He sat on the dark street. His body shivered from the cold and damp night air. He watched the burning smoke from the cigarette he pulled away from his lips slowly drift away. The smoke, which had briefly engulfed his surroundings in a white mist, was suddenly swept away by the fierce winter wind. It mixed with the cold air, enveloping his misery and the star-filled night like a cloak. His mother used to say that unhappiness was palpable. And it was, as all colours would fade and turn grey while its scorching energy hovered around you. Everything seemed sickly. Even people. Colourful people. People with rights, chances, hopes, families, and love. Everything would fade so much that you could feel it. Even the taste of the air you inhaled would change.
“Sometimes you run from this unhappiness, kid. You run fast so it doesn’t touch you,” she had once said.
It was unfair for her words to stay in his mind for so long. He needed to erase her, forget her, destroy her. Every soul above was a witness, and he had tried. But he was too small to succeed when he first lost her. He was a poor creature who had to bury all his pain within the first century of his life. Angels had pitied him, and even demons had deemed his pain too much and didn’t take him in. As he took another drag from the cigarette close to its black filter, he looked at the oil stains on the wet asphalt. The headlights of passing cars made them sparkle in different colours. It was painful that no one could change the fact that the only colour he had seen for a long time was the oil stain on the road. Finally, when the cigarette’s ember hit the filter, he exhaled the last smoke left in his lungs and watched it blend into the night. He skillfully flicked the cigarette, feeling the bitter taste of the night air in his lungs as he felt the cold. Before getting up, he blew his breath onto his hands brought close to his mouth. In just a few hours, the sun would rise. Angels of the light would descend with their fierce heat, and the executioner would return to his marble body. As if none of this threatened him, he sat at the edge of an unfamiliar street in a thin t-shirt and torn jeans unsuitable for the cold. They should have seen it as a rebellion. He would give his stone heart for them to see it that way. He could drown in the deepest oceans. Did he think he could enjoy life when the feeling of never being cared for followed him like a hand squeezing his throat at every step? No one had told him it had to be this hard. It shouldn’t have been like this when he descended. They had pretended to support him mockingly. They had tightened the incandescent chains on his bleeding wrists and had plucked his wings one by one to prevent them from following him in human form. His coal-black wings would only appear when the executioner emerged. And when the executioner vanished, the hands emerging from the void would take his wings from him again.
He slowly stood up, running his hand through his dark brown curls, and walked towards the black racing motorcycle almost lost in the night. He had wanted to die. He had wanted to die many times. The stitched wounds on his arms were part of all this physical and mental pain. Such wounds shouldn’t remain on his immortal skin; he had taken worse from others’ swords, daggers, and guns, but each had vanished as if they were mere insect bites. Only the pain he inflicted on himself had remained as scars on his body. He closed his eyes, looking at the stars, and took another cold breath into his lungs. God had mocked him. By not allowing these wounds to heal, he was mocking him. He smiled, feeling grateful for this attitude towards his hatred. The deeply buried disappointments pricked his lungs. But tonight, none of them mattered. When he put on the helmet, the black visor hid his freckled face. He opened his phone’s gallery and smiled when he found the photo of the woman he needed to go to tonight. She had an overly beautiful bronze complexion and sky-blue eyes. What a happy and pure expression. He had never had anything like that. Jealousy left a sour taste in his mouth but didn’t stop his smile. From what he could see in the photo, her black curly hair reached her waist. He knew they were never what they seemed. He never believed that anyone who crossed his path tonight would deceive him. He was never wrong about sinners.
He looked up, and his smile widened with the shiver in his bones as the motorcycle roared to life. He loved this feeling. The trembling rhythm between his legs, the controls under his palms. This feeling reminded him of his wings, his freedom. Despite being the smallest of the powers under his hand, he loved his motorcycle. The countless accidents he had, the numerous bones he broke, and the limbs he shattered had never mattered. They had never been enough to keep him away from this two-wheeled beast. He leaned slightly forward as the blue light illuminated the small screen embedded in the motorcycle’s body. He savoured the sound for a few seconds. Pure power. Pure adrenaline. They all coursed through his veins at once. With a quick breath, he twisted the throttle. He knew no car would cross his path. He leaned forward completely, ignoring the wind that bruised his bare arms, and pushed the gas pedal further as his chest touched the motorcycle’s roaring body. His heartbeat matched the motorcycle’s rumble. It was like a waterfall cascading endlessly in his ears. Energy flowed from him to the motorcycle and back again. Traffic lights turned green as he approached. The tragic part was the fear. They would do everything to make his job easier. Despite their fear, they would come to him every day with their insatiable egos. They worshipped his presence. A hand to do their work, a puppet to spill blood… no. None of them. The worthless ones were just a part of the game. As the night flowed around him, he made a sharp turn to the left and continued at increasing speed. He only had a few kilometres left. The city that never slept was now silent. There were no people. The bar lights were off. They must have heard he was coming down. It was always amusing that all the people in a city of millions were so cowardly. Although he was unfamiliar with these feelings, he had embraced them in a life surrounded by human lives. Chaos. Laughter. Love. Lust. Pain. Hope. The most unjust of them all was definitely this demon called Hope.
I am one of them. And they fear only one among them. They should fear the Executioner.
He should have worn a leather jacket, but he didn’t care. He didn’t care; he loved the strips of bruises forming on his arms. He had never been able to prevent his fascination with bruises throughout his life. He loved the deformation of human bodies. Scars had always intrigued him. They showed how a person’s body, like their mind, was connected to life. All the energy they expended to survive. In his first motorcycle accident, he had broken eight vertebrae and five ribs, and in a temporary paralysis that left him unable to move from the crash site, he couldn’t stop people from calling an ambulance and taking him to the hospital. The strangeness in the blood samples had been a minor detail no one noticed, and although people with faces as if they were the ones in pain told him he would never walk again, his body, healing at an inhuman speed, had taken care of everything for him. Conscience was another feeling he didn’t understand. Something had remained unhealed the day after that crash. The bruises on his skin. While waiting for his healing to complete, he had watched the marks on his arms in a fascinated way. The thoughts in his mind had stopped chasing each other. He slowly straightened up on the motorcycle that had stopped with smoking wheels and placed one foot on the ground. His weight was still on his hips, and he continued to sit in a relaxed posture. As he removed the black helmet, his gaze locked on the apartment on the thirty-second floor. Vanilla. A scent he chose to tolerate. It was obvious. It tickled the back of his throat. The woman’s murmuring voice in the bathtub was enticing; he knew no one would mind if he allowed himself just a few more seconds to listen. Just a few seconds later, he would have reached her. As his body tensed with a wave of anticipation, he left his motorcycle on the side of the road, disregarding security, and walked inside. He smiled when he saw the overly thin and overly groomed woman standing at the reception. Plastic doll. Worthless human beings who loved to look like creatures they weren’t. As he ran his tongue over his pearl-like teeth, his neck cracked as he tilted his head. The woman’s body tensed at the same moment as his movement, her mouth hanging open in shock and pain. The smile on her crimson-painted lips froze. A few seconds later, her bones, with a sound like a tree trunk breaking, pierced their delicate and white skin. As a few drops of blood splattered from her lips to her chin, he continued walking toward the elevators, ignoring the fragments of bodies that fell around him. It wasn’t necessary, but he wanted to create a distraction. He smiled as he entered the metal box that looked like a child’s toy and pressed the button for the thirty-second floor. The ride wouldn’t take long. As he leaned on the elevator wall, he watched the numbers change. The metallic taste of blood in his mouth seemed to irritate his gums, but he didn’t care. He didn’t care about anything. He was just… angry. Everything he wanted had been taken away from him. Even her. He would make sure his revenge was as painful as he could.
The bathroom door creaked open, the reflection of the man in the mirror making him smile. He took another step and leaned toward her face in the bathtub. The woman’s fearful gaze flickered around him, and her scream stopped halfway. She could not make a sound. His eyes glowed with excitement. He leaned closer, feeling the woman’s hair brush against his face. He could hear the blood flowing through her veins and her heartbeat quickening in response to his presence. He would make her suffer for what she had done. He would make sure his revenge was as painful as he could make it. He placed his hand on her cheek, feeling her shiver under his touch. The woman’s eyes were wide with terror, her body trembling. He could see the fear in her eyes, and it fueled his anger. He would make her pay for what she had done. He would make sure she suffered as much as he had. He leaned closer, his breath hot against her skin. He could feel the woman’s fear, and it only made him more determined. He would make her pay. He would make sure she never forgot what she had done. He leaned closer, his lips brushing against her ear. “You will pay for what you have done,” he whispered, his voice filled with venom.
The End (or is it?)
Luster of Books 