26 Decision (1/2)

Silence arrived in the large cavern, broken only by the sniffling of the children who were too hungry to notice even if the world collapsed around them.

Then, Sebastian got up and ran forward, and Daneel moved back, wondering whether he was in for another fight.

Instead, the man heaved the woman's body off of Daneel. Dropping it on the ground beside him, he ran his hands through his long hair and caught his chin before starting to walk to and fro, like someone with a lot on his mind.

Meanwhile, Daneel checked his body and realized that there was an additional spot of pain. Turning to his fist, he saw a broken finger and skin flaking off. As if seeing it had magnified the pain, it came upon him all of a sudden, making him exclaim, ”Fuck!”

Sebastian turned to him, his eyes livid.

”Fuck? You killed my wife… and you're the one cursing?!”

The development made Daneel look up, taken by surprise.

”Your… wife?” He repeated dumbly, while Sebastian took another round and stopped in front of him.

”Yes! My lawfully wedded wife! We were… a happy couple. And then we turned into slaves… and everything went wrong. Well, none of that matters now…cos she's dead!”

With a scream of anguish, Sebastian clutched the headless body to his chest, but as Daneel observed the man, he saw no tears appear. The body dropped to the floor again a second later, and after burying his face in his hands, Sebastian said, ”No… my wife died the moment we became slaves. She wouldn't have enslaved children and made them starve. She wouldn't have followed that brute just so that she could eat well. She wouldn't have looked at me with scorn just because I tried to follow the rules…”

He shook his head, and Daneel wondered whether he should comfort the man.

Yet, there was no possible way for him to do so. His leg ached, one of his arms was useless, and the other was dislocated. He was a cripple, basically, and he was at the mercy of anyone who arrived now.

As if the world was playing a sick joke on him, he heard the sound of footsteps from the corridor outside the cavern. Sucking in a breath, he tried to turn in that direction so that he could at least face this new enemy with his hands up, but the attempt failed, leaving him in even more pain.

Thankfully… the new voice that appeared in the room was a familiar one.

”Sebastian? Is that you? And… Daniel? What the hell happened here? Wait… the rumors were true?!”

Reese shouted the last line, and after that, Daneel heard him hurry in the direction of the smallest child in the cavern. That brought him into his vision, and as he watched the man, he knew, right away, that he wasn't faking it.

His face was filled with so much pity and sadness that Daneel felt the same emotions kindled in him, again. His rage had been satiated, so only they remained.

Cradling the small child in his hands, Reese looked around, his eyes darting between everything else in the cavern.

When he finally spotted the headless body… he set down the child carefully and walked in its direction, his steps hesitant for the first time.

”Daneel? How did you… wait, no, it's not important! Do you know what you've done? You killed a slave!”

At first, his tone was filled with amazement, but then, when it turned into worry, Daneel was frankly… puzzled.

He knew that, essentially, that was what he had done… but how was that any more important than how he had done it?

When he had been studying Reese, he had also been thinking about how the two of them were the new weak links that he had just sworn he would avoid. Even though they didn't know the details, they knew now that he had a secret… because it simply wasn't possible for someone like him to do such a feat.

In fact, it wasn't impossible for anyone in Graiton, either, except for, perhaps, the succubus. But she was an exception, as she had killed thousands over the course of centuries to obtain her power.