Megara sat in her living room with a nice glass of whiskey in her hand. The days, hell, even years had flown by and there she was in her mid-twenties, working in a line of work she would never have imagined to work in just a few years back. It was late, and she was exhausted, but she had just gotten off the plane from Las Vegas after a small business trip and was back in her home in Manhattan.

She hurried home the moment she was told that her boss needed a word with her and was wondering what it was. She leaned back into the soft couch and closed her eyes, leaning her glass towards her chest but making sure to keep it standing up and not spill everywhere. The quiet in her home stood in great contrast to the volume and life in The Big Apple, though she did not mind the honking of a car outside from time to time, to bring her back to reality. 

“Alright... One more and then bed Megs..” she murmured to herself, as she emptied her glass and got up to get another. 

She blinked shocked, feeling the cold floor on her bare feet, and looked down on them as she sneaked her way to the other side of the living room.

She chuckled a bit to herself when realizing the effort she had put in to be quiet as if she had anyone or anything to accidentally wake up from their sleep. Rolling her eyes she started taking louder steps and made her way to the stand, and filled up her glass yet again.

“Of course not. You can’t be that lucky, can you?”

With a hard grip around the glass, she looked on the wall to the picture of a little child in her arms, and a man a few years older than herself. They were all smiling and looked happy.

Megara sighed, if she had gotten a picture of herself up and hanging next to that one, she would have looked like a completely different person. She was tired and utterly exhausted and had been working her ass off the last few months, trying to pay back her loans. Her loans, for God's sake, she thought to herself and looked at the picture, especially the man with hatred and perhaps also a little amount of despair in her eyes. This was no one's fault but his, she thought. 

She felt her soul raging as she looked at the smiling man, the man she used to look at with nothing but love and joy, her childhood sweetheart, love of her life. Megara shook her head and decided to take a few deep breaths to calm down, but felt her eyes tear up as she looked at the child. 

“Why did it have to be you?” She cried as she walked closer to the picture. “Why did you have to die because of one idiot's actions? My child..”

 She placed her glass back on the stand and took the picture down from the wall and held it close to her chest. This was the only one she was able to rescue from the fire, and one of her only memories left of her son. Her late husband, however, got nothing of the love, and she would have burned the picture immediately, had it not been for the fact that it was all she had.

Megara slid down the wall, feeling her heart shatter to pieces for each moment she held the picture close to her. She wanted nothing else other than to embrace her son, Raymond, in her arms now.  Spinning him around while listening to his cries of joy as he had the time of his life. He was only 3 and a half years old. She felt herself smiling as she imagined how Ray would have said that. He would have pointed three of his tiny fingers up and proudly said it, but perhaps with clear confusion to the half. 

“No that’s not right...” Megara corrected. He would have turned 4 years old today.

She had trouble breathing. Her eyes went blank and she felt so much pain in her heart that she thought she was going to die. The loss was tearing her apart, both mentally and psychically. Just as she thought she had started to get her grip together she had reminded herself of everything, and it was no one's fault but hers.

“I will get you someday. I will take your life as you took my son’s. An eye for an eye.”

She pulled her legs up and rocked a bit back and forth, trying to calm herself. She closed her eyes and kept muttering that same sentence to herself, till she finally took one deep breath, recalling everything that had happened since that night.

“An eye for an eye..”

Flashback

Megara felt her soul leave her body as she walked down the road leading to her home. A lot of noise, people gathered on the street, and a group of people working together to put out a fire was blocking her sight. She took faster steps, but the bags with goodies her mother had packed, toys and clothes for little Raymond, was slowing her down. As she got closer, she realized that the thick smoke in the air and the flames coming out the windows of the unfortunate house was her own.

For a second she froze on the spot, feeling nothing but horror and goosebumps on her arms, before she let out a hysterical cry and ran towards the building, remembering that her son and her husband had been home together while she had visited her mother. She threw the bag on the ground and pushed people out of the way, ready to run headfirst into the burning flames of the house, before two cops ran towards her and blocked her way. Megara tried to push them off of her, not caring for a single moment that she was hitting an officer, and felt helpless and broken as she got not even an inch closer.

“Please!! My family! My family is in there.. please let me in.” She sobbed while continuing to try to wriggle herself out of the man's grip.

“Ma’am, you have to stay and wait. We have people in there sacrificing themselves trying to put out the fire.”

Megara felt speechless. She had not seen this coming, happening to her at all. She felt as if walking into her home and burning up with everything else in there would be better than any fate and future she could have had after that horrible day anyway. She had no reason to live on.

As the officers escorted her away from the house, Megara felt numb. Her entire face was as pale as snow, and her mind was showing her all the horror scenes of how scared her baby must have been. How he would’ve been screaming for help and how there would be nothing of him left but ashes and bones. She was still in a state of denial, not really wanting to believe what was happening. Praying, hoping and pinching herself, believing that this was just a bad nightmare and that she would wake up and everything would be back to normal.

But it was not. This was her new reality and she despised every moment of it.

As the fires were put out, another officer approached her with caution and condolence in his eyes.

“Excuse me, Ma'am, I am terribly sorry for your loss.” He started out and nervously looked away.

“But I have been told to inform you of what happened. It seems the fire wasn’t an accident.”

Her heart skipped a beat, and she turned her head ever so slightly and tried to focus on the man in front of her. Her vision was blurry of all the crying, and her head was dizzy. She felt like throwing up right on the spot, but she managed to find her ground.

He saw that as an opportunity to continue and explained.

“Some of your neighbours have reportedly witnessed a group of people coming to your house and snooping around it before shouts and sounds of a struggle broke out. Perhaps as an act of revenge or some kind of conflict. We’re not sure with who yet, but we will investigate further.”

Act of revenge? Sounds of struggle? These things didn’t make any sense to her. Who would need to kill her innocent son in order to satisfy their own thirst for blood? Why would anyone do that? Who could possibly be sick enough to do that?

Then it hit her. She had to grab onto her mouth to stop herself from screaming out loud and waddled a few steps back before she fell onto the ground.

She recalled her husband had gotten into bad habits some time ago. Wasting his entire paycheck in the local casino but trying to hide it from her. He was smart. He had told her he stopped and gotten back on the right track, and after that, he had even spoiled her with expensive gifts, date nights and everything she wanted. When he was asked where he had gotten the money from, he’d told her he had gotten a promotion at work. 

Megara felt like a complete fool. She felt like an idiot even. How had she not seen what was really happening? She was raised in a family with good values and that always had bread on the table, but she was not blind nor was she deaf. She had more than one time heard stories and gossip about what was going on in the city.  While the shops were closed, and the things that happened in backrooms, behind the curtains. She just never had the urge or need herself, to interact with those people, so she had ignored all the signs her husband had given her.

Megara was breathless. She wanted to get away from there and never look back. She wanted to leave the cruel world she was inhabited, and just disappear. As she took some steps away from the scene, she felt her will to live leave her body. She got into the nearest taxi and went back home to her mother.

The next couple of weeks went with Megara being, perhaps, on the brink of insanity, coming up with all sorts of conspiracy theories and even plans of how she could undo what has happened, knowing that she couldn’t do anything.

Next up was the funeral, which she had no idea how to get through. Thankfully, her parents had helped her take care of everything, so she didn’t have to do it herself. Megara, dressed all in black and with dark glasses covering her eyes, stood with her head facing downwards, and with her hands crossed and closed her eyes as she reminisced about the good times. She was trying desperately to hold on to the last bit of love and hope in her heart. She then felt someone standing up next to her, clearing his throat. She stepped away in shock and looked to her side, and saw an older man in a black suit, with a scary look on his face. She wanted to step even further away but stopped dead in her tracks when his monotone voice spoke to her.

"Good evening ma'am. I need you to follow me."