Hunt: Showdown 1896 - Biatatá - Still Waters Run Deep

About the add-on

The following excerpt was retrieved from the short story “Cobra da Várzea”, published in a clandestine local paper from Salvador (Bahia), United States of Brazil (Typewritten translation attached) It's three after midnight, and the only light for leagues comes from the small fire she built in the sand. She works a knife with steady, agile fingers and carefully carves out her prize. When it gives in, it is with a wet sound, and she closes her hand around it like an embrace. At her feet, four men protest in muffled whimpers, facing the night with bleeding holes where they once had eyes. When the fishermen find them, they will be dressed in white by the waves of the Atlantic, awaiting final judgment for sins the courts of men had swiftly forgiven. By then, she will be long gone. “It's Biatatá’s doing.” The hushed whispers will spread through the streets and the pews. Some will call her a hero, others a murderer, and the superstitious will insist on the stories of a fiery snake stealing men's eyes and driving them mad. Above all, the people will ask, and the papers will plead, why? Rolling the fresh eyeball in her fingers, she wonders, not for the first time, if she could ever answer. She never believed in justice, and she can't remember the last time she enjoyed revenge. All she remembers is being small and scrawny and invisible in a crowd of too many. Falling and being used as pavement. Bleeding and being left to rot. She asked why many times, and when the answer came to her, it felt like soothing to a burn. Perhaps the reason for one’s evil is simply that one can. And if so, then her own reasons could be just as plain. Not a savior nor a beast. She kills these wretched men because she can, and others won't. She throws the eye into the flames and takes a deep breath before smiling. Tomorrow, she travels North to colder lands, on the trail of worse evils and tougher choices. But tonight, the salty air of Salvador warms her skin, and as the men’s cries fade into silence, she knows these dead will not come back.