The General Who Fed The Flame
823 Words
*They called him the Iron Spine.*
*They should have called him the Butcher of Names.*
General Hale Hadrek wasn’t a man. He was a doctrine, printed in blood, sewn into uniforms, and handed out like candy to every new recruit.
Tall. Sharp. Eyes that had never cried. Medals hanging off his chest like war trophies stolen from ghosts.
This man signed death like it was a morning ritual. My father’s name. My neighbors. Whole districts. If Vexen was the mouthpiece of g******e, Hadrek was the hand.
He didn’t need a reason to kill. He *manufactured* them.
## THE HUNTER'S BLUEPRINT
Two weeks after Vexen bled in silk, I began drafting a plan.
Hadrek wasn’t like the others. He didn’t live in wine stained villas or hide behind silk-clothed priests. He *thrived* in exposure. Daylight was his alibi. Soldiers saluted him in public. The news broadcast his morning jogs like divine rituals.
I needed a different approach.
I needed to make the General disappear from the *inside*.
So I did what he never expected:
I signed up.
## THE RECRUIT
Fake name: Dalia Roe.
Fake papers. Burned fingertips. Fresh wounds. Short hair. No smile.
The recruitment center was a concrete block painted in patriotic lies. They didn’t ask many questions. The country was always looking for young blood. They just didn’t know this one came with fire in its veins.
Training lasted eight weeks. I was silent. Obedient. Sharp. Every shot I fired was a prayer to the dead. Every night, I memorized Hadrek’s schedule.
By week six, I was promoted to cadet liaison. That gave me clearance.
By week seven, I had access to the general’s convoy.
By week eight, I was inside his shadow.
## THE MAN BEHIND THE MYTH
General Hadrek was colder up close.
He didn't talk unless it served dominance. He moved with purpose—like every step was a statement. But the worst part?
He *believed* in what he did.
He didn’t kill for pleasure.
He killed for order.
"Rebellion is a disease," he told a group of fresh recruits. "We don't cure it. We cauterize it."
I watched his lips move, imagined them being split open by a blade.
## THE DAY OF CLEANSING
Every year, the military held a ritual they called *The Day of Cleansing*. A symbolic remembrance of the so-called 'purification'—the day they burned rebels alive in Cathedral Square.
My father.
My brothers.
Me—almost.
Hadrek would give a speech.
He always did.
But this year, I planned to give a speech of my own.
## THE DEVICE
Aris smuggled me a briefcase.
Custom rig. Three-phase detonation. Sonic disruptor first, then flash, then needle bombs—tiny, flesh-piercing darts soaked in neurotoxin.
"You’ll get maybe twenty seconds before the blackout ends," she warned.
"I’ll only need ten," I replied.
## THE EXECUTION STAGE
The stage was set outside the citadel. Cameras. Soldiers. Civilians who were too scared not to attend. Giant screens. The banner read:
**GLORY TO THE ORDER. STRENGTH IN OBEDIENCE.**
I was in uniform.
Frontline.
Ten meters from Hadrek.
He stepped up to the mic.
I stepped on the briefcase trigger.
## THE CHAOS
Sound vanished first. The sonic blast turned the crowd into frozen deer. Then the flash—bright as a hundred suns—blinded every pair of eyes. Soldiers dropped to their knees, shielding nothing.
Then came the darts.
Screams.
Blood.
Hadrek dropped to one knee, clawing at his neck.
I moved through the chaos like a ghost.
He looked up.
I took off my cap.
"Cassandra Velasco," he gasped. His mouth tasted my name like poison.
"General," I whispered, leaning close. "Do you remember Cathedral Square?"
He tried to speak. I twisted the knife.
Not a metaphor.
A real knife. Through his ribs. Straight to the lung.
I held him there as he bled, looking into his eyes until the steel in them turned to steam.
## THE MESSAGE
This time, the video didn’t come from a hidden camera.
I recorded it myself. Bloody uniform. Smoke behind me. Hadrek’s badge in my hand.
"You called us disease. Plague. Fire. But fire doesn’t consume the pure. Only the guilty burn."
I dropped the badge. Pulled out another bullet.
This one said: **H. Hadrek**
"Two names down. Many more to go."
## THE AFTERMATH
Velmora panicked.
The military locked down districts. Recruits were interrogated. My fake ID—burned with the stage. Cameras were useless. Drones jammed.
The government called it an assassination.
The people called it a reckoning.
And my brother?
He sent me another letter.
*"The city will turn against you. They always do. Come home, Cassandra. Before you become the very thing we lost."*
He still doesn’t get it.
I *am* the thing we lost.
And now I’ve come to take it back.
Let them call me a villain.
Because I know what comes next.
And I’ve saved the most beautiful deaths for last.
- Writer
