Guys, this was supposed to be a jokefic, I swear.
()()()
Evolution, they realized, was relative, for they all loved the game. It was akin to the gladiators in Roman coliseums—enraptured crowds watched foolish luminaries beat each other half to death. Blood and anguished howls drew in revenue like no other, enthralling the murderer's instinct in everyone, as they had centuries prior. Humans claimed to me the most advanced species on the planet, but it was clear that they were no better than the animals they had been eons ago. As the exhausted fighters and cheering, jeering throngs saw in the splatters and bone-crushing blows, everything went back to instinct. It was violence that truly sold—not even sex or drugs could trump the thrill of barbaric bloodshed.
But as the generations pass, so do levels of intensity; endurance sticks and festers, and fewer and fewer people turned their heads away as the brutality escalated. The fighters had to become more sadistic to meet demand, resulting in crueler injuries and longer waits between brawls. For a brief time, this worked—but time was quick to fall short. Five, ten, fifteen years turned to dust, and the orchestrators grew more desperate. The veterans were becoming weary with the monkeyshines and dropping out at an accelerated pace, and the new wave of combatants could hardly keep up and perished far too rapidly for the audience's taste. The roars of approval morphed into displeased boos almost overnight. People were bored. Too much gore had been shed, and yet they still wanted more. There was too much mercy, they said. Where is the face of death?
They never wanted to reach this point. The chapter was ending. A new one was to begin.
A new one they had wanted to avoid entirely.
But they had no other choice.
()()()
The lion-slayer lived with the very animals whom he wished to waste. The universe in which he resided was quaint, colorful, but distinctly lonely—there was no excitement, no delight in the chase. Instead, there were roads to be built and debts to repay to the hardy raccoon who had settled him in the village in which he got his name. The lion-slayer hated the skinflint and desired to make a smart coat out of his sandy pelt, but he never acted upon the impulse. How would that make him look? Like a heartless, cold-blooded murderer. He wasn't anything of the sort. No, with his u-shaped pupils, triangle nose, and everlasting smile, he was nothing but the face of mercy.
Every day, he received his mail in front of his house by his friend, the gyroid, the only being he could stand in his town. The letters, indicated by the blinking light in the front of his bland red mailbox, were rarely special—mostly correspondence from the Happy Room Academy, cheerful townspeople extolling his role as the local caregiver, or the occasional parcel from his mother. He'd tried to cut off contact with the bitch when he'd arrived here, but she was constantly pestering him. It was too bad that he hadn't fallen into his characteristic cesspool of silent hatred before he'd moved away. He would have taken good care of her.
One day, however—finally—the lion-slayer was invited to butcher the big cats. He recognized the seal on the letter, but he did not open it, knowing full well what it was. His time had come. There was no more pretending. At long last, he would awaken. His era had dawned. No longer would he be the baseless mayor of a town destined to go nowhere—he had the chance to move on. Move beyond them. It was golden. He was golden. Without a single moment of hesitation, he went back inside his modest home and collected his shovel, his axe, and his butterfly net. Before walking over his threshold and leaving behind his masked life forever, he gave himself one last look in the mirror. Cropped brown hair, u-shaped pupils, triangle nose, and his ethereal, plastic smile—here he was. But there were other places to go.
He went to the raccoon's place and skinned the skinflint first with the blade he'd bought from him. Afterwards, he admired his work. The raccoon had always wanted a paint job anyhow.
Of course, he left before anybody discovered the sanguinary mess of entrails in the tightwad's convenience store. The lion-slayer didn't want to besmirch his good name. He'd built a life for himself, after all—and when this was over, he wanted to return to it. Didn't he? No, he did not. There was no turning back now. There were other places to go. Nothing in this world—even in his dull, predictable universe—was performed without meddling in the hands of fate. The letter had changed everything. He had changed everything. Mayor of what? A town riddled with fruit but yet entirely fruitless. A dying town.
He wore the new fur coat on the train not an hour later. The metallic tang of blood still hung like a noose in the air, but the perfume was intoxicating. It was the smell of pages turning.
A new chapter.
()()()
They all knew he was coming, but when his shadow consumed the battlefield in a dark, tempestuous mass, it was far too late to be ready. He was the smallest challenger, but he loomed larger and longer than everyone else. He arrived in the midst of a gloomy stalemate, the veteran challengers unable to get anywhere. He'd read the rule book on the train, and there was a statue in place that no more than four fighters could occupy the floor of the coliseum at once, but the lion-slayer broke it without hesitation. Rules were bones—they were meant to be snapped and ground into dust, until they were no more and held no structure to the next person.
He walked calmly through the gates, dragging his weighted axe behind him, causing the occasional spark on the splattered pavement. Each crackle sent a jolt through his veins, and his thin arm flexed as his u-shaped pupils settled on the sparring men before him. Their figures grew less ambiguous and more defined—splashes of stirring color now vibrant forms of fleshly, breathing warriors. Even as his impending lope grew faster and the crowd took notice to his small, hunkered self, flashing swiftly in a crimson shirt, they did not pay him heed. They all knew it was him, but they did not know him. To them, he was a petite boy with an axe too cumbersome for use. With his triangle nose and diaphanous smile, he was the face of mercy. To them, he was nothing.
However, he was not invisible for long, for he erased the first combatant he reached with a single swipe of his blade. The red plumber's head, severed cleanly from his pudgy body, rolled like a loaf of bread across the field, ceasing all warring activity from the remaining three. A crimson fountain disgorged forth from the exposed neck, soaking the lion-slayer from head to toe, staining his denim shorts and pooling in a puddle beneath his shoes. For such a neat execution, he thought with a tinge of irritation, the aftermath was unpleasant. Still, he was unfazed, and took the shocked silence from the audience in the staggering dome to be equivalent to a lion's roar of approval.
But he was the lion-slayer, and he was here to kill the big cats.
He focused on the other three animals before him—a green-clad swordsman and a giant ape, gaping and retreating with a rapid backwards scuttle, the sudden murder stunning them into speechlessness. A timid, quavering angel in white had been sparring with the plumber in the precious moments before his death, and he was now clutching his sword close to him. His brown eyes were wide—but not wider than his, he mused—with alarm, his weapon shaking uncontrollably in his hands. The lion-slayer had seen this not long before in the skinflint raccoon, cowering with the poor audacity of a scared child in the corner of his store, sobbing and pleading for his life. It was the unmistakable reflection of fear. He could detect the slightest scent as well—the metallic tang of blood. The smell of pages turning. The smell of dominance.
Eager to fight blade to blade, he struck, and that was when the screaming began. Everyone in the stadium howled and shrieked as if they were the ones being butchered, stampeding toward the exits with the panic of a thousand head of thunderstruck cattle. Their distressed squeals did nothing for the lion-slayer—he was here for the lions, not the pigs who delighted in their victories and screamed in the face of death. The face of mercy was one no more as he sliced through the angel, the bloodcurdling bawling of the victim piercing the conglomerated cries of the escaping spectators. When the first was finished, the lion-slayer turned to the second, both the ape and the swordsman rooted to the dirt, too numbed by terror to move. They had become trees; defenseless flora instead of the vicious fauna the veterans claimed to be, and they were chopped down as such.
When the last swing of his axe came full circle, he was the only living person in the coliseum. The veritable ocean of blood around him—not curdled by the screams of the departed, but instead weak as soup—was still and unmoving, perfect for skipping rocks. The lion-slayer was drenched, surrounded in a circle of hacked limbs. He'd read the rule book on the train, and there was a statue in place that no challenger could kill another in battle. It was against the rules to do so. But, then again, rules were bones. And he had broken many of them today.
The lion-slayer had done his job. Calmly, he slung his axe over his dirtied shoulder, sad that he hadn't had the time to use his shovel or his butterfly net. It was all in the equipment. Too bad it had been so easy. Too bad it hadn't been a challenge.
Too bad he, with his u-shaped pupils and quiet, feeble smile, was the face of mercy.
()()()
He took the train home that night, wearing his new fur coat. It was rather cold at the coliseum—too cold for the short-sleeved shirt he'd worn there, and he was glad he'd made himself a jacket before he left. The scent of blood had dissipated, leaving behind a persistent musk, a chapter having ended on an empty note. Perhaps embarking on a new life simply wasn't for him—he did have a town to return to, a lovely town in which he was the mayor. He had roads to build and debts to repay—not to the skinflint, rest his soul, but to his villagers. The lion-slayer, though an authority figure, was one of them. He'd wanted to waste them before, but perchance they could coexist. They did love him, in spite of everything. He only hoped they wouldn't find the raccoon's store in the state he'd left it in. If they found out what he had done, would that make him? A heartless, cold-blooded murderer. He couldn't have that. No, he could not. He had to keep on living the façade. It would have been wise to stay away, but he had to go home.
He had no other choice.
Evolution was relative—he was still the animals he lived with.
In the village that gave him his name.