Boom-boom!
He stood there, the cold night breeze from the balcony gently brushing his back. The tattered curtains swayed gracefully behind him in a wavelike motion, like a calm and poetic dance that accompanies misfortune.
Boom-boom!
The strange, sticky feeling of the blood covering his body strangely comforted him, contrasting subtly with the cold weapon he held in his aching right hand.
He was covered in wounds. His body protested, his vision grew blurrier and blurrier, and his ears still managed to pick up the general chaos reigning in the neighborhood's streets.
Yet, he felt nothing.
He felt like he was in someone else's skin.
He felt like nothing existed.
Boom-boom! Boom-boom!
The smoke that had clouded his vision had finally vanished, rushing through the balcony door to flee the horror of the scene. Now, it left visible the charred, grotesque, and unreal corpses lying at his feet. Their forms were strange, disgusting—they had nothing human about them. Even in this state, he couldn't bear to look at them and instead focused on the remnants of the living room his mother always tidied and decorated with love.
Boom-boom!
The room was covered in black. The armchairs were overturned and ripped, the television they used to watch boring shows on—shows that made him yawn from boredom—was split in half. It emitted no sound; no noise disturbed him. In fact, no sound could be heard at all in the apartment. It was as if the entire room was mourning, observing a final silence for the one who had cared for it so tenderly.
For the loving woman who could no longer care for it as she used to.
For the mother who would never again comfort and caress her son.
BOOM-BOOM!
Beyond the living room, the apartment was plunged into darkness—a deep darkness, so deep it seemed to consume everything around him. Deep down, the young boy knew that his father had been swallowed up by it forever. He knew he would not come back.
He was alone and weak.
He was cold, and nothing could warm him ever again.
He felt nothing, saw nothing, wanted nothing.
Was this death? If so, then he wished to accept it with gratitude…
…But that repulsive sound disturbed him to the highest degree.
BOOM-BOOM! BOOM-BOOM!
Why could he still hear it so clearly and distinctly? If he was dead, why did it still resonate with such force, as if it were stubbornly clinging to a fight its owner had already abandoned?
BOOM-BOOM! BOOM-BOOM! BOOM-BOOM!
If he was dead...
If everything was over...
If suffering no longer meant anything...
Then why was his heart still beating so hard?