"I look at you, and I wish to vomit."

"You are an utter disgrace! What the hell were you thinking? Contaminating my bloodline with the dirt from the street. Gosh! seek Dr. Rancid to remove that containinating virus from my genealogy."

An aristocratic man in his late fifties. He has a serious facial expression. An oval, or rather, a v-shaped facial bone. Blue eyes with neatly arranged eyebrows. He was in a tailored-made ash suit with black leather office shoes. He just returned from a busy day at the office with a gloomy expression. His family doctor, Dr. Rancid, confirmed his ticket to the higher social ladder was contaminated with an abomination from the street.

'Gosh! I will strangle that degenerate pig who ate the swan with my bare hands.' He thought while squeezing his hands hard.

'I will deal with this useless daughter of mine when I have achieved my aim. For now, she should obediently play her dutiful role of a bargaining chip and knot tie with Senator Aflac's son.'

Elaine Hattie, daughter of Grayson Hattie, is a sixteen-year-old sculptor goddess. She didn't inherit her father's blue eyes but took over her mother's brown eyes. A goddess who left this cruel world when she was six years old. Her hair color was between an unrecognizable brown and an ocean of black. She had the oval face of her mother and a supermodel-shaped body.

Her figure and her sculpted face are toppling high-ranking political and powerful figures. It was on the border of a full-blown war. Maybe it was a full-blown war that she was yet to know.

She looked directly into the eyes of her father and knew this stupid man meant what he said. She guesses it was time to cut all ties and move away.

What of Gary Ian? The handsome man who conquered her feeble heart. He was six feet seven, making her, who is five feet eight, small. His muscular, athletic body wasn't gotten from the gym but rather from years of hard labor. His gentle touches on her skin and those searching black pupils were too stimulating for Elaine. Who was totally new to the world of love?

He was eighteen. He was two years her senior, but he was more mature than any man she had ever met.

The foolish father was now pursuing such a well-mannered and experienced man. She silently said her prayers while wishing for her father's assassins to miss their target.

Such was a wishful thought. Her father's trained assassins have never failed to deliver. Not even once. Only a miracle can save Gary.

To be frank here, she doesn't care where the miracle will originate. Be it the Christian God, the Muslim God, the great Buddha, or other great deities. She vowed to dedicate her whole being to such a miraculous supreme being who would save her man from the clutches of confirmed death.

Bam!

The door to her foolish father's library was forcefully opened. It was her father's head assassin.

He has no name but was called Zero. Same with the rest of her father's assassins. They are being called according to their code. The best will be titled zero. then one, two, and thereabouts.

Elaine, who knelt on the marble beside her supposed father's reading desk, got her heart beating at an alarming rate. The heart was pumping beyond what was medically healthy. It was dangerously pumping toward a cardiac arrest.

'Nooo! Is he dead?'

'Papa, if your assassins killed Gary, I will never forgive you.'

"Master, we failed. Punish me for being useless." Zero kneeled beside his master, awaiting his fate.

"Tell me, how in the world did it happen?" Grayson slowly emphasized his sentence.

Zero got goosebumps crawling all over his skin, but for Elaine, this was music to her ear. Gary escaped his father's assassin pursuit. I dedicate my life to serving the gods or goddesses that bestow this incredible miracle. Use me as you deem fit.

"He jumped into the bleeding river. He was shot. The bullet is in a dangerous region of his body." Zero replied to her father.

"Oh! He is as good as dead." Grayson revealed a breath-taking victory smile.

Elaine's heart was racing again. It was from frying pan to fire. Will her love survive this ordeal?

"Master, do we have permission to camp around the bleeding river bank for his corpse or, if he miraculously survived, we will complete our job to send him to the afterlife?" Zero is seriously suggesting it to Gayson.

Badump! 

Elaine couldn't take this anymore. If her love was dead, which she didn't believe. He won't be allowed an eternal rest. She knew what her sadist father did to the corpses of his enemies.

Escape!!

She must flee to her beloved. Flee from this hypocrisy called life.

"We don't have to waste manpower on a nobody who might have been ghosted. Wait for him for a week and return to the mansion." Grayson impatiently sent Zero away, not wanting to hear any words related to that vermin.

"Aye! Sir." Zero replied and whooshed off.

He turned to his daughter and looked at her as if she were contaminated with a deadly virus. He said, "Do away with that... that GERM in your womb before you earn the right to call me father. Mind you, you are grounded until the abortion. Someone... Take this filthy daughter of mine away from my sight."

"Make sure she is closely monitored until the thing in her womb is thoroughly removed." Grayson gave his verdict.

"Yes sir." A maid replied.

Yes, it was her. The maid who snitched at Elaine. The spy her father kept by her side to monitor all her activities. She has successfully ruined her love life.

...

The bleeding river was indeed dangerous. The tale was accurate. It exists to eat the living. Gary, who was unconscious, was banged around. Sometimes, his body was vehemently rolled and immersed in the bleeding river as he floated away. It was as if the bleeding river were working overtime to claim its loot.

This did not help the bullet plunge in between the left lung and his heart. Gary has unconsciously hitched a ride with the grim reaper. A single mistaken shift of the bullet, and he will eternally sleep with his fathers.

This should be a medical worry, but fate wasn't buying it.

Dr. Zachary Roy had a rough day at work today. He is an expert surgeon who has had experience in surgery for at least twenty-five years. He has experienced enough life to be full. He had amassed wealth. He had kids, some grandkids, and great-grandkids. He viewed life as a repeated replay, except when saving a pitiful life.

A patient of his fought hard. So hard enough that she ought to have won the fight. He was given a reality check and made to understand the world joke with everything. His patient died. His source of happiness went along with his patient's death.

He was lost, and the bitter feeling of losing again to death was unpleasant.

On this twilight evening, he was walking along the banks of the infamous bleeding river when he saw the pale, muscular body of a teenager washed ashore. He freaked out, but only for a second. He summoned up courage and went closer to the body to check on its vitals.