This desperate situation inevitably led some mothers to hide their children, refusing to hand them over to the "officials" I commanded with an iron fist... as happened with Cassie's biological mother, whose terrified face still visited my nightmares.
My only fragile consolation was that these children would truly be happy in the orphanages until the deadline, unaware of the horrible truth awaiting them. They would not experience the hunger that gnawed at the entrails, the cold that froze the bones, nor the worries that aged the soul prematurely. Instead, they would be raised with simulated love, meticulous care, and feigned affection before being sent away and, finally, killed without mercy.
Despite knowing their tragic and inevitable fates, I truly came to love them with a part of my heart I thought had died long ago. I was determined to shower them with genuine affection before their scheduled deaths, as if that could atone for my sins.
I never intended to excuse my actions by pretending they were not abominable crimes, for I was painfully aware of the cruelties I committed every day with a maternal smile on my face.
In short, I firmly believed that one dead in the fire was preferable to thousands on the battlefield. Even if, before ending up there, the corpse had been burned, mutilated, and crushed by the hooves of a furious horse. Even if I had to flay it with my own worn teeth.
I did not regret it... or so I told myself every night before sleeping. After all, this was the life I had chosen...
I could not change the world around me with its cruel and unchangeable rules.
What would my death achieve, other than turning me into another forgotten corpse?
If anything I could do with my cursed existence was to give the best I had within this perverse system.
— I am not a monster —I repeated to myself in a broken whisper as I watched Cassie.
Today I had repeated it more times than usual; I was growing old and weak. My sins were beginning to weigh more than my interest in surviving one more day, but I had to continue until the end of the path I had chosen.
As I stared at the unconscious girl before me, I deeply missed the freshness of her contagious joy that lit up the darkest rooms, and I could not help but mock my own sentimental weakness. Reality grew crueler and more unjust each day, like a broken mirror that only reflected distorted fragments of what we once were.
They were all so small... They used to be so innocent and fragile like newly formed buds...
— Do not grow attached to her —I told myself over and over in the solitude of my tormented mind.
«Cassie is a child, and you are a monster beyond redemption.» If only I had followed my own advice when there was still time, but it proved impossible not to grow attached to the only daughter I had truly loved, without masks or pretenses.
A genuine love that Cassie returned with all her being, a pure expression of gratitude that someone like me did not deserve at all. A love that made me feel more human than I had been in many dark years. It showed me something I had deliberately forgotten existed in this devastated world, reminded me that I was not always who I am now. And that terrified me to my core.
I fought fiercely to leave every trace of humanity behind. I could not afford to return to normalcy; a sane person, with intact empathy and compassion, could not endure a single day doing my job without breaking completely.
I remembered with painful clarity how our laughter fueled each other on those afternoons of storytelling, gaining enthusiasm with each shared tale, until soon they filled the room with joyful echoes that provided my soul with an almost miraculous relief I did not deserve.
Her company was so comforting that I felt a sharp pang of regret, similar to what an adulterer might feel when enjoying a forbidden lover, knowing perfectly well it was a fleeting satisfaction for which I would pay a terrible price afterward.
I was being unfaithful to the solitude that protected me, and solitude was a proud and deeply resentful companion. It did not accept being relegated to second place, it did not easily forgive those who betrayed it. Its revenge would be relentless when it returned. I knew with certainty that the more I connected emotionally with the girl, the more devastating the moment of parting from her would be.
Now my constructed image of the perfect mother had shattered before Cassie's perceptive eyes, and she saw me as I truly was: nothing more than a lethal threat to her and her adoptive siblings. A executioner with a kind face.
I sighed with a remorse that burned within me as I recalled that, ironically, I had always loved bonfires since I was a child.
They were an oasis of peace in an endless desert of struggles. A warm refuge that welcomed you at the end of the darkest day and drove away fears until a new sun was born. A sun I had not seen directly in so many years that I almost forgot its true color. But beyond the hypnotic glow of the fire, darkness wove its own relentless intrigues.
In those distant days, bathed by the flickering light of the family hearth, I was a powerless witness as the shadows danced around me, contorting into the grotesque shapes of my inner demons that never left me.
In those ever-changing silhouettes, I could clearly see the bloody path I had left behind and, within it, the decisions made, the sacrifices imposed, and the mistakes committed slithered like poisonous snakes trying to reach me to claim their debt. They had not disappeared with time as I naively hoped.
They remained there, clinging to my soul like parasites, and would pursue me relentlessly for the rest of my miserable life. The dark memories that danced in the night prevented me from calming my troubled conscience, even though I tried to drown it in justifications.
I would never fully atone for my countless wicked actions, never obtain the redemption I secretly longed for. There was no way back for someone like me. My only viable option was to follow to the bitter end the path I had chosen, or the atrocities I had committed would have been in vain, a mountain of corpses without purpose.
I sighed with resignation while smiling with contempt at myself. We all had something dark that inevitably pushed us and made us advance toward the personal hell that corresponded to us, and it was usually not by our own will but by circumstances that overwhelmed us.
— My little Cassie... —I murmured, caressing her cold cheek—. Let Mommy help you one last time.
I had to reach her goal before those shadowy vipers pursuing me caught her too in their relentless jaws.
This was all I could do for her, my last act of true love.
— Please, do your best to escape! —I whispered fervently near her ear, hoping that some part of her could hear me.
Even if escaping meant running forward without looking back, even if new nightmares were born with each step they took in that hostile world. They had to succeed, no matter the cost...