REVENGE OF THE MOURNER

I'll Kill You All!

On the outskirts of Greystone Hollow, far from the city's hustle...

In a neglected, single-story house, two women 23 years apart in age sat chatting. One of them, the younger one wearing a velvet brown coat, took a cup of coffee from the round table between them and took a sip.

"Are you really leaving now, Rose? Isn't it still pretty early?" asked Mary, the older woman—her eyes focused on the street.

"I don't have a choice, Mom. A coworker suddenly got sick, and I was asked to cover for them," Rose replied, setting her coffee cup on the table. "They'll count this as overtime, though. Not bad for boosting the monthly income."

Mary immediately looked sad. With her eyes still directed toward the street, she said, "I'm sorry, Rose. If it weren't for my blindness, you wouldn't have to work this hard."

"Don't say that, Mom," Rose looked at Mary firmly. "You didn't do anything wrong. The Harringtons are the ones at fault. They're the ones who made us like this."

"But if I wasn't blind—"

"Mom, please stop blaming yourself. Please."

From the way Rose looked at Mary, it was clear she was both intensely angry and sad. Since the controversial rape case that landed Leon in prison five years ago, The Harrington family had indeed tried various ways to terrorize them, making their already difficult lives even harder.

Rose, who used to teach Math at a fairly elite private high school, was fired and blacklisted because her nude photos were spread on adult platforms—even though they were AI-generated. Mary, meanwhile, suffered temporary blindness after her lunch at the textile factory where she worked was poisoned by someone.

Rose knew The Harrington family was behind both incidents because she received a package containing "congratulations" from them.

"I'm going now, Mom. You should go inside. Don't stay out here too long. It's dangerous," Rose said, standing up and adjusting her coat.

"Okay. Be careful," Mary replied.

Rose walked down the porch steps. She hadn't told Mary her real job. If Mary ever found out she was now working at a strip club, she would definitely ask her to quit.

And she couldn't quit. Not when they were facing such financial difficulties.

Rose hadn't reached the fence yet when she suddenly heard a loud noise from the right. Moments later, a dozen people appeared; some of them were beating the fence with baseball bats. They were all wearing black, sleeveless vests with a skull logo on the back.

Rose stopped and her eyes widened. These men were clearly gangsters. And now they were starting to jump the fence.

"What do you want here?!" Rose backed away, clutching her coat tighter.

"What do we want here? The answer is simple: we're going to wreck your house until it's uninhabitable," replied the gangster with long, flowing hair.

"W-what?" Rose backed away again. "Y-you can't do that! I'll call the police!"

"Go ahead and call them. You think we're scared?" the long-haired gangster sneered, showing off his dirty, crooked teeth.

"S-stop! D-don't come any closer!"

"Or what?"

The long-haired gangster—he wasn't holding a baseball bat—pulled a dagger from his pocket, showing it to Rose.

"You don't understand your situation right now, pretty lady? No one is going to help you. You, and your blind mother, will be destroyed along with this ugly house of yours," the gangster said.

Rose gasped. Was that a murder threat? What should she do now?

"Rose, what's going on out there? Who is it?" Mary stood up from her chair. With a cane in her hand, she slowly walked forward.

"Get inside the house, Mom!"

"What?"

"I said get inside the house! Now!"

When Rose's attention was diverted to her mother, the long-haired gangster leaped and landed right in front of her, then choked her with one hand.

"Ack!"

"I heard you're working at a strip club now," the long-haired gangster said. "You must have a great body. It would be a shame if we didn't enjoy it first before finishing you off."

Rose's face turned pale. A murder threat just now, now a rape threat. Was she truly helpless and could only let it happen?

"Plea-se... don't..."

Tears streamed down Rose's cheeks. She heard Mary calling her name. Meanwhile, in front of her, the long-haired gangster extended his tongue while pressing the tip of his dagger against her neck, slowly moving it down toward her chest.

"Let's see what you're hiding under this velvet brown coat," the gangster said, and he roughly pulled the coat open, exposing Rose's deep cleavage.

"Woah! Your boobs are big, pretty lady. Do you flaunt these for all the perverts at the club?"

Rose didn't say anything, just closing her eyes and continuing to cry. She was so panicked and terrified that she didn't even have enough strength to move her hands.

"Then you won't mind me enjoying them, right? I bet a lot of those perverts paid extra to enjoy them."

Rose squeezed her eyes shut tighter. Again, she heard her mother calling her name, this time louder.

"Shit!" the gangster cursed. "You guys handle the blind woman! Shut her up! I don't want to hear her ugly voice again!"

Right then, three gangsters approached the porch. Moments later, Rose heard the gangsters yelling at her mother, making her tears flow even harder.

And the long-haired gangster kept playing with the tip of his dagger, this time bringing it closer to her bra strap.

"You won't need this," the gangster said, and he cut the bra strap.

Rose truly wanted to bite her own tongue, especially when she felt the gangster's rough hand on her left boob.

And she heard her mother scream hysterically.

'Someone, anyone, please help us! Please!' she screamed, internally.

Frustration filled her. After struggling so hard to survive for the past five years, was it all ending here? It was truly hard for Rose to accept.

It was precisely at this point, just as the long-haired gangster slipped his hand under her bra and wildly squeezed Rose's boobs, that a long, screeching car horn sounded.

A second later, someone yelled loudly:

"I'll kill you all!!!"

...