I hope you look forward to it, and I'll be making a surprise for you guys on the 31st too :) Aside from the upload.
It was cold.
My hands felt cold as I grasped tighter on that gun. My skin tingled as it held on to the metal object in my hands. You like how it feels, don't you? You feel powerful, right? Like no one can stop you! I asked myself, and answered almost instantly.
“No. Hell no.”
But you still do it. Like how your father always did it. Slow, painful and, inhumane. That heartless mafia boss. Like your friends. Like everybody else.
“...”
Can't answer huh? You litt--
“Yes.”
I looked down and peered into the eyes of my victim. I still had time to change my mind.. I can let her go and let her eat ice cream with her puppy. I can let her go so she can comb her hair and put them in braids with annoying pink ribbons on them. I can… But I won't. Because I was born this way, and once you're born this way, there's no-- There's no changing it. There really isn't.
This little girl doesn’t know what was coming.
But she was crying. She looked scared.
“Am I going to die?” She asked me when I dragged her into the room.
I wanted to scoff at her for asking. No, duh.
“Yes you are.”
“Will it hurt?”
Somehow, her innocence, stupidity, naivety, or whatever it was, made me smile genuinely. I was once like this… Stupid. Naïve. And Innocent. Stupid girl. Will it not hurt getting shot at? Do you see people who get shot laugh and dance? Stupid girl.
I knelt down beside her and brought the gun near her face. Extracting one bullet from my pocket, I slowly put it inside the barrel, while explaining to her how the gun works.
“See this? I'll bring my fingers here--Yeah here, and I'll pull the trigger, you know what that is? You always hear that word in movies? It's this thing. I'll pull it aannd--- pok.” I pushed her forehead with my forefinger. “The thing I put inside the gun, you know the bullet? Will go straight through your skull and--“
I think she got the idea as she started wailing loudly now, screaming incoherent sentences, throwing curse words from left to right.
“Don't cry. It's gonna be so much harder for me to do this to someone as pretty as you.”
She cried even harder as she heard me speak. She brought her hands to her face and sobbed in them. She cried for her life.
And I heard her.
Her yelps. Her screams. Her sobs. I heard everything.
“You know why I do this?” I asked, looking down at her shoulders that were shaking uncontrollably.
She did not hear me.
“You know why I'm such a bad person, kid?”
She didn't hear me again. I didn't want her to anyway.
“Someone has to do it..
Even if they didn't like what they're doing… You know?”
I scoffed and snickered. “Obviously, you don't know. Who would think that you've killed anyone anyway?”
She looked at me, with eyes that I will never forget. She was the youngest of my victims, but it had felt like she was even older than all those people I killed put together. The way she looked at me was almost saying like she was… looking down at me. Like, she was belittling me and she wasn’t scared to face me if push came to shove. I noticed that her lips were bleeding. Maybe she bit on them too hard while I tried to explain the complexities of my gun... and her death. “W-why?” She sobbed. “Why?!”
Her voice cracked and it made me falter for a bit. I stood up to let out a sigh as I brought my hands up my chest. My heart was beating rapidly... It always did when someone asked me why I was about to kill them. I stooped back down and sat beside her. I could feel her fidgeting and trying to scoot farther away from me, but I held on to her arm and brought her closer. I felt her stiffen.. out of fear, out of... Yes. Fear. It was only fear.
“Because it's just how the way the world works. I don’t have a reason to do it, but there’s a reason why ‘I’ do it, and not why I ‘do’ it.” I emphasized the two words to make her see the difference. “I was chosen to do something as inhumane as this. But whenever someone asks me why I kill, I don’t know why. All my other friends did this anyway. So I might as well--CAN YOU STOP CRYING FOR CRYING OUT LOUD?!”
She hasn't stopped ever since she got here. “How can anybody like you have friends?” She spat at me and looked at me angrily. She was smart for her age. She knew what was going to happen to her here.
Snorting, I threw my hands in the air dismissing her retort.
Why were we even here, you asked? Because I had a job to do.
And I think you know what that is.
I was sitting next to a little girl, who was just a little over 9 years old. She had beautiful brown hair, somewhat crooked teeth, with puffy pink cheeks. She was wearing a red polka dot dress, seeing that we had taken her from her family during a party. It happened too fast.
Everybody don't move!
Lee Ann!!!!!!
Mom! Dad! Where are they taking me?!AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!
A blinding white light flashed in my mind after remembering what happened earlier in the afternoon so I shook my head to veer the thoughts away. I looked to my left and the kid was still crying.
“Don't cry.”
Her sobs were so loud... But it was ironic how soft they were. Her soft sobs felt like loud, incontrollable shouts to my head.
Stop it, damn it. Stop crying.
“You know why we took you?”
For the first time ever since she got here, she was the one who held me. She held me on both sides, rocking me back and forth. “No! I don't! Now tell me why! Tell me why! I didn't do anything to you! My mom and dad were nice people! I didn't do anything t--“
“Shut up!” I shouted at her, without meaning to shout at her. I was surprised that she had the guts to hold on to me, but I hated having to deal with kids like this. Annoying, spoiled, and--
“I was a good girl! I always did what my parents told me to! I never questioned anything they wanted me to do! Because I know I'll grow up to be as good as them, and far away from becoming someone like you!! You're a ba--*slap*”
“DON’T YOU DARE COMPARE YOURSELF TO ME, YOU GOT THAT?!”
I didn't intend to slap her. But.. I was so angry. She was a good person. How can she compare me to someone like her? I was nothing.
“DON'T YOU EVER DARE STOOP SO LOW TO MY LEVEL! I am as bad as anybody can possibly get, and the world doesn't need another person like me to kill innocent people like you. Do you understand little girl? DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT I’M TELLING YOU?!”
“Then let me go... Please... Let me--*slap*”
I pushed her to the ground and shouted in her ears. “DO YOU THINK IT'S SO EASY FOR ME TO DO THAT, HUH?!! I've been doing this for 2 years already, but all of you stupid peo--VICTIMS! All you stupid victims play these stupid mind games with me all the frikken time like it's so easy for me to do what you want! Let me go! I have a family to come home to! I didn't do anything bad--BULLSHIT! YOU THINK IT'S EASY FOR ME TO DO THIS TO YOU?!!! WELL FUCK YOU COS IT’S NOT! IT HURTS ALL THE TIME!!!”
She was on the floor, leaning on both hands. She held the side of her face which I had slapped two times, and gazed into a spot on the floor, somehow not blinking. She was crying… And it was the most emotional cry I’ve ever heard and seen… Maybe because of the fact that she was still so young.
“Let me go..” She wailed.
“Why are you doing this?” She sobbed.
“You can be a good person again.” She fiddled with her fingers.
“Don't ruin your life...” It already is. I wanted to tell her.
All these, coming straight from a 9 year old who I was about to kill with one.. quick.. hard gunshot to the head.
She looked up to me. “I'll help you.”
My laugh was unexplainably loud when I heard her say those words. “Hahahaha! Did I head you right? You? Help me? What are you, some sort of lunatic? How can you possibly help me? I am beyond saving little girl.”
“I will..”
“But you can't. Because I won't let you. I.. I like things this way.”
“Why are you telling me these things? I barely know you…” She asked me, holding on to the hem of her red dress.
“To put it frankly? You're about to die, and it doesn't really matter if you know everything about me.”
She nodded her head and leaned on the wall. Somehow, she had stopped crying.
For a moment, I looked around the room. There was nothing. Only me, the girl, a chair, a gun... The room was empty. It was empty. Unlike any other story though, I won't dwell on being cliché and compare myself to this empty room and talk about my being an empty soul and the sort. You were probably thinking that I'm also an empty soul, right?
Well you're wrong.
Unlike all the other stories you've heard where the main character was depressed and alone, an empty soul, looking for company and all that BS, I was full… Overflowing, even.
Full of hate.
Anger.
Resentment.
Pain.
So much hate it did no good.
So much anger that it ate up all of me.
So much resentment that I lost all will to live.
So much pain that it hurt.
And now, here I was. Ready to kill again.
You would think that I was used to doing this. That I was used to killing innocent people. Honestly? I was. When you've been doing something like this for 2 years already, you get used to it. You think I'm a bad person? With no heart? Truthfully, I was nice. But I had become so numb from murder.. So numb from this insanity that killing had become so easy to me. But that doesn't mean that it didn't hurt. It still did.
Now you're thinking.. This is the part where I try to talk to myself out of it. I try to convince myself that maybe.. By reflecting this one time maybe, just maybe, I could change my mind and start anew.
But… That’s bull. And I don’t like bull. I like the truth, even if it hurts way too much. That is why I took this job. That is why I kill. That is why I am this way. I kill because I want people to know that life is not fair, and while they die in sham and rot away in a river or get burned in a crisp, some people lead the good life.
I’m done. I’m sick of the unfairness that they world’s coming to. I’m done trying to convince myself to start on a clean slate because that. Is. Bull.
Let me tell you how many times I’ve been through this dilemma – kidnap, reflect, try to tell self to turn back, murder.
12..
And at all 12 times, I was at the brink of insanity. I was convincing myself to stop. But if I did, then who would do this? Who would have the will to do something as inhumane as this? Kill innocent people.. For money. Power. All those things that mattered to the hooligans that were my bosses. When I don't do what I do, who will? Innocent people, naive people who knew nothing about pain? Who knew nothing about how it was to be so hurt?
At all 12 costs.. For all 12 lives.. The end result was just the same thing.
2 deaths per bullet. The victim's, and myself.
I die everytime I watch their eyes grow larger in disbelief and pain.
I die everytime I see the blood oozing out from the backs of their heads.
I die every.. single.. time I see them point out to me before they fall down on the floor.
“You... have..... no..... heart.”
“Y--“
“Aac.... hurts.”
“H-how c-could yo.. you.”
I die.. I do.
But this time.. I had had enough.
Are you smiling?
Because this is the part where I finally realize, that all along, I had lived in shame.
“Get up.”
The little girl started screaming, throwing her hands in the air, her mouth opened widely and her eyes lost all color as she realized what was about to come.
“I said get up!” I pulled her up and dragged her by the elbow.
“Do as I say!”
“P-please!! Don't hurt me!!!!!!!!”
“I won't hurt you so shut the fuck up!”
She looked at me dead-on. Her face was still in fear, but she looked confused. Of course, she didn't know what was coming.
“Remember how I taught you how to use this gun? Are you a good aimer?” I kneeled down and caressed her cheek while wiping away the tears.
She replied with a blank stare. Her eyes slowly regaining color.
“Shoot me.”
I couldn't remember how it happened, but it went by so fast. She ran to the corner, gun in hand, and pointed at me. “D-don't c-come near! Or I'll r-really s-shoot!”
I laughed and stood up. “No one’s stopping by. Do it.”
She was a kid. 9 years old. About to shoot... A 19 year old girl… Me.
“My name is JenAh,” I smiled, but it never reached my eyes. “What is yours?”
“L--Lee Ann. I'm 9, and I-I like a boy n-named Akira.” She stopped stuttering for a moment before continuing. “Since you're going to die, I might as well open up to you too.”
Wow. She’s better than I thought. “Are you really going to kill me, Lee Ann?”
“You tried to kill me first.. I didn't even do anything bad to you! I have the right to kill you now since y-you're a bad person! You even told me so!”
I snickered. “I know, right?”
“Ho-how can you be so cruel? Y-you’re a-a g-girl!”
“Doesn't mean I can't kill. I already have.. 12 times.”
She dropped the gun and started crying again. The cold metal against her white, porcelain skin was too much for the little girl to bear. I walked to her and spoke.
“I want you to shoot me, and put the gun on my hands. When big men come in here, I want you to cry as hard as you did when you were with me, okay? Remember.. Put the gun in my hands after killing me. Hit me at this spot,” I pointed to the side of my forehead, “And when you're done, Lee Ann, listen to me. Wipe the gun's handle with your pretty red dress. Then put it in my hands, okay.”
She shook her head in disapproval. “No! I’ll never kill anyone!”
“Take the gun or die.”
“I'd rather die!” She screamed. It was a miracle that not one from the gang barged in the room to ask me if anything was wrong. Maybe they were contacting the parents already for the ransom. Enough time. She wailed continuously, “Please don’t make me do this! Let me go JenAh! Let me go!”
“Lee Ann. Please.” I begged her.
I wouldn't go into details about what had happened because it was all too sudden. But what happened at the end?
The bullet went straight through my skull and just as I ordered, I felt her place the gun in my hands, crying endlessly after, sulking into a corner and looking at me with eyes that screamed guilt, pain, and… something I couldn’t comprehend.
The pain from the shot was excruciating.
It was horrible.
It was the worst pain anybody could ever feel.
But who was I to complain? I was the one who inflicted this kind of pain to innocent people.
I think it was fair.. If I went through something like it in my own death.
Before closing my eyes, I whispered...
“Thank you.”
And felt a tear coming out from my eye.
The last tear that I'm ever going to cry for my life.
And the first tear that I'm ever going to cry for myself.. Finally. For finally ending the pain.
Just like old times, two deaths.
Mine..
And Lee Ann's pure heart.
…looking at me with eyes that screamed guilt, pain, and… something I couldn’t comprehend.
Now I know. Guilt… Pain… And a… Curiosity for more. Before I breathed my last breath, I watched her as she innocently looked over me, with eyes that was nowhere near as beautiful as they were the time we were talking. They were… dead set. Cold… And angry.
Truthfully, I think it's even worse than even shooting her with the gun, anyway. It was worse than killing her with the gun.
At the end, everybody got what they wanted.
The ransom was paid.
Lee Ann was set free.
She didn't get shot.. I did.
Everybody got what they wanted...
That was all that it mattered.
Lee Ann looked down on my lifeless body as one of the gang members grabbed her by the arm.
“You stupid brat. You're free to go.”
She sobbed a last sob.. For me, and maybe for her.. Before walking away.
“Bye... JenAh.”
The lesson I told and taught Lee Ann, If you can call it a lesson, will ironically live on in her as much that it will kill her piece by piece as the days go by. It will live in on her, and it will kill her at the same time.
For that, I'm sure.
Because just like old times, someone has to do it.
And now that she was older, that someone was no less than Park Lee Ann.
