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He arrives there before anyone else because he would rather not publicise his face from now on. He would have preferred to arrive last, after everyone had gone, but then he would have no reason to be there.
His mentor lies lifeless in the dark casket, and the harsh reality of it returns to his chest.
It’s only a dead body.
No. No, this is the man who looked after him for as long as his parents did and not even his motives could make him feel any less grateful. There is, despite the circumstances, a warm smile on the man’s face – he tries to mimic it.
He has ten minutes. Ten minutes to do what, he wonders? To mourn him? Would he want to be mourned? Is it the right thing for him to do now?
There are no outward signs of injury, but the blue colouration of the lips points to…
He knows perfectly well how this man died. He was there; he tried to save him, to no avail. He tried to call a doctor, only to be stopped.
Death was caused by recurring complications derived from ischaemic heart disease. It is likely that the cold weather aggravated the condition past breaking point.
There never was much his mentor could do about it – he always used to say genes are “a bit of a bother.” But he never thought he would see this happen, he never imagined he would see the person closest to him in such agony—
No, he was the one who suffered. The smile his mentor bore now was the same he passed away with.
After the initial symptoms, death was near instantaneous.
There never was much that anyone could do. Life can be terribly unfair; he has the feeling that he has known this for many years and is only now coming to realise it.
Good lord, he needs to stop this.
Death is a naturally occurring process in every being on Earth. It is nothing more than the termination of all the functions that keep a living being, well… alive.
If he had anyone to be blunt with right now other than himself, he would probably say that all he wants is to throttle someone as hard as he can. He wants to let every one of his indefinable boiling emotions out before he explodes and goes on a senseless killing spree that is looking more tangible by the second. He has the means and the knowledge to do it.
He can’t.
Everybody dies.
He knows, he knows.
This is only the dead body of a Caucasian male of relatively advanced age.
No, this is a person, this is THE person, this is—
Only a dead body. A corpse. A cadaver.
Nothing else.
He turns and walks away as everyone else begins to arrive, noting a handful of familiar faces among the anonymous crowd.
It’s not as if the corpse even has a name anymore. After all, he is De Killer now.