Page 7 of Stream & Scream
Yeah, he watched the feed. Start to finish. I bet he replayed the ending
I roll my shoulders, crack my neck once to the left.
The trees press in around me. Moonlight fractures through the canopy. The cold is nothing. The weight of the helmet in my hand, though? That’s holy. I run my thumb over the edge of the shell, feel the grooves of paint, the blackened teeth, the slit for breath. It's not just part of the game.
It’s who Ibecome.
They called me theButcher of Lamal.
A title that clings like dried blood—stuck under your fingernails no matter how many times you scrape and scrub.
I didn’t ask for it. Didn’t want it. Didn’t give a single fuck about the label. But they gave it to me anyway. Crowned me the second those tunnels turned red.
When the comms cut out. When the food ran dry. When the screaming started and didn’t stop.
When the rules stopped mattering.
When the human in me died.
You learn a lot about a man when he’s buried alive with twelve others and oxygen runs out.
You learn even more when he’s the one dragging his body toward the only exit, and the others don’t make it out.
Lamal was supposed to be a recon op.
In and out. Basic sweep. High-risk zone, yeah, but we’d trained for that.
I was point as always. The one they pushed forward when things got messy.
Because I never blinked. I never fucking missed. And I never questioned the order.
But they forgot one thing.
You can’t bury a wolf and expect it to play dead.
Day three, the cave-in sealed us off from the surface. No comms. No extraction.
We lost two men under the rockfall. Couldn’t dig them out. Just dust and red-soaked hands.
Day five, the rations ran out. Water was next. The air started to stink.
By day seven, one of the corporals snapped. Tried to stab another guy over a pack of gum. I stopped him.
Permanently.
By day eight, the rest started breaking—minds first, then rules. They cried. Screamed. Pleaded for light, for rescue, for forgiveness. But I wasn’t interested in any of that.
By day ten, I started tolikethe way screams sounded in the limestone. The way they bounced off the rock, sharp and jagged, like music. Like goddamn worship.
By day twelve, I stopped waiting. Started making order out of chaos. One by one, I cut them down. Not because I had to. Because it was the only fucking thing that made sense.
By day fifteen, I was the only one left. And it wasquiet.
They found me like that—kneeling in the dark, smiling. Hands soaked up to the wrists in red that wasn’t mine. Eyes wide behind the glass of my goggles, reflecting blood like a fucking mirror.
They gagged from the smell before they even pulled me out. Dragged me into the light like I was some rabid dog, muzzle strapped on tight, too scared to look me in the eye.
They said Isnapped.Maybe I did. Or maybe Ievolved.Maybe I realized that pretending to be human in a world like this is what gets you killed. You want to survive? You’ve gotta become the thing the dark’s afraid of. And I did. I became it so fucking completely, they didn’t know what todowith me. The discharge came fast.
