The silence I encountered when I escaped the dampness of the tunnel and stepped into my shelter was heavier than a nuclear explosion. The breath of my little brother, lying on the old sofa in the corner, was wheezing like a broken bellows. When I placed my hand on the boy's forehead, I pulled back as if I had touched the door of a furnace. But the worst part was his eyes; those cursed transparent lenses implanted as an infant were now flashing a bright, bloody red under the heat of the fever.
[SYSTEM WARNING: VITAL SIGNS CRITICAL. HYPERTHERMIA VARIANCE DETECTED. MEDICAL INTERVENTION REQUIRED BEFORE EXECUTION PROTOCOL.]
"No, no... It won't be like Mother. You won't go like Father," I whispered. My voice sounded like a stranger's sob in my own ears. I wrapped him in a blanket and lunged into the freezing darkness of the street.
I knelt among the grayed-out thickets and clawed at the earth with my fingernails—searching for a medicinal herb, a damp root... but the soil was poisoned; every leaf I found turned to ash between my fingers.
I pounded on the first door. The rusted iron of an old worker's block. "Please!"
"A fever reducer... Just one dose! Anything you want in return!" A pair of fear-filled eyes looked through the peephole.
"Get out of here, Dorian! The kid's lenses are flashing red, if the Proxies see, they'll throw us all into the vortex! Don't invite death to our doorstep!" The door slammed shut. Hard, cold, and final.
I didn't give up. The next door, the next street... As tears mixed with rainwater burned my face, I knocked on Mrs. Elara's window. She was once my mother's friend.
"Aunt Elara, I beg you... He's so small. Look, he can't breathe!"
She opened the window just a crack, a mixture of disgust and pity on her face.
"Dorian, that golden leash of yours won't save us. Tell your Master to help. All we have left are our own lives. We can't sacrifice them for a 'flawed' one."
"He's not flawed! He's just sick!" I hissed, but the window was already locked.
In the middle of the street, I collapsed to my knees with a burning life in my arms. Every door, every window around me was as silent as a headstone. Humanity, out of fear for Vivaricus, had long since buried its own conscience. The texture of that luxury cashmere shirt on my back seemed to mock my misery. I could feel Dante's presence in my mind. For him, this wasn't a tragedy; it was a work of art—a spectacle of my pride being dismantled from a front-row seat.
I lifted my head toward the empty sky, toward that invisible summit where Dante truly resided.
"Is this what you want? For me to kneel? To beg? Look, everyone has closed their doors! No one is helping! Are you going to bind him to your system too? Make him your property as well?"
The red light in my brother's eyes began to flash faster, signaling that the execution was drawing near. Elyrian's chest heaved with a rattle, his tiny mouth opening to release that sharp, predatory scream. My blood ran cold. If that sound leaked out, the ground would split open in seconds, and the earth would swallow this innocent body like a seed of rebellion.
"No, no... No!"
In a panic, I grabbed the pillow and pressed it over his face. I wanted to tear my own heart out. As my fingers clamped over his mouth and nose, I could feel the warm, damp bursts of his breath against my palm.
"Shh... Elyrian, please be quiet..." I sobbed. "I can't let them take you. Please hold your breath, please..."
His skin burned my hands like a live coal. As he struggled in my arms for his life, I looked up at the ceiling, at that invisible god. My voice was like wreckage rising from the ashes of my pride.
"Master..." The word came out like poison. "Dante... Give me... Please send medicine. Anything... I'll do anything you want. Just save him!"
Silence.
Neither a voice nor a system warning came from Dante. That deafness killed me a thousand times over. The door burst open, Joseph and the others rushed in, and I froze over my brother in that horrific position—not knowing if I was his murderer or his savior.
As I sank to my knees, my world went dark.
I knew Dante's silence was a punishment. Saying "please" wasn't enough; he was waiting for me to shatter completely, to surrender every fiber of my being to him. Joseph took a step toward me with a useless bottle of syrup. His voice was as hollow as a gravedigger's.
"Let me do it, Dorian," he said painfully. "Let a stranger send him to a peaceful death, not his own brother. Don't carry this burden."