Teyat had taken several steps closer before shooting his brother.
And now, it was his turn.
His father, enjoying himself, left an opening, unaware that Teyat was slowly and stealthily approaching him from behind.
He dropped the gun, and Teyat suddenly drew a knife from his back.
He didn't even feel the pain, because what was filling him now was more than just pain.
The urge to kill.
Thus, Teyat surrendered all his hatred, rage, sorrow, and pain to his power.
When Teyat suddenly turned toward his father with incredible speed, he pulled the knife from his back and lunged forward with all his hatred, screaming as he thrust it into the monster before him.
"SHUT YOUR MOUTH!"
As soon as his father saw Teyat coming, he reflexively fired his gun at Teyat, but this time he missed because fate had handed the killing blow to the little monster this time.
He missed. One bullet hit Teyat's arm, but he didn't care because his soul, mind, and body were solely focused on killing.
And that voice in his head further intensified this focus.
Having missed his last chance, Teyat now tightly gripped the knife in his hand and quickly stabbed his father's throat, then pulled the knife out and stabbed it repeatedly into his father's esophagus with all his hatred.
His father, tasting a death more savage than any cruelty he had committed, experienced this firsthand.
Before the long knife driven into his throat by the monster he had raised could be thrust deeper, the only expression on his face was one of shock.
And pain.
His father fell to the ground, staring at Teyat with wide-open eyes, as blood flowed from his throat like a small stream, filled with shock and pain.
Teyat had now become a monster.
Though he hadn't wanted to, circumstances had turned him into this. He had no choice. He was hopeless. There was nothing he could do.
He coldly and terrifyingly looked into his father's shocked eyes.
And with those hatred-filled, terrifying eyes, he asked his father with a cold and emotionless expression that lacked words to describe the depth of his hatred, but embodied the union of darkness:
"Father, what does it mean to be human?"
•
"No, mother, please don't go! Don't leave me, mother, don't die, I love you, please!!"
A child, with black hair and brown eyes, who bore a strong resemblance to Teyat's younger self, screamed in great sorrow, his eyes filled with tears streaming down his face as he cried helplessly, seeing the dirty, blood-stained dress of his mother who had hanged herself.
"Please, mother, don't leave me, hold on!!"
With a voice filled with pain, he kept trying to free his mother's dead body from the noose.
Teyat's father, as a child, had just witnessed his mother's suicide.
For a brief time, he tried with all his strength to free his mother's body from the noose.
And then suddenly, he gave up on saving her lifeless body and collapsed, exhausted.
His head hung low. He stared at his hands in trauma.
"What was my mother's crime? Why was her life ruined by parasites, leading her to kill herself? Justice… Where is God's justice? No, where is God?"
By parasites, Teyat's father meant the people who had never let him or his mother live a single happy day since his birth.
Teyat's father uttered these painful words while staring at his hands in trauma, tears streaming down his face as he collapsed on the ground.
And he continued:
"Our right… Don't we have the right? Don't we have the right to be free? Don't we have the right to be happy? Don't we have the right to be loved? So why do we live? Is everything in vain? Is it possible? It can't be? But destiny—accept it? No, I don't want to accept it. There's nothing we can do. There is, there could be. If we are God's people, God can create a way out. Patience. Until when? Be grateful for your situation? For this? Don't be selfish? Why are people selfish? Pray to God? Is God so low that He would ask a suffering child to pray for help? Shut up. Shut up. SHUT YOUR MOUTH! Fine. I understand. I am praying, yes, I am praying. Please, God, erase my existence from this universe. Erase my memories, erase my emotions, erase my soul, erase everything. I'm ready. If all that I have lived through will turn into nothingness, I'm ready to become nothing myself…"
"I'm ready to become nothing."
Teyat's father had lost his mind. Voices in his head were telling him the opposite of what he was thinking.
And with a sudden emotional shift, he grabbed his hair with both hands and started pulling it tightly, his once emotionless face now twisted into the manic grin of someone who had gone mad.
"Why… tell me, God, is this a test? Damn your test! Do you want me to be patient? No. Am I going to Hell? Do I care?!"
As he spoke these words with the crazed grin on his face, he stood up in a frenzy, pulling his hair tightly and screaming, with veins of anger swelling in his eyes from the madness he was experiencing.
"Tell me, God, TELL ME, YOU WORTHLESS GOD. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE HUMAN TO YOU?!"
His scream echoed inside the cabin where Teyat's family had been slaughtered.
And after his breakdown, he collapsed again. His entire body dropped to his knees.
In his hands, there was more than just a handful of his own hair.
And a few drops of tears.
Teyat's father, as a child, had been in an even worse state than Teyat was now.
With a voice filled with pain, he whispered softly.
"I wish I could be human. I wish I could live happily with my mother, like other people. I wish I could experience the taste of freedom with my mother, like other people…"
And then his face froze, as if something had occurred to him.
His eyes widened, and he looked at the hair in his hand.
"Really… what does it mean to be human?"
Teyat's father, kneeling on the ground, stared at his hands in trauma and uttered these words softly, devoid of any emotion.
At that moment, the door of the cabin where both father and son had lost their loved ones creaked open.
His father had arrived.
In his left hand was a drink, and in his right, a knife.
Teyat's father, severely drunk, was surprised at the scene before him and let out a grin.
"Oh, dear, my beloved wife killed herself, huh? Such a shame, I liked her."
Upon hearing his drunken father's voice, Teyat's father slowly and unsteadily rose to his feet.
As he stood, in a calm but emotionless tone, he said:
"Welcome home, father. How does this magnificent show, brought about by you, satisfy you?"
His father, not understanding anything, slurred his words.
"What? What are you saying, kid? Oh, are you mad at me because your mom's dead? Aww, poor thing."
Teyat's father, with his back turned to his drunken father, simply turned his head toward him with a traumatic expression and coldly uttered these emotionless words:
"Father, what does it mean to be human?"
And after these words, Teyat's father would eventually kill his drunken father through a series of events…
Perhaps father and son were merely forgotten slaves, yearning for freedom, insignificant beings forsaken by God.
Calling Teyat a 'slave forgotten by God' was as fitting for his father as it was for himself, given their shared experiences.
They both belonged to the forgotten…
•
Teyat saw a large, thick iron rod in front of him, the same tool used to kill his mother…
After committing this act of brutality, the dogs stared at him in fear.
Teyat picked up the iron rod and angrily walked toward his father.
His father was still alive but on the verge of death.
Teyat cast a cold and dark look at his father.
As his father lay on the ground, bleeding, he gave Teyat a bloody smile, staring back at his son with a cold and dark gaze.
And through blood and muffled words, his father whispered:
"Think about it, what does it mean to be human?"
"My son."
And Teyat, with all his strength, struck his father's face hard with the thick iron rod.
Soon, the ground was covered in pieces of flesh.
The dogs, terrified by what they saw, tried to break their chains and flee because they knew they were next.
Teyat felt no remorse for this act of savagery; in fact, a small smirk appeared on his cold and emotionless face.
No, it was a psychopathic smile, as if he were taking pleasure in something.
And that smile turned into a quiet but painful laugh.
He had planned it all, just to kill that monster in a horrific way, even involving his sister in the plan—not out of cruelty, but because he had no other option to create or do anything else for his sister.
That's why he chose a painless death for his sister.
Before killing his sister, Teyat quickly devised two plans in his mind.
Plan A: After putting the first bullet in her sister, she would put the second bullet in her sister to see if there would be a second bullet, because the third bullet would go into the head of her father who would enjoy the death of his daughter Teyat had a lot of experience and knowledge about her father's cruelties.She knew that her father would give in to his pleasure and give her any opening, but there was a seventy-five percent chance that there would either be a third bullet or there would not be a third bullet, and even if there was a second bullet, there was a high chance that it would be a third bullet, but Teyat's luck eliminated both possibilities.
Plan B: To remove the knife from his shoulder and stab his father, even in the face of death.
Teyat's mind prevailed.
Teyat had ensured his sister's painless death and had killed the monster who had tortured him countless times in his own way, in terror.
Teyat had fulfilled both wishes.
He was already a monster, but a cunning and clever one. He had waited for the right time and place.
Teyat's intelligence prevailed.
Teyat was the embodiment of the "monster in the darkness".