Chapter 24: Living in a repressive dictatorship, Moloch, mincer

Someone shouted, too loud for Steve, who jolted back to consciousness, disoriented. He was in a grey, cold corridor made of big stones, lit by torches. The ground he was lying on was made of beaten earth and was cold too. Surprisingly, Steve was alone. The voices were coming from the ceiling and seemed to order things in a language unintelligible to Steve.

His memories quickly came back to his mind: his abduction, Kono's death, the trials, the chests, the second key puzzled. Instinctively, his eyes turned to the timer.

Six hours fifty-seven minutes.

He couldn't lose time; he had begun to understand/realize that he would never have enough of it. These trials had obviously not been created to allow him to win. Their goal was to stop him at any cost, even his life. His abductors were certainly the ones who had drugged and treated him and allowed him extra time. Steve didn't know what they had to gain, but considering the resources deployed, the ends certainly justified the means.

The soldier stood up and realised that once again, he couldn't feel his cracked ankle, nor his pierced shoulder, neither any of his other wounds, and his bandages had been redone. He knew that the pain would come back soon enough, that he needed to anticipate it and try to spare his abused body to not make his state worse.

A scream brought him out of his reflections. There were kids' cries, adults' screams and voices. He carefully walked in their direction, hiding himself in the corridor shadows. Once at the end of it, he heard the cries coming closer. Steve stuck to the wall and froze, ready for anything.

A man and a woman in tears passed by him without seeing him. Behind them, there were six soldiers. Two of them threatened the couple with lances, making them walk. Another one was holding a few-weeks-old crying, baby. They didn't notice Steve neither. Discretely, using the shadows, Steve followed them. They used many corridors, all looking the same, until arriving in a broad circular room.

The group Steve had followed continued on their way, going down a staircase into a room where hundreds of people were gathered together, organized, put in lines and sections. The Navy Seal thought that they looked like an army being examined. All the bodies were straight, looking in front of them, no one spoke, no one moved except the soldiers passing between the ranks, inspecting, ordering, punching sometimes. Men and women were organized in a circle, all turned toward the center of this circle where there was a huge crater and a ten-meter-high statue of a man with a bull head. At the statue's feet knelt around ten soldiers, each of them holding a baby in their arms.

Suddenly drum music started and Steve noticed the instruments placed all around the room. All the drums had a diameter of approximately one meter, some were even bigger. The musicians hit them with big sticks covered in a fabric red like blood. Beside each drum stood a group of three men who started to sing along. Their deep voices sang in a guttural language in a very rhythmic way, almost slammed, made Steve shiver, as if his instinct was telling him that something terrible was coming.

Everyone in the room folded in two, eyes to the floor, and a man with a bull head entered riding a bull. The man was tall, muscular, and was only wearing blood-red leather pants. Following him, around ten men walked two by two in a military step and pulled a man on a rope. The latter clearly was a prisoner, his clothes were in rags, his complexion was grey and his cheeks had grown hollow. He was covered with scars, likely resulting from torture, some seemed still open, but he walked with his head high. Behind him came another group of soldiers and finally, a man with a hyena head, wearing only black leather. The latter was holding a cleaver around thirty centimeters long at his hip. The procession walked until reaching the statue. Then, the music, the voices stopped, everyone stood up and the man with the bull head spoke with a strong and deep voice. His words, even if Steve couldn't understand, made Steve's hair stand on end.

When the man ended his speech, the one with the hyena head brought a chest and knelt the prisoner in front of it. Steve took his head between his hands. How would he be able to open it without being seen? As things stood, it seemed impossible.

As he followed what was happening out of the corner of his eye, he started to look for a way to get closer to the chest without being seen. However, his eyes quickly came back to the chest when the prisoner was bent over it, neck on the cover, held by two guards. The cleaver fell fast and strong, in an utter silence. The head rolled on the floor, while blood spurted from the dead body. There still was not a sound; even the babies had stopped crying.

The bull-man resumed his speech while three guards moved the body away, followed by a fourth one with the chest. Walking along the walls, as discreetly as he could, Steve moved in their direction, hoping they would exit this overcrowded room. Out of the corner of his eye, Steve saw the executioner seize one of the babies, who started to cry again, and bring him to the border of the crater. His heart tightened, he would have wanted to intervene, but he couldn't, it would be sucide… what was more, he remembered, none of this was real. He tried to convince himself that all of it was virtual and no one except him or his Ohana would be hurt or killed. He focused totally on his goal to stop thinking about it, even as bile came up in his throat when he heard a thud between the babies' cries.

The Navy Seal was relieved to see the guards leave the room with the body and the chest. He followed them at a distance through different corridors until they parted ways. The man holding the chest took a different corridor from the ones holding the body. Steve didn't let his chance pass. As soon as they were far enough from the other guards, he closed the distance and struck the guard's neck with his forearm. The latter fell unconscious with a thud.

Steve didn't lose time: he opened the chest with the guard's lance and took the piece of key. A secret door opened in the corridor two meters away. After a look at the timer, Steve walked through the door without hesitation.

Five hours forty-nine minutes.