The chemical fire lit the irritated pink in Roy’s eyes to a dull orange. There wasn’t much damage as far as he could see—a few red lumps of veins here and there, but nothing out of the ordinary. He tucked the broken piece of glass under his arm, and scooped a handful of coarse dirt up from the ground with his good hand. He then began to grind the dried blood from his face with the rocky earth. It was better this way than with your clothing, his father once told him, let the soil mask the scent of your wounds. And even though the red mess had already embedded itself deep into the fibers of his clothing, blood is blood, and to a hungry beast, blood is smell. He recited the words of his father with his mouth closed.

     The butcher handed Rojj Bannajan the meat cleaver. As Bannajan lifted the cleaver over his head, the ghoulish mutant broke into hysteric convulsions; howling, jerking his head back and forth, slapping his ears onto his shoulders, and grinding and punching his fists into the ground with arrhythmic percussion. Councilman Bannajan barked an inaudible order through his iron mask and motioned for the butcher to secure Farelhorn’s head. The butcher refused with an awkward grimace, and turned his chin away and downwards into his chest. Bannajan then looked to the blacksmith’s apprentice, but the man had already exited into the crowd. Abandoned by his cohorts, Bannajan hung his head and moved into position, avoiding eye contact with Farelhorn. The wild emotion that Bannajan had lost out on from breaking eye contact with Farelhorn was replaced with the sobbing and contorted red faces of the children in the front row. A blunt snap was heard with one of Farelhorn’s punches to the ground, and with the very next blow from the same hand, his forearm twisted, bent, and folded underneath the elbow. What would’ve defeated the spirit of any decent man, neglected to even scratch the surface of Clifford’s threshold for pain, and with the following punch, bone ripped through the skin of his forearm, leaving the appendage in a mangled ‘T’ shape.
     The shouts and cries turned to cautious gasps as several of the people from the front row—many pulling the children away—made their way far from the crossroads, leaving the sordid chorus of Clifford Farelhorn’s retching and pounding to replace the vacated ambiance. Councilman Bannajan stood frozen with a weak and shaky bearing. It was all that he could manage. Roy heard a feint blubbering echo from underneath the man’s iron mask, and knew very well that Bannajan’s will was at its last drop.
     After standing quiet for a moment, Bannajan glanced across the top of the crowd until his eyes found what they were looking for. Roy’s attention was directed to his father, who was standing near the back of the crowd, and until then, was barely noticeable from the corner of his left eye. The old giant shot his son a stone glare, and with a slight shift of his neck and eyes, urged his son to leave. Roy returned the stone glare, and didn’t move a muscle.
     By now, the remaining eyes in the crowd followed to the source Bannajan’s attention, and for the very first time, the villagers failed to ignore Hadley’s eyes. They didn’t pretend to forget who he was. The invisible elephant in the crowd was now very evident, and now very much needed to carry through with what he was widely known for.
     The out-of-character and disobedient behavior of his son, followed by the unwanted requisition from the crowd and village councilman to perform a public execution, set Hadley’s blood to fire. His eyes popped and his jowls pulled back with the tightening of his neck, and there was a sharp crack heard from the grinding of his teeth. His true face was revealed, and everyone was to blame. Hadley looked the crowd over with a blazing hatred, suggesting that after Clifford Farelhorn’s execution, each and every one of the villagers in the crowd would be next. He shoved those to the ground who failed to remove themselves from his path as he made his way to the front row of the crowd. But before entering center stage, he stopped. Standing side by side with Roy, Hadley gave his son one last silent warning.
     “I’m not leaving,” Roy said. “I’m not going home.”
     Words were not in reach for the man whose rage could burn holes in steel. The thought of lunging at his son and beating him within inches of his life immediately crossed Hadley’s mind, but his anger towards the crowd remained stronger and secure at the forefront of his mind. Perhaps this defiant milestone in Roy’s life called for him to witness this execution as a sort of passage rite, further into manhood. Hadley continued onward until his feet reached Clifford Farelhorn’s knees.
     Hadley looked down past his chest and stomach, and onto the ghoul that had once been the man Clifford Farelhorn. The demon jerked its head upward, and pulled his body to a half-crouched, crippled stance. Upon meeting Hadley’s eyes, Clifford inhaled, and from the depths of his soul, screamed with a terrified pitch that crackled and multiplied itself several times over in the eardrums of every warm blooded body at the crossroads. Without hesitation, Hadley pulled out a thick-barreled hunting pistol from underneath his jacket, buried the muzzle into the ghoul’s forehead, and pulled the trigger, detonating a missile of fire and smoke out through the back of Clifford’s bald head. Farelhorn’s lifeless body fell, landing hard on its knees. Before the body was able to fall flat onto the ground, Hadley gripped the crown of Farelhorn’s empty skull with his free hand, dropped his hunting pistol, and pulled out yet a second weapon—a stout blade with the thick weight of a meat cleaver and the elegant curvature of a hay-sickle. Raising Farelhorn’s body up with one hand, Hadley made a clean slice a few inches underneath the chin. The body then fell to the ground for the very last time, and the head remained in the old giant’s hand.
     Hadley lumbered past Bannajan. He didn’t make eye-contact, he didn’t say a word. He dropped Clifford Farelhorn’s severed head at the councilman’s feet without breaking stride. Before exiting the crowd he turned to Roy, and with a calming temper, he lobbed his blade into the ground in front of his son.
     Roy spent the rest of the day with Sophia Rose, on a hilltop, away from view of the village, examining his father’s blade.