THE HIGH TABLE

The footage would be recovered three hours later. Would be shown at hearings, at trials, at classified briefings. Would become legend in every special operations unit in the Nordic countries. The night Sten Järvholm killed fifty-three. The night Jaska Mäkelä killed him back. With his own spurs. Four months. The spurs hung from Jaska's belt every single day. Not as trophies. Not as reminders. As something else. Something he couldn't name. They clicked when he walked. A sound that made other operators look up, then look away. He told himself it was respect. Told himself he'd earned the right. He was lying. The addiction had crept up on him like a wolf in snowfall. At first, just before training. A little boost. The viagra kept his blood flowing hot, kept him aware. The roids made his muscles sing. He was faster. Stronger. More. Then before every mission. Then before every workout. Then just... because. His eyes had changed. His team noticed. The pale blue had gone dark, hungry. He smiled less. When he did smile, it reminded people of someone else. Someone dead. The spurs clicked. Clicked. Clicked. Then the message came. Delivered by a teenager on a bicycle. Handwritten note. Old-fashioned. The kind of thing that belonged to another century. Jaska Mäkelä. You killed my father with his own spurs. I watched the footage. I know what you are. I am eighteen now. Old enough. Old factory. Hietalahti. Three days. Sunset. No cameras. No witnesses. Just us. You wear his spurs. You will die by mine. — Erik Järvholm Jr. Jaska read it three times. His hands didn't shake. His heart didn't race. Something inside him—the thing that had grown in the freezer, the thing that wore dead men's spurs—felt only one thing. Hunger. He found his stash. Measured the dose carefully. Too much and he'd shake apart. Too little and he'd be slow. He'd learned the balance. Learned it the way addicts learn everything: through pain. The needle went in. The fire spread through his veins. He looked in the mirror. A stranger looked back. Pale eyes. Spurs on his belt. Hands that had killed fifty-four men—he'd counted—waiting for fifty-five. "Perkele," he whispered. Then smiled. It was Sten's smile. ________________________________________ Three days. Sunset. Hietalahti factory. The building was a corpse of the industrial age. Broken windows. Rusted machinery. The smell of old oil and older death. Perfect. Jaska walked through the main floor, spurs clicking. He'd polished them. Stupid, maybe. But it felt right. Let the son see them shining. Let him understand. The boy—no, the man, eighteen made him a man in Finland too—waited in the center of the floor. He had his father's size. His father's build. His father's eyes. And his father's spurs. New ones. Custom. Sharp as razors. Buckled onto combat boots that had never seen combat. He held two syringes. "I know about your habit," Erik Jr. said. His voice was deeper than Jaska expected. Calmer. "I brought mine too." He tossed one syringe. Jaska caught it. Looked at it. The same cocktail. The same poison. "Fair fight," Erik Jr. said. "Both loaded. Both spurs. No other weapons. To the death." Jaska looked at the syringe. Looked at the boy. Looked at the spurs on his own belt. Something stirred. Something that might have been conscience. Might have been memory. Might have been the last scrap of the man he used to be. "He was a monster," Jaska said quietly. "Your father. He killed fifty-three. He was going to kill me. He was going to find my family." Erik Jr. nodded. No anger. No denial. Just: "I know." "Then why?" The boy—the man—met his eyes. For the first time, Jaska saw something other than hate there. Something complicated. Something almost like understanding. "Because he was still my father. Because you wear his spurs. Because I have to know." "Know what?" Erik Jr. uncapped his syringe. Plunged it into his thigh. His eyes went wide as the chemicals hit. His muscles swelled. His breathing changed. "Whether I'm a monster too." Jaska looked at the syringe in his hand. At the boy—the man—across from him. At the spurs on both their belts. The click of his own movement sounded like his father's ghost walking beside him. He injected. The fire came. The hunger came. The darkness came. They circled each other in the dying light, two men pumped full of poison, wearing dead men's spurs, about to find out what they were made of. The factory held its breath. And somewhere, in whatever hell he occupied, Sten Järvholm laughed. Jaska caught the boots one-handed. Heavy. Black leather. Tall shaft, reaching nearly to the knee. Steel toes gleaming. And on each heel—empty mounting brackets where spurs would go. He looked up at Erik Jr. Confusion cutting through the chemical haze. The young man held up his own feet. The custom spurs gleamed. Then he reached down, unbuckled them, and tossed them aside. They clattered across the concrete. "No spurs," Erik Jr. said. "Just boots. Just men. Just... us." Jaska stared at the boots in his hands. Then at the spurs on his belt. The ones he'd taken from a dead monster. The ones that had clicked beside him for four months. His identity. His trophy. His curse. "Why?" Jaska asked. Voice rough. Raw. Erik Jr. moved to the center of the factory floor. Rolled his shoulders. Flexed his drug-enhanced muscles. His shadow stretched long in the sunset light. "Because I watched the footage. All of it. Not just the end. The beginning too. What my father did to those fifty-three. What he was going to do to you." He paused. "What you became after." Jaska said nothing. "My father was a monster," Erik Jr. continued. "But he was my father. I came here to kill you. To avenge him. To prove I was his son." He looked down at his own hands. "Then I realized... that's exactly what he would have wanted. Me to become him. To continue the bloodline of butchers." The sunset painted them both in red and gold. "I won't do it," Erik Jr. said. "I won't become him. I won't become you." Jaska's jaw tightened. "What did you call me?" Erik Jr. met his eyes. Held them. "You wear a dead man's spurs. You pump yourself full of poison before every fight. You've killed fifty-four men and you've lost count of how many you've hurt. You look in the mirror and see him staring back." A pause. "Don't you?" The words hit like bullets. Jaska's hand went to his belt. To the spurs. The cold metal. The click that followed him everywhere. He thought of the freezer. Of Sten's face as the spur went in. Of the fifty-three bodies scattered like broken dolls. Of the needle in his arm, three days ago, two days ago, every day. Of the stranger in the mirror with Sten's smile. "No," he whispered. But it sounded like a lie. Erik Jr. picked up the boots he'd thrown. Walked forward. Held them out. "Fight me. But fight me clean. No spurs. No drugs—too late for that, we're both already poisoned. But no trophies from dead men. Just boots. Just fists. Just two men who got dealt shit hands and have to play them." Jaska looked at the boots. Simple. Honest. No history. No ghosts. He looked at his belt. At Sten's spurs. At four months of click click click following him everywhere. His hand moved. Unbuckled the belt. The spurs hung heavy in his grip. For a long moment, he just held them. Remembered the weight of Sten on top of him. The cold of the freezer. The fire in his veins. The click that had become his heartbeat. Then he dropped them. They hit the concrete with a sound like a body falling. Skidded across the floor. Came to rest against a rusted machine. Jaska took the boots. Sat down. Pulled off his own footwear—plain combat boots, nothing special—and pulled on the tall leather ones. Laced them up. Stood. They fit perfectly. He looked at Erik Jr. The young man nodded. They faced each other in the dying light. Both pumped full of poison. Both wearing only boots. Both knowing this might kill them. No spurs. No ghosts. No legacy of monsters. Just men. Erik Jr. raised his fists. "For my father. For what he was. For what I won't become." Jaska raised his. "For fifty-three. For the freezer. For what I stop being. Tonight." They circled. The first punch was thunder. ________________________________________ The fight lasted forty-seven minutes. It was brutal. It was beautiful. It was two men trying to kill each other while also trying to save each other's souls. Erik Jr. had his father's power but none of his cruelty. He fought clean. Fought hard. Landed blows that would have killed normal men. Jaska took them, bled from them, kept coming. Jaska had his Finnish sisu but none of his recent darkness. He fought like the man he used to be—before the freezer, before the spurs, before the poison became his master. Fast. Clever. Relentless. They broke each other. Piece by piece. By the end, they could barely stand. Both on their knees in a pool of mixed blood. Both gasping. Both finished. Erik Jr. looked at Jaska through swollen eyes. "Still... alive." Jaska nodded. Blood dripped from his mouth. "Still... human." They knelt there, in the darkness, as the last light faded. Two men who had every reason to kill each other. Two men who had chosen differently. Erik Jr. reached out. Slowly. Painfully. Jaska took his forearm. They gripped. Held. "Not monsters," Erik Jr. whispered. "Not today," Jaska agreed. They helped each other up. Limped toward the door. Past Sten's spurs, lying on the concrete where Jaska had dropped them. Jaska stopped. Looked at them. The moonlight caught the steel. They gleamed like they were waiting. Erik Jr. watched him. Said nothing. Jaska's foot moved. One kick. The spurs skittered into the darkness, lost among the rust and shadow. The click stopped. They walked out together. 

Published: 2026-03-30, viewed 36 times.