The Absolut Throne

Chapter 3 - The Man

It happened on a gray morning.

The children were bent over their wooden slates, scratching letters with stubby chalk. My hands trembled as I wrote on the board. The dream still clung to me, heavy as fog. Every chalk stroke looked like bone, every letter like a curse.

And then—suddenly—I saw it.

One of the boys, only nine years old, sitting in the back. His eyes shifted, and for a blink they weren’t eyes at all—they were hollow sockets, glassy, the eyes of the corpses from my dreams. His small hands reached for me across the room, pale and stiff, fingers blackened like the ones that grasp at my ankles in the field of death.

My breath caught. My pulse thundered. My mind screamed kill him before he rises, kill him before he screams.

I grabbed the chalk as if it were a blade. My arm raised without my command, trembling, ready to strike.

The boy only blinked. His eyes were wide and frightened, his small hands clutching the slate to his chest. He was only a child.

The horror of what I was about to do hit me like fire. The chalk slipped from my hand and shattered on the ground. I staggered back, clutching the edge of the desk, my knees weak. The children stared, silent, wide-eyed.

I forced a smile, though my lips cracked with the lie. “I—I’m fine,” I whispered. “Go on, keep writing.”

But inside, I was not fine. I was breaking.

That night, I didn’t sleep. For two weeks I didn’t dare close my eyes. I could still feel the boy’s stare, the innocence I had nearly destroyed. My hands shook so badly I could hardly hold a spoon. My voice faltered in the classroom, brittle and hollow. The children knew. I could see it in the way they looked at me—half with pity, half with fear.

I told myself I was still Anna, still a teacher. But inside, I knew I was becoming something else. Something dangerous.

Then, two weeks later, a man appeared in the village.

He did not arrive with the patrol wagons or the tax collectors. He was not draped in crimson banners or steel uniforms. He came walking down the dirt road with nothing but a satchel slung across his shoulder and dust on his boots.

The villagers watched him with suspicion. Strangers are rare, and they usually bring trouble. But this man was different. His posture was calm, his smile quiet, his voice steady. He spoke to the farmers in the market, not like an official, but like a neighbor. He listened. He laughed softly. He even bartered fairly, which no outsider ever did.

His presence was unsettling in its simplicity.

I first met him on the street at dusk. I was leaving the schoolhouse, my head heavy with exhaustion, when I nearly collided with him. His hand caught my arm gently, steadying me.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice low and warm, the kind of voice that felt human—too human for this land. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

I stared at him, too startled to respond. His eyes met mine, and for a moment the noise in my head fell silent. No corpses. No throne. No screams. Only eyes that looked at me as though I were not broken, as though I were still someone worth seeing.

He introduced himself as a doctor, a psychiatrist, though the word felt strange in my ears. Such people existed once, long ago, before the throne bled the land of knowledge and care. To hear it spoken aloud felt almost like blasphemy.

We walked together down the street, speaking little. He asked about the village, about the children. He spoke with kindness, not interrogation. His words were not commands or decrees; they were simply words.

Before we parted, he said, “You're Anna right, teacher from the school? you look tired by the way.”

The sound of my name on his lips startled me. It felt like an anchor thrown into a storm.

For the first time in years, I felt something stir in me.

Not joy, not yet—but the faint shadow of hope.

Hope that maybe I was not entirely lost.

Hope that maybe there was still something human left in this world.

The second time I saw him was in the market.

The air was thick with smoke from the cooking fires, the smell of boiled rice and wilted vegetables mixing with dust. The villagers moved like shadows, heads down, eyes averted, trading what little they had left. I was searching for a sack of grain when I felt his presence again, like a breeze where there should have been none.

“Anna,” he greeted, as though he had always known me. His voice was warm, steady. Too steady.

I turned. There he was, the man from the street, carrying a small satchel slung across his shoulder. His smile was not the kind officials wear—it was softer, almost human. But in this world, even softness is dangerous.

“You look like you could use a break,” he said gently. “Would you join me for some tea? Or coffee, if I can find some that isn’t burned.”

The words hung in the air like something forbidden. Tea? Coffee? Simple, ordinary things that once meant comfort now sounded like secrets stolen from another lifetime.

For a heartbeat, I almost said yes. I imagined sitting across from him at a wooden table, steam rising from chipped cups, words flowing like a river I had forgotten existed. I imagined being seen not as a broken woman, not as a teacher waiting for her students to vanish, but as Anna. Just Anna.

But then the dream crept in—the throne, the corpses, the king’s blood on my hands. And behind it, the sharp teeth of reality.

No one is kind without reason.

No stranger comes without a price.

No man arrives in this land without carrying shadows behind him.

My chest tightened. My breath quickened. I took a step back. “No,” I whispered, sharper than I intended. “I can’t.”

He blinked, not offended, only watching me with a quiet sadness. “I understand. It’s only tea, Anna. Nothing more.”

But there is no such thing as only in this world.

I turned away, clutching the sack of grain to my chest as though it could shield me. Every step away from him felt heavier, yet I could not stop myself. My thoughts raced—what if he was a spy sent by the throne? What if he was a cult recruiter, luring me with false kindness? What if he saw the madness in my eyes and wanted to expose it?

I reached my home trembling, bolting the door behind me. My breath came in ragged gasps, my hands shaking so violently I dropped the grain on the floor.

In the silence, I replayed his words. Would you join me for some tea?

So harmless. So ordinary.

And yet, in this world, what could be more terrifying than someone who still sounded human?

I pressed my palms against my face and wept—not because I hated him, but because a part of me had wanted to say yes.