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My name is Karma. And I think it’s a fitting name, don’t you? When you’ve spent your life dancing on the knife’s edge, toeing the line between right and wrong, life and death, it’s only a matter of time before the consequences come knocking at your door. And when they do, they come with a cruel twist. The kind of irony you can’t escape, no matter how fast you run or how deep you bury your sins.
The world turned on me, and I didn’t even see it coming. I always imagined myself as the one in control, the one pulling the strings, watching others break apart like fragile dolls under my fingers. I thought I’d be the one to destroy, never the one to be destroyed. But, oh, how wrong I was. I ended up lying in a pool of my own blood, staring into the abyss, wondering how it all went so terribly wrong. What a joke.
They never knew my real name. I don’t even care to remember it anymore. You can call me anything—@£#£#, if you really need it—but it’s not important. My name doesn’t matter. It’s just a label, a shadow cast over the life I lived. A life steeped in violence, deceit, and betrayal. Karma. That’s all I’ve ever been—just the inevitable reckoning for all the choices I made. And when you spend enough time in the dark, you come to understand one simple truth: there’s no escaping it. No outrunning what you’ve already set in motion.
I was fourteen when I died. Fourteen. A child, really, when you think about it. Barely a teenager. And yet, I had already buried myself so deep in the muck that there was no way out. But I didn’t fear death. I never did. I wasn’t scared of the blood, or the agony, or even the knowledge that my life would be snuffed out like a flickering candle. What terrified me was the unknown. The fact that I knew it was coming—that deep, gnawing certainty in my gut. The thing about fate is, it has a way of whispering to you, of letting you know that you’re walking toward your end, even when you can’t see the precipice.
It was December 30th when it happened. The kind of morning that clung to your bones like ice, seeping in through your skin, making the air feel sharp and alive. The cold didn’t bother me. I had bigger things to focus on. I didn’t care about the biting chill, or the faceless people who were hunting me. I didn’t care about anything anymore. Not since the day they put the collar around my neck.
That collar was my constant reminder of how far I had fallen. How far they had dragged me down into their world. The Port Mafia. Their weight, their power, their control—they had a hold on me, one that was impossible to break. And I hated it. Hated them. But what could I do? I was stuck in a game I never chose to play. I was bound to them, no matter how much I tried to escape.
At first, I had resisted. I hated the man who put me in this position, Ace. Hated the way he towered over me with his arrogant, smug smile, like he owned everything he saw. He did own me. And I hated him for it. I hated the way his voice always had that edge, that coldness. And I hated the way he never looked at me like I was anything more than a tool, a weapon to be used until I was no longer useful.
But I adapted. I always did. I learned to survive in the dark. To move like a shadow, to slip through their fingers without leaving a trace. Ace was just a cog in the machine, just another player in a game that I never understood. But then… he died.
I should’ve seen it coming. I should’ve known. Death was like that in the Mafia. It came without warning, a silent killer creeping in the dark. But when Ace died, it felt like the world itself shifted. The Port Mafia, once a monolith of power and control, trembled. Everything came undone in a torrent of chaos. I thought maybe, just maybe, I could break free. Maybe I could run. But then I remembered that damn collar. The collar that bound me, suffocating me, reminding me that I would never be free.
And that’s when he appeared.
A shadow in the fog, slipping between the alleys like a phantom. I didn’t see him at first—not clearly. He was just another figure, another face in the sea of forgettable killers. But when he drew closer, when the air seemed to freeze around me, I felt it. That oppressive cold. That crushing presence. Something about him… changed the air. I couldn’t see his face, not at first, but the chill that radiated from him—straight into my bones—told me everything I needed to know.
Fyodor.
The name echoed in my mind, sharp and haunting. But I couldn’t place it. Not yet. The last time I had heard it, it had been from Ace’s lips, whispered like a secret he hadn’t dared share. “Fyodor,” he had said, and I had ignored it. Just another name, another fleeting whisper in a world full of them.
But now? Now it was different. It felt different. I knew in my gut what he was—what he was here to do. This man, this name, was the end. He wasn’t just some shadow passing through the fog. He was the one who had been sent to end me. And for the first time in my life, I felt something more than the usual indifference. I felt it deep in my chest, that sickening pull of inevitability. I was going to die.
And yet… I wasn’t afraid.
Not of the blood. Not of the pain. I didn’t fear the end. I feared what I wouldn’t know. I feared that I wouldn’t know how it happened. I feared the uncertainty. The not-knowing.
His figure loomed over me, a silhouette against the grey of the morning. And still, I couldn’t remember how it all happened. The blood. The agony. His hands on me, the weapon in his grip. I couldn’t remember the details. The pain should have been overwhelming, but it wasn’t. All I had left were fragments—fragments of memories, whispers of Fyodor, and a bitter taste of something unfinished. Something undone. But the moment was gone. I was already gone.
And then it hit me. The realisation that I had died. That I was nothing but a wisp of a ghost now. A shadow caught between life and death.
I never begged. Never screamed. Never tried to fight for my life. No last-minute salvation. No desperate pleas for mercy. Just a quiet, resigned acceptance of what was inevitable.
I don’t know why I wasn’t afraid of dying. Maybe I had known all along that this was how it would end. Maybe I had been walking toward it, step by step, without even realising it. But what I couldn’t accept was the uncertainty. The fact that I didn’t even know if I had fought in those last moments. If I had done enough. If I had really even tried.
But that’s the thing about death. It takes everything from you. Leaves you with nothing but the weight of your choices. And I? I paid the price
