The dust and soil of Vivaricus knotted in my throat like a dried blood clot. I was sitting with Joseph, Ava, and Ulysses in front of our shack by a makeshift fire; but the very air we breathed was steeped in a wretched misery. The squares were a total chaos; from every corner rose the smell of poverty, despair, and burnt sawdust.
This scent was like the final breath of a rotting civilization.
I reached out with trembling hands to offer my own portion—a handful of rice—to an old woman whose baby lay breathless in her lap. Inside me was a desperate desire to wash away the dirty stains on my soul, to cleanse the memory of Dante's touch by quenching another's hunger. It was pure idiocy. The response I received was not gratitude, but a poisonous hatred spat back at my face.
"VAMPIRE WH-ORE! BUFFOONS SHOULDN'T BE EATING THE BREAD OF THIS LAND!"
The slogan spread like a wildfire through the square in an instant.
Those pale faces that had been kneeling in hunger just a moment ago turned into a pack of hyenas within a second, their features twisted with resentment, baring their teeth. The shining golden collar around my neck was no longer a badge in the midst of this misery; it was a target.
To them, I was no longer "one of us," but a wh-ore fed by the scraps from her master's table.
"There's a separate zone for the collared ones! Let your master send you there!" someone from the crowd roared, their eyes crazed. "You'll give us your house and the bed you sleep on! We are the ones paying for those luxury clothes!"
I froze where I stood. Along with the massive, angry mob marching toward us, the ground began to tremble slightly. Cracks, the harbingers of that terrible Vortex, began to form beneath the concrete; but the people were not afraid. Hunger had swallowed the fear of death long ago.
Calloused, filthy hands reached out to lynch me, grabbing my collar. "Vampire wh-ore!" another shouted, spitting right into the center of my face with loathing. The spit remained like a cold, sticky stain on my cheek.
"You fill your belly without even offering your blood! We pay for that cashmere with our own blood!"
I took a shaky breath as I watched Joseph and Adalin get crushed by the frantic crowd while trying to intervene and protect me. The whip marks on my back, the nuclear soil I had clawed with my own nails, the way I had tried to stifle my own brother's breath with my hands to protect him...
Was it all for this moment? Were these the scars I had resisted for? Was this the populace for whom I had laid my honor at Dante's feet?
The revolutionary fire in my eyes was replaced by an icy disappointment within seconds. I had submitted to Dante to save them; but now the very people I was trying to save were ready to tear me apart for a piece of fabric.
Right then, the collar on my nape began to burn like a live coal. Dante's voice echoed in my mind with a tone clearer and more "justified" than ever:
"Do you see, Dorian?" Dante said, his voice as cold and satisfied as an executioner's whisper.
"That holy people of yours will love you only as long as you don't take the bone from their hand. But once they see you shine, they will be the first to cast a stone to bury you in the darkness. Will you still let those filthy hands choke you, or shall I remind them who your true master is?"
As I gasped for breath among the hands closing in on me, I heard the sound of that great break in my heart. The world I was trying to save was drowning me in its own darkness.
The fight hadn't lasted long; Dante's system began using the screens in the square like whips. Before my eyes, a man with his wife and child in his lap was begging from the system. As I read the chilling "charity" conditions appearing on the screens, my stomach turned.
"BEAT YOUR WIFE… WE WILL SEND FOOD FOR YOUR BABY."
"CUCK-LD YOUR HUSBAND WITH 3 MEN, DO IT IN THE PUBLIC SQUARE."
"KICK THE WOMAN AND I WILL SEND YOU HOT WATER."
"LADY VELIAS SENT YOU DIAPERS FOR FREE."
"LORD TUAN DONATED BABY FORMULA FOR FREE."
They had food in their hands, but they chose not to remain honorable; they chose to batter one another in the masters' perverted games. I clenched my fists as I watched the greed of the man kicking his wife for a box of formula.
As I gathered wet, rotten wood from the ground to light a fire, I heard Joseph beside me still murmuring about "honor."
"Honor..." he was saying, "We must regain our honor."
I looked at him. I looked at the mud on my hands from the wet wood, at the golden collar on my neck, and at that wretched mass tearing each other apart in the square.
"Honor?" I whispered, every letter of my voice washed in Dante's poison.
"Honor here is nothing but a fairy tale told on an empty stomach, Joseph. Look at them... Did I sacrifice my honor for these people who sell each other out for a sip of hot water?"