“Revenge didn’t make me a better person. In the end, all revenge ever did for me was turning me into something similar to them. In fact, I became worse than them. I’m a serial killer. And there’s still that itch inside of me which I am ever eager to scratch. Guilt was out of the question. I used to think that I can have my actions justified but now, how do I justify these? I am just a killer. And I don’t feel anything at all. Other than excitement. And lust. I don’t know what I am searching for and at the same time, I know I’m not getting anything in return. Other than pleasure. And power.

What is the meaning of this life? Is this all I’ll ever be? A killer? Even this will come to boredom in the end. I guess Schopenhauer was right after all. Human’s life is meaningless. It only means something when they desire something. Once they got what they desired, they will become bored. Hence, they kept searching for something new to desire. But what if it just stopped one day? What if you no longer have any desire for something new? What would that be? Exactly as the title of the essay, I suppose. ‘The emptiness of existence’.

Is God playing a cruel joke on all of us?

Is there a God at all?”

֍֍֍

“You are a reader,” Yuri spoke. It sounded more like a scrutiny instead of a mere statement made from his observations. Lost in the book he is reading, CJ didn’t notice how long he had been watched by the smaller boy. “Are you also a philosopher?” He asked.

Scoffing, he shuts the book he was reading and starts to look at the pretty boy in the eyes, moving closer to him. “A psychotic philosopher will ruin the world,” he philosophized. He straightens the posture of his seat once he pulls himself way from the boy. Yuri decided to sit right beside his lover with similar straightened posture as they both look up to the ceiling of their cell.

It was quiet on the outside except for the sounds of water dropping from the sink and some awful snores of other inmates. CJ thought of how many he could narrow down the killing list to the people who snore instead of going at them randomly. “The world is already ruined. I don’t see any good in this world,” Yuri spoke, breaking the silence. There’s a pang of pain rings invisibly in the way he said it. CJ thought Yuri doesn’t feel at all. But it appears the boy knows of sadness.

CJ clicks his tongue once and points out to the ceiling. Somewhere out there, unseen to them, the stars sparkle inside the darkness of a sky. They will make him feel bitter and sad. “Nature will find its’ way to destroy us eventually,” he indicated. “What are you expecting to see? What kind of good do you want to see?” He asked.

“I don’t know,” Yuri said as he shrugs. By this time, he no longer has his posture straightened as it was. He had slouched down like a sloth.

CJ inspects his lover, wondering what he is thinking. It’s strange to call him his lover but as of now, that’s what it seems to be like for him. “I wonder if there’s even any ‘good’ in you,” he scrutinized, voicing out his thoughts aloud. Yuri perplexes him. Yuri is a mystery. It is part of the charm but something so mysterious might as well be dangerous.

Yuri reflects on the question thrown at him. He doesn’t know if there’s anything good about himself but… “I feed dogs. And cats.” He simply stated. The look on his face is of an oblivious kind. An innocence kind. But CJ couldn’t buy that. To him, there’s more to Yuri than he looks. Yuri is a savage killer. He mutilates people with no hint of emotion. Like nothing means anything at all to him. Someone as emotionless as that couldn’t be as innocence. That was what thought of by CJ.

“Will you feed humans?” CJ asked, laughing lightly as he did.

“I’ll feed you,” Yuri answered, as innocent as ever. Like a kid with his eyes shine in excitement.

CJ guffaws at the innocent-like answer. “Do I look like a dog or a cat? Or am I just a human being?” He asked. They both laugh together for a while before Yuri starts to take his question seriously.

“You’re not entirely human, I guess,” Yuri stated. He had given it some thoughts by the looks of it. There was a distance in his eyes. Looking at the wall without actually looking at it. He was looking beyond here and now.

“And so are you,” CJ commented.

Laughing slightly, with a tiny hint of anxiety, Yuri said something CJ hadn’t expected to hear; “I’m not human at all. Or at least I’d like to think so.” CJ pays attention to his lover, inspecting him even more, scrutinizing him even more as well. “Anyway, haven’t seen your friend, The Chief in a while. Did he die or something?” Yuri asked a sudden question, diverting their previous conversation into a new direction.

Deciding to go along with Yuri in his diversion, he answers; “Hmm. Come to think of it. He hadn’t visited me in a while.” CJ started to look back at the ceiling, imagining looking at the stars. At the darkness. Everything is as dark as it is inside of him. He doesn’t care much about the visit. He prefers to be left alone.

“Grandpa said people, the working people here, are acting weird,” Yuri informed.

“Weird as in?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t pay much attention to other people. And I didn’t ask. Why don’t you ask him yourself?” Yuri suggested.

CJ directs his thoughts to Yuri’s grandfather who had been in the prison since even before he got in. That guy is a senior and has a lot of followers. He never spoke to him one on one before. But he had heard of his notoriety and he is sure that he had also heard of his. “I don’t like that bald guy,” he declared.

Yuri immediately laughs at CJ’s declaration. “Why?” He asked, not understanding CJ’s sudden vileness towards his grandfather.

“He has some influence over you. I don’t like that,” he simply stated.

“What do you mean?”

“He is related to you. He can call you his more than I can call you mine.”

Yuri laughs aloud to the last statement. He can sense that CJ is jealous. His possessiveness is poisoning his own mind. Negativity is engulfing his heart. “Jealousy is venomous,” Yuri commented.

“I’d like to kill him if you don’t mind,” CJ indicated with malign in his voice.

Yuri glares at CJ, there’s no more of that innocence uncaring looks on his face. He feels like he is threatened. He feels defensive and protective. “CJ, I do mind that. I will protect him if you try,” Yuri said. He never feels like he wants to threaten CJ before. He never feels intimidated before, never feels the need to protect someone before, but now he does.

“All the more reason to dislike him,” CJ simply replied.

Yuri sighs, giving up on further talking CJ into it. Part of him is angry, a feeling foreign to him, a feeling he had abandoned in his youth. The other part of him is breaking, a special kind of sadness, something he had never felt before. It was as if his heart is breaking from that of a lost loved. “So you’re not going to talk to him?” He asked, expecting a rejection.

“Do I need to?”

“Maybe. He was talking about how everyone is at risk.”

“At risk of what?”

“Annihilation.”

CJ got a little interested upon hearing the word. And he lets himself get lost in his own thoughts for a while. He is conflicted. He realizes the urgency of the talk. He himself had also noticed the oddness of the prison’s current condition. But he also has an ego as big as a mountain. He feels like he is controlled, used, and all that if he did go for the talk. “I guess I’ll say hi to him but that’s that,” he finally said.

Laughing aloud, Yuri gets up to a stand and paces around the cell in clear frustration. “You make me feel like strangling you most of the time. Simply because I adore you,” Yuri said and ends his statement with a flirtatious wink.

“You make me feel like bleeding you dry. Simply because you’re adorable and manipulative,” CJ replied.

Yuri halts on his pace at the word which had caught his ears. “Manipulative?”

CJ gets up too and walks right up to Yuri, towering him with his height. “You,” he indicated with his index finger pointing at him accusingly. “You will leave me to rot the sooner you got a better companion,” he accused.

Yuri only scoffs at him in answer. “Insecurity is poisonous,” Yuri indicated. He doesn’t want to argue. It’s a waste of time.

“Trust is a knife held at your throat. You move forward, the faster it’ll cut you. You must know when to back off.”

“Then keep going forward. Because that knife is imaginary,” Yuri provoked. They are both looking into one another’s eyes in an effort to threaten each other.

CJ smiles a little towards Yuri, as if admitting defeat, but he’s nowhere close to stopping. He leans in closer to Yuri and pulls him by his arm roughly to drag him forward towards his chest. With that, he kisses Yuri hard on his mouth. In anger, he bites hard on Yuri’s lips. A muffled scream escapes from Yuri’s mouth and blood starts to drop from it as he pulls himself away from CJ’s grip. Smiling sadistically, satisfied at the hurt he had caused, he looks into Yuri’s eyes and speaks; “I am the knife, Yuri. If I were you, I would back off.”

Yuri’s eyes are holding back tears. He felt betrayed. He felt violated. But at the same time, that couldn’t be it. He doesn’t even know what is the actual feeling he feels but he is feeling something. And it wasn’t a nice feeling. Licking the blood off of his lower lip, he looks back into CJ’s eyes, challenging him. “But you’re not me,” he simply said.

Feeling even angrier, CJ pushes Yuri to the wall. Yuri feels the concrete hits his back and the pain came slightly after. “You think I don’t know your plan?” CJ accused. All the while refusing to look away from Yuri’s challenging eyes. “I’ll be outnumbered if I went to see Oleg. Oleg has his crew. You’ll attack me when I least expected it.”

Yuri only laughs at the accusation. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t feel the need to defend himself because he knows that that is all not true. “Nice story. Didn’t know you’re a writer. Anyway, forget about talking to my grandpa. You don’t need to trust me or him. Just prepare yourself for annihilation if that ever happens. Because I’m out of your game. You’re right. I’ll let you rot. I’ll save myself first,” Yuri said, refusing to fight anymore. He had always thought of himself first anyway. He never put anyone before himself. Never felt the need to do so. But he does thought of CJ. He doesn’t want CJ to rot but if CJ doesn’t trust him, there’s no need to push it further. He’ll just look after himself first. And of his grandpa.

CJ tugs on Yuri’s shirt, pulling him closer. He feels a little nervous. A little defeated. But he’s refusing to acknowledge it. “You leave, you die,” he threatened.

“Then so be it,” Yuri said as he pushes him away with all his strength. “We will all die anyway.”

The buzz rings, indicating that it’s time for the prisoners to get up and freshen up. A new day had started. Yuri walks out of the cell. A little memory of his past flashes before his eyes. Of the belt. Of the blood. Of the abusers. Of the coldness. He walks on. We don’t live in the past but the past molds our entire being. CJ looks at the ceiling. At the imagined stars. At the imagined darkness. Everything is as dark as it is inside of him. It gets darker. With each step Yuri takes away from him, it gets darker. Morning sun will rise soon. But it only gets darker for him.

And that’s when it happened.

An actual sudden darkness. A blackout. A loud siren. There are screams. And sounds of guns firing randomly in the air. A riot? CJ thought. As panic surges inside of him, he could only scream at the top of his lungs for one precious thing, “YURI!!!!!!!”