It’s funny.

Snarking back is his initial reaction: Can you repeat that for the record? But, the sarcasm would not roll off his tongue. "Claiming to have killed someone for attention isn’t cool, you know."

"Got your attention, didn’t I?"

"Is it true?"

"Would I lie to you?" Timo wears the steamer upside-down as a hat, the lid gone. He constricts himself around Scorpion’s arm. Somehow, the action appears snuggly, but feels extremely hostile.

"Alright, how did you kill him?"

"Mmmm…" Timo raises his chin, his face disappearing under the leaf-liner. His voice muffled, he says, "I squished him like a spider."

All the warmth had left Scorpion’s visage, leaving just an icy surface. "It takes more than that to kill a human being."

A statement that he thinks true, but perhaps isn't universal.

"It's hard to squish a spider, though." Timo’s fingers oscillate, demonstrating arachnid legs. "When you see a big one, it's all creepy and leggy." His fingers pause. "You can try throwing a rock at it, but if you miss," his fingers wriggle again, "it scurries away all creepy-crawly."

He lifts the steamer and looks at Scorpion's face with a twinkling eye. "Especially if it flies at your face. Then you have no choice but to grab it with your bare hands, and when you're grabbing it, you're worried that it'll bite you. But no matter how scary that spider looks, if you crush it fast enough, you won't die."

Since the man seems unconvinced, hesitant, Timo lets out a puff through his lips. "Spiders don't like rocks thrown at them. Harcus didn't like the fruit bowl either."

Scorpion continues walking, barely looking down at the child. The dagger is resting up his other sleeve. The sheathe is loose, and with a flick of his wrist, gravity will slide the goatskin handle into his grip. When he concentrates hard enough, the boy’s jugular vein floats right in front of him, bulging, exposed. A decisive slash is all it takes.

At some point, Timo adds, "I'm always surprised at how much liquid is inside of bugs. And people."

Silence hammers into their ears, stretching into something awful, until it snaps.

"Eh," Scorpion drips in monotone, "there's a spider on my arm."

Timo detaches from the arm and bolts for his life. His steamer-hat flies off, lands, and rattles in a spiral. The chase ignites a primitive brain that compels The Scorpion to pursue.

He is much faster, using a blast of wind to lunge forward. Timo swerves, ducking into the cattail reeds, causing Scorpion to overshoot. Shifting his foot, the witchhunter reveals his true jump height, which is frighteningly high. He identifies the rustling grass from an aerial vantage and cushions a landing next to him. His feet sink into the silt, delaying his momentum. The flattened stalks brush onto Timo's shoulders, who banshee screams and claws his way back to the main road.

They continue to play this unfun game for minutes, ducking and weaving between the narrow, puddle-laden road and the vegetation. Timo avoids boulders and rocks like a chicken, knowing that Scorpion can use them as launchpads.

Timo stops. The boy staggers forward, then his body sways. "I...what...happening..." His eyeballs roll into his head and he crumples atop the mud.

Checkmate. Scorpion exhales a major sigh of relief, his mouth open, panting, his chest fulminating. Fresh adrenaline rules his veins; he must take advantage of it before his limbs mollify. His coat glides, soaked at the edges, slapping his calves, the sleeves billowing unfettered.

Scorpion fingers the leather strap of his dagger with his finger, but is abruptly stopped: the sight of a person walking up the road. Feh! Could the timing be worse? He stiffens his nerves.

The traveler up ahead has come close, near enough to see his moccasins are made of straw. A couple of baskets, which contain a kind of tuber, hang over his hips, bouncing with his gait.

Scorpion leans over Timo, fanning at the boy’s face. What, should, I, do? He checks the pulse, but it’s hard to detect under the torrent of his own pounding heart. He lifts him up, really quite heavy, rests the lolling head on his shoulder, supporting the tush, and walks, each step propelling him towards an unwanted witness.

A male with a raisin-like face under a straw visor slows his pace, glancing at them. "Is he okay?"

"My...son’s being stubborn," Scorpion says with a look of parental disappointment. "He likes to play dead when he’s tired."

"Hmm," the traveler nods his head, peering at their faces. "Good luck." He addles past them, the witchhunter almost bumping into the swinging baskets.

Scorpion walks forward without looking behind. Forward, forward, forward, until his legs feel confident there’s enough distance to let the demons come out and play.

His eyes shuttle back and forth, sweeping the land for signs of movement, reading only the whistle of cattail and the mockery of clouds. He licks his lips, teething on a scab of dried skin. Now.

Scorpion diverts off the road, cutting into the bank of reeds. The mud softens underfoot as he entrenches deeper. The bog will dilute the blood, and the bushy grass will absorb the deceased. When he’s done, he’ll abandon his gloves and turn his trenchcoat inside out. He lowers Timo onto the bed. It’s cold and muddy and he wonders if the marsh will suddenly drop off into a deep lake. There’s plenty of plants scaffolding the soil, so no.

The witchhunter flips the dagger in his right, palm curled around the goatskin. Make it quick. Searching his pouch-belt, he takes out a vial of coagulated substance, rusty in color and chemical in odor. Apply extra just in case. Once the poisoned coating makes contact with blood, it’ll be over in minutes, forever. There’s no glint on the metal, only a gritty matteness, as if the sun itself has shunned him.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

He draws near to slit Timo's throat, heart, steady, heart, slow, smooth, watching the blade court a kiss to the tender neck.

His vision darkens, and a light force presses against his forehead. His dagger hand jams in space, all of his agency evaporated.

The boy pushes the weapon away gently, saying, "It's my turn." Timo sits up, the mud squelches, and Scorpion lurches backwards into the bog.

Agony erupts in his head. He loses consciousness for a split second; the pain dissipates. But as the sky reassembles into view, he becomes aware of Timo's hand retracting from frontal view, whose finger slides out of Scorpion's forehead, slurping quietly as the suction breaks.

Air rushes into his newfangled blowhole, with the fury of a thousand pins. Coldness clashes with heat, fluid slugs clobbering all over. Through poor vision curtailed with eyelashes, he watches Timo licking his index finger clean, looking down at him, eyes wild and sparkling.

Timo, wearing a most grievous smile, presses against Scorpion's torso, fiddling at the buttons near the belt. "I wanna eat you." He inhales, shoulders curving. "Suck out your liver, gnaw on your bones."

Where’s Providence when you need it? It is difficult to come up with a phrase that expresses a level of disgust where you cannot even damn your enemy to Hell anymore, because Hell would be paradise for them, while simultaneously suppressing the fear of a torturous, brutal ending.

Scorpion's chest tightens unbearably, and from his core blasts out a message, "NO, you SICK FUCK!"

His smile unerring, Timo slides his hand under the witchhunter's shirt, stroking along the belly with a finger. "You're hairy."

"Leave. My. Guts. Alone!" Scorpion exhales forcefully and resists against Timo's weight. The lightning in his head explodes again, but his arm cracks out of paralysis and flutters up. He will pry this leech off, even if it costs him his life.

Timo sniffs, his nose twitching. He lunges jaw-first at the encroaching, gloved fingers. Unable to crunch through bone, he realizes his bite lacks force because he recently lost a tooth, so he shakes his head furiously, grinding down harder. Scorpion's wrist tendons snap, and his hand flops helplessly.

The man groans, and he blacks out.

He wakes up to sharp pangs all over his body. How much time has passed? His abdomen remains intact, so he only fainted for an instant. Still not wanting his organs to be eaten, Scorpion grasps at straws. "How--did you resist the poison?"

Timo crawls forward and slams onto Scorpion's stomach, causing him grief. He lifts his shirt and shakes it, and the half-chewed, smushed mochis tumble out. He laughs as some of them plonk off Scorpion's flinching face. "I was saving my appetite for the main course."

Timo presses down on Scorpion's chest. "It all started when you came. I knew I could be watched at any moment." He leans low, breath hot against neck. "I yapped about a sweet tooth to make Mr. Scorpion poison me. But unlike other kids, I don't get the big deal about sweets. I've always preferred meat."

As he hovers over the tormented man, he sticks his tongue into the forehead hole, lapping up whatever wetness is contained within. Aside from the iron tang, the nogg has a consistency of mealy yolk, and quite tastes like roe.

Scorpion blacks out, but for some infernal reason, reawakens to marshgrass scratching his face, to be greeted by the hellspawn once more.

"Last night, I realized I was discovered. I thought, 'How would Mr. Scorpion dispose of me?' Obviously, you would poison me, because I would poison myself if I was tasked to kill me.

"You made it even more obvious with the rice cakes. It's a dessert that's steamed." Timo pats Scorpion's sideburns, condescendingly, whipping up mud and grime. He pinches at the stiff facial muscles. "Steaming is a cooking method that keeps nutrients and medicinal benefits, and also, toxins."

Blistering numbness creeps into Scorpion's appendages. Time is running out, but he won't let go yet, not until he's accomplished what he needs to do.

Scorpion listens to the gloating child, so giddy to prove his magnificent cunning that he stops torturing his only audience. Timo had magically rustled a few plants during the trip. Mr. Scorpion was unusually tense and hyperaware to noises, as if planning something "bad." Timo pretended to chomp on mochis, and his tongue pushed them out of his mouth, down his shirt, when the witchhunter was distracted.

There are many kinds of poison, and Timo was unsure what the symptoms would be, or how fast it should take effect. Ingested poison kicks in after a few hours, but if poison fumes with water vapor upon chewing, inhaled, it would be within minutes. A poison coated on a dagger would be instant; a heartbeat. Through process of elimination, Timo determined that a mild poison was unlikely, because Mr. Scorpion would have to finish the job back at the farm where there's too many eyes, risking his reputation. It also cannot be a poison that would kick in while he's at the clinic, in front of medical specialists who could save him. Mr. Scorpion wanted roadkill for easy disposal, thus he chose a fast poison. Several minutes after finishing the mochis, when Mr. Scorpion seemed to be waiting for a reaction, Timo decided to play "drowsy." Besides, a hunter will pounce at an opportune moment of weakness.

Timo had to wait for the last possible moment to strike. If he fumbled, Scorpion would put up a mana ward and Timo would lose, very badly.

He asks, "Do I make a good witchhunter?"

The witchhunter laughs weakly, even as his lungs protest. He profiled the killer as someone who prized intelligence. How funny that the maniac is an insecure child at heart.

But, I was too soft. Too complacent. He should've assassinated him at that rocky junction, a kinder fate than what a horse-and-man slayer deserves. He shouldn't have bothered with the desserts or an interrogation. When he departs, he hopes that the living will carry out vengeance in his stead.

He moans, spurting blood. The hourglass will need to be flipped soon. Hone the words carefully, for it's too late to have regrets. "You have a gift, and you choose to use it like this?"

The child's grin loses its lustre, becoming less ghastly despite his...choice of lipstick. Scorpion gathers his strength. Not enough. A tidal wave rips over him, drowning him in a sea of pain. Swimming to the surface, he fights for absolution.

Clawing ad infinitum, against all odds, he hangs onto a driftwood of clarity. "You'd make good plant food with me." He said it mostly for his own humorous benefit.

Just like that, the smile was wiped off the budding psycho’s face. His expression transformed to match the twisted ravines of his soul.

"You--" For some reason, Timo could not summon eloquence to respond. Pesky emotions entangle his throat, so he snarls, "You’re just a sore loser!" With a turn of his wrists, his anger flares, accompanied with splitting, cracking, and sputtering.

Scorpion watches the curtain of his memories descending. He exerts his life force, his willpower, on maintaining a smile. He will not let anguish conquer his face. He will not give him a single drop of satisfaction. A fast death is preferable to a slow one. About time I get a quickie.

"Why won’t you die already, you fat cow?!"

In some ways, the threshing clears the chaff of unnecessary thoughts from the wheat. Or maybe he's been through so much pain already, he's numb. The Scorpion’s adulthood was a lonely existence. He didn’t have time to settle for a wife and kids. Justice was his purpose. Justice was its own reward. In the countless cases that he had the privilege of solving, this was the hardest. Inevitably, it would be his last. If he had succeeded in killing a child, who would congratulate him? Certainly not himself.

There was no room for emotion and remorse in his line of work, but even now, his own heart surprises him. Momma, are you there? Would you be proud of me? What is he thinking? His parents have long since departed.

Then, it truly hit him: the reason people call this world The Cradle.

The death throes had ceased. The murky unknown, filled with darkness, blew away in a violent tempest. Carried along like a seed in the wind, he was brought to a gate brighter than the sun. Though he closed his eyes, the apparitions of his friends and family walk clear as day. Though he couldn’t remember their names, he recognizes them.

Quintus Lirium chased them, choosing them. He looked forward to rebirth.