Duskwood Legends [English Version]

Cracked in a thousand pieces.

*⚠️WARNING⚠️*

This chapter contains explicit scenes and language, not suitable for a more sensitive audience of readers.

No, no, no.

This can't be true, damn it! Tell me it's just a bad dream and I'll wake up from this nightmare soon.

Because what I see ... it cannot be real. There has to be a plausible reason for this, for sure!

Or, perhaps, it's just one of your jokes? Is that it, Richy?

Tell me you'll come up with one of your usual smiles soon, one of those smiles that come from the heart; one that puts everyone around you in a good mood and can melt even the most cynical and insensitive of souls. I would pay gold to hear you laugh and utter the phrase, "Hey guys, I was just kidding! I'm fine. I missed you guys so much..." I assure you, I would not be happier in my whole life, to receive such a joke. Because I would be okay with anything, as long as this attests that you are not a traitor and a cheater.

So come on, smile.
Fuck! Smile.

... Please, smile...

Why on earth are you standing there silently in front of us, pointing a gun at our chests? What is this absurd expression of hatred and resentment etched on your face?

Tell me, is this what you really look like?

Look me in the eye as you swear that your motto "one for all" was only a perjury; that your kindness was solely a mask of feigned good-naturedness, worn to conceal your true intentions. Because if you don't, I will never be able to get over it. But I need to hear it from you; and not with words, but with your gestures and your look! Because I need to see the infamy in your eyes, to convince myself that our relationship was really just a fake.

Because it hurts, it damned hurts to think that you have always been an encourager of all this pain, an accomplice in the attacks and death threats, co-responsible in a kidnapping...

Now, right now, you must show me how much our friendship was worth to you. How much weight did it have, on the balance plate? Perhaps, on one side there was us, while on the other there was the vile money -And how many banknotes did they have to place on it, to shift the needle of the weigher in their favor?

Yet your smile was not a lie.

The Richy I met was genuine, he was real. There was no shadow of malice, not even the most miserable, in that innate goodness of yours. Instead, the person in front of my eyes is someone so consumed by anger and contempt, it cannot be you. You have so many scars in your heart, though not visible, that have made you unrecognizable.

What have you become, Richy?

It has already been quite some time since tears began to run down my cheeks, but only now do I realize it. I would like to say something, or at least scream and throw out all the suffering inside me, but I'm unable to. I simply keep staring at you in silence, looking at that mussed blond hair of yours, in contrast to all those dark bruises disfiguring your face.

What have they done to you?

Out of the corner of my eye I see Jessy slump to the ground, staying up on her knees. I shift my gaze entirely to her, immediately bringing myself to her side. I encircle her shoulders in a hug, while tears also flow copiously down her face, losing their way into the sleeves of my sweatshirt. It will either be this clutching her tightly to me, or the way I tremble from head to toe, that finally causes her to burst into inconsolable, high-pitched crying. Her screams, so full of suffering and disappointment, give me the final blow; even my legs give out, causing me to collapse to the ground beside her.