[Translator – Aren]
When I was a kid, there was a time I used to play by running up escalators the wrong way.
I still vividly remember the day I got excited riding the subway for the first time, sprinting up a descending escalator, and immediately got smashed hard across the back by my mom. Back then, the subway I turned around to see had been full of office workers absentmindedly fixing their clothes and glowing cosmetic advertisements lining the walls.
Now, however, I was climbing forward while wiping wet concrete dust from the lenses of my gas mask with my bare hands.
-Huff—. Huff—.
Inside the mask, the air was thick with sweat and ragged breathing. I could feel a damp droplet falling slowly down my slick cheek, but there was no way I could stop walking.
-Splash.
Beyond the rising fog, concrete dust tangled with the sprinkler water weighed heavily against my poncho.
The reddish emergency lights scattered weakly through the pale fog, while streaks of water continued running down my gas mask lenses no matter how many times I wiped them clean.
At the top of the escalator, an advertisement sign tilted crookedly from the impact, dangling from torn cables like an arm with its tendons severed. The sound of wet mud and dust sliding through the gaps in the escalator steps echoed unnaturally loud.But even the strange sound of streams forming from the sprinkler water was quickly drowned out by gunfire and screaming from below.
Bang, ratatata...
Even beneath my poncho, I could hear dust and debris striking my helmet, mixing together with the gunfire roaring beneath the escalator.
Guilt?
My mind was far too numb to feel something like that. Hell, to be honest, I already felt like I’d done more than enough as a citizen of the Republic of Korea just by making it this far.
But this dense gray dust cloud seemed unwilling to let us go so easily.
At some point the red emergency lighting disappeared completely, so with frowning unease, we continued to climb upwards only to find a massive advertisement display blocking our path, its shattered screen glittering in the darkness. It had collapsed together with chunks of broken ceiling material, forming a natural barricade.
"Huff—. Huff—. Baek Jemin-ssi?”
Even Father Jeong Yonghwan’s breathing sounded rough.
I crouched carefully, wondering if there might be some crawlspace or opening we could squeeze through. Using the butt of my rifle, I tapped around cautiously, but there didn’t seem to be any gap large enough for a person. And honestly, I was afraid hitting it too hard might collapse the whole thing completely.
I forced myself upright again beneath the crushing weight of the soaked poncho.
"It’s blocked. We’ll have to cross the escalator and head for the stairs."
"...O Lord, please protect us.”
"Be careful not to slip.”
Ratatata, bang…
Gunfire still echoed from somewhere below.
How many survived? Captain Bae Seulgi, the 72 soldiers, and wizards… How many of them managed to make it out of there alive?
To force those thoughts out of my head, I wiped the wet mud and grime from the handrail before securing my rifle sling right over my shoulder. If I slipped while crossing the escalator and fell all the way down there, I was pretty sure I’d bite through my tongue and die on impact.
"Ugh, shit."
The soaked poncho was heavier than I expected, and I barely managed to keep my balance.
And so, I crossed sideways over the escalator together with Father Jeong, searching for an intact route upwards. Our splashing footsteps subtly echoed through the tunnel space, resonating with an ominous hum that sounded far more unsettling than it should have.
Occasionally, severed electrical cables swayed inside the fog. When they struck puddles of water, blue sparks burst outward in sharp flashes.
It was dizzying. The thought that we might get electrocuted before being devoured by monsters, that is.
I loosened my rifle sling again so I could fire at any moment and steadied my breathing, wiping dust off the gas mask filter with my hands in hopes of getting even a little more use out of this damn thing.
-Huff—. Huff—.
The filter wasn’t just damaged, it had become so clogged that breathing lightly no longer worked. I had to inhale harshly just to keep from suffocating. Part of me wondered if taking the mask off would actually make things easier, but looking at how dense the dust was, I couldn’t shake the fear that my lungs would be ruined the moment I removed it.
After climbing for quite some time, a metallic screech scraped against my eardrums.
-Screeeeeech—.
It was the first time we’d seen green emergency lights shining through the fog instead of the endless red ones. A blast shutter was descending crookedly along twisted guide rails, grinding loudly as it lowered itself.
"So this is the way out?”
"Baek Jemin-ssi."
The one who shattered my hope of escape was none other than Father Jeong Yonghwan.
Confused, I turned toward him, only to see him staring silently down the staircase while reciting a prayer.
"Anima Christi, sanctifica me. Ab hoste maligno defende me.”
"What?"
"I told you my Alteration-type magic lets me detect heat. Something’s coming up the stairs. Please confirm it.”
At that moment, I had to make a choice.
If I ran now, I could probably escape a little faster. But if the Amalgams increased in number and climbed through another route, my chances of escaping alive would plummet. Besides, my ammunition was limited, and I still had no idea how many Amalgams there actually were.
Even setting aside noble reasons like saving others, from a purely selfish survival standpoint, it made more sense to help if helping was possible. Especially because, for some reason, the Amalgams seemed terrified after realizing I could see the future.
Maybe I couldn’t inflict serious physical damage on them, but if I could at least frighten them into retreating…
Feeling my eyes burn painfully, I aimed my rifle where Father Jeong was looking. The Amalgams were monsters that fused faces onto themselves at will, but judging by the fact that the bodies beneath remained largely human, they probably couldn’t exceed normal human physical capabilities by too much.
If Father Jeong, with his Reception of the Eucharist magic as well as his Heat Detection, and I, who could see 10 seconds ahead, worked together…
[Rules for Engagement 6. Civilian rescue is strictly prohibited.]
Han Myeongwoon's final moments flashed through my head, snapping me back to reality.
I immediately regripped my rifle and grabbed Father Jeong by the shoulder.
"Father, fuck that. We’re leaving.”
"Baek Jemin-ssi..."
"Unless we run into people while actively exchanging fire, we absolutely cannot trust anyone who comes walking up to us looking perfectly fine right now.”
Only then did Father Jeong seem to understand. He abandoned his hesitation and followed me.
The shutter continued descending slowly along its rails, and we became the first survivors to escape the underground platform through this stairwell. Then, accompanied by heavy tremors, the entire station let out a deep metallic groan.
The vibrations shook my organs along with it, to which I grimaced, and soon afterward a chaotic series of collapses echoed upward from below.
"Sounds like they’re detonating grenades."
"..."
Father Jeong and I couldn’t say another word. All we could hear were the harsh breaths echoing through our gas masks as we continued forward.
-Splash, splash…
Then, both Father Jeong and I felt something strange at the exact same moment, exchanging glances.
Father Jeong wasn’t carrying a firearm due to using Reception of the Eucharist. But I, on the other hand, was. Without hesitation, I aimed down the staircase, toward the shutter blurred behind the gray dust cloud, and locked myself into a firing stance.
I could see the places where the damned fog would clear.
10 seconds into the future.
Countless footprints followed beneath the shutter. They dragged unnaturally, overlapping far too densely to belong to a single human. I was too afraid of losing the timing to even reach for a grenade.
How many bullets did I have left? 16?
Then, the moment a human-shaped silhouette appeared beyond the fog, I pulled the trigger without a moment’s hesitation.
The heavy recoil slammed into my shoulder as shell casings bounced across the floor beside me. The roar of gunfire hammered directly into my skull, rattling my eardrums, while the sharp, pungent, and acrid scent of gunpowder filled my nose. And the instant it did, I kept pulling the trigger again and again.
Every time flashes burst from the barrel, the figures beyond the fog writhed violently.
Whether they were real people or Amalgams didn’t matter anymore. If it approached, I shot it. That was all. As I fired like a madman, the sounds of impacts, tearing flesh, and metal strikes echoed wildly through the stairwell.
Thankfully, they weren’t humans but monsters.
-Click, click, click.
The moment the overheated rifle stopped firing despite me pulling the trigger, Father Jeong Yonghwan stepped in front of me, raising both glowing arms.
"Et jube me venire ad te. In saecula saeculorum!”
Like a river bursting through a collapsed dam, countless human faces came pouring forward in a tangled mass.
An old man who looked like he enjoyed Go. A grandmother with a peaceful expression. A 10-year-old child. A tiny infant. A weary-looking salaryman…
All of those faces overlapped and fused together into a single mouth and compound eyes, twisting and rolling as they surged toward Father Jeong trying to merge with the face of the priest who stood his ground beneath the glowing light of ‘Reception of the Eucharist.’
My hands trembled violently before that horrifying sight as I fumbled another magazine from my vest.
I didn’t even have time to care that the empty mag clattered uselessly across the floor. My fingers were shaking so badly that I had to shove the new magazine in using the heel of my palm.
The bolt wouldn’t catch properly. I lifted my gas mask slightly, bit down on my fingers to force them steady, hooked them against the charging handle, and yanked backward with my entire shoulder, which had gone rigid from all the tension.
-Clack.
There was no time for chamber checks.
By the time I raised my rifle again and aimed over Father Jeong’s shoulder, my burning eyes were already showing me 10 seconds into the future. The fused faces screamed at the priest with their single mouth and single throat, like they were enraged or perhaps pleading.
I didn’t want to see it, so I kept firing.
-Bang, Babang, bangbang…
Ironically, shooting became easier because Father Jeong was holding the monster back, pinned down by its sheer weight. The monster’s faces, writhing between the gaps in his arms and preparing to spill through, were pierced by scorching rounds.
The Amalgam let out a grotesque scream and recoiled.
Pus-like fluid poured from the bullet-riddled faces as it clutched at the wounds and began to cry.
-Hic, son… waaah…
Faced with that horrifying sound, I grabbed my rifle sling, threw the weapon over my shoulder, and hauled Father Jeong upright.
"Father! Move!”
"I-It’s splitting..."
"Father!"
"O Lord…It’s splitting apart…”
Father Jeong looked half-delirious, but he still focused desperately on running with me. Only then did the shutter finally descend with a thunderous metallic clang. The problem was it hadn’t closed all the way.
The lower half of the Amalgam’s body was still visible beneath it as a writhing silhouette.
"Why the fuck isn’t it closing completely?!”
"F-Fire regulations…They’re designed to leave time for evacuation…”
"Godammit. What a wonderful country we live in!”
And the moment I forcibly turned my head, I saw the fog parting, revealing countless footprints appearing all across the stairs.
Why were there so many footprints all of a sudden? And why were they spread all over the staircase?
The answer came instinctively from the sounds rising behind us.
-Grrrkrrrrrk......
Wet, phlegm-filled noises overlapped together, then countless voices began speaking at once.
"Mom!" "Son, you haven’t visited lately." "Waaah!" "Assistant Manager, that’s not what I meant…"
At last, the shutter slammed completely shut with a loud roar. But strangely enough, it didn’t reassure me at all.
The monsters immediately began hurling themselves against the shutter. And beyond it, countless splashing footsteps came racing up the escalator stairs.
-Huff, huff, huff…
I wanted to rip off my gas mask, but I didn’t dare to. The fear that removing it might cause me to literally fuse together with those things made me decide I’d rather suffocate slowly instead.
But even after climbing all the way to B1, the underground concourse, the situation was not much better.
Gunfire echoed from every direction.
Beyond flashing sparks and flickering red emergency lights, distorted radio chatter crackled beneath dim green emergency lamps.
Then the sharp voice of Pastor Yohan, a man with a sly look about him and a pair of glasses perched on top of his nose, suddenly boomed through the station.
"What? Are you insane?! How are we supposed to rescue the Operators in this situation? You trying to get all the soldiers killed?!”
There were survivors.
At the very least, the fact they were still firing back meant they were actual humans. Certainly more human than the things pounding against the shutter behind us.
Exhausted, but determined, Father Jeong and I staggered toward the voices, then heard Park Sehyeok shouting in a panic.
"Stop! I hear heartbeats. Sounds like…humans. Shit, who is it?!”
The fog in the concourse wasn’t as dense yet, but the constantly flickering emergency lights made it nearly impossible to identify people clearly.
Just then, a bright flashlight swept across the area before finally landing on us.
The person holding up a phone flashlight was none other than Pastor Park Yohan.
He stared at us, frowned, then snorted and spat phlegm onto the floor.
"So the priest survived. Figures. That Reception of the Eucharist spell probably kept you from getting eaten. And the guy next to you?”
"Bae…Baek Jemin, Pastor. The one who can see 10 seconds ahead.”
"Well, those sound like some damn reliable people.”
That was basically an unspoken invitation to join them.
Once Father Jeong and I finally regrouped with Pastor Park’s group, I noticed several rifles immediately aiming at us, but honestly, I couldn’t blame them.
If it were me, I’d have shot first already. After catching my breath and looking around, I realized the number of people who’d successfully escaped from the B2 platform to the B1 concourse was terrifyingly small.
And even those survivors probably wouldn’t have made it at all without Pastor Park’s Redemptive Conviction magic.
"When the train derailed and smashed into the platform, the wreckage miraculously tangled together just right. The soldiers near me and the people who came my way survived. Those destined for salvation do not doubt salvation itself. All thanks to the Lord’s grace.”
"Pastor, were the people who escaped up the stairs the only survivors?”
"Tsk. I guess the priest finally thought about that after running for his own life. Some people fled through the opposite tracks too. Didn’t get a good look, but Captain Bae Seulgi and the other wizards probably went that way. As for the stair route, me, the monk, this grumbling bastard here, and eight soldiers. That’s it.”
Pastor Park Yohan calmly took a cleaning cloth from his glasses case and began wiping his lenses as he spoke.
Beside him, Monk Choenhwi sat with his palms pressed together, quietly chanting something strange under his breath.
"Om—mani padme—hum—."
It carried a peculiar resonance.
If the grotesque noises produced by the Amalgams’ fused vocal cords agitated human nerves and disrupted judgement, then Monk Cheonghwi’s magic…or whatever it was, was the complete opposite. It contained a strange harmony that calmed trembling hands.
I knew it for certain because I could feel my own fingers, clenched tightly around my rifle sling, slowly steadying themselves.
The sharp stench of gunpowder still drifted through the air. Only then did I finally feel safe enough to adjust my gas mask properly.
In front of our group, several Amalgams with shattered bodies twitched weakly while thick pus-like fluid oozed from their faces as they died.
After putting his glasses back on, Pastor Park blew air into his gas mask for a moment, then frowned deeply at the sight of the monsters and threw the mask away in disgust.
"To profane the bodies granted to us by the Lord like that. Revolting bastards. Anyway, now that you two are here, we’ll catch our breath for a minute, swap magazines, and then move.”
"We’re not moving immediately?”
"Hah. Baek Jemin-ssi, it’s nice that you’re still full of energy, but we were just shooting at those monsters a second ago.”
"I just got done shooting a face covered in compound eyes myself. The thing split its own face apart to multiply. Unless you want to see that shit personally, we should swap mags and move now.”
Honestly, the best way to persuade people was sincere honesty.
Pastor Park immediately slapped Monk Cheonghwi on the shoulder to rouse him and hauled Park Sehyeok to his feet as well.
"Alright, move. If what Baek Jemin-ssi says is true, some truly grotesque monster thing is chasing us, so hurry!”
* * *
Having companions was a true blessing.
As someone who normally found it annoying to even meet friends or walk 10 minutes to a convenience store, this was the moment I rediscovered the value of human beings. Moving through shattered glass and flickering red emergency lights while following faint green emergency signs through fog that had already risen to chest level required absolute concentration.
And in this situation, Monk Cheonghwi’s Mantra Invocation turned out to be incredibly useful.
"Om—Mani—Padme—Hum—.”
He simply repeated it over and over, yet somehow it calmed our trembling hands and allowed us to keep moving while staying alert.
The low, resonant chant washed through the mind like clear water, giving us the courage to keep walking forward. But perhaps only the ignorant soldiers could truly afford courage.
To me, Baek Jemin, the man forced into taking the lead simply because he could see 10 seconds into the future, this place looked like hell itself. The countless footprints appearing wherever the fog dispersed made cold sweat pour down my body. Every time sweat trickled down the bridge of my nose, my mouth felt drier and more cracked.
Then I had no choice but to stop and report what I was seeing. Specifically, the footprints on the ceiling I saw 10 seconds into the future.
"Something’s going to show up on the ceiling.”
"The ceiling?”
Pastor Park’s confused question didn’t leave enough time for an answer.
Before the future could arrive, I raised my rifle first and fired toward the place where the fog would clear. The spot clearly illuminated by the red emergency lights.
The staccato of gunfire erupted, accompanied by the clattering sounds of spent casings bouncing against broken glass on the floor. Then a moment later a wet heavy 'splutch' echoed beside us.
Thinking maybe he’d imagined it, Pastor Park turned on his phone flashlight and pointed it upward. The moment he saw what had fallen from the ceiling, he visibly forced himself not to scream before finally choking out a strained sound.
Me?
I’d already pissed myself a little.
"What the hell is that…?”
Have you ever imagined what a person would look like if the body itself wasn’t whole? If each individual body part became an independent organism? If human bones themselves became living creatures that rejected coexistence and evolved into perfect predators and scanvers?
The thing illuminated by the flashlight was exactly that.
A human head with its lower jaw torn away rolled pale, vacant eyes around in circles. Its ribcage had become legs, curled inward like the limbs of a dead insect, while its spine dragged behind it like a tail, leaking spinal fluid as it slowly died.
There was no flesh, no muscles, only dried traces of nerves and blood vessels clinging to bone, only the blood-soaked spine remained to prove this thing had once existed inside someone’s body.
The curled-up ribs twitched desperately like the legs of some giant arthropod, then finally stilled, as though only just realizing the bullet through its skull had already ended its life.
Father Jeong silently prayed to himself. Pastor Park began sweeping the ceiling with his flashlight. Monk Cheonghwi narrowed his eyes before resuming his mantra chant, guiding the soldiers onward. Corporal Park Sehyeok couldn't even curse anymore, almost completely stiff, swinging his rifle around in paranoid jerks while scanning the surroundings.
The soldiers were so shaken by what they’d just witnessed that even their gasmask breathing had become shallow and uneven.
And so we moved past the corpse of that grotesque human-derived monster and headed toward the giant green emergency lights ahead.
But the fog rose rapidly. Before long, it had climbed so high it nearly covered the front of our gasmask lenses. Then someone muttered in despair.
"Visibility in fog is under 20m…"
At that point, even flashlights had become nearly useless.
In the already pitch-black underground, even the faint red emergency lights scattered uselessly through the fog, warping every sense of distance. The drifting mist flowing through shattered windows made paranoid thoughts bloom endlessly. Was that fog? Or was it the breath of monsters? The fear gnawed away at our sanity with terrifying speed.
-Crunch, crunch, crunch…
Only the sounds of footsteps over broken glass and rubble echoed through the darkness.
Even Monk Cheonghwi, who’d continued chanting his mantra the entire time, could no longer hide his exhaustion. His steps gradually slowed.
It was to the point that Pastor Park silently moved to support him.
Then suddenly, Park Sehyeok muttered in a strangled voice.
"They’re coming. Footsteps.”
The pounding against the shutter echoed all the way here.
Soundless reverberations rolled through the underground space from every direction, pressing in on us. The bodies consumed by the Amalgams were still wearing clothes. Some wore shoes, while some were barefoot.
And paradoxically, inside the underground concourse filled with mud, shattered glass, and concrete dust, the footsteps of the dead sounded far clearer and more vivid than they ever had while alive.
The fog scattered endlessly.
The whole ground was almost completely filled with nothing but footprints, to the point that entire sections looked as though the mist had never existed there at all.
When I instinctively turned back toward the group, Park Sehyeok had already dropped the rifle and fallen to his knees.
"There’s too damn many..."
-Whoooosh...
A single breath expelled from fused vocal cords resonated through the underground like a massive brass instrument. The sheer weight of that breathing vibrated even the air moving through the ventilation shafts before settling heavily atop our already soaked ponchos.
Pastor Park drew the sign of the cross, grabbed Monk Cheonghwi, and shouted.
"Follow me! Those who do not doubt salvation shall be saved!”
"Open fire! Open fire!”
The group split instantly.
Pastor Park tried to lead the living away while supporting Monk Cheonghewi, but Father Jeong instead raised both glowing arms and remained behind alongside the rear soldiers.
And I chose to stay as well, because despite everything, I trusted the priest.
And because we had to somehow drive them back at least once.
But the moment I saw the fog swallowing everything above my head, the moment I realized I couldn’t even see a meter ahead, I instinctively lowered my rifle. Only one thought filled my mind.
Guns weren’t enough.
Before I knew it, my hand was reaching into my coat for the Magic Crash Course booklet I’d kept carefully tucked away.
The Alteration-type magic that could only be learned inside the fog. This had escalated too quickly, so I kept postponing it again and again, but now, only when my life truly stood at the edge did I finally pull it out.
The booklet was already soaked through with sweat and moisture. The pages clung together so badly it felt like they might tear apart if I were even slightly forceful. Even so, kneeling there and trembling, I carefully rubbed the wet pages apart and pushed onward to the next section.
Before the disaster, I remembered what ordinary life had once been like.
And now, standing before this catastrophe, there was only one emotion left inside of me. Not anger or resentment.
It was grief.
No, something closer to resignation.
The helplessness of standing before a calamity humanity could never resist.
It was the feeling of a flood victim staring blankly at their home, washed away by a typhoon. You wanted to curse something out so bad, but you simply couldn’t find anything to blame, so all that remained was sitting there, numb, chewing endlessly on sorrow itself.
At that moment, the magic symbols allowed me to see the next page.
No… It forcefully made my brain understand.
Those bizarre symbols clawed their way through the skull of an idiot and violently shoved knowledge inside.
The first stage of Alteration-type magic had forced humans, creatures born with only three-dimensional vision, to perceive 4 or more dimensions. And now I had finally reached the second stage.
The smeared ink on the soaked pages writhed as though alive, assembling sentences of their own accord. Circles containing triangles and squares moved about, and my mind rearranged itself alongside them.
Eyes were perception.
Most of humanity’s standards for understanding and judging the world rely almost entirely on sight. That was why even the concept of understanding reality was called "worldview." To see was nearly synonymous with cognition itself. And Alteration-type magic of the Eyes-branch manipulates that very perception.
If the first stage, Retrospection, were merely an expansion of ordinary life. An expansion of the areas one could perceive…
Then the second stage was Grief. Through suffering, perception itself began to distort.
Because time would slow when humans felt immense pain…
I tightened my grip on the rifle and aimed it at my own left hand.
By then, Father Jeong’s magic had already failed.
The instant I pointed the barrel at my hand, Father Jeong was being dragged away with his shoulder crushed between the teeth of an Amalgam, tears streaming down his face in absolute fear.
"Lord… O Lord…! Aaaaagh…!!!”
And behind him, more Amalgams surged forward.
Beyond the dispersing fog, soldiers fired wildly in panic while the monsters advanced almost mockingly, splitting and merging faces as though rejoicing in the opportunity to feed and multiply.
And in that moment, I pulled the trigger without hesitation.
-Bang!
When pain became too overwhelming, people would either squeeze their eyes shut. or force them open.
Fortunately, I was the latter.
"Aagh! Agh! AaaaAAAaagh!”
Clutching my mangled left hand as blood poured from it, I screamed while forcing my eyes wide open, staring directly at the Amalgams charging through the fog.
I was desperately forcing my gaze away from the blood dripping down my arm.
Happy moments were short, but painful ones were incredibly long.
And right now, my suffering stretched longer than any moment I had ever known.
"Wh…what?”
"They stopped?”
"Shoot! Shoot their fucking heads, you idiots!”
My eyelids kept trying to close, but I forced them open through the agony, like scrubbing my eyeballs raw with shampoo. Stinging tears streamed down my face, but I didn’t even have time to wipe them away as I screamed at the top of my lungs.
Realizing that this was their chance, Pastor Park and Monk Cheonghwi immediately rallied the soldiers as well.
"Om—Mani—Padem—Hum—.”
"It’s Baek Jemin-ssi’s magic! He stopped them! Kill them all now!”
Aleration-type magic—Eyes-branch.
If the first stage was perceiving higher-dimensional information, seeing time itself, then the second stage marked the true beginning of reality distorting through perception.
As long as I kept my eyes open, until the moment I blinked again, the intensity of pain I experienced could be inflicted on others as paralysis.
"Hehehehehehehe…Fuck… Fuck, this hurts so bad…!”
I rejoiced at the greatness of that magic and, at the same time, screamed internally over the fact that, instead of biting my hand or something reasonable, I’d actually fucking shot myself with a rifle like an absolute moron. Clutching my ruined left hand against my chest, sobbing and choking on laughter, I finally let my eyes close.
-Blink.
The Amalgams that had experienced being frozen even once shrieked with grotesque screams before fleeing. The monsters disappeared back into the fog while the ragged breathing of soldiers echoed through their gas masks, filling the air.
-Huuuff, huuuuff…
After about 10 seconds everyone realized it.
We had successfully repelled them.
But there was one thing we couldn't stop. A familiar voice drifted faintly through the fog.
Lord……Loooord…….AaaAAgh……
Holding my bleeding hand, I laughed like a madman.
"I’m sorry, Father.”
I felt grateful to him for buying us time, but the next time we met, I vowed to put a bullet through his forehead.