Chapter 137: Graves in Ash
The fire in Redhold Hive died.
Not slowly. Not as embers fading with time.
But all at once—snuffed out—as if the flame itself had heard the roar and surrendered.
Smoke still curled through the corridors, but the blaze was gone. The heat remained only in memory. Walls blackened with soot stood charred but intact. The silence that followed was worse than fire.
It was not peace.
It was aftermath.
Axel sat still, cradling his father's corpse in his arms. Michael's blood was long dry now, but Axel hadn't moved in hours. His eyes were glassy. Not from tears—those had already bled out of him—but from emptiness.
The knife he'd used to make sure Michael wouldn't turn into a walker was still embedded in the side of his father's skull. A clean, precise stab.
Final.
Merciful.
The other bodies throughout the Redhold Hive were the same. Knife in the head. Every single one.
Axel had seen it before, on fields of battle, in burned towns and slaughtered cities. But this was different.
This was surgical.
Deliberate.
The Ashen Circle had made sure not one soul would rise again. Not as walkers. Not as threats.
Just corpses.
But Michael they left him so he will turn. But axel did it
Silence pressed in. Time stretched like a noose.
Then finally—Axel stood.
He rose like a statue waking from a dream. No sudden movement. Just a slow, heavy breath, followed by another. Then he lowered his father's body gently to the floor and looked down.
His face was unreadable.
No rage.
No grief.
No fire.
Just void.
His eyes, once gold-flecked with light, were now blood-red—pure and unblinking. His skin, pale and dirt-smeared. And his hair…
His once-black hair had grayed slightly after the death of his mother and brother.
Now it was completely white.
Every strand.
White as snow.
White as ash.
White like a man not aged, but forgotten by heaven and forsaken by hell.
He didn't speak.
He didn't scream.
He moved.
Out into the shattered Hive.
And he began to dig.
One grave.
Then another.
Then another.
And another.
Grave after grave.
With a rusted shovel he found half-buried beneath rubble, he began to carve holes into the earth outside Redhold Hive. The ground was hard—dry and cracked—but he didn't stop.
He didn't pause for food.
He didn't drink water.
He didn't sleep.
The sun rose. The sun fell. Twice.
And still—Axel dug.
He carried each body with care.
The men and women who had fought under Michael command. The medics. The children. The cooks. The guards. Even the engineers who kept Redhold running—he remembered all of them.
And he buried them.
One by one.
The silence was broken only by the crunch of boots, the scrape of shovel, the fall of dirt.
And when the graves were finally filled, when every body had been laid to rest beneath the blood-colored soil, Axel returned.
Back into the Hive.
Back through the hallways where ash clung like shadows to the walls.
Back to him.
Michael.
His father.
Still untouched.
Still waiting.
Axel kneeled beside him again.
He didn't speak. Didn't even breathe hard.
He simply dug one more grave.
Deeper than the rest.
When it was finished, he lifted his father's body and placed him inside with the same care he had given everyone else.
Then he stood there, above the open grave, staring into it.
Not moving.
Not speaking.
Not thinking.
Just being.
The dirt in his hands fell like time itself—slow, heavy, inevitable.
And finally, when the last shovelful covered Michael's body, Axel placed the shovel aside.
He knelt.
Ran his hand over the disturbed earth.
And then sat beside the grave.
Not over it. Not facing away.
Just beside it.
As if keeping watch.
As if waiting for something that would never return.
He had no words.
Because there was nothing left to say.
---
Far away, beneath blood-lit torches and stone altars, the Ashen Circle watched.
Through fire and shadow, they'd kept an eye on the Hive. Some had hoped he would die in the blaze. Others feared what he might become if he lived.
But no one expected this.
One of the cloaked members, young and bold, sneered.
"He looks broken."
Another laughed coldly. "Let him mourn. He'll die slower this way."
But the leader—the one with the black hood embroidered in crimson—spoke no such arrogance.
He leaned forward in his chair.
His voice was calm. Ice-wrapped steel.
"He's not mourning."
The others turned to him.
"Then what is he doing?"
The leader's fingers curled into a fist.
"He's changing."
---
Back at Redhold, the wind picked up, curling around the ruins like an unseen spirit. Axel still sat there, staring at nothing, hands stained with blood and dirt.
The flames were gone.
The bodies were buried.
The Hive was silent.
But inside Axel—something had just begun.
Something dark.
Something vast.
And the world would never be ready.
---
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