No. I can't tell him that. There is no way.
The thought hit me like a physical slap. My throat went dry, as if I had swallowed sand.
How can he ask a question like this to a nine-year-old kid?
The question rang in my ears like a war drum. Doom. Doom. Doom. It echoed inside my skull, bouncing off the bone, making me feel dizzy. The room started to spin. The blood on the floor, the metal of the tool, the naked skin of the Masked man—it all blurred into a nightmare.
But no. I had to stop the spinning. I had to freeze the world. I had to find the correct answer to: "What is the distance of the moon from us?"
Or else he would kill us all.
Me.
Mr. Nice Guy, whose life was leaking out of him in a red stream.
And this girl I barely started to know, whose shaking hands were turning white.
I didn't have time to think about fear. Fear was a luxury. Fear was for people who had time to cry. I had to find the answer. Quickly.
"I won't wait for too long, kid! Answer quickly!" the Masked man shouted.
The sound of his voice was like a whip crack.
I sat straight. My back was rigid, glued to the hard wood of the floor. I showed no sign of stress on the outside. My face was a mask of stone. But inside, my mind was fighting a war. It was a battlefield of numbers, panic, and screaming.
I could see the girl crying. Her tears were silent, rolling down her cheeks like rain on a window. I could see the pool of blood growing under Mr. Nice Guy. It was dark, thick, and smelled like old iron. It was inching closer to my shoes.
Think, I told myself. The command screamed in my brain. Think quickly. Think, damn it. Think fast.
Wait.
Something clicked. Like a key turning in a lock.
I think I know the answer. No, yeah—I mean, that is the answer I know. I saw the numbers floating in the dark behind my eyelids. But it won't be the way he is expecting. He wants a number from a book. He wants an answer he is expecting. I don't have that.
Maybe I should confirm something first... yes, I should. It was a gamble. A gamble I must take.
"Sir, I kn... No, the answer... b-b-b-But I think it w-won't be to your l-liking," I said.
My voice stuttered. It was broken. It was small. Too low. It sounded like a mouse squeaking in a room with a lion.
"Speak louder! I can't hear you!" he roared.
He leaned right into my face. I could feel the heat radiating off his skin. I could smell the sweat and the danger on him. His eyes were wide, crazy, and demanding. He looked pissed.
So I asked again. I forced the air from my lungs. This time louder. Faster. Like I was throwing a stone back at him.
"Sir, I know the answer, but I think it won't be to your liking! I don't know what metrics you use to calculate distance, so I have come up with my own! Please, can you accept that?"
I said it. Yeah, I said it. Loud and clear. The words hung in the air. I hoped he heard me. I looked down in fear, closing my eyes, scrunching them tight. I waited for the blow. I waited for the fist. I waited for the BANG.
"Oh yeah, I forgot you don't know about our metrics—feet, inches, kilometers, meters," he said.
I opened one eye.
His voice was terrifying. He was shouting, he was angry, he was doubtful... but there was something else. Under the rage, he was excited. Like a kid who just found a new toy.
"Okay. I can make an exception. Tell me your way. Let's see how you tell me that."
The air in the room felt heavy, pressing down on my shoulders. This was it. The moment of truth.
I closed my eyes again. I blocked out that black metal tool. I blocked out the blood. I took a breath, filling my lungs with the rusty air.
And I answered.
"If a sparrow flew non-stop at its average flying speed for a whole year—or at least 356 days—it can reach the moon from here easily."
I let the words float out. I imagined that sparrow. A small, brown bird, flapping its wings against the black void of space, flying on and on and on.
Then it happened again.
The whole room went silent. Not just quiet—dead silent. The kind of silence that hurts your ears.
The girl looked at me in shock, in disbelief, just like before. Her mouth hung open slightly. She looked at me like I had grown a second head. I didn't know if I messed up. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. So I stayed quiet. I froze.
I looked at the Masked man.
He was looking straight at me. He was still. He was not moving. He wasn't breathing. He was like a statue carved out of violence. I think he was calculating. His eyes were darting back and forth, doing the calculations in his head.
Then, all of a sudden, he moved his hand to his pocket.
My muscles tensed. Metal tool? Knife?
No. He grabbed the same metal box the girl had earlier. He clicked something on it and held it to his ear. The seconds dragged on. Tick... tick... tick.
After a moment, someone talked from the other side.
"Hey buddy, what's up?" said an unknown voice.
It sounded bored. Lazy. Like someone waking up from a nap. It was so normal it felt wrong in this room of death.
"If a sparrow flew non-stop at its average speed, whatever it is, can it reach the moon in 356 days? In a whole year?" The Masked Man asked.
His tone was serious. Deadly serious. His sharp eyes never left me. They carved holes into my forehead.
"Wait, let me see..." The voice on the phone hummed. I could hear the faint clicking of keys. "A sparrow's average speed is 28 miles per hour, or 45 kilometers per hour. And the moon is 384,400 kilometers away from us. So... if we divide 384,400 by 45, we get 8,542 hours."
I held my breath. The world stopped.
"And if we convert that into days... then yes. It would take the sparrow exactly 356 days to reach the moon."
The voice laughed. It was a light, carefree sound. "Hey, why are you asking me such a dumb question? And when are you coming back? We haven't had a drink in a while. Come here when you're free, I miss you."
The other person was talkative. He was annoying, but in a good way. Like a normal human being. I listened to every number he said. I etched them into my brain. 28 miles. 45 kilometers. 384,400. I remembered all of it so I could use it next time.
But the one thing that made me happy: I was correct.
I was correct again. Thank God.
Relief washed over me like cold water. I celebrated in my head, looking down at my hands. I survived. We survived.
"Hey, kid."
He spoke.
My bones got chills. It wasn't a shout. It was a whisper that carried more weight than a scream. There was blood in his voice. A dark, thick threat.
I didn't want to look up. My neck refused to move. But I did. I had to.
He was sitting on a chair he had grabbed, sitting backward on it, looking at me. His arms rested on the back of the chair. He looked terrifying, his mask hiding his face, his skin covered in scars. But the way he sat was actually kind of cool.
"How did you come up with this answer this time, kid? I am curious. Tell me," he asked.
He was nice this time. Gentle. Patient. It was confusing. It was scary.
"MY FATHER IS DYING!!!" the girl screamed.
The sound tore through the room. It shattered the strange calm.
"Please! Leave the explanation for later! Please, just quickly get over with this question and answer! PLEASE!"
She screamed with anger and begging. Her voice cracked and broke. I looked at her. She was sobbing badly, her whole body shaking. She was clutching her chest. She was losing hope. She didn't want her father to die.
And then—BOOM. It hit me.
It was happening again.
The image flashed in my mind. A father is dying in front of me again, and I am unable to do anything. He was not my father, but he is her father. In this cruel, dark world, I barely know him, but he is the closest thing to a father I have right now. He protected me. He saved my life. He gave me food.
I can't let it happen again. I can't let my father die again. I won't. The fire in my gut burned hot.
BANG!!!!
The Hunter used his tool—the gun—again.
It was loud. It was ear-shattering. My ears rang with a high-pitched whine. eeeeeeeeeee.
But this time, he wasn't pointing at anyone. He was pointing up at the ceiling.
Smoke drifted down from the hole of that metal tool of death. It swirled in the light. The smell of something burning filled my nose—acrid and sharp. Dust fell from the hole in the ceiling like snow.
"If I hear even a little sobbing from you, girl, I swear to God the next bullet will be in his head," the Hunter whispered.
He spoke slowly. Every word was distinct. He was controlling his anger, calm but furious. Like a volcano waiting to erupt.
He looked back at me. The switch flipped again. "Hey. Why did you stop? Tell me the explanation."
I swallowed the lump in my throat. I started answering, and as I did, a memory hit me. It pulled me out of the room, back to a time that felt like a lifetime ago.
Flashback
The world used to be quieter.
I used to measure the speed of the river by comparing it to the speed of my steps. I would walk alongside the bank, counting. One, two, three. Seeing if the leaf in the water moved faster than my feets.
I used to race with birds. I would run until my lungs burned, trying to keep up with their shadows on the ground.
I used to watch ants all day long. Thousands of them, marching in lines. I calculated their speed. I watched crows move from one direction to another, black specks against the blue. I watched eagles fly, majestic and slow, circling for prey.
In short, I was surrounded by speed everywhere. The world was just math in motion.
At night, I used to look at the sky.
It was dark and huge. I used to look at the moon for hours and hours. It was a white rock in a black ocean. I used to think: If I walked, how much time would it take to get to the moon? If I ran? If I flew?
And then it started.
The obsession.
I started to think about how much time it would take a sparrow to go there. A tiny heart beating fast. How much time for a magpie with its long tail. How much time for a dove, soft and white.
I thought about this all night, looking at the sky, keeping in mind the speed I saw those birds fly during the day. I would close my eyes and see the Calculations. Distance. Time. force.
I estimated how far the moon must be just by looking at it. The moon told me all about it. It whispered its secrets to me in the silence of the night.
And one day, I finally figured it out.
Well, to be honest, I figured it out the moment I started thinking of the question. It just clicked. It was boring. But it was fun. It was exciting. Imagining myself as different animals trying to reach the moon... like a dream that can never come true. A dream where I could fly away from everything.
End of Flashback
As my flashback ended, the memory faded like mist. My explanation ended.
I blinked. I was back in the room. Back to the smell of blood.
When I opened my eyes, they were both looking at me.
The girl had stopped crying. She was staring.
Even the nice man—Mr. Nice Guy—was looking at me. He was awake, at least for now. He was struggling to keep his eyes open. He was shocked. He was coughing blood, a wet, hacking sound that rattled in his chest. It was the same sound my father made back then.
They were all shocked. They were all speechless. The air in the room was frozen.
Then it happened again.
He lost his mind again. The masked man lost his mind. He went berserk.
He raised his arm. He used that metal tool again and again and again, pointing upward at the poor ceiling.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
It was loud. It was constant. The bangs were tearing my ears apart. Flash after flash lit up the room like lightning. The smell of smoke became choking. Dust rained down on us.
Then he stopped.
Silence rushed back in.
He controlled himself. He took a deep breath, his chest heaving. He slowly sat in that chair again. The wood creaked under his weight. He looked at me.
"Wow, kid... sorry, God. I am now 100% sure that you are, in fact, our true God," he said excitedly.
He spoke with total respect. There was zero sarcasm. He believed it.
I saw a light coming from behind him. It might have been something, or a reflection, but to me, it looked like a divine light. A glow of hope in this hell. It framed his masked head like a halo.
"But rules are rules, my dear God. You still have to answer one more question."
His tone changed. The worship vanished. His eyes got sharper. Narrower. He got cold-blooded again. The killer was back.
I was just sitting there, trying to stay straight. Trying not to shake. I waited for the last question. The final test.
"Tell me, my dear God," he spoke respectfully.
I saw something new in his eyes.
It was not something I can describe easily. It was deep. It was heavy. It was the eyes of a father who is about to teach his son the greatest lesson of his life. A lesson about pain. A lesson about power.
I just can't tell why his eyes felt fatherly. Why they felt familiar. Like I had seen someone there before. A ghost from my past? A memory I forgot?
It is the one thing I can never forget. That look.
And then, he asked.
The words came out slow, heavy, and final.
"Who is... and who would be... the strongest person in the world?"