Red Saint

by Dark7paradise666

Summary:

She was dead, but not completely. An angel offered a second chance, a pact to return to life with a divine gift. What mortal, faced with hope, would choose darkness?

In memory and reverence to Kentaro Miura, the genius who forged our darkest and most beautiful nightmare. This story is a tribute to his incomparable world, Berserk. Any original characters and themes from it that may appear here belong to his magnificent legacy. The 'Red Saint' and her suffering are merely visitors in his vast and somber kingdom, an homage born from the deepest admiration.

Chapter 1: The Fallen Angel

 

 The rain beat down on the asphalt like icy needles, reflecting the yellow headlights that cut through the darkness. I was speeding down the nearly deserted highway, the roar of my bike a lonely hum after ten p.m. Droplets streamed down my helmet's visor... which didn't fit right on my head. Idiot. I knew the rules, but college had drained me, and the promise of my mattress was an irresistible magnet. Just fifteen more minutes and I'd be home.

 That's when I saw it. A small figure, frozen in the middle of the lane under the cone of my headlights. A cat, soaked and terrified. Instinct hit faster than thought. I yanked the handlebars with brute force, trying to swerve. The bike, treacherous on the wet asphalt, lost traction in the blink of an eye.

 The world turned over. A whirlwind of screaming rubber, tearing metal, and the brutal impact against the ground. A sharp pain, like an ice dagger, stabbed into my back, stealing the air from my lungs. I slid across the asphalt like a wet rag, until I hit the curb with a dull thud. The rain washed my face; the helmet was gone; the rain was mixed with something warm and metallic. Blood. I tried to move, to get up. Nothing. My body below the waist was as if it wasn't even there.

 "No... I can't feel my legs..." The words came out a hoarse whisper, choked by the rain and panic. The darkness began to eat at the edges of my vision, heavy and sweet like tar. The last thing I saw was the cat, unharmed, running for the gutter. Then... silence.

---

 I woke up in an impossible place.

 It wasn't a normal awakening. It was like emerging from deep, calm waters to a surface of golden light and perfumed air. I was lying on something soft and alive, like grass, but more vibrant. I opened my eyes slowly, dazzled. Above me, a sky of such an intense, pure blue it hurt to look at. Clouds like cotton plumes floated lazily. The air shimmered slightly, carrying the sweet, heavy perfume of flowers I didn't know.

 I felt a peace... strange. Empty. I tried to sit up. My arms responded, pushing my body up against the green grass. But when I looked down, at my legs stretched out on the perfect lawn, the emptiness returned, deeper than before. The same paralysis.

 No. Not still. Please, no.

 A tiny flower, with petals white as milk and a sun-yellow center, swayed beside me. I reached out, my fingers trembling, and touched a petal. It was soft as silk, alive. But when I slid my fingers down, to my own hip, to my thigh... nothing. Just the pressure of my fingers on my skin, no echo, no response from the nerves or muscles below. A trapped sob scratched my throat. I tried everything: pinched, poked, tried with all my might to move a single toe. Nothing. It was as if my body ended at my waist, and the rest was a mannequin.

 "Despair is such a human sound."

 The voice arrived before he did. Soft, melodious, like water running over smooth stones. I looked up, my heart pounding against my ribs.

 He walked through the garden as if he owned every atom of light, every petal. Tall, slender, wrapped in a simple tunic of a blinding white. His hair was a cascade of liquid gold that seemed to emit its own light, falling in perfect waves over broad shoulders. His skin, pale as marble, was immaculate. But it was the eyes that held me – large, almond-shaped, the color of molten gold, deep and ancient. And the wings... Three pairs. Immense, glorious, of a white purer than snow, moving softly with each step, even without wind. Perfect feathers, each one seeming made of solidified light. He looked... divine. The very image of an archangel stepped out of a dream.

 He stopped a few steps away, his golden gaze weighing on me with an intensity that made me shrink. The peace of the place turned into an oppressive stillness.

 "You are dead, little creature," he said, and the words, though soft, fell like stones on the tranquil lake of that garden. "Your body lies broken on the wet road. Your earthly journey is over."

 Dead. The word echoed in that void inside me. The accident. The blood. The cold. It made sense. But the pain of the paralysis was so real.

 "An... early end. Trivial," he continued, his voice a hypnotic murmur. The golden eyes scanned my face, as if reading invisible lines. "You lived without great evil, but without great light either. You studied, dreamed small dreams, loved timidly... wasted so much time." There was a spark of... pity? Disdain? In the golden eyes. "A grain of sand in the desert of existence."

 Despair began to transform into anger, cold and sharp. Who was he to judge? But the anger died when he took another step closer. His aura was overwhelming, a presence that weighed on the air, full of an antiquity and power that made me feel smaller than the flower I had touched.

 "But... perhaps," he whispered, leaning in. His scent was stronger now, sweet and intoxicating, like jasmine and aged wine. "Perhaps Death can be... delayed. A miscalculation. A second chance."

 A spark of hope, fierce and fragile, bloomed in my chest. Home. My bed. My books. My life... imperfect, but mine.

 "You... can send me back?" My voice came out hoarse, full of disbelief.

 A smile touched his perfect lips. It wasn't a warm smile. It was beautiful like the sunrise over a field of ice. "I can offer a path back. An agreement. A signature, and the portal to your world opens again. Your body... repaired. Your life, restored."

 His fingers, cold as headstones, slid across my face with an intimacy that made my stomach turn. He gently tucked a strand of hair, wet with tears, behind my ear, a gesture that should have been affectionate but only made me shrink.

 "What... what do you want in return?" My voice came out stronger than I expected, laden with a suspicion trying to pierce the fog of poisoned sweetness he exuded.

 The golden eyes gleamed, capturing the unreal light of the garden like traps. "Dear creature," his smile was a frightening work of art, "it is not a trade. It is a... mission. An opportunity for your small act of kindness - swerving from that insignificant cat - to blossom into something truly divine."

 He raised his hand, and a vision appeared between us: crowds of sick, injured, dying people in strange lands under skies I'd never seen. Their pain was a distant echo, a shudder.

 "You will save them," his voice was a hypnotic whisper, filling the void left by the paralysis. "In another world. With a gift. The power to heal any wound, any disease..." He leaned in, his icy breath caressing my skin. "Even death."

 The image of going home, walking, breathing, living... mingled with the vision of the suffering. It was a perfect bait, studded with the only thing I had left: a desperate instinct to do something meaningful before the end.

 "How?" I whispered.

 "A simple agreement," he murmured, his cold fingers tracing my jawline. "You accept the gift and the mission. And I return you... almost whole." The "almost" hung in the air, loaded, but I was so thirsty for hope I ignored the warning.

 "And the consequences?" I insisted, a last shred of caution fighting the overwhelming desire. "Of the powers? Of the agreement?"

 His lips curved into a smile that didn't reach his golden eyes. "Ah, little curious one. The nuances... can only be revealed after the yes." His thumb pressed against my lower lip, a gesture that made me wince. "But trust. The good you will do... is worth any price, is it not?"

 Home. The thought hammered, stronger than fear. Walking. Living.

 "Yes," the word escaped my lips like a trapped sigh. "I accept."

 His smile widened, triumphant and voracious. "Then it is sealed."

 He moved too fast. One cold hand grabbed the nape of my neck, immobilizing me. The other tangled in my hair, pulling my head back. And then... he kissed me.

 His lips were cold as marble, the force behind them fierce. He pried my mouth open with a violence that tore a stifled moan from me. I felt his tongue, icy and strangely rough, exploring, claiming, sealing something deeper than words. I tried to pull away instinctively, but his fingers on my nape wouldn't allow it. The golden garden spun, the sweet perfume became suffocating.

 When he finally pulled away, my lips throbbed, swollen and numb. I gasped, ashamed, with the metallic taste of fear and something strange, ancient, in my mouth. Did he really have to kiss me?

 "The pact is made," he breathed, his golden eyes now glowing with a perverse inner light. "The gift is yours. You will heal the broken, raise the fallen... you will be a saint among worms."

 A trembling sigh of relief began to form in my chest. Until he continued, his voice soft as the blade of a dagger sliding from its sheath:

 "But remember, dear one..." He leaned in again, his lips almost touching mine, so close I felt the icy breath. "With this power... you will never heal yourself. Your flesh will respond to the touch of others, but it will always be a stranger to you. And these legs..." His gaze swept down, disdainful, to my inert body. "...will never carry you again."

 Horror froze the blood in my veins. I would never walk again?

 Before I could scream, protest, curse him, his lips pressed against mine again, a quick, dry touch, like the final stamp on a condemnation document.

 And at the icy touch, he changed.

 The golden eyes exploded into blood-red, blazing with infernal malice. The glorious wings of white feathers contorted, retracting like serpents, hardening, becoming black as pitch and sharp as swords. Tips of obsidian replaced the feathers, hissing in the perfumed air. The aura of false divinity disintegrated, revealing the perverse essence behind the mask: a demon, beautiful and terrible, his true form a desecration of the heavenly garden.

 He laughed. A low, vibrating laugh, full of cruelty, echoed in the bones of that impossible place.

 "Welcome to the game, saint," he hissed, his red eyes burning like coals.

 His arms wrapped around me, with force, the embrace a perverse cage. He pulled me against his chest, so cold, while his lips – now a cruel, perfect line under eyes of incandescent ruby – found my sweaty forehead, then the salt of my tears. He kissed each salty drop with an obscene reverence, as if devouring my pain.

 "So fragile," he whispered against my skin. "So... easy. A breath of hope, a thread of kindness... and they surrender. Humans." The disdain in that final word cut deeper than anything. It was as if he wasn't just speaking of me, but of my entire race, a note of eternal contempt in his melodious voice for humanity.

 Then, anger. A brute, hot thing, erupting from the well of despair and terror. It burned my throat, dried the tears for an instant. I shoved my trembling hands against his marble chest, trying to push that monstrous perfection away.

 "Easy?" I hissed, my voice hoarse from screams and newborn hatred. His eyes narrowed, a spark of perverse interest in the crimson. "At least... we feel. You are just... this. Deceiver. Betrayer. Damned demon."

 A low growl, more like the satisfied purr of a great predator than anger, echoed in his chest. The red eyes shone with a new, dangerously fascinated light.

 "Ah," he breathed, his cold fingers gripping my chin tightly. "There's fire in the little saint. Good. You will need it."

 The wings closed.

 It wasn't an embrace, it was as if he wanted to suffocate me, the black, iridescent blades, sharp, descended like a cage of death. There was no hesitation. Obsidian tips drove into my back, piercing muscle, scraping bone, impaling me with a violence that made my mind explode in white and red behind my eyelids. A scream that was no longer human tore from my throat, shrill, rending, mingling with the wet, horrible sound of flesh being violated. I felt every inch of the blades entering, cold and relentless, as if they were stitching my soul to the darkness he personified. Blood gushed, hot and profuse, running down my inert body, dripping onto the perfect flowers of the demonic garden.

 I sobbed, choking on my own agony, my body jerking in involuntary spasms against him. He didn't let go. Held tighter. I felt my ribs creaking under the pressure, the air being forced from my lungs. The pain was an ocean, and I was drowning in it, with the demon's face, beautiful and impassive, the only thing in focus in the whirlwind of torment.

 Fury, pure and incandescent, erupted from the depths of despair. It wasn't courage, it was the last spasm of a cornered animal. With a hoarse cry that sounded more like the snarl of a beast, I gathered the last crumbs of strength I had left. My hand, trembling but determined, grabbed that golden hair, soft as silk under my bloody fingers. I pulled with all the strength pain and hatred granted me.

 He didn't expect it. A brief shudder ran through his perfect body, a fraction of a second of surprise that cracked the mask of impassivity. His red eyes widened, not with fear, but with a sudden, glacial fury.

 I seized the moment. Tilted my head and, with my teeth clenched in a rictus of pure hatred, bit down.

 My teeth sank into the cold, immaculate skin of his neck, piercing it with a force that came from the depths of my soul. I tasted the metallic, strange tang of his blood – not warm like a human's, but icy and acrid like mercury – flooding my mouth. It was a taste of ancient power and perversion, but in that moment, it was the taste of my tiny vengeance.

 He let out a guttural sound, a mix of genuine pain and infinite rage. His blade-wings contracted violently, driving even deeper into my back, wrenching a new scream of agony from me. But I didn't stop. I bit harder, tearing, trying to rip a piece of that monstrous perfection away.

 He tore me away from him, with a violence that made me feel the muscles in my neck stretch to the limit. He held me by the shoulders, his fingers like steel claws digging into my flesh, his red eyes now ignited with a fury that promised eternities of torment. Dark blood – his – ran down his perfect neck, staining the white tunic. My own blood gushed from my back, hot and vital.

 "Insolent!" His roar was no longer human. It was the rumble of mountains collapsing, the scream of abysses opening. The golden garden trembled around him, the colors fading like paint in the rain. "You dare...?"

 I spat his blood, a dark, icy jet that hit his perfect chin. "I dare... demon," I hissed, each word a thread of pain and defiance. "If I am to... suffer... let it be... fighting."

 He went still for an instant, the fury in his eyes solidifying into something more dangerous, more calculating. A slow, terrible smile stretched his lips. It was no longer the smile of the seducer, nor that of unrestrained fury. It was the smile of an executioner who had found a new way to torture his victim.

 "Fight?" He whispered, his voice now a thread of icy razor blade, laden with a promise that made my already cold blood freeze completely. "Oh, little Red Saint... you have no idea what fighting is." He pulled me closer, his bloodied face inches from mine, his breath of sulfur burning my eyes. "But you will learn. You will bleed for this act. You will bleed for every life you save, for every gentle touch you give."

 His fingers squeezed my shoulders until the bones creaked. "I will sit on your throne of goodness and watch. Watch as you crawl, as you heal others with hands that tremble with your own pain, as you smile for worms who don't deserve your breath, and you will do it because you are too good for this world, you will do it because it is the only thing you have to offer beyond what your inert legs can offer." His smile widened. "And when you are exhausted, broken, overflowing with the light you so wastefully spend... I will come. Like the shadow that swallows the twilight."

 He leaned in, his icy lips touching my ear, each word a brand of fire on my soul.

 "I will come," he whispered, his voice a serpent coiling around my marrow, "and I will take you. In every way this fragile flesh can be taken. In every manner that can make a saint scream for a death that will never come. I will fill every second of your glorious martyrdom with a suffering so profound, you will beg to have never swerved from that insignificant cat on the road."

 His red gaze plunged into mine, consuming any last vestige of hope.

 "That will be your hell, Red Saint. And you will build it for me, with your own pious hands, one day at a time."

 He gave me no time to respond. Gave no time for complete terror to take hold. With a final brutal shove of the blade-wings that buried themselves to the core of my being, as if they were tearing out not just flesh, but my very soul.

Chapter 2: The Brightest Light

 

 Pain was the first thing to return. Not in my legs—those were just dead weights swinging with every brutal step of the man carrying me like a sack of potatoes over his shoulder. The pain came from my back, throbbing and deep, where the demon's blade-wings had pierced my soul. Warm blood ran down my side, mingling with the stranger's acidic sweat. The smell was of iron, damp earth, and fear.

 "Awake, are ya, cripple?" The voice was a harsh growl above me. "Thought I'd been carryin' a corpse all this time."

 I tried to lift my head. The forest was a dark tangle of twisted trunks and thick foliage, illuminated only by the flickering light of a torch he held in his free hand. With every step, my stomach slammed against his bony shoulder.

 "W... where am I?" I stammered, feigning a confusion that wasn't entirely a lie. The world was spinning.

 He stopped abruptly, making my inert body jolt. His huge hand—calloused and dirty with earth and dried blood—grabbed my hair, yanking my head back to look at me. His face was hewn from granite: a square jaw covered in sparse, dirty stubble, a nose flattened by old fights, and small, dark eyes like river stones. No compassion. Only weariness and raw distrust.

 "Where d'ya think ya are? In the middle of the Blackwood, where only dead things or cursed things walk at night." His breath reeked of rancid onions and alcohol. "And you, what are ya? Another one of *those* women? A witch runnin' from some pyre? A whore the bandits tossed out when they got tired?"

 "No!" The word came out stronger than I intended. "I'm not... any of those things. I just... don't remember."

 He let out a snort of disdain, shoving my head forward. "Don't remember. Convenient." His eyes dropped to my useless legs, hanging like rags before him. A spit of disgust landed on the ground nearby. "Crippled. Perfect. That's all I needed. Another useless mouth to feed in the village. Another burden."

 He threw me to the ground. I landed with a hard thud, pushed myself up into a sitting position with my trembling hands, not taking my eyes off him.

 I saw the quick movement at his belt. The blade that appeared wasn't a hunting knife—it was a short, thick dagger, made for stabbing. The torchlight reflected off the dirty metal.

 "Best to end this now," he growled, more to himself than to me. "The woods are already full of corpses. One more won't make a difference."

 Terror froze my blood. Not just because of death—I knew death. But the injustice of it. After everything... to die at the hands of a brute in a dark forest? No way!

 "Wait!" The word gushed out, high and sharp. "I... I'm a healer!"

 The blade stopped in the air, inches from my neck. The man's narrow eyes squinted even further, studying my face as if I were a rare insect.

 "Healer?" He spat the word like poison. "That one ya remember, huh? Gonna crawl to the sick like a worm?"

 "I... don't remember how I know. But I know." The lie burned my tongue, but the instinct for survival was stronger. "I have the gift."

 "The gift," he repeated, sarcastic. "What herb for swamp fever? And for rotten flesh?"

 I froze. My mind was empty of all knowledge of herbs.

 "I... don't remember the herbs," I admitted, my voice fading. "Just... just the gift. I feel it."

 He laughed. A dry, humorless sound. "Fuckin' convenient." But he didn't lower the knife. Instead, he spun the dagger and held the hilt out to me.

 "Prove it."

 I looked at the blade, then at his relentless face. My hands were shaking violently. How could I heal? How could I even try? The demon had said I would never heal myself... but what about others?

 "I... I can't heal myself," I whispered, shame and fear mixing in my chest. "The gift... it only works on others."

 He let out another snort, but this time there was something different in his eyes. Not belief. It was despair masked as cynicism.

 "You're suspicious," he spat, but he took the knife back with a sharp movement. "Fine. See this?" He turned his back to me, lowering his rough linen shirt.

 The torch illuminated what was beneath. It wasn't a fresh wound. It was a scar. But what a scar. It crossed his muscular back from shoulder to shoulder, deep, jagged, and *alive*. It wasn't closed. Red, inflamed lines radiated from the main fissure, where yellowish pus oozed over tense muscles. It smelled of rotten flesh and sickness. It looked like the claws that had made it had never really left, merely slept beneath the skin, corroding him from within.

 "Got it from one of 'em," he said, his voice hoarse now, laden with an old pain. "Forest demons. The same ones that'll smell your crippled blood and come tear ya to pieces before dawn if ya don't heal me now." He looked over his shoulder, his dark eyes burning in the gloom. "So, healer. Prove your gift."

 My heart beat like a caged bird. To touch that... was to touch the very corruption the demon had promised. I remembered his words: "*You will bleed for every life you save...*" But what was the alternative? To be left there, immobile, to be devoured?

 With trembling hands, I stretched out my fingers. Hatred for the demon boiled in me, mixed with a sharp desperation to return home. When my fingertips touched the inflamed edge of the scar, it was like plunging into ice and fire at the same time.

 A sharp pain cut through my own back, exactly where the black wings had penetrated. I felt a piercing cold, as if the touch were tearing not his flesh, but something inside *me*. A moan escaped my lips. It was a sensation of ripping, of something vital being sucked out of me and forced into that putrid wound.

 Under my fingers, the flesh began to move. The inflamed edges receded, the pus disappeared as if absorbed, the intense red of the infection faded to a raw pink. The tissue stretched, closing the horrible fissure from the inside out, leaving only a pale, rough line in place of the open scar. It was fast. Brutal. And painful. When I finished, I was panting, sweating cold, the pain in my back throbbing in unison with my heart.

 The man stood motionless. His heavy breathing was the only sound in the forest for a long moment. He raised his hand, reaching over his shoulder, feeling the now-smooth back where ruin had reigned. His fingers found only the new scar, thin and cold.

 He turned slowly. There was no gratitude on his face. There was shock. Deep distrust. And something like awe. The dark eyes examined me, from my pale, sweaty face to my useless legs.

 "Garrant," he said, his voice lower, less rough. "My name is Garrant."

 Without another word, he bent down. This time, he didn't toss me like a burden over his shoulder. His arms, still strong as tree trunks, slid with an almost clumsy care under my knees and back. He lifted me as if carrying something fragile. Something valuable. The smell of sweat and earth was still there, but the hatred was gone. Replaced by a heavy caution.

 "Hold the torch," he ordered, extending the handle to me. His hands, as they adjusted my weight against his chest, avoided touching my back where blood still flowed.

 I grabbed the torch, my hands still shaking. The heat of the flame was a living thing, contrasting with the cold that now inhabited my core. Garrant began to walk again, his steps still heavy, but more stable. The black forest swallowed the light ahead of us when the air stopped.

 An absolute silence fell over the forest, as if all creatures had held their breath at the same time. The rustling of leaves died. The cracking of twigs ceased. Even the icy wind seemed to freeze. Garrant halted, his body going rigid as a statue under my weight. The torch in my hand crackled, loud and nervous, the only living thing in that vacuum of sound.

 "Shit," he snarled, too low to be a warning, too loud to be just for himself. "Don't move."

 But it wasn't me who moved. It was the darkness ahead that bent.

 It detached itself from behind an ancient oak, more a thick shadow than a solid form. But as it moved into the circle of torchlight, the thing coagulated into nightmare. It was the height of a horse, but it crawled like an insect on unnaturally jointed, thin limbs, ending in claws that looked like rusty knives. Its torso was a mass of writhing tentacles, pulsing like exposed intestines, covered in a black, slimy skin that reflected the firelight in sickly shades of green and purple. Where a head should be, there was only a cluster of twisted horns, like rotten tree branches, surrounding a single vertical slit—a mouth full of needle-sharp teeth, from which dripped a thick, steaming drool. The smell coming from it was a mixture of rotting flesh, sulfur, and the nauseating sweetness of decaying flowers, so strong it made my eyes water.

 Garrant let out a muffled curse, his arm wrapping around me with an instinctive, protective force, while his other hand fumbled for the dagger on his belt. But the demon... ignored him. Its multiple eyes, tiny dots of dull red scattered across the tentacles, fixed on *me*. The mouth-slit opened into a grotesque and impossible smile, and from it came a low, guttural snarl that vibrated in my bones.

 But inside my head, the snarl transformed into words. Hissing, rasping, like stones being dragged:

 "Ssssacrifice... of the Masssster..."

 Garrant flinched beside me, but his expression was of pure hatred and earthly fear. He had only heard the animal snarl. I heard the voice whispering from the depths.

 "What?" I whispered, involuntarily, my wide eyes fixed on the creature. "Who do you speak of?"

 The external snarl grew, a roar of anger that made the torch flicker violently. But inside my mind, the voice became clearer, triumphant and venomous:

 "The angel who fell from heaven, of course! The Fair One... the brightest light... The one who marked you!" The creature took a step forward, a claw sinking into the black earth. "He watches you, broken flesh... He waits..."

 A chill that had nothing to do with the night's cold ran down my spine.

 It was as if I had touched a live wire. The demon convulsed. Its grotesque body arched backward at an impossible angle, the tentacles writhing like poisoned snakes. The external snarl turned into a high-pitched shriek, of pain or terror, that made Garrant take a step back, confused. But in my head, the voice screamed, torn by absolute panic:

 "NO! I WAS NOT TO SPEAK! HE WILL HEAR! HE ALWAYS HEARS—"

 The mental scream cut off abruptly. The demon's body began to bubble from within. Under the black, slimy skin, huge, irregular bubbles emerged and moved, as if something were boiling in its guts. The red eyes popped, one by one, gushing black pus. The mouth opened in a last, silent scream of agony before the skin ripped apart, not with blood, but with a torrent of black, fetid steam. The bones, visible for an instant under the melting flesh, cracked and disintegrated like chalk. In less than ten seconds, where a nightmare creature had been, there remained only a steaming puddle of black sludge and a few fragments of broken horn, melting like wax into the earth.

 The silence returned, heavier and more charged than before. The smell of rot and sulfur was suffocating. Garrant was motionless, his breath caught. He stared at the steaming puddle, then at me. His eyes, once full of cautious awe, were now wide with raw, primal horror.

 "You..." His voice came out hoarse, strangled. "You were talkin' to it. Before... before it burst. Whisperin'. I saw your lips movin'."

 He lowered me roughly, as if I had become hot to the touch. My useless feet hit the ground with a dull thud. He took a step back, the dagger back in his hand, pointing at me.

 "I don't care if you're a witch," he spat, each word an ice pick. "Or a runaway whore or the Devil's own mistress. But if the others in the village see you whisperin' to demons..." He pointed the blade at the black puddle that still steamed. "...they won't ask questions. They won't doubt. They'll tie you to a stake, pile wood at your feet, and light the fire before you can blink. And I..." He paused, his dark eyes burning with a mix of fear and brutal pragmatism. "...I won't lift a finger to stop it. Understand, healer?"

 Garrant didn't wait for an answer. He turned, his broad back (now marked only by the pale line of the scar I had sealed) an impenetrable barrier. "Get the torch," he ordered, without looking back. "And don't speak again. Not to me, not to the wind, not to anything you see in the shadows. If you want to live 'til dawn, stay quiet."

 I grabbed the torch handle, my hands shaking so violently the flame danced madly, casting grotesque shadows on the tree trunks. Garrant let out a deep sigh before picking me up in his arms. I looked back at the black puddle that had been a demon, as we moved away.

Notes:

Here it is, fresh off the press! As you might have guessed, I'm not a native English speaker.

Chapter 3: Bargain of the Survivor

 

 Sleep was a black, dreamless abyss, a momentary refuge from the lancinating pain and the absurd reality I found myself in. I woke slowly, as if emerging from a deep, frozen lake. The first sensation was the smell: a pungent, complex mixture of wood smoke, acrid incense, and crushed herbs – something medicinal, bitter, with a sweet and strangely floral touch. Then, the texture: rough straw against my skin, lightly pricking my arms and the side of my face pressed against it. And then, the awareness of my naked body. Completely naked. Lying on my stomach, my chest compressed against the rustic mattress, my back exposed to the cabin's cold air.

 A low, hoarse hum, in a guttural language I had never heard, filled the silence. I turned my head with difficulty, my neck muscles stiff. An old woman was sitting on a low stool beside the bed. Her hair was a cloud of disheveled white and silver strands. Her face was a map of deep wrinkles, but the dark eyes observing me were sharp, penetrating. She held a long pipe made of dark wood, from which a thick, gray smoke slowly rose, contributing to the aromatic haze of the place. The hands handling a mortar full of green leaves were gnarled, strong, covered in spots and small scars.

 "What... what happened?" My voice came out hoarse, strange to my own ears.

 The dark eyes landed on me, studying me. She took the pipe from her mouth, releasing a smoke ring that dissolved in the heavy air. "The boy. Garrant. Brought you. Bleeding, nearly dead. Said he found you in the forest. Said you... healed him." There was a calculated pause, a weight on the word "healed." "That you were a healer. After leaving you here, he left again. Game is scarce, and mouths to feed are many." She went back to pounding the herbs in the mortar, the *thump-thump* sound echoing in the small cabin. "I am here to clean those cuts on your back and... try to bring back what was lost inside your head."

 Healed him. The statement echoed within me. The supposed gift the demon had given me. It had worked; it healed the old wound. A sharp pang of guilt mixed with a strange, piercing relief hit me, but it was quickly smothered by fear. Bring back what was lost. She wanted my memories. Memories of asphalt, roaring engines, the accident, the garden, the angel... things that would make her lock me up or burn me at the stake as a madwoman or a witch.

 The old woman set the mortar aside and approached with a damp cloth and a dark green paste. Her fingers, surprisingly smooth despite their visual roughness, began delicately cleaning the cuts on my back. The sensation was strange: a mix of stinging, relief from the ointment's coolness, and a profound vulnerability. Every touch was a screaming reminder of my nudity, my immobility. My legs, useless, lay inert on the straw.

 "Was it a harpy?" she asked suddenly, pressing the paste onto a deeper cut. I let out an involuntary gasp of pain. "Or perhaps a hungry goblin? These cuts... are strange."

 "A... demon," I blurted out before I could think better of it. The image of the "angel" with its serpentine smile and eyes that turned into pools of eternal malice sprang vividly to my mind. "I think it was a demon."

 A rough sound came from her throat. A dry, humorless laugh. "A demon, girl? If it were a demon, you wouldn't be here moaning in my bed. You'd be in its stomach, or worse, serving as a plaything in the depths. No. This was the work of a lesser predator. More... opportunistic." Her fingers slid lower, near my waist. "But this here... this is strange."

 The blood froze in my veins. Her fingers landed lightly exactly at the base of my spine, where my skin burned with an internal sensation that had nothing to do with the cuts. Where the demon had marked its ownership when I signed the pact.

 "A symbol," she murmured, her voice full of wary curiosity. "Like a distorted star, or a web burned into the skin. I've never seen anything like it. It doesn't seem natural. Not any spell I know..." She pressed lightly. The mark responded with a warm, painful throb, like an evil heart under my skin. I swallowed dryly, trying to control the tremor that wanted to take over my body.

 It was then that the totality of my situation hit me with full force. I was naked. Completely exposed. At the mercy of this stranger, in this strange world, with a demonic mark screaming on my skin. An intense heat, a mix of dread and shame, rose from my chest to my face. Instinctively, I tried to squirm, to cover myself, but my arms barely responded, weak and heavy, and my legs... well, my legs were just dead weight. A low moan of frustration and humiliation escaped my lips.

 She stopped. Looked at my burning face. A slight air of disapproval crossed her dark eyes. "Does nudity shame you, child? It's just skin. Bones. Flesh. The body is a tool, a vessel. Nothing more natural. Save your shame for acts that truly deserve it." The brutal frankness of her statement left me speechless, but it didn't lessen my discomfort. She went back to applying the paste, ignoring my embarrassment. "Where are you from? What is your name? How many years do you carry?"

 The trap. The necessary lie. I closed my eyes for a moment, feigning concentration, pain, confusion. "I... don't know," I whispered. "I just... just woke up in the forest. In pain. Nothing before that." I opened my eyes. "My name... I can't remember."

 The old woman sighed, a tired sound. "Memory is a skittish bird, it flees when we need it most. But it will return. By your body, I'd say you're in your early twenties. Past the age to be married, with children running around." She said this with a naturalness that deeply irritated me. In my previous life, that suggestion would already have been offensive. Now, trapped and mutilated in this medieval nightmare, it sounded like a bad joke.

 "I don't want to get married," I said with more force than I intended, anger overcoming caution for a moment.

 Her dark eyes narrowed. "Mind your words, girl. Words have weight. Individual desire is a luxury few can afford. Here, we survive together, everyone plays their part." She finished applying the ointment and covered my back with a clean, damp, cool cloth. The immediate relief was almost comforting. "We are in Willow Village. The river protects us on one side, the forest threatens us on the other. I am Mezima. The voice and hands that try to keep death away from these people."

 The village name, the river, the forest – vital information for a dimensional castaway like me. I stored every syllable. Mezima stood up, her bones cracking. "The memory stubbornly refuses to return. Perhaps it needs a stronger push." She walked to a dark wood chest leaning against the log wall. "Garrant is a good hunter. He catches not only meat but also... sources. Sometimes, the blood or essence of a magical creature, properly prepared, can unlock what is locked inside the mind." She opened the chest, rummaging inside. "I will use one of the lesser creatures he brought."

 Anxiety, cold and sharp, gripped my stomach. Magical creature? Blood? Essence? What the hell did she intend to do? Give me a potion of goblin blood to drink? The dread must have shown on my face.

 "Isn't... isn't it dangerous?" I asked.

 Mezima shot me an impatient look. "Everything is dangerous, girl. Breathing is dangerous. But it's not optional." She took something small and dark from the chest – a rudimentary cage made of thin, intertwined twigs. "Wait here. You won't be alone." She turned to leave the small compartment that was the room.

 It was only when she moved that my peripheral vision caught the other presence in the opposite corner of the cabin. Almost hidden in the gloom, on another straw bed, was a small figure. A girl. Too thin, too pale, even in the weak light. Her blonde hair was spread like dry straw on the rough pillow. She was breathing, but it was a shallow, almost imperceptible movement. She looked more like a sleeping corpse than a living child. A faint smell of sickness, of something withered, emanated from her.

 For a long moment, all that was heard was the crackling of a fire somewhere nearby and the ghostly breath of the girl. I looked at her, at the terrible abandonment of that small form, and a wave of genuine compassion, mingled with my own despair, flooded me.

 The cabin door creaked again. Mezima returned, carrying the small twig cage. Now I could see what was inside.

 And I felt sick.

 It wasn't a frog, a mouse, or anything my 21st-century mind could classify as a "lesser creature." Inside the cage, thrashing frantically against the wooden slats, was a fairy. Or something that resembled the romantic idea of a fairy, perverted by sheer cruelty. It was tiny, the size of my hand. Its skin was a pale, translucent moss green, revealing fine, dark veins underneath. Membranous wings, like a dragonfly's, but torn and stained, beat desperately, producing a high, distressed buzz. The eyes, enormous and black like ebony buttons, occupied half of its tiny, strangely humanoid face, full of terror. It was naked, emaciated, with limbs as thin as twigs. A tiny iron chain wrapped around its ankle, fastened to the bottom of the cage. It let out sharp, inaudible shrieks, but the agony was palpable.

 "My God..." The exclamation escaped my lips before I could stop it, in a horrified whisper. "What... what is that? What are you going to do with her?"

 Mezima placed the cage on a small table next to my bed. The fairy shrank into a corner, trembling, its huge black eyes fixed on us with a primal hatred mixed with fear.

 "This," said Mezima with a coldness that froze me, "is a tree pest. One of those that poison children's minds and lead souls to their elders' cooking pots." She spat on the packed earth floor. "Magical creatures, girl. No matter how pretty, don't be fooled, they know no pity." Mezima didn't look away as she spoke. "Humans can be cruel, yes. But at least we know when we are cruel. We know it's wrong. These things? Cruelty is no different from kindness or care to them; they are lesser demons."

 She pointed a crooked, gnarled finger at the sleeping girl in the corner. "You see Elena? She was a cheerful, chatty child. Like a little bird. She had friends. The miller's son, the weaver's grandson... and my grandson, Tomas." Mezima's voice caught for a moment. A wet glimmer shone in her dark eyes, quickly suppressed by an ancient anger. "The parents warned them. Don't go beyond the stream, don't trust the dancing lights. But children are children. One day, the dancing lights appeared. These pests." She gave the cage a violent flick, making it swing. The fairy inside shrieked, terrified. "At first, they played. Did tricks, showed flowers that glowed. Won their trust. And then... then they led the children away. Beyond the stream. Away from the boundaries, into the heart of the forest where not even the bravest hunters go."

 Mezima closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. When she opened them again, they were black stones. "They got lost. The pests vanished. Garrant and other men went after them. It took days. They found... pieces. Torn clothes, gnawed bones, little shoes soaked in blood. My Tomas... my boy of only six..." She swallowed hard, her voice reduced to a rough whisper. "They only found his arm, still clutching the wooden necklace I made him."

 A violent nausea rose in my throat. I looked at the small fairy in the cage. Its black eyes, once full of terror, now seemed just... empty. Resigned?

 "Elena," Mezima continued, wiping her face quickly with the back of her hand, "Elena was the only one who came back. Found three days later, wandering by the stream's edge, covered in mud and blood that wasn't hers. She hasn't spoken since. Doesn't eat on her own. Doesn't recognize her father. She's like a flower wilted before it could bloom. She lives... if you can call it that... only because Garrant kills himself hunting, bringing what he can to pay for her care. The scar he carries on his back..." She made a wide gesture over my own bandaged back. "...came from when the bigger sisters of this one," she pointed again at the cage, "tried to devour him alive while he searched for his daughter's body. They are like piranhas, girl. In a swarm, they reduce a man to bones in minutes. Innocent? No. Never."

 The story was terrible. Monstrous. And it cast a completely new light on the small, trembling being in the cage. Was it possible? Were these tiny creatures pack predators? The image of swarms of them covering a child, gnawing... I shuddered, looking at Elena. The price of her survival was written on every protruding bone, on every empty breath. And Garrant carried not only physical scars but the unbearable burden of having failed to save everyone except a shadow of his daughter.

 Mezima's anger and desire for vengeance were palpable, justifiable in this brutal context. But the horror in the gaze of that tiny, imprisoned creature was also real. Was she guilty? Or just a piece in a perverse ecosystem? The demon that had deceived me also had a beautiful smile at first.

 "If I... if I heal Elena," I asked, my voice sounding strange in the heavy silence that followed Mezima's story, "If I bring her back... will you give me the fairy? And... and show me the other creatures Garrant captured?"

 Mezima let out another of those dry, hoarse laughs. It was an unpleasant sound. "Heal Elena? Girl, if you bring the light back to Garrant's daughter's eyes, if you make her eat on her own, say 'father'... you'll not only have the pest. You'll be called a saint in this village. And the other beasts in my collection? Of course. Garrant brings what he finds. Acid-web spiders, screaming mushrooms, bog worms... things useful for those who know how to use them." Her gaze fixed on me, intense, appraising. "But first, we need to awaken your memories. And for that..." She reached her hand towards the cage where the fairy cowered, its huge black eyes now fixed on me, full of a primordial hatred and a silent fear. "...we need the essence of this one."

 Mezima, the old matriarch, the Mother of Willow Village, smiled. It wasn't a warm smile. It was the smile of someone who knew the price of survival and was willing to pay it, drop by drop of strange blood. "Are you ready, healer? The truth, whatever it may be, usually hurts more than the deepest cut."

 She opened the small door of the twig cage.

 The fairy's high-pitched buzz, a silent scream of primordial terror, cut the air like a knife. Mezima's gnarled fingers were inches from grabbing the tiny green creature when the words exploded from my throat, louder than I intended.

 "Wait!"

 Mezima froze, her hand hovering over the open cage. The dark eyes, once full of merciless determination, turned to me, laden with a sharp question and a flash of irritation. "What, girl? The truth cannot wait."

 I swallowed, feeling my heart hammer against my ribs. Elena's empty gaze in the corner, the image of the torn-apart children, the mute desperation of Garrant carried on his scarred back... Everything clashed with the pure terror in the prisoner fairy's gaze. The ritual Mezima proposed, using the creature's "essence," smelled of torture and black magic. One thing I knew: The gift I carried, however cursed its origin, was for healing. Not extraction. Not pain. And perhaps... perhaps it was the only genuinely good thing I could do in this hell.

 "I heal her first," I said, jerking my chin towards the sleeping girl. My voice still trembled, but there was a stubbornness in it that I didn't know I possessed. "I heal Elena. I'll use... my gift. Whatever I have. After... after we deal with the memories."

 Mezima furrowed her thick white eyebrows. Her gaze ran over my fragile body, naked and covered in herbs, resting on my inert legs. "You? Sitting there? How do you intend to heal her? Touch her? Does your power work from a distance?" The skepticism was as thick as the smoke from her pipe.

 "I don't know," I admitted, frustration mixing with determination. "But I need to try. Before... before anything else." I stared into the old woman's dark eyes. "Please."

 A heavy silence fell over the cabin, broken only by the fairy's frantic buzzing and Elena's shallow sigh. Mezima studied my face, searching for fraud, madness, or perhaps just a thread of genuine hope for her heart-granddaughter. Finally, with a grunt that could have been resignation or disdain, she closed the little cage door with a dry *click*. The buzzing subsided to a low, constant whimper. She pushed the cage to the corner of the table, out of reach.

 "Stupid and stubborn," she muttered, but without the previous harshness. "Like a new donkey. But let's see this 'healing' of yours." She approached the bed. "First, you need to sit up. You can't lie on your stomach forever, and you certainly won't reach Elena lying down."

 Moving was an epic battle. Every muscle protested, the cuts on my back throbbed under the herbs, and my legs were dead, senseless weights. Mezima, surprisingly strong for her thin, aged body, slipped her arms under my shoulders. Her smell was of smoke, bitter herbs, and earth. With an effort that made her grunt, she pulled me up, turning me over like a sack of potatoes. The feeling of being completely naked and at her mercy was uncomfortable, but the focus on Elena helped stifle some of the embarrassment. She dragged me to the edge of the bed and, with more effort, maneuvered my useless legs to the side, helping me sit. Dizziness hit me hard, and I had to hold onto her gnarled arm to keep from falling back.

 "Hold on," she ordered, placing my hands on the worn arms of an old wooden chair beside the bed. I clung to it like a castaway. With one last powerful heave, Mezima hoisted me from the bed and deposited me into the chair. I slid a bit, my legs slipping uselessly on the packed earth floor. The chair creaked under my weight but held. I was sitting. Naked, trembling, covered in bandages and herbs, but sitting. The world spun for a moment before steadying.

 And the girl, Elena, was there. Just about three meters away. It felt like a mile.

 Mezima looked from me to the girl, an "and now what?" expression on her face. I took a deep breath, trying to ignore the pain, the weakness, the cold air on my skin. "I need... to touch her," I said, my hands gripping the chair arms until my knuckles turned white.

 The old woman sighed, a long, tired sound. "Then go, girl. Go." There was no help in her voice. It was a challenge. A test.

 I looked at my legs. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The frustration was a silent scream inside me. But Elena was there. Pale. Still. Dying in a slow, terrible way. Compassion, or perhaps just the desperation to do something good with this curse I carried, overcame the anger and humiliation.

 With effort, I let go of one arm of the chair and leaned forward. My heavy, uncoordinated body unbalanced, and I fell to the side, my shoulder hitting the cold floor with a dull thud. A grunt of pain escaped. Mezima didn't move.

 I swallowed my wounded pride and the pain. I pushed myself up with my arms, dragging my torso forward, my legs dragging like useless rags behind me. The floor was rough, cold, dirty. Every conquered centimeter was an agony of sore muscles and exposed skin scraping the earth. The mark on my spine pulsed. I had never liked children. In my previous life, I found them loud, intrusive, too demanding. Cute from a distance, in photos, but a nuisance up close. It was strange to feel this agonizing urgency for a child I didn't even know.

 It took an eternity. Cold sweat ran down my forehead and spine, mixing with the herbs. I was breathing heavily. But finally, I reached the straw bed where Elena rested. I stayed there, propped on my elbows, panting, looking at the girl's ghostly face.

 I stretched out a trembling arm. My fingers, dirty with earth and sweat, lightly touched the lifeless blonde strands of her hair. It was like dry straw. I slid my fingers with a delicacy I didn't know I possessed to the girl's icy forehead. The cold emanating from her was more than physical; it was a void, an abyss of fear and pain so deep it almost made me recoil. It was like touching the frozen darkness that had swallowed her soul. I felt the echo of the other children's silent screams, Garrant's desperation, Mezima's rending pain at finding only an arm. It was all there, trapped inside that broken little shell.

 Closing my eyes, I focused not on the anger, not on the pact, not on my own disgrace. I focused on that spark of life that still trembled, weak as a flame in a strong wind, inside Elena. I focused on healing. Not on the how, but on the deep, pure desire to expel that darkness, to bring the warmth back.

 A wave of heat, different from the mark's burning, began in my core – it spread through my arms, concentrating in the palm of my hand resting on Elena's forehead. It was as if my own life energy was being siphoned, flowing into her. A soft, golden, warm light emanated for an instant under my hand, so fast I might have imagined it. The heat increased, becoming almost uncomfortable in my palm.

 Then, it happened.

 Like ink spreading in clear water, a slight blush began to rise from Elena's pale cheeks, a soft, healthy pink of life returning. The cold under my hand diminished, replaced by a comforting warmth. The shallow, almost imperceptible breath became deeper, more regular. A small sigh escaped the girl's thin, cracked lips.

 Slowly, like petals opening to the morning sun, Elena's eyelids lifted.

 Eyes of a clear, limpid blue like the sky after rain, completely free of the empty haze that had enveloped them. Eyes that looked directly into mine, full of an innocent confusion and a silent question. She blinked, slowly, trying to focus on my dirty, sweaty, and probably frightened face leaning over hers.

 The voice that came out of her was a hoarse whisper, like the rustling of dry leaves.

 "Are you... an angel?"

 The question, so innocent, so loaded with a hope I didn't deserve, hit me like a punch in the stomach. An angel? Me, marked by a demon, mutilated, dirty, and crawling on the floor?

 "No," I replied, my voice hoarse from effort. "I'm not an angel. I'm just... here to help."

 Before I could say more, a rough, muffled sob came from behind me. Mezima. The old matriarch was on her knees beside the bed, her wrinkled face pressed against the straw mattress near Elena's head. Her shoulders shook violently. They weren't silent tears, but a guttural, hoarse cry coming from the depths of a long-held pain. A scream of relief so intense it was almost pain.

 "Grandma?" Elena's voice, still weak but clear, sounded like a miracle.

 Mezima raised her face, flooded with tears that carved paths through the dirt on her cheeks. Her dark eyes, now red and swollen, stared at her granddaughter as if seeing a precious ghost returned. She didn't say a word. She simply enveloped Elena in a hug so strong it seemed to want to fuse her to herself, burying her face in the blonde hair now touched by life. Her shoulders continued to shake, but now with a different emotion.

 Past the initial shock of the crushing hug, Elena blinked, looking over her grandmother's shoulder at me, still lying on the floor next to the bed. "Where... where is father?"

 Mezima released her just enough to look into her eyes. "He went hunting, Lena," she said, her voice thick with tears but softer than I had ever heard it before. "He'll be back soon. He'll come back and see you... see you here." The last word was a sigh of ecstasy.

 "Who is she, grandma?" Elena pointed a skinny little finger in my direction. "The woman who... who took the cold away?"

 Mezima turned to me, her eyes still tearful, but now containing a deep respect and boundless perplexity. "Who are you, girl? The one who brought my light back? Tell me your name."

 My name. My real name belonged to another world, a dead life. Giving it here would be insanity. My eyes landed on the small cage on the corner of the table. The fairy inside watched, its huge black eyes now fixed on me with an intensity that disturbed me. It wasn't terror or hatred. Something more... calculating. Observant. Giving my real name felt dangerous. And I didn't want that creature, guilty or not, to be tortured in vain to "recover" memories I hadn't lost.

 "Sera," I said, the word coming out before I could think better. It was short. It sounded almost celestial. A cruel irony, coming from me. "My name is Sera." Seraphim, I thought, remembering the burning wings the demon had used as a disguise. A false name for a false saint.

 "Sera," Mezima repeated, testing the name. A slight smile touched her lips. "Saint Sera." She looked at Elena. "It was Saint Sera who brought you back, Lena. Saint Sera, the healer."

 "Saint Sera," whispered Elena, her blue eyes shining with an admiration that burned inside me. I was no saint. I was a fraud, a soft-hearted fool.

 Mezima carefully released Elena, as if she were made of glass, and stood up. Her movements had a new energy. She went to the table, picked up the small twig cage where the green fairy cowered, and returned. Without ceremony, she placed the cage on my naked lap, on the dry herbs that still partially covered me.

 "Your reward, Sera," she said, her voice firm, her gaze inescapable. "And your responsibility. You healed more than Elena's body. You brought her soul back. You brought my soul back." She paused, swallowing hard. "Willow Village has a new healer. A saint. Saint Sera." The title sounded like a crown of thorns. "You are one of us now."

 The fairy in the cage on my lap emitted a low buzz. Its huge black eyes didn't leave me. There was no gratitude there, much less fear.

 Mezima looked towards the door, where the daylight was beginning to filter in more strongly. "Garrant will return. And when he sees his daughter... when the village finds out..." Her lips curved into something that wasn't exactly a smile, but an expression of fierce triumph. "Prepare yourself, Saint Sera. Healing sometimes hurts more than the wound. Especially when it comes with hope."

 She turned to stroke Elena's hair, who watched me with those blue eyes full of a naive faith I knew I would destroy. The weight of the cage on my lap, the weight of the title, the weight of the fairy's and the healed child's eyes – it all crushed me. I had healed a girl. I had gained a false name, a holy title, and a magical prisoner. And, somehow, without leaving that cold floor, I had become part of something much larger and much more dangerous than the forest that had swallowed me.

 The mark on my spine throbbed, a silent reminder of the true price that was still to come.

Notes:

I'm eager to hear what you thought about the developments in this chapter.
:)

Chapter 4: The Price of Compassion

Notes:

New chapter is up. Enjoy!

 

 A month. Thirty days that both dragged and flew by in Willow Village. Thirty days under the heavy, yet now familiar, mantle of the title of Saint Sera. The name, invented in a moment of panic, clung to me like poison ivy. I was a walking contradiction: The "saint" marked by a demon, the healer who could barely take care of herself.

 Acceptance came swiftly, fueled by the miracle of Elena. The girl had become my shadow. Wherever I went—or rather, wherever Mezima or another charitable soul took me — there was Elena, her clear blue eyes shining with a devotion that cut me to the soul. She brought me wildflowers (wilting, but full of intent), told me muddled stories about butterflies and streams, and sat silently beside me as I tried to understand Mezima's herbs or simply stared at the horizon. It was strange, this connection forged in desperation and healing. I had never liked children, but Elena... Elena was different. Perhaps because her newly recovered light was a fragile echo of my own lost humanity. I liked her; she was like a fresh breeze in all of this. Sometimes, I could almost pretend things were normal.

 The entire village watched me with a mixture of reverence and curiosity. "Saint Sera healed little Elena," they whispered. "Saint Sera eased old Thom's joint pain." "Saint Sera brought down the weaver's baby's fever." Every small act of my cursed gift was amplified, transformed into legend. The gratitude was palpable, manifested in still-warm bread, wild berries, timid glances, and respectful nods. It was... oppressive. Every "thank you" was another grain on the scale of my burden, a reminder of the farce I was performing. I felt filthy. A fool who had let herself be deceived by a demon's sweet voice.

 Garrant, however, remained an island of distance in this sea of human warmth. He did not avoid me, but he did not approach. His gratitude was not expressed in words, but in wood and effort. A few weeks after Elena's healing, he appeared at Mezima's hut carrying something strange: a low, sturdy chair, made of well-worked branches and resilient logs, with two crude but functional wheels attached to the front sides.

 "For you," he said, his voice as rough as ever, avoiding my direct gaze. "Elena said... you crawled. Not dignified. Not practical." He set the chair down with a dull thud. "Can push yourself with your hands. Or someone pushes. Better than crawling."

 It was a brutally practical gift, born of observation and the only form of care he knew how to express. Elena instantly became even more my favorite child. The chair. My freedom. The first spark of autonomy since I had awoken in this world. I tested it that same day, inside the hut. It was hard, uncomfortable, and required arm strength, but it was *mine*. I could move. Not much, not far, but I could. A genuine "thank you" escaped my lips as he turned to leave. He merely nodded, an almost imperceptible movement, and disappeared from the hut.

 Mezima, since that afternoon when Elena returned to life, treated me with a cautious reverence. Her initial skepticism had given way to a silent respect and meticulous care. She still studied me, especially when I used the gift, her black eyes seeking to understand the source of that golden light emanating from my hands. But her harshness had softened. She taught me the names of the herbs, the dangers of the forest beyond the stream, and ensured I had the best of their scarce food. It was a strange alliance, but a solid one, founded on that shared miracle.

 The most unexpected gift came from Lyra, the traveler. She and her husband, Borin, a tall, silent man with shoulders that seemed carved from rock, appeared in the village every full moon, bringing fabrics, salt, small tools, and news from the world beyond the willows. Lyra was like a colorful bird among sparrows—easy laughter, curious eyes, dresses that seemed made from distant skies. On her last visit, after hearing the stories of "Saint Sera," she approached me with a cloth-wrapped bundle.

 "For you, Saint," she said, her smile lighting up her tired face. "Something to shine like your eyes."

 Inside the bundle was a dress. Simple in cut, but made of a fabric I had never seen: silky, with a base of silver-gray so deep it seemed to absorb the light, sprinkled with tiny threads that shimmered like stars at the slightest movement. It was cool to the touch, luxurious. When I put it on (with Mezima's help, who sighed, impressed), I felt a strange transformation. The silver dramatically enhanced the emerald green of my eyes, making them seem more vivid, almost supernatural. I looked at my blurry reflection in a basin of water and barely recognized myself. The crippled woman, covered in dirt and pain, had given way to an ethereal figure wrapped in starlight. It was beautiful. And I felt like an even greater impostor.

 While my position in the village solidified and my wardrobe gained a touch of otherworldliness, my other responsibility remained hidden. The fairy. Mezima had kept part of the bargain — I had it. But the promise of seeing the other captured creatures never materialized. "It's no place for you," Mezima would say firmly whenever I asked. "They are dangerous things, not for saintly eyes."

 So I cared for the little green prisoner in secret. I replaced the branch cage with a pierced clay pot, more spacious, lined with soft moss. I placed leftover grains inside, drops of dew, bits of fruit. She never touched the food in front of me. Her huge black eyes, now less full of pure terror and more of an intense, calculating observation, followed my movements. Sometimes, in the silence of the night, I heard a low buzz, almost a whisper, coming from the pot. It was a constant reminder of my hypocrisy: The "saint" who kept a magical creature captive, not knowing if it was the demon Mezima painted it to be or just another victim.

 It was on a gray afternoon, with the smell of rain in the air, that the village's precarious balance shattered. The first to spot them were the children playing near the stream. A cry of alarm echoed. Men grabbed scythes and old axes, women ran to gather their children. Mezima rushed out of the hut, her face a mask of worry as I watched everything from the doorway, unsure where to go.

 I saw them. A horse, thin and caked in mud, dragging itself down the dusty road leading to the village. In the saddle, two desperate figures. An older man, wearing rags that were once fine, his face etched with fatigue and terror. And leaning against him, almost falling, a younger figure... a boy.

 As they drew close enough for us to see the details, an icy silence fell over the village. The boy was naked from the waist up. His body, which should have been strong and youthful, was covered in wounds. Three deep, parallel gashes tore across his chest and right shoulder—the marks of huge claws, like a bear's, but with a ferocity that seemed... calculated. The worst was his face. Dried and fresh blood covered the left side. Where an eye should have been, there was only a grotesque hole, a bloody, swollen cavity. He breathed with difficulty, a wet rattle coming from his cracked lips. He was unconscious or nearly so, supported only by the older man, who wept soundlessly.

 The remnants of their clothes were tatters of richly embroidered fabric, now unrecognizable. The only proof of their origin wasn't the cloth, but a small object that still gleamed, attached to a piece of cord around the wounded boy's neck: A medal. Small, round, made of a white metal that wasn't common silver. It bore the raised image of a crowned eagle with outstretched wings, holding a scepter and a globe.

 The older man dismounted with difficulty, almost collapsing under the boy's weight.
 "Please... help... he... the prince... the eyes... the eyes in the forest..." He staggered, his eyes rolling back before he could say more. He collapsed beside the horse, unconscious.

 All eyes turned to me. Saint Sera. The healer. The woman dressed in silver and starlight, sitting in her crude wheelchair. The weight of the title, the expectation, that blind faith I had helped create, fell upon me like a slab of stone. The wound was monstrous. The loss of the eye... What was this creature with "eyes in the forest"?

 Elena clung to my inert leg, her face pale with fear. Mezima approached, her expression grave.

 "Take them inside the hut, both of them."

 The silence that followed my order was heavier than the damp earth under my wheels. All eyes—full of fear, desperate hope, and a blind faith that burned inside me—were nailed to me. "Saint Sera." The title echoed like a funeral bell in my mind.

 "TAKE THEM!" My voice tore through the air, stronger than I knew I could muster, charged with an authority born of absolute necessity. "Inside! NOW!"

 The shout triggered action. Men moved, hesitant at first, then with fierce urgency. They carefully grabbed the prince's lean body, avoiding the open gashes on his chest. Others lifted the older man. The crowd parted as they were carried into the largest hut, the meeting hut, where Mezima kept her most precious supplies, where the gravest wounds were treated, and my temporary dwelling. I followed, pushing my wheels with a strength born of deep panic. Elena clung to the frame of my chair, her small fingers white from gripping, her quick steps trying to match the frantic pace. Mezima walked beside me, her face a granite mask, but her black eyes glimmered with sharp assessment, ready for whatever was needed.

 Inside the hut, the air was a thick mixture of blood, sweat, and terror. The prince was laid out on the widest table, covered with a cloth less filthy than the others. The older man, his companion, lay on a straw pallet on the floor, unconscious. The flickering light of candles danced over the wet surfaces of the boy's horrific wounds, glinted faintly on the royal medal hanging from his neck, and plunged into the terrible dark cavity where his left eye should have been.

 All eyes were arrows nailed to me. Lyra's silver dress, so beautiful moments before, now seemed an absurd and grotesque armor against this scene of carnage. The mark at the base of my spine pulsed, a black heart beating in sinister sync with my own frantic one. It was a constant presence, a reminder of the origin of my power, but now... now it seemed distant, almost dormant.

 Elena buried her face in my inert leg, a muffled sob shaking her small body. Mezima placed a firm, almost bony hand on my shoulder. "Sera," she whispered, her rough voice laden with a grim urgency. "He is dying."

 Something inside me snapped. A cold, deep certainty welled up from the depths of my being, sweeping away fear and self-pity like dry leaves. Anger at the demon? Yes, but it was a distant echo. Anger at the world's brutality? Background noise. The crushing expectation? A weight I simply accepted as part of the burden. What prevailed was an absolute clarity: This power, tainted, stolen, was mine. I had bought it with blood, pain, and loss. And I would decide its use. That night, under that trembling light, before that young man about to be swallowed by darkness, my choice was simple: I chose to do my best, not because the demon said I would, but because it was my nature.

 "Everyone out." My voice was not loud, but it cut through the heavy air like an icy blade, charged with an authority that brooked no argument. "Now. Only Mezima stays. Bring clean water. A lot of it."

 The silence that followed was heavier than lead. The blind faith they placed in "Saint Sera" collided with the horror before them and the coldness of my order. They hesitated for a second that felt like an eternity, exchanging frightened glances. But the light beginning to emanate from my eyes—an emerald green intensified by the silver of the dress, shining with a supernatural determination — and the absolute conviction in my voice were undeniable. Like a receding tide, they shuffled out, forming an oppressive silence outside the hut. Only Mezima remained, her face a granite mask, but her black eyes watching my every move with the attention of an eagle. She quickly prepared a basin with water and clean cloths brought in haste.

 I looked at the prince. At the ruin of his face. At the bloody void. The challenge was monstrous. It wasn't enough to seal wounds or soothe pain. I had to create. To shape flesh, nerves, vision from nothing. A task that bordered on blasphemy or divinity. Before, I would have felt the mark on my spine roar with hunger, demanding its tribute. Now... there was only a low, distant hum. A challenge, not a threat.

 My power.

 I placed my hands first on the boy's torn chest, deliberately avoiding the abyss of the eye. The flesh was warm, feverish, life escaping through deep fissures. I closed my eyes, and focused, on his intact, vibrant essence, on the spark of life still fighting tenaciously within the chaos. I concentrated on healing, on rebuilding. On ordering life.

 And then, I commanded.

 There was no wrenching of the soul. No excruciating pain blossoming from the mark. There was... fluidity. Like dipping my hands into a river of vital energy and redirecting its flow. The light that emanated from my palms was not a blinding explosion, but a dense, golden luminescence, like liquid honey bathing the boy's body. It was intense, yes, full of power, but controlled.

 Under my palms, I felt the miracle happen with frightening clarity. It was like a whisper of tissues intertwining, a soft snap of bones fusing, a harmonious flow of vessels reconnecting. The deep gashes on his chest and shoulder didn't just close; new skin sprouted like a field after rain, smooth, pink, and healthy, without the fragility of before. The infection receded, dissolved by the golden light.

 Without hesitation, I moved my hands to the facial wound. The light concentrated on the empty cavity. It was like a divine loom, weaving the matter of life. Within the void, there was no slow agony. It was growth. Rapid, organic, inevitable. Moist, living tissue filled the depths, tiny muscles interlaced with perfection, incredibly fine blood vessels branched into a complex and immediate network. An eyeball formed, translucent, gaining opacity and color — a light brown — as I watched, fascinated and terrified by my own mastery. The optic nerve, a thread of shining silver, stretched and connected with a silent, perfect click. The skin around it moved to cover the new eye, smooth, effortless.

 It was... easy. Frighteningly easy. As if a dormant muscle had awakened, strong and flexible. The golden light remained stable, pulsing with a life of its own, without sucking my life force. There was no blood in my nose, no uncontrollable tremors. Just a slight fatigue, as after hard, but well-executed, work.

 The golden light faded gently, like a sunset, and went out. I kept my hands over the prince's new eye for a moment, feeling the warm, intact skin under my palms. He took a deep breath, a sigh coming from intact lungs, without a rattle.

 Mezima was motionless beside me. She hadn't held her breath, nor did she wear an expression of reverent terror. Her face was a granite mask, but her black eyes, fixed on the newly created eye, were wells of deep suspicion and calculation. The silence inside the hut was absolute.

 The prince blinked. Slowly, confusedly. First with his right eye, then... with the left. The new eye. Light brown, a little glazed with residual pain, but perfectly formed, perfectly human. His gaze, sharp and dual, wandered over the thatched roof before fixing on me. There was pain in it, confusion, but also a flicker of recognition, of astonishment. But his eyes closed as quickly as they opened, and he fell into a deep sleep.

 Before any word could be spoken, I turned to the man on the floor. The companion. His wounds were minor—deep abrasions, possible fractures, extreme exhaustion. I placed my hands on him. The golden light flowed again, smooth and efficient. Bones aligned, wounds closed, color returned to his pale face. He did not wake, but his breathing deepened, becoming regular, his sleep now one of recovery, not death.

 I finished. I withdrew my hands. The mark on my spine remained a weight, a reminder, but it did not hurt. It demanded nothing. I felt it... subdued. At least for now. The power flowing from me now seemed less like a malignant loan and more like a river I had learned to navigate.

 Mezima did not look at the healed men. Her black eyes bore into mine, cold and merciless.

 "It is done, Saint Sera," she said, her voice as rough as ever, but laden with a new, sinister meaning. "A miracle. Two." She discretely spat on the earthen floor, a gesture of contempt or to ward off evil. "But you have brought more than blood and pain to Willow Village. You have brought trouble."

 She approached the table, examining the royal medal on the prince's neck with disdain. "Nobles. Here." She let out a dry, humorless laugh. "No one comes to Willow Village by accident, girl. Especially not by crossing the Blackwood Forest. That damned spine of darkness that stretches for leagues..." She made a wide gesture toward the forest beyond the stream. "...is not a path. It's a grave. A slaughterhouse. A place to get rid of things you no longer wish to see. Criminals. Thieves. Rivals. Inconvenient wives. Problematic... heirs." Her dark gaze landed on the sleeping prince, his new eye now closed in deep slumber.

 "If they arrived here... alive..." Mezima continued, her voice low like the growl of an old wolf, "it's because someone threw them there to die. Or because they were being hunted. And if they escaped the forest... or those who hunted them..."

 She turned completely to me, her wrinkled face grim in the half-light. "The hunters will come for the prey, Sera. Mercenaries. Men-at-arms. People who respect no borders, least of all a village of peasants and old women." Her eyes were black slits. "The Blackwood, for all its cruelty, is our shield. It keeps other humans away. Now... that shield has been violated. You have brought their death to our door."

 Mezima's words fell like stones in the heavy silence of the hut. The weight of consequence, tangible and brutal, replaced the silent euphoria of power exercised. I looked at the two saved men—the prince now breathing peacefully, his new eye closed under an intact eyelid; the companion resting in a deep, restorative sleep—and then at the old matriarch, whose face was a landscape of shadows and deadly pragmatism.

 "I didn't bring them here, Mezima," my voice sounded weaker than I would have liked, a thread of defense springing up automatically. "They arrived. Dying. What was I supposed to do? Let them bleed to death on our gate?"

 Mezima sighed, a long, weary sound that seemed to come from the depths of the earth. Her shoulders, normally rigid, slumped slightly. "No, girl. It is not your fault for healing them. The fault is... the situation. Our weakness. And whoever forgot to close the damned gate." She wiped her hands nervously on her apron. "But the truth remains: If whoever was after them still breathes, if they know they found refuge here... they will come. Not out of kindness. They will come to finish the job and ensure no witnesses survive. A whole village of peasants is just... an obstacle to be removed."

 The image was sharp and horrendous. Armed men, hardened by violence, storming the humble huts. Fire consuming the weeping willows. The packed earth floor stained with peasant blood. Elena...

 "Then we send them away!" The solution seemed obvious, desperate. "When they wake up. They are healed. Let them go on their way. Far from here. If they disappear, those who pursue them will have no reason to come to us."

 Mezima looked at me with a mixture of pity and exasperation. "Naive. Saintly and naive. If the mercenaries are nearby, tracking, and see two healed nobles leaving our village... what will they think? That we helped them. That we hid them. That we know too much. It is an invitation to slaughter as much as keeping them here." She shook her head. "No. The damage is done. The only chance, the only slim chance, is that they were never seen arriving here. But if they were... if they were tracked to the forest's edge..." She didn't need to finish.

 The coldness of her logic was like ice water poured over my determination. "Then... then what do you suggest? That we kill them ourselves? Now?" The question came out in a horrified whisper. "After I... after I grew an eye for him?" My gaze instinctively went to the prince's peaceful face. "Why didn't you say this before? You could have told me to stop!"

 Mezima stared at me, her black eyes pitiless. "And would you have stopped, Saint Sera? Looking at that ruin, feeling that power flowing so easily through you? Would you have given up?" She paused, letting the question hang like a blade. "No. You would not have. And I... I saw the healing happen. I saw the miracle. And even knowing the risk, part of me... hoped. Hoped that perhaps... perhaps there was a way." The admission was surprising, revealing a crack in her armor of pragmatism. "But now, awake, alive, and recognizable..." She clenched her hands. "Returning them to the forest now would just be a slow death. Or a quick one, if the hunters find them first. We wouldn't be killing them. But we would be condemning them."

 The hut door creaked. Garrant entered, silent as a shadow, his face carved under the grime and stubble. His eyes quickly scanned the scene: the two healed strangers, me in my sweat-stained chair, Mezima standing like a grim sentinel. He didn't ask. He just looked at Mezima, waiting.

 "Garrant," Mezima spoke, her voice regaining its usual roughness, but with an underlying tremor. "Prepare ropes. Strong ones. And... something to gag them. Silence is essential."

 My blood ran cold. "ROPES? Mezima, no! They are lives! Men! We can't just... tie them up and throw them back to death like sacks of trash!" I pushed my wheels forward, placing myself almost between her and Garrant. "There is another way! There has to be!"

 Garrant looked from me to Mezima, impassive, but his eyes narrowed slightly.

 Mezima exploded. "Another way? SHOW ME, SAINT! Show me the way that saves them and us! Do you want to hide them? Where? In a chest? The village is small! One stranger is noticed, two nobles... impossible! Do you want to fight? With scythes and old axes against trained, armed men? It's collective suicide!" She pointed a bony finger at my chest. "You chose to save them, Sera. You chose to bring this danger upon us. Now choose: Their lives or the lives of everyone here? Of Elena? Of the weaver's baby? Of old Thom?"

 The challenge echoed in the hut, cruel and inescapable. Every word was a stab. I had chosen to use my power. Chosen their lives. And now that choice threatened everything I had, paradoxically, begun to consider my refuge, my precarious home. The anger that had given me clarity before now mixed with acute despair.

 Mezima saw the conflict on my face. Her own expression softened a degree, replacing fury with deep exhaustion and resigned fatalism. "Very well," she conceded, her voice raspy, but without the previous edge. "We do not kill them. We do not return them to the forest... yet. We will try to hide them. But..." She fixed me with an iron gaze. "If anything happens to anyone in this village because of this decision... if a single hair on a child's head is harmed because of these outsiders..." She paused dramatically, her thin lips curling into a bitter, humorless smile. "...you, Saint Sera, with your miraculous power, will bring every life back. Every scratch, every broken bone, every slit throat... you will heal. Even if they have been dead for hours. Even if they are cold. You will bring them back to life, as you did with that boy's eye. That is the price of your compassion."

 The tone was venomous, ironic. An impossible challenge thrown at my newly discovered power. She didn't believe I could do such a thing. She was testing me, humiliating me, showing me the absurdity of my position in the face of reality.

 The mark on my spine pulsed once, softly, as if agreeing with the madness of the proposal. But inside me, where there had been despair, a cold, determined spark ignited. I had accepted the power. I would accept the consequences. All of them.

 I raised my chin, my green eyes meeting Mezima's black ones without flinching. "Yes," I said, my voice clear and cold. "If evil comes because of them, and if anyone in this village falls... I will bring them back. Every one. No matter the cost. No matter the state. That is my promise, Mezima. That is my oath."

 The silence after my oath was thick, laden with the weight of a promise that bordered on blasphemy. Mezima swallowed hard, but the shock in her black eyes quickly dissolved, replaced by a hardness even colder and more calculating than before. She didn't move, but her posture radiated a renewed threat.

 "A pretty oath, Saint Sera," she spat the title like an insult. "Shiny words. But words do not stop blades. They do not fill the empty bellies of children." She took a step forward, invading my personal space, her hot, bitter breath hitting my face. "Forget what I said about bringing back the dead. That is the fantasy of a frightened child. If the hunters come, and when they come, if they think we have something they want... or if they simply decide the village knows too much..."

 She paused dramatically, her black eyes piercing mine, without a drop of compassion.

 "...we will give them *you*."

 The declaration fell like an axe. I froze, the air leaving my lungs.

 "Yes," she continued, her voice a venomous hiss. "A living Saint. A miracle healer. Worth more than gold, more than a problematic prince. Perfect bargaining coin, don't you think? 'Take the silver woman and her green eyes, and leave our village in peace.' That is how you bargain with wolves, girl. With fresh meat."

 The world seemed to spin. The silver dress, once a gift, now felt like a prisoner's skin. My green eyes, a hunter's mark. Elena clung tighter to my leg, a small tremor running through her body.

 "But... but I am part of the village!" The protest sounded weak, desperate, even to my own ears.

 "You were," Mezima agreed with a dry, emotionless nod. "And for that we have offered you shelter until now. But when the wolf is at the door, the flock closes ranks. Survival, Sera. Not friendship. Not gratitude." She pointed a bony, implacable finger at the sleeping prince. "And don't think he will be our only concern. Look at him. Look well."

 She leaned over the table, gripping the boy's chin with a strength that would have drawn a groan of pain had he been awake, and turned his face to the weak light. The new eye, light brown, was closed, but the eyelid was perfect, the skin around it smooth, unscarred.

 "A new eye. Grown from nothing. Clean. Whole." Mezima released his chin with disdain. "This is not a scar you can hide under an eyepatch, girl. It is a screaming miracle. Living proof of your power. If the hunters see it, even a glimpse, they will know exactly what happened here. And they will know exactly what you are." Her gaze returned to me, icy. "It won't just be the fugitives they come to hunt, Sera. It will be you. A creature that grows eyes and flesh? You are worth more than any prince. You are the true prize."

 "Then... even if we gave them up..." I swallowed hard, trying to grasp the extent of the trap.

 "You are already a target," Mezima cut in brutally. "From the moment that eye was born, your fate changed. The Blackwood may have been their slaughterhouse, but you... you have become the most coveted prey to ever walk these lands. Mercenaries, nobles, demons... all will come for the power to create life from nothing." She made a wide gesture, encompassing the humble hut, the village beyond. "We? We are ants in their path. Useless. Easy discard. The only chance this village has to survive the hurricane you unleashed is to get rid of you before they arrive. Offer you up as a peace offering. As bargaining coin."

 She straightened up, her pitiless gaze fixed on my pale face. "That is why I tell you, Saint Sera: We will hide these two. For now. But if danger knocks on our door, if I smell steel and death on the wind... I will not hesitate. I will have no choice. I will offer you up on a silver platter to save my people. Your oath to bring back the dead is a macabre joke in the face of that. The only oath that matters now is mine to Willow Village. And it will be fulfilled, whatever the cost. Even at the price of your life."

 The silence that followed was absolute. Even Elena's breathing seemed to have stopped. The mark on my spine pulsed with a sinister anticipation.

 Garrant, who had watched everything in silence like a shadowy statue, finally moved. He did not look at me. His eyes met Mezima's, and he nodded once, a silent and terrible confirmation. He agreed. The village came first. Always.

 "The hiding place," Mezima said to Garrant, her voice returning to its practical tone, as if she hadn't just condemned me. "Quickly. And let no one but the three of us know where they are. Not Elena." Her gaze fell on the child in the doorway, who shrank back. "Especially not Elena."

 Garrant left, silent as a ghost. Mezima turned to me for the last time. There was no hatred in her eyes. Only a pragmatic and brutal acceptance of reality.

 "Think on it, Saint Sera," she whispered, the title sounding like an epitaph. "Think very carefully on what your power has truly bought. It wasn't just an eye. It was your own head on a pike. And when the hounds come... remember I warned you."

Notes:

Hey everyone!

I hope you're enjoying the fanfic. It's rare to find Berserk fanfictions that truly capture the brutality and depth of the original universe—so I decided to take matters into my own hands and contribute a story that's up to the task.

Updates will be weekly, every Sunday.

CONTENT WARNING (🔞)
This is a work of fiction for mature audiences.

READ BEFORE PROCEEDING:

This work contains graphic content and extremely disturbing themes that may be triggering for some readers. The narrative does not glorify these acts but explores them as central elements of its horror and philosophical critique, in the spirit of the dark and visceral universe of Berserk.

Themes include, but are not limited to:

* Extremely Graphic Violence: Explicit descriptions of murder, torture, and mutilation.
* Psychological Abuse: Manipulation, gaslighting, and mental torture.
* Explicit Sexual Violence: Depictions of rape, threats of sexual violence, and abuse.
* Necrophilia: Sexual acts with corpses.
* Cannibalism: Consumption of human flesh.
* Infanticide: Violent death of children.
* Misogyny: Violence and hatred specifically directed towards women.
* Doctrination: Ideological and religious manipulation.
* Persecution: Systematic hunting and terror.
* If you are sensitive to any of these themes, it is strongly recommended that you do NOT proceed.

Reader discretion is advised. You have been warned.