Morning light slanted through the blinds, striping the posters that wallpapered the boy’s room—comic heroes frozen mid-flight, bands with screaming faces, fragments of other lives that had always felt safer than his own. Fully dressed but unmoving, he perched on the edge of his bed, shoulders hunched in stillness. Between his worn sneakers, his backpack rested like a silent witness. And in his lap, cradled with trembling forearms, lay the scoped .22 rifle—its cold weight dragging at the morning. He stared at it, not because he saw an answer, but because he couldn’t stop asking the question:
Should I go to school today?
He thought about them—those faces behind sneers and laughter that never reached him. For three years they’d torn at him, subtle and brutal, a thousand cuts disguised as jokes and silence. Once, they were friends. Or at least they had shared something that felt like warmth, like belonging. But then, like a vote cast in secret, they turned. They chose him as the weakest link, the easiest target. And he never understood why.
They always came as a pack—tight-knit and sharp-edged, a swarm that knew how to overwhelm. Almost every time, they ganged up on him—taunts flung like stones, fists when words didn’t feel cruel enough. He fought back. Not to win, but to prove he hadn’t disappeared. Sometimes they backed off. Most times, he was outnumbered, and the bruises came in shades his clothes couldn’t always hide. The only mercy came in the shadow of grief. After his mother died, the attacks paused—an unspoken, temporary ceasefire. But even that thread of pity snapped too soon.
He sat alone that morning, weighing whether this would be the day he ended it all for good. His heart thudded with the thought of finally showing them—they couldn’t control his life anymore. They had built the hatred brick by brick, and now he could feel its walls pressing inward. The pain wasn’t his alone anymore. If he acted, they’d feel it too.
With that thought, something switched on inside him.
He was no longer in his bedroom. He stood in a blinding white room—empty, quiet, sterile. At first, he was alone. But as quickly as he noticed the solitude, a shadow began to form across the room. The shape grew dense, dark, and deliberate. Then he saw him—his other self. Fierce. Angry. Taller somehow, though maybe it was just the way he held himself. The eyes locked onto him, unblinking. This version didn’t flinch. Didn’t soften. It had waited.
“Hello there,” the figure said, voice curling out like smoke.
The boy stared, confusion tightening across his brow. “What is this? Where am I?”
The other grinned—wide, sharp, and knowing. “This, my boy, is the place where decisions bend the universe. Where silence breaks. Where you finally matter.”
The boy flinched. The force of the voice wasn’t volume alone—it was the crackle of something feral beneath it.
“I don’t … why did you bring me,” he said quietly.
The figure leaned forward, elbows resting on nothing, as if air bent to his will, interrupting. “You came here to decide. You brought yourself. You stared at that rifle like it had answers. Well—this is where they are.”
“But I’m not—” the boy started.
“You’re angry,” the figure interrupted. “You feel it swelling in your gut, like a storm with no sky. You want it to stop. You want them to stop. But they won’t. Not until you teach them pain. Real pain.”
The boy’s throat tightened.
“This is your moment,” the figure said, now softer, almost seductive. “Not revenge. Balance. After all they’ve done. After all they’ve taken. You end it here, and they’ll never touch you again.”
The boy looked down, shame and temptation twisting together behind his ribs. Part of him agreed—wanted the bruises to echo back, wanted the silence to break with their screams. The logic was brutal, but it made a certain kind of sense. The balance the figure promised, the relief of having the final word.
He clenched his fists. What if it actually worked? What if pain could be erased by louder pain?
The figure leaned in, eyes gleaming like they’d won. But something shifted—just barely. A flicker in the boy’s expression.
And then the voice came. Not from the figure, not from the boy’s mouth. But from somewhere inside, soft as wind against broken glass.
“They taught you suffering,” it said. “But taking lives doesn’t end suffering. It just reshapes it—and places it in someone else’s hands.”
The boy blinked. The white room shuddered like it had heard it too.
The figure stiffened, the grin slipping.
“They’ll mourn, you know,” the quieter voice continued. “Not just the guilty ones. Siblings. Mothers. Fathers. People who never knew your name. You give your pain away like that—and it multiplies.”
The boy’s breathing slowed. The rage was still there—coiled, restless. The weight hadn’t lifted. It pressed into his chest like it always had. But now, it sat beside something else. Not peace. Not clarity. Just pause. A moment carved into the chaos, where he wasn’t sure what to feel.
He looked at the figure, no longer certain who was leading the conversation. The fury in its face hadn’t dimmed, but something about its presence seemed smaller now—less like a prophecy, more like a possibility.
He clenched his jaw. “If I don’t do it,” he said slowly, “what am I supposed to do with all of this?” He motioned to himself as to show his pain and fury.
The silence that followed wasn’t empty. It was thick, circling around the question like it had waited years to be asked. His pain wasn’t gone. His suffering hadn’t unraveled. But for the first time, he wondered if there was another way to carry it—and whether that choice, as heavy as it felt, might be his after all.
The boy’s voice cracked, desperate and raw. “If this isn’t the way … then what choice do I have?” he pleaded, eyes wide, chest heaving. “I can’t keep living like this. I’m drowning—and no one even sees it.”
The figure bared its teeth, voice a venomous snarl. “Then rise from the water. Take your vengeance and go. March into that school and carve your name into their comfort. Make sure they never forget the pain they gave you. They don’t deserve the peace you crave—they never did. And they sure as hell wouldn’t shed a tear for you.”
The boy flinched as the voice echoed in the sterile white space, rattling something deep inside him. It wasn’t just rage now—it was clarity twisted by hurt.
“Time for them to pay the piper,” the figure growled. “No fucking mercy. Not now. Not after everything.”
A pause stretched between them, electric.
The boy lowered his gaze to his trembling hands. There was truth in the fury—but was it the kind that built, or the kind that destroyed? He didn’t know anymore. He just wanted it to stop. To stop hurting. To stop waking up with dread in his throat.
His lip quivered. “It’s not just about them,” he whispered. “It’s about what I become after.”
The figure narrowed its eyes, but said nothing.
The weight of decision loomed like storm clouds behind his heart—and still, the boy stood in the center of it all, unsheltered. Hesitating at the edge of something irreversible.
He waited in silence, hoping the light would say what he needed most—that someday, everything would be okay. That the anger would dull, the pain would fade, and he could finally wake without the weight pressing on his chest. He wanted to hear that life would be kinder. That the hard edges would smooth out. That the people who had broken him would slide quietly out of his memory.
But that reassurance never came.
The voice that rose from the light wasn’t soothing. It wasn’t soft. It carried truth, raw and unwavering. “Life won’t become easier,” it said. “You’ll always face trials—some small, some breaking. There is no shield from suffering.”
The boy clenched his jaw, chest aching for something gentler.
“But you,” the light continued, “you will change. Bit by bit, you’ll grow into something steadier, heavier with purpose. You will shape strength from your sorrow. You will not forget what you’ve endured—but you will learn how to hold it without letting it consume you.”
The boy didn’t speak, but he listened—because buried deep beneath his pain, something in him was listening for the first time.
“Pain tests you,” the light said. “And when the world refuses to bend, you learn to stand taller. That’s not weakness. That’s the beginning of power.”
He didn’t like what the light had told him. Not because it wasn’t true—if anything, it was more honest than anyone had ever dared to be with him. But truth without relief felt like cruelty. And he was too tired to carry truth any longer.
“Fuck this,” he said, voice hollow with resignation. “I’m not strong enough. Not now. I can’t do this.” His words dropped like stones in water—matter-of-fact, final.
“I’ll make the choice now,” he muttered. “I’ll end it. End everything.”
Back in the bedroom—where the posters watched unknowing of the conflict within its walls—the boy moved with terrifying precision. He lifted the rifle, turned the barrel toward himself, and opened his mouth. The metal grazed his tongue, bitter and electric. His thumb found the curve of the trigger behind the guard, and he pressed—just enough to feel its readiness.
In that instant, something ruptured.
From within the white room, both voices tore through the silence with a force that almost cracked the air.
“NO!”
The roar came from both sides—light and shadow, unified in urgency.
“That is not a resolution!” the dark voice growled, its anger no longer righteous, but terrified.
“Not choosing is still choosing!” the light pleaded, desperation spilling over calm.
The boy jolted, his breath caught around the barrel still resting against his lips. His thumb trembled, unsure if the twitch it felt was impulse or interruption. His heartbeat thundered, ears ringing not from sound, but from the weight of two opposing truths crashing into one another inside him.
He wasn’t calm. He wasn’t resolved. He was lost. And both sides—both voices that had fought for his soul—seemed to know that if he pulled now, neither of them would win.
In his room, the boy slowly pulled the rifle from his mouth and lowered it back into his lap. The motion was automatic, like his body was operating without permission—absent-minded, detached. His thumb lingered near the trigger, but his grip had loosened, as if something had reached past thought to interrupt him.
His gaze was distant, yet somewhere deep inside, conflict churned.
“Fine,” he muttered, voice bitter. “That’s not the option.”
His eyes burned as he stared into nothing. “Then what?” he snapped. “Do they just get away with it? Is that how this works? I’m the one crushed by it—and they walk around guilt free?”
The space around him dimmed. The air felt thinner, colder. It was as if something sacred and severe had entered—not to soothe, but to weigh down his subconscious with sharp, unforgiving honesty.
And then the light spoke, its voice solemn and clear. “They have their own trials. Some already unfolding. Others still waiting for them. No one walks through life untouched. Pain finds everyone.”
The boy’s jaw clenched. He was ready to release the fury clawing at his chest. “Then how,” he growled, “how am I the villain for wanting justice? You say they will suffer eventually—but why not now? Why shouldn’t I be the one to deliver it?”
The shadow stirred again, taller now, darker—its defiance bristling in the cold silence.
“Exactly,” it hissed. “You press the blade because they won’t. You deliver punishment for the wickedness they birthed in you. Mercy is weakness. You know that.”
The room seemed to vibrate with pressure—two truths slamming into each other, each demanding loyalty. And the boy sat between them, chest heaving, soul taut, trying to measure the cost of each choice with trembling hands.
“Think of what that gun implies, boy…” the shadow hissed, voice slick with temptation. It stepped closer, its edges stretching into the walls like smoke looking for cracks. “The power to rewrite everything. To reshape the universe, bend it around your pain. That trigger isn’t just metal—it’s divinity. You can be a god.
“Ask yourself: did they spare you when you begged? Did they flinch when they carved your silence into obedience?
“A boy like you isn't made to kneel. You are forged in betrayal—every scar an oath. Deliverance is owed.”
A golden shimmer flickered—faint at first, then warming the air. The light stepped forward, voice steady, calm.
“And if you do this … you will become what they made you to fear. A weapon, hollowed out by rage. You want justice? Then build something they cannot break. Choose the harder path: endurance over dominance. The gun may rewrite the past—but forgiveness rebuilds the future.”
It paused, the boy’s tear catching firelight.
“Think of those who touched your world gently. The teacher who saw your bruises but stayed kind. The friend who waited at the gate even when you pushed them away. They didn’t change history with vengeance. They changed you with love. Will you burn that bridge for the sake of a throne of ashes?”
The boy stared at the gun, hands trembling, breaths short.
Two gods—one cloaked in pain, one armored in grace—offered him crowns, one of blood, one of light.
His eyes were steady, hollow but burning. “I don’t want to be a god,” he said, his tone quiet, but carved from steel. “I just want control over my own life. And if this is the cost, then maybe it’s one I’m willing to pay.”
The shadow reeled, shoulders rising, lips curling into a grin too wide to be human. It thrived in that answer—fed on it. The desperation. The conviction. It felt the boy inching closer to its breath. “Yes,” it whispered, almost reverent. “Claim it. You’ve suffered enough. Take hold of what’s owed.”
The room pulsed—white walls flashing like an overloaded nerve. The light dimmed, struggling against the swell of the dark.
But just beneath the boy’s words, something trembled—a flicker of uncertainty. Not weakness. Not regret. But the sharp ache of understanding that even power, even control, doesn’t always heal what’s broken beneath the skin.
The light did not raise its voice. It didn’t need to. It spoke with quiet gravity—words weighted like anchors wrapped in silk. “The cost is not just their lives, child,” it said, careful and unwavering. “It’s yours too.”
The boy blinked, his breath stalling.
“You imagine silence after the shots. Relief, maybe. But what follows is louder than anything you’ve ever known. Their absence will echo—yes. But the stain left behind will settle deep into you, deeper than anger ever reached.”
The white room pulsed softly, as if the truth had rippled through it.
“You’ll carry it. In your sleep. In the mirror. In every moment of quiet. And it won’t be justice. It will be a wound that never scabs—one that bleeds guilt in ways pain never did.”
The boy’s shoulders sank slightly.
“It doesn’t end when their bodies fall,” the light continued. “It begins then. A new suffering. One you’ve chosen. One you’ll own in full.”
There was no malice in its tone—only sorrow. Like it mourned the paths already traveled, and the ones still at risk.
As if summoned by thought alone, the shadow surged—brief and furious, flaring like a storm trapped inside him. “You know they’ll never stop,” it spat, voice slicing through the stillness. “Not until they learn what fear tastes like.”
The light responded without haste, its tone steady, almost mournful. “In time,” it said, “their lesson will come. But that lesson is not his to teach.”
The shadow scoffed, growing jagged at the edges. “You hear this sanctimonious bullshit? Wait them out? Really? Let suffering have a schedule?”
The light didn’t argue further. Its words floated like breath in frost—gentle but grave. “The choice is yours,” it whispered to the boy, speaking directly to the center of him. “But understand what it means before you make it.”
And then the light began to fade—not vanishing, but folding itself into the farthest corners of his mind. Its warmth still lingered, like the last glow of a fire, but it no longer stood between him and the weight of action.
The shadow followed, its departure less elegant—more like smoke forced to retreat under pressure. “Yes, free will,” it snarled one last time, voice curling with menace. “Use it. Make the right fucking choice.”
Then silence.
Both forces withdrew, slipping into the recesses of his psyche—watchful but quiet. The room in his mind was now his alone, stripped of argument, of noise, of persuasion. And for the first time, the boy stood without guidance, teetering on the threshold of his own will.
Suddenly, the world snapped back.
The sterile white room, the voices, the weightless tension—all collapsed inward like a dream disrupted mid-breath. He was in his bedroom again. Same walls. Same light bleeding through the blinds. Same posters staring down at him with mute indifference. The gun sat heavy in his lap, exactly where it had been before—but now it felt different, like it had absorbed the echoes of everything he’d just seen and heard.
He wasn’t lost in thought. He was drowning in it.
His eyes didn’t blink. His breathing came slow, deliberate, almost mechanical. And then, without permission, the tears arrived. Not in floods, not in sobs—just one or two at a time, tracking quietly down his cheeks. They weren’t shed from despair, but from the sheer gravity of awareness. He understood now. What this moment meant. What this weapon represented. And most of all, what this decision could steal from him—whether he pulled the trigger or not.
Inside him, the light and shadow had retreated. Their words still rang, faint as echoes in a canyon, waiting behind the curtain of his consciousness. Watching. Holding their breath. But this choice—they had left it to him.
And he still hadn’t made it.
He sat still, barely breathing, as the silence in the room thickened around him. And then the memories came—unbidden, unstoppable.
His mother.
Not the version at the end, hollowed by illness and fading voice. But the woman before that. The one whose laughter could smooth the jagged edge of any day. The one whose hugs wrapped him like sanctuary and whose voice made the world feel manageable. He saw her in flashes—holding his hand on warm autumn walks, whispering bedtime promises, her eyes full of fierce love when she told him how important he was. How he would never be alone. No matter what.
The tears returned with quiet violence.
One slipped free, then another. Then they came in a rhythm, slow but constant, carving wet lines down his cheeks. His body began to shake, not in panic, but in mourning. The sobs were small, near-silent, like he was trying not to wake the house—or the ghosts inside him.
He doubled forward slightly, arms wrapped around himself, as if to keep what was left from falling apart. The pain wasn’t loud now. It was deep, slow-moving. A flood beneath cracked ice.
He cried like that for what felt like hours. Maybe longer. Time lost shape under the weight of memory.
Eventually—when there was just enough air to move—his hands reached for the rifle again. His movements were automatic, almost gentle. He released the small clip from the bottom with a click, then ejected the round from the chamber. The metal pieces laid in his palm with a soft finality. No ceremony. No triumph. Just necessity.
Without resistance, without anger, he rose and walked the rifle and its contents to the closet. He placed them inside—deliberately, like laying something to rest—and closed the door slowly. The soft latch echoed like a line being drawn.
He turned back to the bed and sat down again, spine curved, eyes red-rimmed and distant. He let out a long, unresolved sigh.
The decision was made, for now.
At this moment, the weapon was quiet. And so was he.
The knock was soft, like the world tapping gently to see if he was still inside it.
“Hey buddy, you still here?” came the voice—low, familiar, uncertain.
He blinked, wiped the tears from his face with the sleeve of his shirt, and stood. His legs felt heavy, like they hadn’t moved in years. At the door, he paused, then opened it slowly.
“Yeah, Dad,” he said, voice small but steady. “I’m still here. I’m … running late, but I was about to get going.”
His father studied his face for a moment—his eyes lingering longer than usual, like he saw something he couldn’t name. He scratched the back of his neck, searching for words.
“Hey, the guys are running the shop today without me, and … I figured it wouldn’t hurt to miss a day of school. What do you say? Want to hang out? Catch a movie or something?”
For a second, the boy didn’t move.
Then, as if his body acted before his mind could protest, he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around his father—tight, almost desperate. It wasn’t a hug. It was anchoring.
His father pulled him in without hesitation. “Hey, you okay, Son?” he asked gently.
“No,” the boy whispered into his shoulder. “I think I need help.”
“Okay,” his father replied, voice thick with concern but threaded with calm. “Well, let’s head downstairs, grab some chow, and talk it out, bud. Nothing we can’t work through, right?”
The boy nodded, but said nothing.
There would be time for words. He would tell his father everything—every thought, every shadow, every plea. But not now. Right now, he needed this embrace. This warmth. This proof that he hadn’t disappeared.
Outside his mind, the forces he’d battled receded into silence. No longer clashing, no longer pushing—just drifting, their roles played, their voices stilled. The choice had been made—not by verdict, but by step. And both light and dark, for now, faded into memory.
His father placed a hand on the back of his head and whispered, “Love you, Son.”
“I love you too,” the boy said, the words trembling on the edge of something new.
Beneath the stillness, nothing stirred.
But somewhere past the quiet—deeper than thought, quieter than memory—something remained.
Watching.
Waiting.
Not for a sound. Not for a sign.
Just for time to pass.
* * *
Zachory “Mick”
McAllister is a writer, electrical engineer, and U.S. Navy veteran, which means
he knows his way around wires, waves, and the occasional existential crisis.
Born in Reno, Nevada, he spent his formative years consuming DC Comics,
Stephen King, and Orson Scott Card, unknowingly training for
his future career in storytelling (and possibly surviving post-apocalyptic
scenarios).
After
navigating the high seas with the Navy, Mick transitioned into electrical
engineering—because what better way to balance the chaos of creative writing
than with the soothing logic of circuits? Though writing was an on-again,
off-again endeavor, it always lingered in the background like an
overenthusiastic sidekick waiting for its big moment. His work has appeared at
The Dope Fiend Daily and Subject And Verb Agreement Press literary e-zines.
Read "Weight of the Trigger - Part 2" here: https://savapress.blogspot.com/2025/08/weight-of-trigger-part-2-by-zach.html
Follow Zach @ https://www.instagram.com/mcallisterzach547/
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