"Is that your face?"
Her voice startled him, as though it had broken through the suffocating silence of his thoughts. He glanced at her, the hollow darkness in his eyes reflecting the weight of the past. "It's different," he murmured, the truth seeping in like a bitter memory. "The eyes...they're not mine anymore. Not truly."
Valeria's gaze softened. "I guess it has something to do with your resurrection."
He froze. Resurrection. The word echoed in his mind like a curse. His mind raced, grappling with the impossible. Had he really come back to life?
When he had surrendered to the darkness, when the breath had left his lungs for the last time, he had died. And now… now he was alive again, though in a way that made no sense. His body restored, yet his soul a fractured shadow.
His fingers lifted to his eyes, searching for something—anything—that would explain the void within him. He could see, but what he saw was not life. It was as though his eyes had seen too much death, too much suffering. They were dark, cold. Dead eyes.
"Do you have anyone?" Valeria asked gently, her voice breaking through the fog of his thoughts.
Her question stung like an open wound. His heart clenched painfully, memories of Charmaine flooding his mind. Her screams. Her lifeless body in his arms.
"She's dead," he whispered, the words tasting like ash on his tongue. "She's no more."
The weight of her absence felt as real as the air in his lungs. Charmaine… Her death, her suffering—every detail was etched into his soul. The pain threatened to consume him.
But Valeria didn't stop. "What about your family?"
His breath hitched. The memory of his father, dying in his arms, clung to him like an eternal nightmare. His mother's cold hands after she had taken her life—the sharp, searing image. And then, his brother, Peter, the last thread of family he had… abandoned him.
"Peter must have taken everything," Draven muttered bitterly, his voice hollow. "I'm a pauper now. I can't even afford the bills."
Valeria's voice was soft, insistent. "Don't worry about the hospital bill. I'll take care of it."
Her kindness, her willingness to help, tore through him like a blade. He didn't want her pity, her charity. What was the point of living when all it meant was more suffering? More loss?
"It makes no difference to me," he said coldly, the words bitter on his tongue.
He saw the flash of hurt in her eyes, but it didn't matter. He didn't want to be saved. He didn't deserve to be saved.
He had blamed her. Accused her of dragging him back into this miserable existence, this endless torment. But even as his words cut deep, there was something within him that knew he shouldn't have said them. He wanted her to leave. He wanted to be alone with his suffering.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly, his voice hoarse. "I didn't mean to…" But she was already walking out the door. He felt an unfamiliar pang of guilt, but it quickly faded into the shadows of his heart.
The silence in the room swallowed him whole.
Minutes passed, but the stillness only made him feel more broken. His thoughts swirled, suffocating him. What was the point of all this?
She returned, her presence a quiet echo of compassion. "I've settled your bill," Valeria said softly, her eyes searching his face.
"Just leave me alone," he snapped, his voice sharp. "Forget you ever saw me."
His words felt like knives, but he couldn't stop them. He couldn't stop the torrent of bitterness that had been building inside him. She didn't understand. She could never understand the darkness he carried. He couldn't bear to let her get any closer.
Her frown was barely visible, but it cut him deeper than he cared to admit. Slowly, she walked out, and for a moment, the weight of her departure felt like a relief.
But the relief was fleeting. It was always fleeting.
Draven rose from the bed, unable to sit in the cage of his thoughts any longer. He walked out of the ward and made his way up to the highest floor of the building, where the cold air of the terrace greeted him like an old, familiar friend.
He stood at the edge, looking out over the city. The vastness of the world before him felt like a reminder of everything he had lost. Charmaine. His family. His future. All of it gone, swept away by death, by his own failures.
The pain gnawed at him, relentless, unforgiving. He couldn't escape it. Not here. Not in this life that felt like an endless echo of misery.
He stepped closer to the edge, the wind whispering against his skin. How far would it be?
He had nothing left. His mind kept spiraling, torn between two paths: the path of revenge, where he could exact justice for Charmaine, and the path of peace, where he could end his suffering once and for all.
His heart pounded in his chest, and his breath came in ragged bursts. How much longer could he endure this pain?
A single tear escaped, tracing a path down his cheek, mixing with the cold air. He closed his eyes, the memories of Charmaine's final moments flashing before him. Her lifeless body. The sound of her name, dying on his lips.
"I'm sorry," he whispered to the wind, as if apologizing to her, to everyone he had failed.
But no amount of apologies would ever undo the damage. No amount of sorrow would bring her back.
With a final, broken sob, he stepped back from the edge, his body trembling, not from the cold, but from the weight of everything he carried.
And in that moment, as the pain threatened to consume him whole, a thought pierced the darkness: Maybe it wasn't the end yet. Maybe there was something still left to fight for.
He shed tears and apologized for having to leave without finding justice. He didn't even have a clue of what they did to her body and here he was running away like a coward.
He couldn't say for sure. But for the first time, a flicker of uncertainty made him hesitate.
A flicker of hope.
And then, he took another step back.
He took a few steps backwards and remembered his pain his loneliness and his suffering.
He closed his eyes and made a silent prayer. He had made his decision.
He ran towards the edge and jumped from the terrace of the seventeenth floor.