Chapter 76: Inner Voice, Part 3

"Yes," Sam said. "Yes, I understand perfectly."

There was no point in complaining. The trap had been too good. Even though he was telling the truth, protesting now would only make him look like a petulant child who couldn't admit defeat. He had no evidence to support his version, and there were four people against him.

Besides, deep down Sam knew, despite the anger he felt at that moment, that he deserved it. Contrary to what he had always thought, he had momentarily let himself be carried away by useless feelings like pity and compassion. He had extended his hand to another person, believing they needed help. Believing that if no one else could offer help, there was nothing wrong with him doing it.

Of course, as he should have known, the result was inevitable: his career in ruins, his life effectively over, because his career was the same as his life. Human beings were nothing without dreams and ambitions.

And that path had been cut off forever. The promotion he had been about to get would go to someone else, and he would sink to the bottom, with no possibility of raising his head above the surface again.

They hadn't fired him, but that was no miracle. It only increased his desolation and humiliation. He knew they had merely allowed him to continue enslaving himself to the company. Another cubicle, another number. Knowing that he would forever have to settle for dreaming of being a real person, earning money that made the effort worthwhile.

And being able to make decisions on his own, the pinnacle of the business world, the dream he had held for so long. Even when he had feared it was unattainable, he had pressed forward, and this was the result: everything ruined by a single moment of compassion, of vulnerability. Then he had understood that humanity had nothing good about it, that humanity was the same as weakness.

"You understand?" repeated the boss, "and what if you understand? You're not even thinking of apologizing for what you've done."

Sam lowered his gaze. He couldn't feel more humiliated. Would he stoop to that, to apologizing for something he hadn't done? And for what? Just to keep his job, even though now it couldn't serve the purpose for which he had gotten it in the first place.

"No," it wasn't until after a few seconds that he realized he had said it out loud, but it didn't matter, he didn't want to back down. He had no reason to retract "No, damn it, I'm not going to apologize."

Even knowing that it would look like nothing more than that, a petulant child who couldn't admit defeat, Sam clung to what little dignity he had left. He wasn't going to take the blame for another, wasn't going to be what they wanted him to be.

"I'm not going to apologize for something I didn't do."

The director crossed his hands in a way that covered his mouth.

"Where is your evidence? Where is it, if you dare to speak with such insolence?"

"I don't have evidence, but that doesn't change the truth. This is nothing but a trap, but I don't expect you to understand, nor do I care."

Sam took a deep breath, he liked to breathe properly. The walls of the room seemed to be closing in on him claustrophobically, although he had never been claustrophobic. And the people in the room, if he could call them that, were in his view nothing more than shadows with a vaguely human shape. Even his own being was something indistinct, that could disappear with a breath without leaving a trace. If he had learned anything today, it was the fragility of his own existence.

Stolen novel; please report.

"I quit," he declared. "I'm not going to spend another second in this place."

And he ran out of there: defeated, humiliated, and seen as the bad guy, as the one who was wrong, as the underhanded and manipulative one. And he was, he was underhanded and manipulative, that's precisely why it hurt. That for once, that wasn't true, and he was paying for honesty, not for all the tricks and plays he had used to make his way in this business.

In a way, Sam was aware that he was getting nothing more than a taste of his own medicine. What they had done to him was very different from what he had done to other people. He didn't care a damn, however, it was different because it had happened to him. And because, for once, he had tried to be something more...

Sam shook his head. There was no point in thinking about these things, what was past was past, he couldn't change anything now. And his life was over.

He returned home feeling like a living dead man. When he looked in the bathroom mirror, he saw nothing but dark, empty eyes, as if he had vomited his soul along the way. If he had done such a thing, it wasn't something that had happened today; however, current events had erased any trace of soul that might have remained.

He had made a mistake. Kindness, compassion, were nothing but mistakes. Human beings were animals competing for survival and supremacy, nothing more than that: animals in an artificial environment, but just as savage as a jungle. This wasn't anything new to him, but he would make sure never to forget it again, not for a single second.

What was he saying? What good was it to cling to that now? As said, his life was over, his career was stagnant. Not only had they screwed him over, but he had quit. It would be doubly difficult to rise again, if he even tried, and there was no reason to do so.

He didn't want to go around crawling. When the news of what he had supposedly done would soon spread around and the right contacts would pressure, making sure he couldn't get a job, at least not in this city— he could try to start over again in another city, another country. Maybe, but he didn't want to, didn't see the point.

He had wasted too much time to start over. In reality, what was coming was an ending. He opened the bathroom cabinet, that is, the little window behind which the pill bottle was hidden. They were just migraine pills, but there were many. The entire bottle should do the trick.

But not yet. Before dying, even if it meant nothing, he wanted revenge.

No, not like that, that was precisely what he did and it wasn't even difficult. He waited until nightfall and then went to that man's house and snuck inside, like a spider crawling through the darkness. Stealthy, lethal, with a shotgun.

For certain reasons, he had gotten himself a shotgun about half a year ago, but had never gotten around to using it. He supposed it was a matter of fate, how all the apparently unrelated pieces slowly fit where they had always had to be. He was glad he had made the purchase now, although at the time he had regretted losing the money.

Opening the door wasn't particularly difficult. He knew how to pick a lock. He had learned it in his youth, when the easiest way to feel like a rich, spoiled kid with the whole world open before him was to steal some spoiled brat's fancy car. He knew many things and put them into practice, sliding into the room, aiming at his head and firing, blowing his brains out.

The blood, skull fragments and everything else spread across the wall illuminated by the lamp, and of course also bathed the lamp. The light soon turned red. It was like a scene straight out of hell itself. He remembered thinking exactly that, that it was like a scene straight out of hell itself. If only he had known what hell actually was... It wouldn't have changed anything, but it would have amused him.

Despite how deeply they had screwed him over, Sam wasn't any fool. Of course, he had wiped the fingerprints from the weapon and wore gloves. Of course, after what he had just done, he carefully disposed of the weapon. Maybe over time it would be discovered and it didn't really matter if they discovered it or not, but he did it anyway.

Then return home and grab the pill bottle again. It was the only thing he took, migraine pills. A more conventional suicide would be with a bottle of sleeping pills. But well, the point was the result. And since when had he wanted to be conventional, he told himself, throwing his head back with a hollow smile devoid of humanity.

Then he closed his eyes and swallowed the entire bottle of pills without thinking twice. The pills took effect quickly. Soon he felt dizzy and fell to the floor hitting his head against the edge of the bed with enough force to scratch the skin. The last thing he felt was blood sliding down his forehead, touching his nose and reaching his mouth. The sensation of descent and the warmth of freshly spilled blood while his body grew colder and colder, becoming numb, being slowly claimed by death.

Or that's what he had thought then. What should have happened. But he only opened his eyes in a different world.

Inner Voice, Part 3: FIN