‘Free will. It is an illusion formed by the hubris of mankind.’

Those words echoed in my mind, deafening me to my surroundings, tearing down the walls of my reality. I sat in my imagination as if it were a physical plane and pondered on and on. Did I invent that line as an excuse for my weakness? For my inability? For my existence? Yet how can that be? To say that nothing could be excused meant to say nothing had reason. That was illogical. Everything had a reason. But again, must everything follow logic and reason? In a world that had very little of it in the first place?

I concluded, everything that is and was could be split into two core concepts: Logic and Illogic. The world was full of them. There were people who had unwavering belief in God, people who did their best to prove his existence, and those who did a bit of both. This same thing can be said for everything else: politics, food, music, literature, etcetera,

Everything I had experienced had led me up to the present and made me who I am. It made my weaknesses and it made my strengths. So am I weak because I chose to be? No, it shouldn't, because who was I to choose? To have the arrogance to say I made myself who I am? To say I made these choices without anyone or anything that had influenced it? To say no one or nothing helped them or me?

Who was anyone to say they made themselves?

I was the product, not the producer.

“Hey, you alive?” I heard a man’s vile voice invade my ears. “Earth to Coltan, I've got a gun to your face.”

The back end of a handgun whipped me across the cheek and woke me from my revelry. The pain stung and held unto me like a leech draining my senses. Hooked and wrestled back to horrid reality, I collected my dazed self and looked around. There was blood, soaked and trailing across the long, ornate carpet and my eyes followed it. They stopped immediately at the sight of a fresh corpse, laying on its back with a bullet hole to the forehead. My eyes lost their light.

“Sis…” I murmured, my lips parted.

Her dress was in torn and in utter tatters. Her dead, glossy eyes held a reflection of me, my pathetic and beaten self, on my knees before a trio of bastards. Absolute bastards.

They raped her,

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and I watched.

Sadness came. Regret came. I could had saved her, turned her away from the thuggish and shady lifestyle and supported her to go to college. My thoughts cycled back to before and something in me broke.

“Free will…” I whispered and froze.

Others couldn't take the burden.

“No… I'll take the burden…”

Not many could make choices.

“I will choose for others who can't.”

No one could bear any of it.

“I will bear it all… the guilt… the hate… the pain… all of it…”

It was endless, like a cycle.

“I will… will-”

“Ah-hey!” one laughed. “I think he's finally gotten mental.”

“Good. Toss him in the trunk,” said the leader as he stomped on a cigarette.

I stared at the smashed piece of cancer as it dusted the carpet. These three hooligans stood in front of me with wicked, playful smiles on their faces. They got off from it, my pain and suffering. I never knew them before this and yet they enjoyed watching me hurt. Absolute sadists.

Was it their fault though? That their entire life had brought them to become who they were? To me and to kill my sister? To die?

No.

But they still needed to die. They defiled and killed my sister. Only carnage would satisfy me then. I would take the blame for their deaths and for their lives. If God himself wouldn't come down to intervene, to take this burden, this guilt, then I would. If he existed, then he knew their fate.

“I'll hold it all.”

Anger came. Righteous and absolute anger. It rushed in like a tsunami, taking control of my body and clouding my vision. It tore the ropes apart. It rushed at the three men. It roared as it slammed one's head against the concrete floor. The two thugs threw shocked stares as a sickening crunch echoed throughout the room.

“K-kill him!” the leader screamed and ran, leaving his lackey to die.

The forsaken man lifted his gun and shot. Blood spurted in the air. One bullet was taken in the arm, one in the leg, one in the chest, and one grazed the ear.

Anger was unfazed. Anger crashed it's shoulder against the abandoned thug and charged him through a wall, crushing the man's ribs, breaking his bones, and taking his weak life. By the time it was outside, the leader was already long gone. His car could be heard speeding in the distance, running red lights and alerting red and blue blaring sirens. Anger slowly faded away as it swayed side the side, staring ahead blankly, decaying until all that remained was me. I felt no peace in this conclusion. My emotions were still haywire and out of control as if a dragon was rampaging within my heart, but the taunting, sideway smile of the crescent moon was the last image I glimpsed of before I succumbed to darkness.

Absolute darkness.

Again, I was alone.