There was a house we took once. Used to belong to a family.

We held position until one night, the house caught fire.

When it was over, the roof was gone, the walls were dust, and all that was left were the toys: melted, burned, twisted into things that didn’t look human anymore.

We called that place the Toymaker’s Graveyard.

That’s what innocence looks like when war gets its hands on it. And that’s what you are, Felix. A toy built for a world that doesn’t exist anymore.

You talk about smiles like they’re shields. You talk about hope like it’s armor.

But hope doesn’t stop the shrapnel. It just gives you something to watch fall apart while you bleed.

I’ve met men like you before. Men who think if they just stay good enough, the world will play fair. They stand in the mud, waving their little flags, saying it’s all going to be okay.

And then the first bullet hits.

And the truth comes out.

There’s no magic in this world, Felix. There’s no grand redemption waiting for the ones who smile the hardest.

There’s just the ground, the blood, and the silence that comes after the last laugh dies.

I’ve watched good men get devoured because they thought goodness was enough. And you’ve built your life out of what’s left of that lie.

Your cheerfulness is a shield made of plastic.

Your optimism is a song for a crowd that stopped listening a long time ago.

You think it makes you unbreakable, but it only makes you fragile in slow motion.

When that bell rings, I’m not fighting Felix Foley the man. I’m fighting the myth: the toy soldier who still thinks love wins wars.

And I’m going to show you what happens when that myth burns.

Piece by piece, I’ll take it apart.

First the smile, smashed right off your face until the world stops mistaking it for strength.

Then the voice, choked silent when reality crushes the air out of your lungs.

Then the spirit, the part of you that still thinks you can fix everything by believing hard enough. I’ll shatter that too.

Because there’s nothing left to fix, Felix.

The house is gone. The toys are ash. The fire already came and took everything that was worth saving.

You’re just standing in the ruins pretending it’s still home.

When we’re eye to eye, you’ll realize what the Toymaker’s Graveyard really is.

It’s not a place. It’s a truth.

It’s where all the stories end: the fairy tales, the fables, the heroes. It’s where belief goes to die.

And when it’s over, you won’t just be lying next to all the others who tried to make the world kind again. You’ll be one of them. Burned. Melted. Twisted into something unrecognizable.

And when you look up at me, broken and breathless, painted in the same ash as those toys on the floor, you’ll know one thing.

I’m not the man who found the Toymaker’s Graveyard, Felix.

I’m the fire that made it.