Every time I cut off a child’s hands I like to count. Anything to distract myself from the fact that I’m cutting off a child’s hands.

Five minutes and the show begins.

We’re both facing the stage curtains. Slum Brown, I entitled their colour years ago. They used to be a ‘Royal Red,’ an official colour, but The Madam’s self-stylings as a queen couldn’t cover up what this place was for too long, a mud-brick restaurant in the slums. At least this one’s large, and floored. The floors being the same colour as everything else here, a bleak mix of gray and brown – Slum Brown. The smell of piss is everywhere. As usual for the slums, it’s like the air itself is moist with it.

The Madam had hired a stone mage of the second rank while standing here, and he’d half-finished setting the foundation before he’d figured out he wasn’t getting paid and quit. Hence its hushed nickname, The Leaning Turd.

Can’t understand why she stays, to lord over a land of children? Is her pride that small? She’s a fire mage! Shaking my head at the thought I adjust my cloth-belt and rusted sword sheath, Mook in tears to my right.

Blonde haired, brown skinned, gold-eyed, and thin as a stick, he’s shaking like one in the high winds with fear.

They’re always in tears, but they always stand. Peeg showed everyone what happened when you ran. The Boys are cruel, especially when you’re young. How old’s Mook? Ten, if I remember his official name correctly.

“How do you live with yourself?” Mook croaks through giant sobs. That’s surprising, they usually hate me too much to talk to me.

“I don’t,” I reply as the phlegm Mook was saving hits my face, sliding down.

Should have realized.

I wipe my face clean in one downward motion with my right hand. “You know, I just finished throwing up.”

Four minutes and the show begins.

Fuming about being caught off-guard by a pre-teen, I fiddle with my sheath in my left hand and think about the pay to calm myself down. Two silvers a day, I can afford to throw up now.

All it cost’s my soul.

“Is there a way to end it quickly? My sisters don’t have the heart for it, I’m all they have,” Mook asks, surprising me again. The fucking gall! He should suffer.

“Simple as be. Wave bye to your ‘rew, your fam, then bow. Cool as black water. You’ll piss, that’s normal. Keep looking ahead, just over everyone’s head.”

The Queen’s Goodbye, the cruellest goodbye invented by the cruellest self-styled queen.

“A nineteen-year-old Headsman, what’s the world come to! Kids these days, it’s the parents I tell ‘ya,” shouts a small boy as he struts in alongside a bronze-skinned girl with short straight hair reminiscent of the fogs of Lerral. She sits down in the dark corner to Mook’s right, far from me. The light from the glowing-moss covered rocks backstage catching the gold of her irises as she shut her eyes.

The boy has blonde hair, brown skin, orange-gold eyes, a small shield on his back, and dirt all over his cloths. Owmnuts knotted in his left hand, he individually passes them to his right before then throwing them up. A smug smile on his face as they land in his mouth perfectly one-by-one.

Bowing to an imagery audience repeatedly he takes off the shield and sits down on the floor next to the grey-haired girl while grabbing more owmnuts from a pouch. He eyes the floor near my feet, smiling. “How’s your stomach? Bet you regret eating without me now, huh, Ohr?”

“Fuck off Ave.”

“Geez! Kids these days.”

“I’m older than you, Havila, by a decade.”

“Don’t forget you’re a head taller.”

“Why are you here Ave?”

“Madam wants you to stay after. Talking to.”

“Wonderful.” Mook cheers up at the news of someone else having a bad day. Ave and I turn to him, He does know he’s dying today right?

“Heard about Bean?” Ave asks, owmnuts somersaulting in the air.

My fists clench. Your life’s set in this world the moment you’re born. All you need is one elemental crystal to resonant with you and your whole world changes. No more slums.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

But who has crystals lying around? And enough luck to find their element with what’s on hand. Bean is… was, the smartest bastard I knew, smarter than Ave even. Spent five years crafting a master heist and he’d pulled it off. Stone, wind, and water crystals; he was going to resonant, leave and never look back. The only thing being none of them moved. He was supposed to be a fire mage, never thought he’d be one, too shy and sane to hope for so much. Ended up with nothing.

Hung himself last night. No more slums.

A lot of people do that.

Three minutes and the show begins.

“Guess that’s a yes. One of these days you’re going to land on your own sword wandering around in your head like that,” Ave says as he pops another couple of owmnuts into his mouth to no applause.

A blonde haired, brown skinned, dark-gold eyed woman with a face as sharp as cliffs walks in. Her cleanliness and the streak of blue in her hair lets all of us know again that she’s a water mage.

The Madam’s right-hand takes her place to the side of the curtains, right beside me. Her left-hand rests on the pull cord.

Stiff as ever, Qaet won’t move outside of her part in all this. My eyes dart to the ugly scar that runs horizontally across her neck before I catch myself and face the curtains quickly, palms sweating.

Two minutes and the show begins.

Nervous, I turn right and walk towards sleeping beauty. She remains perfectly still as I crouch, lean in, and kiss her forehead. “Morning Ash, set for tonight?”

The corners of Ash’s lips curve up, but still, her eyes remain shut to the world. She’s still angry with me. Tonight’s gonna make up for things, hopefully.

The sound of crunching owmnuts fills the silence as I stand back up and return to my stage position.

One minute and the show begins.

Beyond the curtains the cacophony quiets, the saner people deciding to forgo chatting during the show it seems. But what does sanity mean in the slums? How sane can you be when you’re only given twenty-five years to live? Sanity requires time, nobody has that. If only you could steal it.

I close my eyes, inhale deeply, and exhale slowly. As I finish counting and open my eyes Qaet opens the curtains and Mook pisses himself, the show’s begun!

The restaurant’s packed. All ten tables and forty stools are occupied, and even more people are standing. The Boys and the few others who can afford to eat are scooping rice and vegetables into their mouths before reaching towards their dark-green leaves again. Moss-covered rocks atop all the tables light their actions. Their shadows dancing with magnified greed on the walls as someone’s stomach grumbles in the darkness that the moss-light can’t reach.

People either came for the show or at The Madam’s invite. You can easily tell who from who – only those here on their own volition are smiling, enthusiastically waiting. Wonder if everyone else looks sickened because of what’s about to happen or because of the implications of being invited.

The stage we’re standing on is a semi-circle levelled with the floor but the tilt of the restaurant has it sitting slightly higher. The many sharp rocks encircling it were once covered in moss that glowed with the colours of the rainbow, lighting the stage grandly. But time's done its part again and all that remains are the rocks. Leaving anyone on stage feeling as if they’re standing in the mouth of a beast, right on its tongue.

Mook rushes out. Drenched in piss and snot he wants to end this quickly. Blubbering uncontrollably, he walks to his crew on his left. Their heads face the floor, they don’t look him in the eyes. He waves the first goodbye and his left-hand flies off. Because of me.

Blood gushes as he holds his severed arm up. He turns and walks towards his sisters on his right. Sheer terror written on the youngest’s face, the oldest nauseous but composed.

He waves the second goodbye and his right-hand flies off because of me. Blood splashes their faces, the oldest throws up.

The mud-covered stage floors speck with red as Mook walks to centre, turns and faces the audience. Putting what’s left of his arms behind his back he bows to The Madam. His head drops to the floor before his knees, his excrement, and finally the rest of him. His little sister screams and wails hysterically as the last member of her family wipes her lips clean of vomit, kneels, and hugs her quiet. Tears running down both of their faces.

All because of me. Because of The Queen’s Goodbye, the farewell for thieves.

One that works incredibly well, I wipe my rusted sword clean on my leg-cloth before sheathing it, Especially well in a den of thieves.

Helped along by Qaet as a hint of blue flashes across her eyes, Mook’s blood separates from his piss and shit. The piss surrounds the excrement, rises, and is placed in a bucket backstage for someone to dispose of later. The clean blood rolls down the tilted stage, between the beast’s rocky teeth and straight to The Madam’s table to wash her feet in red as she continues eating leisurely.

Is it because the slum residents believe that if you die without hands you have nothing to beg your way into Heaven with? That, headless, you’ll wander lost for all eternity? Is it the horror of it all? The theatrics? Or, more subtly, is it the indifference? The Madam and The Boys continuing on with their eating as if nothing’s happening, their indifference showing the rest of the slum children where they stand. That could be them tomorrow and they wouldn’t even bother to yawn.

The Boys leave first, another scheduled murder to attend to probably. Her meal finished and stage clean of blood, The Madam stands as Qaet follows, the rest of their entourage mimics them. As they exit, the remaining people visually trail the bloody footprints that mark their departure. Certainly today it’s the theatrics that quiet the crowd.

Can’t figure it out, all I know for sure is that it works incredibly well, and all it requires is the soul of everyone involved. Can’t buy food with your soul though.

The restaurant empties of all non-workers, save for three. I walk around, gathering the hands and the head back onto the body. Mook’s sisters would want him buried.

“Get ‘im back to the fam will ya,” I shout to Ave.

“Yessir,” he replies, giving a mock soldier’s salute as the corners of Ash’s lips curve up again.

Taking a step back, I sit down. One leg over the other, hands on my knees, elbows out, I face what I’ve done as blood pools under Mook's limbs. Silent tears rolling down my face as I continue staring at what I’ve done.

Closing my eyes, I inhale deeply then exhale slowly. Repeating it nine times, I rock with each motion before hitting my head on the stage floor nine times, hard. Tears still running, forehead bruised, I open my eyes again and face exactly what I’ve done. I close my eyes, inhale deeply then exhale slowly. Repeating it eight times, I rock with each motion before facing exactly what I’ve just done.