Unfazed.

Prologue

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Aries's POV

Pitch-black emptiness.

That's all I saw while I struggled to regain consciousness.

I felt as if my eyelids were made of pure lead and were weighing down on me, like magnets yearning to connect. My dysfunctional senses averted me from paying mind to everything that was going on in my surroundings.

The first thing that came back to me was the muffled sound of sirens wailing in the distance, fighting their way over the loud beeping in my ear. I figured I must've been having a random dream related to the action movie I'd watched earlier that week.

The dream seemed to go down a more harmonious path, however, when the scent of my favourite food - spaghetti bolognese - wooshed into me and filled my nostrils, causing the corner of my lips to twitch upwards ever so slightly.

Nonetheless, the ever present feeling of unease rushing frantically through my veins, fended the mild smirk against materializing into a full smile.

Then my dream took a sharp turn, but this time it wasn't a pleasant one.

Next thing I picked up on was the ruggedness of the heavy item that was making contact with the sweaty skin in the palm of my hands and I couldn't help but wonder how on Earth I was being able to hold it when I could barely even keep my own head from unhinging from my body.

"Why are my knees pressed against a hard surface?" I questioned myself.

When I finally worked up the physical and mental strength I needed to open my eyes, I immediately forced them back close, regretting my decision the second the bright light from the lamp in the corner of the room almost burnt a hole through my cornea.

Green irises were revealed as I eased my eyes open reluctantly, and that's when I saw her.

My mother's lifeless body.

A strangled wimper forced its way out from deep within me at the sight, making me violently spring up onto my feet.

You know that terrifying feeling one gets when they're having a nightmare and, as hard as they try, they can't seem to get their voice to come out?

Well, it had just become a reality.

My gaze wandered around relentlessly, failing to settle on anything that was lying around me in that dim room until they locked on the bright red fluid that clung onto the skin on my arms. It began just below my elbow and trailed a chaotic path all the way down to my hands.

Hands that were desperately grasping onto a gun.

The hollow, metallic sound it produced as it hit the ground fused with the sharp gasp I had released, throbbing inside my head as if someone had plugged it into a speaker and blasted it out carelessly .

I jerked out an instinctive flinch as a result. "Oh my god," I whispered.

The rubber soles of my shoes screeched against the wooden floor of the living room as I slowly backed away from the scene.

"Did I really do this?" I thought with eyes wide open and a shaking hand hovering over my mouth.

"Did I kill my mom?"

***