Chapter 13: Memory 2
A neighbor entered and saw the horrific scene before him, and from the intensity of the shock, he could only scream:
"Ah... what hell is this?!"
He ran out in a panic, screaming for help, and within minutes people gathered around the house as if it belonged to a celebrity.
When they saw the four bodies stretched on the floor, some couldn't bear the sight, especially women with tender hearts, so one of them fainted while the others remained in shock at the horror they had witnessed.
"Our neighbors who shared food and conversation with us... left like this suddenly?"
"What about the little child who was left alone? How will he live after seeing his family torn apart before his eyes? How will he continue living after losing everyone he loves?"
These were the questions that circulated in the minds of those present, but their thoughts stopped immediately upon the arrival of the police and ambulances.
Police officers and paramedics entered and began moving the bodies one after another, and they even took "Aiden" with them for examination.
Long hours passed since the incident, and Aiden woke up to the sound of medical equipment beeping in the hospital room. He looked around in confusion, then suddenly the memories flooded in like a torrent.
"Hah! Hah!"
He suddenly sat up, panting, screaming:
"Mom! Dad! Lisa! Sina!"
Nurses gathered around him trying to calm him down while he resisted them with all his strength.
"Sir, please calm down!"
"No! I want my mom and dad now!"
The nurses exchanged decisive looks, then one of them said:
"No other choice... give him the sedative."
They grabbed his arm while he was screaming:
"I want my mom and dad! I want my mom and dad! I want—"
He lost consciousness under the effect of the injection, and when he woke up hours later, he found himself restrained to the bed with a medical strap, with a nurse monitoring him beside him.
The nurse noticed him waking up and called the doctor. A moment later, a man wearing a white coat and medical glasses entered, accompanied by three police officers.
"Good evening, Aiden. I'm glad you're okay."
The boy remained silent, staring at him cautiously.
"Don't be afraid, I'm just a doctor. These officers want to talk to you."
Aiden turned his head towards the officers, then nodded in agreement without speaking.
The doctor examined him to ensure he wasn't suffering from psychological trauma, then left him with the police officers.
The officers tried to interrogate him, but Aiden – that child who wasn't even ten yet – didn't understand the meaning of "murder." He couldn't provide any information, but they promised him they would do their best to achieve "justice."
**"Justice!"**
It was the only word that stuck in his mind. He remembered it from the cartoons he watched, where heroes always come to vindicate the oppressed. It was a word that gave hope, like light piercing through darkness. He repeated it to himself many times, believing that the hero would come to punish the villain who destroyed his family.
The next day:
Aiden left the hospital, and it was the promised day of his family's funeral. He endured the grief with patience, but he refused to let the murder pass without consequence. He eagerly awaited the day when justice would be carried out...
The day of mourning was filled with grim faces and hushed whispers. While people flocked to cast a final farewell glance, Aiden spotted a group of men talking on the sidelines of the gathering, glancing around occasionally as if they feared being overheard.
He approached quietly, with hesitant little steps, and his ears caught words that fell on his heart like poisoned daggers:
"His family wasn't innocent... they were involved in dirty business, and that's why they were killed. They got what they deserved."
Aiden's eyes widened in astonishment and shock; at first he couldn't comprehend what he had heard, then his face turned to suppressed anger. No! Impossible!
He tried to convince himself they were liars, that they were speaking ill of the dead without shame. But when he heard the same whispers repeated from another group, his heart began to tremble, as if betrayal had extended to assassinate the memory of his parents as well.
He could no longer bear it. He rushed towards them with eyes brimming with tears, screaming:
"You're lying! My family is innocent! They never did anything bad!"
The gathering halted. All eyes turned towards him. But he found in their eyes only cold disgust and hidden contempt. Strange looks as if they saw him as a stain, a son of sin, the remnants of a cursed family.
His body trembled. What did I do to deserve these looks?!
He began to retreat with frantic steps, then suddenly turned and ran out of the gathering, tears streaming down his cheeks, searching for a place to hide from the cruelty of humans.
The next day, when his family was buried under the earth, it wasn't just grief that choked him, but a deeper feeling: helplessness.
He found only the police before him, his last glimmer of hope. He knocked on their doors, asking them innocently:
"Did you find the murderer? Will you avenge them?"
But the response was always cold:
"We are still looking for evidence... son."
Days and weeks passed, and "we are looking" turned into "no news," then ended with a closed file: against an unknown killer.
When he heard the news, he collapsed. He felt as if the ground had been pulled from under him. No superhero, no justice, no law.
The world had completely abandoned him.
And the pain didn't stop there.
His father's relatives, whom he thought were his refuge, showed their true faces.
"The house wasn't your father's property, but an inheritance for us. We only allowed him to live in it temporarily."
Aiden didn't understand these complicated words, but he understood one thing: he had been evicted.
He asked to live with them, but they met him with coldness, and their children... they bullied him and pushed him to the ground as if he were a broken toy.
He no longer had a home. He no longer had a family. He no longer had anyone.
He went out to the streets, carrying some of his father's clothes as his only treasure reminding him of him, holding them to his chest every night to feel a lost warmth.
Time is cruel to a child under ten. And with each passing day, he felt that the whole world had agreed to crush him.
He found no refuge except the mountains. He carried what he could from the remnants of his home and headed towards the mountain peaks where cold and silence reigned, hoping to find a place that would protect him from death.
Days passed, then months, then years. He learned how to live from nothing.
At first, he survived on insects and worms, then gradually he learned to hunt from the mountain river.
The shows he used to watch on TV one day ("Survival in the Wilderness") now became his only survival tools.
But he couldn't escape from within himself.
The memories didn't leave him. He would talk to his mother in his imagination, laugh with his sister, and imagine his father sitting next to him. He even invented an imaginary friend to accompany him.
He would always accompany him to the mountain to explore and enjoy, and one of their greatest enjoyments was exploring underground tunnels...
And so it went until that day came, the day Aiden entered that tunnel, the day the world became a burning hell of destruction.
That day, when Aiden saw the world and the destruction that befell it, he recalled some memories of his family from childhood and acted out of instinct that they were still alive and hurried to his old home, but he didn't find it there.
And so the events repeated from shock to doubt, leading to where we are now.
He had created a world of delusion for himself because reality was too cruel to be lived.
Aiden hadn't realized from the beginning that everything was a product of his imagination: the friend, the family, even the house. All of this was a creation of his imagination, and he realized all of this now after seeing the blood staining the ground now.
It reminded him of his family, it reminded him of the injustice he lived through, and it also ignited in him a kind of feeling...
Anger...!