A young man opened his eyes, suddenly disoriented. He looked around to see where he was, realizing he was clearly not in his bedroom.
He found himself in what looked like a dark, damp cellar, permeated with the smell of rust and blood. He tried to straighten up, but the ropes were so tight that they started to cut into his skin, making him grimace in pain.
His limbs were tightly bound. He couldn't move. His breathing quickened. The room shook with each violent blow, each agonized scream.
"Leave him alone!" a raw voice shouted from somewhere nearby.
These two echoes resonated through the dark chamber, but his mind was concentrated on one thing: he knew that voice. The one that resonated through the house.
Because this voice was not the voice of a stranger.
It was his uncle's voice.
His heart clenched.
"Old man!" he cried. His scream was so loud that it began to strain his vocal cords, pulling at his bonds like a caged beast desperate to escape.
Useless.
The more he struggled, the tighter they became. The knots were tight enough to dig into his skin and burn it.
When he saw that his struggles were futile, he took a breath and calmed himself.
He could finally hear what was happening in the house.
Noises could be heard, but they all came from the same place—the living room—and apparently from two people: the uncle, who was tied up like him, and the unknown person who paced in circles around the old man.
"You knew this would happen one day, right?" said this other voice with a smile so warm that it became terrifying.
"Do what you want with me, but let him go!" screamed the old man, half-desperate and terrified.
The young man had been calm before he heard these words, but now it was a whole other case. He had heard all the noise and words spoken by the two men, but he couldn't do anything apart from trying to break the bonds that held him captive.
The footsteps around his uncle, the sound of something sliding across metal, and that suffocating silence…
Just before the screams.
"Stop! Monster!" the old man screamed with everything he had.
But the cold voice continued calmly, almost gently: "Isn't your blood warm? It's been a long time since I took a proper shower," he said with a glacial tone that could freeze hell itself.
A long, agonizing cry echoed through the black room where the young man lay bound.
The young man's face was streaked with tears of despair. He tried to scream again, but his vocal cords were torn. But even so, his heart began to beat like crazy, as if to scream all the pain he felt in that moment.
"You won't get away with this!" whispered the old man weakly, defeat already evident in his voice.
The other man laughed with terrible calm.
"I don't need to get away with it. I already have what I wanted."
Then the murderer's voice softened, as if it were death itself collecting the life of a man.
"Goodbye, old man."
One final sound. A wet crack.
Then silence fell.
He tried to scream with all his strength, but he could not.
The ropes cut deep into his wrists.
Everything went black.
He sat up suddenly, gasping for breath and drenched in sweat.
The room was silent.
Only the sound of his gasping and rain beating against the window could be heard.
That nightmare again.
That memory again.
It came back every year on the same day.
The day his uncle died.
Even after ten years, these memories hadn't dulled; in fact, they seemed to grow sharper and more painful to endure.
This old man was the one who took him in when he had nothing, when others thought he was nothing, when he was truly nothing. He was the only one who cared for him, the only one who loved him, and the only one to offer him a home and a warm meal. For others, it may have meant nothing, but for him, it filled the hole in his heart.
So...
How could he forget him?
He sat on the edge of his bed for a moment, staring into space.
Then he got up.
Without a word, he put on his clothes, his shoes, and left the room.
The house he left seemed different that day—empty and cold, as if it too remembered that day.
Outside, torrential rain poured down on the city.
The air smelled of a mixture of plants and wet earth.
With every step, the sound of his shoes hitting the puddles echoed in the silence.
Halfway there, he stopped. He looked up at the dirty gray sky.
Water streamed down his face, mixing with tears he refused to acknowledge.
"Why him?" he whispered.
His voice trembled.
Why do the good ones always leave first?
His fist clenched, jaw clamping tight.
"You bastard up there… You and your fucking paradise."
He slowly resumed his walk through the muddy forest that led to the old cemetery.
No one ever came here except him.
The trees bent under the storm. The cemetery was practically buried in fog.
But even in the mist, the young man could tell exactly where the grave was. So he walked over to it and knelt.
"I've come," he whispered, sobbing.
The tears could no longer be held back. All the despair and sadness of that night took shape in those tears.
Suddenly, a noise could be heard. It was neither the wind nor the raging storm. It was something else.
Slow, deliberate footsteps—the sound of human footsteps.
Someone was there.
A presence so cold and silent that it seemed to freeze the world in perfect stillness.
He slowly looked up at the figure. It was a man with long white hair and closed eyelids.
"Who are you?" he asked, his voice breaking.
The man smiled.
"Don't you remember me?"
"No. Am I supposed to?" replied the young man, a weird and unsettling feeling starting to swell inside his throat.
"Well," the man said in a gentlemanly tone, "the last time we saw each other was ten years ago."
"Ten years? Exactly?" asked the young man, his heart beating faster, as if it were about to explode.
"Why don't you ask what you really want to know, kid?" said the man with a warm smile.
The young man stood up and looked the man straight in the eye. Although the fear in his eyes could not be concealed, he asked the question anyway:
"Are you the one who killed my uncle?"
The man stood there without saying a word for a few seconds—those poor little seconds that seemed like an eternity to the young man.
"Yes, I killed him, although the more accurate word would be 'tortured,' wouldn't it?"
"What do you think?"
"Well, yes. After all, you must have seen what happened to that old retired man."
"Well, yes. After all, I took good care of him, cut—"
"Cutting off his hands and feet, stabbing him in the thigh?" the young man said, interrupting the murderer.
"Yes, I know. When you left, I left that room. I saw the old man. Dead, with missing limbs, his blood flowing from his thigh, body split open. But you kept me alive."
"Tell me why," he asked, with a fury boiling inside him, just waiting to burst out.
"Hey, tell me why you kept me alive but killed him," he repeated a second time, with even more anger than the first.
The murderer laughed for a few seconds before stopping.
"Are you serious, kid?" he asked with a coldness that made the boy's blood run cold.
The young man tried to attack him by punching him in the face, but he couldn't touch him, as if the laws of physics did not apply to this man.
"How…?" he asked, trembling.
"You'll find out one day, maybe, if you manage to survive today," the killer said.
He tried to get up and run away, but unfortunately, it was too late. As the young man fled, the murderer picked up a wooden stick from the forest floor and threw it straight at his heart.
"Goodbye, boy."
For the first time since this meeting, the murderer opened his eyes. They were black—an abyssal black capable of engulfing everything—and yet one could see an emotion in his eyes...
Remorse.
But his words were lost in the storm, fated to be heard only by the world.
The blow was perfect.
The pain was excruciating.
His body trembled.
His painful life was sadly coming to an end.
And he laughed. A hoarse, desperate laugh.
"Hahaha… I came into this world alone… and I'm leaving it alone."
His gaze slowly clouded over.
"Ironic, isn't it?"