Chương 211: Chapter 211
The evening stretched on, dark and suffocating. The forest outside the crumbling cabin was silent, as if nature itself had fallen mute under some unseen command. Brekanberl were known for their eerie quietness, their footsteps hardly making a sound. They had been at war with humanity for so long, no one remembered what started it. Some said it was the experiments, others whispered it was revenge for some forgotten atrocity committed by men. But in truth, it didn't matter. War was a slow, gnashing thing that broke both sides until there was nothing left but hatred and fear.
Peter stood in the cabin, his back pressed against the door, fingers clenched around the cold metal of the doorknob. The rusted wood groaned under his weight, a grim reminder of how the world had aged. A former soldier, Peter had seen horrors that would haunt him for the rest of his days. His hand twitched, reaching for the rifle at his side, but he stopped. There were no battles here, no formal combat. Not now, not anymore.
But the Brekanberl were coming. He could feel it. Their presence was like a sickness in the air, heavy, suffocating. They had always been predators, their bird-like eyes tracking every movement, their talons sharp enough to rend flesh from bone. But this time, it was different. This time, they weren't hunting. They were coming to end it.
Peter closed his eyes, trying to drown out the memory. A younger man—someone full of purpose and belief in victory—might have fought back. But there was no use. Not anymore.
The quiet outside deepened as the night settled, and Peter's ears rang with the absence of sound. The wind whispered faintly through the trees, but even that seemed wrong. The stillness pressed against him, making his skin crawl. And then, the first flutter of wings.
It was faint, almost imperceptible at first, but it was there. The Brekanberl never announced themselves with noise—no trumpets or drums. It was their silence that killed. Peter's breath hitched in his chest.
They were here.
He grabbed his rifle, the metal cold under his fingers, the weight of it oddly comforting. He turned his back on the door, stepping toward the window. It was cracked, the glass broken in places from when the cabin had been abandoned long ago. He peered through the jagged edges, his heart hammering in his chest.
The forest outside was too dark to see clearly. But he knew they were there, hidden among the trees, like vultures waiting to swoop in. He hadn't heard a gunshot in years—he had no idea how the Brekanberl had managed to avoid detection. Maybe they didn't need weapons anymore. They had learned to hunt without them. A flurry of movement near the tree line caught his eye, and his breath stopped. He saw them—dozens of them, their sharp silhouettes barely visible against the shadows of the night. Their wings flicked out like ragged feathers, their forms shifting like smoke. Their eyes, pale and glazed, gleamed in the dark.
Peter's stomach dropped. The Brekanberl had come for him.
A sound broke the silence. The unmistakable scrape of claws against wood. Peter spun toward the door, his rifle raised. He fired twice, the sharp crack of the shots ringing through the cabin. But the door didn't give. No human could be so quiet. He cursed under his breath, dropping the rifle and reaching for the knife strapped to his belt. The Brekanberl would be upon him soon.
The door creaked as something—or someone—pressed against it. The quiet, heavy steps made Peter's skin crawl. He backed toward the other wall, fingers trembling as they brushed against the cabin's rough, weathered wood. His breath was too loud now, and his body screamed to run, but he knew it was useless.
The Brekanberl didn't need to chase him. They knew they had won.
A soft tap. The first claw made contact with the door. Then another. Then the third. It was rhythmic, deliberate, like the ticking of some monstrous clock. Peter's heart pounded, and he could feel the suffocating pressure of it, the feeling that if he opened the door, they would be there, their talons plunging into him, tearing him apart.
He didn't need to look to know what was outside. He had seen them before—during the war, in the places no soldier wanted to go. Their inhuman faces, beak-like mouths twisted in cruel grins, their bodies long and sleek. The bird-people had long abandoned their human-like features, adapting to the horrors of war in ways humans couldn't fathom.
A doorframe splintered as something heavy slammed into it, and Peter knew the cabin wouldn't hold much longer. The walls groaned under the pressure. His breath came out in ragged gasps now. He couldn't think. Couldn't do anything. He was stuck in a corner, his own body betraying him.
The Brekanberl were inside.
The door exploded inward, and Peter barely had time to react before one of them was upon him. The creature's claws scraped down his face, burning like fire as they tore through skin. Peter screamed, but the sound was choked off, swallowed by the Brekanberl's sharp beak that found its way to his throat. He felt the coldness of it—sickening and sharp. His blood splattered across the cabin floor, painting the wood red, and he could see the gleam of their eyes, locked onto his. They were hungry. And the hunger would not be satisfied until he was nothing more than a broken piece of flesh.
A second one appeared, sliding along the walls like some twisted serpent. It didn't rush; it didn't need to. It watched Peter's struggles with a kind of sadistic curiosity, as if it found him amusing. Peter could feel the hot breath of another Brekanberl on his neck, the rush of wings beating near his ear. The sharp tip of a talon pressed into his side, and he twisted away in pain, but there was no escape. They were everywhere. He couldn't move fast enough.
The pain was unbearable. His body was a canvas of blood and tears, limbs sluggish, movement slow, as though everything was drowning beneath the weight of it.
One of the Brekanberl spoke. It wasn't a voice, but a series of clicks and croaks, the sounds a bird might make before it pounced on its prey. Peter's eyes met the creature's, and in that brief, fleeting moment, he saw something that stopped his heart: It wasn't hate that filled the Brekanberl's gaze—it was pity.
The creature's talons wrapped around Peter's wrist, dragging him toward the floor. His mind was fading, the world slipping further away. His ribs cracked as it bore down on him, and the darkness was at once welcome and terrifying.
Then, something broke. The Brekanberl that had been toying with him stepped back, its wings flaring, a sharp screech splitting the air. The others stopped, motionless, like statues frozen in time. Peter couldn't make sense of it. He could barely see, his vision clouding with blood and the sounds of his own labored breathing.
It didn't matter.
As they dragged him from the cabin, one of the creatures whispered something in its guttural language. The words twisted like thorns through his mind, untranslatable but meaningful in the deep recesses of his instincts. He felt it, the sharp truth of it—this was the end of humanity. Not with a roar or a battle cry, but with the slow, careful destruction of everything human, piece by piece.
And in that final, awful moment before the darkness truly took him, Peter realized there was no war anymore. The Brekanberl had won. They had always won. They didn't need to destroy humanity all at once—they had done it slowly, one person at a time, until nothing but the broken whispers of what was left remained.
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