"So what is it? Why did I have to come into this alley?" the grumpy, bearded man asked as he followed me into the alley in the middle of the day.

"Oh, I just needed help with something," I said.

"Help? With what?" the man asked.

I stopped walking. "Nothing difficult, I promise." I said as I turned.

"Hey, why is there blood on your shir—" the man stopped mid-sentence because my hand in front of his mouth was not allowing him to speak and the dagger piercing his lung most likely made it rather difficult to breathe.

The man's eyes were wide open, seemingly having difficulties trying to comprehend how a 4-meter distance could be cleared as quickly as I had.

Then, when the man's eyes were drained of emotion, I let him down gently and continued on my way.

The same process was repeated over 10 times that day, and after it was over, I changed into the clothes I had bought and hidden in an alley before starting all this.

'By now, people must have found out,' I thought as I made my way around the town and towards the bar we usually went to after work.

When I made it there, I sensed that the mood was different, even before I entered the bar.

After I opened the door, my instincts were confirmed to be correct.

The bar was drained of joy, and people were all whispering in their booths and looking towards me, who had entered.

I walked over to the table where Kevin and Carl were sitting and sat down next to Kevin, who moved to give me space.

"Hey, where were you and Eddie today? And where is Eddie now? There've been like four murders today. Somebody is going around with a knife, just killing everybody," Carl whispered to me rather loudly after leaning closer to me from the opposite side of the table.

"What? Eddie and I encountered and tragedy on the way to work and got the victim to a hospital. Unfortunately, the man died in the hospital. Then, Eddie started feeling sick, and after he was checked on, I carried him to his place and came here straight after to inform you guys."

"Oh, for a while there, we thought you guys had gotten murdered too," Kevin said.

"Good thing that didn't happen," I said in a relieved manner. "Right, I have a message from Eddie."

"What is it?" Carl asked.

"Actually, Eddie said it was only for Kevin." I said.

"What? Why?" Carl asked, confused by Eddie's instructions.

"I don't know," I answered with a shrug.

"Well, tell me then," Kevin said, leaning towards me so that I could whisper into his ear.

I leaned in and opened my mouth.

Then, after having whispered the message into Kevin's ear, his expression turned into a horrified one, and he kept his gaze on the table in front of him, seemingly too afraid to look at me.

"Hey, are you okay?" Carl asked Kevin, but got no response, as he just kept staring at the table.

"He'll be fine. He just needs some time to process the information," I assured Carl.

"Huh? What did you tell him?" Carl asked, more confused than ever.

"I'm sorry, I can't tell you," I said and walked out.

***

The sound of the door being unlocked resounded through the corridor as I turned the key.

I then pulled the door open and walked inside the apartment.

The sensation was familiar. An apartment full of nothing. Nobody's waiting for me.

Again, I was all alone.

'Kevin has likely recovered from shock and is already running toward the location I shared with him. The time it will take for the agents to find out is well past 10 minutes, since Kevin wouldn't tell Carl about the message before finding evidence. Not that Kevin was so smart as to come up with some elaborate hypothesis on how this could all be a joke, but just because everyone would feel weird about such a straight-forward confession that they would look for evidence before believing it fully,' I entertained myself with pointless thoughts as I approached the kitchen.

'After the agents are informed, it won't be long before they arrive here, so it's best to fill my stomach now,' I thought, taking a porcelain bowl from a wooden cabinet with the intention of eating some leftover soup.

However, once I grabbed the bowl, my brows twitched into an expression of pure anger. Then I tightened my grip on the bowl, and in one fluid but aggressive motion, I rotated my body and threw the bowl at full force at the wall behind me.

I watched the shards of porcelain that flew all over the kitchen from the bowl that broke when it made contact with the wall not far from me, but my anger was not gone. One bowl wasn't enough. I needed to destroy more. Eating was the logical option, and there was no reason for an outburst like this, but I needed it. I needed to destroy things. Not just one or two. My instincts were kicking and screaming like children with temper tantrums, but they weren't begging me to stop, and I did not want to. All I wanted was to crush everything in sight.

As I watched a piece of the bowl fly by, only one thought crossed my mind.

'Destroy everything!'

I took a hold of the entire wooden cabinet, my mouth opened and with a raging shout, I ripped the cabinet off of the wall and threw it at the same wall I had thrown the bowl at.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

The cabinet, however, didn't come cleanly off of the fall and instead broke, and some of the plates and bowls it had inside dropped onto the counter while the others that stayed inside were either broken into pieces or stayed unbroken when the cabinet hit the wall.

Most of the plates were wooden because the price of porcelain was high, so the sound of porcelain being shattered was mixed with the wooden plates hitting the counter and giving off a sound that resembled knocking on a hollow tree.

After throwing the cabinet, my focus was immediately put on the things I had yet to break.

I ripped the rest of the cabinets free and threw them at the floor and the walls in sight. Then I broke the kitchen counter with my elbow and kicked the dinner table at the wall, which barely managed to not break. My attention then went to the stuff we had moved out of the living room, and I ripped and tore everything into pieces one at a time. In the packages, there were clothes, books and other things that hadn't found a place in the apartment.

Then, after everything had been shredded into pieces, the next thing in front of me was a wall. I punched through the wall before taking my hand out and kicking the wall down. After kicking the wall down, the door to the living room that was attached to the living room fell onto the floor. I stomped on the door repeatedly, with grunts accompanying each stomp. After I stopped stomping on the door, I picked it up, kicked it in half with my knee, and threw the two parts of the door to my sides.

I breathed heavily as I walked into the living room with a tired expression.

When I was next to the sofa, I let myself fall onto it, sitting with my gaze directed up at the plain white roof.

Then, suddenly, it was like I was back in that facility. The memory played in my mind as clearly as the present moment. The memory of standing on that pedestal, looking down at all the chaos that was caused by simply letting go. All I had done was give people the opportunity to be free. This was it. True anarchy. Some may have called this sight beautiful. The sight of these humans, who separated themselves from animals so fervently, having been reduced to animals themselves. Killing with no mercy or thought about the subject of the violence being a human being with their own thoughts, feelings and loved ones. This was the true nature of everything that lived. It was obvious that the world wasn't fair in any sense of the word. Everybody knew that one's kindness was not paid back with kindness.

There was a loud sound of the door breaking and people entering the apartment, but I could not be bothered to move a muscle to even redirect my gaze.

The agents found me sitting on the couch with a dead look in my eyes, took measures to prevent my escape, and started to slowly approach me in order to detain me, but I ignored it all.

The sight of that one weak boy with a wound on his chest area that was leaking blood everywhere stuck with me. At that moment, I felt no pity. I had known this would happen. I had made it happen myself. This was my doing. I had killed him, but I felt nothing. No regret or guilt.

That boy was destined to die even before he was about to bleed to death from a wound in his chest, he was always going to die, and there was no chance that death would be a happy one. What I had done was mercy. His pitiful life would end a lot sooner, and I could escape this place. But even though I had expected that the boy would have agreed to a deal like this, he still struggled to stay alive.

At that moment, I finally understood. The reason for his struggle was that he still had hope. I had forgotten one small part of the human psyche when watching the boy. In my world of understanding the observable and using that to predict the future, I had gotten so lost in this world of logic that others didn't seem to understand on the same level as I did. Well, they understood it when explained, but it was like it disappeared from their minds the second their emotions kicked in.

As the boy tried to figure out a way to survive, he decided to ignore the simple fact that there was no actual reason for him to survive. There was nobody who cared for him or wanted to save him, so on that day, he was simply going to die.

My arms were grabbed, and I was put on my knees, but I didn't resist and kept drowning in my thoughts.

I didn't just remember that particular moment. I remembered every moment in that facility. I had met the boy before. I had even talked to him. He seemed like a good person. A kind, joyful person that couldn't be found easily among all the horrible people in society. And even though I despised the boy, I knew he was a truly good person. Still, in this world, there is no such thing as karma. In this world, evil people get what they want, and as a result, good people die.

As my thoughts came to a conclusion, I felt a syringe puncture my neck, and soon after, a feeling of drowsiness overwhelmed me, and I passed out.