The following day, when the adrenaline rolled off, I felt extremely guilty. I felt as though the filth of the world had finally caught up to me, chewed me up, and spit me out. My clothes were ragged, my eyes were (probably) bloodshot, and my hands and feet were grimy. 

In my woebegone state, I was a picture of a virtueless man.

And my arm... The shards of glass had broken my skin, and I spent the entire night under a streetlight, trying to remove all of them. Needless to say, my arm looked hideous, but it was hidden from sight because I had pulled my sleeves.

The necklace sat in the pocket of my trousers, weighing a ton as I walked cautiously toward the antique shop... that was until I saw the tail of a police car. My feet froze. My parents would hate me for doing this, I told myself. I think I'm beginning to hate myself. I incriminated myself for doing such a despicable act for a moment of warmth, and that warmth was gone, leaving behind an unfathomable abyss in its wake that threatened to pull me in and lock me up in a bottomless hell forever.

I hid my wounded arm behind my back.

A policeman crouched down in front of the shop where I'd punched a hole in the glass display. 'He stole nothing else? Only the necklace?' He asked the man standing beside him. One could tell by the worry marring his face that he was the owner of the unfortunate shop. 'Yes. Everything else is intact.'

'What about the cameras inside? Did they capture the thief?'

'No. It was too dark at that time.'

As I overheard the conversation, I felt peace. It was of the tricky kind. The one where you know you should hold yourself accountable, but you turned the other cheek simply because nobody could know it was you who was responsible for the mess.

There is immeasurable peace in anonymity. There is immeasurable peace in concealment.

The shopkeeper spotted me first. 'Hey, you! Shoo! Go away!' He waved his hands as though he were trying to scare away an animal.

The white dove called Peace morphed into an ugly thing, slimy and a filthy shade of green. I found myself thinking: I should have stolen more from him. I believed it was righteous anger that filled me up; another candidate was disgust. I find the latter more palatable. It was strange how in one moment, my emotions flipped, from despising myself, I came to despise the man.

'Let me talk to him. He must have seen something,' the policeman interveened. Only then did I see realization dawn on the shopkeeper. He gave me an ingratiating smile that made me gnash my teeth. With a saccarine voice, he said, 'Did you see anything last night? Be a good man and tell me.'

The irony of the words coming out of his mouth!

I glanced at the policeman, who looked at me expectantly before replying, curtly, 'I didn't see anything. I was just asking if you had some food to spare.'

And I saw it. I saw the twistedness inside that person appear on his visage. The fiery curl of his lips, the deathly cold look in his eyes. I must admit, I felt a great deal of satisfaction when I pulled up his real character in front of the policeman. I'd ripped off a mask. You'd have to be blind to be oblivious to the changes.

The policeman got to his feet and pulled out his wallet. He handed me a couple of bucks. With a real grin, he said, 'Go get yourself something.'

I almost cried at the gesture. The admission of the crime was almost at the tip of my tongue, but then I remembered that he would forget me. I took the money with my uninjured hand and thanked him before I left.

I walked slowly, and as the distance between them and me widened, I realized I was pretty good at this... stealing stuff; that if there was anyone in the world who could get away with anything, it would be me.

Being Nobody gave me a taste of power unlike anything I'd ever had before.

Witch could have hardly imagined how righteous I'd felt at that moment, and that peal necklace, which seemed like a replica of the one that belonged to my mother, felt lighter than a feather. I crossed two blocks before I drew it out of my pocket to get a good look at it. I wondered then how I could compare a masterful piece to junk. All pearls looked the same. White and shiny, unblemished and pure.

But that poor knock off! It already had layers of white peeling off of it, revealing a yellowish hue underneath. I scowled at it. It was barely anything of value. The shopkeeper was probably out there conning people. In hindsight, he did look like a conman.

Regardless, I kept it. Maybe it was the ties of the intense emotions that prevented me from discarding it.

After that incident, I'd made up my mind. I would use Robin Hood as an inspiration for what I was going to do: steal from the rich and give it to the poor. Only that I was going to be the only mouth that I feed. A selfish pursuit, I agree, but after bearing the brunt of Ugly Witch's curse and the harshness of the world, I felt that caring about someone else would be a waste of my effort.

I was better off looking after myself. After all, I was alone.

That bravado that you previously read about, it had all been beaten out of me. Had I known that my life would take a turn for the better, maybe I would've taken a different path.

But that's the beauty of life. It is anfractuous by nature.

I dislike lectures, and I wish I could keep this to myself. However, I think that you'd benefit from it. Fear only appears monstrous in the moment. Time is the biggest enemy of the Fear. Give yourself Time and Fear will disappear. It will crumble and vanish. You will learn to live again.