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“Did you fight with her, son?”

I was sane, but my godfather had always been out for blood. I shifted my gaze, locked straight ahead until that moment, toward Sebastian.

“I’ll kill you.”

I’d never attacked him with my bare hands before. There had been a few times when I’d fought using my extendable metal arm, but this was the first time I knocked him to the ground with my own hands. He shoved me off and kicked me back, but I didn’t care. I lunged at him again like a wild animal, but Sebastian threw me off once more. I managed to land a few punches on his face, but I was no match for his build.

“When will you be trained, Ray?”

I spat in his face, but he only pinned him down with his arms.

“I’ll kill you. I swear… I’ll kill you.”

I didn’t know what I was saying. Didn’t know who or what I wanted to kill, but I was starving to ravage something. For years, that stupid labyrinth had kept me untouched by the ruin below. Now, I had been cast out of it. And after years of silence, the cruel symphony in my head had begun to play again.

You don’t love me. You can’t even see me behind my masks.

As my mind repeated the same phrases over and over, the agony flourished inside me. There was no Mina to tame the beast that escaped its cage. I felt so infuriated and frenzied I wasn’t even surprised when Sebastian locked me in and concealed the key to my door. My impulse to destroy things grew intense, I couldn’t think straight, couldn’t catch my breath, and longed for Mina’s voice in my mind to stop for the first time. I didn’t want to hear it, couldn’t endure it, couldn’t confront it.

You’ve idealized me.

Unable to escape the turmoil inside me, the endless darkness claimed my consciousness. This time I was not in her deep ocean; instead, I met with such a cold emptiness. My windpipes were blocked, air could not reach my lungs. Did Mina feel this way when she was with me? Did she feel like she was going to die at any moment? I would burn the whole world down to keep her from feeling this way, but if I was the one making her feel this way, what should I do? Who should I destroy? As the void swallowed me whole, the hunger I had felt in my soul before I met her visited me again. Now it wasn’t even eager to feed itself; it had almost given up.

What am I living for? If I don’t love you, who am I? If you are not my forever, how can I keep living?

“After he wakes up, we’ll need to administer serious treatment. It seems like he knows how to poison himself, his veins are as corrupted as those of someone who has been taking drugs for years.”

I opened my heavy lids at the sound that reached my ears. Family friend Dr. Aneta said this with a serious expression, and beside me, Sebastian Loxton sighed, then calmly smoke his cigarette. My gaze was vacant; and Sebastian glanced at Aneta.

“Leave us.”

The doctor left the scene, and I averted my eyes.

“Did you do it on purpose, or did you just overdose?” Sebastian asked in a flat voice.

“I don’t know.” I said after a few seconds. “For the first time… I don’t know what to do with my life. What was I living for?”

“Forget her, Ray.” He conceded. “Come to your senses. It’s enough.”

“Forget…?” I murmured. At my desperate tone, he exhaled again.

“Why don’t you see her again? Since when do you let her have the final say?”

“She hates me. She said… she hates me.”

“You shouldn’t care whether she hates you or not. What happened to you?”

If truth be told, I always cared a lot. I had been fascinated by the foolish concept of free will since childhood; I couldn’t trample on it. Free will was what made a person most human. I knew it well, but I couldn’t stop loathing Mina’s will. Couldn’t grasp the reality she hated me of her own will.

“I wish… she was here.”

“Oh, son. You deserve better than her.”

I tried to swallow, but the dryness in my throat wouldn’t go away. Deserve… Did I deserve Mina? Bernova had claimed years ago I didn’t, but my answer was still the same.

If I don’t deserve her, who does? I would find that person and kill them, erasing everyone until no one was left in the whole world, so that I would be the only one who deserved her. Mina’s love-starved nature would be forced to accept me.

But would that satisfy me?