Eric remained on his knees for a moment longer, feeling the weight of his guilt pressing heavily on his shoulders. Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to unfold the crumpled paper.

The blood-smeared paper came in his vision as his eyes trembled at the content of the letter. There was only a single thing in the entire letter; an address on the outskirts of the city.

No threats, no explanations, no demands—just a location and ‘alone’ written on it.

He immediately knew who was behind this. His past finally caught up with him. The gang he thought would not be able to find him in another city had finally found him, and not only that but also captured old man Darin.

His heart raced. This was his mess to clean up, he wouldn’t have minded if a random stranger got implicated but he couldn’t stand something happening to old man Darin.

‘Wait for me, Old man.’ he thought to himself while rising to his feet. He knew it was a trap and he would die if he went there unprepared.

Eric returned to his small apartment, a modest place he’d rented after moving out of his smithy. Inside, he went straight to a loose floorboard beneath his bed. Pulling it up, he retrieved a worn bag containing things of his past and a few things he created himself.

He laid out the contents on the bed;

A compact handgun with a full magazine.

Several short knives, easily concealable in his clothes

A few grenades.

Two short swords to hide in his sleeves.

And a few fully loaded magazines.

Looking at the things placed on his bed, he went inside his storeroom. He looked around and took out materials to make a few Molotov cocktails; empty bottles, cloth rags, and a canister of gasoline he’d kept for emergencies.

He checked each item for any malfunction. The knives were still sharp as he had recently made them inside the smithy as an excuse for self-defense. He disassembles and reassembles the gun as well. He strapped two knives to his ankles, concealed beneath his pant legs, and slipped another two around with a sheath at his waist.

The handgun fit snugly beneath his shirt above his hip, hiding enough to now let others see it in the night.

He filled the bottles with gasoline, stuffing the cloth rags into them to serve as fuses. He carefully packed the Molotov cocktails into a padded section of the rugged bag, to ensure they wouldn’t break or spill during his movements.

He took out his dark, black colored clothes to wear. He looked outside the window before taking a deep breath.

But before leaving he took a moment to write a note and left ut on the small kitchen table;

‘If I don’t make it back, I’m sorry. This is something that I must do, I can’t run from it forever.’

He wasn’t sure who the note was for—perhaps himself—but it felt necessary to leave something behind in this world.

…

He soon followed the address and arrived outside of an abandoned industrial complex on the city’s outskirts, Eric raised his head as he looked at the massive unfinished buildings all around him. The sun had already set and due to no electricity in the area, it was dark all around.

He took a deep breath and entered the first building. He looked around in the darkness and saw oil containers placed in the building.

He felt his heart skipping a beat as he got a crazy idea if things went south. But he didn’t linger in the same place for longer as he soon headed inside.

He moved cautiously as his silent steps navigated through the dark corridors of the abandoned industrial complex. The air inside the building was cold, with the faint scent of rust and decay lingering.

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His hand tightened on the handle of the handgun tucked beneath his shirt, his eyes scanning every corner for even the slightest movement.

He knew they were somewhere around here. The gang members. They had tracked him down to another city after all these years. His heart pounded with every step, his body tense with anticipation.

But it wasn’t out of fear that made him tense—he had lived with fear for most of his life. No, this was different. It was the weight of responsibility, the realization that the only person who was dear to him might be hanging to his life.

A flicker of light flashed deeper inside the building that caught his attention. The dim glow of a single bulb exposed a makeshift room in the distance. ‘That must be my destination.’ he thought as he inched forward slowly.

He pressed himself against the wall and approached the light slowly. He heard muffled voices reached his ear from deeper inside the building. The same voices he used to hear all those years ago–his previous gang members’ voices.

The same men who had turned on him for scraps, who had scattered whatever loyalty that had once existed between them.

Eric Gritted his teeth remembering old memories. He had a feeling that today would be their final showdown.

But he calmed himself down. He took a deep breath and looked around the corner. His heart reached the bottom of the abyss as he saw the scene in front of him.

Darin was bound to a chair, his body limp, barely hanging on to his life. Blood dripped from his battered frame onto the cold hard ground below him.

His hands—which taught Eric the art of blacksmithing—were now mangled beyond recognition. His nails had been dug out, leaving behind bloody stubs, yet that was not enough as all his fingers were cruelly bent, broken from repetitive torture.

Worse, a few of them were missing entirely, leaving the blood to flow freely on the ground.

The old man’s clothes were soaked with blood, and countless cuts crisscrossed his arms and chest. His face was now a mask of agony, swollen and bruised beyond recognition. Blood flowed down from the top of his head to his already battered face, panting a grim sight.

Eric’s leg nearly gave out as he felt his world darkening at the sight of Darin. Darin’s chest heaved with shallow breaths, his body barely hanging on to dear life.

The sight of the man who had become his father figure, tortured and broken, ignited a monstrous fury within him. His hand clenched into a fist as his nails drew blood on his palm, he gritted his teeth as he very much wanted to scream. To rush forward and kill every last one of them, but the pain in his chest refused to make him budge a muscle as he stared at the broken body of Darin.

It took a while for him to calm down as his eyes turned deathly cold, scanning the room, he saw five gang members beside Darin, standing some distance away.

Their faces twisted in cruel smirks as they glanced at the body of Darin from time to time. They spoke among themselves and boasted how they tortured the old man.

One of them, a tall man with a scar across his cheek, held a gun loosely in his hand while leaning against the wall, and spoke to the others, “That bastard Eric, he really thought he could leave our gang and live a peaceful life.”

Another one laughed as he spoke, “He doesn’t know what’s good for him. We are the lowest-level scum of the society, we don’t deserve peaceful lives. And this is the reason most scum die in internal strife.”

Eric fell into deep thought as he heard the person’s words, ‘Do I really not deserve a second chance at life?’

But he soon shook his head as he continued listening to their chat, hoping to gain some useful information before commencing his plan.

“Boss said he’d come,” one of them muttered, kicking a discarded bottle across the room, “He ain’t gonna leave this old man here to die. After all, this old man was one of the few people who took care of that bastard.”

The scar-faced gangster spoke again, “If he doesn’t come in 10 minutes then we will kill the old man.”

Eric’s mind raced as he heard his words. He knew he was outnumbered, outgunned. Charging in recklessly would get both him and Darin killed ruthlessly. But he knew waiting for an opportunity to present itself was outside of the question as time wasn’t on his side currently.

He glanced at the oil containers stacked some distance away from the room, the whole building seemed to be a storehouse for used motor oil but due to its low value, no one was guarding this place.

His crazy idea from earlier surfaced again in his mind, it was dangerous, borderline suicide but it was his only option.

Slowly, he backed away from that room and made his way to the oil containers. He grabbed a Molotov cocktail from his bed, focused his distracted eyes, and then lit up the fuse with a match. He threw the Molotov cocktail on top of one of the open containers.

He watched as the glass bottle shattered on impact and the fire exploded in an instant, the flames licking upwards as the oil ignited. Thick smoke soon filled the air as the fire spread, and the sound of crackling flames echoed through the building.

The gang members got caught off guard and yelled in confusion as they scrambled to figure out what was happening.

Eric took his chance amidst the confusion.