Prologue
Madeline
What do you feel?
Nothing. I feel nothing.
Some fear death. They see it as a hollow that takes over your spirit and leaves darkness in its wake.
I never shared that belief. I never imagined death as the epitome of someone’s existence. Life may seize our souls, but it grants us wings to fly. Death is freedom. And he didn’t deserve that.
On the floor, kneeling by the body in front of me, my clothes soak in the blood like ink spreading on a paper. As I stare down at my hands, I see the blood seeping into it, turning it into a bloody sculpture. My quivering fingers become marred from his sinful blood.
The blood doesn’t stop. It keeps spreading into the spacious room until it suffocates all life out of it. I don’t make a move. I sit completely still, mesmerized yet terrified. If I drop my gaze for a second, will his soulless body awaken?
His black eyes look like the abyss of the sea. The darkness swimming inside of them always turns my blood cold. Even in his death, he resembles the monster I’ve always affirmed him to be.
He did not deserve the leeway of death. He deserved much worse, and my only hope is that he is burning in the scorching fire of hell until he turns into nothing but ash.
Hours pass, and my legs grow completely numb. My shaking hand is now completely evaded by his thick red blood.
An agonizing sob comes from the background, interrupting my immobile state. I look up and find the brightest blue eyes staring at me with horror and disbelief. My body coils into itself when I see disgust lingering in her beautiful eyes’ depth.
She buries her face between her legs and repeats the words “what have you done?” over and over and over.
I drop my gaze to the bloodied ground. A sense of darkness envelops me until it leaves me completely breathless. It’s as if my soul drifted off alongside him. I don’t feel alive and the freedom that I have yearned for is still captured in his corrupted hands.
It’s like being stuck in A’raf mountain, unable to grasp one side and evolve within it.
I entwine my hands together, and gaze at the droplets of blood that drip on the marble ground. Plop, plop, plop...
There’s no going back—not that I would. There was no other option. It had to be this way.
It took a monster to destroy a monster.
And this monster…feels nothing.
