Yes, yes, I know it now—perhaps too late—that kindness is not always virtue. Laugh not at me, for I speak in earnest. You believe you know kindness? No, you do not. It is not the smiling face, nor the hand that feeds the poor. Real kindness, lived in full, becomes chains, a prison of the soul.I learned this early—from parents who rationed love like bread in famine—shine, obey, excel, and be fed; falter, and starve. Thus, I inherited the first guilt. Parents—who give wings but cut feathers until you fly as they command.Next came friends—such deceivers! They smile, drink, pat your back, but stop smiling, and see how fast they vanish. Friendship—often a thieving polite farce: you give, they take, and disappear.But worst of all is love—the cruelest master. The beloved becomes a tyrant, and the kind heart, her captive beast.I never guessed that feeding a poor girl would be the first fatal step—food leading to chains, to marriage, to giving my kidney to her friend. The mockery! My flesh bled for not her but another!Her beauty grew, but so did her cruelty—black and suffocating. One night, fevered and half-dreaming, I found her scrolling a phone I bought with my last coins; scolding me like an intruder in my own home.I remained silent—inside me, a storm roared. I understood then the trapped insect's buzz—it was my mind. She—whom I pitied—spat my kindness back to my face.She tore me from friends, chained me with tears, troubles, lovers, all because I said yes too many times. She claimed the right."I hate you!" I cried once. "Mother, Father, brother…I want rest!" My voice cracked; hands rose in prayer for freedom. I smiled through pain, silencing Death's angel.Death—an angel for the faithful and miserable.His breath ceased. Reaching the roof, he was no savior. His sight caught a figure sprawled in the hospital's shadow—the dead form of Ash. A sad smile curved his lips."Even in death, Ash…" he whispered.From the silence, a voice: "Hiren… wait for me."At the door stood Kara, cold and without grief—only habit, boredom, and the endless circle of loss."Coward," she hissed under breath. "He won't dare."Hizen lunged to push her back, a shock tearing through him. He thought he saved her from a fall. But Ash's body moved below. The dead face twisted into a grotesque grin.He blinked—the vision was gone.Madness? Grief? He knew only one thing: he must move. To his friend's side he rushed, leaving Kara swallowed by the hospital's shadow.Thus unfolded the last, the most poisonous guilty rule.And so began the end.
Kara, trembling from the shock of Hizen's slap, followed him silently, a ghost among shadows.Back to Ash: a visitation came—not from an angel, but from a devil. A creature vast beyond human measure, with wings that spanned like storms, reaching beyond the skies to shatter the earth. Ash raised his trembling hands in terror. When their hands met, time itself hesitated—paused—then rushed forward with destruction anew. Ash's consciousness slipped, drifting into the cold embrace of an entity, holding him safe from the fall.Hizen's voice cracked the silence, a sharp order to Kara, "I told you to stay with him and guard!" But Kara replied with doubt, "It may not be Ash—perhaps another." Hizen's scorn was swift and brutal: "How can Ash endure you? Were it I, long dead I'd be." They strode to the hospital's shadowed edge.Ash woke with the weight of an ancient terror pressing upon him—an entity as old as the earth itself. It stood monstrous, its visage shifting like cold relics long forgotten, its monstrous frame wrapped in golden and white robes, regal and terrible. All eyes turned upon Ash's fragile form. "Are you god?" Ash asked, voice small and broken. The Devil laughed—a sound deep, cruel, endless. Laughter echoed—thousands of voices tangled in mockery."A?" chuckled one voice. "You mean they are many?" murmured another, a sorrowful tone: "Is your god so pitiful?" Ash collapsed, breath stolen by dread.A solemn voice whispered, "If I wished death, it would be swift; no need to try." Then excitement flared: "Death is the realm of failures—those who failed to seize immortality! Yet you? You are one or the other." Dark hands seized Ash's heart, breaking it, dragging it away.