The bell rang, shrill and final, echoing through the empty halls as students spilled out like restless currents into the late afternoon sky. The rain had held off all day, but the clouds above were thick with menace, gray and heavy, like a storm waiting to break.
I moved quietly, my feet barely touching the ground as I slipped past groups of chatting classmates, their laughter and lightness alien to me now. My little shelter behind the school awaited — the place I built from scraps, a small fortress against the world that had betrayed me.
When I arrived, the familiar scent of wet wood and earth greeted me, mingled with the sharp sting of cold air. I didn't relax. Not yet.
I sensed them before I saw them.
The shadows moved like venomous snakes.
Takumi, Haruka, Souta, and a few others—the ones who had made my life a living nightmare.
They laughed, cruel and empty.
They hadn't changed.
But I had.
I was no longer the broken boy who swallowed their insults.
Slowly, deliberately, I let myself be seen.
Their laughter died in their throats.
"Look who it is," Takumi sneered. "Back from the dead?"
I said nothing.
I let the silence weigh heavy.
Then I moved.
Not fast—slow, deliberate steps, a predator stalking its prey.
I grabbed Takumi first, twisting his arm behind his back.
"Let me go, freak!" he spat, struggling.
I dragged him to a place hidden from the path, far enough that no one would hear their screams.
The others froze.
Haruka, Souta, the others tried to back away but I was already behind them, my hands like iron shackles.
Their eyes widened—not with fear, but with confusion.
What was I doing?
I was beyond their understanding.
I was the storm they had brewed.
The pain they had sown.
I gave it back to them.
Slowly.
Pain by pain.
Scream by scream.
The hours blurred—darkness wrapped us like a shroud.
Blood stained my hands, my clothes, my skin.
Their cries echoed in my mind, a sweet symphony to ears that had only known silence and suffering.
Then time stopped.
The world froze.
A child appeared in the stillness.
Kaoru.
She looked no older than eight, dressed in white, her innocent eyes wide as they studied me—my bloodied form, the fury in my gaze.
"Are you satisfied with this?" she asked, her voice soft but piercing.
I looked down at my hands, dripping with their pain.
I smiled, cold and hollow.
"Why wouldn't I be?" I said.
"Why shouldn't I cause trouble to those who caused trouble to me? Pain and suffering—they deserve it."
Kaoru's eyes flickered with something dark—fear? Sadness? I couldn't tell.
Then she disappeared, like a fading shadow.
Time resumed.
I turned to the trembling bullies.
"Final moments," I said quietly.
"Anything else you want to say?"
They couldn't answer.
Their voices caught in their throats.
My aura flared—black and red, alive and hungry.
My eyes changed, blood-red, fierce.
I was no longer human.
I was the devil they had made me.
One by one, their bodies collapsed.
The silence that followed was absolute.
—
Days later, the news broke like a storm.
Four students found dead near the school.
Police swarmed the area.
Whispers of a curse spread through the halls.
I sat alone in my shelter, scrolling through my phone.
My name was never mentioned.
But it wouldn't be long.
The fear settled in.
They would find me.
I could feel it.
Slowly, I began cutting ties—erasing anyone who knew me.
No more risks.
No more connections.
The rain poured that night as I walked home.
Heavy, relentless.
Washing away the boy I was.
And nurturing the monster I was becoming.