☞ DISCLAIMER ☜
What you are about to read is not real.
This entire story, including every name, character, place, event, and incident, was born from my imagination alone.
If any part of this feels familiar, or if you think you see someone you know in these pages... that is only by coincidence.
This story is far from perfect. There will be grammatical errors and rough sentences.
I am not a professional writer. I am still learning, still growing, still trying.
So I ask only one thing from you.
Read this with an open mind.
Read this with an open heart.
And please, read with caution.
Thank you for taking the time to read my work.
Thank you for supporting me.ԅ
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『THE NULL』
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NIGHT IN RUSSIA.
[RUSSIA | MONDAY NIGHT | 7:00 PM | EMPTY CHURCH]
The bells did not ring at 7:00 PM on a Monday night, even though they were supposed to.
Every Monday, at exactly seven, the old church in the district would call the faithful to prayer, but tonight the rope was still. The silence was heavier than any sound could be. Inside, the candles burned low, throwing long shadows across the marble floor, and the air smelled like wax, old wood, and something metallic that no one wanted to name. The church was empty.
I stood at the altar.
Tall. Too tall for a man of God. My name was not Father, not tonight. Tonight I had no name. Tonight I was only the absence of one.
'THE NULL.'
The vestments did not fit me right, but they did not need to. Black cloth draped over shoulders built for war, not for prayer, and the fabric strained faintly across my back. Underneath, my muscles moved like they remembered how to kill long before they remembered how to kneel. My skin was pale, cold pale, the kind of winter that never left my bones.
I kept my head down, because no one needed to see me. Not yet.
I held a Bible in one hand. The leather was old, and the gold on the edges had worn off from too many hands before mine. I did not read it. The words inside were not for me.
In my other hand was a cross, heavy and silver, and it caught the candlelight and threw it back, sharp.
I looked the part. The young priest who came to substitute. No one was here to see it.
Behind the altar, in the sacristy, the real priest was tied. His mouth was gagged, his hands bound, and he was breathing hard through his nose. He would live. I did not waste bullets on men who had nothing to do with it.
Tonight was for the others.
And he was here.
The man in the third row. Same coat. Same posture. Same way of sitting like he owned the room. It had been years, but the body remembers. The six-year-old boy hiding behind a door still remembers the shape of the man who pulled the trigger.
The sniper.
The one who ended them.
The one who left me with no flag and no home.
7:02 PM. I stepped forward, and the wood creaked under my weight.
"Good evening." I said. My voice was low, trained, and it did not shake. It carried no warmth. It echoed in the empty church like a man reading a eulogy for people who were not dead yet.
The man in the third row shifted.
Good. He noticed.
I opened the Bible, not to read, but to hide the small movement of my other hand. The cross was not just a cross. The base unscrewed, and inside was cold steel. I had been planning this since I was tall enough to hold a gun.
I did not believe in God. I did not believe in forgiveness.
I believed in math, in angles, in timing.
At 6 years old, I memorized the sound a silenced shot made in a hallway. At 12, I learned how to take a man apart without leaving a mark. At 20, I learned how to walk into a church and look holy while doing it.
This was not rage. Rage was messy.
This was calculation. This was the beginning.
The candles flickered. Outside, the night was dark, with no moon.
Inside, the man in the third row reached for something under his jacket.
Too late.
I did not rush. I never rushed.
I closed the Bible and set the cross down on the altar, gently, like an offering. Then I looked up, straight at him, and I smiled. It was not a kind smile. It was not a priest's smile.
It was the smile of a boy who had waited years.
I fired.
There was no sound. Just air.
The man in the third row fell forward into the pew, like he was finally praying.
I did not move for three seconds. I counted them. One. Two. Three.
Then I walked to him, and sat down beside him in the pew.
He was still breathing, blood wet on his lips. I turned to him, calm.
"Do you still remember the couple you killed." I asked quietly.
"In the big mansion. You used a sniper."
His eyes widened. He knew.
He laughed once, wet.
"Seoul." he choked.
"South Korea. They knew something. Your mother's side, Kim. Your father's side, Valkov. And Park. They're all connected."
I stared at him. So it wasn't just him.
"Names." I said.
He tried to spit. I raised the cross to his throat and fired again. Still no sound. He gave me three names before the light left his eyes. Not enough. But a start.
I stood. At the back door, I paused.
Monday night. 7:04 PM. The beginning of the revenge had started.
I pulled off the priest's collar and let it fall to the floor, because I was no one's shepherd. I was nothing. I was no one.
I was THE NULL.
And behind me, the church burned in silence.