My hairs were on end and my hands kept shaking, as if they were placed on a vibrolegs, while every microsecond of that vandal incident fell on my weak consciousness. It was just the beginning part of what happened that night but that was enough for me to go crazy. I was half conscious, I grabbed my hair tightly while I roamed everywhere, without knowing where I was going.

     In an attempt to fall on the floor, I took my night lamp and hit it against the wall, and immediately fully regained consciousness.

     I saw what had happened, I had broken my second bedside lamp, I had already broken the first on another occasion. I always ended up breaking something after my uncontrollable anger with all my fury. The feeling was horrible. According to my psychologist, I suffered from something called PTSD, with meaning "Posttraumatic Stress disorder", a psychological disease that develops in a victim of a trauma when the symptoms of it persist or worsen. In my case the symptoms were: severe anxiety, persistent memories of the event and retrospective scenes—which appear to me as day dreams.

     Quickly, I sat on the side of the bed and checked my drawer to see if I still kept my pair of anxiolytics and paracetamol, which was what the psychologist had recommended to me for anxiety and headache respectively; unfortunately it was already over.

     Upon disappointment, I shook my back forward and placed my hands on my face in tears. My head hurt, and the memories about Allegra still persisted. After a couple of seconds in that state I heard knocks from the door.

     "Lucas, it's time," I heard Dante say on the other side. "We'll be waiting for you, don't be late, Race is already here, and you know he doesn't like unpunctuality," he added.

     I wasn't feeling well at all, I wasn't in the mood, although of course, I couldn't stay without attending. It was the last class we would have of shooting, a class which was imposed by Thomas Darwell, my father, through the constitution of his home.

     My father was a lunatic, he had right at the entrance of the house a beige paper inside a transparent glass cube in which the ten rules that ruled the house resided. Rules that I don't know from where the fuck he had taken them from, they were all very weird and imposing, they violated our rights as human beings, we could not go out without consent or purpose, bring friends, sing, dance or even laugh. Who the hell imposes this?

     Well, my father did it, shit.

     According to the second rule, being his biological children, we were obliged to have shooting classes. He also forced us to do exercises as if we were in a military camp. And although none of us enjoyed it, we could neither comment, nor make any assumption or suggestion of any kind about anything that he imposed, since it was also prohibited. Literally, there was no freedom of expression in that house.

     You may wonder why he did that to us, well, in his defense he said that it was out of protection and self-defense since in a city as dangerous as Wellington, where murders and homicides happened like damn, that is, every day, any day we could be surprised by the sect that was murdering people. I didn't totally believe him, but at the same time I didn't have so many reasons not to believe him since I had already experienced the fury of those people. That association of thugs, they lacked heart.

     I got out of bed after a moment of reflection and left my room. Apparently, Dante was waiting for me outside my room.

     I and my brothers were triplets. But amongst them, I was the weirdo, I didn't share traits similar to theirs and almost not of my father either. My blue eyes clashed with the coffee of their eyes as well as my brown hair did with their dark one. Although good, the shape of the face and nose was similar between us... not even were we of the same skin color since I was fair-skinned.

     "Let's go." I said to Dante. "Let's see if we haven't been late yet." I added
     "Yes, it took you a long time" he said in a speechless voice. "Lander might already be there."

     "How are you doing with... you know... your research?" I tried to start a conversation with him. I immediately saw a slight smile, not disguised, on his face.

     "Well, it turns out that I have a name, but apart from that nothing else," he said a little discouraged. "But well, I'm moving forward, although at a continuous turtle pace."

     "Good luck, Bro," I said with a forced smile. I was still sick because of the dream I had.

     It turns out that Dante had initiated an investigation to find out who our mother was... and no, he could not ask my father, since he had already determined that he was not going to say anything about our mother, since, for him, it was not important, it had no relevance. The truth is that I would help him, but I was already suffering too much with Allegra's case. After all I trusted Dante, unlike Lander he was somewhat calmer and very intelligent, he could do it alone.

     We walked for a few minutes until we reached the shooting room that was in our house. I opened the door and Race, our private teacher, who was in charge of teaching us everything we supposedly had to learn, was in front of us. Race was a man of few words, somewhat cold. We had the same height and he had a normal body, neither very muscular nor very greasy. In his hands he had a briefcase that contained our weapons and our noise-cancelling helmets.

     I carried my gun and my helmet and my brothers did the same and Race gave instructions to start the last class.

The class was really silent, we were barely allowed to talk, unless we had a doubt. Race didn't like the hassle because he says that that's nothing more than a distraction and that it reduces the efficiency of a trigger.

"You have five attempts, you must give in the heart and in the center of the human's skull," Race said. "It must be one hundred percent accurate, if not, you won't succeed and therefore won't graduate. Beware." he added.

"Yes, sir!!". We said in unison while we adjusted our helmets. And each one put himself in his lane.

I got into my lane, and I looked at the target in the shape of a person who was on the other side, we were separated by a glass that had a circle where the shot ought to pass. I held my revolver and loaded it, I focused enough and fired my first shot at the heart.

"Shit" I thought when I saw that it had failed and had deviated a few millimeters

"You must concentrate Lucas" I mentally scolded myself. I re-loaded my gun and fired the second shot, but it deflected again. I turned around in anger and there I saw my brothers looking firmly, they had already made their two shots.

I could also see Race, with an indifferent face that said, "Finish now, I want to go, I have better things to lose in time"

I focused and then I loaded again and shot again, this time towards the skull, but I didn't get it either. This one also deviated. I was getting tense, I only had two attempts left, either I got them or I didn't graduate and started again with the unbearable classes.

I took my fourth shot and closed my eyes, and fortunately it hit right in the center of the heart, and although that certainly relieved me, it was only a little since I got more tense and nervous because of my decisive shot. I only had the last one left. My hands were shaking, and I was getting scared.

I made my last shot and opened my eyes.

"I suspended, I won't graduate anymore, shit," I said whispering when I saw that my last shot too had deviated.

I turned to the side and took off my helmet with a disappointed face. I could see Lander hide a smile, but I simply decided to let him go and not show any kind of emotion.

"Withdraw , I'm going to evaluate you and then I'll call the three to give you the results."

I saw my brothers comment on how easy the exam had seemed to them, but I just couldn't join the conversation so I quickly went to my room. When I arrived I just sat on the edge of my bed.

     "Now, I would be obliged to resume the damn classes. I would have to recommence, fuck" I repressed my self mentally. "It's all my fault, I had to concentrate more"

     I was getting consumed by stress, it was terrifying to think about the fact that I would go back to class. I needed my anxiolytic, but I remembered didn't had, it had finished.

     Before I realized it, it happened again.

******

From what I saw, they both had red layers of silk where a strange symbol appeared. It was only possible to see a geometric figure, a heptagon circumscribed in a circle, and surrounding it were six spades three at both sides and a long strange figure below.

One of the men stood behind the door where they entered and the other approached the stretcher where Allegra was. The beats of my heart began to intensify and I began to sweat from nervousness. However, Allegra was still lying on that bed, sleeping like a precious angel, she was not aware of what was happening.

"Let her go!! Let her go you Dumbass. You can take me, but let her go." I struggled in vain, while the tears filled my eyes. "What do you want from us? What do you want from her? What do you want from me?"

"Suffering!!" Said the man near the door, causing a hard palpit to be generated in me.

At the time, the man who was centimeters away from my Tabby slowly leaned down and then grabbed a dagger that was in the bonfire that was in the center of that dungeon, so to speak.

"Let her go!! What do you plan to do with that?!" I yelled between sobs, with a profuse, fury and an angry impotence. Before I realized it, I felt how with a lot of pressure the hand, apparently of the third man who had previously unsealed and untawed me, covered my mouth with American tape preventing me from talking. Then I saw how the man with the dagger began to carry the dagger that was overheated near Allegra.

******

"Allegra!! Nooooo!!" I shouted in tears.

"I can't, no, I can't keep wasting time, I have to avenge her, today's failure at the police station... t-that's not why I'm going to back down. I can't give up." I said to myself as I wiped the few tears that came out of my eyes; I kept my right hand on my forehead and tried to think clearly.

"I'm going to infiltrate tomorrow after class" I finally told myself as I threw myself against the mattress and drank the last sips of my cold coffee.

After a few minutes I began to hear someone knocking on the door. I immediately knew what was going on, the results of the exam were already ready. I got up reluctantly and quickly went to the shooting room, which was the place where the results were supposed to be delivered.

Upon entering, Race was there next to Dante and Lander.

"Congratulations, Guys." Said our humble teacher, slightly sketching a smile. To be truthful, the first one I had seen on his face. Maybe because he wouldn't need to suffer with us anymore.

"What the fuck?" I thought
"What do you mean I passed?"

"Lucas, the mirror was one of visual distortion, so you saw all your good shots as if they had gone wrong, and vice versa." Dante explained.

"Exactly, the test also examined your level of attention, and although you and Lander were not here but in another world, you were lucky and precise" Race emphasized to me.

"I understand..." I said, with a stupid face

"You can leave now, I'll talk to your father"

When I left the room I went to my room thinking that not everything had gone so bad in the end, I had been lucky, I guess. I stopped to contemplate the panorama of my room, and I was discouraged, I remembered that I had an exam at the institute the next day, but I certainly didn't had desire to read. I hated Mondays.

I went to bed at that moment to feel warm aura that that mattress transmitted.

     I got wrapped in the sharp sheets, curled up, but I still felt that something was missing. I still hadn't gotten used to living without her, about eight months had passed, but I still hadn't and I don't think I'll ever do.

I immediately took a Tabby cat doll that was on my bedside table and curled it up. It seems childish but that's what brought me closer to her, that little tabby cat was one of the few things I managed to keep from Allegra.

Author's Note

Hi guys, really appreciate ur reading till here. How was the chapter? We're getting to know a little more about our protagonist and his past. Hope you enjoy it. Do not hesitate to leave your votes or comment if you loved the chapter. Peace out.🤙🏿