The headquarters of "The City Gang" crouched on the outskirts of the abandoned industrial zone like an ugly boil on the city's bleeding body; a giant warehouse of rusted tin and cracked concrete, surrounded by barbed wire that appeared in the dark like the fangs of a predatory beast lurking for passersby. Dim, flickering lights leaked from the iron crevices, mixed with the sounds of their coarse and disgusting laughter that pierced the provocative stillness of the night—the laughter of men who, in the intoxication of their false power, thought the blood they spilled had dried upon the earth, and that the souls they burned had surrendered to the fate of eternal oblivion.
From behind a massive, dilapidated shipping container, the black-haired youth watched with mechanical coldness. His eyes did not reflect an exploding rage; rather, they reflected a terrifying cosmic void—a void filled in that moment by nothing but the sight of dancing flames. In his hands rested plastic fuel canisters; their touch was as cold as the corpses in mortuary freezers, and the pungent scent of gasoline beginning to seep into his lungs was, to him, the sweetest perfume of promised justice.
The youth began his movement with a deadly slowness, crawling in the shadows like an inherent part of the night's hidden depths that the naked eye cannot see. He began scattering the transparent liquid around the perimeter of the crumbling warehouse, pouring it with a terrifying deliberation and calm, watching the gasoline as it seeped under the warped iron beams, absorbed by the thirsty, dry soil as if drinking a toast to imminent annihilation. With every drop that fell and partially evaporated in the cold air, he conjured a scene from the past that gnawed at his heart; he could hear the creaking of burning wood in his old friend's house, and see the thick black smoke devouring the dreams of an innocent family whose only sin was loving him.
He imagined his "friend" standing beside him now—not with his strong, young body, but with his shattered frame that hung like withered branches—whispering in his ear that the time had come to wash the shame with ash.
He poured the fuel generously around the emergency exits, blocking them with pieces of discarded wood and solid iron bars to ensure no one would emerge to tell what happened. He did not want a quick kill with a merciful bullet; he wanted a cosmic "purification" by fire, exactly as they had done to his young friend's world.
The youth retreated to a safe distance, returning to the gloom of his hiding spot behind the rusted containers. He stood there in absolute silence and looked at the headquarters, which had now transformed in his imagination into a time bomb waiting for the detonator to explode in the world's face. His lips parted into a small, cold, and frightening smile—a smile that carried no friendliness, but rather an eternal promise of destruction. He took a matchstick from an old matchbox, struck it gently against the side, and watched the small flame dancing between his fingers for a few seconds, reflecting in the blackness of his eyes as if a galaxy were being born anew, before he threw it with absolute coldness toward the liquid line stretching across the ground like a hangman's noose.
"Let the light shine in this darkness," he whispered in a voice hollow of human emotion, like a judge casting the final death spell on a convict beyond hope of repentance.
In fractions of a second, the night exploded and the winds went still in reverence of the scene. The fire ran over the gasoline like a rabid snake that had just emerged from the depths of a raging hell, climbing the tin walls in the blink of an eye and storming the gaps and crevices. The absolute stillness that had ruled the area turned into a terrifying symphony of consecutive explosions. Screams of terror and shock began to rise from inside the warehouse—the screams of men who found themselves suddenly, and without warning, in the heart of a boiling human furnace. The youth watched the scene with silent ecstasy, seeing the orange tongues of flame devouring furniture, maps, drugs, and weapons, and hearing the sound of melting metal and the charred roof collapsing over the heads of the killers who found no place to flee.
The thick black smoke rose in towering pillars to embrace the city sky, laden with the scent of burning malice and the remnants of consciences that never existed.
Minutes passed that seemed like an entire eon of agony. The flames were slowly dying down after devouring everything living and turning the place into blackened, charred rubble. Suddenly, amidst the thick smoke and flying ash that fell like black snow, a distorted human shadow emerged. It moved with broken, unbalanced motions, staggering right and left like a ghost that had just crawled out of the grave to apologize for its sins. His skin was falling off his body in roasted strips like burnt paper, and his face had lost all human features, moaning in a hoarse, painful voice resembling the final death rattle of a trapped animal.
The youth's smile faded for a moment, replaced by a focus as sharp as a razor blade. As the distorted figure drew closer and his body began to collapse under the weight of the terrible pain, the youth recognized his arrogant stride, now turned into a humiliated crawl; it was **the Gang Leader**, the person who gave the orders with utter coldness. In that moment, the smile returned to the youth's face, but it was deeper and more savage—the smile of one who has finally found his precious prize after a long journey of searching.
"Old man... are you alright? Do you need help?" the youth called out in a very gentle tone—a false tone dripping with artificial innocence that hid the fangs of a hungry wolf behind it.
The leader raised his burnt head with great difficulty, as if lifting a mountain of lead. His eyes were covered with ash, clotted blood, and burnt eyelids, and in the depth of his agony and hallucination, he thought this youth was the final lifeline sent to him by heaven. He stretched his trembling, burnt hand—reeking of human roast—toward the youth in a desperate plea, and his injured throat produced nothing but an unintelligible moan resembling the cry of frightened children.
As soon as the man came close enough and stumbled at the youth's feet, the latter's features changed in the blink of an eye into a mask of absolute hatred. With a swift movement full of deep-seated spite, he grabbed the man's burnt collar and dragged him with unspeakable violence and cruelty into the pitch darkness behind the containers, away from the fading light of the fire. He threw him onto the hard, rocky ground and sat upon his chest with all his weight, placing his strong hands—which never trembled—around his distorted, inflamed neck.
The leader looked with true horror—a horror surpassing the pain of the burns—into the youth's eyes, which shone in the darkness like two black coals waiting to be fanned. He tried to resist with his burnt and weak limbs, but his body was finished, becoming merely a vessel for pain.
"Why..? Why do you want to kill me?" The words came out with extreme difficulty, mixed with his blood flowing from his charred lips like black tar.
The youth fixed his harsh gaze into the man's eyes and leaned close to his ear to whisper in a voice as quiet as a snake's hiss—a voice carrying the bitterness of years and the ache of graves:
"I am no stranger, you... I am the friend of the boy whose limbs you broke. And the friend of the boy you and your rabid dogs hunted for so long. Do you remember him? That young man whose pride you could not break or whose soul you could not humiliate. The same boy whom, no matter how hard you tried, you could not face man-to-man, so you used the tricks of cowards, scoundrels, and traitors."
The youth increased his pressure on the throat, feeling the man's rapid, desperate pulse under his fingers, continuing with a deadly coldness that kills hope in the soul: "Do you remember that night? The night of the fire that never died in my friend's chest? When you went to his house in his absence and set fire to the walls that sheltered love? You burned his mother while she was pleading for help behind the door you locked with your own hands."
"And you burned his father as he tried with his frail body to protect her from your treacherous flames. And his little sister... do you hear her echo now? Do you hear the sound of her crying in your burnt ears? She was screaming her brother's name amidst your flames, thinking in her innocence that he was her hero who would come to save her from the monster... but you were the monster. The same boy who had nothing left to remind him of life, so he came to you broken, seeking revenge, only to find his end by your treacherous bullets in a filthy alley."
The leader's face began to turn a dark, blackish blue, and his eyes bulged outward in terrifying shock as if he saw the demons of hell welcoming him. His hand scratched weakly and desperately at the youth's arms, but the youth's grip was stronger and firmer than death itself. The youth continued to squeeze, watching with wide eyes the suffocation of the soul in the man's body, watching the light depart from those pupils, until he heard a small, satisfying *snap* inside the neck. Then the man's movement ceased entirely, and his burnt limbs went limp upon the soil.
The youth remained sitting on the chest of the corpse for several long minutes, inhaling the scent of smoke mixed with the smell of death and bitter victory, watching the last spark of life go out in the leader's eyes, which became like extinguished glass.
Suddenly, and without preamble, the smile vanished from his face completely, replaced by a great cosmic void—a void that told him clearly that revenge was no longer his friend; rather, their shared journey ended here, over the corpse of this human wreckage.
The youth stood up very slowly and brushed the ash clinging to his black coat as if brushing away the dust of years of pain and waiting. He looked at the warehouse, which had turned into a mass grave befitting these monsters, and at the distorted, lifeless corpse beneath his feet, then pulled the folded paper from his inner pocket. He looked at it for the last time under the light of the fading fires; there were no more names to cross out, and no more justification for its existence in the world of the living.
"I am finished," he said in a hoarse, quiet voice, directing it toward the dark, starless sky, as if submitting his final and only report to his friend who had departed wronged.
The youth turned and walked into the depth of the night, disappearing among the dark side streets exactly as he had appeared at the beginning of this night, leaving behind a city whose people would talk long and fearfully of this night, while he had finally completed the farewell rites, washing the memory of his friends with the blood and ash of those who violated the purity of life.
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