Written by Michelle Arnetta
Designed by Kiara Andressa
He awoke with a searing pain in his chest. Everything was shrouded in darkness but a running hourglass that stood menacingly beside him.
Who was he? Why was he here? That knowledge was beyond his reach.
He got up and went outside.
An unusual sight awaited him: an abandoned amusement park, the sky tinted an ominous hue. The air was devoid of rollercoaster screams, and the carousel whirled no more than a statue would. But what would he know about that? He couldn't even recall going to an amusement park. Funnily enough, he sensed a distant warmth amidst the gloominess of his surroundings. Perhaps the reason behind his fondness for this place was buried beneath the secrets of his mind. Thus, he decided to look around.
As he strolled past the deserted food stalls, the fog in his mind suddenly cleared. He was here before, but he wasn't walking last time. He remembered this exact spot, only then brimming with life and laughter, as he was carried on warm shoulders. How strange. All he remembered of his childhood was cold. Cold hands, cold laughter, cold metal. Was that merely a product of his own mind?
Eventually, he came across an abandoned building. A lone crow was perched on a branch of a wilting tree. Any other person would consider it an omen, but he decided not to fall prey to such superstition.
The sight that beheld him proved that to be a mistake.
Dozens and dozens of corpses hung from the ceiling, littered the floor, splattering the walls with a dark crimson hue. Their unifying feature was a mirror shard stabbed into their chest. He finally gained a tiny sense of who he was--not only from what was reflected by the mirrors, but also the faces of these long dead bodies. In an attempt to relieve himself from such an overwhelming sight, he turned around, only to see...a clone of himself?
Only three words escaped from his lips: “What...are you?”
His desperation was greeted by a somber smile. "I merely exist to complete your turn. Perhaps one day, it will be my own."
At last he remembered. He remembered who he was, and it shook him to his very core. A murderer worshiped by the very people who led him astray. A killing machine who knew nothing about his inexcusable crimes. Since he could barely walk, he was whisked away from a proper childhood, trained to kill or be killed despite being oblivious to what that even meant. He remembered the billions and billions of bodies he stood over, unaware that all that blood was on his hands. And when the guilt consumed his heart, when his soul gave out to despair, all he could do was ask:
“What could possibly be greater than a billion?”
He knew the answer in his heart all too well: “Infinity.”
The searing pain returned--no, it was not gone. It never was, and it was now accompanied by a bout of guilt. In his last moments, in a now bloodstained place that testified to his lost innocence, all he could see was the face of a heartless criminal staring back at him.
And so the light ceased, but the pain did not.
…
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