Camila’s House — 3:33 AM
Lloyd sat on the sofa.
Not reclining, not slouched — sitting straight, his hands on his knees, his eyes fixed on a point that was the wall but passed through the wall.
His face held no emotion — no fear, no anger, no sorrow.
Just a cold silence.
A strange calm.
A calm that came from the absence of emotions, not from accepting them.
He raised his voice.
Calm.
Almost indifferent:
“So… a Prince of Hell is in my body. The organization is after me. And Heaven is my enemy.”
He paused briefly, as if tasting the words.
“It’s truly ridiculous.”
John didn’t rise from his chair, just leaned forward a little.
He placed his hands on his knees.
His gaze was on Lloyd — evaluative, measuring, but not like an interrogator.
Like a grandfather watching to see how much his grandson could endure.
“I need to tell you about the organization.”
Lloyd turned his head.
Not with haste, not with curiosity.
Just waiting.
John continued:
“Its name is the Comson Organization. I don’t know why it has such a name.”
A brief pause.
He was arranging the words — words that had been lodged in his chest for years and were now spilling out.
“The main goal of this organization… is to summon the Prince of Hell. To turn the world into a better place.”
Camila, who had been silent until now, her arms folded across her chest, staring at the wall behind Lloyd, suddenly turned.
Her voice was full of shock and disgust:
“With a demon? To turn the world into a better place?”
John looked at Camila.
Not to defend, not to explain — just to emphasize.
“Well… yes.”
Silence.
Camila’s breathing quickened.
“That Comson Organization… has sacrificed three billion humans over the course of history.”
Lloyd’s eyes went wide.
Camila placed her hand over her mouth.
Lloyd said: “Three billion? That’s impossible.”
John didn’t flinch.
His voice was the same: calm, firm, real.
“It’s possible. The organization has existed for three thousand years. They are masters of secrecy.”
Camila took her hand off her mouth.
Her voice trembled — from disgust, from horror, from not believing something she knew she had to believe:
“But at that time… I think the number of humans didn’t even reach fifty million.”
John looked at Camila.
Long.
Then he answered.
Without preamble, without softening:
“They have human breeding farms. In the North Pole. It’s hidden… beneath the North Pole. Beneath a place the organization built.”
Lloyd pressed his hands on his legs.
Firmly.
But not from fear — from focus.
He was collecting information, categorizing it, filing it away.
Like a puzzle whose pieces were being found one by one.
“Breeding humans… it’s not that easy. It takes several months for babies to be born.”
John nodded.
Confirmation.
But not simple confirmation — confirmation that was the prelude to something bigger.
“With supernatural power… in three days, they turn a newborn into a full-grown adult.”
Camila’s breath caught.
“They are neither intelligent, nor do they have emotions. They are only sacrifices for the organization.”
Now his voice was no longer calm.
It was heavy.
Full of memories no one should have.
“The Comson Organization puts several men and women in a room… to mate with each other.”
Camila lowered her voice.
It was almost a whisper:
“It’s so horrific…”
But Lloyd didn’t flinch.
His face was the same: cold, emotionless, calculating.
Not even for a moment did his eyes widen further.
He asked.
Plain and simple:
“But if they’re not intelligent… how do they mate?”
John looked at Lloyd for a moment.
Perhaps he was gauging how a sixteen-year-old boy could ask such a question without trembling.
Without his face losing color.
Without even blinking.
He answered:
“Lloyd… they’ve only been taught to mate. That’s all. They do it themselves.”
Camila fixed her gaze on Lloyd — longer than usual.
In her thoughts, voices stormed: “So when a human’s emotions are diminished… this is what happens. When I hear about the Comson Organization, my whole body trembles. But for Lloyd… no reaction at all. No fear. No disgust. Just… information.”
She turned her gaze away.
To the floor.
Lloyd threw out the next question.
Fast.
Like a knife:
“The organization makes all these sacrifices… what does it want them for?”
John opened his hands.
And closed them again.
“Because supernatural power in the human world… comes from a place that can’t be seen. There are beings. They’re not spirits, not demons, not angels. We call them ‘Harvester Beings.'”
A brief pause.
“Any human who makes a deal with them… they give them supernatural power.”
Lloyd raised an eyebrow.
Not surprise — analysis.
“Supernatural power? What kind of deal?”
John drew a deep breath.
He didn’t like this part.
No one liked it.
“Each individual must give a hundred souls per year to the supernatural being they’ve made a pact with.”
Lloyd’s eyes went wide again — this time real.
Camila’s voice came from the corner of the room, quiet, muffled:
“A hundred souls a year… for each individual?”
John nodded.
“The organization has ten thousand agents. All of them… have been brainwashed. There are only ten agents who haven’t been brainwashed.”
Lloyd said quietly: “Ten thousand agents… each one a hundred sacrifices a year…”
He didn’t calculate.
There was no need.
Camila was lost in her thoughts.
And then — the question that had to come sooner or later.
Lloyd asked.
Without surprise, without accusation.
Just cold curiosity:
“Mr. John… where do you get this information from?”
John lowered his gaze for a moment.
To his hands.
To the old scars on his fingers.
To something no one could see.
His voice was calm.
But at the bottom of it was something — perhaps regret, perhaps shame.
“That’s a good question…”
He breathed.
“In fact… I was once part of the Comson Organization too.”
Silence.
Camila held her breath.
Lloyd didn’t flinch.
“I had talent. They took me into the organization. They trained me. And I… became one of the organization’s best agents. Every year, the organization sacrificed a hundred souls for me.”
His voice paused slightly on the words “for me.” As if the weight of those sacrifices still rested on his shoulders.
“But… I decided to run away. To have my own life.”
Camila asked with wide eyes:
“The organization… let you go?”
John gave a bitter smile.
A smile that held only exhaustion, not warmth.
“Well… the leader of the Comson Organization… is a calm and reasonable person.”
Lloyd said — and for the first time, there was something like irony at the bottom of his voice:
“Yeah. Reasonable. He sacrifices a million humans a year. Very reasonable.”
John didn’t answer.
There was nothing to say.
Lloyd rose from his seat.
But his movements weren’t abrupt — they were slow, measured.
Pain?
No.
His knee was fine, his back was fine, nothing hurt.
But something inside him was empty — where fear should have been, where anger should have boiled, where tears should have gathered.
Everything was silent.
“I don’t want to cause trouble for Camila.”
He walked toward the door.
Not hurried, not hesitant.
“It’s better we go.”
Camila jumped up.
Her voice rose — not a scream, not a plea — protest:
“Where? You’re not well.”
John rose too.
More slowly.
He reached his hand toward Lloyd — not to grab, to calm.
“Lloyd is right. The organization… and even the FBI… might come here. We have to go somewhere else, hide.”
His gaze went to Camila.
“But call Gary. So he can take you somewhere safe.”
Camila folded her arms across her chest.
Her face closed up, like a door that had been locked.
“I don’t need that Gary.”
Lloyd stopped.
Turned.
Fixed his gaze on Camila.
“Then wait… for the Comson Organization to come for you?”
Silence.
Camila fixed her gaze on Lloyd.
She had nothing to say — not because she had no words, because she knew Lloyd was right.
It took a few seconds.
She breathed.
A deep breath.
Then — with reluctance, with exhaustion, with surrender — she said:
“Alright… I’ll call that jerk.”
Lloyd turned back toward the door.
But before taking a step, he said something.
Quiet.
Emotionless.
As if talking about the weather:
“I don’t want to know why your relationship fell apart. It’s your own life.”
Camila said nothing.
She just watched.
At the back of the sixteen-year-old boy who was leaving her house.
The silence grew heavy.
A silence Camila didn’t know what to do with.
A silence John had lived with for years.
A silence Lloyd was only just learning not to name.
At the door, in the dark hallway, Lloyd stopped.
He looked at John, who had followed him.
“Where do we go now?”
John shrugged — not indifference, surrender to fate.
“We go to Alice.”
Lloyd raised an eyebrow.
Not surprise — confirmation.
“Alice? The great seer?”
John nodded.
Heavy.
“Yes. We need to find out… how the world comes to an end. Perhaps there’ll be a clue… to help us.”
Lloyd fixed his gaze on the end of the dark hallway.
On a place where nothing could be seen — but something was waiting.
Something was always waiting.
“Then let’s go.”
And he took a step.
The first step.
Toward the unknown.
Toward a place where perhaps there was an answer, perhaps there was an end, perhaps there was only cold flagstones and pure darkness.
John followed him.
An old man with a silent sword and a God who no longer heard his prayers.
Behind them, the door of the house closed.
The lock turned.
And Camila remained with a phone in her hand — with a number she didn’t want to dial — and eyes that knew they might never see them again.
To be continued…