The dark room smelled of fear.
Rivan sat on the cold marble floor, his gloved hands stained with blood.
The woman in front of him lay still, her last breath long gone. Her eyes were wide open, staring at nothing.
He looked at her with blank eyes. No guilt. No regret.
Only silence...
He carefully picked up the knife he used.
No fingerprints...
No hair...
No mistakes...
He cleaned the blade with a white cloth and placed it inside a black box, just like he always did.
The room was spotless again within fifteen minutes.
No one would ever know she had existed.
No one would ever know he was here.
Standing up, Rivan adjusted the cuffs of his black shirt. His movements were smooth, controlled almost graceful.
Another night without feeling anything.
He stepped out of the small apartment, locking the door behind him like a regular guest leaving a friend's house.
The night air was cold. It kissed his skin as he pulled the hood of his jacket over his head.
His mind was empty.
Or so he thought.
But flashes of blood...
screams...
and broken bodies haunted him inside.
S I X T E E N Y E A R S A G O.
The mountains were quiet... Too quiet...
The snow crunched under his boots as he ran back toward the camp, holding a bottle of water in his hands.
"Mom! Siya!" he called out to his mother and sister.
No answer...
A strange coldness filled his chest.
When he reached the tent, the bottle slipped from his fingers.
His mother lay on the ground, her eyes wide, her chest soaked with blood.
Next to her, his little sister Siya, only eight years old was frozen in a pool of red.
And then he saw his father.
Standing a few feet away, holding a knife.
His father's hands were shaking. His face was wet with tears.
"I'm sorry, Rivan," his father whispered, his voice breaking.
Before Rivan could move, before he could scream
his father slit his own throat.
The blood sprayed like rain on the white snow.
Rivan stood frozen, thirteen years old, staring at the bodies of his family...
His mother, his sister, his father.
Gone...
Just like that...
P R E S E N T
Since that day, something inside Rivan had died.
He stopped believing in love...
