Monday, 7:20 PM

When I woke up this morning, it all finally hit me. Everything that didn’t affect me yesterday hit me today at full force. All the terror, all the anger, all the fear, the guilt, the sadness—every single emotion I had been trying to repress came to the surface, stronger than ever before. I can’t imagine it being possible to feel worse than I do right now. This… This is raw suffering. Undiluted, pure. There is nothing to hold it back anymore. I feel no reason to hold it back. Maybe if I just let it run its course it will stop sooner rather than later. It’s not like I have anything left to lose at this point.

Eugene Malone. He caused this. Everything is his fault. If it weren’t for him, today would have been just like any other day. Eugene Malone is the reason for my suffering. His name haunts my mind. It seeps into thoughts in which it does not belong. It crawls into places unwanted, unstopped. I don’t have the energy to stop it. I don’t have the energy to want to stop it. There is no stopping this. There is nothing but him. Just the man named Eugene Malone and all the pain he has caused me.

I had dreams last night. Terrible dreams. I didn’t get much sleep, but when I did it was always punctuated by the same vivid dream. I kept replaying the scene in my mind, over and over. Wondering who it was. Finding out his name. Nothing about the scene ever even changed; it happened all the same way every time. The confusion. The tension. The revelation. The rest. And almost every time I woke up screaming. Drenched in sweat. Breathing quickly and heavily. My life changed at that moment, and I can never go back.

Everything is going to be different now. I won’t be able to hide it. Everyone will notice that I’ve changed. Everyone I know will see it in me, and I will have to lie to all of them. I don’t want them to know what I know. I don’t see how anyone could want that. Ignorance is bliss, or so they say. I’ve lost that opportunity. They haven’t. I will have to lie to them, to protect them. To protect myself. And as hard as I try, as good as I am, they will see right through me. Maybe not right away. Probably not right away. Hopefully not right away. But eventually. Eventually they will figure it out. My friends, my family…

Oh my god. My parents. This isn’t what they would have wanted. Not for me, not for anybody.

Eugene Malone. I know who you are. Everyone knows who you are. You are the man who claimed this city as your own. The man who had all the right connections, all the right allies, to make it to the top of the food chain. You thought you were untouchable, that you could rule us through fear. You thought your control over the darkest, most criminal parts of our society would be enough to keep you safe. But you were wrong. The minute you got directly involved is the minute you lost control. You would have been safe if you never went after anyone in person. But you involved yourself with me personally. And for that, your corrupt empire will pay the ultimate price. This is not a vow of justice—this is an inevitability. It is a guarantee.

Is this what my parents would have wanted? Would they have endorsed these thoughts and actions of mine? Am I truly heartless, or am I simply continuing a family legacy? My father. Drunk, abusive, spiteful. To myself and my mother. Showing a cruel face to us, and a kind face to everyone else. Is this what I must do now in order to keep up the lie? Have I finally become what I once hated the most in this world? No. I refuse to believe it.

Must all murders be immoral by definition? Surely someone, somewhere, is truly deserving of death. The most despicable person imaginable, a being who thrives on pure cruelty, someone who is loved by none and reviled by all. Someone for whom there can never be a chance at redemption. Someone who has chosen their allegiance, and has chosen it wrongly. Could it be him? When this man is killed, would anyone so much as bat an eyelash at his downfall? Would anyone even bother to call the murderer evil? Would it not have been a service to society to do away with someone so cruel?

Of course there are no answers to these questions. Philosophers have debated matters of morality for centuries and we are still no closer to agreeing that anything is objectively good or bad. It almost always comes down to individual opinions, or to people surrendering their own opinions and accepting the morality of the law as fact. I refuse to be that shallow. I will not give up my beliefs for any reason, and I am prepared to have society disagree with me.

The murder was just.