𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐒𝐢𝐧𝐬

~Regret~

A week later

Unknown's POV

Each morning is harder than the day before.

Each day I am reminded of why I sleep alone and a smile can't reach my eyes. Guilt and regret weigh down on my conscious more and more each time I blink. The picture frames are faced down because I physically can't handle seeing their faces. 

Today marks 22 years since I lost them. 

I haven't taken out the clothes from her side of the closet or cleared out her side of the bathroom. Her perfume still lingers if I inhale hard enough. 

The baby crib still is in the same place it was 23 years ago. So are the bottles and nursery paint that started chipping long ago. 

They said time heals all wounds and I was foolish enough to believe them. 

I dream about that day most nights. The nightmares never let me forget. They haunt me like a plague that kills me slowly every day. My own conscience wants me to suffer and I know I deserve it. 

I walk through the vast halls, their pictures on the walls were covered to the edge. No one in the building, including me, couldn't bear to see their once alive and happy faces. While I walk, people look at me with pity with a forthright gaze. They haven't forgotten this day either. 

The day that they were taken from us.

And what was also supposed to be my daughter's birthday.

She would be 23 today.

Old enough to take over the Bratva and leave me and her mother to retire on a tropical island of some sort. 

But, sadly, it was something that would never happen. 

I entered the dark and dusty room. The mobile laying deadly still above the white crib. The minimal sunlight peeked through the soft linen curtains, lighting up the dust in its path. The velvet rocking chair dangerously unused. 

Flashback

My wife looked at me through her long umber lashes, her bright emerald eyes sparkling in the morning sun. Her luxuriant onyx hair cascading down her shoulder as she sat in the velvet chair, holding our daughter in her arms as she held a bottle to our newborn.

I walked behind her to have a good view of our little flower's pure chartreuse eyes glinting at me. I kissed my wife on the crown of her head as I smiled at our tiny creation.  

How could someone so small be...so perfect...

She was too pure... too good for this world. That much, I knew for certain. 

She'd been born with a head full of thick blonde hair like me, but with the rest of her mother's features. I'm glad she took after her mother, Stella was the better half of me. 

"She's got your eyes," I smiled, admiring the two pairs of emerald eyes that now looked at me. As our little flower finished her bottle, Stella removed it and put it on the dresser next to us. 

"I bet she'll get your attitude," Stella smirked, chuckling as I narrowed my eyes at her. Our little flower gave me a gummed smile that had my insides melting, almost as if she agreed with her mother. 

"Haha...I'm laughing so hard," I spoke dryly, sarcasm dripping from my voice as Stella continued to laugh and our daughter continued to give me her precious baby smile.