I wasn't counting the blows, but my head was.
Each strike from his palm rang inside my skull, a dull metallic knock, like someone pounding on a door that had no intention of opening. When I fell, the ground met me too quickly. Then warmth slid through my hair. I didn't cry. Fear weighed more than tears ever could.
The teacher said I deserved it.
Not in words. He didn't need to. His voice, sharp and final when he told everyone to sit down, carried the verdict well enough. The students' eyes had changed—some glowed with satisfaction, some shrank away in fear, and others looked at me the way one looks at a mistake printed too boldly to ignore.
"Go back to your seat."
That was all. Not: Are you hurt? Not: Are you okay?
I went back.
The chair felt colder than usual, or maybe I was the one losing heat. I thought of my grandmother. I always do when I'm hurt. The smell of old wood in our house. The sound of herbs boiling. Her hands—hands that never asked questions, only held.
They said I was like her. They said my blood wasn't pure. They said war never forgets.
I used to dream of wearing a government uniform. Standing straight. Being called by a title instead of her name. But dreams, when born in the wrong places, are raised on fear before they learn how to breathe.
I went home before sunset.
She wasn't in the kitchen. The silence stretched too long, as if the house had taken a breath and forgotten to release it. I dropped my bag by the door. I didn't take off my shoes. A small bloodstain marked the tiles—too small to be mine. My heart ran ahead of me. Fear doesn't ask questions. It just moves.
I found her in the back room, her back turned.
"Don't come closer."
Her voice wasn't gentle. It was too steady.
I noticed what she was holding only when she shifted. Not a kitchen knife. Something older. Thinner. Clean in a way that made my skin tighten. At its tip—something that didn't belong to chance.
She looked at my head. Then at the blade. Then into my eyes.
"I saw them today," she said, like she was commenting on the weather.
I didn't ask who they were. Fear already knew.
My legs gave out. I slid down the wall without realizing it. Suddenly I felt younger, smaller, as if my years had folded inward. She told me to listen, not understand. The difference was sharp in her tone.
She spoke without explanations. Names I had never heard, yet somehow recognized, slipped through the air like half-remembered prayers. She spoke of my father—not as a parent, but as something else. She said people don't always die the way they're told. Some are erased.
When she said my real name, something inside me cracked.
It wasn't the name used at school. Nor the one she had called me all my life.
This one was heavier. Deeper. I couldn't repeat it, even in my head.
She stepped closer. Pressed her hand over the wound on my head. Firmly. I groaned. She didn't apologize.
"You are not one of them."
She said it like a correction made far too late.
Something in my chest collapsed.
The insults. The looks. The isolation. None of it had been random. It had been training. Or hiding. Or punishment for a sin I never committed.
I asked her if she was my grandmother.
She didn't answer.
The silence hurt more than denial.
That night, sleep never came. I sat by the window, watching the street. Every shadow felt deliberate. Every sound leaned toward danger. Something stirred inside me—not power, not yet. Fear, compressed and contained, waiting for permission.
Before leaving at dawn, she said, "If they knock on the door, don't open it."
Then she paused. "And if you do open it—don't look behind you."
She was gone.
I was left alone with the name.
When they came at noon, I was no longer a schoolchild. No longer a grandson.
I was something unfinished.
They entered without asking. Three of them. Their faces were familiar in the worst way. One smiled. I remembered that smile—the one my classmate wore before striking me. Same curve. Same contempt.
They said they knew me. They said blood never hides for long.
Fear was there. But it didn't stop me.
It stood behind me, pressing forward.
When one of them touched my shoulder, something broke loose.
I didn't scream. I didn't think.
The sound that escaped wasn't my voice, but it rose from my chest. The air thickened. The walls seemed to retreat. The man fell before I understood how. The other two backed away.
This time, fear belonged to them.
I felt no joy. No triumph.
Only loss.
When it ended, I sat amid the wreckage. My hands shook—not from fear, but from certainty. The path I once dreamed of—uniform, respect, order—was gone.
Governments don't like walking secrets. Or names that were erased.
I looked at the wound in the mirror. It would heal.
Something deeper wouldn't.
I finally understood why she never defended me. Why she let me break, slowly and publicly. It hadn't been cruelty.
It had been preparation.
But now… I'm no longer sure I want to become what she planned.
Fear no longer comes from others. Fear is me.
And the day I stop trembling.