15 The End Of The Road

After hearing what he said, I was forced to face the reality I lived in and the fact that I could do nothing to change what was going to happen, and for the first time in a long time, I began to shed tears.

"Hey, don't start getting all sentimental now; otherwise, you'll lose the little respect I have towards you. You realize that you aren't the only person in this position, right, so why the hell do you have the right to cry over it like you are special? God, people like you are really annoying, you know."

"Fuck off, will you? Why the hell would I even care about what you think of me."

"Well, your choice, anyways, we seem to have arrived… try not to freak out too much, it seems like the person inside doesn't know how to follow BASIC INSTRUCTIONS!" he said with his voice turning into a shout as he opened the door to what I could only assume was an execution room.

The room itself was slightly bigger than the cell I woke up in. Everything was either exposed cement or rotting paint, except for a chair in the middle of the room, plus there was also this weird feeling the room seemed to be giving off like it had been the place of the end for countless numbers of people.

I was originally planning to sit down and wait for the psychopath to be done with the person sitting on the chair, but I felt a stare coming from the chair before I could.

In the beginning, I thought that it was probably just that psychopath trying to get me to watch as he tortured an innocent soul, but to my surprise, when I turned around, I could see that the person staring at me in the chair was Josue.

He looked like he had been beaten up badly, so I assume that he had already attempted to escape. Still, although he appeared to be shaking and fearful outside, I knew it was just a facade he was putting on; his eyes gave it all away. He had always been like this, an actor most people couldn't see through.

This was also probably why nobody else became his friend as a child; although he didn't pose any danger, parents told their children to stay away from him.

It was mainly because of his family's past.

He lived alone with his mother because his father was an alcoholic that they ran away from due to him attempting to murder them, and the aura he gave off was like he was planning something all the time.

Apparently, his father had been having a hard time running his bodega ever since my father lent my paternal uncle money to start a bakery and candy store on the same street Josue's father worked on.

And Josue's father decided to take his anger out on his child; as for why he hadn't been arrested earlier, it was because the police system in Peru was… a joke. Plus, Josue's uncle became a police officer after dropping out from 'Secundaria,' so Josue's father got off scot-free.

After Josue and his mother had to run away and hide from his father, he seemed to change from a joyful child into a silent one. Even worse, after the incident, he had developed his 'unreadable' face, and the parents in our neighborhood were just scared that he would do something that would endanger their children.

"HEY, WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT SLITTING YOUR OWN THROAT, IS IT REALLY THAT HARD?!"

"I, I'm, sorry… sir."

"You should be; you're just wasting my time at this point, here. If that's hard, then let me show you how to do it."

That psychopath then proceeds to walk up to the still shaking Josue, grab his arm, and put it in position.

Before he could slit Josue's throat, however, I could see a glint in Josue's eyes; I knew that glint. I had seen it before, when we were still children, he was about to do something reckless, and it didn't take much to connect the dots.

On impulse, I ended up jumping towards where Josue was.

Before I could even do anything else, however, I saw his mouth suddenly turn into a gentle smile before he used what looked to be all his strength to free his right arm and push the psychopath to the ground aiming to stab his chest, before he could though, that man rolled to the side and tripped Josue, whose fall was followed by the sound of a gunshot.

The world seemed to stop at that moment, with the only thing I could see being that psychopath's grin.

Josue was like family to me, the only one I still had with me, and there he stood lifeless on the ground with his blood spilled on the ground; before I could get up to move closer to him, though, all of the memories of our childhood came back to me.

Although I was the son of the person who was the cause for all of the sufferings in his life, he, for some reason, decided to show mercy.

Instead of trying to make my life worse, he went out of his way to become my friend and help me out, even in my darkest moments, as after my parent's divorce, he was the only person that stayed by my side.

"Aw, what a disappointment, even the smartest one of you wasn't able to hold back and just accept your death."

"You knew?"

"Of course I knew, just because sane people couldn't see through him doesn't mean he could keep his thought hidden from everyone… I do have to say, though, he seemed to care a lot about you; just remember that when you look back on this in the afterlife."

I didn't resist; there was no reason to. Everything I ever cared about was either gone or soon to be gone.

All I remember thinking when he put me in that chair was how disgusting humans were as a whole, how we were able to let all of this happen, how we were able to stand by as others suffered, how we ignored the signs simply because they didn't directly affect us.

'Maybe it's a good thing that humanity will end, at least that way… there will be no more damage to be done,' I thought as I felt a sting in my head before losing consciousness.