The moon hid behind a dense cluster of clouds today, leaving the earth in darkness. Ominous winds swept across the country.
A gaunt man moved toward an apartment, with people dressed in black lurking behind him, hidden in the shadows.
His boots clattered as he strode to the door of a specific room. With his destination clear, he stood before the door, raised his hand, and knocked.
A man's voice, sounding like someone in his mid-30s, responded from the other side, "Coming..."
Hearing that his smile widened, and his red eyes glowed even brighter.
---
Today, Ash had a heavy workload and had to work overtime, so he couldn't return home at his usual time of 6 o'clock.
As he entered his apartment, his hands full of presents, he carried gifts for a girl, a girl who had finally accepted him, and a bouquet of flowers.
But to his dismay, the house was empty and dark.
He placed the items on the table and searched the room, calling her name.
Something weighed heavily on him, a sense of loss, a feeling of abandonment.
The room remained unchanged, just as it had always been. but something felt hollow, lost, and forsaken.
Before his mind could feel this loss, emptiness.
With an abrupt call, he heard a knock on the door. Maybe it was her. Perhaps she'd gone out for work or was busy with some preparations. Excited, he rushed to open the door.
He flung the door open wide, the moon finally escaping the cluster of clouds as its light illuminated the figure before him.
His eyes met a towering figure, tall, a giant of a man with a face lined with scars and a bald head that seemed stitched together as if it had once been torn apart.
The man in front of him, with a gritty, harsh voice, spat out the words, "Ash, right? Do you know Jackie, perhaps?"
Something felt off about this man; the air around him practically radiated violence. Ash, having spent years on the streets, was no stranger to people like him.
He shook his head, indicating he didn't know.
But it was a mistake.
Before he could shut the door and move on, a hand shot out, gripping his neck. It lifted him effortlessly into the air and slammed him back into the street. Ash was sent flying out of the apartment.
His bones shattered on impact, piercing through his flesh.
His body writhed on the ground as he screamed a guttural plea, but before anyone could hear, it was silenced by the people in black.
They placed his broken body in a black body bag, stuffed it into a vehicle parked in the dark alley, and drove it to an abandoned warehouse.
Throughout this ordeal, he was drenched in his own blood, which occasionally seeped into his eyes, intensifying his pain.
Eventually, his body was dumped out of the body bag onto the warehouse floor.
A man dressed in the cold, sterile garb of a doctor strode toward the limp body. Without hesitation, he drove a needle into the flesh, depressing the syringe until its contents vanished. His eyes flicked once to the men in black, and with a grim nod, signaled them.
-------- "They may begin." ---------
The bald man with red eyes and a towering stature emerged from behind the dark curtain, completely naked. He approached and crouched down before him.
"Speak... Where is Mr. Meagirous now?"
Ash shook his head desperately. "Please, I don't know anything."
His heart pounding, eyes trembling.
The desperation in this man's eyes was unmistakable. Like a newborn, he cried and pleaded, but his pleas were met only with the cruel echo of laughter.
A wicked smile spread across the lips of the assailant, a symphony of music to his ears. His mouth curled up, his nose flared.
The men in black laughed maniacally, reveling in the scene.
One of them cried out:
"Boris, show him how to remember things!"
Rest chanted after him.
The crowd waited eagerly for the show to begin, the chaos to unfold, like a twisted spectacle.
Boris slowly began peeling the skin off Ash's chest, revealing his ribs, with his heart and lungs still beating. Throughout this horrifying ordeal, Ash remained conscious, fully aware as his insides were exposed.
Boris then proceeded to remove his organs one by one.
Blood pooled on the warehouse floor, slowly spreading toward the feet of the onlookers.
The crowd stomped their feet, the blood surged, vibrated, a cacophony of life, of blood.
This gruesome scene unfolded right before Ash's eyes. He cried, but no one could hear him; his pain was unfelt by others. Alone and abandoned, he was not destined for love, betrayed by the one he loved. Regret filled his heart, spreading and echoing his sadness.
But still, her face lingered in his vision, as the colors slowly merged into one another.
He gasped for one last breath, tears streaming, his mind weighed down. His eyes lifted to the ceiling before he finally let them close, exhausted.
At that moment, his body finally gave out, convulsing violently with froth spilling from his mouth. The crowd watching erupted into laughter and jokes, unfazed by the horrific sight.
Boris scooped the blood into his palm and smeared it across his face.
---
The telegram office received a message. The sounder made clicking noises as the operator manually recorded and translated them. It reads:
"I AM SORRY."
---
The sky was clear today as I stepped out of the telegram office, where a carriage stood waiting for me. I asked the driver to wait, as I would soon need another ride to the "Joyous Hotel."
The carriage moved through the bustling streets, passing children selling newspapers and others heading toward the factory, their soot-covered, unclean clothes a stark contrast to their prematurely aged faces.
I sighed, remembering a fact I had read in the newspaper earlier: the average life expectancy of the working class is only 25 to 30 years.
In rural areas, people tended to live longer due to lower pollution levels, but in the bustling main city, where industrialization was thriving, the working class faced various diseases and had shorter lifespans.