4. Sorry
Rion felt his body weaken. His head was in a lot of pain and was slowly getting wet. His ears continued to ring loudly. He tried to hold it in and found that there was something sticky and warm on his head.
Looking at his hand, Rion could only see red. The same red as the blood flowing from his head and dripping onto the floor.
Rion looked up slowly. His father looked at him with a satisfied smile. In his hand was a baseball bat that now had a blood stain on the end. Rion knew where the blood came from.
His father kicked him in the ribs so hard that he coughed, "I'm your father, dammit. You shouldn't have fought your father."
When Rion tried to move away from him, his father decided to stomp on his back until he choked and found it even harder to breathe, "I have to discipline you again. You're always giving your father a hard time."
As his father was about to hit him again with the baseball bat, his mother decided to intervene, "Stop it! You're going to kill him! I don't want to get into any more trouble!"
His father just glanced at her and landed a hard punch on Rion's back, "I don't care!"
Rion found it harder and harder to breathe every second. His mother's warning didn't stop his father's beatings, they just got harder and harder. He could feel the air in his lungs getting thinner.
His mother pushed his father away, "I care about my money! If he dies, no one will make money for me!"
He grabbed his wife's hair and yelled emotionally at her, "Bitch!"
Not to be outdone, she grabbed her husband's shirt in return, "Asshole!"
Rion tried to stay conscious while ignoring their argument. He tried to move his hands slowly into his pockets, not wanting to attract his parents' attention.
He pressed something there and returned his hand to its original position. Closing his eyes as he felt his vision getting blurry, Rion whispered as a drop of water ran from his eyes.
"I'm sorry, Chief…"
A final blow to the back of his head blackened his entire vision. Rion was finally relieved of all pain.
But neither of his parents noticed. The two continued to argue loudly. Rion's father was even still beating his son while arguing with his wife.
Until he realized that Rion didn't react to his blows anymore. He looked at him in surprise and examined him. His wife just stared at him as he turned Rion onto his back.
She gasped in horror, "Is he dead?"
She took a few steps back. Suddenly, she was frightened by the bloody body in front of her.
Her husband didn't even bother to check Rion's breathing or pulse as he shrugged indifferently, "Who knows. I don't care."
He went into his room and returned with a large, human-sized black bag. He placed it next to Rion's body and started to open it.
"What are you doing?" His wife asked confused. She stayed where she was, not looking at her son who might be dying.
He gave his wife an angry look, "Shut up! If you want money, follow my orders. He's still useful."
Reluctantly, she helped her husband put Rion's body into a black bag. She winced in disgust as Rion's blood remained on her hands, some even stuck to her nails.
After tightly closing the bag containing Rion's body, they quickly and silently carried the bag out the back door of the house. They walked into a shabby and secluded alley near their homes.
It was raining heavily that night, so the streets were quite deserted. Most people stayed in their warm homes or took shelter in a nearby café.
They kept walking in, away from the main street and human sight. The alley looked as if it had been abandoned for years. There were no visible signs that people had passed through this place in the near future.
Rion's mother frowned in annoyance. Her wet clothes and the heavy bag she was carrying made her uncomfortable and irritable. On top of that, the blood on her hands that she hadn't removed yet started to itch.
"It's all your fault!" She hissed, sounding very annoyed.
Her husband snorted, annoyed by the words that had been repeated since they started walking, "He'll die soon. What difference does that make?"
This only made her growl angrily, "If we get caught by the police, I will blame you for the rest of my life!"
"If you don't want to get caught, then shut up and work faster! Do you want money or not?" He snapped and lost his temper.
If he hadn't needed an extra hand to carry the bag, he would have hit his wife to shut her up. After all, she was useless to him to begin with.
She clucked in annoyance, but decided to keep quiet. They had been walking for 15 minutes and still hadn't reached their destination.
She frowned and looked down at the bag she was carrying, "Just so you remember, it was you who killed Rion, not me."
Her husband grunted indifferently and concentrated on the road again, "Whatever."
They stopped in front of a dark and uninhabited house. He knocked roughly on the door and waited.
Suddenly, lights came on from inside the house. Not long after, the door slowly opened to reveal an old man wearing a white coat with some red, fishy-smelling stains that seemed to be blood.
The old man looked at them with interest, "You really came."
"You're the one who offered it to me, psychopath." Rion's father said impatiently. He wanted to get rid of the bag he was carrying as soon as possible.
The old man shrugged casually and opened the door wider to let them in, "Not that I'm surprised. Come in."
They both went inside and set their luggage down on the only available table in the room. The table looks like an operating table. There were still suspicious red stains, but they didn't care enough to ask.
"Take it out. I'll prepare my equipment." The old man said as he checked some of the equipment that was already there.
He was about to go into another room to get the rest of his equipment when he was stopped by his guest.
"What about the money?" Rion's father asked urgently. He held the old man's arm tightly, afraid that he had been tricked and this psychopath would run away.
The old man gave an exasperated snort and shook his hand out of the grip, "I'll give it to you after I see what parts of it are worth selling."
The old man left the two who immediately opened the bag they were carrying. When the bag was opened, the marks of his father's beating on Rion still looked fresh. Rion's body was covered in bloody bruises from head to toe.
His face was as pale as a corpse. His chest didn't seem to move up and down. He didn't seem to be breathing, but his parents didn't even bother to check on him when they took him out of the bag.
"At least you're useful to me until the end. You can still make money for me even after you die. Be thankful that you were useful to your parents, son."
Those were Rion's father's last words before he followed the old man to make sure he really hadn't run away.
Rion's mother was silent as she looked at her son's body. Her face showed no expression at all. She felt nothing for her son who was probably already gone.
"Don't blame me. It was your father's idea. I just obeyed him. You were going to die anyway, so there was no other choice. Your mother had to survive." She said coldly, as if the corpse in front of her was neither her son nor a human being.
She reached out to stroke her son's hair for a moment, "You love me, right? I'm the one who conceived you and gave birth to you with great difficulty. I risked my life for you. You should at least return the favor."
She withdrew her hand and turned to leave, but she paused. For the last time, she glanced at her son's body before turning away unconcerned.
"If you're angry and want revenge, just do it to your father. I don't care about him. As long as it's not me."
When the old man and her husband returned, they found her sitting on the sofa in the farthest corner from the bloody table. She gave her husband a sharp look, which he returned no less sharply.
The old man paid no attention to either of them as he pulled on his gloves, "I'll begin."
Rion's father glanced at his son's body, "Just do it."
He leaned against the wall, away from the operating table. He didn't care, but that didn't mean he wanted to see live human surgery.
The old man smiled widely as he picked up his scalpel, "Don't worry, kid. It won't hurt."