Edgar's room has never been so messy. He's turned everything upside down. Books spilling across the floor, clothes flung over the bed, pieces of furniture gutted of their contents.


  ‘What on Earth are you doing? Why does it look like a bomb went off in here?’


  His mother chastises him while trying to put the room back in order, crossing the cluttered floor. One look into her son's eyes, and she knows what he's looking for - it drives him mad when he can't find it. He always has it with him, there's not a single moment when it's not within his reach.


  ‘Have you moved it?’ Edgar's tone is harsh and unforgiving.


  ‘I haven't touched anything...’


  ‘You're lying. I never, ever move it, where have you put it?’


  His dark eyes bore into her, his breathing heavy.


  She can't get used to seeing her son drowning in these furious, tumultuous, fearful fits of rage. How is it possible that such a ray of sunshine can become this paranoid? How is it possible that his eyes reveal only suspicions?


  Edgar's body carries remnants of nightmares that haunt him even when awake. His reddened eyes are proof. He has lost sleep, he has lost his appetite, he doesn't go out anymore, he's ill tempered, mistrusting anyone who tries to help him and closing himself off, sinking deeper, and deeper into his own darkness.


  His mother gives in and shows him where she has hidden it.


  ‘I did it for you... I hate seeing you like this.’


  ‘If you take the gun away, if you move it one more time...’ Edgar pauses to tuck the barrel into the back of his trousers ‘... I'm leaving, and I'm never coming back. The only reason I haven't left already is because you begged me to stay, but don't make me regret it.’


  It's absurd the way her son has become such a different person since that day. Her life has been thrown off course too, her sleep and serenity lost. But Edgar is linked inextricably to this tragedy, as if his life suddenly stopped and he couldn't go on any longer.


  'I'm trying to give you space, Edgar... but can't you understand that it isn't easy for me to see you fall apart right in front of me? You've become paranoid, obnoxious, always glued to that awful gun, you scream in your dreams in the night, you don't eat, you never go out.’


  Edgar stops listening to his mother's countless pleas. He pushes her out of the room and turns the key in the lock.


  You might ask what type of maniac has to keep a gun with him, isolating himself from the world and closing himself inside his own pain.


  The answer?


  A boy, once cheerful and full of life, who saw his own sister die tragically before his eyes. A bullet piercing her lungs, causing her to bleed to death in a few short minutes. Who could ever imagine that a normal stroll around the shopping centre could turn into such a hellish, guilt ridden cycle of excruciating screams?


  Edgar hates crowded places, where people can easily ignore you if you're on the brink of death. To this day, he still vividly remembers the faces of the people who escaped, ignoring his desperate pleas. None of them stopped to help the 16-year-old boy holding his sister in his arms, a bullet plunged into her body. They were all too worried about saving their own skins. Amid the selfish chaos of a terrified herd, a girl's body grew colder and colder. Her brother's tears were not enough to stem the streams of blood escaping along with her small, innocent soul.


  The bullet that killed his sister that day had also gone through Edgar's soul. The only difference is that Edgar isn't bleeding, Edgar isn't inanimate, Edgar is still breathing. Edgar still has the weight of a pellet wedged in his chest and he won't let anyone extract it. He won't let anyone help him.