Chapter 54: Symphony of Suffering
Edward's appearance was like dropping a match into a pool of gasoline—it instantly triggered an even more violent reaction.
Instead of being intimidated by his composure, Brett and his crew became even more amped up and aggressive, like rabid dogs circling fresh meat.
"Let's see how tough you are now," Brett said, pointing his switchblade—still dripping with Steve's blood—at Edward's chest, a sick grin on his face.
Edward didn't say a word. He just calmly looked at the group like he was watching actors in a play whose ending had already been written.
His silence, in Brett's eyes, looked like fear.
"What's wrong? Cat got your tongue?" Brett stepped closer, waving the knife tip through the air.
Edward's expression didn't change.
He slowly raised his right hand, extended his index finger, and made a finger-gun gesture at Brett—like a kid playing cops and robbers.
The action caused a moment of stunned silence.
Then it exploded into even more unhinged laughter.
"Ha! Is this guy fucking serious?"
"He thinks he's in some superhero movie or something?"
"Brett, this dude's mental. Stop wasting time and just gut him already!"
Brett doubled over laughing, feeling more insulted than he'd ever been in his life.
"What are you, stupid? Who the fuck do you think you are? John Wick?"
Edward's lips finally curved into something resembling a smile.
It wasn't amusement—it was the look of something far beyond human, gazing down at insects.
He cocked his thumb back like a hammer and spoke one barely audible word.
"Bang."
The instant the word left his lips, a wet, sickening crack echoed through the clearing.
Brett's laughter died in his throat. He looked down in disbelief at his right hand—the one holding the switchblade. It wasn't a hand anymore.
His entire palm looked like it had been hit by a hollow-point round from the inside out—bones, muscle, and skin instantly exploding into a pulpy mess of gore.
White bone fragments jutted through torn flesh, and blood fountained out in arterial spurts. The switchblade clattered uselessly to the ground.
"AAAHHH—!!!"
The pain, delayed by a full second, slammed into Brett's nervous system like a freight train. He let out an inhuman shriek, clutching the mangled stump of his wrist, and collapsed to his knees.
This sudden, completely inexplicable horror choked the laughter from the other five teenagers' throats like they'd been strangled.
The mockery and contempt on their faces melted into terror and confusion.
What the fuck just happened?
No gunshot. No bullet. Nothing. Why did Brett's hand just... explode?
Edward didn't give them time to process.
His raised index finger, like Death's own conductor's baton, pointed at each of them in turn.
"Bang."
The kid closest to him started to charge forward.
His right knee bent backward at a grotesque, impossible angle with a wet crunch of shattered bone, his entire shin exploding in a spray of blood and tissue.
The teenager screamed and went down, rolling on the ground clutching his ruined leg.
"Bang."
Another kid, terrified, turned to run. He took one step before his left ankle detonated into hamburger meat. Momentum sent him flying forward, and he face-planted hard into the dirt.
"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!"
Edward's finger tapped out a rhythm like drumbeats in a death march.
The remaining teenagers—their wrists, ankles, knees, elbows... every joint that let them move, attack, or escape was precisely targeted and destroyed by an invisible force in a rapid-fire sequence of wet impacts.
Within moments, the forest clearing that had been their torture playground was filled with nothing but agonized wailing and desperate pleas for mercy.
The air was thick with the copper smell of blood and the acrid stench of terror.
In less than ten seconds, the six cocky teenagers had been reduced to broken, bloody figures writhing on the ground like worms.
They stared at Edward like he was the Devil himself crawling out of Hell, their faces masks of absolute horror.
"Demon... you're a fucking demon!" Brett shrieked, voice cracking through the waves of pain.
Edward slowly lowered his hand and walked toward them step by deliberate step. His boots crunched on fallen leaves, each sound like a hammer blow to their chests.
"The game's just getting started," Edward's voice was disturbingly calm. "You like playing pain games, right? Well, now it's my turn."
He glanced at Steve, still tied to the tree looking like something from a slasher film.
Then he raised his hand and gestured at the coils of barbed wire scattered across the ground.
Under the teenagers' horrified stares, the blood-soaked wire lifted off the ground like it was being pulled by invisible strings, writhing in the air like metal serpents.
"No... no, please! Don't!"
"We're sorry! We're so fucking sorry! We'll never do it again!"
Begging and sobbing filled the air, but Edward was deaf to it all.
He activated his telekinesis, and six lengths of wire shot out like striking cobras, wrapping around the teenagers' bodies and dragging them up from the ground.
The barbs dug deep into their flesh, triggering fresh waves of agony that made them scream even louder.
Edward's telekinesis hauled them one by one to nearby trees, binding them tightly to the trunks exactly the way Steve had been tied.
He didn't kill them.
Not yet.
He just left them hanging there—feeling their lives drain away drop by precious drop, feeling the constant searing pain from their wounds, feeling the endless terror of death's shadow closing in.
This was a real pain game.
Having finished his work, Edward turned and walked to Steve's body.
He used his telekinesis to gently unwrap the wire, then lifted Steve's body and carried it slowly out of the woods.
From start to finish, he never once looked back at the six souls behind him, all facing death in absolute despair.
When Edward emerged from the woods carrying Steve's body, Jennifer and Jenny were frozen in shock.
Jenny, seeing her boyfriend's horrific condition, broke down sobbing again.
Edward laid Steve's body gently on the grass, then walked back to the teenagers' campsite and retrieved Steve and Jenny's phones, wallets, and car keys.
He handed the phone to the still-trembling Jenny.
"Call 911. If the ambulance gets here fast enough, he might still make it," his voice was completely flat.
"As for those murderers..."
Edward paused. "They killed each other in a fight over the dog."
Jenny numbly took the phone. She didn't fully understand what Edward meant, but looking into those cold, calm eyes, she didn't dare ask any questions.
Edward turned away, swung his leg over the Fenrir, and nodded to Jennifer.
Jennifer quickly climbed on behind him, wrapping her arms tight around his waist.
The engine roared to life. Edward twisted the throttle and tore away from blood-soaked Eden Lake without a backward glance.
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