LotM BB Team Abattoir (1813 words)

[shamera]

Derrick Berg knew what his parents were talking about behind closed doors. How could he not? Despite that, he would crouch at their door, arms around his knees as he quietly listened in to their murmurs and whispers.

“Do you think I’m making the right decision?” His mother quietly asked his father. “Derrick is still so young…”

At thirteen, he wasn’t considered that young anymore. The City of Silver’s age of adulthood bowed lower and lower with each generation, and Derrick knew that within three years, he would be expected to have a family of his own. That meant he wasn’t a child anymore— not in the way his parents seemed to see him.

Yet he still stayed outside his parents’ door, leaning against the patched wood as if he could be closer to them for a little while longer.

“We have to send him off on missions,” his father’s gruff voice answered, although the tone was softer than even his mother’s, “it’s time. Any longer and he’ll be behind his peers.”

And so at thirteen, Derrick Berg was sent off beyond the walls of the City of Silver along with a team of his peers. Youngsters, his leader called them, expression tense as he viewed what he saw as children hoisting weapons and wearing too-large armour.

They didn’t leave the City for long, nor go far. It was just far enough into the dark, into the lightning stuck lands, for them to understand the shadows beyond their walls really did have eyes and teeth. That every step proved dangerous when creatures would lurk underneath the dirt, would hide in shadows to ambush them.

It was a mercy to send the children into a controlled situation while they could. It would give them experience and training that being beyond the walls of safety could not provide.

Or perhaps the mercy of the preconceived safety was nothing but fallacy, as Derrick soon grew used to the brief stints outside the city walls. The children huddled close, and watched their instructor take down small monsters that came too close. They became confident. They started putting their training into use. Start killing something small. Start working in teams. Start gaining experience—

And then their instructor died.

Not while leading them, but on a separate mission— one that was truly dangerous.

And then the ‘children’ were placed into different groups. Real groups with veterans who would look out for them.

His mother carved him a silver protection charm, and his father looked on. His friends grew quiet, until Derrick soon realised the children he used to play with were now entirely different people, and he didn’t know them anymore.

“Stay safe,” his mother would whisper into his hair every time Derrick left the house.

“Be careful,” his father would tell him with a warm and sturdy hand on his shoulder.

And then Derrick came home one day, and it…

Everything was different.

He shouldn’t have stayed out that late. He just wanted to talk with a few former friends; maybe rekindle old interests. Growing up felt lonely under the weight of expectations. His parents only had one child, and Derrick would soon be an adult— he might soon have to leave them to start his own family. Shouldn’t he at least have spoken to other people before that happened?

His awkward and stilted conversations hadn’t borne much, but Derrick counted the brief smiles from his friends as a success all the way until he went home.

It was dark inside his house.

Perhaps that was the first clue, as his mother was prone to lighting too many candles, and his father often complained of her wasting the monster tallow allotted to each family within the City of Silver. His home was never dark if his mother had any say in it.

Then there was the crying.

His parents were calm and quiet people, both of them, and Derrick never heard them openly crying before. But he had heard crying before, and this sounded—

Wrong.

“Mom?” He called out as the door closed behind him. “Dad?”

Derrick stepped lightly through his home, following the sound of distorted crying.

It… it wasn’t a monster, right? He heard about the ones outside the walls that mimicked human voices and attempted to lure inexperienced men and women to their deaths. But he was inside the safe walls of the City of Silver. Outside monsters didn’t make it inside. The only danger of monsters within the walls were—

His breath hitched and he moved faster.

The crying sounded feminine.

“Mom?” He called out again, a hand on the rough surface of the wall as he hurried through the halls. “Where are you?”

The crying stopped.

Derrick stopped as well.

“D-derrick?” A voice spoke, the same one that had been crying. There was a rasp to it, and it didn’t sound like his mother, except that it did. “Derrick, baby, hurry. You have to hurry.”

Hurry? What for?

His skin felt cold, and he could feel the hair at the back of his neck stand to awareness. There was something wrong with this situation, and he couldn’t— he couldn’t—

“Derrick,” his mother called out again, and Derrick found himself drawn to the voice, obediently walking forward again. “Derrick, take the kitchen knife.”

The knife? The one his mother never wanted him or his father to touch, because it had been a gift from her mother and they had plenty of other tools to work with?

Shakily, Derrick made his way to the kitchen, guided by the raspy voice that was both his mother and so unlike her that he almost thought she was a monster.

He took the knife. It was large, made for an adult woman and not a fourteen year old boy.

(He was still a boy, he was. He wasn’t yet an adult, he didn’t want to leave his parents—)

“I…” his voice shook, and he intentionally held onto one shaking hand with the other, hoping to stop the tremours. He swallowed, throat sharp and dry. “I have it.”

“Okay, baby.” His mother said, and this time her voice sounded even worse. “Come to my room, darling. Be brave, okay? You have to be brave.”

He didn’t want to be brave. He didn’t feel brave. Derrick shook from the instructions, his fingers a vice around the leather of the knife handle. He didn’t want to be brave, he was just a boy—

“Hurry,” his mother urged.

In his heart, Derrick began to pray.

Please, please, he thought fervently, unsure who or what he was praying to. The Creator, if he was lucky, but he knew in his heart that the City of Silver’s God had long since stopped responding. Please don’t let it be time yet. Please. Please.

His parents’ room was across the kitchen, while his was closer to the back. It took only a few steps for Derrick to arrive at their door, which hadn’t been fully shut.

He didn’t want to push the door open.

Derrick wished he could crouch at their door again, arms around his knees as he listened in on what they were saying. He wanted to stay there at the barrier, pretending to give them privacy the same way they pretended he couldn’t hear their decisions about him.

Please, anyone…

But no one would come.

This was a private affair, after all. And because Derrick stayed out when he shouldn’t have, because he didn’t know, he was going to see what he shouldn’t have to see.

The old wooden door creaked loudly as he gently pushed it open, and there it was.

The candles that his mother usually kept lit in the rest of the house were all gathered in this room, keeping it bright.

His father lay upon the bed, fully clothed and with a bleeding gash down his side.

His mother, his gentle mother prepared their meals and stroked his hair each morning, stood hunched over his father, both arms bracing the much larger man.

Her head hung over his torso, hair falling down around her face in a dark veil.

“Please,” she said in mockery of Derrick’s prayers, “please hurry. Derrick. Derrick. Hurry.”

His father was breathing, but just barely. His eyes were closed.

His mother looked up, and there was blood around her mouth, already too wide for a human face. There were dark tears that fell along her face. Her arms and neck were just a little too long, but it was still his mother. It was still her.

“Please,” she said again.

Derrick knew his mother had been sick for a long while now. It was why she sent him out on expeditions in the first place. She had to stay home while both he and his father left to city to gather resources.

She had been sick, but she was— she wasn’t sick. She wasn’t deathly sick! It couldn’t be this time yet!

(He was still a child.)

“D-derrick,” his mother breathed out, eyes clear. She didn’t move from her position above his father, hands gripping tight onto the bedsheets. “Derrick.”

Derrick’s hands dropped.

“No,” he denied even as his grip on the knife tightened. His eyes were warm. He felt numb. He could barely breathe. Curiously, there was the feeling of warmth trickling down his face. “Mom, you should get back in bed. You’re just not feeling well—”

“Derrick,” his mother rasped, “please.”

The instructor of his group taught them all how to use the basic weapons. How to kill monsters outside the walls. All his peers knew where to shoot, what to stab. They all knew how take out a monster as quickly as they were able, before it could call for aid.

“Derrick, NOW,” his mother said, and then she—

—Lunged at him—

Derrick had been training for the last year to fight against monsters. Until it was second nature. Instinct. He knew how to dodge, how to protect himself, how to shoot and how to stab.

Warm blood covered his person.

It dripped down his face, soaked through his clothes, and matted into his hair.

It was as warm as a hug.

There was a corpse at his feet.

He didn’t acknowledge it.

Please, please, Derricked begged whatever unseen higher powers were watching him. Please don’t let this be real.

Yet just as his training suggested, he knew what else to do. He stepped over to the bed, and he raised the knife.

Please, Derrick begged within the confines of his mind, tears clearing the blood on his face. Please!

The knife came down, and his father’s stilted breathing evened out to calmness.

“Please,” Derrick rasped, his voice like his mother’s echo. His legs were unsteady, and it felt like his body didn’t belong to him. “Please, God. Anyone. Please.”

The deed was done, and Derrick collapsed to his knees to pray.