It was not an accident.
It was not an accident.
It was not an accident or a coincidence, and much less.
What I began to suspect from my father's medical history was eventually confirmed as I investigated, but who would do this and why?
Well, as far as I knew, he had no enemies, and he was not the kind of person who easily earned the hatred of those around him, and I doubt that one of his acquaintances had the resources or the ability to orchestrate his death in such a complicated and reasonable way.
The more I investigated, the more confusing everything seemed, as everything seemed too planned, but circumstances made it feel like many things were a series of unfortunate coincidences.
To the point where I began to believe that I had been wrong, that I was going crazy, imagining things where there were none, believing that there was a conspiracy in a place where there was only a strange group of coincidences.
But my doubts were dispelled when I directed my doubts towards my suspicions towards the hospital, and in a matter of days I got the information I had been waiting for, in the form of a conversation and exchange, while following a guy who had been showing up at the hospital too much, and although he changed cars and license plates over the days, I ended up noticing that it was almost always the same person.
This led me to follow him, believing that I had figured out what was going on, from what I had discovered so far, which made me feel that we had been very unlucky. But that didn't mean that there wasn't someone who had to pay for this.
And a small recorder in his car ended up revealing who he had to make pay.
You need to stop doing this so often; you're going to get caught.
Person A said, in a warning tone, as if scolding a child who is about to ruin something by acting hastily and recklessly.
Don't worry so much, I know exactly what I'm doing, and I've taken all the necessary precautions to ensure that everything will go well.
Person B says, in a relaxed tone, as if trying to calm his partner down.
Fine, do whatever you want, just don't screw it up, or even your life and the lives of your entire family won't be enough to pay for it.
Person A responds as if they had had this conversation many times before and were tired of this discussion that was going nowhere.
What followed were some indistinguishable sounds, which I assume were the sounds of an exchange of goods for cash; I know this because I thought I heard the friction of pieces of paper, and it was pretty obvious that it would be the sound of paper being made in what seemed to be an illegal exchange.
***
I had figured it out, I finally knew the truth, one that I felt I should have known from the beginning, and although I believed that the truth would bring me some peace and vindication, the truth only made me feel worse, because all of this could have been avoided with a slightly different choice, if only we had gone to another hospital or if we had requested his transfer to one of the hospitals that belonged to his EPS.
And the worst thing is that this truth, instead of bringing me peace and allowing me to seek justice for my father, only became a terrible burden, because, although I knew the truth and had proof, the problem was too big and revealing it would only bring another disaster to the doors of our home.
***
You know, I was raised to think that it was better to be good, that even when full of evil, eventually justice and good will win out.
Those were the words I said to Tres, nicknamed that way for years simply because he has 3 names, the friend who accompanied me on my crusade for justice, who did more to help than any other sane person would have done for the person closest to them. He gave me a home, a base of operations, money, and tools to continue my madness without letting me act impulsively, and that is something I can never repay.
I thought I could get justice if I gathered all the evidence, I would get my justice, but now I'm giving up when I have all the evidence in my hands when I thought I had won.
That was the only thing I could say, while I clenched my fists and tried not to cry because of the helplessness that came from knowing that, despite everything, I was not capable of doing anything.
… Kaden.
You can see Three's helpless face, full of indecision and helplessness, like someone who wants to comfort someone, but just doesn't know what to do to achieve it; doesn't know that nothing he does can comfort the person.
Thank you for everything, but I think this ends here. But I won't forget everything you did for me; if you ever need me, you can call me, and no matter what it is, I'll be there for you.
After the longest 5 minutes of my entire life, I forced myself to say those words, not only to thank the one who always helped me but also to convince myself that it was all over.
And after a hug, I didn't know I needed, we said goodbye, going our separate ways, leaving behind the trials we worked so hard to achieve, while we pretended to go back to our lives, pretending that none of this happened.
***
But what did we discover? What would kill the hope of justice for someone who was clamoring to make the guilty pay at all costs?
The answer is as simple as it is cruel: an opponent too large and powerful, against whom all our actions would be useless, and attempting to attack would only result in consequences that none of us could bear.
To sum it up, we accidentally uncovered an international organ trafficking network, with links to the justice system and extremely powerful politicians.
After all, the richer a person is, the less willing they are to die, and their decadent and impulsive lifestyles, where they constantly seek pleasure, obviously end up causing them certain diseases and health conditions.
The problem is that many of these problems can be solved with organ transplants, but most of them have enemies of the same status, and jumping the queue to get a transplant is not very serious, but it is very easy to trace and can cause a PR nightmare, or at least that's what we thought.
So at some point, an organization emerged that was willing to get transplants to people who neither want nor can wait for a transplant, and at the same time were willing to pay a considerable price to get their transplant.
But at some point, their business got too good, and traditional organ trafficking couldn't keep up with the huge demand for "products", but it was no longer the same business as when they started this business, and in the face of this crisis they came up with a terrible idea, which would take advantage of all their connections with the people who governed different aspects of society.
And that's how they created a huge network of interests where the only ones who suffered were the insignificant people, who nobody cared about if they disappeared.
To accomplish their mission, they partnered with various hospitals, mainly public ones, where they found doctors who had long since abandoned their conscience and who would do anything for the sake of making a profit.
They simply had to package and transport the organs of those not listed as organ donors, and if a major client needed a "product" urgently, some unfortunate match would end up dying in an unfortunate way, with his organs disappearing without anyone noticing, and if he was a donor, but was a suitable choice, he would die of an illness that by pure coincidence prevented him from donating his organs.
And all this could go unnoticed, because this business had long since become an assembly line, perfectly coordinated with doctors, forensic experts, transporters, and authorities, which became more difficult to stop every day. After all, there were always new people involved, and most of them were the ones who wrote the laws of society, being part of its almost unstoppable assembly line, where human life was the main product.
Of course, this didn't make me doubt, but further investigation revealed that I was not the first to discover this, but those who tried to seek justice met miserable ends.
Death was one of the most merciful outcomes, as they, with all their power and influence, were able to silence the voices of anyone who tried to reveal the truth.
And in the end, the whistleblowers would end up in peculiar situations, with their relatives or friends dying mysteriously, with them being the main culprits, facing all kinds of court cases, be it for murder, rape, or any crime that erases any credibility of anyone, only for the news to be buried by a bunch of sensational news stories, only for it all to end with a footnote that the whistleblower died in prison due to revenge or, unable to bear the guilt, ended his own life.
One of the cases I managed to investigate was that of a man who tried to look for his wife, but only a few weeks later his daughter disappeared and was found dead with signs of abuse, with all the evidence pointing to him as the culprit, and in the end the last thing that is supposed about him is that he was sentenced and, while in prison, he ended his own life at night, without anyone noticing in an overcrowded petition, where he alone occupied a cell for two people.
In the end, this seemed like just a very bad joke, since what was supposed to be the death of a normal person was in the middle of a conspiracy involving the most powerful and influential people in the nation.
And this wasn't the only case; there was a long list of people who tried to speak out only for them or their families to suffer accidents that would prevent them from continuing with their cases, which were quickly closed, revealed or they became involved in crimes that landed them in prison, where the one who had the best outcome ended up paralyzed from the elbow down, with all their acquaintances and family thinking that they were a rapist and murderer who deserved what happened to them.
That long list of cases finally killed my courage, because although anger and resentment drove me, I still had more to lose, and I was aware that I was no better than all those who failed before me.
I had already lost too much and I simply couldn't risk losing what little I had left, although unknowingly I had already lost it in another way, I remained unaware of it.
In the end, I realized that in the real world, the good guys aren't the ones who win, because the bad guys won a long time ago and they are the ones who wrote the rules and the lies we all live by. There is no savior, no convenient honest police chief in a group of corrupt people, or some miraculously honest politician willing to seek justice.
There is simply no convenient or right way to seek justice where the bad guys rule, and sadly I had to learn that lesson the hard way.
That day my faith and my spirit died, because how is it possible that in a world where God exists this happens, because someone good had to die for no reason, while a group of monsters extends their life at their expense.
***
In the end, I returned to the place I thought was my home, tired and defeated by reality, with the spirit and pride that I thought was as strong as steel completely broken.
And when I came back I found what was left of my family angry, blaming me for disappearing when they needed me the most, blaming me for disappearing without saying anything, leaving them alone to face all their problems.
"While I was going with my drug addict friend and running away from my problems like a coward, your father didn't raise you like that. Your father is going to die and you behave like that, going off on your own, behaving like a criminal."
Those words showed that our relationship was falling apart and the next thing I did caused it to collapse. They finally broke me; they didn't know what I had to do, what I sacrificed, just to return to a house where I was only insulted and reprimanded.
I'm not proud of this, because, by the end of that day, I had said and done things that ended up breaking the relationship with what remained of my family.
And so began the beginning of the end of my world as I knew it, and even though at the time I thought this was the worst thing that had ever happened to me and I was at my lowest point, that was just the beginning of my world collapsing.
TO BE CONTINUED….