The truth (Part 2)

"What..?" I fell on the hard floor as the stinging pain ringed through my head. "That's not possible! My mom is someone else!"

He snorted after hearing my words, "She didn't tell you anything. This is interesting."

He casually began walking towards me with his hands in his pocket and a smirk across his face. I tried moving backwards but the wall behind me blocked my escape and the pain in my head had rendered my whole body weak. I could only defend myself at this point.

I gripped the knife tighter as he inched closer to me and leaned down to my level.

"I'll slit your throat if you try anything." I held the knife close to his neck. Ryan's skin tore a little at the pressure of the knife and a drop of blood trickled down his neck. He looked at the knife and back at me, his grin fading away into an intimidating expression.

"Even if you were to kill me here, it would do you no good. After my death, the other members of the organization will come after you. There's no escape, Rai. If you want to save everyone's life, sacrifice yours." He said.

Just then, a small smile appeared across his face as if he remembered something. "And yes, about your mother." He pointed at the photo in his hand, "This woman is your mother, Irene Garcia. She was my cousin. She fell in love with your father, Keith Agnor, and got married soon after. After a few years, they had a baby boy. They named him Rai."

"What...? That's not possible! But my mom was-"

"She was just a maid who took you in after Irene's death." He interrupted.

I was flabbergasted by everything he was saying. If that was true, everything I had known about myself was a lie.

I couldn't not believe him either because he knew my father's name eventhough I'd never mentioned him to anyone after he left us. I had always hated him for leaving my mom without giving even a single word of explanation to us. But a part of me always remembered his kindness. I wanted to have faith in him but I had nothing to back it up.

With my mom constantly relying on drugs, there was no one else to take care of Emily. I had to skip school almost everyday because I couldn't afford a daycare for her. And whenever I managed to go to school, I was slandered, kicked and bruised. There was a constant emptiness inside me whenever I woke up to a new morning. I was almost numb to all the pain as time passed.

Ryan stood up, his cold and piercing gaze fixed at the photo of my actual mother. "She was leading a good life...but she just HAD to stick her nose where it didn't belong. So I killed her." He crumpled the photo with a neutral expression.

"After her death, I thought, why not make her useful to me?" He flashed the most sinister smile as he turned away from me, almost as if he wasn't talking to me anymore but singing proudly about his achievements to himself, "So I ripped her organs out one by one and began experimenting. She was the very first human test subject of my project. After running a test, I came to know that the human heart had the strength to withstand my experiments that an animal's heart didn't. After that, I began collecting fresh corpses to invest in my project. The process was getting more and more addictive and before I knew it, I began killing people for it. But unfortunately, Irene's heart and brain were the first and last organs to pass all the 5 tests."

Every single word that he spat out of his filthy mouth made my blood boil. He was a disgusting monster. I couldn't imagine how much pain the victims had to suffer through.

Suddenly, my eyes fell on the little girl who was hiding under the bed all this time. She was trembling in horror and looked at me with teary eyes. I looked back at Ryan who was still talking to himself.

"Now's my chance." I thought as I quietly got up and charged straight at him with the knife.

Just as I was close enough to stab him, he turned around as if he had sensed my movements. But it was too late to dodge. He gasped as the knife pierced into him. But what frustrated me was that it didn't hit his heart as I aimed. It pierced deep into his arm instead.

"ARGHHH!!" He screamed in pain as blood soaked his sleeve. Seeing this as a chance to escape, I quickly pulled the little girl out from underneath the bed and ran out while carrying her. My body was beginning to recover, which made me even more determined to leave this place.

When I made my way out, I saw rows of prisons lining up on either sides with a pathway separating the two rows. The place stunk so bad that it almost made me throw up.

We were met with mutilated dead bodies after dead bodies in the cells as we went. The girl was bawling her eyes out at the sight.

"Shh, it's okay. You're safe now." I patted her back as she buried her face in my chest, sobbing and trembling. Although I reassured her that she would be safe, I wasn't too sure about that myself. I kept glancing at the cells on my way. All the blood and corpses were drawing my attention.

As I was running, I saw something in one of the cells that made me stop dead in my tracks. I took a few steps back and looked into the cell again to make sure I wasn't hallucinating. A chill ran down my spine when I took a good look at the lifeless body in front of me.

It was my father. His body laid apart from his head and was completely mutilated.

"N-No... this..this is not..." I mumbled and took a few steps back in horror.

Just then, I heard shuffling noises in the distance. I couldn't afford myself to get caught now. I ran as fast as my legs could carry me. Soon, I stumbled across a huge metal gate. I pushed the gate open and rays of sunlight entered into the place. I quickly walked out and shut the gate with a thick metal hook that was used to lock it.

I looked around the unfamiliar place in front of me.

The laboratory was covered by forest on all sides.

"This is is definitely not Blueburn." I thought.

Without thinking, I dashed into the forest to hide. We walked through the thorny bushes and trees for a while until the laboratory was out of sight. As soon as we were a good distance away, I set the girl down.

My body was worn out and I was breathing heavily.

Tears sprang out from my eyes as soon as I collapsed on the ground. "Why...Why is this happening to me? Is a normal life too much to ask for?"

I hadn't seen my father in more than 2 years, and when I finally found him, he was in...that state. Every single day was like living in hell but I kept moving forward, believing that everything would be alright if I was strong.

But now, I was tired— tired of acting strong eventhough I was breaking apart inside.