Chapter 1
He stood there… motionless like a cold statue, watching his father’s corpse as it began its first stages of decomposition.
There was no fear in his eyes, no sorrow, not even shock.
Only an emotionless gaze—calm to an unsettling degree.
He observed the body as though it were a scientific experiment.
Merely a phenomenon he wished to understand.
How long would decomposition take?
That was all he wanted to know.
And when he got his answer… his interest vanished completely, just as curiosity fades after solving a simple riddle.
He rose slowly, then picked up the bottle of sulfuric acid that had belonged to his father’s research.
The same acid… he had used minutes earlier to kill him.
He disposed of it without hesitation, as though it were nothing more than a tool that had fulfilled its purpose.
After that, he sat on the couch, immersed in deep silence, his mind wandering within his own world.
The stillness in the room was heavy… unnatural.
Until it was suddenly shattered by loud knocks on the door.
The echoes of the knocking trembled through the house.
The boy stood up slowly, with a calmness that did not match his age, and walked toward the door.
He turned the handle slowly… then opened it slightly.
Someone was standing there.
A man, panting from exhaustion, his chest rising and falling violently.
It was clear he had run all the way there.
His hair was disheveled, his face pale, and his eyes were struggling to hold back tears… as he looked at his younger brother.
He stepped forward, his voice trembling as he opened his arms to embrace him.
“My little one… I’m sorry I’m late…”
He paused to catch his breath, then continued in a shaky voice:
“Did that bastard hurt you? Are you okay?!”
The little boy kept staring at him with that same distant gaze, then… very slowly… an innocent smile formed on his face—pure in a terrifying way.
He raised his arms and hugged his brother, and in a soft voice, filled with sincere childlike joy, he said the sentence neither of them would ever forget, no matter how long they lived:
“No… I didn’t let him hurt me.”
He paused for a brief moment… then added calmly:
“I killed him.”
In that moment… the older brother realized something horrifying—
That day… was the day he no longer knew his little brother.
And suddenly—
He fell off the bed.
And the dream ended.
He sat there, gasping in the darkness, his heart pounding violently, cold beads of sweat sliding down his forehead.
This… was the usual ending to those miserable dreams.
