The man then pulled open the drawer frantically, hoping it would be locked, but to his dismay, it opened. He then scanned through the money pouches, and one was obviously missing.

  He let out a roar of frustration, "Damn that kid! Veso! We've been robbed!"

  The moment the boy set his feet outside, he began sprinting. After he had just reached the end of the road, he felt the man running behind him cursing at him with all sorts of words - some he hadn't even heard of. The child frantically looked for his father, but he was nowhere to be found. He gritted his teeth and carried on running.

  Suddenly, a figure appeared through the darkness, and the boy's eyes widened, "Father, we have to get out-"

  When the figure stepped out of the darkness, the child's heart sank. This man was none other than the debt collector who had attacked his mother a few days ago.

  "Tch. I was wondering who'd be bold enough to steal from me and my friend’s business… turns out it's you?" He said, spitting on the floor. A few men appeared behind him.

  There was nowhere to run. Soon, behind him, the shop owner appeared. Moonlight reflected off the silver machete in his hand. The child let out a frustrated growl before he charged at the large man, preparing his fist for a hard strike, "Get out of my way!"

  Veso easily sidestepped the child and then struck him on the back of the neck. His pupils shrank and fluid sprayed from his mouth, and he dropped to the floor, twitching.

  Just then, Veso noticed a man sneaking around from a distance and trying to take a closer look at what was happening. When he realised that Veso had seen him, he turned away and ran.

  "You lot, go after that man. It's probably this kid's father."

  "Right, boss." The men behind him said before charging towards the boy’s father’s direction.

  The boy clawed at the dirt and inched his body up, but Veso stomped down on his back, making the boy hit the floor hard once again. He then squatted down and grabbed the boy by the hair, and made it so their faces met. The boy groaned before he painfully opened his eyelids and his gaze deadlocked with Veso.

  "Rats like you that scurry around and rob people can never be disciplined through words.” The man said, before he punched the boy in the face. The force was powerful enough to knock out a tooth. “You need discipline through pain.”

  But that wasn't enough. After that initial blow, he continued to punch the boy over and over again. The boy lost count after about 10 punches, and the man finally let go of him, and his frail body dropped to the floor without an ounce of remaining energy. His pupils quivered as he was forced to concentrate on the pain rushing through his body.

  Just when Veso got up, the shopkeeper spoke, "Discipline simply isn't enough. We need to make sure this brat doesn't steal ever again."

  Veso looked at him and raised an eyebrow. The shopkeeper walked past him and stared down at the boy, his machete gleaming in his hand, "and what better way to do that than cutting his hands off, in the name of our Lord and Saviour Haimos."

  Veso sighed, "Good grief. You’re as brutal as ever…"

  The shopkeeper stamped down on the boy's shoulders to make sure he couldn’t wiggle his way out. His eyes shone with a murderous light.

  "Was this your idea or your drunkard of a father’s idea? Robbing the most prominent business in this village? Even a fish would know better.” The shopkeeper raised his machete after positioning the boy’s hand within its line of strike. “Well… not that it matters now."

  "I think that's about enough." Just then, a feminine voice sternly called out from the darkness.

  The shopkeeper took his gaze into the road ahead of him. He made out a figure walking towards him, but her face hadn't yet reached the red moonlight.

  “And who the hell are…” His voice broke off as soon as the woman stepped out of the darkness. It was hard to tell if it was because of shock, fear or reverence. Perhaps all three.

  Her long purple hair fluttered in the midnight breeze as the tension in the atmosphere rose. The boy could barely perceive anything that was happening. Eventually, his consciousness gave in, and his vision fell into blackness.

  The next time he woke up was a couple of hours later. Not because his body had had enough rest, but due to the coldness of the winter night. The boy's eyes fluttered open, but he was no longer on the floor and instead on a bench. He got up, his body throbbing with agony and scanned his surroundings.

  There wasn’t anybody or any signs of imminent danger. Right in front of him, the marks and patterns on the gravel acted as proof that what had happened wasn't a dream. The boy's body ached, but he forced himself up and trudged home.

  When he got there, something didn't feel right. He could see that the candles were lit through the windows. His parents ought to be deep in sleep by now, so why were they still up? They seemed to be arguing about something, but the boy couldn't hear what they were saying from a distance.

  Just when he decided to get a little closer to eavesdrop, a person crashed against the window, shattering it. This was accompanied by pleas and cries of agony. These cries belonged to none other than his mother. The boy immediately understood the situation, and as his pupils constricted, he bolted towards the house with all his might

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  "You bitch!" The boy’s father shouted at his mother, "I'm not going anywhere!"

  The father was in a state of absolute mess. He had two black eyes, and his body was covered with bruises. It was obvious the men had caught him and given him the beating of a lifetime.

  "I… " The mother struggled to talk, "I just said that we should run away from this place!"

  The man continued to beat her, letting out all of his frustration on her, "What then, huh? Will we wander around like homeless dogs?!"

  "No… I-" Before she could do anything, the man gripped her by the throat and held her against the table.

  The boy finally ran into the house, and when he saw what was happening, he trembled. His father had not yet noticed his presence, but his mother had. Her eyes lit up when she saw him.

  "Save… me." She mouthed to him, her eyes full of plea and agony.

  In that instant, the boy felt as though his mind was struck by lightning. After all, this was the first time she looked at him with such an expression. A mixture of emotions erupted through his being. Frustration, anger, despair and just a tinge of… happiness?

  As he felt hot blood reach every fibre of his body, the boy grabbed an empty glass bottle and pounced off the floor, his force imprinting the floorboard with his footprint.

  The father, who had only just realised someone else was in the house, turned his head around. Before he could even process the situation, the child roared at the top of his lungs with tears trickling down his face, and he smashed the glass bottle on his father’s head with enough pressure to topple a small tree over. The moment it shattered against his father’s head, the bones of his skull fractured, and the confusion he felt at someone entering his house was his last and final thought.

  The terrifying sight of hundreds of glass shards spraying all over the small house came into the mother’s vision. She started sobbing in disbelief as her husband’s corpse toppled over.

  The child stood over them, holding onto the bodiless neck of the bottle as dangerous amounts of adrenaline circulated in his bloodstream.

  This was the first life he had taken.

  And it was his own fathers.

  He then rolled his father over and held his mother properly, who was shivering with fright and agitation, "Mother, are you okay?"

  "Don't touch me!" His mother screamed as she backed away with a look of absolute terror on her face. "Y-you demon! Murderer!"

  The boy's pupils trembled. This wasn't the reaction he had expected from her when he had just saved her life.

  She backed up more and more until she had her back against the wall. The fear in her eyes grew with every second as she became more and more aware of the present. The boy's hand slowly let go of the bottle neck as his face turned deathly ashen as he realised what he had done. The sound of the bottle neck clattering got drowned out by the deafening ringing in his mind. He trembled as he brought up his hand to take a good look at it. Surely enough, the crimson droplets from his father’s warm blood almost felt like they were burning his hand, reminding him that he wasn’t amidst a nightmare and that this was indeed the cruel and merciless reality.

  "I'm… a murderer…?"

  Suddenly, his mother lunged at him with a knife in her hand. Her eyes no longer looked like they were looking at a human, but a demon. The child didn’t budge an inch even though he knew this attack might end his life. With his heart in shreds, he closed his eyes and surrendered to fate. But before the attack reached him, the woman slipped as she had stepped on the shattered glass. She fell with a shriek, and the knife clattered right next to the boy.

  "Arrgh! My feet!" The woman cried out on the floor as blood seeped out of her foot. If this had happened under normal circumstances, he would’ve helped her without thinking for a second, but now his face was a dismal image of darkness, hopelessness and despair as he stood there, completely still.

  He saw the knife by his feet and slowly bent down to pick it up, "Why..."

  He muttered out a single word. Although it was inaudible, it carried the pain of a hundred agonising souls. Seeing the boy pick up the knife, the woman smiled awkwardly, forcing herself to put up a kind front, "S-son, son, son! Give me the knife, it's okay, I've forgiven you! Just give me the knife."

  At the sound of these words, his hazy and vacant pupils lit up with a glimmer of hope, but it was instantly extinguished when he looked at her eyes, because they still seemed to be staring at a hideous demon.

  "Why… why… why, why..." the boy repeated. Unbearable pain finally burst forth like water through a broken dam after swelling up much more than he could handle.

  "Why, why, why... All I wished for was to be treated like how the other kids are treated by their mothers. I wanted you to be worried about me catching a cold, or running around too much or playing out too late. But you would just beat me all day and make me work, I thought maybe… just maybe it was because you were releasing your anger from father's abuse on me, but even when I saved you from him… You try to kill me..."

  "Ah... argh..." The woman didn't know what to say. She merely had her eyes on the knife the boy had tightened around his fists. "S-son, just please hand over the knife..."

  The child didn't respond to her. His eyes streamed with tears as he looked at her soullessly.

  Patience lost her and soon the kind fa?ade she wore came crashing down, and she roared, picking up the broken glass bottle before lunging at him, "J-just die, you demon!"

  The child didn’t even try to evade this attack. As the broken bottle dug inside him, he stood there savouring the pain flooding through his abdomen. Luckily, the glass wasn’t sharp enough to dig too deeply. He stood silent for a long time, and the house was filled with nothing but the sound of his flesh quenching and the sound of his blood dripping onto the floor.

  Finally, the boy looked up to meet his mother’s eyes.

  A shadowy whisper echoed at the back of his mind, almost as if giving him a command, 'Kill her.'

  His mother slightly trembled under his intense gaze, which was akin to a grim reaper looking down on a mountain of corpses. It was akin to looking into a ceaseless abyss; not a single shred of hope or mercy could be seen; only darkness and despair.

  "A-ah....a..." She stuttered.

  "Farewell," the boy muttered, and in one swift motion, he arced the knife across her neck, reaping her life.

  Blood erupted from her neck like a fountain as she fell and clutched her throat in desperation… and eventually she stopped moving.

  The boy stood there silently, the corpse of his parents, whom he had killed with his own hands, on the floor in a puddle of blood.

  "Heh...why…" a smile formed across the boy's face. It did not radiate warmth, but rather it was cold and sinister.

  "Heh… why…hahahaha...! Why, why, why, why, why?" the boy let out a bloodcurdling chuckle as his knees hit the ground, as he repeated this word over and over again.. He gripped his face with his hands and laughed maniacally while tears of pain, grief and anguish streamed down his face ceaselessly.

  “Why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why…?”

  "Kahahahahahahahahah!"

  It went on for a long time.

  But at some point, the boy's body gave in, and he fainted atop his parents' corpses.