Cold, devoid of heat - I felt cold. My nose was invaded with a strong antiseptic odor and my heart froze. There was a pain in my ribs, the pain one felt when your chest was pressed against a hard surface for an extended period. It made it hard to breathe.

'Never stops, endless pain'

The voice whispered.

I felt the cuffing on my hands and feet and utter despair set in; I realized where I was. I opened my eyes and the dreadful white walls stared at me, causing my heart to quiver.

The draft from the air-conditioning blew against my bare rear. My eyes opened wide.

"No! no!" I screamed as tears rushed furiously. "Please, no! God no!!"

'He's coming, coming, no hope, soap!'

It grew loud again and quieted.

I struggled, it was hopeless, but I didn't care. The sound of a door opening petrified me, I struggled more frantically. I cried and screamed, but no one heard, no one ever heard.

"Why struggle? There's no escape" the voice behind me said. It was deep and sinister, a memory that I shut out.

"I swear I’ll kill you one day!" I screamed as hot tears flowed down my face, mixing with the snot running down my nose.

"You bastard!" I enraged him.

The walls suddenly ripped themselves apart and endless darkness remained.

A force slammed my head into the table, dazing me instantly. I heard zippers furiously undoing, and I struggled against my restraints.

I felt a needle pierce my arm and my body and my body lost energy, going numb, despondency set in.  A sharp pain rapidly invaded my behind. Bitter tears rolled down my cheeks as I was being violated.

'Why did I come to this world?'

My vision went grey before fading to black.

“Bloody oaf!!” A voice thundered.

A sharp pain ripped through my chest, fading slowly. Something hit me. Just as it disappeared, it hit me again with greater force, air was squeezed out of my lungs. My eyes shot open. A man stood before me; disheveled hair, bloodshot eyes, and ragged clothes with a worn-out sleeping bag in his armpits; the frayed grey threads at the edges threatening to snap at the slightest mishandling and the unmistakable stench of booze. There was a disturbing bright glare coming from above and his figure was in its midst and darkness abounded in the distance. It was night. An icy wind blew against my body, eliciting an instant shiver - then it dawned on me. I was kicked out again by my father, a common occurrence when he was drunk, and honestly, I preferred it this way.

If I stayed inside, that would mean dealing with his screaming and hollering. I stood up. My cognition was still slightly muddled from sleep.

“Oh, hey,” I said, blankly.

‘Where did I end up today?’

“Get off my bench!!! Fucking little bugger!” He bellowed, his arm shot towards me and I stumbled away quickly from the street bench, allowing his fist to crash into the bench instead. I bolted into the street, my legs numb from sleep springing to life.

'Go! Come? Run!'

The whispers arose once more

I never looked back, only going forward, my surroundings blurred around me. I finally stopped when my lungs burned with agonizing ferocity with each drawn breath. Panting, with my hands on my knees, I looked around. 

A large dark green garbage disposal stood a few meters from me, grossly overfilled with extra garbage bags lying all around it. It sandwiched around trash between two dull red apartment buildings. The glow from lonely street lights bled into the space between the buildings.

I didn’t recognize this place, nothing even had a vague resemblance to where I’ve once been.

‘How far did I run?’

I paused, then realized that there was no way of finding my way home at this time of the night. I stood on my toes to get a view of behind the disposal, the crazy thought of sleeping behind it had formed in my imagination. Strangely, as I imagined the space behind it was spotless, save for the abundance of neatly arranged garbage bags in the corner. With a searing pain that reminded me of previous bodily trauma, I leaped over, landed on the other side. One leg gave way under the pain and I fell to the ground.

I sighed and sat down on the ground right beside the bags, resting my back against the dumpster. I was either hallucinating or dreaming because no offensive odor graced my nose even when I was directly in contact with ‘garbage’.

‘Maybe I don’t smell it because I’m just like them, ’

I humored in thought, way too tired to consider other possibilities. Drowsiness had steadily crept in and soon my body huddled together in slumber. My body had eased up as the cold gust roared past.

'No sleep, not done! Wake wake up!!!'

A loud bang suddenly erupted! My body agitated in fright. I tried to make sense of the situation in my blear vision. Two figures, one towering over the other, stood then the smaller one slumped to the ground, a thick viscous liquid spreading across the floor. The other figure slid something inside its coat and opened a door, probably a fire exit,  I had not noticed and entered the apartment building briskly. Whoever it was didn’t seem to notice me, must have mistaken me for one of the trash bags.

It didn’t require Einstein to figure out what just occurred. I had just witnessed a murder! I froze, not making a single sound until I heard the door slam shut. Terrified to the bone, I enclosed my mouth with my hand, fearful of emitting any sound. A long while passed as I stared at the body, the moment recurring incessantly. The blood puddle had slowly enlarged, creating dark splotches on the figure’s clothing.

'River of red, falling despair, river of red...'

I finally summoned the courage to check out the body. The moon was high in the sky tonight, creating a visceral glow over the body. My vision landed on the body and my heart skipped in terror, my stomach suddenly frosty. Hot liquid flowed out of my nose, scorching as I regurgitated my lunch onto the floor.

'Miquel Chan!'

He was the kid that stood beside me in gym class. Ashen faced, square jaw and roman lips with silver bobbed hair and now in between rested a deep gaping bullet hole. I still remembered his listless look as we awaited our massacre. Even now his expression was the same, listless.

Indignation welled inside me. It just wasn’t fair, if anyone deserved to die it should have been me. Unlike me, he had potential, his computational skills were overwhelming and never ceased to amaze me in class. Now it was gone, forever. My gaze settled on the door the killer had passed through, I reached into my pocket for my phone-I’d left it home. 

‘Fuck’

An image snapped into my mind, and I reached my hands into his trouser pockets. My fingers met with a familiar smooth obstruction, my fingers gripped around its flat surface and pulled it out. I hoped as I turned it on that it would be one of those models that didn’t need to be unlocked to access the camera.

‘Bingo!’

It was. I checked the night quality - pristine, at least way better than mine. Fear gripped me as I contemplated what I was about to do. Rage welled up in me once more and I steeled my resolve. Drawing in breath, I arose and walked towards the fire exit door. Placing my ear next to the door, I quietly listened. A furious pound erupted, startling me. I removed my head from the door in fright. It ensued again in spasmodic bursts.

It sounded like punching, I could faintly hear grunts along with each pound. Those grunts… something about them was familiar. Somewhere buried deep in the etches of reminiscence. I immediately grasped it and my stomach sunk lower, caressing the edges of the abyss. It was that…

‘That bastard!!’

I always suspected I wasn’t the only one he laid his filthy hands on others. I dialed back my temper and waited. The batter ceased. I ambled towards the rusted iron door. For a moment there was a wide seemingly insurmountable chasm I had to cross and every time I stared into it my worst nightmares would emerge, devouring me instantly. I set the camera to record and pushed down the handle slowly. 

My pupils painfully constricted as the intensity of light exploded. I opened the door ever so slightly, afraid of possibly alerting the beast that lurked within. I had to face my fears, even so, it terrified every fiber of my being. Tension in my chest restricted my breathing, reducing it to silent gasps. The door was finally wide open. Behind lay all the interconnecting stairways, illuminated with the old incandescent pale orange light bulbs. Then my eyes landed on him, his back rather. His back faced me; a thick black leather coat

‘How cliche’

I set the camera to record, but there was no way I’d record him without his notice, so only the audio would suffice. I had also secretly dialed 911 and keyed in the special numbers I learned at summer camp to alert the police silently. There was no going back now.

'No!! Don't, Metal! Hot!, Flames!'

The voice cried.

I shut it out and called out his full name in a clear voice.

“Mr. Bo Samuels”

He flinched and stopped his pounding, his object of torture obscured by his enormous body, and turned around slowly, his hand reaching into his coat. Our eyes finally met.  I noticed his tense posture had eased up when he saw me. He was afraid in the slightest. A grin slowly formed on his face, followed by a quiet sneer. He had even refrained his hands from the inside of his coat.

“You killed Miquel Chan! I saw you” I blurted in pretense accusation.

“Yes I did, what are you going to do about it? The truth of the matter is, soon, you’re going to join him,” He laughed with a deep scowl.

My body trembled and swayed feverishly.

“Let me guess, you’re probably here to threaten me with your so-called witnessing of the event, or better yet you’re recording this conversation right now, am I right?” He laid strong emphasis on the word’ conversation, which seemed to directly assault me.

I gulped, hoping he hadn’t figured out the rest already.

“I’ll make you an offer based on our special relationship together, drop the recording device you have on you and I’ll let you walk away from all this, hell maybe I would finally leave you,” He said, his expression smug.

‘Bullshit!!!’

I lowered my head to convince him I was contemplating the lies he was feeding me. A beep erupted from the device in my pocket, I fished out the device from my pocket, glanced at it with feigned reluctance, and finally stretched my hands forward. His smug expression morphed into a wicked grin as he reached to collect the phone.

I suddenly retracted my hand. A murderous glint flashed through his eyes.

“Are you sure?” I asked, my voice shaking. I heard a faint movement coming from behind.

“Do you have another choice?”

I smiled and stared him down.

‘It’s over for you, devil’

“Yes”. I said as the police sirens suddenly rendered the air.

His eyes opened wide in disbelief. He stared at my face, hatred seeping through his gaze, and lunged toward me. A violent burst of pain ripped through my head as the surrounding space got sucked into infinitesimal nothingness.