บท 2: Lily (2)

''The fractured era, a world split into three separate nations, which none make sense: the heroes' kingdom, the villains' anarchy, and lastly the demon's nation...' Lily thought after reaching the park and catching her breath for a moment. "If I were the demons, I would have decimated all the humans... idiots."

After saying that out loud, she turned to run back to her father's apartment. She took the route where the fight between the hero and the villain commenced and found only a couple of destroyed buildings.

The authorities were there, but as usual, they weren't there to secure and preserve the crime scene for an investigation or at least compensation for the lives that had been lost for the remaining families. If anything, they were there to cover up their uselessness.

They had already confiscated the phones so that this wouldn't end up on the internet, and all those who were there didn't even bother resisting or trying to be smartasses, lest they want to end up like Dave. And no one wants to end up like Dave.

While other buildings had just holes from the abilities of the villain or the hero—which, at this point, doesn't really matter which is which, as both are already responsible—one building fell completely on the residents, probably killing a few who didn't have impressive abilities to save them.

Judging by the reports Lily overheard, there seemed to be a couple of casualties—only a hundred dead, both adults and children. Despite hearing this terrible news, Lily just shrugged her shoulders and moved on, deaf to the cries of the families who had lost their loved ones.

She sprinted to her father's apartment, and despite having many disturbances along the way, she managed to reach the apartment almost exactly in 30 minutes from back and forth to the park.

She entered the apartment that she had left open so that she didn't have to make noise when she came back by reopening the door. Beads of sweat were dripping down her face while she panted. Her father was still in the same position she had left him.

Even though she was the one covered in sweat, her father's awful smell took its own presence. Unsettling as it was, she was used to it, so she silently went inside the bathroom and quietly closed and locked the door behind her.

She went to the bathroom mirror and looked at herself while tightly grasping the basin to keep herself sturdy. She had shoulder-length black hair that she never bothers tying into a ponytail, even when it's always distracting. And like now, it was already glued to her face because of her sweat.

Ordinary dark brown eyes, a plain face—everything about her was average, even her height. But thanks to her loving father, her face was decorated from being plain to being objectively bad.

An ugly red handprint covered her entire left cheek, a nasty black eye on the right side, and a bluish split lip that left nothing to the imagination about what happened to her. Staring at herself looking like that, her heart began picking up the pace, moving faster by the second.

"I'm fine," she whispered. "I'm fine," she said again, almost like a mantra, repeating it over and over again. But she wasn't calming down. Her heart was now beating out of her chest, ringing close to her ears. She suddenly felt like the walls were closing in on her, constricting and suffocating.

She tightened her hold on the bathroom basin as her breath came in shallow, erratic gasps. She was struggling to breathe. More beads of cold sweat formed on her forehead and upper lip, contrasting with her pale, flushed face.

Her hands were trembling uncontrollably, making her clutch the edge of the sink tighter. She looked at herself in the mirror for something to focus on but was met with a distorted reflection of herself, seeming nightmarish.

Despite having gone through this a thousand times, this time it was more intense, making the fear she had been trying to suppress creep in and clutch her heart. Her eyes, wide with fear, stared back at her, but the world around her seemed to blur chaotically, making it harder to focus on anything.

Lily's mind raced, a deafening storm of irrational thoughts. What if she couldn't escape this terrifying sensation? What if she passed out right here, alone? Her heart pounded in her chest, a relentless drumbeat that echoed in her ears, threatening to awaken her truest feelings.

Desperation flooded her senses, and she leaned against the cool tiles of the bathroom wall for support. She closed her eyes and tried to focus on her breathing, a lifeline in this disorienting storm.

But it didn't help, so she had to focus on something else. She followed a thread, a lifeline of a conjured vivid image, and focused on that. She was walking out of the bathroom and went to her father's room. It smelled like it always does—fresh, in contrast to how he smells.

She didn't focus on anything besides the bat scattered on the floor. She picked it up and went to the living room where he was, splayed on the floor, and without warning or any other second thoughts, she directly bashed the bat on her father's temple.

He awoke from the pain, but not giving him any chance to contemplate or process anything, she bashed the bat once more, then again, and again, and again, and again, not once stopping until his head was unrecognizable.

Blood had sprayed everywhere, covering her hands, face, and some of it even going inside her mouth. His brain was bashed until somewhat flat, and chunks of it had scattered on the sofa and the floor.

The self-induced fantasy to calm herself abruptly ended when it began becoming too real for Lily. When she was calm enough, she stood up from the floor, still shaky, and took off all her clothes. She stepped inside the bathtub and turned on the faucet of the showerhead.

And the right amount of hot water came crashing down on her. While showering, she didn't forget the most important part, to convince herself everything was going to be fine.

She solemnly thought to herself while washing her hair, 'The demons should have really killed all the humans.'