NOVEL SIMPLE 0065: A Massacre In A Cave
The time had come.
Zoe Carter stepped forward without hesitation.
No last words, no need for sentiment. The clear-eyed foolishness in the fanatic before her didn’t warrant it.
She cast aside any desire to help, respecting the fate they had chosen. In one swift, merciless motion, her palm cut through the air with a bone-chilling sound, twisting the fanatic's head a full one hundred and eighty degrees.
A sharp crack echoed through the cave.
The sound caused the bearded zealot and the haughty woman to swallow hard, their growing terror almost palpable.
Zoe’s casual brutality was as absurd as it was terrifying. The pair exchanged desperate glances more frequently, while the other fanatics remained utterly unmoved.
Zoe paid no mind to the silent exchanges. Her gaze fell on the fanatic whose fervor hadn't dimmed, even as he collapsed lifelessly to the ground. A fleeting thought crossed her mind—disdain, perhaps, or confusion—but her expression remained calm as she approached the next target.
The outcome for each was the same.
They would all die.
Zoe, like a machine going through a methodical list, snapped the necks of seven more fanatics with cold efficiency. The cave floor became littered with corpses, heads twisted grotesquely, as though they were puppets with their strings cut.
Yet, none of them resisted. Not a flicker of fear, no struggle. It was as though they had been turned into mindless automatons, so thoroughly brainwashed they couldn’t even react to their impending demise.
They felt no pain at all, as if granted a drop of mercy.
How dull, Zoe mused. She couldn’t help but marvel at the cult’s power over their minds. Even animals put up a fight when faced with slaughter, but these zealots were as passive as cattle.
As her gaze settled on the last fanatic, Zoe’s lips curved into a faint smile, her interest piqued.
Unlike the others, this one’s expression betrayed a slight, almost imperceptible shift. Though still eerily calm, there was something... different. Yet Zoe had already noticed the slight irregularities in the cave long before.
Nothing here escaped her heightened senses. She had seen the bearded zealot and the haughty woman exchange their furtive looks. She had also noticed, as she went about her deadly business, how they slipped a dagger to this last fanatic, hoping in their cowardice that the largest among them might succeed where they could not.
Zoe wasn’t bothered in the slightest.
In fact, she found it amusing.
As she drew near, the fanatic sprang into action, lunging forward, dagger in hand, aiming straight for her heart.
Clang!
Thud.
Two sounds echoed through the cave in quick succession.
The first was the dagger colliding with Zoe’s body, as though striking solid iron. The second was the blade shattering, its fragments clattering to the ground.
The expressions of the three surviving fanatics shifted in that moment. The last fanatic looked confused, while the bearded zealot and the woman’s eyes widened in sheer disbelief.
Zoe glanced down at her robe.
The already tattered garment now sported yet another hole, but beneath it, her skin remained untouched, without even the faintest scratch.
After a moment’s thought, she casually tore off the ruined fabric, discarding it on the ground, revealing her perfectly sculpted physique. Her body, unmarred by the dagger, gleamed in the flickering candlelight.
Time seemed to stop.
Only the crackling of flames and the howling wind outside the cave broke the silence.
The bearded zealot and the woman, now frozen in terror, trembled uncontrollably. Their fragile grip on reality, already stretched thin, finally snapped.
As for the last fanatic, still staring blankly at his shattered weapon, Zoe felt a flicker of admiration. The man’s unwavering commitment to strike, even when faced with death, was worthy of a small nod of recognition. Yet, ultimately, he was just another pawn—nothing more than a puppet.
Zoe stepped forward, plucking the broken dagger from the fanatic’s limp hands. Without offering any explanation, she used her sharp nails to strip away a layer of metal from the fractured blade, fashioning a new edge.
From her pocket, she then produced a berry, plucked from the forest floor during a recent skirmish.
In her left hand, the dagger. In her right, the berry.
She presented them to the fanatic with a soft, mocking smile.
“Choose one,” she said, her voice laced with a touch of amusement.
The fanatic, though clearly confused, reached for the dagger without hesitation.
Zoe smiled a little wider.
Choosing the dagger confirmed his intent to kill—a desire that could not be allowed to exist. Without a moment’s delay, Zoe gripped the fanatic’s throat and, with a single, effortless motion, snapped his neck in a fraction of a second.
The body slumped to the ground.
Zoe said nothing, stepping over the corpse as she approached the bearded zealot and the woman. Both were now visibly trembling, paralysed by fear. Their legs had long since given out beneath them.
Behind Zoe, ten corpses lay scattered—two with crushed throats, eight with heads twisted grotesquely. Their shadows danced upon the cave walls, flickering in the dim candlelight, resembling malevolent spirits clawing at the darkness.
Outside, the wind howled, and the sky grew darker with the promise of rain.
The pressure in the cave was suffocating, the oppressive atmosphere thick enough to choke on.
After a few moments of unbearable silence, the bearded zealot’s eyes flickered toward the last corpse. As if grasping at some desperate shred of hope, he let out a frenzied scream.
“The berry! I choose the berry!”
His sudden outburst startled the haughty woman beside him, whose face had turned ashen.
Even Zoe was momentarily taken aback.
Watching the man’s wild, desperate eyes, she could feel the raw fear radiating from him, his overwhelming desire to live clinging to him like a shroud.
Zoe stood in silence.
What? Really? You actually chose the berry?
Surely you don’t think you’ll survive this, do you?
Amused yet faintly exasperated, Zoe’s thoughts churned with irony. The “choice” had been nothing more than a jest, a cruel game to toy with the final fanatic’s emotions. In reality, none of them had any chance of survival.
Knife or berry, it made no difference. Each option sealed their fate in different ways.
Pick the knife, and it meant harbouring the intent to kill—an intent that could not be tolerated.
Pick the berry, and it meant harbouring ambition and guile—qualities equally unforgivable.
Choose both, and it revealed greed—unworthy of life.
Choose neither, and it betrayed defiance—a threat that must be silenced.
There was never any option to be spared.
Out of an abundance of caution, Zoe had already resolved to revisit each body, ensuring that no one left the cave alive. The job would be thorough. Every life in this cavern would be snuffed out, from the largest to the smallest, down to the worms in the earth beneath.
And so, the game continued.