Nobody is stupid enough to venture into unknown territories, except for Ilya. Don't get him wrong! He never meant to enter that mysterious village.
Fate led him there to save, or be saved.
"Peekaboo!"
Beast is a cruel creature that used to be human...
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"Your choice," Beast said, as if the boy had much of a choice.
Ilya scoffed through his fear, then looked down at Beast with the most loathsome stare his tired eyes could muster.
He stared at those yellow eyes void of human compaction and that heinous left scar that split Beast's thick eyebrow in half. He stared at the towering monster and for a moment felt sorry for him once he saw the number of scars covering every inch of his shirtless chest, but Ilya returned to his senses and raised his head, glaring at Beast.
Whoever he was before all this was long gone.
Beast tightened his grip on Ilya's wrist and growled, "Have it your way, then!"
SNAP!
Beast broke the boy's wrist with ease, like a twig, just as he said he would.
The sound of Ilya's bones splintering as they moved under his skin made his eyes fully open, right before a blood-curdling scream erupted from his throat.
He squirmed and writhed around in agony, but Beast wouldn't let him go.
Beast watched with a sickening grin that kept growing the more the boy gasped and struggled to breathe through the pain, the more his legs shuffled on the floor while choking up with tears, the more his eyes squeezed shut and the tears flowed down his pale face.
Once satisfied, Beast let go.
Ilya took his arm to his chest and opened his eyes. Once he saw the broken bones peeking through his wrist, he couldn't stop screaming. His hand was bent upward until it touched his arm, sloping in an unnatural angle. The pain was unbearable. A strong rhythm reached his ears, the sound of his blood pulsing through his veins matching the speed of his heartbeats.
A distorted monstrous laugh startled him.
Then the world around him pulsed.
Ba-dum.
The floor underneath him went big then small. Ba-dum. Beast's face came closer then blurred away, like a wave. Ba-dum, Ba-dum. The walls collapsed around him—Ba—suffocating him, and then—dum—they retreated away from him, giving him space. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum.
His eyes wandered. Everything pulsed. Then everything disappeared.
His breathing quickened.
With one last breath, and without thinking, Ilya screamed, "Charlie!"
"That British wuss can't save you, kid. Hahahaha..."
The hall turned black.
It could have been minutes or hours, Ilya didn't know. However, there was one thing he was sure of—he was alive but out cold.
