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All We Have Left

By: Angelica Stella Jong

Another funeral, another chorus of condolences and “I’m sorry for your loss”-es.
Another reminder that she was alone.

Adelina knew the pain all too well. It was a cycle she lived in her entire life from the
moment the blood fever crippled the country. Her mother, like every infected adult,
had died, leaving her father to drown in sorrows and alcohol. Since then, her brother,
Nate, was the only thing she knew, a spark of hope amidst the despair. Now the hope
was gone, with most people believing he had met the same fate as his mother.

That led her here, sitting across the man who she believed had taken away her family.

Looming above her was a tall, broad-shouldered man with greying hair at his temples,
the velvet of his coat shining black and orange in the light. But Adelina was not afraid.

“Nate mentioned you several times, Enzo, but never said anything else. How do you
know my brother?”

For a moment, nothing but silence blankets the room.

“Your brother and I had done some dangerous dealings before but I haven’t seen him
since his .. disappearance.” The man replied, then added, “He spoke about you several
times to me too. How lucky you must be to have a brother who cares for you so much,
that he is willing to risk his life just to give you the life you always wanted,”

Adelina blinked, trying to clear her hazy thoughts as her determination wavers. Did
her brother die while trying to fend for his family? Would Nate have wanted this?
After all, this one mistake could cost her entire life in prison and his death would have
been pointless. However, she reminds herself that she would not have been in this
situation in the first place had this man- this murderer - not taken away her brother.

Putting on her sweetest smile, Adelina requested for a glass of water and seized the
moment to grab her knife as Enzo turned his back. The blade catches his eye as he
whirls around, but it is too late. She plunges the weapon deep into his chest as it runs
all the way through, the bloody point emerging from his back right between the

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