In a small flat filled with ready-made food packages and smelling musty, a gray-haired young man named peter was sitting in front of a small tube television, watching an American movie illegally broadcast by an unknown television channel.
If we take a closer look at the young man named Peter, we can see that Peter's pupils are not focused on anything.
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I couldn't focus on the TV, no matter how much I wanted to, because I had already watched the action series on the TV in front of me three times.
I stopped trying to watch TV and sauntered over to the mini fridge in the American-style kitchen of my one-room apartment. I probably had too much beer again.
When I opened the mini fridge door, spending extra energy to maintain my balance, the only thing that greeted me was the cracked egg that was left to its own fate in the egg cup in the door compartment and symbolized me in a way.
I clenched my right hand into a fist and hit my head hard, and my memory started working again after being treated as harshly as my old television.
When my memory got better, I remembered that I ate the last half wrap I had put in the fridge when I woke up in the morning. I applied the quick recovery tactic I learned from my physical education teacher by quickly stretching my neck to both sides and my head stopped spinning.
After I went out and took a few steps to get food, a terrible pain shot through my head and I tripped over my own feet and fell to the ground.
As my eyes slowly closed, I hurled vicious curses at the teacher of the only course in which I received average grades before dropping out of high school.
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When I realized that I could no longer feel the pain in my head, I raised my hand and put it on my forehead to check what was happening. I didn't know why I did this, but as I put my hand to my forehead, I noticed that my hand was abnormally small and sensitive.
"Don't leave my hand Peter, these alleys are dangerous. Let's go home quickly, otherwise monsters will come and eat us."
When I heard the nostalgic voice coming from behind and very close to me, small changes occurred in my expressionless face. I didn't turn around right away because when I turned around, I would see the smiling and mocking face of my long-dead mother, I was sure of that.
I have seen this nightmare many times before and now I know exactly what will happen. I silently began to pray to the gods of all the religions I could think of, all I wanted was to wake up right now. But the gods, as always, chose to ignore a small and insignificant creature like me.
I started to tremble with fear as a gentle hand reached out to my shoulder and forced me to turn towards him.
And there is that face... Delicate and beautiful, and light make-up applied on the face...
My mother was not afraid to light up the dark street with her own smile, just like a goddess.
My thoughts were getting out of control. Maybe my mom thought that if this had been uglier, this wouldn't have happened to her, or maybe if my dad had come grocery shopping with us, this wouldn't have happened.
Looking at my mother's face, I tried to recreate the smile I had lost long ago, but my facial muscles were opposing my wishes.
With the footsteps that caught my ear, every nerve in my body was stretched to its limits. Over the shoulder of my mother, who was bent over in front of me and worried about me because of my expression, I saw the silhouettes of two men who I have not forgotten for years.
I was so familiar with this scene that without even looking back, I knew that two men had come out from the side of the alley behind me and were walking towards us.
When my mother saw the men, she quickly realized what was going on and took out tear spray from her purse. I wanted to scream at my mother that what she was doing was pointless, that street thugs are experienced in resisting such things, and take her and run away from here, but my body was fixed in place without moving, just like when I was a child.
This was the first short-term paralysis caused by conversion disorder I ever experienced. That was the first time I realized that I could not move when I was faced with a situation such as great stress, excitement or fear.
The attackers quickly solved my mother's defense attempt and began to tie her mouth with a tie they brought with them. My mother's last words while being tied by 4 men were to beg the bandits not to kill me.
While three rude-looking men were brutally tearing my mother's clothes off, the only thing I could do was shake slightly and shed tears while watching them with an expressionless face. The man in the suit, the leader of the gangsters, took a few steps back, came to me and examined me.
" An expressionless face and tears flowing from your eyes. You look like a completely mentally ill psychopath, kid, but I know you're not like that. Hahaha. Tell you what, stay here and watch my men having a good time with your mother, maybe this will help you become a solid psychopath in the future. You know our industry always needs such men."
I had already memorized every word the leader of the gangsters said a long time ago. When the man in the suit saw that I still didn't react, he poked the back of my head with one finger and I fell over like a statue.
It took me a moment before my head hit the ground and I stood up again, but this time the sight I saw was nothing but my moldy apartment.
While I was experiencing a terrible pain in my head due to the beer bottles I drank before fainting, I had already recovered from the dream or was acting as usual.
Holding on to the counter, I forced myself into my small bathroom. As I stood in front of the mirror and washed my face, I remembered that night again. My mother passed away painfully after being the toy of those thugs for hours.
Ten minutes after the incident, the police found us. The police sent me to the hospital with an ambulance as I lay on the ground, paralyzed, and here my nightmare went to the second level.
When my father and sister learned what had happened, they immediately went to the ambulance and collided with a truck on the road.
That's what the cops told me shortly after I regained consciousness in the hospital room, but I later learned that there was a connection between the cops and the gangster gang.
While looking at the person looking at me expressionlessly from the mirror, I pointed at myself in the mirror with one hand.
"You are a poor dog. No no, you are not even a dog. Even dogs protect their loved ones better than you. You are weak and you will remain weak. Give up and go throw yourself out of that damn window, because a weak person like you cannot take revenge even after a century."
Whatever words came out of my mouth had no effect on my facial expressions or emotions. I can't even remember the last time I laughed or cried
I knew every one of the people behind what happened to my mother, but I couldn't take revenge because every time I saw one of them, I was paralyzed again.
While looking in the mirror at the dozens of tattoos that the pale-skinned, white-haired boy with purple eyes had inked on his arm. In fact, once upon a time when I was still confident that I could take revenge, I joined the city's second-largest gang.
After working hard in the gang for a while, one day suddenly the news about what happened to me spread throughout the gang. I never went back to the gang's base because every single gang member was having fun with me and my past.
Under normal circumstances, if someone wanted to leave the gang like me, that person's body would be at his family's doorstep two days later. Of course, since no one in the gang saw me as worth taking seriously, they didn't send anyone after me. According to them, I didn't even have any information to disclose to the police.
Before this incident happened, I had spent almost 4 years in the gang, from middle school to my sophomore year of high school. I left the gang and school at the same time and started working in jobs such as construction.
Since it was Sunday, I didn't need to go to work. I cut my stubble with a razor, resisted the urge to stab the razor into my own throat, and then took the cigarette box from the kitchen counter and left my apartment.
The corridors of my apartment were quite stuffy and dark. As I walked up the stairs and opened the fire door leading to the roof on the top floor, a strong light source caught my eye.
"It's already morning"
After lighting a cigarette and putting it in my mouth, I sat on the edge of the roof and started watching the people passing below.
"What is the purpose of these people? Why are they trying so hard to live?"
While I was smoking repeatedly, I remembered my dream and involuntarily muttered, "Would this happen if I were stronger?"
After taking one last drag on my cigarette, I was about to get up and go back to my apartment, but a strange message that suddenly appeared in the air caught my attention and I stayed in my place.