Bang! Bang! Bang!
A series of deafening blasts echoed abruptly in the middle of the night. Max, standing behind his parents, felt a hot liquid splash onto his face.
A ringing noise filled his ears, drowning out everything except the muffled screams of a girl at the counter.
"What the hell have you done?! Killing these people will land us in prison with no chance of ever walking free again." One of the robbers grabbed the man who had fired the shots and berated him.
The shooter defended himself, shouting, "That son of a bitch was too strong! He was beating the hell out of us!"
"And so you shot him?"
While the men argued, Max's trembling hands reached out into the air, searching for his parents—those protective figures who had always been there for him since he lost his sight.
"Mom… Dad…" Max's broken voice echoed through the deathly silence as he tried to move forward.
Thud!
As Max took a step, he stumbled and fell to his knees in what felt like a warm, thick liquid. Extending his hands over the floor, he touched something unmistakable—a warm hand.
"Mom?" Max's heart pounded in his chest, his teeth clenched so tightly they began to grind.
His beautiful mother, the one he had sworn to protect when he grew older, lay in a pool of blood with three gaping wounds in her chest.
Max's mother had given her life to shield her son, while his father, lying a few feet away, struggled in vain to stand despite several bullet wounds to his chest.
"Cowards…"
The arguing robbers turned their heads toward the furious voice of a child.
"What did you say?"
"I said you're cowardly sons of bitches!" Max's roar was so fierce that the robbers felt the weight of the blind boy's unseeing gaze.
Crack!
Before Max could continue, a brutal kick struck his left eye, sending him flying into a rack of snacks.
Everything after that became a blur. Max vaguely heard the voice of a girl comforting him, saying an ambulance was on its way.
But disoriented and with a searing wound to his left eye, Max soon lost consciousness.
...
Parkside Private Hospital. London, United Kingdom.
A few days later, an older man with a ponytail approached the office of the internist monitoring Max. "How is my nephew?" he asked.
"Mr. Silver, your nephew is currently in recovery. We've restored vision in one of his eyes, so he should regain normal sight in that one. However, regarding the other..." The doctor's expression turned grim.
Terry, who had recently lost his sister, stared at the doctor. "Speak clearly."
"The boy will be blind in his left eye. The operation planned to fully restore his vision could not be performed on the second eye because the blow caused irreparable damage to critical areas we couldn't repair."
The kick Max had received to his left eye left permanent damage, including a fierce scar that would likely cause him emotional trauma in the future.
"Can I see him now?" Terry asked, unfazed. As his sister's only child, Max was now his responsibility, and Terry resolved to care for him as his own.
"He's currently asleep, but I recommend waiting until he's more lucid and fully aware of what happened that night."
The doctors couldn't predict the depth of Max's trauma. Watching his parents murdered before him while blind would leave wounds no surgery could heal.
Luckily, Terry Silver—though now an aging man—was the last family Max had, even if Max couldn't yet fully grasp who he was.
...
Max woke up, and the first thing he felt was pain. His head throbbed as if it were about to explode, and his whole body felt numb.
He tried to move but found he couldn't.
"I'm useless…" Max's hoarse voice echoed through the room.
As the sole survivor of his family, he was furious with himself for being so helpless.
If he hadn't been hungry, his parents wouldn't have died.
If he weren't disabled, his parents wouldn't have needed to come to the UK.
And if only he had his sight, he could have protected them.
Instead, he was here, lying on a comfortable bed.
"You're awake?" A calm voice broke the silence, addressing Max as he stirred.
"Who is it?"
"I'm your uncle. Did your mother ever mention me?" The voice belonged to Terry, who had stayed by Max's side the whole time.
"Terry Silver?" Max remembered something. His mother had said Terry had taken over the family business and was becoming a millionaire.
"Something like that." Every time Max thought of his mother, he pictured her lifeless body on the floor.
"Are you angry?" Terry asked knowingly.
"I'm furious!" Max's hands clenched so tightly that his knuckles turned white.
"What will you do about it?"
"I want to be strong…"
Terry smiled, looking at young Max. "To be strong, you must train. Are you sure that's what you want?"
"I want to be strong!" This time, Max's words carried a determination far deeper than mere emotion.
It was the will to become strong enough to find his parents' killers and break their limbs one by one.
He would kill them all. Their families would pay too.
"Your right eye will recover, but as for your left, I'm afraid you'll be blind on that side," Terry said bluntly. He didn't believe in sugarcoating things; Max needed someone to be firm with him now.
Pity wouldn't heal Max's heart. Terry, who had once been lost himself, knew this better than anyone.
"One eye is enough." Max knew that with just one eye, he could learn to defend himself and never feel weak again.
"Good. Once you recover, we'll go home," Terry said, rising to leave the room. Before stepping out, he added, "By the way, the criminals who attacked your parents have been arrested."
"What?" Max gasped.
Those bastards were caught? In a country where the death penalty had been abolished in 1999, Max clenched his fists, knowing those criminals would now live safely behind bars.
"Get them out…"
"What did you say?" Terry asked, puzzled.
"I want them out so I can kill them with my own hands," Max growled, his hoarse voice filled with resentment and murderous intent. For a boy who barely understood death, his words were driven by rage and despair.