Chapter 223
Could you? (2)
"Could you murder the world?"
The voice came through—ragged and buried beneath layers of static, but the words themselves were unmistakable. The distortion only made them hit harder, like something not meant to be heard clawing its way out of an unfathomable deep hole.
"Could you bathe your mighty hands in the blood of millions—millions upon millions with lives, with names, with stories… children with futures still forming, mothers and fathers with hopes, uncles, aunts, cousins, grandparents, sisters, brothers—and the rest?"
The voice didn't ask so much as challenge, its tone neither pleading nor accusatory. It was simply stating the cost.
"Could you do it all with the malevolence of a wronged man, and all the rapacity of a ravenous pig?"
Each word carried a weight that twisted the air, like a curse. IAM could feel it—how every syllable dragged deeper into some unseen chasm. The speaker was so distant, disembodied, and yet so close, so real. It felt like it was not just a voice.
"Could you murder the world… knowing we would lose everything? That there would be nothing waiting on the other side, no respite behind the the shroud of perdition?"
A pause crackled in the silence. Then came the voice again, colder now, quieter—but no less fierce.
"Could you murder the world while feeling the wet of blood on your skin, the smell of dead flesh to your nose? Could you do it with the cold of corpses pressed between your fingers, their warmth gone—forever?"
IAM's breath caught for a moment. There was something maddeningly intimate in the way it spoke—not to him, but through him. Like a question meant for someone else, and yet still his burden to carry.
"Could you murder the world," the voice went on, building, "knowing sleep would no longer be an escape? That it would come late and leave early, every dream a nightmare with the eyes of your sins staring back at you?"
The static hissed violently for a second, and then—
"…The weight of billions on your back… threatening to crack it...That spine of yours could only bear so much."
And then, silence.
Total, suffocating silence.
Then… came the other voice.
It emerged slowly, rising out of the crackling static like a second presence crawling through a tunnel of decay and dust.
"No… For my blood boils, and can only be cooled by the cold of the corpses, and my thoughts are of blood!"
The words rang with a seething fury—almost poetic, but poisoned, scorched by something irredeemable. The distortion warped the edges of the voice, but it couldn't hide the conviction—it couldn't hide it's purpose.
"It cannot be taken away by thoughts of sin."
There was a pause, a breath, and then—
"I will feel the flesh of the dead on my hands," the voice promised, it was low and grave, "I will see the light snuffed from their eyes like candle flames. I will hear the screams of children—of the innocent—in agony, ringing louder than any bells of mercy."
The static hissed like steam from a pressure valve.
"I will smell not the corpses, but the prayers that curdled in their throats, never to be heard. Never to be answered. And I will taste the regret—when it's all over."
There was a stillness then, an unnatural void in the static.
Then came the first voice again, softer now, laced with something between sorrow and horror:
"So… there is no stopping you."
"There is no stopping the inevitable," the second replied, like a mantra carved in it's tounge.
The first voice lingered, broken now.
"Then it ends… after all."
"Alone or together," the second voice replied.
"It ends."
Then—
"Unto the death of the world."
And with that, the recording ended.
A silence followed—deeper than before.
Even the faint hum of the monitors seemed to fade, leaving only the echo of the distorted voices reverberating in IAM's head.
No one said anything for the longest time. The air was thick and brittle. IAM felt as if the recording had emptied something out of him, leaving behind only a stunned vacancy.
He could feel wave after wave of goosebumps crawling relentlessly across his skin, a tide of cold prickles that refused to recede. His muscles had locked up and his breath was shallow. Thoughts swarmed his mind like hornets let loose from a shattered nest, each one stinging and leaving venom in the canals of his brain to fester and linger.
From the conversation, it was clear—one of those voices had promised destruction on a scale beyond comprehension. By the end, it had sounded as if the other had conceded, resigned to the inevitability.
Who were they, to speak so casually of murdering the world as if it were an assignment on a desk, a chore to be checked off a list? Why would anyone wish to do such a thing on Holem?
How long ago had this been recorded?
What was the context? The aftermath?
What was their link to the Circle of the Accursed? Where were they now?
The questions kept multiplying until his mind was a tangle of thorns.
Thor's voice cut through his train of thoughts."Ever since hearing such a chilling recording," he said slowly, his eyes distant, "I haven't gone one day without wondering if they succeeded. After all… we are all still here…" He paused. "Or maybe the world really was murdered, and we're already living in hell."
IAM swallowed hard. In that moment, he understood—truly understood—why this could never meet the light of day. The public was already embroiled in a feverish discourse about the unknown organisation. If this recording surfaced, it wouldn't just ignite curiosity—it would set the country, maybe even the entire world, ablaze with paranoia.
Kai lifted her gaze from the console, her expression grim and unreadable.
"I'm sure you understand now," she said flatly, her voice like a locked door. "Or perhaps you're more satisfied. Either way, leave. Unless you'd prefer I make you sign a Path contract to ensure you don't, under any circumstances, leak this."
"I know…" IAM said quietly. "No one will hear of this."