Chapter 25
Rain and Fire
The murmur spread among the students, soft at first, then growing like a contained wave. Some exchanged quick glances, others barely lifted their heads from their notes to observe him indiscreetly.
Bairon, of small build, with light brown hair and green eyes, advanced with short steps to the desk assigned to him. The scrape of his shoes against the floor seemed to resonate too loudly in the expectant silence.
He wore the same yellow and black uniform as the rest of his classmates, though it hung differently on him: the sleeves too long, the fabric still stiff as if fresh from some warehouse. It wasn't made to his measurements.
He sat down quietly, careful that the chair didn't squeak. His back straight, his arms pressed to his body, but his gaze downcast, fixed on the desk's wood.
The other youths in the room studied him with curiosity. Some whispered, others leaned forward to see him better, and the boldest smiled with that glint in their eyes that promised awkward questions.
Bairon didn't look up. His lips tightened, and a slight tremor ran through his throat before being stifled in obstinate silence.
He soon felt surrounded.
One to his left, a boy with a frank smile and short hair, leaned slightly toward him. The movement was so natural, so free of tension, that for a moment it disoriented Bairon.
"Wanna form a group?" he asked while extending his hand naturally, without stopping smiling.
Bairon looked up, surprised.
It took him a second to process the gesture, but he managed to see something he didn't expect: honesty in that classmate's eyes.
Two others, from the other side of the desk, peered over their desks and greeted him too with a quick wave, animated, as if they already included him without doubt.
The murmur of the rest of the class continued in the background, but in that small circle something different was igniting.
The boy's hand remained outstretched before him, firm, patient.
Bairon looked at it as if it were a strange object, a challenge too great for how small he felt at that moment.
Inside, his mind was a whirlwind. One part of him wanted to take it immediately, cling to that chance not to be isolated, not to repeat what happened before. But another part, stronger and older, screamed at him not to trust, not to expose himself, that the price of opening up was always too high.
His throat tightened. He felt the pulse in his fingers, the heat in his chest.
"I…" he whispered barely, his voice cracking.
The other two boys laughed enthusiastically, giving no space to his hesitation.
"Come on, don't overthink it!" said one, with a peaceful calm.
After hearing those words, he felt a change, as if a mist were dissipating.
He reacted by turning to look at the people nearby… and noticed the change… how things really were.
The looks surrounding him held no hostility. It was strange. There was no judgment. Only expectation, simple and bright.
Bairon took a deep breath, swallowing, and slowly raised his hand. He hesitated for another instant—half a second of eternity—before extending his fingers and finally shaking the offered hand.
A small squeeze. Brief. But enough.
The three classmates smiled, as if that gesture had sealed something invisible.
And, for the first time since he had entered the classroom, the weight on Bairon's chest eased just a little.
He remained quiet, still somewhat downcast, his shoulders tense, as if they might collapse at any moment. But deep down… deep down he was happy.
A brief, contained, almost timid smile formed on his face. Just a glimmer, but enough to illuminate his green eyes. Literally.
The youth who had invited him smiled even more upon feeling his response. Then, bringing the same hand to his chest, he gave himself a soft tap—not of violence, but of affirmation—and introduced himself with pride:
"I'm Hanz Prinz," said the boy with the frank smile, keeping his tone animated. Then he turned his wrist and pointed toward the other two classmates waiting expectantly. "And they are…"
"Laios Hardbrick," murmured the blond youth with hair tied back, who accompanied his name with a slight nod, sober but confident.
"Körper Picke," added the redhead immediately, with a messy three-quarter cut and a half-smile that gave him a somewhat roguish air.
Bairon nodded upon hearing each name, silently engraving them as if they were more important than any of them suspected.
Then, with an effort that felt almost monumental, he extended his hand first to Hanz, then to Laios, then to Körper.
The contact of each handshake was brief, but firm, and with each gesture he released a bit of the tension oppressing him. Finally, he raised his voice enough to respond:
"Bairon… Bairon Sword."
The name came out haltingly, but authentic.
The three classmates nodded as if they had just sealed an invisible pact. Hanz let out a short, confident laugh, Laios arched an approving eyebrow, and Körper clicked his tongue as if celebrating the formality of the moment.
For the first time since he had entered the classroom, Bairon no longer felt entirely alone.
---
[Present]
The officer remained there, immobile, letting each drop strike his face and mix with his dried sweat.
For an instant, the world reduced to him and that blackened body. Neither the waves, nor the wind, nor the ship's creaking seemed to matter. The storm continued its indifferent course, as if the two of them meant nothing.
The shadow covering his eyes began to dissipate. That darkness, which until seconds ago squeezed him like entangled tentacles, faded from his retinas.
But what emerged wasn't relief.
Something liquid welled up from there, different from the rain sliding over his skin.
It wasn't water from the sky.
They were tears.
At first, the tears were few, silent, lost in the rain. Just a tremor in his eyelids, just a warm trace running down his cheek.
But soon the dam broke. His breath fractured into a brief sob, then another. His shoulders, rigid until that moment, gave way suddenly, shaken by spasms he could no longer contain.
The officer lowered his head. One hand went to his face, wanting to cover it, but the other braced against the deck as if that gesture was all that kept him from collapsing completely.
"Ahhh…" a groan mixed with the storm, hoarse, wounded.
The tears blended with the rain, but he felt the difference: his were warm, heavy, born from pain and impotence. Each one dragged with it the memories of what was lost, the accumulated tension, the certainty of the impossible.
He cried. Not as a soldier, nor as an officer, but as a man defeated by the weight of his own limits.
The ship creaked under the storm, indifferent. The blackened corpse remained before him, a mute witness to his outpouring.
But…
But out of nowhere, without warning, the blackened body of the monster convulsed. A brief, violent spasm that shook it on the wet deck.
The officer stopped dead. The tears kept flowing, but his throat no longer let out any sound. Only his agitated, ragged breathing remained, as if the air itself refused to enter his lungs.
One… two… three times in total. Each convulsion was stronger than the last, twisting the charred body until it slammed against the ship's wet planks.
With each jolt, the officer's face hardened. The vulnerability of the crying was erased, gradually replaced by a cold, tense mask. His reddened eyes no longer reflected pain: only the dull gleam of someone contemplating something unworthy of continuing to exist.
His jaw contracted, teeth grinding in time with his thoughts. That creature was no longer an enemy or a threat; it was trash. Trash that, for some cruel reason, hadn't finished dying yet.
And the officer's expression said it all: he wasn't going to give it another chance.
It opened.
The mouth of the blackened body, the six-limbed one, dislocated with a dull crunch, as if the broken jaws snapped once more.
From that wet darkness emerged something impossible: an arm of flesh, flaccid and viscous, resembling a twisted tongue. Its skin was charred, blackened in several places, and emitted a pestilent vapor upon contact with the cold rain.
The appendage stretched out slowly, trembling, feeling the ground until it found support. The fingers, twisted and burned, dug into the wet planks with the desperation of a wounded animal.
And then it began to crawl.
First the entire arm came out, dragging strands of torn flesh from inside the corpse holding it. Then, pulling hard, a head emerged: moist, deformed, still covered in charred residue that flaked off like bark.
Finally, the torso. Twisted, convulsive, dripping a thick liquid that mixed with the rainwater and ran like a dark trail between the wood's cracks.
The original corpse remained there, mouth agape, turned into an abject conduit giving birth to something new and unnatural in the midst of the storm.
THUMP!
A dry blast thundered on the deck when a foot sheathed in a translucent green rectangle came down with all its force on the back of the being trying to emerge. The impact sent droplets of water and wood splinters flying, and a thunderous whine erupted from that mass of blackened flesh, vibrating in the air like an animal shriek.
The officer, his face still marked by tears, gritted his teeth and pushed down with all his body's weight. The green rectangle crackled upon contact with the wet, burned flesh writhing under his boot.
The fleshy monster, half-emerged from the charred corpse, struggled desperately. Its bony fingers scratched the wet planks, digging into the cracks, trying to drag itself out. Each pull made what remained of the original body's mouth creak, tearing bone and tendon as if it were a rotten husk.
But the officer's foot didn't yield.
The blow had stopped it dead, and now he kept it there, crushed against the floor, like an insect trapped under glass.
Press.
The officer discharged every gram of his strength onto the foot reinforced by the green rectangle. The crunch of charred bones mixed with the grating of the translucent material. Beneath him, the monster thrashed violently, shaking like an animal caught in a trap.
But it couldn't attack. Not with only two arms free and the lower half of its body still sunk inside the charred corpse holding it like a grotesque prison.
The spawn stretched its arms and braced both hands against the ship's wet planks. Its blackened fingers dug furiously into the wood's cracks, tearing out splinters, trying to gain leverage to free itself.
Nothing. The officer's foot kept pressing it into the floor, the weight multiplied by the green energy coating it.
Until, suddenly, the weight vanished.
The monster managed to lift its head for an instant, with a wet screech that sounded like triumph…
BAM!
The weight reappeared in the same second, more violent, falling from above like a hammer blow. The being's body arched sharply, spewing a guttural noise that resonated amid the storm.
The whine was worse than before, a choked bellow lost between the rain and the distant roar of the fire.
The officer no longer restrained it with one foot. Now he was standing on it, with both feet sunk into the spawn's twisted back, pinning it against the planks like a nail refusing to go in.
But he wasn't looking at it.
His eyes were fixed on the glow still burning inside the hall, a rabid fire consuming everything without distinction. There, among those flames, his mind hatched a macabre idea.
A glint shone in his gaze.
His left foot descended with a calculated motion, crushing the monster's head until it was buried against the soaked floor. Its blackened fingers scratched uselessly at the planks, producing an unpleasant screech.
At the same time, the officer bent his knees and dropped onto the being's torso, using it as a seat, like pinning down a creature that had no right to keep breathing.
The rain beat against his back, and under his weight the monster convulsed, unable to break free.