Kill Them All

"Wait... is my disabled part my dick?"

I hesitated as an unsettling thought surfaced in my mind.

This deduction of mine wasn't biased or an irrational assumption.

It naturally lined up after surfing through my memories.

Strangely enough, it took me a ridiculous amount of time to even articulate the thought.

And I could remember nothing except my memories with Yahvi.

I may not have mentioned it before, but the conversations in those memories were incomplete.

They made no sense, and they were vivid—just like how a grown man would remember his childhood.

They weren't like a recorded tape fitted into the minds of main characters in those typical novels but existed at a subconscious level.

But still, there wasn't a single memory of my dick ever becoming erect.

"This fucker must have tried to sleep with different girls, just as Yahvi mentioned, to check if his dick was disabled or not"

But there is no other way for me to know if he succeeded in his little experiment or not."

I mumbled, making my way across the bridge.

The bridge, which had been in a normal position until now, was now turned upside down in midair.

But I never realized.

Or...

It would be more accurate to say it never had a fixed position.

"The pain is becoming unbearable now... and this bridge doesn't seem to be ending soon."

I snorted, looking straight ahead to get a rough measure of the remaining distance.

But this wasn't even the scariest part yet.

Slowly, a strange pressure built up inside my head—not painful, but dense, like the air had thickened around me.

"Has it already started?"

I wondered, as each step felt heavier. Not because of my body, but because of the pressure building up in my...

Mind.

At the beginning, it was faint, but now it had sharpened.

Various memories of my past surfaced in my mind.

My past decisions.

Things I had buried deep within my heart.

All the irrational choices I made, the ones I regretted.

"Fuck! Fuck!... I don't want to see this... not now, please!"

I screamed, fear reflecting in my eyes as a certain memory overtook my thoughts.

A memory I never wanted to see again.

Even if it meant dying a million—no, a billion—times.

●●●

The lights. The laughter. The smell of fried food and sugar.

The annual town carnival was a paradise for most. A place where families laughed.

Couples held hands. Children ran wild with sticky fingers and carefree grins.

But for Ansh, it was just another scripted illusion.

Sixteen years of faking smiles, mimicking emotions, and pretending to care had left him bored. Empty.

The world around him was a play, and everyone else was following a script they never questioned.

He wanted to see what would happen if he burned the script.

It started with an impulse.

He wandered behind the food stalls, past the laughing workers and sizzling grills, until he found the storage area.

A forgotten alleyway hidden in the dark, where propane tanks sat stacked like waiting bombs.

No cameras. No workers. Just him and the potential for destruction.

His fingers toyed with the lighter in his pocket.

He had carried it for months now, flicking it open and closed, staring at the flame like an old friend.

"Will they scream?"

"Will they run?"

"Will they look at me differently after tonight?"

He set a pile of trash on fire near the tanks. Then, with his heart pounding—not in fear, but in thrill—he walked back into the crowd.

And waited.

The first blast was like a bomb going off in his chest.

A massive fireball tore through the stalls, sending bodies flying. The sky turned orange, and the air became thick with black smoke and burning flesh.

Screaming.

So much screaming.

People ran, trampling each other in their desperation to escape.

A man collapsed on the ground, his back charred black and bubbling, his hands clawing at the pavement as if trying to crawl out of his own skin.

Ansh laughed.

He couldn't help it.

The sheer chaos, the horror, the way people's eyes widened in pure, animal terror.

It was beautiful.

A mother tried to shield her child as flaming debris rained down.

He watched as a steel pole impaled her shoulder, pinning her to the ground. She gasped, choking on her own blood, her body trembling as she tried to push her child away.

The child screamed for help.

Ansh walked past them.

The flames spread to the Ferris wheel, and the metal groaned before it collapsed.

People were still inside.

They screamed as they fell, trapped in their seats, their bodies crushed under thousands of pounds of flaming wreckage.

The sound of bones snapping was almost rhythmic.

Then he heard a familiar voice.

"Bro...?"

His heart froze.

Lying near the wreckage was Ethan.

His best friend.

The only person who had ever really understood him.

The one person who never judged him for being different.

Blood pooled beneath Ethan's stomach.

His leg was bent the wrong way, bones sticking out like jagged glass.

His fingers twitched, reaching toward him.

"It... it hurts, man..." Ethan coughed, blood dribbling from his lips. "What... what happened...?"

Ansh just stared.

This wasn't supposed to happen. Ethan wasn't supposed to be here.

Ethan's hand weakly grabbed his wrist. His eyes, once so full of life, were clouded with confusion and terror.

"Help me..."

Ansh opened his mouth, but no words came out.

He had done this. This was his fault.

Ethan's grip loosened. His eyes darted around, looking at the flames, the bodies, the carnage.

And the... realization.

He looked back at Ansh, his lips trembling.

"...No... no way... you...?"

The betrayal in his voice shattered something inside him.

The world blurred.

The screams were distant. All he could see was Ethan's broken body, the life fading from his eyes, and the absolute, gut-wrenching terror on his face.

Then, his best friend stopped breathing.

Ansh let out a shaky breath.

He took a step back.

Then another.

Then, he ran.

Kept running.

Until he was alone, outside a shop's entrance.

His hands trembled as he scrolled through Ethan's messages.

Ethan had texted him just minutes before the fire.

"Dude, where are you? I'm at the carnival! I was gonna surprise you. Figured you'd be bored, so I came to hang out."

Ansh clenched his jaw so hard it hurt.

He killed him.

He was a psychopath.

Not just him—178 people.

Families.

Children.

Strangers.

He had laughed at them.

Stepped over them.

Ignored their screams.

But now, they haunted him.

Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Ethan reaching for him.

He heard his last words.

"You...?"

He couldn't breathe.

He clutched his head, his nails digging into his scalp.

Anything to stop the memories.

But it was too late.

There was no running from this.

For the first time in his life, he felt something real.

Then...

A whisper.

Soft. Familiar.

"Ansh."

He snapped his head up.

His room was empty.

Yet the air felt heavy. Suffocating.

A shadow flickered in the mirror.

Ethan.

Staring at him. Expressionless.

His lips parted.

"Run."

The lights flickered.

The walls darkened.

And then...

Everything vanished.

●●●

I screamed.

Not out of fear.

Not out of guilt.

But because something was still burning.

The flames were gone, the carnival was gone, but the fire had followed me.

It wasn't on my skin, yet I felt it inside me. Beneath my ribs.

Writhing.

Consuming.

My breath came in sharp, ragged gasps as I stumbled forward, the wooden bridge stretching endlessly ahead.

The abyss below churned like a living thing.

"We never left."

"You never left."

A shadow flickered in the fog ahead.

A charred Ferris wheel.

Tilting.

Burning.

Collapsing again and again.

The smell of roasted flesh filled my nose.

I gagged.

"No. No, this is just the trial."

I forced myself to move.

One step.

Two.

Then—

Crunch.

I stopped.

I looked down.

A small, burned rabbit. Its fur fused with its skin, its empty eye sockets turned toward me.

I stepped back. The bridge creaked.

Then, behind me.

A whisper.

"You think this is about guilt?"

The voice was familiar. Too familiar.

I turned.

Ethan stood there.

Half his body was scorched black, his flesh peeling in layers, his teeth bared in an expression that wasn't quite a smile, wasn't quite a snarl.

My stomach twisted.

He wasn't real.

None of this was real.

I tried to move forward, but the bridge wouldn't let me.

I Had yet to face my past reflections.

The wood groaned.

The air shifted.

And then...

Everything went silent.

The whispers stopped.

The fog stilled.

And I felt it.

Something watching me.

Not the corpses.

Not the bridge.

Something above me.

Something that should not exist in any world.

A weight pressed down on reality itself.

The bridge trembled, the planks twisting like they were alive, reacting to something's presence.

Then...

A step.

Not mine.

Not Ethan's.

Not the dead.

Something else had stepped onto the bridge.

The entire world lurched.

The air around me fractured, like glass cracking without breaking.

My lungs stopped.

My body refused to move.

Then followed...

A voice.

Not a whisper.

Not a scream.

Something deep.

Hollow.

Infinite.

It spoke...