It’s odd, the things you remember when you’re watching someone die. The moment their still-warm hand goes limp and slips from your own. The last rise and fall of their chest. The exact second the light leaves their eyes. But most of all, you remember the promise that you make. For them and them alone. You don’t matter anymore. Your feelings and desires are irrelevant until they are avenged. 

There is no rest until it is finished. 

Hatred burns like a wildfire. Erratic and destructive. Bulldozing through anything that holds even a sliver of goodness and light. It longs to take over and destroy. Destroy the being that harnesses it, until they are nothing but vengeance. It bleeds from their soul, infecting their mind, turning them against anyone and anything who dares to defy it. You can see it in their eyes, a never ending ocean, a torrent of waves drowning out any thought of reality. Casting you into a deep abyss of razor sharp despair. Keeping you imprisoned forever in a forgotten tower of unfettered darkness. 

The very essence of me is gone. The ache of sorrow that tormented my body was consumed by rage. Every trace of the man I once was. I forgot myself. I forgot everything. Everything except my daughter and my promise.

I feel nothing but my poisoned heart pounding in my rib cage. My mind is overrun with thoughts of exacting revenge. I shouldn't be allowed out of the house, I could kill anyone who stands in my way. But once they see my face, they stay far away from me.

I want to yell or scream, punch something, or someone. But I can't. I have to hold it all in. I'm a ship with hellfire as its cargo. A volcano ready to erupt with seething contempt. To wipe out any trace of the man who dared to touch her.

If I let it out, I won't be strong enough to fulfill my vow. I'll be the weakest person on the planet. 

I couldn't protect her. I feel like I've already dropped below the worst kind of people. I'm just a rat in the sewer, I don't care what happens to me afterwards. If they catch me, I will have fulfilled my promise, so it won't matter anymore.

My mind will rest when it's over. Her memory, at least, will be safe inside my head. Nothing can hurt her there.

It will be over soon. His life will be extinguished if it means that she will be safe again. So he doesn't hurt anyone else. I'll forget him, everyone else will forget him, it will be as if he never existed. I think the worst punishment for someone is to be forgotten, to never be known. Everyone needs someone, but he will be alone. His soul will be in a never ending loop of isolation. Where it belongs. 

Watch out because here I come. Marching on to the beat of the devil's drum.

I am who I was always meant to be. This is me. I am vengeance.