In a cottage in the middle of the woods

“Please, I didn’t have anything to do with what happened to you. You have to believe me. Please. It was all Mr. Louise’s doing. I didn’t have anything to do with it. You have to believe me,” the man strapped to a metal table begged the person in front of him to no avail.

Alex was cleaning his knife with a relaxed expression and didn’t seem to hear a word. After he cleaned the knife, he put it down on the plate and went for the saw.

When the man saw the saw, he became more scared and started screaming, “please, someone. Someone, please help me.”

“don’t scream; you will only scare the animals around the cottage. There is no one here to hear your screams.”

“pleas, pleas, believe me, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I only did what Mr. Louise told me to do. I didn’t know what he was doing”

“it’s too late for that. Now tell me, where do you want me to start from?” said Alex, who had just finished cleaning the saw

“you don’t have to do this; please, I have children; please have mercy on them. I won’t tell anyone; just let me go. I even help you ….”

At the mention of children, something broke in Alex, and he started shouting, “I had a child too. I had a family too. But did you think of them when you were ruining my life? did you consider what would happen to them?” then he took a deep breath and said “don’t worry, you’re not the only one on the list. Mr. Louise, John, Sara, and all the people that made me and my family’s life miserable will pay for their doings. You won’t be the only one.”

“Please, you don’t have to do this, please…”

“oh, but I do. If I don’t take my revenge, how do you expect me to sleep at night? How do you think my daughter’s soul would rest in peace? How do you think my wife would forgive me for abandoning them when they most needed me? It’s all because of you. All because of you and those damn people. I won’t let you get away with it.”

He took the tape and closed the man’s mouth shut. Then he started his work.

Alex would pause and stop the bleeding whenever the man fainted from shock, then woke him up and started again.

He did this process again and again till the man died and there was nothing left for him to cut.

After that, he collected all the pieces and went back to the city and dumped them into the nearest trash bin to the man’s house.

_ _ _ _ _ _

After getting scammed out of his job and losing all his money to the scammers, Alex’s life only worsened.

His daughter got sick, and when he couldn’t pay the hospital bills, and she died, his wife took her own life and left Alex alone.

From a prestigious job in a big company to working in a one-star restaurant as a waiter, he only had one regret: trusting the wrong people.

He was lying down on his bed and was staring at the ceiling.

Next on his list was Sara, Mr. Louise’s secretary. She was the one that first told Alex about their plan. She was the one that convinced Alex that Mr. Louise had his best intention at heart, and Alex was a fool and believed them.

He was still thinking about ways to get her alone and kidnap her. His plan wasn’t fully formed yet, but he had a pretty good idea of how to do it.

“I can get her when she goes to the bar near the …” he was talking to himself when he heard a knock on the door.

He got out of the room and went to open the door. His apartment was a small one-bedroom apartment with a kitchen and a bathroom. It was all he could afford after getting scammed.

When he got to the door and opened it, nobody was on the other side. But there was a box with a red letter on it right in front of his foot.  

He felt a bit nervous. Nobody knew he was living here, and he hadn’t ordered anything online recently.  

Alex grabbed the box and closed the door behind him. When he opened the letter, he almost fell to the ground. The world spun around his head, and he didn’t know what to do.

Dear Mr. Adams

                                                     WE KNOW  

If you don’t want anybody else to know of your secret, wear this mask and come to the address below three days from now.

Lincon st. *** ***** **** *

                                                                                                          Best of luck

                                                                                                          MA

When Alex opened the box, he found a gray mask with the number twelve on it. The mask was designed to cover the whole face, but a retractable part at the bottom went back into the mask and showed the person’s mouth.

After opening the box, Alex just sat there for several hours and thought of every possible scenario that this situation could play out, and neither of them ended well.

The next day Alex called in sick and stayed home. He wasn’t in the mood to serve people in that shitty restaurant and just wanted to stay home.

He sat down on his bed and looked at the pictures of his family on his phone.

He was frustrated, he just wanted to kill all those bastards before killing himself, but here he was in a situation he didn’t know how to handle.

“If only I had more time…”

Two days was certainly not enough to finish his revenge plan. He needed a month at the very least. After that, he could kill himself and reunite with his wife and daughter.

But now. Two days. Two freaking days.

“Why did it have to be now? What did I wrong? Should I have gotten rid of the body? ….”

Many different thoughts passed his mind, but at the end of the day, he didn’t reach any conclusion. He did everything right; there was no problem with his plan. No matter how much he thought, no fault came to his mind.

The only option he had was to find out what was going on for himself.

Two days later, he was standing inside a narrow dead-end alley. The alley was so narrow that only one person could pass it at a time.

In front of him, on the huge old wall, there was a small old door. He stood there for about ten minutes deciding whether to knock or not.

After ten more minutes, he made his decision and was about to knock on the door when suddenly the door opened itself.

‘Were they waiting for me to make my decision’ he thought

When the door opened, he saw a person wearing all black clothes and a gray mask, like Alex’s but without any number, standing in front of him.

“Please this way, sir,” the man said and guided Alex to a room at the back of the building.

Nine more people wearing the same outfit were standing guard around a door inside the large room.

When Alex entered, one of them opened the other door, and Alex was surprised to see a staircase going straight down for about ten meters.

He hesitated for a bit but then walked past the door and went down the stairs.

There was another door at the end of the stairs; Alex paused for a few seconds and then grabbed the handle and opened the door.