Chapter 11 – Culmination

Two months had passed.

Two months of softness. Of pretending. Of bodies and beds and blurred faces he didn’t care to remember. Night after night, Drogo buried the storm inside him beneath moans and sweat –
but the fire never left. It smoldered, coiling tighter.

Now, the mask was peeling away.

He stood in yet another hotel room, facing the wardrobe. A quiet click – the door opened.
Inside: a duffel bag.
Inside that – THE OLD SKIN.

Military boots, black and scuffed.
Tactical pants with deep side pockets.
A charcoal hoodie.
A black field jacket, heavy and worn.

And finally – the panama.

He dressed without hesitation. Each layer a ritual. With every strap pulled tight, every sleeve filled, something inside him sharpened.

Then came the shoulders. He rolled them forward. Let the spine curl.
The posture returned – the hunched, lurking silhouette.

This wasn’t disguise.
This was clarity.

The part of him that had been sleeping… woke.

The Heart Reaver had returned.

Meanwhile, German was walking home after yet another meeting with the professor

He read through his notebook as he walked, lips moving without sound.

Over the past two months, they had made real progress.
They had finally uncovered the core of the problem – what had happened inside Gobby’s mind that day.

The day it all started.
The day he met Drogo.

Gobby’s cognitive system detected a threat beyond comprehension. The conscious mind couldn’t cope with the overload. Panic spiraled. Pressure mounted. The system initiated a reboot.

But within the collapsing architecture… Deda was still present.

The reboot unfolded like this.

A field of darkness condensed inward – like a black hole forming in the middle of thought. Every internal structure – memory, identity, sense of self – compressed into a single point. Then came the rupture. A violent expansion. The elements of the mind tore apart like matter splitting at the atomic level. But it didn’t stop in the head. The body felt it too. Sensory receptors fired in agony, broadcasting pain so overwhelming that no system should have endured it.

And that’s when Deda made a choice.

Not to run. Not to watch. He threw himself over the boy’s fragile core, shielding it with everything he had left. He didn’t let the child’s mind fragment into irrecoverable pieces. He took the blow instead. Held the fragments together. But in doing so – he broke.

The day it all began.
The day Gobby met Drogo.

After the incident, the professor gave a swift command to remove the boy from the room, then locked the door behind them. For two hours, no one knew what was happening inside.

But what really happened… wasn’t silence.

It was trance induction.

Gobby had sunk into a state of psychological shock so deep that no ordinary dialogue could reach him. His conscious mind was fragmented. Unreachable.

So the professor had only one path forward – induction.

He placed the boy into trance. And from within the silence… Deda emerged.

Behind closed doors, the professor didn’t speak to the boy.

He spoke to the presence still holding him together.

Gobby was just a child.
Small.
Shattered.

But Deda remained.

Not just a fragment of consciousness – a guardian.
A shield.

And there, in that quiet space where the pain had barely begun to settle, a pact was made.

Not spoken aloud, but sealed in silence – forged in fear, bound by pain, and carried by something deeper than blood: unconditional love.

First, Deda would lock himself away. Wrap itself in mental chains to prevent another collapse. That’s why Gobby stopped seeing the presences. When the guardian retreated deep inside, he took the door to that world with him.

Second, Deda would take all the pain – every blow, every trauma, every psychic cut. The physical and mental toll of the world would be routed away from the boy’s mind… and into the guardian’s soul. That’s why Gobby could endure so much. Why he never cried when struck. Because he never felt it. But pain doesn’t vanish. It festers somewhere. Sometimes, when the boy hears a low hum in his skull – that’s Deda, silently screaming, jaw clenched tight so Gobby won’t hear.

And this protection came at a PRICE.

The entity’s life energy burns away fast. His ability to regenerate grows weaker with each sacrifice.

To survive – Deda needed something that could feed him. Recharge him. Something real.

That something… was taste. Pleasure. Flavor. Food.

So Gobby began to crave it – obsessively. To devour every bite like salvation. Because to him, it wasn’t just food.

It was survival.

Every sweet, every spice, every buttery mouthful – it kept Deda alive. It gave him strength to keep suffering… so the boy never would.

German paused by the front door of the house, snapping his notebook shut.

He was pleased – proud of the discoveries, the conclusions, the clarity they had achieved.

He unlocked the door, stepped inside, dropped his bag by the threshold, and let the door shut behind him.

– Grandma, I’m home… and what’s that amazing smell?

He walked into the living room – which opened directly into a small kitchen – and glanced left.

There, the table was set.

A full meal.

One plate.

– Grandma? What’s the occasion?

He turned to the kitchen… and froze.

Drogo stood by the stove. Something sizzled in the pan.

Without turning around:

– Hello, German. Go sit down on the couch. I’ll finish the chimichurri sauce… and then we’ll talk.

German took a step back.

He wanted to run.

– Don’t even think about it. Think of your grandma.

– What about her?

– Nothing. Yet. But if you behave, she stays safe.

– What do you want from me?

– At first? I wanted to kill you. You ruined my meal, remember?

A pause. A quiet sizzle from the pan.

– But then I realized… I should thank you. You helped me change. From a predator – or, as they used to call me, the Heart Reaver… and later, the Maniac in the Panama – into something more refined. A conscious hunter. That’s your gift to me.

He turned the heat down.

– Now I need one more favor. You help me – and I walk away. You and your sweet grandma stay safe. Deal?

– What favor?

– Invite Gobby to dinner. That’s it.

– No. I won’t do that.

– Then your grandma dies in agony. You too. And I’ll still find Gobby. You’ll just die for nothing. Think about it.

German burst into tears.

Slowly, he pulled his phone from his pocket, hands trembling.

– You can tell him I’m here. No need to lie to a friend.

– Gobby… Gobby, he’s in my house.

Gobby’s voice came through the speaker.

– Hey, German. What’s going on? Who’s “he”?

– The Maniac in the Panama.

The call dropped. Just a dead tone.

German stared at the phone, then slowly let it fall into his lap.

– He hung up.

The moment Gobby heard his friend’s voice crack with fear, something flipped inside him.

A switch.
A trigger.
The effect took over completely.

He didn’t walk. He launched.

What normally took twenty-five minutes on foot, he crossed in barely five – a blur of motion, velocity folding around him like armor. With every step, his body condensed. Muscles tightened. Bones solidified. Vision sharpened to a single point:

Threat.
Target.
Eliminate.

Then – the door.

He hit it at full force.

It burst open, splinters flying.

Gobby stormed in.

Left: German, crumpled, sobbing.
Right: him. The Enemy.

Gobby lunged. A growl tore from his throat.

CRACK!

A waffle iron slammed into his face mid-charge.

His body whipped sideways, crashed into the floor. Warm blood flooded his right eye.

He didn’t hesitate.

Crawled. Low and fast. Like an animal.

Then pounced again.

Drogo hurled the waffle iron at him – a distraction. With the other hand, he pulled something from his inner jacket.

A scalpel.

The throw missed.

Gobby caught the flying iron midair and flung it aside.

Then he wrapped his arms around Drogo’s legs and yanked, executing a brutal grappling takedown.

Drogo hit the floor. Hard.

Gobby climbed into mount. Knees pinning hips. Hunched forward, arms cocked.

And he began to strike.

Not punches – blows.

Like sledgehammers.

CHEST.
RIBS.
JAW.
THROAT.
SHOULDERS.

AGAIN.
AND AGAIN.
AND AGAIN.

Drogo’s hand jerked. The scalpel flashed, aimed for Gobby’s thigh.

But Gobby caught the wrist, locked it, shifted his weight, and swung his hips into position.

Snap – clean and brutal.

An armbar from hell.

Drogo howled, curled inward, clutching his broken limb.

Too slow.

Gobby slithered around him, took the back, locked his arms under the chin in a triangle, legs wrapped around Drogo’s torso like a vice.

And then – pressure.

Tighter.
Relentless.

Until Drogo’s eyes rolled back.
Until his body went slack.

Gobby shoved the body aside, panting hard.

He rose.

Took a step toward German.

German opened his mouth, trying to say something.

But Gobby’s knees buckled.

Darkness slammed into him.

He collapsed.

A white cloth covered his face – soaked.

Chloroform.

Drogo, barely conscious, smiling through bruised lips, held it there until Gobby’s breathing evened out.

Then silence.

German surged forward – screaming – but Drogo moved with lethal speed.

He caught the boy’s neck with one hand, drove him against the wall, and with the other hand stabbed.

Once.
Twice.
Three times.

The scalpel slid in, clean and effortless.

Then he shoved German away.

The boy crumpled to the floor, clutching his gut, mouth open in a silent cry.

Drogo rolled Gobby onto his back and sat down beside him.

He raised the scalpel high over his head.

German, clutching his bleeding stomach, screamed:

– No–

Drogo drove the scalpel down into the chest, just above the heart, and began to cut.

With precise movements, he reached in with a pair of surgical forceps and pulled the heart out.

When German saw it, something inside him shattered.

Drogo laid the heart onto a plate, poured chimichurri sauce over it, and began to eat – slow, deliberate.

For a brief, grotesque moment, he was immersed in the taste.

Then came the screech of tires outside.

Two black buses slammed to a halt in front of the house.

From them poured a unit of Savages – soldiers in dark uniforms, moving like a single organism. At the front stood a Commander of the Lord’s forces: Cerberus.

His voice cut through the noise.

– Open fire.

A hail of bullets tore through the air toward the house.

Drogo grabbed the last piece of the heart, shoved it into his mouth, and sprinted toward the back door.

Under the storm of bullets, German crawled to Gobby’s body.

He lifted the lifeless head into his lap and began to cry – loud, guttural, unstoppable.

Tears ran down his face, spilling onto Gobby’s unmoving features.

End of Act One

German, unconscious, lay in a pool of blood beside Gobby.

Two hands – old, gnarled – reached from the darkness.

They grabbed German by the collar and dragged him across the floor.

Then they did the same with Gobby’s body.

Dragged into darkness.