.

She swallowed hard.

She quickly moved away, shoulders hunched.

In the corridor, she crossed paths with Ana.

— What are you looking at? — Ana snapped without stopping.

Dru didn't answer.

She disappeared back into the flow of the corridor, like a figure too small to matter.

Ana and Ceres briefly locked eyes — sharp, poisonous looks.

Then Ana looked away without saying a word and climbed the stairs to Economics class.

Every step was a silent affront.

At the back of the cafeteria, Tycho left with his backpack slung over one shoulder, on his way to another delivery.

Kan, sitting with his elbows on the table, called him with a short gesture.

— Hey, you fix things?

Tycho stopped.

— If there's a part and some patience, I can fix it.

Kan pulled an old cassette player from his backpack.

— The lid is loose.

Tycho took the device and examined it carefully.

— I can fix the handle. It'll cost fifteen credits in Dru's currency.

Kan nodded.

— Done.

He handed the cassette player to Tycho, who carefully put it away and continued on his way without another word.

Outside, north of the main courtyard, there was a flower field — a rare sanctuary of color and silence.

Cora lived there, the flower girl.

She cared for stray animals, creatures without names, without owners, without destinies.

Each one had a ridiculous name, invented on the spot:

Captain Crumb.

Miss Flea.

General Shit.

She handed them the cafeteria leftovers as if they were royal banquets.

They ate hurriedly, suspicious eyes darting around, but with unshakable loyalty.

Cora delighted in her animals, protected by the little cabin she herself had reinforced — crooked but sturdy boards, decorated with crude drawings made with love during carpentry classes.

She was too young for the weight of the war simulation fields.

So she attended only the theoretical classes, almost always beside Tycho.

The two of them, for now, remained outside Mãe Ceres' radar of genuine hatred.

Theo had once been like that too:

Calm.

Gentle.

Pure.

Today, he was what he was.

Because Mãe Ceres molds.

Corrects.

Perfects.

She abandons none of her children — not the flawed ones, not the slow ones.

They say in Ceres, from generation to generation:

“Neither dogs, cats, nor rats die of hunger in Ceres.”

And sometimes, that is sad.

Because animals are cared for with more devotion than any person on the continent.

To Cora, Mãe Ceres was a goddess of miracles.

She truly believed that the Mother herself whispered into her ears:

“Feed them. They are hungry.”

And she did.

Because she loved.

Because she believed.

Because she was simple.

Everyone loved Mãe Ceres — even the rats, innocently.

The field was calm.

The gentle eastern winds carried with them the scent of the borders — Silencium and Arcadia, two distant, quiet worlds where time seemed to move sideways.

Sometimes, in the distance, came the rumble of armored trains crossing the tracks.

Some carried supplies to the school.

Others traveled straight through the homeland like spears of iron.

But there, among flowers, dogs, and raw wood, everything remained peaceful.

At least for now.

Cora watched the flower field.

For a few hours, that place was a private world — hers and the flowers'.

Not exactly hers, of course, but almost as if it were.

She gathered seeds from all over the region and planted them patiently, decorating every corner with whatever she found:

Colored stakes.

Old fabrics.

Translucent shards of glass.

She kept the seeds inside the old crashed airplane lying at the edge of the field, as though it were a temple.

Marigolds were her favorites.

While playing with her animals — stray dogs, skittish cats, a one-legged pig, and even a lame chicken named “Commander” — Cora noticed a black speck on the horizon.

At first, she paid no attention.

It was small.

Distant.

The kind of shadow that dances with the heat rising from the earth.

She returned to her routine, brushing a dog's fur with a shoe brush.

Minutes later, she looked again.

The speck was larger.

It was moving.

She frowned and raised a hand to shade her eyes.

The movement was strange.

A train?

No.

Something alive.

When she finally saw it clearly, her blood ran cold.

It was an enormous, dark, wrong-looking creature.

As if it were a dog.

But it wasn't.

Its gait was tense.

Its body long.

Its eyes — two melted rubies.

The dog that had escaped Dark's hangar.

Cora didn't know that.

She didn't know what it was.

But she understood enough:

That thing did not belong there.

Her dogs noticed it first.

They growled, rose, and ran toward the creature to defend their field, their home.

They never had a chance.

The monster tore them apart with silent brutality.

One by one.

Cora screamed, but no one heard her.

She ran back, panting, desperate, crossed the school corridors begging for help — but no one cared.

It wasn't “urgent” enough.

It wasn't important.

That was when she found Theo.

Panting, crying, unable to breathe or form clear words.

But her eyes said everything.

Theo understood.

Cora wasn't asking for flowers.

She wasn't asking for herself.

She was asking for her dogs.

The only beings that had never bitten her in Ceres.

Theo saw Ceres in the distance.

He shouted firmly, a command that echoed through the corridor like struck steel:

— TAKE CARE OF HER. I'M GOING THERE... YOU STAY HERE! THAT'S AN ORDER!

That was no longer the silent Theo from the cafeteria.

Nor the gentle brother.

Nor the restrained boy.

He was Mãe Ceres' soldier of lead.

When survival was threatened, they changed.

They became what they had been trained to be:

Precise instruments of action and destruction.

Mãe Ceres fed them.

Educated them.

And then devoured them.

And somewhere deep inside, where control lived, she smiled.

Her plan had worked.

Theo sprinted across the courtyard.

His footsteps echoed sharply against the hard ground.

When he reached the field, paradise had already become a bloody altar.

Cora's cats meowed in panic: some on the cabin, others dead, torn apart, entrails hanging from branches and scattered across the ground.

The flower-covered grass was now red and purple.

Animal blood.

Innocent blood.

And at the center of it all:

him.

The creature.

A dog — or something resembling a dog.

Nearly fifty kilos.

Red eyes.

A muzzle like a black fissure opened in the world.

It took pleasure in what it was doing.

Tearing.

Chewing.

Disfiguring.

As though it had come from hell solely to ruin everything delicate.

It did not belong there.

Nor did it belong on that planet.

The dog stopped and saw Theo.

But it did not see an opponent.

It saw more meat.

Theo did not hesitate.

He wrapped his coat around his left arm, preparing to defend himself.

The creature charged with fury.

Theo dodged.

The two stared at each other.

Then, like a snap inside his chest, something was triggered deep in his mind — in his nerves, in his bones —

Theo heard the nickname he hated so much again:

“Prince of Mãe Ceres.”

It was the call.

The red inside him.

The dog charged again.

This time, Theo grabbed its hind legs.

He twisted his body in a brutal movement and slammed the animal into the ground.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Like a grotesque doll.

Its skull cracked.

The sound was dry.

Painful.

Final.

Theo released the dog.

Its body fell, still thrashing.

Its brain spilled out in a dark pulp, but it did not die immediately.

The body seemed unable to understand that it was no longer alive.

Only after several spasms did it finally stop.

Then Theo looked around.

The flower field.

The colorful cabin.

Trampled flowers.

The bodies of the animals.

Warm blood mixed with earth.

That place, which for a few minutes had been a refuge of innocence, was now nothing but ruin and silence.

Theo returned to the school with firm steps.

His face was stone.

His body still carried the smell of earth and blood.

He sought out the coordinators and reported everything.

The dog was not from there.

It was not from Ceres.

It was an intruder.

A threat.

Reports were opened.

Calls were sent to the Silencers.

But only a few knew what had really happened.

The rest...

kept eating.

Studying.

Sleeping.

In the empty cafeteria, Ceres took care of Cora.

She was in shock, her face lost somewhere between panic and grief.

Theo approached them, crouched to Cora's height, and looked into her eyes.

— Cora, you already know what happened. Do you want to help?

Cora hesitated.

Her eyes filled with tears.

She took a deep breath and said, almost in a whisper:

— No... I'll do it myself.

For a moment, silence.

But in the silence, everything was said.

Cora understood.

Theo did too.

She needed to grow.

She needed to understand the real world — and in that world, Mãe Ceres was merciless.

There was no room for gentleness when the future was made of iron, steel, and discipline.

What had happened was the world's first blow against her.

And it would only be the first.

Cora would lick her own wounds.

She saw it in Theo's eyes — because many times, he would not be there.

Then she smiled.

A melancholy, fragile smile, like a flower wilting with dignity.

And, without realizing it, Cora began sinking into Mãe Ceres' plan.

It wasn't visible.

It wasn't immediate.

It was like a slow, silent trance.

Like dense gray metal being deposited at the bottom of the soul.

Mãe Ceres began the implantation.

She implanted lead into her children.

And lead...

is not sweet.

It is not bitter.

It is simply bland.

Bland.

Lead is not sweet, nor bitter.

It is bland.

Like the taste of dried blood on the gums.

Like the silence after a massacre.

Like the first time one understands that Mãe Ceres never had a face —

but always had teeth.

That day, flowers died standing.

And Cora learned, without words, that miracles and monsters eat from the same plate.

The flower field, once her little kingdom, was now a painting made of fingernails and flesh.

Cats hanging like rotten fruit.

Entrails swaying in the breeze.

A wooden cabin scribbled red.

Mãe Ceres' Red Prince had done his work.

He killed.

But he did not save.

Because in Ceres, salvation is not a right.

It is a statistical error.

Theo knew that.

Cora understood it now.

Mãe Ceres' program does not fail.

It molds.

And molding hurts.

As the dog died slowly, its skull split open, Cora's childhood died with it.

Without ceremony.

Without warning.

At school, no one spoke about the dog.

Nor the cats.

Nor the lead beginning to melt inside their chests.

Silence.

That is how the taste of blandness settles in.

“Bland is the taste of life in Ceres.

Neither salt nor sugar.

Salt burns.

Sugar addicts.

Blandness preserves.

Sustains.

It does not comfort.”

“Mãe Ceres does not want us to feel too much.

She wants us to obey.

She wants us to endure.

And the taste of blandness...

is the seasoning of obedience.”

Theo left without looking at Ceres, but she understood.

Theo was not just anyone.

It was not pity that moved his steps toward Cora —

it was obedience.

An inner call.

Ceres recognized the gesture:

it was a silent alert,

an ancient code between soldiers who understood the language of Mãe Ceres.

As if it were saying:

one of the children is in danger.

Cora, still in shock, did not understand everything rationally, but something inside her moved.

A seed had been planted.

She felt — not as a thought, but as instinct — that there was a deeper purpose behind all of it, dark and calculated.

That Mãe Ceres did care, yes, but in her own way:

with steel, discipline, and a programmed destiny.

Care was a pretext for control.

Ceres watched Cora with the necessary coldness.

The girl's emotion did not shake the protocol.

She knew what was happening —

another daughter being molded,

another sap being drained to feed the leaden body of the Revolution.

Implanting ideology was like drowning someone slowly.

Cora, without knowing it, was already sinking.

And Theo?

Theo would not return for her.

Not because he didn't care —

but because that was the plan.

Growing up in Ceres meant learning to hurt alone.

And even though Cora was not yet conscious of it, part of her already knew:

childhood had ended there,

in the flower field painted with blood.

Mãe Ceres' children do not die.

They harden.

Theo tried to process the images that had appeared in his mind — the creature being lifted like a doll, too light, too wrong.

The dog was not from there.

Never seen before.

There was something absolutely suspicious about it.

At the coordination office, they congratulated him on his action.

They said it had been correct.

But among his classmates, things were different.

It was a dog.

And no one there had seen that kind of creature up close.

The order was clear:

until further notice, everything was forbidden.

The Silencers would arrive tomorrow.

Nothing from the scene could be touched.

The students looked at Theo strangely.

They judged him.

They thought he could have controlled the poor animal.

But they didn't know what that dog was.

It was something beyond a dog.

We know dogs attack out of fear.

Or instinct.

But that one had no fear.

No stress.

Theo's reading was clear:

the dog had come to die or survive.

No middle ground.

And seeing the remains of the animals it had torn apart — twisted bodies, ripped paws — it didn't look like defense.

It looked like amusement.

Pleasure.

Hatred.

The same hatred Theo knew.

Only now, he didn't know whether it belonged to him or to the creature.

Was it the best choice?

No one knows.

But it worked.

No casualties.

None of Mãe Ceres' children died.

And in the end, that is what matters.

Like good soldiers molded from lead.

Toy soldiers of Mãe Ceres.

Even so, they all repeat the mantra.

Mãe Ceres, who feeds us, who educates us, and who devours us!