CHAPTER 56: EMOTIONS.

"We have roasted chicken, with mashed potatoes, we also have grilled salmon and vegetables." The chef spoke as Pablo and Joseph sat down at the dining table, and well, they didn’t really listen much to them, they straight jumped into devouring the plates in front of them.

Though Joseph himself had some thoughts while he was eating, thoughts that were just cooping everything in him.

Somehow, in a very strange way, he felt like his morality was coming back, he felt remorse, but at the same time not. It was a strange feeling as he ate the chicken, as he was chewing it, and the same time that smell hit his nose... the blood, the memory flashback of Ivanka in front of him, how he slammed her so much that she became nothing but an unrecognizable piece of mangled flesh... the ways of how Trevor and Albert just died and the blood poured out of their heads... yeah, the way how two officers were just ripped by those bullets fired at them.

Feelings that were pushed down in himself, feelings that were chained down deep within him, but now it felt like these feelings just wanted to come up... like wanted to remind him who he was once, that this is not him, but just a shell of the darkness that embedded him, the darkness which he embraced for that ten years, with only one thing.

Anger.

The one feeling that was true for him, the one feeling that cared for him, was that. Anger at what happened to him, anger that was just bubbling in them all the time... anger that was an unstable force, the feeling that didn’t let him off himself... now the anger that became himself. No, it was more than that back in the prison... that anger formed into something else... it broke to pieces just as Julian talked about it... and from that shattered piece, it built itself up.

To something more dangerous, something more twisted.

It wasn’t just anger anymore, not the anger that back then, it screamed, it burned, it kept him alive but now, it had changed. It no longer shouted in his head or made him shake, it just sat there, deep inside, always watching, always waiting. It had learned how to wear a calm face, how to smile while everything inside him burned. And that’s what made it worse. Because this thing, whatever it became it didn’t care anymore. It didn’t feel guilt, or shame, or even hate. It took his pain and turned it into something useful. It dug deep into every part of him until it became harder and harder to tell where the anger ended and he began.

A man who no longer cried, or begged, or hoped. Just existed and yet, somewhere beneath it all, hidden so deep he wished he couldn’t hear it, was a small voice, soft, almost forgotten whispering a question he didn’t want to face ’Is this really who you are?’ and every time the voice came, he crushed it.

Julian was right about it too, the voice in Joseph’s head, those voices were loud, screaming at him... but the voice was not the voice of madness, the voice of a demon, or whatever people say that is evil... no.

The voice that Joseph heard in the prison was the opposite of it.

A voice that was confronting him, a voice that was telling him, that this is not him... not to give up his being to become the exact same thing he always hated.

A voice that tried to protect him, a voice that was there for him... a voice that as the time went on slowly faded away.

"Where is the Bible girl?" He suddenly asked as he finished his plate and looked up to the chef.

"Mirella?" He asked back, which Joseph nodded even though he didn’t know what her name was. "Mirella, the boss wants to see you in the dining room." The chef spoke into his radio, and within a minute she was there and yeah... it was her, the woman who cut his hair.

She just stood at the doorway, her head bent down again for some reason.

"Bible study or what?" Pablo asked, chuckling a little as he too finished his plate.

"Yeah, something like that." Joseph answered. "Come here, sit down." He said to her, which she did, sat down, and from that point on her head was not down but stared straight at Joseph.

Though there was silence for a bit... it was an embarrassing kind of silence, though Joseph himself was not embarrassed at all but was waiting for something... meanwhile Pablo was already predicting something big to be happening.

But it wasn’t as big as he thought of... though it was alarming.

"We talked about sheep, wolves, and forgiveness." Joseph stated, still looking into her eyes. "What about voices?"

She didn’t understand the question at first and looked to the side to Pablo, who, well, was surprised by it, but in a worrying way. It was written all over his face as he just looked up ahead, his mouth a little opened.

It was surprising and frightening for a fact that he had voices too... though his voice was different.

"So?" Joseph asked.

"Uhh, yeah, there is mention of voice in the Bible." She answered.

"Then let me hear it."

She immediately pulled out a little Bible from her pocket, with all kinds of markings all over it, and just flipped the pages. When she found it, just read it out loud. "The voice of madness echoes in the hollow places, it laughs in the silence and dances among broken minds. It calls the weary to wander, and bids the heart to trust what cannot be seen nor known. Voice of Madness, 4:13." She said, and well, she hesitated, and even her voice was fragile because it was almost like she implied something with it... that she read this one out first... madness... like calling Joseph indirectly a fucking maniac.

Though he seemed to think about it as he closed his eyes but almost immediately opened them. "Is that one only?"

She immediately looked down. "But the Lord speaks in the storm with calmness, His voice cuts through the chaos like morning light. The soul that listens shall not be shaken, for truth stands firm when madness flees. Voice of Light."

Huh... strange why would I even think about the Bible and God when I didn’t even believe in Him... that was not God nor a demon... it was my fucking voice.

The voice that was whispering to Jospeh... was his own.