Blood and Roses

Epilogue

~Angelo

Two weeks. It’s been an eternity, an agonizing stretch of time that’s torn through my soul like a relentless storm. In the abyss of these two excruciatingly long weeks, Camila’s visage has become a distant memory, fading like a ghost into the shadows. Arrested, shackled by chains of guilt and despair, I’ve become a prisoner not just of these steel bars, but of my own remorse.

Felix, that elusive specter, slipped away like smoke between my fingers, leaving a trail of bitterness and betrayal. And Luca… oh, Luca, his departure carved a chasm in my heart, a void that echoes with unanswered questions and the haunting specter of loss.

I’ve lost track of Camila’s whereabouts, swallowed by the shadows, elusive like a phantom. Somehow, she slipped through the net, evading the clutches of the officers who ensnared me. Felix, that cunning ghost, remains a mystery too, a puzzle piece lost in a sea of uncertainty.

My words fall on deaf ears, drowned out by the echoing silence that surrounds me. No one grants me the dignity of eye contact, their gazes evading mine as if I’m a contagion to be avoided. Even those who questioned me upon my arrival feigned attention, their eyes betraying their true focus, darting anywhere but at me. What were their emotions in that moment? A swirling tempest of sorrow, rage, satisfaction? Their intentions remain veiled, a wall of detachment I’m left to face.

Yet, in that dim-lit chamber of interrogation, one figure stood out—a specter of grief and fury. The Lieutenant, a sentinel of pain, held the weight of his daughter’s absence in his stare. Each glare he leveled my way was a bolt of indignation, his skin flushed with the fire of his wrath. His eyes, pools of anguish, brimmed with tears that bore witness to his loss. My very presence was a mirror reflecting the void his daughter’s absence left behind.

A darkness deeper than I could ever imagine has enveloped me. The day they took me, slapped those cold cuffs on my wrists, I believed that was the lowest point my soul could plummet. But the abyss only grew, its depths unfathomable.

Every gaze that fell upon the father of the girl I snatched from this world, it carved a canyon of ache within my chest. Each photograph of my victims placed before me was like a cruel mirror, reflecting the devastation I wrought. I wanted to turn away, to shatter that damning reflection, but I forced myself to face the monstrosity I’d become.

The officers’ words, like shards of glass, carved into the remains of my heart. Mention of my parents, those memories that once offered solace, now brought searing pain, fragments of love irreparably shattered. Now, as I rest on this bare mattress, chained like an animal to my own remorse, the weight of my actions crushes down upon me.

I stand amazed at the person I once was, the audacity with which I wielded cruelty like a weapon. I reveled in the agony I wrought, taking lives with a grin, savoring the screams. I ripped apart families, watching as the tendrils of their anguish stretched out, all while I relished their despair. How could I have ever been that creature of darkness, that embodiment of malevolence? The disgust I feel for that version of myself is immeasurable, a corrosive loathing that eats away at whatever is left of my soul.

But what am I now? Angry, yes, at the choices that led me down this harrowing path. Disappointed, a deep well of regret that pools in my chest, mingling with the self-hatred that has grown like a cancer. And as I sit here, shackled both by these cold chains and by my own wretched history, I find myself too deep within this abyss to climb out. The ache of remorse doesn’t absolve me, doesn’t undo the suffering I’ve wrought. It’s an inescapable truth: my hands are stained with the blood of the innocent, and no amount of remorse can erase that chilling fact.

The clench of handcuffs around my wrists is a constant, bitter reminder of my captivity. These chains are an embodiment of my own helplessness, an emblem of the violence that simmers within me, a reflection of the rage I struggle to contain.