I returned home after the conversation with Axel.
From the outside, everything looked normal. No one would guess that someone had been killed here. The government had covered everything up, cleaned the scene, and erased any trace.
But for me, it wasn't invisible. I saw it all. Every detail was burned into my mind: the bloodstains, the footprints, the dents in the walls. Even though they were gone, I still saw them.
I entered in silence. Everything felt colder than before. The place was no longer mine. Every corner reminded me of her. Her voice. Her laughter. The echo of her footsteps.
I tried to distract myself. I made some coffee. I thought it would calm me down.
But the smell hit me again. That same aroma had been in the air when it all happened. My body felt heavy. The cup trembled in my hand and fell to the floor. I didn't have the strength to pick it up.
I couldn't stay there.
I left. I locked the door. I called a car and sat in the back seat without looking back.
On the way to the city, my mind wouldn't stop racing. I stared out the window as everything came back to me.
I was born in a poor city in the Americas. One of those places where not even the police dare to go.
Since I was a baby, my parents were extorted by a criminal group. They were constantly demanded money, just to keep them from being killed. It cost them their jobs, their health, their lives.
When I was five, they tried to escape with me. They didn't get far.
I saw them die with my own eyes. Gunned down in the middle of the street.
I hid in a hole in the dirt so small that they couldn't even find me.
After that, I lived as best I could. Stealing, lying, scrounging for food. I spent three years like that.
When I was eight, a man approached me. He was in his forties. He spoke to me, but I didn't trust him. I tried to run away, but they injected me with something, and I lost consciousness.
When I woke up, something about me was different. My body felt stronger. My veins looked strange, more defined, and my skin was clean. They had cut my hair, too. I didn't understand anything.
It wasn't long before they took me to an interrogation room.
There, a well-dressed man started reading off all the crimes I had committed.
"Robberies, assaults, things like that. You know that what you've done is illegal."
I got angry. I yelled at him:
"If this country would even give rights to those who aren't rotting, then you can go to hell, sir!"
A guard got agitated. He walked toward me with a clenched fist. But the interrogator stopped him with his hand.
Then he stared at me, serious, and asked:
"If you could change this country... would you?"
I didn't answer immediately. But inside, I felt like I was at my limit. I gritted my teeth, closed my eyes, and said it:
"Yes... because I don't want what happened to my parents to happen to anyone else."
The man asked me to tell him what happened. So I did.
I told them that my parents had been threatened for years, ever since I was a baby. That they were constantly asked for money. That they started following them. That's why they were fired from their jobs. That they tried to escape with me.
That they were killed.
And that I saw everything.
The interrogator was silent. He listened without interrupting me.
Then he told me they knew about me. That they had already heard about a child who had killed six terrorists in a forgotten town.
That I had information many adults didn't have. That I knew how traffickers and extortionists operated. And that despite all that, I had a code. That I never killed an innocent person.
They asked me if I wanted a normal life. An education. A place to live. All expenses paid. But in exchange, I would have to do things for them.
That's when one of the officers, the one standing next to him, exploded.
"He's just a kid! What the hell are you saying!?"
But I interrupted him.
"Let me do it" I said to the interrogator . definitely. A few tears began to well up in the boy's eyes.
He looked at me for a few seconds and then said:
"We'll place you in the care of your new tutor. But before we close this, I want to ask you again... Are you sure about what you're going to do?"
I looked at him with the same certainty. I had already decided.
"Yes," I said. "If this will help so that none of this happens again, then yes." The boy repeated the words through a constant sob, as if they hurt more than anything else.
He nodded.
"Boy, live your life for a few years. When you grow up, you will become a soldier. And no, we are not exactly the government. We are a resistance, in search of what we want to change—what is rotten. We had already been informed of people like you, but honestly, that way you see justice seemed splendid to us."
I didn't say anything. I just looked at him. Only a look of determination was visible in that boy, ready to change his people.