Last Gun Alchemist-Chapter 65: Where Old Memories Still Bleed
Ezra walked slowly through the quiet passage of the Maze.
Each step he took echoed faintly against the stone walls. The floor beneath his boots was uneven, and the faint light of the Maze crystals made long shadows stretch across the ground.
Aliya’s body rested on his back.
Her arms hung loosely over his shoulders. One of them swayed slightly each time he stepped forward.
Blood dripped slowly from her wounds.
Drop, Drop, Drop.
The sound followed him like a quiet clock counting down something he could not stop.
Ezra’s entire body was stained with blood from head to toe. Some of it belonged to him. Most of it belonged to her.
His eyes looked dark and hollow as he kept walking forward without stopping.
Then a voice echoed in his mind.
"I’m sure you are asking yourself why it is always the people who love us that die."
The voice sounded calm, too calm.
Ezra slowed his steps.
Love us?
The words felt strange in his mind.
The air around him suddenly felt heavy, like the Maze itself was pressing down on his shoulders along with Aliya’s body, but he kept walking.
The voice continued.
"Grandma died working hard to give us a better life, Maya had her life ruined protecting us, On the battlefield, friends died one by one so that we could keep moving forward."
Ezra’s brows slowly furrowed.
The Maze around him seemed to twist slightly in his vision.
The walls looked farther away, then closer.
Who is, us?
The voice laughed quietly.
"Ezra... why do you keep fooling yourself?"
A face flashed across his memory.
A man’s face.
Older, worn, eyes that looked exactly like his own, but held more maturity.
"They all died because of you. Because of us."
The voice whispered close to his ear.
"People who had better lives than us... gone because of people like us."
Ezra suddenly stopped walking.
His breathing became uneven.
"It’s your fault."
The words slid into his ears like cold wind.
"If you had been more decisive... if you had not deceived your true nature..."
Ezra reached out and grabbed the stone wall beside him to steady himself.
His legs almost gave out.
His eyes drifted downward.
Blood, a lot of blood.
Aliya’s blood continued dripping down his back, soaking his clothes.
Ah...The blood is still flowing.
His hands tightened slightly as he held her body closer so she would not slip from his back.
The voice returned again.
"If only we never existed... right?"
This time the voice echoed from multiple directions inside his head.
Behind him, beside him, inside him.
"But why do we have to suffer while the ones who caused everything continue living happily?"
The words grew louder.
"Why do they enjoy their lives while we lose everything?"
Ezra’s breathing grew rough.
His fingers pressed harder into the wall as his body leaned against it.
The memories inside his mind started shifting.
Moving, unlocking.
Then something clicked, like a chain finally snapping.
A hidden memory forced its way forward.
"That’s why we took everything from her."
The voice whispered again slowly, right beside his ear.
***
He retired at the early age of thirty-five, and there was a saying among soldiers that once a man had rolled through the sea of death long enough, he would never again be the same person he once was.
The man who came back from war was never truly the man who left.
What returned was only something that wore his face.
An alter ego.
Something that had learned to live beside death for too long and could no longer walk normally among ordinary people.
That was the life he lived after leaving the army.
He stayed behind closed doors most of the time, curtains drawn tightly across the windows as if sunlight itself was an enemy waiting outside. The house remained dim even during the day, and he moved through those dark rooms like a ghost that had forgotten how to belong in the living world.
Sleep rarely came peacefully.
When it did, it was filled with the faces of the dead.
The soldiers who had fallen beside him.
The ones who had trusted him.
The ones who had died while he survived.
Every night their faces returned, standing silently in the darkness of his dreams, watching him without speaking.
Sometimes he woke up sweating and breathless, convinced that the families of those dead soldiers would someday knock on his door and ask him the same question he could never answer himself.
Why did you live when they died?
One night, during one of those long sleepless hours, he scrolled through his phone absent-mindedly.
His thumb moved slowly across the screen of his FacePic page.
Then the world decided to laugh at him.
He saw it.
A photo.
A smiling woman, a man standing proudly beside her with their elderly Children with their spouses gathered around them and their grand-kids.
The caption read:
"Family dinner with the love of my life."
A perfect family picture.
That single image felt like someone had opened a locked door inside his chest.
Seven years later.
Midnight.
A quiet neighborhood.
A beautiful house sat peacefully beneath the dim glow of street lamps. Flowers were carefully arranged along the small garden path leading toward the front door, and the windows shone with the warm light of a comfortable home.
It was the kind of house people would glance at while passing and think,
A good family must live here.
The air around the house felt calm.
Peaceful.
But inside, the atmosphere was completely different.
"Please... please... why are you doing this..."
A woman’s voice trembled as she spoke.
Her hands were bound tightly behind the chair she sat on. Her hair was messy, strands sticking to the sweat on her forehead where a small cut had opened earlier.
Fear had drained the color from her face.
"You monster!" an old man shouted hoarsely.
"Do you think the law will let you walk away from this!"
The man he shouted at sat calmly on a chair beside a baby rocker.
One leg crossed over the other.
A gun rested casually beneath his chin as he stared quietly at the baby sleeping inside the rocker.
"You know shouting will not help you, old man."
His lips curved slightly.
A faint grin.
"I replaced your windows with soundproof glass before starting this operation of mine."
He gestured lazily toward the windows.
"And I tinted them black tonight after drugging all of you earlier."
A dry chuckle escaped his throat.
"So, you can scream as much as you want."
"Why would you do this?" a woman demanded angrily, forcing herself to sit straighter despite the ropes cutting into her wrists.
"If it’s money you want, we can give you everything we have."
"I don’t need your money."
His reply came flat and immediate.
"Then why are you doing this to my family!" she shouted again.
"Don’t try to reason with someone like him, baby" the man sitting beside her muttered bitterly.
"He’s clearly insane. Someone who enjoys hurting people."
The man in the chair tilted his head slightly.
"I’m not a killer," he said thoughtfully.
Then after a pause he added,
"Although I have killed before."
The room fell quiet.
"I’m here for someone specific," he continued calmly.
"A woman who destroyed my life."
His gaze moved slowly across the family members tied in their chairs.
"Let me tell you a story."
He stood up.
The family stared at him with a mixture of fear and confusion.
"When I was born, my parents divorced under unpleasant circumstances, and my dear mother aband..."
"We don’t care about your story!" one of the husbands shouted angrily.
"If you want sympathy then go complain online somewhere. Don’t break into my father-in-law’s house and threaten us with this nonsense!"
The man stopped walking.
He stared at him silently.
Then he nodded once.
"You’re right."
He walked slowly toward the old woman sitting among them.
"My mother left me to rot while she enjoyed a perfect life."
His voice sounded almost casual.
"So, I thought... why not return the favor."
He removed the mask covering his face.
The old woman’s eyes widened instantly.
Recognition struck her like lightning.
"Ezra...?"
Time had changed his face.
He had grown older, scars crossed parts of his skin, but a mother recognized her child even through years and scars.
"Hello... scum mother."
He smiled.
Then in one swift motion he raised the gun.
The barrel pointed toward a small girl crying beside her mother.
"Wai..."
The sound of the gunshot shattered the air.
Everything froze.
For a brief moment nobody moved.
Then chaos erupted.
The mother screamed in pure horror.
"Wendy!"
The father struggled violently against the ropes binding him to the chair.
"You monster! Why would you do that! She’s just a child!"
The old woman’s voice broke as she shouted, her body trembling helplessly against the ropes that kept her from moving.
The baby started crying.
Then the two other children began crying as well, their small voices breaking into frightened sobs.
The adults began shouting over one another, voices cracking, chairs shaking as they struggled against the ropes tied around them.
The room descended into chaos.
Then...
Bang!
Bang!
The gunshots echoed sharply through the house.
Ezra fired upward.
The sound alone was enough to silence the room.
The cries died down into trembling whimpers.
Even the adults froze, staring at him with pale faces.
"You’re asking why?" Ezra said slowly.
He stepped forward and grabbed the old woman by her hair, dragging her head upward so she was forced to look at him.
"It’s obvious."
He shoved her away violently.
Her chair tipped and crashed against the floor, the wood scraping loudly as she hit the ground.
"I’m going to kill every one of you," he said calmly, his voice carrying through the room. "From her children to grandchildren."
His eyes looked empty.
"You will all repay the price for the life I had to suffer while you enjoyed yours."
"She’s your mother, you ungrateful child!" the old man shouted desperately.
"Even if she abandoned you, she gave you life! She must have had her reasons!"
Ezra suddenly burst into laughter.
A loud, unhinged laugh that echoed across the room.
"You make a funny case for a woman like her."
He laughed harder, almost doubling over.
"I used to think like you. Honestly, I did."
He wiped his face as if trying to stop laughing.
"But can you imagine something?"
He pointed at the old woman on the floor.
"This woman dumped her own child on her aging mother like unwanted garbage."
His voice grew colder.
"And when that grandmother died after spending her final years raising that child..."
He leaned closer.
"She didn’t feel a single ounce of remorse."
The room had gone silent again.
"Instead," Ezra continued, his voice trembling slightly with restrained fury, "she fought for the little inheritance that grandmother left behind for the grandchild she had raised."
He laughed again.
"That money was supposed to help me survive."
His gaze shifted slowly toward the old man.
"But when I investigated what she did with it..."
His smile widened.
"She gave it to you."
The old man froze.
"She used that stolen money to help save your failing business."
Ezra clapped slowly.
"While you were thanking her and thanking God for your good fortune."
He leaned closer to the old man’s face.
"You didn’t even realize the money came from robbing her own child."
Silence filled the room.
The old man slowly turned toward his wife.
His voice came out hoarse.
"That... isn’t true... right?"
The old woman didn’t answer.
She simply stared down at the floor.
"Mum!" one of the daughters shouted desperately.
"Mum, he’s lying, right? Mum!"
The older woman still didn’t respond.
Her shoulders trembled slightly, but she said nothing.
Ezra straightened up.
"Well."
He glanced toward the baby rocker where the infant was still crying.
"Back to what I came here for."
He began walking toward it.
"Let’s deal with the baby next."
"You bastard! Don’t touch my child!" the baby’s parents screamed at the same time.
"No!"
The old woman finally shouted, her voice breaking.
"Take me instead! Please, don’t hurt them!"
Tears streamed down her face.
Ezra snorted in disgust.
"You still don’t understand, do you?"
He turned toward the baby rocker.
"I’m returning the favor."
"You crazy bastard!"
The old man suddenly forced himself up from the chair despite the ropes binding his hands.
"Ahhh!"
He lunged toward Ezra in desperation.
Ezra reacted instantly.
Bang!
The gun fired.
The old man’s leg collapsed beneath him as he crashed to the floor with a cry of pain.
At the same moment, the two younger men rushed forward.
"Oh?" Ezra said quietly.
The father of the baby swung a punch at him.
Ezra slipped to the side effortlessly, letting the punch pass by his shoulder.
Then his knee slammed into the man’s stomach.
The man doubled over instantly.
Ezra grabbed his head and smashed it down against the dining table.
The glass cup sitting there shattered.
Fragments of glass drove into the man’s scalp.
Blood spilled across the table like red wine splashing from a broken bottle.
Ezra shoved the man aside.
His body hit the floor heavily.
The screams in the room grew louder.
"AHHH!"
The second man grabbed a chair and swung it at Ezra’s head.
Boom!
The chair shattered into pieces.
Ezra barely moved.
Blood trickled down from a small cut on his forehead as he slowly turned his head toward the attacker.
The man staggered back, horrified.
"You... you monster..."
Ezra stepped forward.
His fist shot out and struck the man’s face.
Then he grabbed him by the throat.
With brutal force, Ezra drove his knee downward.
A sharp crack echoed as the man’s leg bent unnaturally.
Before the man could even scream properly, Ezra slammed him onto the floor.
His knee pinned the man’s arms.
Then Ezra began punching.
Left, right, left, right.
Again, again, and again.
His fists rose and fell relentlessly.
The man struggled at first, his body twisting violently beneath the blows, but the struggle gradually weakened.
His movements slowed.
Then finally stopped.
Ezra’s fists were covered in blood by the time he stopped.
He stood up slowly, breathing heavily.
"Ahhh..."
A strange sense of calm spread through him.
For the first time that night, Ezra looked almost... refreshed.
"AHHHHH!!! I will kill you! I will kill you!"
The woman who owned the baby suddenly forced herself up from the chair. Her hands were tied in front of her, the rope cutting deeply into her wrists as she struggled. Somehow, she managed to grab a knife from the table beside her.
Her movements were clumsy and desperate, but her eyes burned with a madness born from fear and grief.
She rushed toward Ezra.
Ezra reacted instantly.
His body moved almost automatically, the instincts of a trained soldier taking over.
He raised the gun.
Bang!
Bang!
Two shots rang out in quick succession.
The woman’s legs collapsed beneath her as she fell to the ground with a scream.
Before she could even gather herself, Ezra stepped forward, grabbed the knife from her trembling hand, and grabbed it for himself.
The blade flashed in the dim light as he drove it downward several times into her back.
Her body jerked violently with each impact.
She struggled, her limbs twitching uncontrollably as if her body refused to accept what was happening.
Then slowly...
Her movements weakened.
The room filled with sobbing.
One of the other women had lost control completely and began crying uncontrollably.
The baby inside the rocker cried louder.
The two remaining children cried as well, their voices trembling with terror.
Bang!
Bang!
The gunshots echoed again.
The cries abruptly reduced, only the baby’s cry echoing in the room.
The two remaining children were now dead.
Ezra lowered the gun.
Then he began walking.
Slow steps, heavy and measured.
He stopped in front of the last daughter of the woman who had abandoned him.
The young woman stared at him with hatred burning in her eyes.
Then she turned toward her mother.
Her voice trembled, but the words were clear.
"I hope you rot in hell."
Ezra picked up a chair from the ground.
The chair leg struck her face with a sickening sound.
Her scream filled the room.
The blow knocked her sideways, blood splattering across the nearby window and the wall behind her.
The old woman watched everything unfold.
Her eyes were wide, but there was no strength left in her body.
She looked like someone whose soul had already left.
Ezra did not stop.
The chair rose and fell again and again.
The woman’s voice grew weaker each time until finally it disappeared entirely.
Ezra stopped.
He exhaled slowly.
"Ahhh..."
For a brief moment he looked almost relaxed.
He stepped past the bodies scattered across the floor and moved deeper into the room.
The baby continued crying in the rocker.
Ezra looked down at it silently.
The crying echoed through the house.
Then, he fired with continuous shots, not caring whether he was shooting a baby.
When the noise finally stopped, the room became unnaturally quiet.
The gun he held was a Kel-Tec PMR-30.
The old woman stared blankly at the room around her.
She slowly turned her head from side to side.
Everywhere she looked there were bodies.
Her children.
Her grandchildren.
All lying motionless on the floor and the baby’s rocker, filled with blood stains.
The peaceful home that once held laughter had become something else entirely.
Something she could never have imagined.
Ezra glanced down at the floor.
The old man was still alive.
Barely.
He was dragging himself slowly across the floor, leaving a faint trail behind him.
"I almost forgot you, old man."
Ezra smiled faintly.
The old man’s voice trembled weakly.
"No... no... please..."
He tried to crawl away.
Ezra stepped forward and planted his foot on the man’s back.
Then he grabbed the man’s neck and pulled upward with brutal force.
A sharp crack echoed through the room.
The old man’s body went still.
Ezra released him and stood up again.
Finally...
He turned toward the last person still alive.
His mother.
She looked completely broken.
"Why... why did this have to happen..."
Her voice sounded hollow.
Like someone speaking after losing everything.
Ezra crouched down so their faces were level.
"Well," he said quietly, "wrong choices lead to consequences."
"And you have to pay for those choices."
He studied her face carefully.
"You know something funny?"
He spoke calmly, almost conversationally.
"I spent a long time researching what actually happened between you and father."
He leaned back slightly.
"You cheated on him with that man."
His gaze flickered briefly toward the body on the floor.
"He couldn’t handle the betrayal."
"But you, this bitch took everything from him... his reputation, his property, even custody of me."
Ezra laughed softly, a bitter sound.
"In the end he couldn’t endure the pressure."
"So, he killed himself."
Silence filled the room.
"You robbed everything from me," Ezra said slowly.
Then he cut the ropes that tied her to the chair and grabbed her hair and dragged her toward the nearby window.
"Argh...!"
She tried weakly to resist, but her body had no strength left.
"You asked why this is happening."
He forced her to look at the window.
Her reflection stared back at her.
A broken woman, drained and empty.
"You know," Ezra murmured, "this is exactly how I looked after retiring from the army."
He smiled faintly.
"It’s like looking at another version of myself."
Then suddenly...
Boom!
He slammed her head into the reinforced glass.
Her body shook violently.
"Don’t worry," Ezra said calmly.
"The window is reinforced."
He slammed her head against the glass again.
And again, and again.
The sound echoed repeatedly through the quiet house.
Finally, her body went limp.
Ezra released her.
Her body slid slowly down the window and collapsed onto the floor.
The room became silent.
Ezra wiped his hands slowly, then he took out a cigarette lighting it with a gas lighter.
The flame flickered briefly in the dim room.
Ezra sat down in one of the chairs.
And began to smoke.
