Morning arrived without ceremony.
The pale sunlight slipped through thin curtains, touching the edges of a quiet room that still smelled of smoke and antiseptic soap.
She woke slowly from bed.
Arcee lay still for a moment, staring at the ceiling. The events of last night did not rush back all at once.
Last night had been hell. Not loud hell. Where reality pressed down so heavily that breathing itself felt like work.
She pushed herself upright. The floor felt colder than usual beneath her feet. Every step toward the washroom felt heavier than it should have.
Cold water splashed against her face.
Once. Twice. Again.
She stayed there longer than necessary. Her palms rested against the sink. Watching droplets fall into porcelain.
Watching something normal happen, as if normalcy itself could anchor her.
Afterward, she prepared tea without thinking. She boiled water. Steam curled upward in soft spirals. The familiar scent filled the room.
She carried the cup carefully. Fingers wrapped around its warmth and stepped toward the balcony.
Morning air greeted her very cool and indifferent to the tragedies of the night before.
A diary rested on the small table outside. Its cover worn from years of handling. She sat down slowly, placing the tea beside it.
Her fingers rested on the diary for a long time before finally lifting the cover.
The first page greeted her with familiar handwriting. Slightly slanted, unmistakably his.
"Blyke Rhodes."
Seeing the name written so plainly tightened something deep inside her chest. Not pain exactly.
She turned the page slowly.
More handwriting. More of him, preserved in ink.
A memory surfaced alongside it... his voices from years ago, casual but unusually serious that day. He had handed her this diary with a crooked smile, scratching the back of his head like he always did when he felt awkward.
Don't open it until we're separated. The kind where… you can't reach me anymore. Well, I just kinda feel frustrated...
She hadn't laughed back then. She remembered feeling uneasy, brushing the thought aside because it sounded too dramatic, too unnecessary.
Now the same words had changed its depth completely... those same diabolical acts...
She turned another page.
The paper trembled slightly between her fingers as she began to read.
"This is for you. If you are reading this, then I guess I was right about one thing. We got separated."
"Not the temporary kind. The real one. Haha, big difference."
"So… I should introduce myself properly. Not the version you know. The one I never explained."
A short gap followed like he had paused back then, thinking about where to begin.
"I was born into a family that looked normal from the outside. Had plenty of money. Smiled when guests visited. The kind of one neighbors often envied."
"Inside… it was different."
"My father had an affair. Not just with anyone—with my own cousin. I didn't understand it when I was younger. I only saw how my mother changed."
"She stopped laughing first. Then she stopped talking. Then she stopped expecting anything from anyone."
"I used to sit outside her room sometimes. I didn't know what to say. Just sitting there… hoping she would open the door on her own."
"After a while, something inside me went quiet too. I… turned off."
"I started losing interest in everything. Food didn't taste the same as before. Games weren't fun anymore. Even good days felt like background noise and time waste."
The words became simpler after that, more direct, like someone tired of pretending.
"I kept thinking… what's the point of all this? Living, studying, smiling… if it all ends the same way?"
"That thought stayed with me for years. A kind of dull impact sat on my chest."
"Still, even with all that, I cared about people. Weird, right?"
"I didn't feel much about my own life… but when someone else got hurt, it bothered me more than it should."
A faint scratch marked the next sentence, as if he had hesitated.
"I was always scared of making mistakes. No matter it was small or big. Everything that can ruin everything around you."
"So I avoided talking too much. I eventually stopped making any kind of relation out of necessity."
"Communication felt dangerous for me, I don't know how to describe it. Like every word had the power to destroy something if I said it wrong."
She turned the pages over pages slowly.
"People say children don't remember much. That memories only start forming properly after a certain age."
"But that's not entirely true. Children remember what shocks them. What scares them enough to carve itself into their mind."
A small pause in the lines followed.
"Now imagine this being your first memory…. walking into a room and seeing your mother lying on the floor… blood flowing from her head like a fountain and your father standing above her, breathing heavily like nothing but a beast."
The ink pressed deeper into the paper again.
"What was my mother's fault? She only asked for justice, didn't she?"
"Just asked him why he did all that to her. That's all. After that day, something inside her broke permanently."
"She didn't die… but she didn't stay the same either. She became… unstable. Some days she cried for hours. Some days she laughed at nothing. Some days she held me so tightly I couldn't breathe. She began cooking horrible dishes worth vomiting."
"She loved me. I know she did."
"But it wasn't healthy love anymore. She followed me everywhere inside the house. Checked on me every few minutes. Panicked if I stayed quiet too long."
"Her love turned into fear… and that fear turned into control."
A faint scratch ran through one word. Seeming like Blyke had tried to erase the word.
"I didn't hate her. I couldn't. She was all I had. But living like that made me feel… smaller every day."
"Another short gap. I had no friends. Not because I didn't want them. I did. More than anything what I felt necessary for me was the feeling of having friends."
"But every time I thought about talking to someone… my heart began to beat very loud. My mind filled with thoughts of saying something wrong, ruining everything before it even started."
"So I stayed quiet. Watching people from a distance… pretending I didn't care."
"My father… if someone looked from outside, he may look like the most innocent guy on the planet."
"Most days he behaved well with me. Played chess sometimes, let me read books, even smiled at small things."
"But that day… that one day changed everything. I was trying to protect my mother, thinking I could stop what was happening. But in that instant, I saw him clearly. Not the man who smiled and praised me."
"He didn't even think. A steel pipe in his hands, and he let it fall on both of us and the ironic part?"
"It was my birthday. The one day no one remembered. Though… I never cared much for birthdays anyway."
"I had dreams once. To become an archaeologist, an astronaut, a philosopher. My mind wandered to every possible life, every world I could touch. But each dream dissolved into… nothing. Circumstances didn't allow them to grow and slowly I stopped caring."
"Yet I never hated my parents. I respected them… both of them, for raising me the best they could."
"I understood my father always carried hatred in the shadows. He brought home the anger he collected from the world and let it crush my mother. It was never about me. But I saw it, I felt it, I learned it."
"So I promised myself something. No matter what, on this Earth… if I ever have the chance to be a father or a husband, I would be a good one. Even if I could never claim to be a good human, I would not pass on the cruelty that shaped me."
"I met her first in a park. She was intelligent, patient, gentle. Her smile… it wasn't flashy, but it made the world feel smaller, safer like home could exist anywhere she was."
"What does a man need more in a woman?"
The next line pondered, almost like a question asked to the universe itself.
"If she can cook without complaint, sleep beside you through the nights, stay unwaveringly by your side… isn't that enough? If a lifetime's chaos surrounds you, isn't it solace to find one soul willing to walk through it beside you?"
However, I cried that day. I couldn't stop. I couldn't believe it. I had a family. My own child was born, a daughter. Someone I would protect with the remnants of my soul, even if it meant breaking myself a thousand times over."
Arcee's hands trembled slightly as she turned the pages.
"I lived my life with them, every quiet morning and evening, every small laughter, every chatter that made the walls of our home feel alive. I remember them all."
He recounted the day his daughter shared her dream too vast for this world.
"She wanted to be a Heroine, someone who could punish injustice. How could I, a man forged in the shadow of cruelty and suffering, reveal to that little kind soul that the world doesn't always reward goodness? That sometimes courage is not enough?"
Yet she had asked him to accompany her, to stand by her as she chased that impossible path. Blyke had made a silent vow, more diabolical than any battle he had ever fought; he would not die, not until he had ensured she would find the perfect life, the perfect person to share it with.
Then the world twisted its cruel hand.
"Death took my challenge seriously." he wrote. "It came for them both. My daughter, my wife… an accident, they were gone. And Death, it laughed at me that day. It laughed at the plans, the dreams, the hope I had built."
Arcee's hands shook as she turned the page further.
"Now, as you read this... Death is laughing at my corpse too. The world mocks the man who dared to love, who dared to promise eternity to those he cherished. I can only leave my words, a whisper for someone who will come in future generations. Someone who might understand the futility, the love, and the unbearable tragedy of loss."