A Serenade for the Innocent - 89

I feel like, these days, I’ve been sleeping a whole lot more than before, but I still feel like I am not getting enough.

My body appears stiff, the back of my head wouldn’t stop aching, my eyes would droop like a massive boulder, and my throat always seems like it’s filled with phlegm. I cannot even begin to explain how small I feel right now; I just think the world is too much of a gigantic hunk of mess for me to bother myself to leave the confines of my room. Nonetheless, I still need to get out for various reasons.

I am currently unemployed, which is not necessarily a fact that I am fond of saying, but I am quite happy about my performance whilst I was still a working man. Thus, I still continue to scour through numerous companies just to find a job that would suit my expertise and qualifications. Anything lower than the company I last worked for is not at all suitable for a person such as I. However, this also means that I have to go out, hard as it may seem to me and going out always have its negative connotations now that I have found myself at the mercy of my mother’s death.

I thought all of the talks about my already decaying mother would end once I spoke with the police officers and my aunt Gela last week, but I was naive to think that way. Naysayers around me, who never once cared for my existence before I finally turned into an orphan, would start flocking around me if I dare take just a step out of my room to ask about what had happened to my mother. Even until now, the police officers would still bug me about the case, saying that it was indeed a peculiar situation because, apparently, no amount of autopsy report could show the identity of my mother’s killer.

Nevertheless, the fact that my mother’s face had been chopped eight times while her body was slashed countless times, making her look like a butchered hunk of meat. Every time I see a picture of my mother, I would always remember the bloodless and profoundly deep wounds inflicted all over her face like that of an uncooked salami, making me put every image of her that I have in a space that I would never check such as the thin space underneath my cabinet.

It all felt so surreal that I didn’t have enough time to grieve; nay, I was not given the privilege to feel sad about the whole charade. After weeping for my mother a little bit, I was promptly asked by the police officer about my relationship with her and what I would say about who her murderer might be. Of course, I know a lot of people, but there’s just too plenty of them for me to mention them all. The only thing I know for sure is that the man who killed my mother is a man, and there’s no other person who would hate her more than one of her violent ex-boyfriends.

And then there’s this whole thing about the media; I mean, of course, the news would be interested in it; the story is phenomenal! Single mother killed because of a lovers’ spat, violent aftermath, gruesome details; of course, they wouldn’t mention in their articles that I’m already twenty-fucking-eight years old because that would ruin their juicy narrative very much so. However, that also means more people would start bothering me at a time when I would very much rather allow myself the peace that I deserve.

There’s so much I’ve already told, but we’re not even remotely done with the amount of stress this murder case has given me. The month is not even over yet; it was only just a week, and I’m already feeling meek and weak! I haven’t even touched the information about the funeral services, which my aunt Gela would have happily paid for because she was very much aware that I’m currently unemployed now, but then she found out about my 100 grand because of my blabbering mouth and now, the whole thing is all up to me! No one ever told me that funerals would be this expensive, but I couldn’t be bothered giving my mother an extravagant funeral now and end up bleeding all of my savings! However, aunt Gela implored me to at least flow a hefty amount of cash to it because it is what my mother would have wanted, but like… I don’t give a shit what she would have wanted!

Haa…

It doesn’t matter. In the end, I still bit aunt Gela’s bait and ended up spending about twenty thousand dollars. I…

Haa… Twenty thousand dollars… I should have just taken the 10k plan, but… Haa… I need to learn to stand up for myself more.

At this point, the death of my mother didn’t give me sadness anymore; I didn’t even manage to cry at the funeral. I was just tired, frustrated, and regretful; I couldn’t even be bothered talking to the guests at all, but luckily, aunt Gela felt the growing animosity in me and informed the guests to give me some time to “cope her lost” when in truth, I was thinking to myself that I would have wanted to kill myself then and there to meet my mother in hell just to befall upon her the fury I have kept within me for two decades!

All of these stressful moments along with the growing anger I have towards my dead mother made me want to scream on top of the tallest building on earth just so I could finally tell each and every single person on this garbage pile of a planet that I hate every single human being that lived, living, and will live in it.

However, all of the fanfare about the case died down, the police stopped talking about it, and aunt Gela returned to her home in Santa Fe. Only then did I finally realize that I don’t need any of all that. I don’t need to go to hell, I don’t need to go to the tallest building on earth, and I do not hate every single person on earth.

I just…

I really just need a friend.

That’s why, after weeks of refusing to speak with Mike, I finally chatted him up and called him after not receiving a reply for a few hours. I was a bit bummed out that he didn’t answer all of my attempts to contact him, but I was not particularly mad at him for it because I know that he’s also a busy man. I heaved a sigh as I remembered that he had told me his address before in the past when I asked him if I could visit his home. I didn’t really manage to give his place a visit at that time, but I thought that maybe today is the best day to do that. Thus, I did. I scrolled up to our old conversation, remembering all the laughs that we had along the way until finally, I saw it. I promptly prepared myself to go there: I showered adequately and even dressed a bit nicely just so he wouldn’t be embarrassed in having me in his home. I noticed when I checked in Google Maps that it was not that far from my own apartment, so I just decided to walk towards there with a feeling of excitement somewhat seeping through me. For once, after a long time in my own seclusion inside of my garbage room, I finally felt a twinge of joy.

When I got there, I tried smiling properly, so he wouldn’t be able to see that I have been down for the entirety of the month. I knocked thrice, trying my hardest not to do so too loudly but also not too weak that he might not be able to hear it. I noticed after five minutes of me standing in front of his place that he wasn’t answering; I then chatted him on Messenger to tell him that I am in front of his room, hoping that he might see it.

I then sighed with a disappointed look on his face; I then simply shrugged it off and thought that maybe he was just too busy at work, so he couldn’t accommodate the likes of me. Perhaps, he’s not at home right now, and he’s actually way too deep in his work that when he finally noticed that I have been messaging and calling him, he would be so flustered and apologize to me endlessly, which puts a gentle smile on my face while thinking about it.

I then shoved my phone inside of my pocket, deciding to go home instead and try some other time again, when suddenly, the door towards Mark’s room opened ever so slightly, making me see the darkness that lays beneath his brown door. I gulped my saliva down as I noticed that the pitch blackness coming from inside was so harsh that I could almost feel it swallowing the light around it instead of the other way around. What also struck my attention more than such benumbing darkness was the murky aura that the tiny crevice exudes alongside an intense smell that I could not even smell in my room at its worst state. It felt as if a ghastly shadow was emerging from out of Mike’s darkened room, making me gulp the spit in my mouth as I could feel my body tremble ever so slightly.

I then decided to take a step further to open the room’s door ever so slowly with a grim expression plastered on my face as I shook once more, thinking about what this room would contain to entail such unbearable feeling. What I saw inside was a pitch-black room so cold that I could almost taste it; the breeze coming out of the room felt so unnatural to a secluded place like this, making me realize that maybe the air conditioning is open. I then took a step forward towards the room and allowed the darkness within to swallow me whole, making me feel the coldness within even more than when I was just observing from outside. I shake my head, thinking that maybe Mike is just sleeping inside, and he just forgot to close the door, which is something I could definitely see him often do because of how careless he is.

I then decided to man-up and go further into Mike’s room before closing his door gently. After walking a few more steps forward, I suddenly saw a light coming from afar; it looked like it was coming from a lamp somewhere deep inside the room.Find authorized novels in Webnovel，faster updates, better experience，Please click www.webnovel.com for visiting.

“Hello? Mike?” I called out when I saw the silhouette of a man cast on the room’s damp floor. I gulped my saliva once more as I tried to chuckle. “Look, it’s me. I think you left your door open? I sent you a message that I’m coming, see?” I then flashed my phone’s monitor in front of me, lighting up the room slightly before me, revealing a neat and simple place. It seems like Mike didn’t buy anything that he wouldn’t need, unlike me.

I then took another step forward as I saw the silhouette of a man from a distance, swaying ever so slightly along with the direction of the wind. My heart rate hastened the same as my footsteps as I turned towards where the silhouette was coming from.

There I saw Mike.

“Ha…”

Hanging on the ceiling with a pained look on his face.

“Mike, no…”

There’s a rope strangling his neck tightly, clamped on a hook in the ceiling.

“… What have you done?”

His eyes were rolled towards the roof of his eyes with his mouth wide open, making his tongue stuck out of his mouth.

“This… No…”

I looked up at Mike’s corpse as it hung onto the ceiling with a thick rope tightly fastened around his reddened neck.

“No, no… no, no, no, no, no! No! NO!”

I screamed as loud as I can as I witnessed the body of my dear friend swaying along with the blow of the air-conditioner breezing right towards his lifeless body.