[A/N: TW there will be depictions of assault, rape, and cult like actions in this chapter]
Chapter 4: The price of carelessness
Time went by and just as the older man stated, the young monster slowly became consumed by the twisted desire that sprouted in the depths of his soul. Everynight he would join the group, everynight his actions grew in depravity, everynight the reluctance he once shown would slip away more and more, until by the end of the week he no longer even bothered to accept payment to join.
The poor family has soldiered through most of the week, only momentarily faltering before determination to make it through once more returned to their bodies. Refusing to allow any excess harm fall upon their families due to their own failures. The father and boy burning with anger and hate for the men doing this and at themselves and the fact to weak to do anything but watch. The daughter not wanting make her mommy experience any more pain because she did bad. The mother, the one experiencing a true hell, telling herself that everything will be okay that she just needs to make it through a little more, lying too and hoping too desperately convince herself that everything is and will be fine, that prostitutes go through this just to survive the least she can do is make it past this if it's for her family.
Now on the 7th and final day, they sit and lay there broken, beaten, and on the verge of collapse and yet they have not fallen. Their minds weary, conscience blurring in and out often only for when it's about to me to much for a bolt of clarity to strike them allowing for them to push through a little more bit by bit. Surprisingly they have shown resilience beyond what anyone in their position would be expected to show, especially the mother, there in the depths of her eyes you can see a fire burning. Despite the pain and suffering, leaving her weak malnourished moving unsteadily like a rusted puppet. Something in her determination must be rubbing off on her family because they too have shown that though they may bend they will not break.
This conviction has ignited something in the surrounding men akin to excitement as if there is a competition so they have begun to 'participate' more often, leading to them crowding around in a never ending line. The 'game' ends the moment the last sun dips below the horizon, they family has been told that as long as they can make it to then they 'win'. Non of the men are allowed to break the rules either, they cannot tell lies to the family to break their last bit of will, nor can they beat or harm the family(at least beyond the obvious). Over the course of the day and as the final hour approaches more and more of the band crowd around the family turned spectacle. The surrounding men and women looking down treating them as nothing more than a show, yet it changes nothing for the family.
The older man has been observing the camp but this family has definitely caught his attention leaving him honestly impressed. He has seen the man who marked them break apart many families, so far only three have made it to the end. Looking up at the tree he noticed how the girl has been looking at the family the entire final day not taking her eyes off. Even the days before she watched them quite often. Even though her expression still has yet to change or show emotion she refuses to take her eyes off of them. He wonders what she see through them, how does she perceive the world, how does this family, that woman appear in her eyes? He truly does wish he could know, because despite seeing them through this ugly world he cannot take his eyes off of them just the same. That plus he put a decent bet on them making it through the whole week.
Over the course of the final day less and less people were focused on trying to break the mother, accepting that such a thing was no longer likely to happen, instead many of them have begun cheering for her to go all the way to the end. Truly something, everyone lost into depravity, cheering for a mother to make it through this tragedy not for any sense of compassion, no, no of course not for these fiends they only think it's fun to root for an underdog.
In the final hour the last few men are trying to use her while she is still available not knowing when they'll have their next raid or visit a town, and not many are brave or crazy enough to try and fuck one of the women the band has after all they're all a special kind of insane. Though one cannot seem to accept such things, new to the world that this group has shown him he has not developed a proper enough understanding. He cannot accept that despite everything that has been going on she still wont break, even while she's helpless forced to do these things, in front of her family no less. She still has defiance in her heart, she still hasn't runaway from the world and allowed her mind to fall apart to save herself the suffering. He can't understand it, the family too, although bound in chains, forced to kneel and watch has their precious wife their precious mother is forced to please random men over and over and over in a never ending cycle for days, yet despite everything although they look at those men with an anger that could consume the world when they look at her it is only love and compassion.
He can't understand, it's like they think they're better than him. He hates seeing that life still flickering in her eyes. Just because he left home doesn't mean he ran away, no not one bit, he obviously left to purse the power money and fame that he naturally deserves. Still that look in her eyes every time she gazes at him, he just knows that she's somehow looking down on him in contempt as if he's inferior to her. Where does she get such arrogance from? Look at her, helpless laying on the ground getting ravaged in front of her husband and kids like a whore.
Noticing that the new guy was getting a little carried away in anger one of the men told him to calm down some. What he didn't see was the slight smirk on the face of the man who told him. Despite being told that he is pushing what he's allowed to do instead of calming down to reflect he burned with more twisted disgusting anger, getting rougher and rougher.
Seeing the last of the three stars about to go down and the look of determination and hope she grow more and more. He finally couldn't take it "YOU BITCH!!!" he roared as he raised his fist before attempting to bring it down on her skull and cave it in. Yet before it could land it was stopped still and effortlessly held in the air. No matter how he struggled to move it, it wouldn't budge. "WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOUR DOING!!" he scream as he turned around and saw the same man who marked them. His eyes and face devoid of that usual strangely jovial mood, no just a slightly warped expression, seething as he looked at the filth who ruined his lovely game. Like a bucket of cold water was poured on the man he calmed down almost instantly to reflect on what was going on.
Unfortunately for him before he could even think about his next set of actions he began fall back, so caught off guard by the sudden loss of balance he just fell on his butt. Looking up he saw the man holding an arm... it took a second but he finally snapped his head to his shoulder and with the acknowledgement of what just happen so did the pain come flooding in. He began to grab his stump of a shoulder as he screamed out.
Ignoring the little bastard who cut the game short, the same man who cut his arm off knocked the blood off of his blade and sheathed it. Once he was done he chucked the arm to the side and looked at the woman on the ground who was also trying to process what was happening. He put on a gentle smile as he pulled off his coat to place it on her very softly as if afraid to offend or harm her "I'm sorry about that ma'am, unfortunately it cut the game a little short but seeing how everyone including me believes that you would've won I'll consider it your victory. You have proven your conviction for one another and shown us something beautiful. Don't worry no harm will come to you or your family after all what kind of monster would want to hurt a family that has shown such devotion for each other"
He said all of that with such a sincere and gentle smile and tone that it was causing the her mind to fail and keep up with the abrupt change and contrasting information flooding into her head, but the one thing her mind caught was that it was over, that she made it through and saved her family, it was finally over. With that she fell unconscious, but the man caught the back of her head before it could hit the ground, placing a small towel under before gently placing her head down.
With that done he turned back to look at the little bastard, when he wouldn't shut up with all of that screaming and squirming he placed a quick kick to his jaw to knock him out. Looking around he said "Some come torniquet this piece of garbage, no reason to let him die that easily" so he threw a piece of gold on him and turned to more important things as someone came took the money and began to torniquet the his shoulder.
Looking out he asked "Who wants to be the winners caretaker this time around? I'll throw in half what that little shits worth plus the usual. Figure it out yourselves who does it. But whoever gets the job I swear to the holy mother if I find out you broke the rules and didn't take your role serious, I'll find a way to make you experience suffering so bad that even the princess will show an expression of pity on you"
With that final statement there was a sudden buckle of tensity in the air as everyone realized how serious and pissed the man was. However there was one who had the opposite reaction as he got the perfect opportunity, the same man who told the young monster to calm down spoke up "Speaking of the princess..." pausing to let the tensity in the atmosphere build some "I remember hearing someone saying something along the lines of shutting the princess up, my guess is that whoever said such a thing must of meant permanently"
After he said that he didn't even bother hiding the face of fun he was having, the others who heard this, especially the crowd who has been watching this spectacle in rapture also slowly began having the same faces. Some in the crowd corroborated the story even going so far has exaggerating it well beyond resembling anything remotely close to reality, but the reality of the situation mattered little to these people.
Someone in the crowd gave a chuckle and single clap to themselves as realization struck. With an utmost serious and thoughtful expression. He walked into the center of the crowd and began to speak loudly to everyone like the embodiment of justice and virtue given form "Now Now Now everyone! Calm yourselves, this here is an act of someone with a heart of pure evil and thoughts of nothing but villainy. I don't know about everyone else here.." taking a second to scan everyone and truly getting into it "but I absolutely cannot stand such filth marring our beautiful world. We must punish such sins to cleanse the lands of this despicable demon. This punishment must be absolute so when we send this vile! despicable! no good! thinggg back to hell they'll know exactly what happens to their kin who dare trespass onto our lands and try to bring harm to the holy mothers children"
Raising both hands to the sky towards the twin moon looking down like a pair of celestial eyes "PRAISE BE!". Following his antics and going along with this new source of entertainment, almost everyone in the crowd put on reverential and pious expressions as they too raised both arms towards the twin moons and shouted "PRAISE BE!"
"Now what do you fellow children say? Should this wicked demon be punished for his sins?" in response a myriad of shouts and responses rang aloud but all were in favor for this punishment. "Now for a punishment worthy of evil incarnate we must call upon the best the lands have to offer. Luckily right here in our local collection of faithful's we have a many masters of their crafts. So we need to call upon them to only get the finest of works! What do you say?!" With a final shout of support a few went to find those strange fellows who like making 'art', a few others went chain up the 'demon' and cauterize his wound, while the rest started laughing having a blast or they kept up the act thinking it more fun not to break character.
Leaving this young showpiece with a fate decided by nothing more than the whims of a few bored lunatics.
