The cold wind blasts against my cheeks. The last of the brown leaves clinging onto the trees. There isn’t a sound to be heard-no birds chirping, no leaves rustling in the wind, and no waves crashing against the rocky shores. Then i see a fallen nest, with small, cracked eggs hidden inside. Regret. The water is dark and cold, keeping the worst secrets at its deepest depths. Regret. The faintest smell of dead fish activates my senses. I look down at the shore and see a Half rotted and half eaten fish. Regret. A pile of dead, crumpled leaves lay limply on the ground. Regret. It’s the only thing I can think of. Then I think to myself, Does nature ever feel regret, like humans do? 
                          
It started back in 2008. He was were very well acquainted with my parents. The man had worked with my father at the spice factory down the road from our apartment complex.  Every night my father would come home from work, filling the room with that day’s spice’s scent.
I would run to him, and he would would always pick me up, saying “Hallo, Mak! How was my little trouble maker’s day?” I would always hug him tight and tell him about school, or what my mother was making in the kitchen for dinner. We were a happy, close family. Until the day that changed my life forever.

My Dad had decided to go out and celebrate the man’s birthday. They went to a bar downtown, and had a couple drinks with burgers and fries. Nothing special. The man had had a couple more drinks than my father, and was drunk. My father was offering the man a ride home for safety reasons, when the man slapped my father and got into his car. My father then decided to drive home. When he reached the corner of our street, the man came zooming by in his car, crashing into my father’s.ABCDEFGHIJKL My mother heard the screeching cars and smelled the burning rubber. “Stay here honey. No matter what happens”, she says as she brushes her beautiful wispy hair out of her tired face. She races out of our apartment, down the cold, dank stairs, out into the deadly street. She sees my father’s car rolled over, with a car in the ditch near by. She started to run, even though she say the man’s car coming out of the ditch. “STOP! STOP!” she screamed as the man zooms closer with his headlights shining on her. He was so drunk, he didn’t even realize she was there before it was too late. I heard the loud thud of her body, a looked out the window. The man had left my mother helpless on the road, as well as my father dead. He put his car into reverse, and drove off without even seeing if she was all right. I run out into the street to face a broken car, two broken bodies, and a broken heart. The man got away with minor jail time and fees, because “There wasn’t enough evidence.”  The man left me parentless, broken, with countless abusive foster homes, and alone.  He deserved to die the moment he ever touched my father, and he was able to walk away from it all being considered innocent, but I knew better than to believe it.

I walk past the buildings in their crumbling despair. Should I really continue this? Is it worth it? I pull out my silver blade, its shininess unaware of what is about to happen. Across the street I see a man and his two children staring at me. My heart starts to beat faster, in time with my footsteps. The man that I’m about to meet with is considered innocent, but my mind knows better than to believe it. I know that everyone is evil-we all have spots that don’t show. We all have those fantasies of seeing someone we hate die.

Once i get to a clearing, I see something amidst the trees. An old, run down log cabin. I walk closer, inspecting it with each step I take. I reach out and touch the door. the hinges are rusted, and two screws are missing from the doors handle. I step down from the little porch, each step I take pairing with a lonely creak. I move to the left side of the house and look at the window. Its frame is missing pieces, and the glass is cracked and shattered. Looking up at the roof, I see bits and pieces of the shingles missing. Mold is growing on the roof, mixed with shriveled leaves and old branches. I take a step back, get on last look at it all, and continue on walking.

Once I make it to the lake, I stand-frozen. My fright is getting the best of me, but I know that I must do this. It’s what my father would have wanted. I continue to walk on the trail, the trees looming over me like a hood of shame-I don’t want to do this, but I don’t know how to stop myself. It has to be done.

He approaches me with open arms, and greets me with a warm hello. He doesn’t Know me. What he did to my parents, what he has done to me, or what I’ve gone through. The lives that he has vanquished needs to be repayed by his own. I engage in his hug, and reach into my pocket for the blade. “I’m so sorry Mack,” he says. “I hope you know I never meant to-”

“It’s fine,” I say coldly as I cut him off. “Let’s just walk.”

My finger wraps around the handle of my knife, desperate to do its dirty work. If I do this, does this really make me as I dark as I feel? Even if I’m doing justice to my parents?  I’m fighting the urge, but my mind is stronger than my body. I can’t listen to his mumbling, his small talk. I struggle with myself as I continue, but I can’t do it anymore. I whip out the knife and turn towards him, plunging the dagger into his back, and gratefully watch him slump to the ground. “I WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU FOR WHAT YOU HAVE DONE TO MY FAMILY. DON’T YOU EVER THINK I WOULD! I HAVE HATED YOU ALL MY LIFE!” I look down at the lifeless body, and feel a twinge of fear as regret stirs up inside my body. Could someone have seen me or heard me? What if someone else was here?  

I drag the lifeless, red stained shape to the lonely, cold shore. Not one sign of life is to be seen or felt, even inside me. I bring the body into the water, diluting the calm, clear water to a bright red swirling mess of chaos. Regret and shock twist and turn inside my head, and all of a sudden I drop the body where I am in the water and run off. Off to somewhere where my problems don’t show, off to somewhere safe, where regret does not exist.