Eight: The Silence grows

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To be thoroughly conversant with a man's heart, is to take our final lesson in the iron-clasped volume of despair.

– Edgar Allen Poe

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2033 Congo River Valley

Mwamba won, even if it was a small victory, he had won. He didn’t let the old man in, didn’t let his stare penetrate the recesses of his soul. He was strong, strong for his grandmother, for his village, for the parents he never knew, strong for himself. The man pushed harder, eyes coming to life with an unnatural haze that found pleasure in the challenge that Mwamba was giving him.

But he was strong.

It was a small victory, but it was a victory nonetheless.

This man was responsible for the deaths of everyone he had ever known. But Mwamba was not dead, and neither was the monster responsible.

Not yet.

The burning wall of resistance the formed between the two figures suddenly made the old man realize that he had found what he was looking for, that it was the spirit of this child that he had killed so many for, had razed villages, had brutally murdered all who had opposed him, for so long. And for what?

For this.
This… spirit, this fire, this was what he required, what he needed, what he had committed so much unspeakable brutality for.

For this.

The silence.