Solitude

encounter

Amara Minerva Tag let out a heavy sigh. She kept on reminding herself that this was the right thing to do. She needed answers, so she would seek for it.

She smiled at the guard in front as the gates were opened. This building, all grey concrete and steel, never failed to send shivers down her spine. She's already familiar with this place; she went there a few times before. All for the sake of meeting him.

Another heavy door slides open, accompanied by whirring sound of the machinations that work it out. She stepped into a room decorated in white. From the walls to its tiles, and the cold metal table and chairs. From the other side of the room, another whirring sound could be heard. The second door revealed a man she had been seeing at least once a month for the past year. She clutched the recorder just a little bit tighter, before giving her famous 100-watt smile.

" Hello, Mister Alaric. I hope I didn't interrupt anything."

-------------

Roman Alaric was the world's renowned businessman.

Cherished and loved, celebrated and taken pride in, the young yet mature bachelor was the talk of the town. His life seemed so perfect back then; big enterprise, numerous businesses, loaded to the brim that no amount of charity could empty his accounts all around the world. Besides his pristine appearance and good looks—he got men and women, young and old grovel at his feet, seeking his attention. But he never paid them any mind, since he's already engaged to his childhood sweetheart, someone so refined, smart, and beautiful that no other suitor had no room to even feel a little bit jealous since it's just meant to be. At that time, Amara Tag's young mind was muddled with the thought of being just like Roman Alaric.

So how did he end up in these four white walls with that obnoxious orange jumpsuit, limbs cuffed and blindfolded?

Murder, apparently.

Amara Tag was 13 when her father, Kiefer Tag, killed on his way home after one of his journalistic job. She remembered the call that broke her mother's heart, she remembered the funeral the day after, she remembered everything but who did it and the reason why.

It took them nearly a year before a call came from the police. Roman Alaric was the one who put that bullet on his father's heart—the very same Roman Alaric that everybody admired. 

They found him after he killed his fiancée and his parents. The neighbors heard gunshots from the obscenely big house in what supposed to be a happy affair of family dinner. That's where they found him, meticulously cleaning up the scattered blood and brain. The corpses were lined up nicely, leaning to the wall.

Custom made guns and bullet were never the best choices if you're a murderer, moreover if you have it right beside you when you're cleaning up the remains of your victims.

So they brought him in cuffs, and that's how the world remembered him. Not for the businessman he was, not for his lifelong lists of good deeds. Not for his sharp look and expensive suits. Roman Alaric was a murderer, a cold-blooded person that killed his own, and a woman he promised to love along with them.

But Tag's why hadn't been answered. Even after the trial, Roman Alaric kept quiet about anything and everything, answering questions with vague sentences that somehow made sense. His lawyer was the one who did most of the talking. Kenneth Seire, now Prosecutor Kenneth Seire, that's known to win most of his cases, put words of temporary insanity, self-defense, and being trapped between a rock and a hard place which brought his life sentence to 15 years. Some whispered blasphemy, some bellowed in outrage, Missus Tag was wailing in front of the judge, asking about justice and equality. But Roman Alaric still kept his mouth shut.