It was raining outside black cloud covered the sky like it was the last day of the earth, wind moving like someone trying to catch them and in Museum we can see someone trying to hide behind pillars.
Inside, a shadow moved.
The man pressed his back to cold marble, breath shallow.
"I shouldn't have taken this fcking request," he muttered. "Too complicated. Finish it fast, get home, eat something. I'm starving."
It looks like this guy was security guard on this Museum, but he was hiding between pillars and walking carefully
He moved with a practiced, silent gait until he reached the center of the room. There, bathed in a soft, ethereal spotlight, sat a reinforced glass container. Inside, resting on a bed of faded velvet, was a simple silver ring.
The Relic: Heart of the Lake
Besides the Display, a brass plaque detailed its royal lineage:
Item: The Matsya Sovereign Ring Origin: Discovered by the 8th King of the Matsya Tribe within the depths of the Great Sunken Lake. History: Legend claims the waters parted for the King, offering the ring as a sign of divine favor. It was later bestowed upon his firstborn heir to solidify the royal bloodline's authority.
Kael didn't waste his time admiring the relic. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a smartphone - an anomaly in this room filled with ancient dust.
kneeling down to the base of pedestal, he located a small, concealed socket. he plugged the phone cable into the socket in the bottom of container.
The screen of the phone flickered with line of glowing green code.
" Let's see what a Divine favor of 8th King looks like in binary," he whispered.
after a while, a beep sound came from the socket and the light which was glowing red is now glowing green instead of red.
he opened the container, took the relic very silently and started moving towards the exit.
suddenly a person from corridor saw him
" Here we found him!!! he is here sir" a guy holding torch shouted.
The security guy didn't realize how did this other guy came inside the Museum.
dammit, how did this guy enter the museum? he muttered I remember I locked every Door and hacked every camera in facility how did he enter? Wait.... his eye's narrowed and he looked back while running. He said, "we found him," not "who is here or who is that?" did they knew someone is coming? what this a setup? I should get to the car as fast possible there is no time to waste here otherwise, I will get caught here.
the security guard rushed towards the exit.
He saw few more guards on the way, they tried to catch him and stop him, but it looks like this guy is professional in fighting and running, when he reached the exit.
A dozen high beams flickered on simultaneously.
a booming voice amplified by a megaphone tore through his ears.
Suddenly an Announcement was made
" Kael, we are from police we request you surrender yourself otherwise we will have no choice to kill you"
this was announcement made for this person, Kael. after hearing this announcement kael started trembling in fear.
Kael's legs began to tremble. How? I disabled the cameras... I falsified the guard shifts... no one knew! Fear and rage collided in his chest. "How did this happen?!" he screamed, but his voice was swallowed by the whirring blades of a helicopter hovering overhead.
An officer holding a gun started walking towards Kael, "Hands-Up You are under arrest in the crime of stealing an ancient relic of Museum and your past crimes."
Security Guard/Kael looked in his surrounding, he saw multiple cars, officer and Helicopter. there is no way he can escape in this situation, so he surrendered, his hands were handcuffed and he was given injection for paralysis and unconsciousness.
His eye's opened in prison cell no one was there he was sitting on chair and there was table and one empty chair. He knew that from now on he can't live normal life like before now he will spend his life in prison.
Is this it? He thought back to the cycle of his life. The sound of his parents' muffled arguments, the sting of their blows, and the hunger that drove him to his first theft. A laptop, a phone, then the Dark Web... a rabbit hole of code and crime that had led him to this cage.
Suddenly an officer opened the door A bulky officer with a thick beard stepped in, tossing a file onto the table with a dull thud.
he started talking with deep and heavy voice like this was his everyday task.
" Hello Kael, I am investigating officer Cooperate, and we keep this professional. Refuse... and I'll ensure you don't leave this room with your limbs intact." officer straight up gave him warning.
Kael already decided that he would give every answer to the question they are about to ask because he is already caught and he had no choice.
They started asking question.
Kael didn't hesitate. He was a pragmatist. "What do you want to know?"
"Who requested the relic?"
"A user named Cristofer Sael. Two days ago. On the Dark Web," Kael answered mechanically.
The interrogation lasted three grueling hours. Kael gave them everything—names, dates, transactions. He thought he was buying a plea deal. Then, the officer's expression shifted. smirk pulled at his lips.
"And where are the humans, Kael? The ones who vanished at Siber Bridge. Where did you sell the organs?"
Kael froze. "What? Organs? I don't know what you're talking about."
Officer showed him his laptop, Kael was shocked by seeing his laptop because no one knew that were his laptop was and what made him more worry that laptop doesn't have security.
"This is your laptop, right? in this laptop we found all the info about client lists, encrypted chats, logs and transaction history "
"I don't know how this all came into my laptop." Kael said in fear and trembling voice
The officer's fist slammed into the table. "Don't play coy! We Have your laptop. Our tech experts cracked it. Client lists, encrypted chats, organ harvesting logs... it's all there."
Kael was just screaming that he didn't know anything and he was getting framed here. But the officer wasn't listening. The torture began that night.
Six months passed in a blur of blood and fluorescent lights. Kael was a ghost of a man, chained to a wall, kept alive only by nutrient pipes and forced blood transfusions.
He thought that the one framing his none other than that officer who wouldn't listen to him, but no one believed him because everyone saw all the info on his laptop.
"Where are they?!" the officer roared, his face contorted in a mask of agony. "Where did you take them?!"
Kael spat a mouthful of blood onto the floor, his eyes burning with a cold, dying fire. "Why are you asking me about those filthy humans?!" he rasped, his voice a jagged shadow of its former self. "I told you! Go ask the ones who framed me! Go ask the people who actually pulled the strings! or maybe you are the one is doing all this to make me scapegoat."
The officer stopped. The whip fell from his hand, hitting the stone floor with a dull thud. He stepped into the light.
"Do you really think I'm keeping you in this state because I enjoy it?" the officer whispered, Tears began to well up, spilling over his bruised cheeks. "I am the only thing keeping the executioner away. And it's for one reason."
He pulled a crumpled, stained photograph from his pocket.
"My daughter... she was only nineteen. She had just spent years fighting a savior illness—she had just started to live. And then you took her. You kidnapped her and sold her to god-knows-where." He choked back a sob, his hands trembling. "I will keep you alive, Kael. I will keep you breathing in this hell until you tell me where she is. I don't care if it takes a hundred years."
Kael's anger, which had been boiling just a second ago, suddenly vanished.
He didn't speak. He didn't mock the man. He didn't even show the slightest flicker of guilt or pain. His face became a perfect, terrifying blank—an expressionless mask of porcelain. He simply stared through the officer, looking at a point somewhere far beyond the prison walls.
The silence in the room became heavier than the torture itself.
6 months have passed now
The rumors in the prison said that the boy in Room 301 had gone mad—that he laughed while he was being whipped. But Kael wasn't laughing at the pain. He was laughing at the absurdity of a life he couldn't even end on his own terms.
in the cell everything was a mess, blood everywhere.
Officer came in started untying Kael.
" What happened tired of torturing me?" Kael said
"You have fifteen minutes," the officer spat. "Your parents are here."
"My parents?" Kael let out a raspy, broken chuckle. "They probably ran out of money and came to see if I hid any away."
Officer said nothing he gets out of the cell.
Two figures in expensive suits stepped into the filth of the cell. His mother looked at him with a mocking pout. "You look terrible, son. You shouldn't have done such 'bad' work."
" Your state doesn't look very good my son" his father said
" You shouldn't have done this type of bad work"
His father grinned. "It's not 'bad' work, darling. You just have to be careful. Unlike our son, who took the wrong request."
Kael eye opened wide this was the name of person who gave the request to steal the relic.
" How did you know about this person?" Kael asked in shivering voice
His father sighed, a sound of exaggerated disappointment. "Six months in this cage and you still haven't figured it out? You really aren't worthy of the name I gave you."
He leaned closer and said "We were the ones who sent that request, Kael. 'Cristofer Sael' never existed. We needed a scapegoat. The authorities were getting too close to our human trafficking operations, so we dumped every log, every transaction, and every sin onto your laptop and handed it to the police on a silver platter."
The man straightened his tie, looking satisfied. "If you had succeeded in stealing the relic, we would have taken it and disappeared. If you failed... well, you were the perfect trash bin for our secrets. That was the plan from the very beginning."
Kael didn't believe what he heard he thought officer was the one doing all of it, but it was his own parents
Kael stared. The world didn't just break; it ceased to make sense. He had blamed the officer and blamed the world. But the architects of his hell were the ones who had given him life.
A sound began to bubble up from his throat. a small sound and now it grew into a frantic, jagged laugh. He laughed until his lungs burned, his mind finally snapping under the weight of the irony. Even though his hands were untied, he didn't reach out to strangle them. He just laughed at the sheer, perfect cruelty of it all.
"He's finally lost it," his mother muttered, checking her watch. "Let's go. He'll be dead by morning anyway."
They left without a backward glance.
When the officer returned to chain Kael back to the wall, the boy offered no resistance. The fire of rage that had kept him breathing for six months had been doused with ice. Every emotion—pain, anger, even the desire for revenge—simply vanished.
Kael closed his eyes. The darkness was finally welcoming.
If I get a second life... he thought, a final, flickering spark in the void of his mind. I will live only for myself. Not for a cause. Not for a family. Only for me.
The officer, fueled by his usual desperation, swung the whip. Crack. Kael said nothing.
Crack. No scream. No laughter. Not even the sound of heavy breathing.
The officer stopped, his heart sinking. He dropped the whip and stepped closer, lifting Kael's chin. The boy's eyes were open, but the light behind them had gone out. There was no more information to give. There was no more soul to torture.
In that cold, silent cell, Kael was finally free.