In Noah's nightmare, Altair climbed down from the building's roof and followed the killer and his family, hiding behind corners and edges, behind buildings and any available space, until he followed them to a garden, where the man and his wife sat on a bench while their daughter played in the garden, running and laughing. The sun began to set, sinking into the horizon until the sky was painted a warm honey color.
Altair stood at a distance, watching silently, hiding behind a building and gripping the edge of the wall tightly.
"What a happy family…" Altair whispered to himself. That was when he noticed one of the policemen approaching the area. In panic and quickly, he looked around until he saw a large closed trash bin. He opened it and jumped inside.
He sank among the black garbage bags, his face slapped by the nauseating, foul smell. He held himself down with his hands to avoid vomiting.
The policeman came closer to the area, even looking at the corner where Altair was hiding inside the trash. He approached, noticing vibrations coming from it and the sounds of plastic bags rubbing against each other from inside. Whether it was a cat or something else his mind assumed, curiosity got the better of him.
Inside the trash, Altair felt something stuck to the back of his shirt. Assuming it was dirt or trash, he tried to move slightly to free himself from the uncomfortable grip, but it didn't work. He tried to reach the object behind him and push it, when something cold touched his skin. Altair quickly pulled his hand back in disgust and glanced sideways, only for his eyes to widen in horror, his pupils trembling as if about to crack.
Altair saw a corpse lying with him in the same container—a female body, her head tilted backward at a sharp angle almost separating the neck from the shoulder, bones protruding at the bend. Her skin was pale to the point of whiteness, leaning toward ash, veins bursting beneath her eyes like a swollen purple network, and her eyes wide open, bulging into a still void.
Long black hair stuck to her face, strands wet and clumped together by a mixture of water and blood, some adhering to her mouth and cheeks in hardened dark clumps. Her mouth half-open, teeth visible, with dried blood mixed with water at the corners of her lips.
The body was soaked in cold moisture, clothes stained with dark patches of blood spreading across the arms and stomach. Drops of red water hung slowly from her fingertips, leaving hardened traces on the edges of the metal container.
Altair let out a serious breath of terror and turned in front of him in panic, unwilling to look again. His breaths accelerated sharply, his chest heaving. He felt a clear breeze slip into the container, and he lifted his head to see someone slowly opening the bin, realizing it was the policeman. Altair's panic increased, tears rising to his eyes but refusing to fall. He pressed his mouth tightly to stop any sound. A sliver of sunlight appeared—not hope, but merely a warning that he was about to be discovered. Then the lid stopped rising and closed again, plunging Altair into darkness one last time. He relaxed slightly and waited a few seconds until he heard footsteps moving away, assuming the policeman had left. Immediately, he pushed the lid and jumped out, falling on his back, still terrified and shocked.
"Damn…ah…" Altair said in pain and exhaustion, mentally and emotionally drained. He tried to force his body to stand again, compelling himself to endure, and he did. He shook the dirt off his body, when a hand wrapped around his arm preventing him from moving, and a rough hand covered his mouth, stopping him from breathing or screaming. Altair was shocked again and tried to escape the stranger's grip, who began dragging him backward. He shook and punched the mysterious man's legs with his remaining freedom of his hands, but it did nothing. Altair lifted his head to see through tearful eyes the same policeman he assumed had left.
"Alright, be quiet, boy. We've been looking for you since yesterday, so stop resisting," the policeman said in a lazy, weary tone. His eyes looked tired, as if he hadn't slept.
In panic, Altair bit the policeman's finger, causing a low scream of pain, and freed himself from the grip. Altair pushed the policeman and tried to flee, but the policeman grabbed his arm tightly, causing pain. Altair looked back to see the policeman's finger bleeding from the bite, his expression full of anger, veins appearing on his forehead.
"You son of a bitch!" the policeman said before clamping his grip and punching Altair in the stomach, sending him flying into the nearby wall with such force that he vomited, collapsing, exhausted, feeling pain in every part of his body.
"Damn, I got carried away—" the policeman said in panic before approaching the collapsed Altair who appeared unconscious.
"B-boy…" the policeman said, trying to call Altair and wake him, sitting on his knees near him and tapping his shoulder. That was when Altair lunged at him quickly, pinning him to the ground with all his strength.
"S-stop—!" the policeman tried to push Altair away. In blind rage, Altair bit the policeman's ear with all his strength, tearing it off, then spat it on the ground.
The policeman's eyes widened in horror, letting out a loud, echoing scream of pain. He felt dizzy as the sky above them seemed to spin, but it didn't stop there. Altair grabbed a stone near them from the cement and raised it above the policeman's head. Tears welled in the policeman's eyes from fear and terror. His pleas sounded sharp and shaky, but Altair was blind and deaf from anger. Logic meant nothing to him now, and he began smashing the policeman's head with the stone with all his might. With the first blow, he stopped crying and all other sounds ceased, leaving only his ugly, rapid breathing. With the second blow, blood splattered on Altair's face, and only the sound of blows remained. With the third blow, the skull had broken and caved in. With successive blows, pieces of the skull flew, one cutting Altair's cheek, but he continued hitting him.
Minutes earlier, in the nearby park, the killer and his family had heard a scream coming from that corner, at the moment Altair tore off the policeman's ear.
"W-what is that?" the killer's wife said nervously.
The killer turned to the corner with sharp eyes, watching, when his daughter jumped on him, hugging his leg, trembling with fear.
"Papa… I want to go home…" his daughter said, scared, almost crying.
The man smiled warmly, patted her head, and stood from his seat, extending his hand to his wife, who took it and stood.
"Let's leave."
Back in the present, Altair finally stopped crushing the policeman's head, regaining his mind, looking at the chaos he had caused. The ground was soaked with blood. The policeman's head was shattered into a mere mass of minced flesh and bones. Altair threw the stone to the ground and looked at his hands, covered in blood, shaking and gripping his face. Tears welled up, and he felt pain in his fingertips.
"This isn't my fault! Not my fault… it's not my fault… I didn't do anything wrong… it's not my Mistake… not my Fault!…" Altair muttered to himself, looking at the corpse beneath him, stepping back until his back hit the wall. He shook his head, refusing to accept the truth. Then he looked to his right and saw the policeman's ear, torn from his body, a pool of blood by itself. Altair felt a sticky substance running from his mouth—not saliva, but blood, and not his own, but the blood he had swallowed when he tore the ear off.
Altair panicked, a wave of disgust rising from his stomach to his mouth, and vomited beside the corpse. He felt pain, disgust, and repulsion, realizing that in trying to kill the one who killed his parents, he had killed an innocent person and had become a killer himself, becoming what he should have hated.
Altair wiped his mouth when he finished and lifted his head from the ground. Tears had run down his cheeks, wiping away the blood stuck to his face, making it appear as if his face was crying blood.
"This… this was necessary! Yes, it's necessary!… Yes, as long as the killing is necessary, it's not killing… it's merely… just inevitability! I did nothing wrong! He was destined to die…! Why did he have to die? Who decided the inevitability? I-I don't know, I don't know… N-no, I decided. He was destined to die because I decided it was inevitable! Th-this is true! I'm not wrong! I'm just correcting!" Altair muttered to himself in a frenzy.
That was when he heard a police car approaching with blaring sirens. Panic surged as he spotted the gun on the policeman's belt lying on the ground. He immediately grabbed it and ran, exiting the corner and sprinting down the street with all his strength.
He felt as if his heart was being cleansed and washed, empty of hatred, disgust, and self-loathing, left only free from any worldly emotion. He smiled, a grin stretching from ear to ear, crying silently as he ran, saying:
"I am right! There's no way I was wrong! I-I am always right! I am the right one! Yes, I am the truth and the righteous!"