A Whistle of a Ghost

Since when did I start hating this world?

Did you know that ghosts make a whistle-like sound to reach living beings? It's from the folk stories, actually, yet I think it's relatively got a point itself. Even now, in the 21st century. Maybe it's more accurate to call it madness these days, like if somebody tries to take their revenge, but it's just something you made up with your own mind. That's what happened when I lost my mom, when I lost my never-born little sister in her belly. That's the reason I killed my own father...

This world is cursed; anywhere you go, you'll eventually encounter the mafia. Some have already gotten serious power in their hands. They rule the world now, yet their greed is still growing nonstop. There's a war going on everywhere, with people murdering each other, only to get more power, only to get more authority over the world. Not to mention, my father was the chairman of an organization as well. That's why things got, well, complicated.

We were happy back then, I was too little to understand the world around me. I loved my father, he was a strong, caring man. I thought he was invincible, and maybe things would have been different if the war had never hit us.

It's now all blurry memories for me, I don't know if it's because of my hatred that made me blind. I hated guns since that day, yet my father kept training me for the worst. At least that's what he said to me. He was saying that I needed to learn this kind of stuff to survive out there, saying that the world is not kind anymore. My big brother always said that it wasn't our father's fault and that I shouldn't blame him. He always said that it was harder for him. But I just... couldn't see it. Maybe it was because of the strong father figure he always played, I never thought he was upset about whatever happened to our mom and sister.

I kept running away from him as much as I could. I was waking up before the sun and going outside to kill some time. One day, he caught me in front of our house, it wasn't like he was angry or something, now to think about it, he might have been really worried. Yet I couldn't see it. He took me to the yard and gave me a pistol, just like the old days. Even though I hated guns, I had to endure that stupid shooting training. For more than six years, my hatred for him remained unchanged. At the age of 18, during a regular training as always, I shot him behind his head in the yard...

Now you might think that I was in big trouble. It was a big deal to kill a mafia leader, of course, but nothing had happened. My brother took the seat and became the head of our family. Later, he explained that my father's actions were all planned. It seems like he knew that I was going to avenge my mother and sister by killing him. Those trainings were his way of giving me encouragement. He had his responsibilities, he couldn't just give up and mourn all day, until he was at death's door. Instead, he kept working hard to prepare me and my brother.

All the suffering eventually comes to an end.

I don't know if those words were for me or for my father. Maybe both, who knows. That was the last thing he wrote in his letter, aside from the "love you, son" part. It was actually the second time I cried since that accident. I was feeling guilty all over my body, but now I could understand it. Even his death had only one purpose, and it was me at the very center of it.

Probably just because of what I did to my father, things got a bit messy. My brother was just like my father, he was just displaying his feelings a bit more to his family. The problem was not his ability to lead or his authority over the family, no. Our father's death put us on the table for other families. I was still in bad shape, trying to find a way out of the guilt I felt. I didn't know what to think, I didn't know how to feel...

How contradictory, isn't it? Hatred against guilt and regret. I was unsure if I had done the right thing. I wonder if my mom and little sister will ever forgive me. Maybe they already did, I feel like they're more mature than I am. And since that was the way my father freed himself, who knows. Yet, I couldn't resist hating myself and this world.

In the end, the war has gotten worse around us. Maybe I made my brother worried because of the mood I was in, he wanted to send me overseas. He tried to convince me that it could be a good chance to empty my head without any responsibilities on my shoulders. I wasn't that foolish child anymore, I knew the reason behind it deep within. It wasn't some holiday to refresh my soul and body, his intention was to send me away from the war as much as he could, only to protect me. Who am I to argue, he had a point. I could barely survive in this state, and it's not like I like this kind of stuff at all. Let alone holding a gun, I couldn't even bear to look at them. I would immediately start shaking, and I could feel the tears rushing to my eyes. And since you can't use your fists in a gunfight, well, I had to accept my fate at that point.

So I took a flight to Japan. Why, you'll ask? It's because it's the safest place in this cursed world. There was a guy, whose name I cannot recall, who united all the Yakuza at the very beginning of the war. They managed to expel foreign organizations, and being surrounded by the ocean made it easier to do so, for sure. It could have been the United Kingdom, but, well, things got more complicated because of the Irish Mafia. It's a whole other story, so all I can say is that they couldn't isolate themselves from the foreign organizations like the Yakuza did. But still, it's a relatively safer place if you consider the situation in other regions.

Now I was in a foreign country, and to be honest, I had nothing to do, particularly. I had to admit that it felt better than staying at the house where I lost three members of my real family, but now I was all alone, and it had its own problems to deal with. I kept recovering my sanity slowly over time. I couldn't get rid of my contradictory feelings, but at least they were less painful now, or maybe I figured out how to deal with them. Yet the problem hasn't changed at all, I was still wandering around without any purpose.

At least, it was until that one cold winter night.