Chapter 4: Let Them Bleed
The printing press rattled in the quiet cold of the alley behind a crumbling newspaper office. Two names remained etched on a broken wooden plaque near the entrance — Timmy Knell & Tom Bushhy: Truth in Ink. But both men were gone. And what remained were memories carved in blood, loyalty, and betrayal.
Timmy Knell had once been just a father. Not a warrior, not a killer, not a prophet. Just a man burdened by poverty, clinging to love. His daughter, born with autism, laughed rarely but purely. His wife, Maria, was his lighthouse, calm even as their world collapsed under debt. She refused to give up their land — their last breath of dignity. When the loan sharks came, they were not cloaked in suits, but in predatory smiles and monstrous strength. Tall, dark-skinned men from the underbelly of Nancy's Cult — not demons, not devils, just men who smelled opportunity.
They offered silence in exchange for her shame.
But Maria — fragile, trembling, mother — gripped a knife not to kill, but to protect her daughter's eyes from seeing her broken. One slice across flesh, one scream, and the cowards fled. Her dignity untouched. She did not survive long after. They poisoned her daughter at the hospital — overdosed her, while nurses whispered and doctors looked away. She collapsed hours later, not from poison but from heartbreak. Her last words: "They touched me when you were gone. But I... I didn't let them win."
Timmy saw red.
He didn't cry. He didn't scream. He just took the knife his wife once held, and silenced the monsters one by one. The news never printed it. It wasn't a crime. It was a cleansing. But Nancy Productions doesn't tolerate blood not spilled in their profit's name. They called it "unnecessary mess."
In prison, broken and reborn, Timmy met Tom Bushhy.
Tom — born in ash, raised in hell. His mother was a prostitute of Nancy's Crimson Chamber. She danced for men in red robes, not out of need, but hunger for filth. He was three when he saw his mother kiss a stranger. Four when his sister stopped calling him brother. Five when his best friends — white and black, boys his age — laughed while his mother undressed before them, making Tom watch. Shame wasn't taught to him. It was inherited.
But salvation came not from angels, but from a bald black man named Baku — a hunter of filth. When he broke down the crimson den, he found Tom shaking beneath a blood-stained curtain. His mother, high and naked, tried to seduce him too. "I'm still young, Officer... I can serve," she whispered.
Baku slapped her.
He kissed Tom's forehead. "You're my son now," he whispered.
Tom cried for the first time — not out of fear, but because the word Papa had returned.
Nirmala Yogana — Baku's wife — became Tom's true mother. Her skin was dark, like the night after war. Her voice, a blade of justice. One of Rosaline's thousand secret allies, she was a journalist who exposed the cracks Nancy Productions painted over with gold. Tom tried once to seduce her — he was still broken, still testing. She slapped him, then hugged him. And he wept again, for guilt, for wanting to ruin purity.
He grew. He healed. He even fell in love with a dark-skinned girl named Shanthy, a warrior of grace who hated all men, until Tom proved otherwise. She loved him, married him, bore his child. She was called Nirmala's Golden Sword, a fearless woman who stood against Nancy's rising tide.
And then the truck hit her.
No brakes. No accident. Just Nancy's message: "We see you."
Tom buried her with his own hands.
He couldn't stay. He left Baku, Nirmala, his city — became a printer in a new land. And that's where Nancy's Cult found him again. They offered money. He accepted it — not for greed, but to help Timmy and their press survive. A bloodstained compromise.
But that money came in a box. And when Timmy opened it to confront him — a scream, a slap, a betrayal — Tom stayed silent. Let Timmy go.
Then he opened the box.
Boom.
Tom Bushhy died. His body was never found. Only ash, and an old photograph of a woman named Shanthy tucked beneath his shirt.
Timmy wept. Not just for the dead, but for the living. He went to the police, holding the evidence, shaking — finally a man again, wanting to do right.
The police welcomed him. "You're a hero," they said, smiling. They served him food. "We'll take care of it." Midnight struck. He left, heart full of hope.
And collapsed on the street corner.
His eyes blinked for the last time, seeing the stars. Then darkness. A whisper behind the wall: "Lord, we killed him. He was supposed to go to the high office."
They laughed. Not officers. Crimsons.
---
And far away in the obsidian tower of Glasshill Cathedral, the 11 Mirrors bowed to silence. The 12th one arrived.
A towering, 12-foot entity. No hair. No brows. Skin like obsidian, eyes like a frozen sky. Blue scarf. Crescent smile. No name.
Just a voice: "I am not spreading corruption. I am corruption."
They launched missiles. They fired cannons. Bazookas thundered.
He danced.
He walked through fire, laughing. His body naked, unashamed. He crushed a rebel with a step, twisted another like clay, devoured a man whole. A woman screamed. He turned, licked her cheek, and laughed.
"No man, god, or demon — just me. Flesh-starved and eternal."
His name?
Mirror 12.
And he marched. Alone. Town to town. Each city he visited became silence.
But not all hope was gone.
On a dirt road, a group of starving children found a large, white dog asleep. They picked up stones. One child swung.
The dog opened its eyes.
Huge as a bull, soft as a cloud. It looked at them — and wept. Then moved through the town. A woman collapsed from grief — one touch, and she rose, pure. A man with broken arms hugged his child again. A boy, long missing, found at the foot of the beast, whispering: "He forgave me."
The dog didn't fight. It healed. It wept. It walked.
They called it:
Big Fat Dog.
It never attacked. Even when people mocked it. Even when blood was spilled in front of it. It only cried. Took the pain. Turned it into light. And when it saw a dead bird on the mountaintop, it laid beside it — and made it fly again.
Then it lay still.
Bleeding.
Every pain it healed returned to it. It never cried out. Just smiled. Because for each tear, it knew it gave someone peace.
Big Fat Dog could not touch Mirror 12. Not because it was weak — but because evil cannot be healed unless it wants to be.
Mirror 12 laughs at light.
Big Fat Dog embraces darkness to burn it away.
They are not enemies.
They are opposites.
---
And now?
The land is silent.
The war has not begun — not truly.
But the Bleeding Age has.
Will light survive the corruption?
Will anyone remember Tom... or Timmy?
Will Big Fat Dog rise again?
Will Mirror 12 ever hunger no more?
And behind it all, behind the threads and shadows...
A little red-haired girl sits in a chair.
She smiles.
She is Nancy.
And this is her world.
To be continued…