CHAPTER SIXTEEN

As he drew the blade to his chest, Soran trembled. Although the weapon appeared harmless, the repugnant task it was purposed with was beyond redemption. How could he look Lanic in eyes? Wearing the mask of a boy that concealed the features of a killer. Although Ranna and his crew had no doubt been on the wrong side of right more than once, Soran knew that this would be a step they refused to take.

Kaligan stalked forward. He crouched over Harrow, pushing his palms down into the knuckled ridges of the man's chest. Macabre wheezes and gargles spilled through his lips, the gruesome chorus accompanied by sputters of black blood.

“I'll guarantee cooperation” Kaligan assured, coaxing the boy into his profane theatrics. Soran gazed with profound fear into the shattered topaz of the pirate's eyes. Distracted by a glimmer of light, his attention was stolen by what hung from Kaligan's neck. The cube-shaped extrusions, the hexagonal patterning, the unmistakable heaviness that weighed on his limbs. It was the shard.

There must have been a mistake, a cruel glitch of reality. Soran struggled to imagine how it had fallen into Kaligan’s possession. He had seen it taken away by the Navy Captain and her officers. Even a man like Kaligan could not have poached it from secure clutches of government hands. Could he?

The boy felt a tightening around his hand. He was ensnared by Kaligan's grip. The Pirate-Lord wore a villainous glance, his aura a dark mosaic of encroaching violence. A virulent deluge of hatred poured from his soul, engulfing Soran in a tide of hostility. A similar disdain had radiated from Malig's viperous glare, and at that moment, he knew the two men had crawled from the same vile swamp.

“Now boy.” Kaligan barked. Hallow’s eyes fluttered. His departure from this world was upon them.

“Allowing such a distinguished man as Captain Hallow to leave without A grand farewell would be blasphemy. Unacceptable!” Kaligan pushed down on Soran's hands as he spoke, met with all the resistance the quivering boy could muster. The boy's pity-filled eyes were consumed with the awful vision of suffering. Grunting like a stuck pig, blood continued to pour from his innumerable wounds. The ghoulish display shot dread coursing through his veins, spiraling him into a trance-like state. One by one, his senses were eroded. Touch, hearing, vision, all fading from perception.

An escape from the barbarism was found in a matted web of wiring and cables that spanned the atrium's domical ceiling. The haphazard threading over burnished metal pulled his mind back to the industrial architecture of the Hyacinth.

The expansive hangar where he and Lanic conducted most of their repairs materialized around him. Traversing the winding halls and lesser-known passageways of the station, he returned to his bunk. The small space was crowded with familiar comforts and momentoes he had amassed over two decades. Trinkets he had collected from all corners of known space, donated by the many clients and passersby he had hassled into a tale of adventure. He was home, safe in the knowledge that the helping hand and attentive ear of his mentor were close by.

As he stared through the porthole window and out into the vastness of space, he no longer sought after the adventure and mystery it offered. Instead, he appreciated the simple, predictable nature of a life he had once resented. He felt his breaths become short and heavy, his arms aching as they did after a long stint in the hangers. The piercing light of the Gallowmare intruded into his illusory realm. Soran grasped longingly at his escape, clawing his way back to the ethereal. He visualized the ships docking and departing, unloading their wears and indulging in all manner of busy-work. His ghostly form flickered to the station's bridge. In an instant, he was gazing through the panoramic viewing portal as an elegant, snow-white vessel floated gracefully before him. Piercing through the atmospheric veil at the center of the iris gate, the vessel's floral fins bloomed in welcoming. Fascinated by the display, the boy longed to walk the regal halls of such a prestigious ship; To examine the intricate machinery that animated such a marvel of engineering.

Soran’s awe distorted into dread as he watched the ship decay. It became something ugly, the immaculate steel hull withering into a carcass of bone and rotten flesh. The once brilliant white shifted to pink, ending its metamorphosis as the sharpest red he had ever seen. Before he could be overwhelmed by the otherwordly shade, the color drained from the ship, forming amorphous blobs of pigment that crept their way across the expanse. The hail of viscous orbs smashed against the viewing portal, coating the translucent pane in a cardinal membrane.

In a flash of light, Soran burst from the cimmerian vision. He panted in desperation, sickened at the sight of his gore-stained hands. The knife was gripped with such ferocity that its blade had buried deep into his palm, a sanguine rivulet coursing between the tight crevices of his soiled fingers.

Gallons of blood pooled around him, polluting the air with a potent metallic stench. Soran wretched, losing his grip on the blade and barely suppressing the torrent of sickness that churned within him. The knife landed on the motionless figure at his knees. The previously unblemished uniform was stained a dark brown, mercifully concealing the true extent of the butchery. Horrified at what he had done and unable to quell his ceaseless panting, Soran was on the verge of collapse. Kaligan offered a congratulatory hand, raising the boy to his feet as a father would reward a victorious son.

“A ferocity of such caliber is a rare thing indeed. Perhaps a worthy apostle you may yet become.” Kaligan pondered, reveling in the maelstrom of emotion. Soran fell backward. His erratic breathing caused a fountain of watery vomit to erupt from his mouth. The purge was swiftly carried away by the river of Hallows blood, drank down by the voracious maws that dwelt in the corners of the room. The slant of the floors and the sheer number of drains made Kaligan’s atrium seem more like a slaughterhouse, the scene that just played out almost certainly not the first of its kind.

Kaligan snapped his fingers. The two men posted outside ran in and, without order, tossed Hallow's remains to the starving jaws of the Thistlegore pups.

“Escort the boy to the kennel and have him assist in the preparations. Our guests will be arriving soon.” Kaligan slumped back into his thone and Soran was carried out to a chorus of snarling, tearing, and the hideous crunch of bone. Hallow's prestige meant nothing to Kaligan. Fed as scraps to the Pirate-Lord's pets, never to be thought of again.

Soran stopped. His mind had reached a chasm that it was unequipped to cross. Plagued by his actions, a dead stare was all that his face could portray. The boy who had set out from the Hyacinth mere days before was gone. What remained was someone he could not have conjured, not even in his most wicked of nightmares. Was my life worth that of another? His thoughts had become a prison. Trapped under the icy sheet of his new reality, he continued to sink further, gasping for one final taste of a life that was now forever lost.