Kalon’s shocked hands gripped intensely around Oracle. Kalon’s face, however, hadn’t gotten the memo yet: he was just waiting for Colinus to wake up.

Oracle didn’t think anything in particular of the situation, except how much he valued being able to strengthen his wormy body with Betel —The Betel energy— to not end up turned into mush by Kalon’s grip.

The elder pushed his way out of the crowd with surprising calm. “You killed my son. Effortlessly.”

Cutbastra pointed at Jagger, safe under his left arm,“I also did it while holding a fat Rottweiler puppy.”

The elder raised a hand to let Cutbastra know it was enough. “Do you mind if I let the townsfolk handle the… fulfilment of whatever demands you have, tourist? My succession line has just gotten a bit… ejem, abridged, and I need to make a new baby and sort things out, you know how it goes…”

Cutbastra made the same gesture. “Go, wise old man, and I apologize for killing your son. I did give him a chance to concede the match. May your next heir be a bit more intelligent.”

Then, with a cold head unbecoming of a grieving father and his hands behind his back, the elder retired from the scene, backflipping over the still shocked audience. As soon as he was far enough, he broke into an ugly cry that no human in the village would hear.

Jagger, however, did hear it. “Ha! Pussy!” he mocked.

“Did you see a cat or something?” Cutbastra raised the puppy to eye level with both hands. Then he shook himself out of the digression. “Doesn’t matter, I have things to do. Go forth, go back to your owner. Make sure it lets Oracle go.”

Jagger skittered away, towards Kalon, and headbutted his owner’s shin.

“Jagger, you are whole,” Kalon said, throwing Oracle behind as if he was a banana peel. Oracle didn’t scream as he turned through the air. He trusted gravity to be the only thing in this town that knew how to do its goddam job.

“Oh my god, did he knock him out?” Kalon finally uttered, garnering the stares of the whole town. A neighbor approached him and handed the boy a bag of sugar. He placed an understanding hand in Kalon’s shoulder.

“It’s time, laddie.”

“Time for what, Mr. Cobbleson?”

“Caramelize those floors of yours.”

Kalon took the bag of sugar. It weighed a few billion times more than his brain (this is, about a kilogram and a half of honest-to-the-gods sucrose. White, sweet, cristaly. Do I seriously have to describe sugar to you? Do I? Fucking mental diabetic.)

Ejem, sorry, harsh day at the narrator’s union. Like, fuck you anyway, but sorry for not putting enough love into the fuck you.

Where were we? Ah, yes, Kalon and sugar.

Mr. Cobbleson patted Kalon on the shoulder and then used its own to open a way through the crowd. Cutbastra sat in a Buddha position as he waited for the attention to stop being hoarded by Kalon’s stupidity.

Oracle had begun his odyssey through the sea of feet to return with his friend. Feet stood all around, some with so many varicose veins one would think they had worms nesting inside. Granted, had they had worms, Oracle would have been feasting on them.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Oracle gracefully slithered through the mob.

“A snake!” a mistress claimed.

“A caecilian!” another wronged out.

“An amputated komodo dragon spawn!” a man nonsensed.

Oracle simply ignored them, both the screams and the stomps that tried to turn him into yet another component of the local soil. He tried not to look above, as some men and women of that mass of dumb and dumber were using skirts, and, when you are immortal, traumas last for a long, long time.

As soon as he jumped back into his pocket-home, Cutbastra began talking.

“As you are aware.” He raised the bloodied hand and noticed the crimson stain. Ripping a heart out was a messy business. He created a piece of cloth out of Geuse —the vital energy— and diligently cleaned his heart-ripping instrument. Then, Cutbastra conjured a little bubble of iridescence in front of him, and, touching it with a finger, made the magical construct spit out a new bottle of his beauty elixir. He downed it in front of everyone. “It’s amazing, this thing. You should try it one day.”

Seeing it was a clear liquid, Kalon raised a hand.

“Is it water?”

Cutbastra was about to answer, but Oracle was faster: “Yes, yes it is. Technically.”

“And what is it… Practically,” asked Jagger, whose fear of death was as dysfunctional as many of Kalon’s myelin sheaths.

“I didn’t come here to be judged,” Cutbastra said, stashing the vial back into the shiny pocket dimension. “I came here to kill children.”

A gasp fell from the mouth of the most intelligent villager in the public and dominoed through the crowd, reaching Kalon last.

Kalon picked up Jagger and brought the dog’s ear close to his lips “Why are we gasping?” he whispered in a whisper so whispery.

“The faster-than-the-eye-can-see guy said he came here to kill children.”

Kalon puffed and laughed with confidence. “That’s silly, we don’t have children. Only lots of particular childs.”

“Are puppies included in the mass killing, Sir Cutbastra?” Jagger asked, giving a begging puppy stare.

Cutbastra began gesturing with his hands. “I am … I am not that kind of guy. I am immortal, I need to commit only atrocities I can live with. I can help make more children but I cannot help make more puppies.”

“Intercourse!” Jagger cursed safe-for-workedly.

“I have all eternity but you don’t, so let us be expeditious, Valelike Vale: I want you to bring me every child born in the last twelve years…”

“Which are the last twelve years? We have a lot of years in the calendar.” Argued the local timekeeping guy, a small, rotund man with glasses. He went by the name of Jagger.

Cutbastra decided this was not a line of argumentation worth pursuing. “Bring me any children that have not yet reached thirteen years of age, and whose names are Jagger. I shall send them with their god.”

“And what if the children are atheists?” Asked a mother that had so scant flesh on her bones that the boogeyman under her bed was a medical student in want for a bleached skeleton to study.

“We have… physical… smiting even… proof that gods exist and meddle with us. Even then, as your putative child is clearly a result of a folic acid deficit, my master, who may rest in peace, once said that it would never matter if gods exist or not: the dead go with the gods all the same.”

“How so?” Kalon intelligented, making Jagger look up at him, searching for signs of a body snatcher taking possession of his owner.

“Well.” Cutbastra joined his hands and exhaled. “If gods exist, so does the afterlife. If gods are myths, so are our loved ones after they part, deprived of an afterlife, of a soul. But I always countered this with a simple argument, you see…” he looked at the sky with certain melancholy. “The existence of gods is no proof of an afterlife.”

For a moment, Cutbastra wondered if killing all those children was right. Was his fear of death justification enough for such a vile act?

He gave another sip to his elixir. It was salty and a bit bitter, but it made him remember there were things worth living for. Jade beauties, cucking morons, and yes, puppies. Puppies were okay. Were there puppies in the afterlife? What kind of? Sweater puppies? Was heaven just an infinite dimension of boobs without a body amalgamating with each other?

“I won’t sleep tonight, Oracle.”

Oracle thought Cutbastra was speaking about the upcoming child murder. No, he now feared being consumed by biblically accurate honhons if he closed his eyes.

“Bring me every last child called Jagger, or I shall raze the village to the ground.”

“We won’t let you!” shouted an anonymous man from the crowd.

“After fucking everyone’s wives!”

The women cheered, but the man went at it again.

“We won’t let you!”

Cutbastra laughed maniacally. He knew he had the trump card now. “And everyone’s husbands!”

“We w… will bring in the sacrifices.”