Ruins of Autumn

13• Broken Pink

"The monsters running
wild inside of me
I'm faded."

Faded
| Alan Walker |
••••

    Blerimi tied Anila's legs rigidly as well as her hands with the other rope that he had brought with him in a backpack when he had sneaked into her house while she had been in Durrës and got up from the bed.
 
    Anila pushed herself further towards the head of the bed, sobbing and traumatized. She brought her knees to her exposed chest, like the rest of her bruised and scratched body, and kept her head down, unable to muster up the courage to look the criminal in the eye.
 
    For the first time, she was hating her bangs for not being able to hide her reddened eyes from shedding tears that night. She wanted to cover her body with something. The fact that he was able to look at her naked body made her want to vomit.
 
    Blerimi thought about killing her. That way, he would finally get rid of Anila, and she wouldn't be around. Amarildo would live with the weight of guilt for the rest of his life from what happened to his sister because of him, but he guessed that, after what he had done to Anila, she was going to kill herself out of despair, and he would have taken revenge exactly the same way for Xhuliana.
 
    Amarildo had thought that she wouldn't have had anyone to avenge her? He would get the answer when he returned to Albania.
 
    Blerimi pulled out his phone from his hoodie pocket on the floor and pointed the camera at her to take a picture. He noticed that Anila said something through her lips and understood her.
 
    "What?" he asked anyway, intending to cause her more pain.
 
    "Stop!" Anila begged him in tears and hid her face behind her raised knees as a shield. The strong tightening of her hand and her legs didn't allow her to stand up and prevent him.
 
    "Why? You like photos," Blerimi replied, confounded and laughing at her state. "Just for the record. Everything personal with you," he clarified ironically, as he purposely came closer to her, and she stepped away, aghast, with her body shaking from the fear of him. "Until tomorrow evening, I want you out of this place," he warned categorically. "If I find you here, I will understand that you want to repeat this night, and I won't think about it for too long to fulfil this wish of yours. Did you understand?"
 
    He took the sticker he had also brought and approached her again.
 
    Anila widened her eyes, horrified when she looked up and saw him, and she tried to get off the bed with the little strength she had left, calling out in a low, tearful voice for help, even though she could have fallen on the way.
 
    Blerimi forcefully grabbed her right arm and pulled her close to him.
 
    "Don't move!" he shouted in her face, annoyed by her disobedience.
 
    He clamped her bound hands to her stomach under the knee placed on them, put the sticker over her mouth, and continued behind her head several times around the neck. When Anila tried to remove the sticker, it was going to hurt a lot. He stepped away and left the bedroom with his bag and the black hoodie. The work was done for that night.
 
    Even after hearing the large door close behind him, she stood motionless for several minutes, crying out from the searing pain in her body.
 
    Like an obsolete slave with her soul and body massacred by the enemy, who had used her as a war loot and then thrown her away, she kept herself prisoner from the shock of the disbelief that she was a victim in that kind of inhuman reality, while crying as if, with the tears coming out of her eyes, the overwhelming pain would also come out of her soul. She was disgusted by her broken body and her hair that Blerimi had touched, by the eyes that he had seen, by everything about her. She wanted to burn that body, with the soul imprisoned inside it, and be free.
 
    She couldn't go to the hospital, and she was afraid that the police wouldn't believe her. Moreover, her sister, Visara, was also in danger. What if Blerimi also harmed the innocent girl because Anila had denounced him?
 
    Amarildo! The hatred for him was so deep that it made her doubt whether she had ever loved his brother. He was to blame for everything. How was she going to tell her parents what a crime their son had committed, whom they were constantly proud of for being a righteous man, and that she had suffered the same misfortune as Xhuliana Agolli because of him? Would they believe her?
 
    She grabbed her hair out of self-loathing for not believing Brunilda and being so blind to the obvious signs that there was something wrong with Blerimi and that she should have walked away so as not to suffer because of him.
 
    All that positivity that she had shown to people, the love given to them with the thought that it would make them feel good thanks to it. They must have laughed so hard at her behind her back. How naive she had been, they must have thought, how much fun they must have made of her, felt disgusted, and never wanted to have her company again.
 
    How had she allowed herself to fall so low and so badly into the darkness? She had had the best of everything and had sacrificed it all for someone who had just destroyed her whole life.
 
••••
    Blerimi parked his car in front of his house and got out of the vehicle, content that he had reached that point in his plan.
 
    Amarildo was in for quite a surprise when he came home.
 
    That part was finally coming to an end, too. After killing Anila, if she didn't kill herself first and finish Amarildo, he would go live in America and be exultant only for his anger.
 
    He stopped at the entrance of the apartment building by the vibration of his phone in the pocket of his black sportive trousers and read the name of his friend, Albion Huba, on the screen.
 
    "Hello?" he answered and listened to the long-awaited news from Albioni without moving from where he stopped.
 
    "Amarildo Idrizaj has come to Albania."