Not from an earthquake nor from the distant clatter of a train. It trembled from the inside out, like bones shaking when the body can no longer contain fear. The streets, which until a few days ago were quiet, predictable paths, now vibrated as if something deep and buried had awakened and was advancing from below, forcing its way through the roots and cracks, pushing to the surface everything that calm had long tried to hide.
There were no bells ringing nor shots fired into the air, but the echo of the mob was worse than any alarm. It was a living murmur, a dense, muffled buzz that seemed to arise from every corner of the town. A deep, guttural roar, laden with pent-up fury, ancient guilt, frustrations that no longer fit in the bodies that held them. It was the town breathing in unison… as if everyone shared the same inflamed chest of hatred.
Windows closed in its wake. Curtains trembled. Locks were turned by trembling hands. No one wanted to look, yet everyone knew. No one wanted to be part of it, yet everyone was in it up to their necks. That human tide would not stop until something broke. Or someone.
The square, which hours before had been a cauldron of shouts and accusations, now lay empty. Deserted, yet still vibrating. Like a body that had just let out a scream and had not yet recovered its breath. The dry fountain still stood in the center, a witness to another era, mute in the face of the present. The empty benches, the abandoned stalls… everything seemed to await a denouement that had been foretold long ago.
Above, on the power lines and rooftops, the black birds had returned to their place. They no longer cawed. They did not chirp. They made no sound at all. They only watched. With those round, shining eyes, cold as wet stones. They were mute sentinels, invisible judges of a sentence that was already being carried out.
The air had a strange weight. It was not the weight of the storm, but of fury. A rough density, laden with hot breath and agitated respirations. Along the avenues, figures moved ever more compactly. People advanced with slow, rhythmic steps, like a single body beating with a common intention. Some carried sticks in their hands. Others, with work tools. A shovel, a pitchfork, an old machete forgotten in the barn. And there were also those who carried real weapons, rusty shotguns inherited from grandfathers who had once hunted in the now-felled forests.
But the most terrifying was not what they carried. It was the way they carried it.
Not as someone defending themselves. Not even as someone attacking. They carried it as part of their very being. As if violence were already a natural extension of themselves.
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And everyone said the same thing. They repeated that name with the cadence of a dark prayer.
—The mayor…
It was not a title. It was not a person. It was a beacon. A symbol. The figure that now condensed everything the town hated, feared, and no longer knew how to explain. It didn’t matter who he really was. What mattered was what he represented.
The culprit.
The one who brought the Beast.
In the alleys, stray dogs hid among the garbage and shadows. Cats merely watched from above, their eyes glowing like embers amid the dust. No animal dared to intervene. Even the rats, eternal inhabitants of the underground city, did not come out. Everyone knew that what roamed the streets that night was not just the town.
It was something more.
It was a monster made of flesh and rage, with a thousand voices and a single thought: punishment.
On the corner of the old hardware store, a group argued at the top of their lungs without caring that everyone could hear them. There were no more secrets.
—Hang him from the tree! —one shouted, pointing to the oak at the west corner—. Right where the town’s festivals were held!
—Bring him out of his house and bring him here! Let him look us in the face!
—Enough with the speeches! We want justice!
Others, further back, only nodded. They did not speak. They only gripped tightly whatever they had at hand. A hammer. A log. A chain. Whatever was enough to make noise or break down a door.
Some cried.
But not out of sadness.
They cried from impotence, from accumulated rage, from knowing there was nothing left to lose.
From atop the hill, the town hall rose like an inhabited ruin. There were still lights. There was still someone inside. A few officials, an assistant, the mayor.
And then, it happened.
A shot.
A single detonation. It was not known who fired it or from where. Perhaps it was a mistake. Perhaps it was a warning. Perhaps it was the desperate impulse of a nerve that could no longer hold on.
It didn’t matter.
Because that shot was enough.
It was the order that no one gave, but everyone had been waiting for.
And the mob erupted.
Like a violent wave, they surged toward the building. Shouts filled the air. Doors were pounded, windows shattered, glass broken, and wood splintered under the weight of bodies and fury. Smoke began to rise. Not yet from fire, but from a collective exhale, from stirred-up earth, from things falling and not rising again.
The birds, from above, cawed.
A single caw.
Deep. Long. Like a war drum.
The church closed its doors. The priest lowered the shutters and turned off the lights. No one would pray that night. Houses sealed their entrances. The youngest, those who did not yet know that mistakes have their price, went out to join the crowd. The others watched from the shadows.
No one said stop.
No one asked why.
The Beast was no longer a legend.
It was not an entity among the trees, nor a shadow on the rooftops.
It was the town.
It was hatred made flesh. It was the sum of every broken promise, every ignored injustice, every unexplained death.
GreenTown had become its own executioner.
And that night, justice no longer wore a uniform. It wore torches.