I want to become a killer

The silence stretched out, heavy, as the crowd absorbed my words. My heart raced, and for a split second, I thought I might lose them entirely. I could see the skepticism in their eyes, the doubt that had crept into the minds of those who had once believed. But then, something shifted. A few people in the crowd started clapping, slowly at first, and then it grew. Not a cheer, not yet—but an acknowledgment. A flicker of something resembling hope.

I wasn't sure if they believed me, but they were at least willing to listen.

I stood there, the weight of the moment settling heavily on my chest. This was it. This was the tipping point. The difference between holding onto the fragile threads of unity or watching it all fall apart in front of me.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Mara, her presence a grounding force in the storm of uncertainty that had been swirling around me. She hadn't come to the square to stand with me, but I could see the way she was scanning the crowd, calculating, assessing the situation.

"Good speech," she murmured, but there was no joy in her voice. Only a quiet warning. "But words are just words, Psycho. You know that."

I nodded, not needing her to remind me. I knew it, better than anyone. It wasn't enough to simply tell them I was going to change things. The people had been lied to before. They needed action, not promises. And they needed to see real change, not just more speeches.

"Let's get out of here before this turns ugly," Mara added, already moving toward the back of the crowd. The protest had started to get more agitated again. The police presence had increased, and I could feel the tension rising in the air. The fragile peace we had just made seemed to be hanging by a thread.

I followed Mara, moving quickly through the crowd, my mind still reeling from the encounter. What had I accomplished? Had my words even made a difference? Or was it just another performance, another desperate attempt to hold on to something that was slipping through my fingers?

As we reached the edge of the square, I heard a shout from behind me. "You're a liar!"

I froze for a moment, the voice cutting through the air like a knife. The crowd was suddenly more restless, the anger building again. I turned around, my eyes scanning the crowd to find the source of the accusation.

It was the young man who had been leading the protest. He was standing on a pile of debris, his face twisted in a mixture of rage and contempt. His words came out sharp, venomous.

"You told us you were different!" he screamed. "You told us you were one of us! But you're just another puppet, just another pawn in the same game! You think we're stupid? We're not going to fall for your lies!"

The crowd murmured in agreement. The voices, once uncertain, were now rising again, louder, more hostile. The flicker of hope that had sparked earlier began to die in the face of the growing anger.

I felt my pulse quicken. This was it—the moment I had feared. I had thought that by showing myself, by facing them head-on, I could prove I was still on their side. But all I had done was give them more ammunition. More reasons to hate me. More reasons to distrust the system we had built.

And I had no one to blame but myself.

The young man's words echoed in my ears. "Just another puppet." A cold realization settled over me. What if I was just like them? What if this revolution had just been another way for me to grasp at power, to wear the illusion of change like a mask? What if I had become the very thing I had once despised?

I shook my head, trying to clear the thoughts from my mind. This wasn't the time for self-doubt. It wasn't the time to fall apart.

I turned to Mara, who had stopped, her eyes scanning the scene around us. "We need to leave, now," she said quietly, her voice hard. "This isn't the place for you anymore."

She was right. The tension in the square was palpable. The crowds were becoming more restless, their chants growing louder, their voices rising in a crescendo of fury. The police, who had been standing at the periphery, now started moving in, their riot shields raised, the batons at the ready. I could see the beginnings of a clash in the air.

Mara grabbed my arm, pulling me with her toward the exit. "We'll deal with this later," she said, her words firm, but there was an edge to them. A sharpness that betrayed the worry I knew was bubbling under the surface. "This isn't over, Psycho. Not by a long shot."

But I couldn't ignore the truth anymore. What I had said—that we would change things, that we could still fix this—wasn't just a lie to the people. It was a lie to myself. Because the revolution wasn't just a movement anymore. It was a monster. And like all monsters, it fed on the things we had created: the promises, the ideals, the desire for something better. But now, it had turned on us, and we were all just trapped inside it.

We made it to the back alley, and I took a deep breath, trying to steady myself. The adrenaline from the confrontation was starting to wear off, and the weight of everything—the protests, the revolution, the bloodshed I had tried so hard to avoid—was pressing down on me again.

Mara turned to me, her face hard but not unkind. "You can't save them all, Psycho. You can't save yourself by trying to save everyone."

I stared at her, the bitterness in my mouth. "Then what am I supposed to do? Just watch everything burn?"

She didn't answer immediately. Instead, she looked past me, her eyes narrowing as though she were searching for something. When she spoke again, her voice was quieter, almost a whisper.

"Sometimes, you have to let it burn before you can rebuild."

Her words struck me like a punch. I didn't want to believe them. I didn't want to think that everything I had worked for—everything I had believed in—was going to come crashing down.

But as I stood there, the distant sounds of the protests growing louder in the night, I realized that Mara was right. There were no easy answers. No simple fixes. The system we had built had cracks, and those cracks were widening with every passing day.

And the people... the people weren't going to wait forever.

"Let's go," I said, my voice rough. "We'll figure it out tomorrow."

But deep down, I knew that tomorrow might be too late.