I don't know if I'm happy or sad; I only feel a vast emptiness eating me from the inside. Is this the joy of having avenged my family's death? Or the sorrow of having failed to protect them? Was this world born to steal everything from me… or was I born for everything to be taken?
I walked up to the gate and stepped over a lake of blood. I didn't know where my darkness was leading me, nor who whispered that painful certainty in my ear. Pain slammed over my heart like a closing door, and the darkness began to assert its dominion over me to survive.
After a moment I stood before my father's house—the house he once left to build another life, to marry a woman who wasn't my mother and abandon his small son. I knocked. A child's voice came from inside, stirring an old ache deep in my chest.
Voices from behind the door: "Wait, Lara… don't open until I check who's at the door!"
Footsteps fell silent, then a woman's voice: "Who is it?"
I spoke with difficulty, my voice tearing like ripped paper: "Mac… is Mac home?"
Another voice from inside answered, "Yes… but he's in the bathroom right now. What should I tell him?"
I stumbled over my words; they flew out of my mouth like stones: "Tell him… I… I'm Kim, a friend."
"Okay… I'll tell him," came the reply. After a while someone knocked from inside and opened the door.
Mac appeared, surprise written across his face: "What… Kim… what happened to you? Are you all right, Kim?"
I could no longer hold it in. Everything inside me erupted in a single moment: "Father… why didn't you come when my mother died?"
His expression froze, then he stammered, "Kim… I wasn't here. I was on a work assignment abroad."
My voice rose with poisonous bitterness: "Was work more important than being there? Is work so valuable that it outweighs my mother's death?"
I never imagined words could carry such bitterness, but the wound had been open for years. Kim: "I never expected you to come. All the time we lived together… you never considered me your son. You never loved me."
He stepped back, his face trying to hide the guilt. "What are you saying? And why is your face covered in blood, and your left hand… is that a glove? What happened to you, Kim?"
I moved my hand without realizing it; blood soaked my fingertips, and my voice trembled as if a child were crying behind my ribs: "No, fat
her… no. I came to kill you."