Revenge by Mariia Kukshyna

He cannot get up.

He is laying sprawled on a floor, body limp, his ragged breath is a signal of his impending doom. I grip my knife tighter in a hand and develop the final blow to his heart. The heart. That is where everything started.

When I have cleaned up my knife, I put it back in its sheath, striding to the exit through the mess I have made. The last man of this family has fallen; my revenge is executed now. Yet I do not feel as good as I thought I would. I have tracked every member of this family, surveilled them for years, learned their every step and every move. And my rage was only getting stronger. I imagined countless times how amazing it would be to walk out the doors of this mansion, knowing the bloodline of this cursed family will not flow further. Knowing that every child, man and woman bearing this name is dead.

But why do I not feel the relief? Why there is only pain, the immense amount of pain, coursing through my body? The kind of pain I only felt once — on the day a part of me died and another, darker, part was born. The day I lost my daughter. The day I learned who was responsible for her death. And that same day I promised myself to not only kill the son who did that to my precious child, but to do everything in my power to stop that family from ever existing on this planet again. And now, after years of meticulous planning and preparation, after taking that family apart and unaliving them one by one, I feel this pain again. I feel it even greater once the rage disappears and is no longer flooding my vision.

There is no regret in me for what I have done. No guilt. And I am ready to stand in front of the blind face of justice. But the grief I once buried deep inside me and replaced with anger is coming to the surface. And it is too much for one person to endure.

When I snap out of my thoughts, I find myself far from the mansion, back in the city. The strangers are shooting me weird looks, pointing their fingers. Of course, it is not every day that you see a woman covered in blood in a daylight. But that does not concern me, and I just keep wandering. Eventually, my feet take me to the narrow alley. There is nothing but a back door to a night club there, obstructed by some dumpsters. I recognise this alley. Having spent hundreds of hours here, I know every brick on the wall, every creek on the concrete floor. This is a place where it all began. Where my daughter died.

I sit down on the ground, back leaned against the cold stone. The pain did not go away. It is pulsing in my head, aching in my heart. And I do not think it will ever leave me. So, I take my knife out of the sheath, take the final look around, turn the sharpened point towards myself and push it inside until the last breath brings me the relief I have been looking for. Do not worry, my daughter, the mother will be with you very soon.