A past so frightful,
Turns cold the blood of the victims.
A time long gone,
So hateful and so harmful.
With a knife in hand,
And a twist in his wrist,
He lures out the cries and the pleas,
They were enough to satisfy his demands.
He remembers it well,
He remembers it vividly.
He remembers it confined,
He remembers it free and unwell.
The blood would trickle upon the floor,
But it never drained.
It stained the cold surface,
A bottle of bleach I would pour.
The incessant screams of terror rang out,
The sound-proof walls making it futile.
Refusing to provide the necessary information,
Would lead to more pain and more shouts.
He tried to force the memories out from his mind,
But often failed.
His dreams were haunted by many faces,
Bruised, beaten faces that only served to remind.
Why? He often asked himself,
Why do they torture me so?
It was always because of the job, it was always because of the money,
So why do they appear in my nightmares and disrupt myself?
The organization he was with,
All but disappeared after he was arrested,
He didn’t try to find them; he rather did the opposite,
And fled the country, changed his name, stayed low, and tried his best to remain a myth.
He never knew what the organization did,
He never knew why they needed the information.
He was kept in the dark,
Only allowed a single piece of the puzzle; the information, and was forbid.
And there in the shanty house,
And there in the outskirts of a fishing town,
He lay on his floor, thinking of all the people he tortured,
And of the organization who may be tracking him down like a cat and like a mouse.
He got up and opened the wooden door,
And took in the salty air.
He looked out to the great beyond and the prosperity of the town below him,
And thought of how he can live with his past and constant stress that shook him to his core.