"The pretense of fairness was invented by God to make the living equal. Humans, however, changed that." A being once said.
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"Is it wrong to be average?" His words tore through the cemetery along with the rain as the boy stood among the graves, lips moving, though the storm devoured his voice.
He didn't mean it in a materialistic way, but rather spiritually. Why was one person smarter or more talented than another? He couldn't understand it.
"Why... why was it like this?" He blurted out unconsciously.
The question came out, before it could matter. Everyone else soared. Their grades, praises. It had cost them nothing while he had watched from the sidelines. His left hand holding a sheet of paper filled with nothing but the average. Yet all he did was just give a smile and hide his emotions deep inside. Never venting.
He had hated those who gave him pitiful looks. Maybe it was out of their own sense of sympathy but he always perceived it as an insult and… god damn he hated that.
And even worse, there was nothing he could do to change that. Damn, he always wanted to switch places with them and feel what it would be like to look down on someone.
He remembered a man once saying: wherever there are 'winners', there will always be 'losers'. And he… he was one of them
He glanced up. He had thought the sky was filled with answers or at least questions that could be solved if he tried hard enough. Yet, what truly remained was an intricate abstract canvas. Doesn't make sense does it, but to someone else, they would convey a deeper meaning.
"What God?"
At the end of each day, he stood there alone.
There was no light at the end of each tunnel like people say there is and there was no warmth for him to even embrace. Only a gravestone with a name that was eroded over the years.
"Oh, mother." His voice silenced by the thundering and droplets of rain. His fingers brushing over the indistinct name.
"I wonder if you would hate me too for being like this."
He brushed it a little more than usual in deep thought and sighed, looking a puddle reflecting a warped version of himself through his peripheral vision.
Unkempt black hair plastered to his pale face, rain sliding over him, powerless to soften away the emptiness.
'Huh, Trash' the words didn't even need to leave his mouth yet pressed louder than the falling rain and crackling thunder.
Yet all he let out was a strange laugh that resembled a strangled sound that pierced the splatter of rainfall around him. Yet it only answered by thickening, echoing back at him.
Then. Crunch.
Plop. Plunk. Splosh.
Heavy yet deliberate footsteps approached behind him. A gloved hand smothered his mouth. His body jerked as his eyes widened, heart hammering inside of him as if trying to burst.
Too late. The hiss of a needle bit into his neck like a python, as fire raced through his veins. A heavy, creeping numbness made his limbs betray him. The world wavered like ink smudged across a page, darkness coiling around him, swallowing sight, sound, and finally him whole.
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Eventually his consciousness clawed its way back up, vision foggy as shapes bent and shaped with each blink.
He tried moving but his limbs were strapped. He lay flat on something unyielding and cold. Looking above, he could only narrow them as a panel of light glared over him, humming like a beehive. Figures moved past his vision, hiding their faces with a mask.
For a heartbeat, he thought they were doctors. But the clink of instruments on steel trays. The stench of alcohol burning his nose. The figures observing him. None promised 'healing'.
A voice sliced through the room, cruel and cold. "Boss, he's awake."
He turned his head slowly, trembling. The muscles failing at doing a simple act, his chest squeezing as panic overtook his lungs. Wild and useless.
A masked surgeon spoke this time, his voice cold and clinical as he flipped through a clipboard. "Organs intact. Blood type compatible. Heart, liver; kidney viable. The rest can be sold for extra cash."
Two assistants chuckled from the shadows, their masked faces unreadable.
Mocking and mean. Then the words came out. "You see, your father hasn't paid his debts and isn't it fair for the son to repay the father?"
The one called Boss leaned over, blocking the light. The smile he gave was all teeth and no warmth. "What a pathetic family. At least you're worth something."
Vergil's throat began tightening. He tried to scream. But for what purpose? Nobody there would save him. Then the sound came out again. Warped with laughter out of his throat.
Harsh, cracked and jagged. Enough to scare those present.
The surgeons hesitated, giving uneasy glances. "Is he broken or mentally insane?" one muttered.
"Doesn't matter," another spoke, lifting a syringe. The fluids gleaming under the light.
The boss flicked his fingers. "Keep the boy awake, think of it as a premium package. If you have someone to blame, he can curse the runaway father."
As the needle bit into his neck, liquid fire spilled into him. His spine was seized instantly, his limbs sagged until they were numb. The only thing that stayed.
Was the sensation. Too much even.
As steel touched his skin.
The cut merciless, as hot blood spilled down his side.
A saw shrieking against bone, its vibration rattling his jaw and upper molars.
A thought ripped through him. He had always imagined dying on his own terms, quietly, at peace. But this… this was worse.
'A death lower than a dog… I can't accept it.'
Yet another thought overtook it.
'Stop... please.' The thought scraped his skull. But his lips were closed. Shut tight.
As the warmth spread beneath him, pooling and sticky against his back.
Badump. Badump.
And there it was, his own heart, each beat slower than the last, in the surgeon's hands as his vision faded away.
He clung desperately to the last threads of hope. His survival instincts kicking in.
'I don't want to die. Not yet.'
But nothing answered.