Hero
"Because I love you all equally, I place no specialness upon any one of you."
That was a phrase the teacher who took in and raised lost children often liked to repeat.
At first, the child had thought it was nothing more than a polished excuse, a pretty way of saying how troublesome they all were.
But as time went on and on, and the greedy child reached the age the teacher had been back then, only then did she finally begin to understand what the teacher had meant.
To love another is to love oneself, and equality includes not only them, but even me.
The instant she understood that, the child quietly became an adult.
Creak, creak.
At the sound of the bed groaning beneath them, the girl slowly lifted her heavy eyelids. Her hands and feet were cold; her stomach was empty, and her throat was dry.
A foul smell hung around her. With her vision still dark, the girl groped forward little by little.
Then something rough and bristling brushed against her hand.
Only when faint moonlight seeped in through the window did her sight begin to clear.
What she had touched was nothing more than the belly of something covered in thick fur.
Its back was hunched, its skin dark. And that was all? Fur on its arms, on its legs, even between its thighs. Fur, and more fur. In her field of view, there was nothing but an extravagant mass of it.
Only then did the girl realize that the darkness obscuring her vision had been nothing but fur all along.
So she had to think seriously about whether it was human or beast.
Underneath that coat of fur, there were limbs, and five fingers, plain as day.
It was a bizarre shape, but since it sometimes went on muttering like a person, it was probably human.
“Do you like it? Heh. You like it, you fucking bitch?”
The panting man laughed.
No, perhaps it was a beast who laughed.
Creak, creak.
As time passed and the thrusting of his hips grew more violent, the girl’s body trembled. Her vision shook, and someone’s ragged breathing came from right beside her.
The male dog finally gave one last squeeze as though wringing the very breath from himself, gripping the girl’s slender waist and driving deep into her crotch.
A chill shot through her, and for a moment the girl thrashed. The feeling was horribly unpleasant.
It was a disgusting sensation, as if something were gnawing her from the inside.
She hated it. But even if she did not want to know, she learned anyway. She had been made to know.
Too many experiences had forced that awareness into her by instinct.
So the girl shut her eyes. Frightened, she turned away from it and hid her heart in the dark, counting numbers to herself.
Horrible sensation, strange sensation. The only place she could flee to was this pitch-black void. This was all she could do to resist.
One, two, three…
As she counted, the awful feeling inevitably swelled inside her belly.
It was a familiar feeling, a sensation that would never become familiar, a revulsion she never wanted to get used to, climbing up her spine and scorching the inside of her skull.
“Haa… look at you clench. A so-called Hero, and not a shred of shame… do you like cock that much?”
It was pleasure she had never wanted, and yet her body responded honestly to it.
The inside of the womb wrapped around the thing it held and tightened hard, her waist trembling all over, saliva gathering at the corners of her mouth.
At that chilling sensation, her instincts made her cling to the hound’s back as it pressed against her.
Her nails sank through the thick fur and tore at living flesh. In response, as though training a disobedient bitch, the hound bit down on the back of her neck and marked her there.
A faint moan escaped her from a body already conditioned to this. When she opened her eyes without thinking, she saw the hound pulling back its hips with a satisfied air, kissing her as though handling a beloved doll.
“Hngh….”
Then a dry, hollow laugh broke from the girl.
After all the mutual hurting and the filthy exchange of pleasure, what remained at the end of it was only a ghastly emptiness. Nothing ever stayed.
The desire that had spilled down between her legs went cold once the coupling ended, and the unpleasant stickiness of lukewarm semen made her grimace on its own.
In the blurred edge of her hearing, the girl heard the old priest’s whisper.
Hero, please… end the war…
Probably, the usual lie.
Please… give birth to gods… and kill them…
Probably, selfishness so extreme it was almost obscene.
And yet she could not deny it. She could not turn the choice back. The road had already been walked.
Don’t… abandon… us…
Terrified, she clapped her hands over her ears, then flailed them wildly through empty air. But the voice begging for salvation would not disappear.
Then a woman’s voice followed, and the girl’s lips trembled.
You’ve already… conceived a child.
No.
The girl shook her head violently.
Her vision was so blurred she could see nothing, but that only made her want even less to see anything at all.
This isn’t me.
Emotions roiled within her. Even so, the voice that had died inside her would not come out. Only a soundless scream tormented the girl again and again.
The sorrow that had nowhere to go simply folded back into anguish.
The girl slammed her fist into the pillow, then again, as if taking out her rage on it.
This isn’t me.
Her sweat-damp hair swayed wetly. In the place where the hound had been, only the soft, broken sobbing of the curled-up girl lingered, drifting thinly through the room.
Once again, another accursed day was beginning.
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