Special chapter: The final descent.
In a world where tbe concept of inhumans didn't exists, Adult Ren stood alone on the rooftop, the night air biting against his skin like a cold, unrelenting embrace.
The sky above him was a dark, inky canvas, dotted with a handful of faint stars that seemed too distant to offer any comfort. The city's lights flickered below, a chaotic sea of artificial brightness that only served to deepen the shadows within him. Ren's breath came in slow, measured intervals, his chest rising and falling with the mechanical precision of a man who had long since ceased to feel.
The body at his feet, lying in a pool of still-warm blood, was a grim reminder of the life he had led—the life that had brought him to this moment. The man's eyes were still open, frozen in an expression of shock, as if he couldn't quite believe that death had come for him so suddenly, so ruthlessly. But for Ren, this was just another body, just another mission completed. He had become numb to the sight of death, his soul hardened by years of killing.
"How did it come to this?"Ren asked himself, though the answer was already clear in his mind. His face, once full of youthful determination, was now etched with the lines of someone who had seen too much, done too much. His eyes, once bright with ambition, were now cold, lifeless—windows to a soul that had long since been buried beneath the weight of his sins.
He tried to remember the last time he had truly felt something—joy, sorrow, fear—but the memories were hazy, lost in a fog of blood and violence. All that remained was a deep, unshakable emptiness. The wind whipped around him, ruffling his dark hair, which had grown longer and more unkempt over the years. It was as if he had stopped caring about his appearance, as if he had stopped caring about everything except the next mission, the next kill.
Ren's gaze drifted over the edge of the rooftop, down to the sprawling city below.
From this height, the people looked like tiny, insignificant specks, moving about their lives with no knowledge of the darkness that lurked just beneath the surface. He envied them, in a way. They were blissfully ignorant of the world he had been forced to inhabit—a world of shadows and blood, where morality was a luxury he could no longer afford.
"I was just a boy once," Ren murmured to himself, the sound of his own voice startling in the stillness of the night. His tone was laced with a bitter sadness, a melancholic reflection on a past that seemed like it belonged to someone else. "A boy with dreams... with hope. I wanted to be a hero, to save people, to protect those who couldn't protect themselves. I thought if I became strong enough, if I learned enough, I could make a difference."
He let out a soft, humorless laugh, the sound swallowed by the wind. It was a laugh that held no joy, only a deep, abiding sense of irony. 'How naive I was,' he thought, his lips curling into a sad, self-deprecating smile. His hands, which had once been soft and unmarked, were now rough, calloused from years of handling weapons. He stared at them, his fingers trembling slightly as he recalled the countless lives he had taken with these hands—lives that had been snuffed out in the name of a cause he no longer believed in.
"They said I had potential," Ren continued, his voice barely more than a whisper. "They said I could be great. And I believed them. God, how I believed them." He shook his head, his expression hardening as he remembered the promises, the lies that had led him down this path. "I was so desperate to prove myself, to be something more than just another face in the crowd. I let them mold me, shape me into their weapon. I thought I was becoming stronger, but all I was doing was losing myself, piece by piece."
His eyes darkened as he recalled the faces of those who had trained him, those who had seen the raw potential in him and twisted it to their own ends.
They had praised him, encouraged him, made him feel like he was special, like he was destined for greatness. But all they had really done was strip away his humanity, turning him into a cold, efficient killer.
'When did I become this monster?' Ren wondered, his mind searching for the exact moment when he had crossed the line, when he had ceased to be the boy with dreams and had become the tool of others. But the truth was, it hadn't happened all at once. It had been a gradual process, so slow and insidious that he hadn't even realized it was happening until it was too late.
"I used to tell myself that it was for the greater good," Ren said, his voice thick with bitterness. "That all the blood I spilled was necessary, that it was for a cause worth fighting for. But now, standing here, looking down at this... this corpse, I can't even remember what that cause was." He gestured vaguely at the body below him, his expression one of disgust—disgust at the man he had killed, but more so at himself. "All I see are the faces of those I've killed, the lives I've destroyed. And all I hear are the screams... the screams that never stop, no matter how hard I try to silence them."
Ren's face twisted in anguish as the memories flooded back, unbidden and relentless.
The faces of his victims—men, women, children—flashed before his eyes, their voices blending into a cacophony of pain and suffering. He squeezed his eyes shut, pressing the heels of his hands against his temples as if he could block out the images, the sounds. But they were relentless, clawing at the edges of his consciousness, dragging him down into the darkness.
He opened his eyes and looked down at his hands again, hands that had once been clean, innocent. Now they were stained with blood that no amount of water, no amount of time, could ever wash away. *I'm a monster,* he realized, the full weight of his actions settling over him like a suffocating shroud. He had lost his way, lost his soul, and now there was nothing left for him in this world. Nothing but the end.
Suddenly, Ren felt a presence, as if the souls of those he had killed were rising up from the abyss to drag him down with them. Arms of those whom he had killed started to pull him down, down into a world of redness. The screams of both the innocent and the guilty echoed in his ears, a chorus of torment that threatened to drive him mad. He could feel their hands on him, cold and unforgiving, clawing at his flesh, trying to drag him into the depths where he belonged.
'I'm drowning,' he thought, panic seizing him as the weight of his sins pulled him deeper into despair. The world around him seemed to blur, the edges of his vision darkening as if the darkness within him was consuming everything in its path. 'There's no escape, no redemption. This is my fate.'
He looked ahead to see a random building light , he reached out for it , only for it to go out of his length, rejecting him.
Ren took a deep breath, steadying himself. He had one last choice to make—one final act that would free him from this torment, from the endless cycle of blood and death. His hand brushed against the cold steel of the gun at his side, the very weapon he had used to take so many lives. It was fitting, in a way, that it would also be the instrument of his own end.
'He pulled the gun from its holster, his movements slow and deliberate, as if he were performing some sacred ritual.' The weight of the weapon was familiar, comforting even, in its cold, unyielding presence. He turned it over in his hands, inspecting it as if seeing it for the first time. The barrel, the trigger, the grip—all of it had become an extension of himself, a tool that had served him well in his bloody profession.
"I thought I was strong," Ren whispered, a sad smile playing on his lips. "But I was wrong. I was never strong. I was just... lost. I let them use me, let them turn me into something I was never meant to be. And now... now there's nothing left of me. Nothing but this hollow shell, this broken thing that used to be human."
He raised the gun to his temple, the cold metal pressing against his skin like a final, cruel embrace.
His finger hovered over the trigger, his mind racing with thoughts and memories, all jumbled together in a chaotic swirl. He thought of his family, of the friends he had lost, of the innocent lives he had taken. He thought of the boy he had once been, the boy who had dreamed of becoming a hero. 'What a fool I was,' he thought, his eyes filling with tears that he quickly blinked away. 'What a naive, stupid fool.'
Ren's gaze drifted over the edge of the rooftop once more, the void below calling to him like a siren's song.
He had never feared death, but now, standing on the precipice, he found that he welcomed it. It was the only way to end the pain, the only way to escape the ghosts that haunted him. The only way to find peace.
He took a step forward, his heart pounding in his chest, the sound echoing in his ears like a drumbeat.
He closed his eyes, his mind drifting back to a time before the killing, before the darkness had consumed him. He saw himself as a young boy, full of hope and dreams, before the world had shown him its true face. Before he had become the very thing he had sworn to fight against.
"I... am finally free," Ren whispered to the wind, his voice filled with a bittersweet sense of release.
"Free at last—from this world, this pain, the lies, and the endless bloodshed. And all that's left is this smile... a fleeting, tragic smile."
With those final words, Ren took the last step forward, the world falling away beneath him as he plummeted towards the ground. The wind roared in his ears, drowning out the screams, the voices, everything. For the first time in years, Ren felt truly at peace. As the ground rushed up to meet him, he allowed himself one final thought, a fleeting memory of the boy he had once been.
'Maybe in another life,' he mused, 'I could have been something more. Something good. But not in this one. Not in this life.'
Ren's body hit the pavement with a sickening thud, but in that final moment, he found the peace that had eluded him for so long. And there, in the darkness, as the world faded away, he was free.