Alone
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Warning
The following novel contains material that may be harmful or traumatic to some readers.It contains graphic descriptions of murder, violence, and other unpleasant text.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
* images in "Characters" section are AI Generated Images and serve as inspiration and may not fully represent the author's vision. *
For a better experience, I recommend opening the Characters section so you can visualize the character as accurately as possible. The descriptions here will not be very detailed.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"W-What are you doing here?"
Shock hits me... Seeing her here. But instead of saying anything... She just looks at me. She doesn't speak. She just watches me... Eye to eye.
My heartbeat speeds up. I grab her shoulders and start shaking her lightly...
"TIRA! What are you doing here? Can you freaking answer me?!"
"Can you tell me why you left..."
"Without me?!" I say with a completely serious face. I want answers because I deserve them!
But she stays silent. Just staring, with a dull smile on her face.
Her eyes meet mine... Eyes filled with betrayal... Eyes rotting with disgust. Her smile, in this moment, is repulsive to me. Almost disturbingly out of place. Her smile—it's driving me insane... More... And more...
AND MORE...
I feel anger rising...
I want to free myself from the web she spun around me like a spider trapping a fly...
She burned my ability to trust... To love.
My face starts twitching from the rage. My muscles tense up, ready for one single action...
To shove her away—hard and unexpected... Just like she did to me...
JUST LIKE SHE DID TO ME!!!
With all my strength, in one quick and powerful motion, I try to knock her to the ground... The same ground where I've fallen so many times before.
But...
What?
I can't?
It's like she's a mountain... A mountain that won't move. I look into her face again and again.
The face that once was my greatest support... My place of comfort and absolute trust.
The smile she always gave me in moments of loneliness and uncertainty... That smile...
...
It's gone.
And in its place—disgust. Like someone was served a pile of shit and told,
"Eat it."
And me...
I am that shit.
Even here... In this very moment, to her, I am only one thing...
A burden.
I start breathing deeply. The determination she's showing now used to be something I admired. Right now, it's so damn irritating it makes my face twitch with frustration.
Until I decide...
To slap her.
(SLAP)
She immediately clutches her right cheek where I hit her and jerks to the left.
The mountain... had been moved.
After doing it, I started breathing like a madman. My heart never expected that I would ever... That I could ever do this to Tira.
Every time I hurt her, even in the smallest way... I would torment myself over it. I would want to die.
The weight on my heart would crush me so much... that I wanted to die.
But this time...
This time, it was different.
This time, it was a relief... But not enough. Not nearly enough.
I want more...
I want to—
Her head slowly turns back toward me. The pain fades from her face... Her hand drops away from her cheek. And now... I'm staring at the face...
The face I once loved so deeply.
And her?
Her expression twists into something even more repulsed, even more contemptuous. That face...
It's a stranger's.
And the unknown is the only thing...
I should ever fear.
Then, with all her strength, she shoves me. I go flying backward through this white void, shooting in the opposite direction at full speed... And Tira gets farther and farther away.
But everything starts changing. Rapidly. The empty whiteness morphs into my world. The sky takes on color. The wind picks up force. The air—
The air starts to smell...
Like the ghetto.
I feel myself slipping... fading...
...
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Ekpesu's Ghetto, Ekpesu
Celestis Calendar: Day 16, Month of Raguelis (5/9)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
13 Years Ago
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I slowly begin to wake up... Am I waking up... in a room?
Still dazed, still furious, I look around, seeing only a blurry space. Outlines of windows... but no light coming through them.
Outlines of objects scattered across the floor...
I grab my head—it hurts. A sharp pain stabs at one spot. I reach up, pressing against the worst of it... Then I glance at my hand. And I see... blood?
But what's even more shocking...
I see a child's hand.
A small, dirty hand covered in my own fresh blood.
The shock sends my mind into overdrive. Everything sharpens—my senses, my thoughts...
Did I... go back in time?! What the fuck is this?!
But I don't remember this. None of this ever happened—did it?
Then—suddenly—a figure appears before me.
My vision is still blurry, but my brain scrambles to focus, to make sense of what I'm seeing. And after a moment...
It does.
I see him.
A tall, grown man, staring directly at me.
Staring at me with the intent to hurt.
That same look... the same one Tira must've felt from me just moments ago.
His clothes are filthy, tattered... and in his hand—
A KNIFE?!
He... he wants to kill me?!
I start breathing heavily. Fear grips my chest. Someone wants to hurt me...
Why don't I remember this?!
"I just love this!" a voice echoes. A voice dripping with satisfaction... His voice is somehow even more unbearable than his presence.
He starts laughing—laughing like he can't wait for whatever comes next.
"I love the shock! I LOVE THAT HELPLESS LOOK ON PATHETIC, FILTHY LITTLE KIDS!"
He shudders with pleasure, running his fingers down his own face.
He's in euphoria...?
Euphoria over the idea of murdering a child?
But then—I notice something.
He's holding the rusty blade in the wrong way. His grip is so tight, he doesn't even realize...
He's cutting into his own palm.
But his expression...
It's terrifying.
He's completely addicted. Disgustingly addicted.
That's the look that haunted me as a child.
The look of a predator.
My eyes dart around frantically, searching for anything near me. Anything I can use—fast.
There!
A wooden cup.
I snatch it up and throw it at him with everything I have—
BULLSEYE!
The bastard screams in pain, clutching his face—my chance!
I leap up, bolting toward the only window behind him. I have to run past him. I have to be fast!
I sprint—he's still gripping his face! I can do this! I CAN DO THIS!
I pass him—freedom! Relief crashes over me—
"YOU LITTLE FUCKING BRAT!"
A fistful of my hair is suddenly yanked back so violently, I scream in pain.
It feels like he almost ripped my scalp off.
FUCK, IT HURTS! IT HURTS SO FUCKING MUCH!
I want to scream!
But—why?
Why can't I scream?!
...
Why?!
Why can't I scream?!
That bastard throws me forward.
As quickly as hope came... despair took its place.
I hit the ground, dazed, trying to make sense of my surroundings. And when I do—I see him.
Standing still.
Grinning.
And in that moment...
I felt it again.
The fear of death.
...Could this forgotten moment be the very thing that sparked my chronic fear?
The bastard starts drooling, practically shaking with excitement at the thought of spilling a child's blood...
"LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME WITH THAT EXPRESSION... PLEASE!"
"LOOK AT ME WITH ALL YOUR HATRED! ALL YOUR HOPELESSNESS, YOU LITTLE SHIT!" He cackles.
"LOOK AT ME LIKE I'M A GOD! LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT, AND I SWEAR, THE BLADE WILL SLICE THROUGH YOUR THROAT SO FAST, YOU'LL DIE INSTANTLY!"
"WORSHIP ME AS YOUR GOD! WORSHIP ME AS YOUR DEATH!!"
THIS PSYCHOPATH IS FUCKING INSANE! WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!
Why the fuck don't I remember this?!
Suddenly, he lunges forward—quick, sharp, and aiming straight for my throat.
Not wasting time.
Not playing around.
Guess my terrified expression wasn't enough entertainment for him.
But then...
...
Everything slows down.
But if this is just a memory... I should survive, right? There's no way I die here.
And the moment that thought crosses my mind—
The memory starts glitching.
I begin shifting—flickering—between two realities.
One where that fucker's knife is about to slit my throat.
And another...
Where a girl stands before me.
A girl with brown hair...?
T-Tira?!
Was it you...?!
For the first time in forever, I feel her warmth again.
I feel my—
I see her.
I see Tira.
Stabbing.
Over and over and over—
And OVER—
AND OVER—
STABBING THAT FUCKER TO DEATH!
A brutal, animalistic rage.
Then, just as suddenly as she appeared—Tira vanishes.
And I'm back here.
Back in front of that psychopath.
Alive.
With his knife still racing toward my throat.
The two realities flash and flicker—fighting, overlapping—until finally...
Only one remains.
...
...
The battle for my life is winning...
K-
Knife.
...
In that moment, I understood one thing.
Just like she abandoned me in reality...
...
She abandoned me in my memories, too.
And my feelings for her?
They're nothing more than a weak breeze.
A breeze that was once a raging tornado.
...
The knife slices through my throat.
A sharp, sickening pain tears through me—
And suddenly, everything rewinds.
All the way back...
To when I first stood before Tira in the white void.
Back to when she still wore that smile.
But this time—
This time, everything was different.
This time, my face wasn't twisted in anger.
Instead, my face was blank—
Confused.
Because now... she was nothing more than a stranger to me.
She was nothing.
And with that confusion...
Came an entirely new dimension of an emotion I already knew well—
A burning, all-consuming hatred.
A hatred that everyone will feel.
A thousand thoughts storm through my head, each one battling for space. My skull throbs from the pressure, and I clutch my head—
(The white void begins to darken. Black stains seep into the emptiness, spreading, swallowing everything.)
"You abandoned me, Tira... to chase a world that was MY dream too."
"You left me behind... to live a life that I ALSO wanted."
...
"And since I can no longer walk that path... Not alone. Not even by your side."
"Since I can no longer live the life we dreamed of..."
...
"I promise you just one thing. And I'll say it straight to your face—
Even if you're not really here."
I look deep into her eyes.
"The world you left for..."
I step closer.
"I will burn it to ashes."
We lock eyes.
For a moment, neither of us moves.
Then, suddenly—her body jerks.
And I—
I smile.
I turn away, stepping into the growing darkness.
And for the first time in my life...
I feel truly happy.
HAPPY.
I just want to laugh.
Laugh.
And laugh.
Because the world you left behind...
Was your first mistake.
The first failure of your so-called new self.
I will kill them all.
I will destroy them all.
You... Humans.
Angels.
And once everything is dead...
Once the world is drowned in blackest ash...
Once the air is thick with the stench of death and ruin...
Once every last thing bears the imprint of my hand...
I will smile—
A wide, ear-to-ear smile.
And I will let you live in that world.
Until the day you die.
Of old age.
I take a few more steps, then stop—gazing up.
For the first time...
I feel free.
I close my eyes, letting this feeling consume me.
...
But—
Do I still hear a heartbeat?
Is that even possible?
Are you still fighting?
I open my eyes.
Lift my left hand.
And smile.
A free, unshackled smile.
"FOR MY LOYALTY, I OFFER ONLY ONE THING..."
"FOR MY FAITHFULNESS, I OFFER THE ONLY THING... THAT I RIGHTFULLY TOOK BACK!"
Down my raised left arm flows the most beautiful, exquisite color...
The deep, crimson hue of blood.
"I OFFER THE HEART..."
"THE ONLY THING I EVER—"
"LOVED!!!!"
I scream with everything inside me.
And the last remnants of white...
Vanish.
And with them—
The person once known as Timothee.
To be continued...
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━