We keep walking.
The ground gets less and less regular.
The road is crumbling, as if it barely remembers it was once built.
Silence slowly takes over.
The air grows heavier, loaded with dust, coal, and stories people chose to forget.
In the distance, something takes shape.
But it's not a city.
Not a village.
It's a scream.
Shantytowns.
A mass of makeshift shelters in metal sheets, dead wood and worn-out plastic, tangled together in a chaos that almost feels organic.
Roofs full of holes. Walls held together by ropes. Climbing plants that look like they're the only thing stopping everything from collapsing.
As if nature, in one last act of pity, were trying to stitch together the pieces of human misery.
Every step in this dirt reminds me that this world doesn't forgive.
It sorts. It crushes. It swallows.
And the ones it spits out end up here.
In this grey, extinguished, forgotten scenery.
We finally stop. Right in front of it. At the entrance of the shantytown.
Évra smiles, almost delighted, like she's presenting a tourist attraction to children.
"Welcome to the Dead Zone."
Her tone is light, almost mocking.
But her gaze darkens.
She goes on, more serious:
"Here, there are no laws. No rules. No rights. It's a dumping ground, a rotting belt around the capital. The people who live here are either the forgotten, bandits, or the unlucky—the poor who couldn't keep up."
Her words ring inside me like a warning.
I stare at the entrance, a knot in my stomach.
"But… the capital… why doesn't it do anything?"
My question is sincere. Too sincere.
I feel my fists clench without thinking.
Évra stops.
She looks at me. Her smile falls.
"For two reasons. First: as an example. The people in the capital need to know that if they stop being useful, this is where they end up. It's a living threat, a glass bell hanging over their heads. And second…"
She sighs.
Her voice turns cold, cutting.
"…second, it's strategy. In case of a demon attack, the Dead Zone is a buffer. The demons stop here first. They play with these discarded bodies. That gives the city time to prepare. These people, Heyo…"
She looks straight at me.
"…we already consider them dead."
I lower my head.
I can't answer right away.
My jaw is tight, my throat knotted.
"That's… disgusting…"
My voice shakes.
I hate this reality.
Fortuna throws me a discreet look. She can clearly see it's eating me alive.
She murmurs:
"It's unfair, yes. But it's the truth. In a world full of winners, there have to be losers."
Aris adds, as pragmatic as ever:
"We won't change the world today. Let's focus on what we can actually save."
Silence falls again.
And this time, it's heavy.
Heavier than the walls of the city.
We keep moving.
The paved roads vanish, swallowed by earth and time.
The air gets drier, dirtier.
I feel the dust cling to my nostrils.
The closer we get, the more something tightens inside me.
From up close, the shantytown is even more unsettling.
Not just miserable.
Strange.
Almost… fascinating. As if the place had been built by an invisible, drunk hand, obsessed with chaos and fatalism.
We walk along what looks like the main street. A wide artery, almost too wide for a place crushed by such cramped misery.
The ground is a mix of dry sand, hard-packed dirt, dead plant fragments and bits of plastic ground down by time.
On the right and left, shelters pile up.
Twisted shapes.
Crooked cubes.
Improvised refuges that defy physics and common sense.
Between each cluster of shacks, there are gaps, barely noticeable. Thin cuts between walls.
You can tell they snake inward, toward the heart of the slum.
An organic maze.
A living trap.
I brush my fingers against a wall made of interlocked pallets, rusted fences, torn tarps and cracked glass.
All held together by rope, wire… and probably a lot of faith.
Faith that it will last one more day.
The plants look like they decided to play seamstress.
Vines crawl along the metal sheets.
Weeds burst from cracks, trying to seal the wounds of this place.
But it's not enough.
This place reeks of survival.
Of despair.
Of exhaustion.
And us…
We cut through that scenery like an insult.
Eyes land on us the second we step onto the sand.
No shouting.
No welcome.
Just eyes.
Cold.
Sharp.
Looks that don't hope for anything anymore, but never forget how to judge.
Children appear behind folded metal sheets.
Their eyes are too big for their age.
Too empty.
They don't move.
They just watch.
Like ghosts who chose to stay.
Farther away, adults deliberately ignore us.
Backs turned.
Bodies stiff.
Mechanical gestures: washing clothes in a rusted basin, repairing a roof that's already half collapsed.
But I can feel them.
I can feel them all.
No one smiles.
No one speaks.
And in that silence…
we're already too much.
We keep going.
Our steps grow heavier.
Not from fatigue.
From their eyes.
They weigh on us.
They sting.
They judge.
Every step rings out like a mistake. Every breath reminds us we're not welcome.
After a while, the road narrows.
Or rather… it clogs.
A crowd.
Dense. Packed. Alive.
Like a single feverish mass, panting, clustered around an invisible center.
We approach.
It's impossible to see what's happening in the middle. Too many bodies. Too much noise. Too much tension.
The crowd forms a wall.
But Évra isn't the kind to wait.
She moves forward.
The crowd yields.
Not out of respect.
Out of fear.
She slices through the mass like a blade.
She shoves, pushes, carves a path through flesh.
And we follow. Silent. Jaws clenched.
First row.
The scene hits us in the face.
A young figure is tied to a wooden pillar, right in the center of every gaze.
Her thin body is bound roughly, arms stretched, head hanging under a filthy hood.
The air is thick: sweat, fear… and something older.
The crowd is feverish, drunk on a spectacle that's only just begun.
Next to her stands a man.
Bony. Wrapped in rags.
His eyes shine with conquering madness.
His hand trembles around a torch.
He raises it high, theatrical, and yells:
"Look, ladies and gentlemen! Here is the demon of the Dead Zone! She deceived us, lived among us… but today, the truth is revealed thanks to me! Me, the great Varac! Before your very eyes, I will purify this town by burning this abomination!"
He tears off the hood.
The crowd gasps.
I freeze.
A girl.
Young—probably my age.
Almost unreal in this scenery of ash and screams.
Her hair…
Mauve. Not quite purple, not lavender either.
A dirty, faded mauve, like a color that aged too fast.
It falls in messy locks over her face, clinging to her brown skin, stained with dust.
And fear.
But it's her eyes that grab me.
Not her gaze—no.
Her eyes.
Two metallic shards, silver, with pale moonlight reflections.
Ringed with a strange, almost liquid purple.
And at their core…
a fracture.
Like cracked crystal, broken from the inside.
And that horn.
Thin.
Sharp.
Almost elegant, if it weren't so terrifying to them.
It emerges from her skull on the right side, without pride or glory.
Just there.
Like a divine scar no one has the right to ignore.
Her teeth don't ask permission either.
When she clenches her jaw, we see them.
Thin. Too sharp. Too clean to be human.
But not monstrous.
Not animal.
They suggest something else.
Something between species.
Between roles.
Something no one has the right to be.
Varac lifts his torch higher.
"Look! You all see it! This horn is the proof! Proof that I am worthy of becoming a demon hunter! I, Varac, will purify a demon here and now!"
The crowd screams.
Some spit.
Some laugh with vicious joy.
But she…
She raises her head.
And I don't see a monster.
I see a terrified girl.
Her eyes shake, but they still shine.
"It's not true!" she screams, voice rough. "I'm not a demon! Yes, I look strange, but I've never hurt anyone! Please… believe me!"
Her voice…
There's nothing aggressive in it.
Nothing dangerous.
It's broken.
Human.
And everything in her screams the same thing:
I didn't choose this.
Something cracks inside me.
My breathing slows.
My thoughts line up.
I slide into a strange state:
Calm.
Cold.
Sharp.
I could kill him.
That Varac.
Silence him.
Make him burn with his own torch.
And maybe people would thank me.
Or not.
I don't care.
I feel heat pooling in my palm.
My Word stirs, barely.
It knows.
I know.
But before I move, an invisible hand holds me in place.
A voice.
Soft.
Ironic.
Worrying.
"Wait a bit," Évra whispers in my ear.
Her smile has vanished.
Her gaze is locked on the girl.
"This is about to get interesting."
And I know she's right.