The Twist | ✓

seventeen.

It was like hitting a reset button and scrambling to figure out what you're supposed to do.

We cleared all of the debts. Split the money evenly between everyone over eighteen. Viola helped to establish the schools and hospitals, and Audrey, Evie, and Legend worked on rebuilding our military. I, with the help of Coen and Enoch, built our government and reestablished laws and rights, and everyone was educated on it in the schools. I forged alliances with countries. New Asia was willing to accept us as an ally, much to our surprise.

After five years, Legend returned and took his place as my closest advisor, the person that would one day be known as Vice President once again. Audrey and Evie stayed away. I was happy about that. Viola moved to Panama, far enough away, and that wasn't something that made me happy, because I'd come to enjoy her company.

We moved the capital to the center of the country, in a place that would make it easy to access. My people were free. And they were happy.

Our economy seemed to only go up. There was a lot of availability for jobs, and everything was great.

Last week, I told Legend that he's my successor since I have no children and no wife, and that under him, an election would happen. Anyone could run for the position of president, and they could hold it for a maximum of two terms for a total of eight years. Just like it used to be. He was all too happy to agree to those terms, and to make sure that we didn't split the government into Republican and Democrat and Liberal and whatever else. That would divide us and make us weak, and we need to be strong. It's all that we can be.

This week, I stand in my bathroom with the door locked and the lights dim. My hands grip the edge of the counter tightly, and a gun sits on the counter in front of me. It's time. It's been time for years. It's been more than forty years since I killed my family, since I was broken. I'd been busy enough these past years, but the guilt was always there, eating at me. At night, I see my younger sister's tears and my younger brother's sad smile and my mother's pain and my father's slow acceptance. And I see Cassiana, her eyes bright and happy, and then suddenly full of hatred and pain. And I feel sick.

I lift the gun with a shaking hand. I have shot plenty of people in my life, but this one is strange--I am holding the gun and I am the one with the gun aimed at me. I stare into the eyes of my killer and my kill, my final one. His eyes are mine--blue, bright--yet they are not--dead, lifeless, lacking any warmth. A monster's eyes. I hate that monster.

I take a deep breath to steady myself and let go of the counter. I don't look away from his eyes, and I see a short flash of the boy I was at nineteen, before I fell in love, while I was in love, after I was destroyed by it. So much yet so little has changed. And I still want to destroy myself. Is it so hard to believe that I just want to destroy myself? Just like I used to? Just like I've always wanted to?

Another deep breath.

One heartbeat, hard and loud in my chest.

One gunshot, loud and clear.

A pain in my head. Something trickling down the left side of my head.

The feeling of falling.

Then,

nothing.