In a prison in New York.

"Bang!"

A dull punch slammed into William Hand's cheek, knocking him off balance and throwing him head-on-the-ground.

A burly black prisoner was the first to act, and led a large group of younger brothers to push William Hand to the ground, thrashing and kicking him, and beating him with great pleasure. William held his head in his hands, his body shrunk into a ball, his face covered with hot liquid, and the pain was almost numb.

They beat and cursed "freaks", "monsters" and even some unpleasant words until the prison guards fired warning shots.

When William returned to his room, he had a blue nose and swollen face—though he had been almost always since he arrived in the prison. No matter how the leading guys beat him, he refused to join the gang, but he didn't resist. He was like a piece of wood that didn't feel pain, and every time he was beaten up by them, he went back to his room as if nothing had happened, and continued to do what he had to do.

His cellmate, a diminutive white man, handed him a towel as usual after he sat down.

"Dude, you're amazing." His cellmate said.

William sat on the edge of the bed with a dull face, and said lightly, "Me? What can I be so remarkable? ”

"I just heard them say today that you came in because you were against the Green Lantern?"

"I've fought him a few times."

"That's great enough!" The cellmate looked at him as if he was looking up to a god, as if he was about to burst into the light, "Don't look at the majesty of those people when they beat you, but if they had heard the name of 'Green Lantern' outside, they would have fled in fright." ”

"Really?" William shook his head, not seeming to think it was a big deal.

"Of course! I don't think it's possible for someone as special as you to be trapped here for the rest of your life. He continued to compliment, "If you go out in the future, don't forget to have a friend like me." ”

"Friends." William repeated the word silently, staring lifelessly ahead for a long time, and then suddenly said, "I seem to have only one friend in my life, do you want to hear his story?" ”

"Okay."

So William slowly told about the dusty past, a past that normal people would never mention to others. Even the fellow inmate, who was interested at first, slowly felt cold in his hands and feet and a chill down his spine.

"That was a story from when I was thirteen. I'm in prison now because I'm an enemy of the Green Lanterns, but there's something they don't know - I killed the first person in my life when I was thirteen, and it was a boy. His name was Travis Chuman, and I hated him when I first saw him.

On the first day of our seventh grade, I was clutching my book to my first class, and I deliberately pulled my hair down to cover my eyes. I still remember our teacher yelling at me as he walked in the door, 'Get a seat and sit down!' It's as if he's shouted that to every student in the school, but in fact I was the first to enter the classroom, and Travis Chuman was the second.

The difference between Travis and me is that he is the son of the principal. So when I walked in the door, I got a yell, and the teacher was smiling at him. According to Travis, the school was his, so every student who walked in wanted his attention, everyone but me.

One day, I found a dead rat in a rat trap at the back of the classroom, and its dead eyes were staring up at me, and the cold corpse was covered with dust, until a girl's scream interrupted me. Travis and the other kids stared at me, and he nicknamed me 'Black Hand'. So the other children followed him and screamed like this. The most unbearable thing for me is that they have deprived me of every ounce of peace, which is unbearable for me.

I hate Travis, to the core.

Then came the part where my only friend came out. His name is Paul, Paul Cyberman. He got into a fight with Travis over a bunch of nicknames he gave, but in the end Travis was not disciplined, and Paul was punished for a week of school stay. Classmates all said that his blue eye circles were not hit by Travis, but by his father.

Paul hated him so much that we became very good friends.

We are inseparable every day, and the conversation together is nothing more than how to devise sophisticated tactics to murder Travis and make sure that no one ever finds his body.

On Halloween, Paul wore a black raincoat and painted a white face. My father, who was from the funeral home, took off a bloodstained coat from a boy who had died in a car accident, and I put it on, and Paul said it was silly.

We met Travis that day, and we were far behind him, and somehow, we all wanted to kill him. But when I pulled a knife out of my bag, and Paul saw the metal blade glittering in the moonlight, he was scared again.

We can't really kill him. He stammered to me.

'Why?' ’

Because people will know that we did it, and everybody will know how much we hate him, and I don't want to go to jail for it!" ’

He's right, we have a motive for doing so. And that's when I realized that I didn't need a motive, I just wanted to find a reason to sand man.

I stabbed Paul six times in the throat and four times in the stomach. He giggled and wanted to say something, and I guess he was trying to ask, 'Why?' ’。

People are like that, they always think that everything has to happen for a reason.

And that Halloween, I understood, cause and effect are indispensable.

Later, the police came to Travis for questioning, and I threw a knife into his room. Travis cried and was taken away. And when my parents told me about my best friend's death, I tried to squeeze out some tears.

If my only friend, Paul, told me anything, it was only one thing – to do without a cause, to know nothing. “

Travis kept looking straight ahead until he finished speaking, completely unconcerned whether the audience around him was still listening. And when his story finally ended, and when he turned his head, he was surprised to find that his cellmate had already tilted his head against the wall at some point, and he had lost his nose.

William froze. He suddenly felt that this cellmate of his had died so silently, as quietly as if it were a work of art.

After staring at him for a long time, William suddenly realized something. He stood up, walked out of the door of his cell, and stood in the hallway looking out. I saw that everyone on every floor and in every room was quietly asleep, just like his cellmates. The prison door was wide open, and all the guards on duty lay on the ground without the slightest movement.

Throughout his life, William has always felt that he was born for something big and that he was carrying an extraordinary mission. And now, he knew, the time had come.

(Thank you for half a volume of love letters, CL782487338, and 100 starting coins for breaking loyalty!) ）