Zee 
One year later

None of them ever suspected me.  When I called Kinn to finally hand over the duties of our group boss, I was completely sure that I had done my job perfectly.  For the last thirteen years, since my school days, I have gradually gained positions in our world and have achieved everything, there is only one thing left to do: to be forever in the history of the world.  I had only one idea for this: to kill everyone who came with me to celebrate the anniversary since the end of our series, which turned out to be even more successful than we expected.

I checked the guest list in our small, private village somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Poland.  This location favored my plans.

Khaotung and his husband First.  Annie with Perth.  Saint and Lando.  Kamil and Ewa Stoch.  Gun and Off with their daughter Alice.

Why did I want to do this?  Why did I want to kill them?

It's simple, I enjoyed killing as much as sex.  Besides, I wanted us to be remembered forever.  I was proud of how well I played my part: everyone believed me, they were all dolls on strings that I pulled.  Even P'Sky.  P'Sky was just one of six different gang bosses in our group.  No one knew my name, no one ever heard my real voice or saw me without my disguise.  I always wore a different mask, trying to confuse everyone.  I used a voice modulator in conversations with subordinates.  Only my closest associates knew me, including Win, Poy, Pond, Porsche, Pete, and Seng, among others.

Now I'm ready to leave.

When I finish my work, you will see my body among the rest.  I wonder how long it will take you to find this letter.  I hope you're having a great time because I'm having a lot of fun.

NuNew thought I loved him.  Funny!  This kid doesn't understand that there is no such thing as love.  I didn't feel anything else for him for a moment, all that was between us was lust, desire for his body.  So I will leave him for last.  My people Yoon, Yin, Ton, Porsche, Pete, Billy, Seng, Pond, Poy, Metawin, Ohm and Nanon are guarding our campsite so that no one gets here before everything is ready.  Their task will be to get our bodyguards, including Yim and Tutor, drunk.  I've decided to spare only Max, but I'll let him watch what I do with his "beloved" elf, Nat.

A thrill runs over my skin as I scroll through the handwritten notes on important events in everyone's lives.  It would be good if this was collected and published as a book, many of them have a talent for storytelling, I'll be sorry to deprive them of their lives and the world of their talents, but well, I have no choice.

Khao and First wrote about First's illness and their wedding, they didn't write anything about whether they "consummated" their marriage and that's the question I'd like to ask them. I don't really want to kill these two at all, they're okay, I like them,  but it's their fault they came here with the others. If they'd just stayed at home and kept their heads down, they'd have saved themselves. Fools!

Want to know who really killed Boun and Fluke?

You probably think it's me?

Hahaha.  Don't make me laugh!  Why would I get my hands dirty and make myself an easy target?  I sent P'Sky and his gang on this task.  They did a great job, they got caught taking all the attention away from me and Saint.

That's right, Saint.  His death will be the icing on the cake.  I hate this asshole from the start, I hated working with him, and when I had to kiss him, I wanted to wash my mouth with holy water afterwards.  I hate such weak, so helpful, agreeable people with good hearts, who so easily succumb to others.  Saint thinks he's strong, but he's not.  He is weak.  He's like a woman, and he dresses like that.  I despise him.  He thinks I forgave him.  Funny.  What should I forgive him?  That he did exactly what I expected of him?  At least it didn't disappoint me.  I don't know, maybe I'll let him suffer a little longer?

I can only promise you that First and Khao and Annie and Perth will have a light and quick death.  I'll try to surprise them in their sleep.  Sorry if I fail.

*   *   *

I closed the laptop, packed it into a bag, which I placed in a cardboard box, which I slid to the bottom of the wardrobe.  I walked over to the bed where my two most used pistols lay and a large knife.  I checked the sharpness of the knife by cutting the skin on my forearm with it.  It stung and immediately there was blood.  I smiled to myself.  I was used to the pain, to some extent it became an intoxicating drug for me, from which I could not free myself.  Three knocks on the door were the signal that Billy and I agreed on.  I hid the gun under my clothes and went outside.

The day was slowly coming to an end, the sun was setting orange, giving us the false impression that the surrounding forest was on fire.  The air was heavy with the smell of herbs and mown grass.  In the nearby pond there was the croaking of frogs and the cries of some birds I couldn't name.  All the guests were busy unpacking their luggage in their rooms and did not yet sense that this might be their last sunset, that they were just taking their last calm breath.

I looked at the boys.  Billy, Seng, Poy, Metawin and Porsche were dressed all in black, Yoon and Yin chose white clothes, while the others looked like ordinary twenty-year-olds on vacation.  No one could suspect that they are part of a secret organization that rules the world.  Although no one knew it, we even had power over Louis Tomlison or Lewis Hamilton, both of whom were among our most faithful servants, blindly believing that our group called themselves the Illuminati.  Myths and legends about the Illuminati were circulated by our predecessors many years ago, before most of us came into the world.  We were recruited and trained to kill without batting an eyelid.  Initially, we were trained only to kill, only after passing the appropriate tests, the most intelligent of us moved to the next level: the one I got to.  But today my role ends.  This is the last task.

First on the list were First with Khaotung.  As expected, I found them in a bedroom in the last of the renovated cottages.  They were just getting ready for bed.  They stood with their backs to the door, staring out the window in pajamas.  First embraced Khaotung from behind, their heads touching each other.  I crossed the threshold as quietly as I could.  They felt nothing.  I signaled Pond to take care of Khao, which he did with a devilish grin on his face.  I promised them a quick death, so we couldn't hesitate.  I counted to three on my fingers while Pond and I fired our pistols simultaneously.  Pond aimed at Khao, I at First.

—  Don't count on a happy ending — I spoke English fluently and without stuttering.  Pretending that I had problems with the language was fantastic fun for me, as well as the fact that sometimes I could eavesdrop on some pretty interesting conversations.  People were not afraid to speak English around me because they thought I didn't know it.  Who knew I could speak it as fluently as Perth?  At my earlier request, Poy recorded everything on the phone.  Later, when I'm dead, he was supposed to share all the footage from my official Instagram account as Instastories.  — You shouldn't have  come here, you should have stayed home.

We didn't bother to cover our tracks.  Each of us knew our task, knew what we were responsible for, and understood that if the need arose, we would have to give our lives in order to continue something that had begun more than two hundred years earlier.

Next on my list were Off and Gun.  I had the biggest problem with them, because Gun tried to play the hero and begged me on his knees to at least spare their daughter, little Alice.  I just laughed and blew his head off first.  Stupid queer daddy!  However... However, I couldn't kill the little one.  I grabbed it and handed it to Win.

— Take her.  I know you've always wanted to be a father.  Now's your chance, don't screw it up — I told him.

Annie and Perth ran to a house where First with Khao occupied one room and Off with Gun  and Alice other one, alerted by the gunshots.  It was starting to get dangerous for us.  I couldn't give them an opportunity to call the police or anyone else, so as soon as Win came into my view, I nervously pulled the trigger, wounding the woman, but the wound wasn't fatal, I didn't aim accurately.  As Perth ran over to grab the gun from me, we began to struggle.  In the commotion, Billy, who was supposed to be covering me, accidentally stabbed me in the leg with a knife.

— Damn Billy, watch what you're doing! —  I yelled at him.  An uncontrollable fury began to overwhelm me.  At that moment, I was forever no longer Zee Pruk Panich.  Now I was Johnny.  I was a killer, a monster.  I hated myself for it, but I couldn't change that.  It started many years ago when I joined a gang.  Homeless, jobless, without money to eat, and with no career prospects, I accepted this opportunity with a kiss of the hand.  At that time, I had no idea that I would be able to kill with such cold blood.  I was just an ordinary boy, a confused teenager like many of my buddies.  I just discovered that I'm gay, I had problems at school, I was often beaten, bullied and ridiculed by my peers.  I wanted revenge, I wanted everyone to feel what I felt then.  I was a great actor, getting better every day.  Evenings and nights were devoted to training in our secret base.  And then I met Saint.  You could say that I felt something like love for him, but it was more like an obsession.  Our boss, who is also Poy's father, noticed this and told me to stop it.  He put P'Sky as my primary manager so he could keep a better eye on me.

The rest is history that everyone wrote with their own hands.  When I asked them to write down anything significant they thought had happened, Annie, NuNew, Saint, Perth, First, Khao, and Nat got right to work, and I received all the notes this morning.

Billy, Seng, Yoon, Yin and Porsche helped me get rid of the others.

I saved my partner for dessert.  He was waiting for me at our house, beautifully tied up in a chair in the middle of the kitchen.  It was definitely the work of Seng and Porsche.  I went over to him.  I lifted his chin to make him look me in the eye.  I leaned over to kiss him.  Last time.  He tried to turn his face away, but I wouldn't let him.  I pressed my lips against his as if everything depended on it, even though it didn't matter.  I could taste the blood on my tongue from his split lip, probably from the fight with Seng.

— Don't be afraid to ask, you won't tell anyone about it anyway —  I smiled at him, watching the tears mix with the blood from the cut lip.

— Why?!  Tell me, Zee, why?!  Aren't we in love?!  — He shouted in my face one last time, reminding me of the character he played ages ago.

Porsche walked over to the cabinet, probably wanting to reach for his own pistol there, knocking a glass of water off the counter, which fell to the floor and shattered with a loud clang, shattering into dozens of pieces.  The glass was as weak as he was, NuNew Chawarin, the idiot and kid who wanted so badly to believe in the existence of true love.

— I don't love you, I never loved you. I admit you're awesome in bed, great at cooking, and have a nice voice, but that's about where your good points end.  You should have hammered into your head what Saint and Annie understood a long time ago: that there is no such thing as love.

— P'Zee... I don't recognize you.  It is not you.  You don't act like that.

— No, NuNew, that's me.  You don't know anything about me, absolutely nothing.  You are so naive, so childish!  You want to know the truth?  Here you go.  My real name is Johnny Jitaranian Potiwihok.

— No... you're not serious. — He didn't believe me, so I took from a box full of photographs on the table, one picture of me and my younger brother Jimmy, who later became a doctor and saved First, standing side by side with our arms around each other and smiling  to the camera.  Jimmy was only five at the time.  Jimmy held a melting ice cream in his hand, and I held a gray, slightly dirty ball.  Jimmy was the opposite of me, always calm, orderly, never bothered my parents, got good grades in school, and always dreamed of becoming a doctor, but when he found out I wanted to be an actor, he followed me to one of my rehearsals and  he liked it so much that he also started training in this direction.

— Jimmy is my brother, our parents' beloved son.  I changed my name to get away from him.  The fucking doctor!  Our parents always gave him anything he asked for.  I was the one who had to move out at the age of seventeen and start earning a living on my own.  That's when Poy's father found me.  Poy was still a kid then, but he was getting used to being in a gang.  His father extended a helping hand to me, gave me room and board in exchange for working for him.  I was his most faithful, most loyal employee, which is why he entrusted his position to me when he found out that he didn't have much time left due to his illness.  Poy's father was better to me than my own.  I promised myself that I would never let him down.

— You damn asshole! —  NuNew really looked like an Annabelle doll now.  Tightened lips, lightning-throwing eyes and a body tensed to the limit perfectly testified to the condition he was in.  And at the same time, apart from name-calling and insults, he couldn't do anything else.

— If you want to survive, fight me.  I'll give you one last chance. — I changed my mind suddenly, imagining it was no fun to kill him when he couldn't defend himself.  I untied him and he immediately aimed a kick at my sensitive spot.  I didn't anticipate that, it gave him an advantage.  While I was cowering in pain in the middle of an almost empty room, he ran outside, and after a while I heard multiple gunshots and I knew immediately what had happened: it was my men, Poy, Billy and Yoon, who were guarding the entrance to the building, who started shooting at NuNew's as soon as he appeared in their sight.  That's what they got the job.  I had no time to waste.  Only I am left: the last living witness.  Still holding the picture of Jimmy in my hand, I took the pistol from my waistband and put it to my temple.  I expected the barrel to be cold, but it was warmed by my own body.  The last thing on my mind was that we're all going to pay for what we've done.  Each of us was somehow to blame for what happened.  Each of us had a choice, we made bad choices, but we alone are ultimately responsible for them.

I pulled the trigger and let the rest be a mystery.

It was so damn hard to kill you.
You with your angelic soul and voice.
Goddamn!
You beautiful.
You were perfect.
But it wasn't right time for us.
I don't have hope that you'd forgive me.
I did what was the best for us.
I wanted to make you my last.
And you were great.
But my heart,
You know
It was dead long before you coming here.
You came to save us.
But at the end
You were the one who killed everyone.
I feel sorry for us all.
We've been on wrong path since the beginning.
But how could we know?
I was innocent kid too...
I had dreams.
I wanted something
And my longing was breaking me.
But now it's over.
Finally.
We won't suffer anymore.
We will be free as we wished.
No more pain,
No more people telling us what to do.
No more tears because of lost love.
Let's go.
Hold my hand,
It won't be long.
Didn't mean to break you,
When we finally met,
But I didn't have a heart anymore.
Forgiveness?
Do I have right to ask for it?
Me, who killed you?
Who killed our friends?
You trusted me so much
And I broke you.
I'm sorry.
If I could regret...
Before you I never thought i could be loved.
But you did loved me
And it broke me.
I should've run away.
Why did I stayed?
Why did I hurt everyone?
They...
They were our friends,
You loved them...
I don't have a heart.
You believed in me.
Why?
Did I ever deserved your love?
Or the sacrifices you made for me?
Never.
So why did you love me?
You shouldn't have.
But now we'll just leave together,
Hand in hand.
I'm standing right next to you.
You died and came back for me.
It's the time.
I know it is.
So let's say our last goodbye
Until we meet again. 

THE END